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.

January Progress

January was a long month. I had problems with contractors and contracts and I was pretty discouraged for a while. But I think Jeffrey and I have things pretty much figured out, and we have a schedule for getting the rest of the work done. Here it is February, and the house is still not closed in, which is frustrating. Although many things have held the project up, the weather has been the worst single factor for the past six weeks. It has just been too cold to do a lot of the work to close the house up. In spite of the cold, though, the skylights were put in the last week in December, and most of the windows are in. The front has no windows installed yet, but that is because the front of the house hasn't been backfilled and there are forms in place for concrete for the front window wells and retaining wall. It's been too cold to pour concrete. The forms are interfering with the ability to use ladders to assist in installing the windows on the main floor, since it's a second story in front. I'm also very hesitant to put a bay window in where concrete is going to be poured and large metal forms will have to be removed after the pour. Having a large expanse of glass only a foot or so away from a pour boom and the metal forms just doesn't seem like a good idea. We'll get the windows in when there is no danger of them getting smashed by equipment.

The next three pictures show the skylights being put into the roof. The three 3' by 4' skylights are in the roof above the stairs to the basement. These will let natural light into the center of the house, and interior windows in the stairwell walls will let that light into the kitchen, living room, and bedroom. The center skylight is operable, so I will be able to open it and a fan in the stairwell will draw warm air up the stairwell and will vent it out the roof, acting like a whole house fan.
Here's Jeff cutting out the roof to put in one of the skylights. The roof framers, Jim Klem Construction, did a very professional job in putting on the roof, and made it easy for Jeff to cut the opening for the skylights. Not a good shot, but below is Jeffrey and Devin (shown) placing the skylight into the framed opening.

Jeffrey and Devin from a distance.

One of the skylights in place.

A view towards downtown Minneapolis. Almost exactly in the center of the picture, you can barely see one building in the skyline. The rest of the skyline is behind the two pine trees on the left side.

Heidi and Devin's chicken coop, next to their garage.

A view from the roof to the west. The big pile of dirt is there to backfill the north side of the house, which is still all dug out waiting for forms for concrete window wells.

The temporary propane furnace hanging from the ceiling (so the floor can be finished) in the basement. It thawed out the basement floor and the plumbing has been roughed in. Jeffrey is going to get the basement floor insulation in this week, and then White Bear Mechanical will come and set the tubes for the radiant in floor heating. Hopefully, the concrete floor for the basement will get poured by the end of next week (by Friday the 13th)

Here are the windows on the north side. The kitchen is to the right (rear), the dining room window in the middle, and the guest bedroom/office window in front.

The rear (west side) of the house. The two windows on the right are the master bedroom windows. The double-hung window on the left is in the kitchen.

Not Much Progress During the Holidays

The pace of this project has been slower than I ever could have imagined. From when this project started in August, I would guess that I've averaged one full workday per week of actual work from my contractors. Every week, I've gotten promises on what is going to be accomplished, and most of the time it doesn't happen anywhere near the timeframe I was given. I don't understand the contractor mentality. I've heard the same story from every single person I've spoken to: contractors NEVER do what they say they're going to do when they say they're going to do it. Period.

Jeffrey made a door jam for my back door, the one I bought last winter at the ReUse Center. I bought the door for $100. I didn't realize what a good deal I had gotten until I priced entry doors. Entry doors with glass windows, especially fancy ones like this one, cost around $2000 new. It's perfect for the back door, as the stair tower is designed to let in a maximum amount of light. Here it is:
I didn't have my camera on site today, but Jeffrey and Devin have been busy putting in windows. The windows arrived on Monday, December 22nd. Jeffrey got them into the house, but the weather turned extremely cold (minus 19 on Tuesday), and it was just too cold to work outside. Then came the Christmas holiday weekend, which I didn't expect anyone to work on. But they got busy yesterday, and got 5 of the 19 windows in. They did a couple more today, and I think they are working tomorrow, also.

Joe Haaf of RockSolid Concrete has the basement floor covered with commercial electric blankets to get the basement floor thawed out. We need that done to get the floor leveled, a bed of sand put on top of the dirt, the pex tubing (for infloor radiant heat) set up, and the plumbing in before we can pour the basement floor.

First, though, the roof has to be finished. The roofers were supposed to put a waterproof covering on it last week, but it was too cold. This week, they gave their workers off. So we have to wait until next week to get the roof closed in. There are very large gaps everywhere due to the design of the roof, and even though we had tarps on it, it was letting in streams of water from the rain and melting snow last Saturday, when it was so warm out.

Everything is dependent on something else. The metal roof can't go on until the skylights go in. The solar panels can't go on until the metal roof is on. The basement floor can't be done until the house is closed up, which means the finished roof has to go on and the windows and doors all have to be in.

Joe is still working on the cement work as best he can in the winter. The three south window wells are done, and he's working on the front ones and the front retaining wall this week. It has to be above 10 degrees above zero to pour concrete, and it's supposed to be pretty cold this week.

More Progress: Some window wells, water/sewer hooked up

This was taken on the morning of December 14th. Plastic has been put in the windows, and the driveway has been cleared for the first time since the groundbreaking.

Joe is operating the backhoe and clearing the dirt from the front. The final result will be the the two windows in the lower level will be exposed. A retaining wall goes between the front door and the bay window. This will allow the grade to go up to the front door, and still leave the two front basement windows mostly exposed.

Above and below: Joe shaping the front.

Below, the official site for the water hookup.

Rudy is in the back backfilling up to the house. We needed to do this so we can easily access the back door.

Below, Joe is taking some of the dirt from the front and backfilling the south side around the window wells.

Below, the window wells after the forms were removed. Instead of putting the top of the windows over a foot below ground, I'll take the grade down a foot or so on the south side yard. The window wells are really good and much better than metal ones which I could have installed. There are drains in each one which go down to the foundation, where a drainage system takes the water away.

Below, Pete's Water and Sewer at work digging out the ground for the installation of water and sewer pipes. The ground was frozen solid and they had a hard time digging the trench from the house to the water and sewer hookups.

It was a deep hole for the sewer hookup.

Below is a smaller hole for the water.

The water and sewer pipes go under the foundation. You can see the plastic grey sewer pipe and the copper water pipe on the right.

Taken about a week ago, the concrete forms for the south window wells. The concrete had been poured. Stuff (chemicals) can be added to concrete to make sure it cures in weather down to 10 degrees above zero.

So things are progressing. The temperature dropped from 37 degrees yesterday morning to minus 7 this morning. It's supposed to get down to -18 degrees tonight and stay cold all week. The windows will be delivered end of this week or early next week. Once we get the windows and doors installed, we can bring in a temporary heater and heat the basement enough to do the floor. Everything is uphill from there.

Finally, a Roof!

This was on Monday, November24th. The final pour had been done on Friday, and the house is ready for the roof. A better view of the roof trusses below.

The roof is actually going up! This was from Wednesday. The trusses are all in place, and the front and back gables are done.

A view from the south shows the roof line. The thermal solar panels will be at the top of the roof, then there will be a 5 foot wide living roof, and the the PV solar panels will be at the bottom.

Different angles on the roof due to the different solar panels.

The picture above and below show the south roof lines. The solar thermal panels on top will provide the hot water for the radient in-floor heating system (as well as the hot water for the house) and the solar PV panels at the bottom will provide most of the electricity.

Jim Klem and crew are putting on the plywood sheeting.

First Floor Walls Nearly Completed

When I last wrote three weeks ago, I was frustrated with the progress. I still am, but things are starting to take shape. It looks like we'll be putting on the roof next week. Joe is planning on putting in the window wells and backfilling the foundation next week also. The ground is already pretty frozen because of the cold weather we've been having. Any hopes of landscaping I had are long gone for this year.

The waterproofing below ground is complete here, and the first floor walls have started going up.

This is the Platon dimpled membrane which goes on the outside of the house, below grade. The dimples go next to the wall, creating an air pocket which lets the walls breathe.

Another view of the waterproofing.

The dimpled membrane applied, and the backfill started.

It's starting to look like a house.

The basement stairs.

The last pour for the Faswall. Next step is finishing the backfill and getting the roof on.

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!