Waterproofing Below Grade

The waterproofing of the house below grade is in progress. A parge coat of sand and cement was applied to fill in the holes in the Faswall and provide a smooth surface to apply the Thoroseal, the waterproofing coat. Thoroseal is waterproof but vapor permeable, allowing the walls to breathe. A dimpled membrane, with the dimples next to the wall to provide an air pocket, will finish off the waterproofing. Then we can backfill. Joe has gotten a late start on the parging, and the pictures below were taken Sunday, October 26th. It actually snowed in the morning, and was sleeting when I stopped by the site at about noon. There were three guys working on a Sunday. Joe said he was trying to catch up.

Hard to see, but it was actually sleeting when this was taken, that's why the tarps are there.

All in all, though, it’s been a frustrating two weeks on the house. It has been absolutely beautiful weather all week, and very little progress on the house. Combined with last week’s lack of progress, nothing looked that different from my blog two weeks ago. The rest of the first floorboards were put on, and the outside walls had a parge coat of cement applied, which needed to be done before waterproofing. Otherwise, the site looks the same. I stopped over the past two days after work, and Joe Haaf was there, starting to build up the walls himself. He had a day laborer pre-position the blocks on the first floor, so that will make the stacking easier.

My worry is that the waterproofing coat has to be applied twice, and both times the weather must remain above 40 degrees for the next 24 hours. It’s already November!! We’re going to run out of warm nights.

We can’t backfill the dig around the house until the waterproofing and window wells are completed. We can’t do the water/sewer until the backfill is completed. There’s a sequence to everything. First, the water/sewer goes in, then the plumbing rough-in, then the roof has to be up on and the windows and doors installed to completely close in the house. Then we’ll prepare the basement floor for the cement pour, lay down the pex tubing for the radiant in-floor heating, and then pour the basement floor. Once the basement floor is set, we can start working on installing all the items in the mechanical room which will make the solar heat work. Then we can work on laying out the pex tubing on the first floor and pouring the gypcrete over it. Next will be the framing of the walls, the hanging of the magnesiacore (green substitute for sheetrock), and I can start working on the walls and kitchen. Man, there’s a lot of planning that goes into all this. When one phase doesn’t get completed, everything else has to go on hold. Even with the late August start, we had planned to have the house closed up by November 1st, but we’re a month away from that if all goes well from now on. Since nothing has gone according to a schedule thus far, I can’t see that it will in the future, either.

I’m not happy about the slowness of the progress, but I’m not losing any sleep over it, either. I really try hard not to get worked up over things I can’t control. Overall, I’m pleased with Joe and the quality of his work. I’m just so anxious to get working on the inside! The interior will take me the entire winter to finish, and I want to get going.

My sister Cathy, the landscape architect, will be visiting at Thanksgiving, and I’m anxious for the backfilling to take place so that all the mountains of dirt and clay will disappear and I can get an idea of what the yard will look like. I’ve done a huge amount of researching on gardening and landscaping.

My neighbors, the Quinces, are as green as they come! I am so lucky to have gotten neighbors who care about the world, the environment, their community, their schools, the less fortunate, and limiting their imprint on the earth. Take a look at their website, The Quince Urban Homestead, and see what they have done, mostly in the past year. At this point in time, we’re kind of on opposite ends of the spectrum. We’re both green, but I’m doing a new, invasive, expensive green (building a home where there was none), and Devin and Heidi are into modifying what they have into something much more useful, at minimum cost. At the end, though, we both want a yard and house that are used in a sustainable way. We’re not big on grass, and we’re very big on gardens. I’m really looking forward to gaining knowledge from them in helping me to shape my landscaping.

Because I have the steep little hill in front, I’ll want to terrace it in order to grow things on it. Besides, it’s hell to mow. It’s too steep to stand on unless you’re a kid like Simon and Everett next door. I’m taking out part of the hill to expose the front basement windows. There will be a gradual pitch from the house to the sidewalk on the north half of the front. Then there will be a retaining wall to keep the hill intact under the front door. But I plan on terracing the south half of the front hill, so I can plant indigenous flowers and plants on the hill instead of all that grass. Along the south side and to the rear of the house, I’ll have a number of raised beds. Some will have perennial fruits and vegetables, and the others will rotate the annual crops. I have not had luck with blueberries, but I am determined to grow a small blueberry patch. In fact, I’m storing up oak leaves and pine needs in a separate compost pile just for the blueberries. I’ll also have raspberries and strawberries, which I’ve never had trouble growing, and an asparagus bed. I haven’t grown asparagus, but know a lot of people who have. I’ll get grape vines and other vines to grow up onto the pergola, to shade my bedroom windows in the summer. I’m also planning on planting three dwarf apple trees (Honey Crisp, Haralson, and one other, whatever will help pollinate the other two). All these things take 3-5 years to get going. I was hoping to get some things done this summer and fall, but the house got started months later than planned. I’ve resigned my self to the fact that I’m not going to get everything done in time for spring planting. I’d like to get all the perennial things planted in the spring, as I can only get those kind of plants in early spring (rhubarb, asparagus, blueberry bushes, etc.). So I’m going to have to have a detailed plan to make sure I get the perennials in for the future, but also get a good annual vegetable garden going for the summer. The landscaping and terracing may not take place until later. Lots to do!