Windows, Interior Framing Complete

Here is the view from the basement bay window. To the right in the middle window, you can see the black silt fence in front. The pile of dirt to the left of that will be no higher than the top of the silt , so there will be a lot of light coming in from the front. This is why I wanted the hill dug out in front, to expose the windows in front. I have been living in a basement with tiny windows for the past four years, and will be in heaven when I will have natural light and be able to OPEN the windows for fresh air. Mom will be living on the handicapped accessible first level.

This view shows the installed bay windows in front. The windows to the right of each are bedroom windows upstairs and downstairs. Below is my pride and joy, the cold room, which is along the back of the basement behind the laundry room. There are no heating tubes in the floor underneath, and the walls will be insulated. With no heat, and outside walls on 2 sides, I'm hoping to keep it under 60 degrees in the summer, and 45 to 50 degrees in the winter. I'll store root vegetables, squash, and apples there in the winter, as well as all my home canned goods.

This is the view from the front of the basement to the rear, looking through the bathroom and laundry room to the cold room. The black pipes are the plumbing. You can see that there is a lot of natural light coming into the basement.

Below are the two large heat storage tanks for the solar heat. Innovative Power Systems (IPS) is ready to start installing the solar heating system, but we still have to do some work on the inside, and the metal roof needs to go on. The roofer was supposed to start a month ago, but has come up with various excuses for the delay, which I'm not happy about. Hopefully, we'll have a roof (and it's GREEN, for the green house) in the next two weeks.

Here, you can see the upstairs front bedroom framed in, looking through the kitchen and dining room.

Below, the basement bedroom framed in. This photo doesn't show it, but the windows have been put in and let in just as much light as if it was above ground.

I thought I had more up-to-date photos, but I found I didn't, so I'll take some more this weekend. Most of the rough-ins have been done for the electric, the air exchange system and AC, and the plumbing.

Today, Jeffrey picked up a small electric cement mixer I had bought. Devin, my neighbor, is going to do the majority of the parging of the interior walls, which has to be completed before I can apply the clay plaster. It's a hard, messy job. The parging is just a thin application of cement to smooth out the walls and fill in the holes in the surface of the FasWall. Because it is cement with a rough surface, the clay plaster can be applied directly to it. If I used the plaster on the interior wallboard walls, I'd have to apply a special sandy surface first to get the clay to stick to the sheet rock. I will probably paint the interior walls, and just have the clay plaster on the interior of the outside walls. Clay plaster is expensive, and a lot of work to apply.

We are planning on having the rough-in inspections next week for the electric, plumbing, HVAC, and framing. After that, we'll get the sheet rock hung, and then finish the first floor radiant infloor heating installation.

Radiant Tubing, Basement Floor, Upstairs Framing

After making some changes in the contracting, progress is being made. Jeffrey Swainhart of Swainhart Construction Services has been my right hand man on this project, and he has lined up some great contractors to finish this project. Lon Lichliter of Lichliter Plumbing has the plumbing roughed in, and Gardner Construction stepped in to pour the basement floor and will be doing some other work on the outside. White Bear Mechanical has started installing the radiant infloor heating. The two pictures below show the plumbing rough-in.

The two guys in the picture above are from Gardner Construction. I'm facing the rear of the house, where the bathroom and laundry room will be. The plumbing is there, and the guys are preparing the basement floor for a gravel bed. The truck below is full of gravel.

The guys are shoveling the gravel down a chute through the basement window.

After the gravel was put down, 4" foam insulation was laid down on top.

The foam floor and the temporary propane furnace above it.

The tubing in the front basement bedroom.

All the tubes are hooked up to a central point. There will be two heating zones in the basement, and two or three upstairs (I can't recall right now).

This shows the north side of the basement, looking to the front bedroom.

The family room in the basement.

The upstairs bathroom framed in.

The front upstairs bedroom framed in.

The concrete floor poured in the basement, covering up the tubes. This view is from the front south side, looking back through the bathroom to the laundry room. The "cold room" for storing canned goods and produce from the garden, will be at the very rear and under the steps. There are no tubes in the concrete floor where the cold room will be.

Below is the other side (north) of the basement, looking to the rear. There will be quite a large mechanical room there, which will hold the boiler, hot water heater, and the two 200 gallon tanks. The tanks will store heat from the solar heating panels on the roof.

Below, I'm standing at the rear of the mechanical room looking east, to the front of the house.

Here are the ends of the tubes, with the rest buried in concrete. The tubes were tested for 48 hours with high pressure to make sure there where no leaks (this was before the concrete was poured, of course).

The next step will be repeating this process of laying tubing upstairs, after the framing upstairs is completed, which should be this week. A type of gypsum floor underlayment, Gyp-Crete, will be poured on top of the tubing upstairs, and then a finished floor (bamboo, most likely), will be installed on top of the tubes.