The Deep Freeze

The last two nights have been really cold for us. I think last night we touched into the teens and the night before into the 20's... We have had some other freezes this year, but not for as deep or long.




So, the electricians came to set the "T Pole", which means temporary pole. They set a wood pole with a meter can and a very basic breaker panel with some outlets on it. This has to be set according to the standards set forth by the local utility company. Unfortunately, the guys were still working on setting the pole when the utility company came by with the actual meter, which is the process of hooking into the big green transformer box on the lot. Since the electricians weren't done, they had to come back, and when they did, didn't like something about the pole?? I wasn't really involved, but the electricians had to go to HD for more parts. Long story short, we now have a T pole set and ready to go, but it will be at least monday before the Utility company comes back to connect it.



The electricians also set the "floor boxes", which are basically grey PVC outlets that sit in the concrete that are fed by "flex" conduit from some wall in that room. I have of course learned to never take anything for granted by now, so I helped them make sure they found the walls correctly. You have to hit the wall in the middle of what will be a 2x4 sill plate. That means your 1 inch pipe has to be inside a 3.5 inch spot. These aren't as big of a deal as the plumbing, however, because they are smaller than plumbing pipes and they just serve as conduit for running wires.



BUT, I was sitting around Friday not doing really anything, but waiting. Going through a mental checklist of "what if" type things for the concrete pour. Just as I was walking away, said goodbye to the electricians, I happened to shake the riser pole on the drain system to see if it still had water in it... And I realized, OF COURSE it does, and so does the entire drain plumbing system, and it is going to dive into the TEENS tonight.... CRAP!! I could lose the entire drain plumbing system... STUPID!!! So, off to the truck, I grab a shovel and dig out the "cleanout", which for some reason they had buried again about 4 feet down. I borrow the electricians portable drill and drill a hole in the end cap and drained the thing...



The lesson here is simple. When things happen that are non-standard, like cold temps, you need to get yourself thinking "outside" the box, or you are going to miss something seemingly obvious.



I hope I don't have any cracks in the plumbing, but Monday the weather is back above feezing for a few days, so I will pressurize the drain lines again and check them before they pour on Tuesday...



What a du mas I am...



Well, the cold doesn't end there. Last night it was very nippy, and we have lots of neighbors still out of town for the holidays. I ended up checking on a few of their homes, and their spigots were not covered. One neighbor had ice from the spigot all the way to the ground, so I am pretty sure they lost a pipe. I wrapped that one up and then turned off their water. Thinking if it thaws I will prevent a major flood inside their house.



For the record, I never even considered installing standard uninsulated sill cocks on my house (as is the "standard" here). I am going to use 12 or 14 inch "freeze proof" sill cocks, that have the actual valve way back inside the house, where it is toasty warm. With an ICF house, the inside of the wall is technically "warmer" by design in winter, but that makes the outside of the wall technically "colder" by design, so you can't rely on the house "leaking" heat into your outdoor pipes to keep them warm enough not to freeze. I am also trying to minimize the amount of "outdoor" plumbing that is hooked to the "inside" of my house. Kind of stupid really to have water flowing through your house to wall spigots that you could just as easily hook up a good old fashioned water "hydrant" outside, just like we had on the farm. We will already have a pressurized sprinkler manifold all around the house... just hook into that thing...



Also, these "tankless" water heaters everybody talks about. Well, for some reason people call them "instant", which isn't true at all (you have to wait for the hot water to come down the pipe). Down here, to save a buck, they install them on exterior walls so they don't have to vent the flue gasses through the roof. But, they are on a "cold" wall. We had some neighbors almost lost theirs from freezing. Again, the freezing is one thing, but when the pipe is broken and then it thaws out the next day...FLOOD...



OK, so why I am on my rant. I originally liked the concept of these "tankless" systems, but they come with problems. First would be what I just stated. Are they more effecient... Probably yes. They don't have standby losses as much so you only heat the water you use rather than the water you "may" use. But what I don't like about them (other than their initial cost) is that they don't work with any kind of "recirculating" system to truly get "instant hot" water anywhere in your house. Look into the Grundfos "Comfort System" and you will see a really nifty pump that allows you to already have hot water charged into your hot water supply lines and ready to go, without having to run 2 gallons of water down the drain waiting to wash your hands or take a shower.... but, you need a tank as a storage medium for this to be efficient.



The absolute best option, I think for creating hot water is a solar system that is augmented as necessary with the following systems in order of (cost) efficiency, not necessarily real efficiency. (example... an electric tank is perfectly efficient, 1 to 1 before standby losses, but that doesn't mean that that watt of resistive electric is less expensive than it's equal amount of heat from a gas source, which may be cheaper, and geothermal can give you upwards of 7 or 8 watts of heat for your 1 watt of input...resulting in a Coefficient of Performance COP of 7.0 or 8.0, as defined...)



1. Desuperheater (from your A/C system when it is running, this is free and helps your A/C out)

2. Ground Source Heat pump

3. Air Source Water heater (if you live in a warm climate)

3A. Non condensing gas or propane tank heater (less loss up the flue)

4. Tankless Gas

5. Tankless Propane

6. Tank Gas

7. Tank Propane

8. Tank Electric



And I don't know about the tankless electrics. Heard both good and bad about them depending on application, incoming water temp, climate, etc.



And whatever you do, do NOT put your hot water heater in an attic, especially a vented (non conditioned) attic... With that kind of thinking you may as well just put the dang thing out in the back yard, and hope for the best... At least when the pipes break it won't flood your house.



As far as solar hot water goes, that is a big subject, but the coolest (hottest??) system out there that I like the most is the "Evacuated Tube" solar hot water. They use a "heat pipe" inside a borosilicate "evacuated" glass tube to superheat a working medium that then condenses at the top of the pipe inside a hot water manifold. They are super efficient even in very cold temps, and can create temps in excess of 400 degrees F... HOT! But again, don't confuse heat or temperature with cost efficiency...they are more expensive. I just happen to like them.



Wow, how did I get on that subject... I am still working in the mud stage... Depressing.



OH, and after saving everybody else’s pipes last night, I went out to the lot at 2 AM in the morning and guess what.... My little temporary spigot was frozen up like a rock. When I put that in, I actually bought a shutoff valve that had a drain screw on it, so I could drain back the pipe if I thought it would get cold, but I couldn't fit that valve into the box, so I dismissed it... Instead I insulated the crap out of the iron pipe... Well, I should have stuck to my guns and made room for that valve... Du mas (as my wife would say)... It's going to cost me 3 dollars now...



got to go......



Update.. OK, trip to HD revealed a new valve was actually $5 and change. Mine probably would have survived until I broke off the handle ;-)

Pressurizing the manifolds...

Pressurized Manifolds in the Cold

Woke up this morning with an idea....  Yesterday, we ended up kinking a tube, the very last one, just as we were finishing up...  It kinked right where the tube went into these bend supports... Since I wanted to protect the tubing anyway from random hazards, why not use some "smurf" flex pipe, which fits right into the bend support, and would help support the tubing so it couldn't be kinked...  So off to HD before anything this morning... 

By the time we got to the lot, the cold front was really coming through... Nasty wind and rain.  Things at the lot were just nasty.  Mud, water on all the plastic, everything was cold and blowing around.  That first picture up there was from the ice the other day, I just threw it in for effect...

I have to tell you about the coolest tool I bought...  It's a plastic pipe cutter that cuts pvc, pex, etc up to about 1.5 inches in diameter.  You open a knife and the thing then rachets back down as you cut, and the knife goes right through just about anything... If the mob ever finds out about these things, they will be taking fingers off with ease...

Anyway, at each manifold, I cut the tubing to the same lenght, then installed the smurf pipe, then copper crimp connectors, and then finally the manifold on top of that.  I used a "pocket crimp" tool to crimp everything together.  I am such a tightwad I didn't want to buy the full blown tool, and I thought the "pocket crimp" thing would work out well.  It's kind of shaped like a clamp with holes for 3/8, 1/2, and 3/4 inch size crimps and you basically just squeeze the crap out of it with a pair of vice grips.  So, 38 crimps later my hands are sore like all getout.... 

This really organizes things, though, so the pipe looks a lot better.  Then we hooked into the neighbors power and ran 300 feet of extension cord over to my little baby air compressor, and pressurized things to 80 PSI...  We did notice that the tubing bacame much stiffer and actually popped up in a couple places (it needs to remain below the level of the finished concrete, but not too low).  So, a few repairs to that, but the tubing is now holding it's 80 PSI nicely.  I think before the pour I will back that down to 40 or so, but for 24 hours I would like to see it hold it's pressure just to be sure...  Eventually, the operating pressure can be quite low, just whatever it takes to get the water around the circuits...  The tubing really did stiffin up (if that was any more possible) with the pressure inside.  Also, I think the volume is something like 90 gallons, so my little compressor got a workout on a 300 foot cord...

And finally, the radiant floor is ready for the pour...  A task MUCH larger than I predicted. 

So, the only thing left to put into the slab is the electrical floor boxes.  That is scheduled for tomorrow.  There will be ice on top of the slab, but at least everything is marked out. 

My wife spent the day today helping me with things, mainly, she put 500 plastic "chairs" under the tubing in spots where we thought it would get mashed down too much.  This should greatly help keeping it in the correct position when they pour. 

As I write this, the wind has died down, but there is now ice forming on the playhouse in the back yard.  It's sunny out, just cold and windy... 

OK, have to verifiy with the electrician for tomorrow...

Later...

Tubing is finally laid down

Well, the tubing is finally all down and in it's final resting place.  Hopefully when they pour the concrete those guys will keep that in mind.  It would be easy to knock something loose.  We have been walking all over it, and so far nothing has broken, so I think it will be ok. 

Too tired to go get the camera for any pictures.  We worked another 12 hour day.  Dawn to way after dusk for me.  We had the tubing down by about 2 PM, and then we decided to place the electrical floor boxes while we were both there to discuss it.  We actually aren't doing those, the electrician is, but we wanted to mark them out exactly where we would like them, as on the plans it was pretty much a guess.  I put marking paint in those locations, and tomorrow I will put landscaping flags there to make them more visible.  The slab is getting pretty full of "things" and it's easy to get lost out there, as I am sure a couple tools that have gone missing are also probably in their "final resting place".... Ha!

I stayed on the lot in the dark tonight and finished up the electrical feeds...  Future stuff like pool pumps, septic system, landscape lights, sprinkler system solenoid lines, etc.  I also ran another entrance for the water line, as I didn't like the one that the plumber put in (not where I would have put it, and not where I pointed the day we discussed it... hmmmm).  His spot comes in right under the breaker panels in the garage...  Mine would come into a corner and then feed straight up into a spot where I can put a whole house filter.

Then headed over to my buddies house to help him with getting his water spigots covered for our upcoming "deep freeze"...  Stop it you Yanks... You can keep that cold air up there, because we don't want it.  I think back to about mid July and ponder if we could just average the two extreme temperatures.  I think San Diego does that...

Tomorrow I plan on hooking all the tubing into copper manifolds.  These are just cheapo manifolds that will only be used for pressure testing.  Tonight after I cleaned out the truck again, I organized all the tools I will need for that task, and even loaded up my air compressor and a "bubble" tank for use tomorrow. 

I will try to take pictures, but they are talking ice and sleet.  I may have to rent a generator to run the compressor.  That will require a run into town, which I hate... 

OK, that's it for tonight...

11 down, 4 to go

Don't ask me why, but for some strange reason we didn't take pictures of the 1 inch of ice that had frozen in the poly overnight.  I guess the shivering hands had something to do with not wanting to take off your gloves and reach into your pocket for the camera...

Anyway, yesterday went pretty smooth, we were able to do 4 more circuits and ready the next manifold, which was exactly the same progress as today...  So, 4 more circuits to go, and we will have the tubing down. 

In the middle of the day today, we ran into some trouble, however.  The concrete guys had come out to tidy things up and make sure everything was ready for the inspector, also scheduled for today.  Within minutes of the inspector showing up....problems.  Turns out that they had misread the foundation plan and had some of the cables at the top of the foundation rather than the bottom.  Well, these "strands" as they have been coined, just so happen to be ones we had tied hundreds of zip ties with tubing...  So, about a 1.5 hour fix on that, as everything had to be released and restrung.  Two of these cables had me actually have to restring an entire manifold, as well as pull the entire supply and return lines for the "island heat" to the kitchen.  In the end, this ended up not being as bad as we originally had thought.  I certainly would rather have to deal with it now, and certainly the cables being in the wrong place would put the entire structure into question... 

In exchange for my trouble, the slab guys helped me tie up some tubing in places where there was nothing to tie to.  Basically, they made rebar stakes and then tied the tubing to that with wire.  An acceptable solution for everyone.  I certainly appreciated their help.  They have been super.

The rest of this week is going to be WAY too cold to pour concrete.  So for now we have scheduled the "pour" for next tuesday.  They are predicting somewhere between 320 and 350 cubic yards of concrete.  I guess the way this works is that they all show up at 0700, make final preparations to the slab, and then they have the concrete start at 0930.  They are predicting to be on site well into the night.  With the colder weather, the concrete doesn't want to set very fast, so it will take a long time to work it. 

I think I need to let the neighbors know about this.  There is no way around it, but there will certainly be some noise well into the night.  I think they are renting some light stands in advance... 

By then I need to have all of the tubing in place, sealed into the copper manifolds with pressure gages, and pressurized (I am leaning towards 80 PSI). 

I also need to finish all the future electrical stubs that I have planned.  I was able to finish two large ones tonight as the sun went down.  They aren't that bad.

My wife continues to be awesome.  This is certainly not an easy task for her, and she also continues to have to keep everybody in lunches, homework, etc.  She worked all day out there and it was cold.  She is handling the tubing ahead of me coming off of the rolls, and it has a mind of it's own as it is freed from the coil at these temperatures. 

OK, you Yanks can stop laughing at us now.  I know it is much colder up there where you are, and I am sorry.  But trust me when I say it is cold for us...

OH, also hired an electrical contractor finally.  Long story, but in the end I got a guy that is experienced with lighting control and lots of low voltage stuff.  Even though I am doing the low voltage myself, it will be handy to have him step in and help if I need it.  He hasn't done a Centralite system, but lots of other systems.  I was looking for a guy too that would be able to keep all the wiring mess organized, and he assures me that he can...   He is scheduled to come out Friday and place the 8 floor boxes and island power feeds.  He will also bring a temporary power pole so that we can finally get power to the lot.  In the meantime, I will probably have to rent a generator to run the compressor to pressurize everything. 

Also talked to the ICF contractor and they are placing the order for the next step... The ICF walls.  I will be much more "hands off" on this that I have so far.  It is much more fun to be a spectator.  I need to come up with a list of things that need to penetrate the ICF so we can conduit all that in advance (hose bibs, electrical, geothermal lines, desuperheater lines, etc).  Another measuring job... 

OK, off to sleep...

Tubing and the Float

All,

I am wiped out...  3 hours sleep last night preparing tubing layout (measurements of every nook and crany). 

Hit the lot at 0800 this morning just a couple degrees above freezing.  Frost on everything.  Black "poly" slicker than snot. 

Long day,  we were able to get 3 circuits done and then an extra manifold set wired up for our next adventure. 

Float guys showed up and pretty much got the slab ready for pour.  They stayed until 2000 and worked in the dark to finish.   I held a flashlight and froze to death while they worked their rears off in short sleve shirts.  They were actually cold when they got done, but I felt sure that holding the flashlight so they could read the measuring tapes, levels, etc. and see where they were pounding was in my best interest and theirs. 

I am no ways near ready to pour concrete.  Still need to hire an electrician (long story), who has to set the floor outlets and island power.  Also don't have a temporary electric pole, so they have been working off generators.

We have probably 3 full days left of tubing work, plus some future electrical feeds I want to put in place...

1. 1.5 inch conduit in 2 places for future pool equipment
2. 1.5 inch conduit for future workshop
3. 1.5 inch conduti for aerobic septic system
4. landscape light feeds to front and rear
5. sprinkler timer electrical feeds to front, rear, and rainwater collection system pump.

Those will take me a 1/4 day if everybody leaves me alone.

I put some NO TRESPASSING signs in front.  Too much going on right now for the gawkers to step on, and the ICF is coming next.  I really don't want people even close to that stuff before it is poured.

It is interesting to see what shows up on the camera system we have in place.  Friends, and you know who you are, you are welcome. 

Ok, here are some pictures.  I'm too tired to explain anything.  You will have to figure it out on your own.  My fingers are bloody from the 600 zip ties I tied...

Oh, except for one explanation... Dad, the first picture is how they floated the garage.  Form guys couldn't figure out a good way to deal with the slope out the side of the garage for those 3 doors and then also with the slope out the back of the shop... So after some thought, we decided it would work good to make the shop actually level with no slope, but for that single garage door now has a ramp that drops 2 inches over 3 feet.  The picture shows the giant wedge they made for this purpose.   The concrete guys will actually blend all these slopes together so there isn't any sudden bumps anywhere.   These guys were amazing...

OH, and anybody that is wondering why I have green T posts in my house (8 of them acutally) they will be cut out later and the manifolds mounted to framing.


Good night...

Plumbing and "Makeup"

"Makeup"... what?? 

I have watched a lot of house from start to finish, but I guess I wasn't in the conversations.  I have learned a lot of new lingo in regards to concrete.  I should share some...

Form Setters -  A group of short, strong guys that swing 20 pound sledge hammers with ease.
Poly - Poly (something) that comes in several thicknesses measured in "mils" 
Makeup - Another group of short, strong guys that use flat shovels to dig trenches and "makeup" your slab.
Float - Put in place by the Form Setters.  Consists of more forms above the level of porches, garages, etc.

Well, today started out with a lot of questions   I knew the makeup guys were coming, but didn't know when.  I rolled in at 0805 and they all jumped out of their trucks.  Were they waiting for me, or did I just happen to be right behind them??   I say that because they obviously didn't need me for anything.  Without a whole lot of communication (other than some grumbling spanish comments about the mud), they just started digging.  30 minutes later they brought out the trencher...

The slab sits on 28 inch tall, 12 inch wide beams.  These beams are dug into the select fill pad, and then the whole mess is reinforced with cables and steel.  In a nutshell, the makeup guys are there to make this happen. 

Here is a picture of them getting started.

BEAMS...

A lot of this is dug by the trencher... Let me try to attach a video for the machine freaks...  It has a 12 inch wide chain a does a really good job of pulverizing what comes out of the trench into a fairly fine consistency.  This dirt subsequently is moved around and used to form the "pads" that make up the little islands around the beams.  On top of the pad will be 5 inches thick concrete (a little thicker than normal because of my radiant tubing taking up some space, I think the engineers were covering their rears a little here).

Well, this blog thing wouldn't let me download a video of the trencher... Sorry, how about a picture?

It has tracks, no wheels.  Makeup guys said they had not used it in about a month because everything had been so wet... 

So, at the end of the day, picture 120 foot slab x 80 foot, give or take.  A beam in each direction every 10 feet, plus a continuous beam under the perimeter of the ICF (living space).  By the time these guys left, they had this whole thing dug.  No breaks, no whining.  Smiles and jokes all day. 

Tomorrow they come back to finish some pads, and then poly, cables, and steel. 

Cool thing was that I had a much better idea of how the house lays out...  I could see where the walls were in relationship to the porch front and back, etc.  Looks great.  We are VERY happy with all our layout choices...

Bad thing was that chain trenchers and PVC pipe do not play well together.  I was briefed to anticipate this, because it just happens, but the trencher "nicked" 4 pipes.  The good news was that the plumber had just showed up to take a look at his penetrations. 

There is a long standard of fighting between plumber and concrete men as a result of the pipe issue.  But in our case, a deal was to be made...  Plumber would fix pipes without a penalty to concrete guys if concrete guys would clean up the mess about to be made by the plumber. 

So, a few hours later, 1 trip to HD for some couplers, and lots of measuring, and viola.... pipes are now where they should be. 

Everyone left in the dark, except for me, who stayed behind to pick up trash so the racoons didn't have a party out there tonight...

One more thing... At some point I was telling of the problems with rolling the radiant PEX into their respective lengths... Well, last week I finally broke down and went out and bought a sheet of plywood, had the guys cut it into two 4x4's, and turned it into a spool.  Did the ladder trick with the shovel again and much better succes....

Here is the spool...

1000 foot doesn't look like much...

Here is 4000 feet safely secure on my back patio...

Ok, it's late...

Goodnight!

Christmas Eve

Ok,

I was bummed out in the last post, but we really don't have any problems.  Kids are healthy, employed, wife is normally pretty happy with me, etc.

So, I should share our little Christmas Eve thing...  Homemade Pizzas...

I have traveled the world many times over, and my one thing I like to do is try pizzas everywhere I go to see how they differ.  By far, the best pizza I ever had was in Paris on the Champs des Elysses one Christmas Eve.  Jambon and champignon with some light sauce and fresh mozzarella...  Yum (oh, and of course an 8 dollar Coke with 1 cube of ice).  Only thing better would have been to eat that pizza at home.  I probably topped this off with a crepe "complete".  Ouf, fromage, salt, pepper, yummy.  The French know how to eat almost as well as the Italians... (although the best food in the world is actually El Salvador). 
So, here it is...

Pizza dough...

3 cups unbleached flour
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 pkg yeast
1/4 cup EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL (don't skimp on this)
1 cup warm water

Let that rise for a couple hours, and then roll it out as flat as you can...

450 degree oven (or hotter if you can), pizza stone, PARCHMENT PAPER (works better than cornmeal, which burns and smokes at temps greater than 450F)

We all get to pick our toppings. 
You should not put things like BBQ sauce or pineapple on your pizza... 

Kids stick with simple stuff.  Cheese and bacon...

Here is our favorite...

Fresh ball mozarella
Comte cheese (from Costco, it's a hard cheese you can grate)
Very Very light sauce, or just some chopped tomatoes
Salt
extra virgin olive oil (got some in Artentina that is awesome)
shaved Boarshead Prosciutto ham (it's expensive...deal with it)

bake for 6 minutes and then watch it till crust starts to change color.

top it with COLD fresh chopped Arugula (known as Rocket to some)

This pizza will change your life....

Remind  me when I download those photos and I will attach a pic of it later...

Merry Christmas!

PS, also spent 3 hours digging drain trenches trying to get all the water out of the plumbing trenches.  Windy, rainy, cold... Fun.  But, I have talked the plumber and concrete guys into both showing up on the 26th (yes, a Saturday).  So I want to have this thing as dry as I can...

Plumbing

Beginning of Underground Plumbing

Just a simple old outhouse would have been a lot simpler.  1 hole, 1 door with designer door cutout, etc.  Somehow we have all been talked into a far more complex system... 

This is where the plumbers began.  It is called the cleanout... I was concerned about this because 120 feet across the house causes problems for the "drop" in plumbing.  They drop the plumbing about 1/4 inch for every 10 feet, which keeps "things" flowing, I guess.   But, in my puny brain I was thinking 1/4 inch per foot, which would equate to several feet of drop...  Anyway, as usual, I was thinking wrong.

From this location, the pipe will make a turn due West and head over to an aerobic septic system, which will magically transform "things" back into water, and then make a trip due East about 450 feet to the septic field (watch out you East coasters). 

Well, this was the start of my first big problem other than weather.  Plumbers got off to a bad start, their digger broke, had to rent a new one, showed up later, wanted to finish, etc.  Anyway, we had about 2/3 of the plumbing "penetrations" miss their intended location.  We didn't know this of course until the next day when I went over to do a random audit of locations... I was agitated, stressed, and tired.

I didn't intend on having to do this, but I actually then stayed up till 6 am on the 23rd calculating out every single pipe penetration point as it was measured from the edge of the form boards.  In the plumbers defense, this house is very confusing.  There are 5 1/2 inch stone ledges, but sometimes there is another 6 inch of taper thrown in on top of that, and sometimes in several directions.  In addition, the exterior walls are 11 inches thick, which is not a normal dimension for the trades.  Interior walls range from 3 1/2 inches thick to 8 inches thick....and, the dimensions aren't called out very well on the plan, which is sometimes off as much as an inch due to where they "snapped" the dimension endings. 

The good news for the day, however, was that he did install a 6 inch PVC conduit for pulling the geothermal lines into the garage later in construction.  I had him go 4 feet deep on those based on some HVAC expertise.  Also put two 45 degree bends with a wide sweep rather than one 90 degree sweep to make pulling those lines easier.

Also noticed that there was several thousand square feet of roof that would dump water directly into my courtyard...  So, to remedy that, the plumber put 4 inch drain line penetrations through the slab that extend out beyond the courtyard.  I will hook those up later to the rainwater collection system.

Ok, another picture...

In this picture, the big pipe is a toilet drain, the one to the left is it's vent.  The one to the right is a shower drain.  The sink will later tie into the vent in a "wet wall" fashion, which as you can see has all the water from sink and shower chasing the toilet water.  The only trap needed here is for the shower, as sink and toilet have traps themselves.  This is a fairly typical bath setup.  In the background you can see the drain lines headed for the cleanout.  The farthest point starts out with 3 inch drainline, picks up the powder bath, and then turns into a 4 inch line as it picks up the rest of the house. 

As the sun goes down, you can see the trench being dug for the 6 inch geothermal conduit.  This stuff makes all the other plumbing out there look small, but I don't have a picture of it installed. 

There was rain in the forecast, and sure enough, by midnight, the place had turned back into a mudhole... 

We would find out the next day that most of this plumbing needed to be reworked.

The smell of sawdust

Taking Shape

It didn't take long for this to happen...  The form setters showed up this morning and demonstrated an advanced lesson in Geometry. 

They actually staked out points beyond the house, staked and squared, and then ran string line across all 4 corners. Then, working inwards, they set the exact position of all the forms.  You can see the shape of the house from here.  There are a lot of cuts in and out where the house changes direction.  Also, the height of the forms changes all around the house, because where there is a porch, garage door,  entry door, courtyard, etc.  All these things require a "drop" in elevation and then slope. 

Only one minor emergency.  On the plans was a dimension line that looked like it terminated in a particular place but did not.  It all made sense in the end, but a couple calls to the designer and also the CAD guy.  Nice to have them help, and made me feel a lot better when the crew was able to measure full circle around the house and get back to the same spot using some math. 

Here is a shot from the other direction...

I was hopefull we could have the plumber on site tomorrow, who will place all the drain tubing in trenches and locate all the drains, vents, and geothermal conduit.  Even though the weather is now very good, unfortunately he is behind on other jobs and can't get here till Monday.  I think that will eventually cause us not to pour concrete before Christmas. 

Otherwise, it was refreshing to see the house grow upwards about a foot, and I have to say I was pretty excited to smell fresh cut sawdust...  mmmmm.

OH, here is a shot of the "Tube" we took the other day.  Didn't get that downloaded till now...  Have a look...

I am hopefull that someday I can show you some pics with some blue sky...

That's it for now..

Mud and a 262 foot Hula Hoop

Rain for the last few days, and nothing has happened...

We didn't have hardly a drop of rain this summer, and it was smokin' hot.  Dried everything out and was really hard on everything alive..

Fast forward to December.  We keep getting cold fronts sent from the North (can't blame you Yankees for that, this stuff comes from Canada) and that meets our rather warm, humid Gulf air, which produces rain.  We have not gotten hammered from total rainfall, just drizzly wet often enough that we can't surface dry things out. 

Was supposed to have the forms set for the concrete this morning.  But I called them off for another day, and glad I did because it was pretty slimy on top.  I don't think that crew was too excited to be swinging 20 pound sledge hammers in the mud.  So, tomorrow we try again...  They say they can have the job done in a matter of a couple of hours...  Would take me weeks.

In the meantime, we made another run to town for other things.  Looks like iphones are in our future.  Since my puny brain can only store just a fraction of what it should, these should help...  Anybody have an iphone case they really like??  Needs to have a screen protector build in and still able to dock the phone easily...

Oh, got home and decided to take a stab at my next project for the house.  I will be installing a "Hydronic Radiant Heating" system myself in this abode...  What that means is warm water circulates through PEX (crosslinked poly pipe) embedded in the concrete slab, thus warming the concrete and keeping your pigs warm. 

I bought this tubing from an online retailer.  Couldn't support the local economy on this one, because the tubing needed to have an "oxygen barrier" which normal PEX doesn't have.  It turns out, that when you have hot water in a closed pipe, it sucks oxygen right through the walls of the pipe, which builds up in the water and causes things to corrode, as well as eventually forming pockets of oxygen gas which mess up the flow of water.  The pipe with the oxygen barrier keeps this from happening.  Only you Yanks seem to really know about this, and I thank you for your expertise in figuring all this out. 

Ok, back to my point... I bought the pipe in 1000' lengths, but it is installed in lengths in the neighborhood of 250' per circuit.  So, to save time later, I had the bright idea of cutting this stuff to length and rolling it up in giant rolls that would be more manageable for installation...  Good intent.  So, tonight, I get a roll, open the box, and I am staring at a 1000 foot red slinky.  Hmmm. 

OK, two ladders, an old wire spool, put the red slinky over the wire spool, put a shovel handle through the wire spool, suspend the apparatus between the two ladders, attach C clamps to the shovel so it can't move, and cut the straps holding the red slinky together.  HOLY CRAP!!...  Red slinky everywhere.  My neighbors are driving by... slowly, with looks of wonder in their eyes.  They probably think it is some Christmas decoration... 

Long story short, after much aggrevation, I get my first 262 foot piece rolled up into a nice neat 6 foot diameter loop, with cable ties holding it together about every 50 feet.  Wifey is completely pissed off at me, because she just isn't capable of reading my mind.  Daughter too, who tried to help tame the 262 foot Hula Hoop...   Not fun.

OK, for you techno savy pipe nerds out there... I have a question.  I have observed that granite countertops are cold to the touch in winter.  So, since I already have warm water circulating and pumps why not run a circuit to two places... 1.  The eating island, where people will have their arms resting whilst eating and doing homework, and 2.  Pissed off wifes makeup counter in the master bath...        Why??? Because I can...

I can easily run pex tubing over to each location and supply hot water, but how do I circulate it under the countertops...  The island countertop presents a special challenge, because the wood base under the granite also adds some support to the part cantilevered part that hangs over the edge about 16 inches.  If I cut into this too much, I run the risk of a structural failure...

Here is my idea...use some plumbing adapters to convert the pex to a 1/4 inch flare copper coupler, then use a router to make a 1/4 inch channel that snakes from one side of the island to the other.  Snake the copper tubing into place and secure into the tracks with silicone.  Then, the granite gets installed on top of all this and subsequently is warmed whenever the floor heat is on (all winter long, in my case) to a temperature of about 80 degrees. 

Since I am the "hypercomplicator" according to my first wife (actually, the wife I have now that is pissed off at me...did I mention that?), I am not quite satisfied with this design.  I feel the head loss from the copper tubing will be too high and I will end up with an island that is cold on one side and warm on the other... So, why not split the tubing and come across the island from either direction, thus reducing the head loss and increasing flow, and having a more uniform temperature gradient across the island...

I take your comments on this... Anybody with a better idea wins...  Just don't try to sell me on the electric resistive mats under the countertops.  I know this can be done but it costs too much to operate regardless of it's simplicity...  I can make hot water with my GSHP at a COP (coeffecient of performance) in the range of 4.0 and higher, 4 watts energy for the cost of 1.

Sorry, should have taken a picture of the red slinky...  I promise to construct a better design to do the rest of that project... 

I wonder if the iphone has an app for that?

Dirto Finito... For now...

This is what 120 truckloads of dirt looks like...

Let me first say that we have been really getting hammered with moisture this fall.  We could have been doing this little project back in August when we were all dry, but my own stupidity for getting the budget together coupled with the bank being pretty slow to approve things put us right in the wettest time we have seen in more than a year... 

I'm not going to say bad things about the bank...  Personally, I wouldn't lend money to myself (pretty much a bumbling idiot) at the rates they are getting for money.  But trust me when I say they left no stone unturned in terms of checking on things before we were approved.  Then, after we were approved, they fiddled around some more.  We are glad that that part is behind us, but there sure is a lot of paperwork dealing with draws and such...  I would say so far contracts and draws (and writing checks) will probably be the worst part of this whole process. 

OK, back to the dirt...  Rained this Monday all day.  Mist, fog, and crap all day.  Tuesday morning the pad was disgusting.  This fill dirt turns into really nasty stuff when it gets wet.  Slippery to walk on, and then you can't get it off of you.  Just nasty...  By Wednesday, though, things were looking decent, so a judgement call to attempt a finish on Thursday. 

This morning, bright and early, the guys showed up and started pushing things around again.  When the first loaded truck came into the driveway, it was not good, he sunk in, slipped around... but being a brave soul, kept coming in and made it to the pad.  So, we dumped a couple of more truckloads of fill in the driveway and they worked the drive back out, and surprisingly, by the end of the day, the driveway was pretty good. 

The pad, on the other hand, was excellent.  Tony, the dozer driver, did an amazing job of working things around.  When they put these things in, they normally go about 6 to 8 inches per "lift", and then work that around and pack it down.  Tony, on the other hand, pushes dirt out from the dump site in tiny little increments, and blades back and forth on it breaking everything up and packing it down.  This packs things much better and they have great control over what they are doing.  In addition, the dump trucks are asked to roll back and forth on the whole thing while they are loaded.  Here is a pic of what that looks like after they "roll" it...

As you can see..  The trucks are not sinking in much at all, and this pad is as hard as concrete.  Each mound of dirt you see is 1 truckload, which is about 12 cubic yards.  This dirt is compacted to about 2/3 of that volume.

By the end of the day, 120 loads of dirt total, 1000's of passes with the dozer, and they had a lazer flat pad.  They check everything with a lazer level and I am amazed they are not more than 1/2 inch off anywhere. 

Time also to finally "set" the culvert...  This they claim was easy, but it actually took a while.  First, they dug a trench out of the temporary driveway, then shot some grade lines, and then worked things around.  A load of "stabilized sand" comes in, and the tube actually sits in this sand.  Then, more stabilized sand, topped with clay fill and then finally topped with 4 loads of rock. 

This picture is taken as they are just digging things out.  As you can tell, things are a complete mess. 

This is the new driveway... I had them crown it up quite a bit to keep it from holding water.  I really need this to dry out and firm up a lot, as the next big task is to get the concrete over this thing.  The orange dirt you see is actually a little stabilized sand left over that didn't find it's way over the tube. 

BTW, stabilized sand (near as I can tell) is non-uniform in size, so it packs better, and it is mixed with a couple of bags of cement.  So it actually sets up hard as concrete.  Surrounding the tube, which in turn protects the tube from heavy objects up top... Tomorrow I plan on driving some 2x4 stakes in there to keep people from driving over the end of the tube. 

What appeared to be a pretty long tube somehow disappeared down in there.

OH, the engineers showed up way after dark and did some compaction "studies" to make sure all is well... Minimum compaction is 95%, and ours tested at 104%. 

We are GO for forms...  Scheduled for Tuesday, but supposed to rain for the next 2 days... For now, I am SUPER elated to have the pad in place.

The Mountain of Dirt

Yesterday's blog was too long... I need to learn to hold something back...  Sorry.

Made some progress today.  The crew showed up fairly early.  It was COLD.  I suppose the Yanks will laugh at this, but there is something about Texas cold...  It cuts into you.  The temps started out in the mid 30's and kept coming down.  Tonight it is in the upper 20's, what they call a hard freeze here...  Ha.  Windy from the North, and by noon we had a pretty good clip of SNOW coming down. 

So, they dug out the sloppy part at the bottom of the pad, and surprisingly, it had pretty good hard clay dirt underneath.  I would estimate they dug out about 18 inchs.  They also dug a little on some soft spots where my daughters bedroom will be, and later on they found a spot under the garage that required further work.  The mountain of dirt that this creates was HUGE.  I am standing on the very top of this at an altitude of about 25 feet to take these pictures.  I doubt anyone will ever stand on that spot again, as after the fill is installed they will use (some) of that dirt to fill in around the edges and taper things off and create a drainage plane away from the house.  BTW, you can see from up here the shape of things, especially the gentle curve of the driveway as it swings around to the apron.  I am happy with the location.

So far, we are in the mid 30's of truckloads of dirt.  The trucks were making a round trip of about 60 minutes, and there were 7 of them or so.  You can imagine that this is not a cheap process, and one of the few things that is beyond our control.  So it takes whatever it takes to fill the hole, make a level pad, and keep all the engineers happy...

Speaking of...as the job progressed today, the field inspector for the geotech company came by to check on the status of things, take samples of the fill dirt, and have a chat with all.  He seemed pretty happy about things but didn't like the "pumping" that was happening under the garage.  The fill is interesting stuff, it is not unlike modeling clay, except has some sand content in it that keeps it from going "plastic" and when you put a bunch down together it creates a structure over the ground.  This structure moves, though, so as things drive across the top it works the soil below up and down.  This action actually causes water in the subsurface to "pump" to the top, and in this case it literally made a little pool of water on the top of the fill.  I am surprised to witness the difference in behavior between regular old dirt on the site and what they haul it.  Regular old dirt looks good for a while while it is being worked, and then it just literally breaks apart and has no structure at all.  The geotech guys will shoot some kind of penetrating beam down into the ground to determine the percentage compaction as we go. 

So, the decision was to shut down for the day, dig this area back out, and let it breathe...  I think perhaps the fact that it was Friday afternoon at about 3:30 PM had even more to do with that decision, because nothing really prevented them from working around these spots, and they have plenty more dirt to haul... 

BTW, I promised a picture of the "Mountain of Dirt"...  Here it is.

I asked a wise old plumber once how he thought something had been plumbed, and he responded "Well, it all depends on what they had on their truck..."  Human behavior perhaps drives building decisions more than we know...  Saturday weather is supposed to be cold, but perfect, mid 50's or so...   Our weather guy has been a bit off on his calls lately....

Have a great weekend.

Rain, more burning, and lots of decisions

The "Claw" at work...

First of all, this picture is NOT of what I did today, but when the clearing crew was at work a few days ago...  We had a fairly nice weekend, but on Sunday night we got some pretty good rain, then again on Tuesday, and it really rained hard.  This has created havoc here and some decisions that aren't easy to make. 

On Tuesday, we took the opportunity to go "shopping" for some things... We have to do this while the kids are at school, and it's a minimum of an hour into the big city.  So we had to hustle.  Good luck on the door, progress on figuring out the fireplaces, and unfortunate progress on the windows.  More on all of this as we approach those subjects, but here is the skinny for now... The door(s) are cool, and they will be awesome.  The fireplaces will be 1 each wood burning and 1 each "direct vent".  We originally were planning on having two wood burning fireplaces, but the house will be so "tight" that I was having doubts about getting 1 fireplace to draft, let alone two...  Direct vents, on the other hand, suck in combustion air through the outside of a double wall vent pipe, while the hot stuff goes back out through the center.  You can run them on propane or gas (we will only have propane available).  For our house, this allows us to run 1 wood burner and the direct vent at the same time, which we would probably only do if we were having a party.  The risk is that, at this party, there is cooking going on, stinky people using bathrooms (sorry, couldn't resist), and thus vent fans in the kitchen and bath could potentially put a vacuum on the house and pull smoke back down the chimney...resulting in an unhappy set of guests and even more unhappy homeowners.  One of the things I can do to help prevent this is put a limit on how many vent fans the Centralite lighting control system will allow to power whenever the house is in "Party" mode.  Ok, I am rambling... Sorry...  Wonder if I can limit the number of stinky people at my party???

Windows, YIKES...  I have been studying windows for nearly two years, and as we come up to decision time I am still not decided.  I know that I want the "pulltruded" fiberglass variety, but frankly I cannot justify the extra price of them.  The kicker is that to even get them in the ballpark for price, I had to jury rig the types to allow for SDLs (simulated divided lites), single hung here, double hung there, wood interior here, fiberglass interior over there...  Short story long... We walked into the window place and the Mrs didn't like the interior finish of the "all fiberglass" version...  So I think we are canning the fiberglass windows and opting for wood windows that are "clad" on the outside with aluminum. 

Some more about windows...  Vinyl windows are simple, they come in "normal" sizes, and you order them up and put them in. , and vary from each mfgr Some look better than others, and they are very energy efficient as compared with aluminum frames.  Fiberglass windows are cool because they are way stronger, and the coefficient of expansion for the fiberglass is about the same as the glass, so there is less "movement" between the frames and glass, and thus less chance for a seal failure.  They can be painted, and water can't hurt them.  Vinyl windows have limitations in color.  The reason is that the material itself gets hot as the colors get darker.  You Yanks up north probably don't know about heat, but down here it gets hot, and when the temperature of the vinyl gets in the 140 F range, the vinyl begins to get "melty"...  So they keep the colors light to help keep that from happening.  Wifey here wants brown windows, and I agree with here, it's the right look for the house.  Brown gets hot in the sun... 

My advice to you... Either don't care about your windows, or start trying to figure them out now... It will take a long time to get this item right (unless you have unlimited funds).

OH, went out to the lot Tuesday night to see what the rain was doing to the mud.  It wasn't pretty.  So I am poking around in the dark and the drainage ditch on the east side of my property had water in it.  First time I had seen this happen.  Well, the developers had put some silt fence in the thing at intervals to keep it from rutting out.  Good idea, except the silt fence was overflowing and the water was coming onto my pad site...  So, like a crazed animal I start hopping up and down on the silt fence trying to break it apart... No luck, that sucker is tough.  Back to the truck for the only tool I had in there, a shovel.  Tried digging under the silt fence in the water, no luck.  So I started beating on it with the shovel, in the dark, in the rain...finally got it to tear apart. 

BTW, there is some kind of poison oak or stickers over there, my hands were itching big time by the time I got home... An emergency wash with soap, water, and then alcohol...

Two Tank Hot Water Schematic

OK... one more picture...  This one is a schematic of the hot water system.  It is not the full schematic, but the one I sketched out to keep the basic principles in my tiny little brain of what I am trying to accomplish.  In a nutshell, the water comes in cold to the Desuperheater Tank, gets as warm as it can (130 F max), then hops over into the dedicated hot water tank, where the Combination Unit Ground Source Heat pump works on it some more (only to 115 F).  Then the water is distrubuted by way of manifolds.  Now, for the complicated part...  If the sun is shining, why pay to have the GSHP come on and make hot water.  So the solar is hooked up to the lower heat exchanger and heats the water all it can.  In the wintertime, I will also suck heat out of this same tank and distribute that heat through the floor heat system.  This will be accomplished with 4000 linear feet of 1/2 inch oxygen barrier pex, snaked into the concrete (hopefully) below the level of the framers nails.  The tubing is fed via two Taco XPB pumps, which have an onboard computer to determine (based on outside air temperature) what the "target" temperature of the floor needs to be to offset the amount of heat the building is losing, and thus replacing it with the appropriate amount of BTU's.  This concept is called "outdoor reset".  So rather than waiting till your dining room gets cold, then having a thermostat telling some valve or pump it needs heat...then, 12 hours later the system actually has added enough btu's into your dining room to change the 25 cubic yards of concrete under there by a measly 1/2 degree, we make that change several hours before the room actually gets cold, by predicting what that temperature will need to be to keep the room comfortable, and adjusting it before the room ever gets cold.  In the opposite situation, it starts getting warm outside, and the system is already lowering the floor temp so you don't spend money on heat you don't need.

I am rambling again...

Ok, so if the Desuperheater tank gets hotter than the water in the dedicated tank, why not mix the two together and make both tanks hot, and store more, hotter water?  This is accomplished by using a delta T controller that triggers a "mix" pump whenever this occurs.  Another trick... If someone wants hot water, and the Desuperheater tank can provide it at proper temp, why not bypass the dedicated tank (with a strategically placed mix valve) with that hot water and leave the other tank alone??  This allows the Desuperheater tank to stay colder and the dedicated tank to stay hotter.  When the desuperheater tank is cold, my effeciency on the GSHP is higher, and if the water in the dedicated tank is left undisturbed, I won't have to pay to heat that water at all... OH, the second mix valve is for two reasons... 1.  It protects users downline from potentially scalding water from the solar hot water system, and 2.  It is set at a slightly higher mix temp so there is always a "trickle" of water coming from the dedicated tank, so it doesn't stagnate.

There is also a Grundfos pump that applies a positive pressure to the hot water system when powered.  This hot water is "forwarded" to the manifolds and the furthest spot away in the house and allowed to return through the cold water side via a "Grundfos Comfort Valve."  So, when somebody far away wants hot water, they don't have to wait, nor waste water waiting for it.  The comfort valve shuts off at something like 85 F, so hot water doesn't pass to cold after the system warms up (which would waste heat).  Also, normally the Grundfos Pump would be on a timer, but my Centralite system will actually run it...

1.  Stinky person goes into bathroom, turns on light...

2.  Centralite now knows the bathroom is occupied, so the remote vent fan is activated.

3.  Hopefully the stinky person will wash their hands, so turn on the Grundfos to precharge the hot water.

4.  Stinky person leaves, hopfully turns off the light behind them...

5.  Centralite dimms the light back down to 0 %.

6.  Fan runs for 5 more minutes and then shuts down...

7.  Stinky person not so stinky anymore...

The really cool part.... I think I have a plumber and an HVAC guy that actually understands what I am trying to do....  Even though neither of them will have too much involvement other than just getting the pipes to the tanks...  I am happy with that...

Send me your comments on the TWO TANK system   And someday, if I get in an ornery mood, I'll throw in the 3 tank model schematic just for fun... 

Tomorrow they are calling for a pretty good chance of SNOW... Yes, the white kind you Yanks are so used to... I get comments all the time about my complex heating system, but in the end the thing is designed for comfort.  Keep the heat close to the floor, close to you and your little piggys...  Plus, it gives me a great way to distribute heat that I am getting from my solar hot water system...  Total cost for the radiant heat system... Probably less than $5,000.  If I screw it up and it don't work so good, the GSHP just comes on and warms up the air to whatever the wall thermostat is set to... It doesn't even know the floor heat is there.

Dirt guys are going to try for it tomorrow.  They have to dig out some of the muck and replace it with fill dirt.  I have to remeasure things and make sure the house is sitting inside all the setbacks, plus room for a future shop and pool...  I hope it all works out...

Today I burned some more brush, and in addition cut a few trees that I decided would interfere with the house.  Tonight a raging fire burns in my fireplace.  Also put up some more orange construction fence.  My buddy is building and almost done, and the last thing the landscape guys do is drive their bobcat through his trees and leave giant ruts in the mud, but it screws up the root systems on the trees, and you can't fix that.  So I guess the fence is helpful.  Also shoveled out a 50 foot or so ditch so if it does rain, the water can't get to the pad so easily...  Surprisingly easy to shovel.  I have moved the Ibuprofin to the front of the medicine cabinet.

Sorry for the long post...