Post date: Oct 1, 2014 6:35:17 PM
Here I am, sitting in Sunset Park, which adjoins Valverde Commons, watching construction of two houses from mildly afar. I’m sitting now, because I wandered the entire area, including a walk into town to grab a piece of Cheesecake and mocha to satisfy my yen for second breakfast at 10:30. The town library, university campus, town hall, fire station, police, etc. are less than half-mile away - an easy walk, though the streets are narrow.
The drive from Santa Fe was about two hours - I had thought it was one hour. It is one hour to Española, the nearest city with big box stores. The drive follows more-or-less the upper reaches of the Rio Grande, which has cut a notch in the landscape through northern New Mexico. The river itself is not visible unless you are up close.
The site of Valverde Commons was a river bottom. The vegetation was grass, but now is heavily infused with thistle. The soil is silt and clay, with some round river rock. Very few trees.
The two houses under construction are nicely in very different stages of construction. One is finishing the roof today, the other just framing the walls. This is a ‘torch-down’ roof - basically flat - with many ‘canales’, which would be called scuppers on a ship. The scuppers require considerable careful flashing to ensure that water does not enter the walls. This is hard to accomplish. The outside walls of this house are covered with two inches of Styrofoam insulation and will be stuccoed, as are all the houses in this community.
Wallboard is being delivered for the interior walls. A big truck with a built-on crane lifts the 12’ long sheets into the doorway, where they are manually transferred to a cart (like those at Lowe’s or Home Depot) for movement inside the house. Not sure why the sheets are 12’ (rather than 10’ or 8’). Maybe they install wallboard horizontally now.
The other house, the one immediately next to my lot, has the foundations and slab poured and set, and is getting double walls of 2x4 construction, separated by a 4” gap for insulation. This house will have several very large windows, which are not nearly as good insulators as the walls. I wonder why - the view is not that great. Wheeler Peak (Taos Mountain) is prominent, but it is not a big volcanic cone separated from the rest of the mountain range, as is Mt. Rainier, so it is not so obvious a landmark.