ICF Day 7

On top of the 12 foot wall looking down into bedroom 2.  Matt my ICF guy is the coolest guy (and crew for that matter).  When I showed up yesterday, they had already fixed the area over at the Master Bath (lucky catch on that one).  Anyway, he casually mentions that he "moved" the windows you see in this picture.  "They looked like crap, because they weren't centered on the gable peak".  Sure enough...  My thanks to him for being proactive and just making that decision.   

Oh, now I know why they haven't glued all that stuff in place yet...

Looking down into the distance, across the Rec room, Kitchen, and in the distance the Guest room.  The larger windows on the left are 4 feet wide by 6 feet tall, and will be picture windows out the back.

Down into Bedroom 3.  That is a 10 foot plate height there, and where you see it drop on the right hand side of the picture is the shortest plate, an 8 foot plate over Bathroom 2.  The door in the left of the picture goes out to the garage, and my wife is concerned it looks short (6'8"), but I am holding my ground.  Matt did convince me to make it a 36 inch wide door, another good catch on his part...

Looking immediately over the Dining room, Foyer, courtyard, and then the 14 foot high Master Bath (which is exceptionally cool).  That's Matt off in the distance standing on the scafolding, for perspective... You can wave at him if you like, and see if he waves back. 

Study on left with windows, Living room to the right of that...

I forgot to ask Matt why there is a chunk of foam missing from the peak, but there is probably a reason.  Also, you can see how the ICF gable ends higher than the wall beside it.  That is because the extended line of the gable will go down over the outside wall, and then extend out over the soffit. 

I tried helping them yesterday by carrying some boards that were delivered.  Picked up a very green, wet 2 x 10  16 footer and promptly tripped over the concrete going into the garge.  Me and the board fell all at the same time... Fortunately, the board beat me to the ground.  Wounded my pride big time in from of the ICF crew.  So the joke was that I had done my part by carrying "part" of a board partway.  Of course they carried the other 28 and then lifted them up onto the scaffolding...  I am the weakest link...  But, since I am also paying for things, I stepped back and watched the professionals handle things. 

Except, I did bore some holes into the ICF where things need to pass through.  Hose bibs, electrical, etc. 

Last night we got dumped on with rain, so the ICF guys called it off for today.  I am headed out to check on the status of the road, and some misc. stuff. 

Looks like they will finish tomorrow, and the pour is scheduled for Monday AM... I think Matt said he had a 45 Meter pump truck coming...  5 axles, 2 to steer...  Yikes.

ICF Progress

ICF Progress, looking through the house from the rear.  Off in the distance is bedroom 2 windows, and the small window to the left will be a QUATRAFOIL window, which is a fancy way for an architect to torture an unsuspecting owner/builder into thinking such a window exists that normal people can buy.  Probably if I was a Hollywood celebrity, someone would just whip one out for me and bring it on over...  But I have resorted to finding a guy on the internet that will have to CNC machine the window frame out of a material called AZEK.  Then they have to fit the frame with tempered, insulated glass (since it lives in a shower).  Then, we have to figure out a way to fasten into the frame, and then the stucco guys have to return the stucco and blend it all together and make it look good...  hmmmm...

This is a pic from the front.  Much harder to see what is going on there because of the trees and brush.  Precisely why they are still there.    They are anywhere from 2 to 4 more feet from the top on most of this, depending on what room you are looking at.

Another shot from the front...  The wall that has no windows in it will eventually have windows, 7 arched windows around the top of that room will allow light down into the master bathroom, but those windows sills are 10 feet off the ground, and the ICF isn't that high yet...   The large buck to the right is the entry door, which is a rough opening of about 6 feet wide by about 9 feet tall.  The iron doors will go there.  Speaking of which, the iron door guy sneaked up on me the other day and scared the crap out of me.  He made it to within about 1 foot of me, on the other side of a wall I was poking around, pulled up my head, and there he was...  The door really looks good on CAD, and we are ready to get that ordered.  One of the tough things about ICF is figuring out what to do with all the extra depth of wall.  In this case, we are using a 12 inch thick door jamb, which will have a drywall return on one side for about an inch, and the jamb will extend outside about 2 inches, and the stone will come up to the jamb.  Another issue was that the arched door sits inside an archway over two interior columns, so we had to use some Kinematics (just kidding, had a college flashback) to figure out how high to make everything so they don't collide... 

Courtyard windows on left, then entry door in center, and then dining room windows (6 windows mulled together) will sit to the right.  From this angle, when the house is done, you won't be able to see the front door from here much, because it will sit in behind stone archways that go way up about 16 feet in the air.  So to see the door, you will have to look through the arch.  The courtyard windows are spread pretty far in appearance from the outside, but they will actually be centered inside along the gallery and flanked by columns.  We are contemplating a fountain in the courtyard between the windows... Just a small wall type...

Rear of the house now.  ICF has another foot or so to go on top of windows.  These aren't centered because in the right corner there will be a built in of some sort, so the windows get shifted over. 

Finally, a shot from the road.  To you, this shot means nothing.  To  me, I see the repair to the road that was forced upon us after it was torn up by all the concrete trucks.  We decided on concrete "washout" as it was cheaper than some of the other alternatives, but supposed to set up really hard.  Washout comes from the concrete plant and is basically the junk they wash out of the plant and trucks that runs into a pit.  It waits there all wet and nasty until they dig it out.  So, what you get is rocks, sand, cement, and water.  It was very wet, and about the consistency of concrete when it showed up.  The dirt guys played around with it trying to get it smoothed out for a couple of hours...  Anyway, after almost a week it is mostly dry, and seems to be supporting the weight of little trucks pretty well.  I am very nervous about it and more concrete pumpers and trucks.  To make matters worse, we have a weather front that is supposed to completely dump on us Thursday night.  Friday is when they would like to pour....  The good news about the "washout" is that it can be reshaped and moved around, eventually it will be moved around and provide a stable base for the concrete driveway. 

I am still surprised that you can't see much of the house from the street.  Eventually, we will clear out some more of the brush. 

So far, though, it is looking good.

ICF Day 2

Window Buck

No, not Uncle Buck, a window buck.

Don't ask me why they call them that, but this is what one looks like.  Actually, since we are doing the 3 inch recess the 2x4 section on the top and bottom plus a sliver of extra wood on the sides will come off after they pour.  This particular window is in the Master Toilet, and will be a 20 inch wide by 30 inch tall window (smallest window I could get that made sense for this space).  The largest buck is on the dining room window, which is now a mulled unit at 7 feet wide by 8 feet tall.  It has an awful lot of bracing in that unit to withstand the pressure of the concrete that will be above it coming down from the header across that window.  The opening at the bottom of the buck allows them to shovel in concrete in case it doesn't get filled from the sides, as well as get their "consolidator" concrete vibrator in there to make sure there are no voids in the concrete.  Pretty cool, eh.

The ICF guys spent most of the day again with more layout issues, positioning all the ICF over the slab and then measuring out where all the windows and doors will be.  I heard a rumor that their form braces are on another job waiting for a pour, so we may not go too far beyond what you see for a while.  Today they actually glued down the bottom course with a foam adhesive to the slab.  In some places they have placed the ICF forms slightly past the slab to allow for things not perfectly square, or in other cases to make things come out to an even inch increment.  I am hoping this won't cause too much trouble for the framers??  We have a lot of critical dimensions inside the house, primarily where all the columns get arches and groin ceilings on top of them.  But, in that area I think the ICF is sitting pretty much where it should be. 

A closeup of a corner form.  Every little square you see is 1 inch square.  There are lines right on the block so they can measure things and mark out things right on the block.  This block has had it's corner clipped so we could study the angle web that is in place (evidently a newer version of Reward block).  This is there so you can attach an interior wall right to it with screws.  Otherwise, you would screw into the foam and grab nothing.  The interior wall really isn't acting on the ICF wall much in terms of force, as it is really held in place by the bottom and top plates.  But, attaching at the mid point keeps the wall from bowing in and out, so this is a nice touch by Reward to include this feature.

Finally, I finished the electric plugs I promised just as the sun was going over the hill.  I had to wait till everybody was gone and not dependent on the electric.  Reworked the temp pole putting a strain releif tie where the romex entered the box, and then wired up both outlets, one on a pole, and the other on a portable stake that can be moved around.  The light you see I wired into a day/night sensor and then on top a 12 watt outdoor CFL bulb.  Puts off quite a bit of light for that wattage.  My iphone didn't like taking pictures in light like this, as it lit up the work area better than I thought.  Working with 10 gage wire is not what I am used to, and stuffing all that into a shallow box was pretty tough.  Wifey let me buy a new lithium powered drill before Christmas, though, and it was happy to screw all that stuff down lickety split...  he he he...

In this picture, you can see how the ICF terminates on top of the slab.  Also you can see the bottoms of where the windows will be in Bedroom 3.  At some point, they have to take off the corners of course 2 and weave rebar into place under that.  I think that will slow them down quite a bit tomorrow.  There was quite a bit of that already cut out there and laid in place all around the perimeter.

I am noticing more visitors at this stage.  I can't tell you the last ICF house I know of that was built in this area.  You don't normally hear about them because they aren't "mainstream" houses.  Talking to builders before we chose our path, maybe 2/3 of them had even heard of ICF, but none had used it.  That would be the 10 or so builders in town that are typically chosen for these types of projects.  They are used to a different set of challenges, and with the things we chose to depart the "norm" with on our project, I just couldn't justify paying them their fees for what they do when I would have been on site most of the time anyway.   They do make pretty houses, though.

I always want to be clear about how I view these "popular" builders.  I see houses made that basically suck in terms of different particular things, insulation, HVAC, electrical, plumbing... to just get me going.  It is funny to hear stories about "good" builders and "bad" builders.  Normally, the definition of these builders is more based on how they interacted with their clients rather than what was actually built.  Most of their customers have very little idea what the meat of a house is or should be, so you can't only blame the builders for their shortcomings in the areas I mentioned above.  Most of them know exactly how to do a lot of things better, it just isn't in the budget that drives the marketplace.  Although I am a strict advocate of capitalismn, I think that there are some areas here that would be better served by everybody if there was more stringent requirements on the "bones" of residential and commercial construction.   The popular builders get continually driven to make things prettier and not always better. 

One certain exception to this trend, however, has been the expansion of use of foam for insulation systems.  Spray foam in attic and sometimes (hopefully) walls has become much more popular with these upper end builders.  Interestingly, this trend has been driven by consumers rather than the builders themselves, of which most had to be practically begged into it.  Regardless, this change is triggering other positive things to happen as well, and more customers are asking hard questions like properly sizing HVAC systems and better designed pluming systems.  Our local MLS is even listing the "type" of insulation on home listings.... Even though the realators don't have even a slight clue what this means, not to mention the accuracy of the information (wet blown fiberglass or cellulose does not make spray foam).  But it indicates a finger of change.

So, in the end, the best builders may actually be saved by their own clients....rather than the other way around.  It is funny now to hear the sales pitch from the builder to clients on spray foam systems...  A complete 180...  Hmmm

And, I have to get one more cut in on ONE particular builder, who after hearing my explanation of the reasons for GEO over Air Source, asked me the question, "Why would I pay 2500 dollars per ton installed when I could pay 1500 dollars per ton for a traditional unit??"

My answer......   "Because, Sir, you don't pay for a single utility bill after your client moves in"

Rant Over...

OH, for Danny a a few others here in town, if you are reading this...  it doesn't apply to you.  Keep up the good work.

The Igloo Has Arrived

Straight ICF by Reward Walls

These are corner pieces

Standing in the Bedroom Looking West

Master Wing looking SSW

Corner pieces laid out on what will be the front of the house as it zigs and zags in and out.  The dropped area is the courtyard and front entry just beyond it.  Notice the mud on the slab is from the removal of the forms the other day. 

The big Igloo is here.

Tons to report on today, and a lot happened, but it is late and I am tired...  Here are the highlights

ICF guys were there and ICF was on site when I arrived this morning.  Passed the semi on the way out so I was as giddy as a schoolchild when I arrived to find all kinds of activity.

They had to hand carry all the ICF (light), wood for window frames (heavy) and rebar (really heavy) down through the mud, as neither trucks could risk getting into the driveway.

ICF guys worked through the day cutting the window frames (called bucks).  Which is a more complicated process than normal because I have asked them to allow me to "recess" the windows into the ICF 3 inches.  So they are building an 8 inch box, and another box that attaches to fill in the remainder of space during the pour.  After the pour the little box will be removed, and then the windows will be set 3 inches behind the face of the outside wall.  Cool eh...

They also did a lot of layout and even stacked some blocks, but I think what they stacked didn't have any rebar or ties in it yet.  They have red lines all around the perimeter where everything will go...  A large task in itself...  My wife says they look like somebody was playing around in their garage after Christmas with those plastic things Christmas lights come wrapped around, and hooked some up to an old styrofoam cooler.  Perhaps she is right...

We decided the dining window arrangement of 6 windows would not work as independent windows (too close for ICF) and I don't want to add a bunch of wood framing, so I headed to the window place to find out if they could all be "mulled" together and the whole unit set as one...  YES.    So with new rough opening dimensions in hand I headed back to the lot.

Also met with my dirt/bulldozer guy to look at the road.  Ouch, more than I thought to repair (materials), but it has to be done.  He wants to get in tomorrow for his schedule, so I had a huge pile of concrete chunks I wanted to throw into the driveway tracks (costs by the ton to have them hauled as trash, might as well use them for this task).... Hey, I think I did something green...  Actually, about 4000 pounds of green, through the muck.  Kind of stupid for an old man to be lugging around that weight in the mud.

Also hooked up some temporary electrical outlets down by the slab.  Actually just got one partially done.  Had to wire into the temp pole while it was hot, as there is no way to shut the power down inside the box itself.  Something I shouldn't do, but had to be done anyway.  The 10/2 wire I provided was way better than long extension cords, which have quite a voltage drop on that distance (in excess of 200 feet).  Not good for their tools, and it keeps everybody from having to walk through the trees and bushes.  Only got one little baby zap...  Insulated pliers on an insulated wire...  Got me anyway...  I lived.

OH, I had one pressure manifold that was losing about a pound a day.  2 days ago I messed with the manifold trying to find if it was leaking there... Well, today the pressure was still stable at 58 PSI... Good.

OH, almost forgot.  When I got there this morning the concrete guys were back and they had a wacky hydraulic thing that tensioned all the cables.  I was so busy with the ICF stuff that I never got over to talk to them, and they were gone lickety split.  Anyway, they tensioned the post tension cables.  Each cable came out of the slab easily 10 to 12 inches.... Crap.... That is a lot of force...  I guess somebody sometime will come out and cut those off and then mortar over the concrete and dress it up?  I never asked.

OH, stop starting your paragraphs with OH's.  My old English teacher wouldn't like that.  Well, she never liked me anyway, which is why I just called her old.

OK, off to bed.  More electrical work for me tomorrow. 

Dirt guy isn't coming till the following day now.  Good chance of rain that day.  I think the ICF guys will be here all week except Friday.  They have a lot to do.

Done...

Just kidding....

Actually, I spent the last few days resting and planning in my small mind what needs to happen next.  There is a lot of phone calls to be made. 

The picture above was taken from a Parade of Homes in San Antonio a few years back.  That particular Parade of Homes was really neat, and we have tried to incorporate a lot of their ideas into our design... 

A Cantera fountain in front of a home in Phoenix... Love the classic design...

Ok, so enough screwing around on here... 

My project for the day is to figure out what kind of penetration to make in the ICF for the following items..

1.  Direct Vent Fireplace

2.  Master Shower Vent fan (this has to vent sideways out into the courtyard)

3.  Geothermal lines.

4.  Hose bibs.

5.  Gun Turrets (just kidding)

OH, I tried breaking up some of the loose concrete here and there yesterday with my sledge hammer.  Also tried breaking up some of the "Washout".  I was able to break some of it up, but anything very large in diameter was futile. 

Also talked to my dozer guy and he has a different plan than I envisioned, and I like it.  He is going to bring in some "bull rock", or what he called 4 x 6, and then spread that into the existing tracks.  Then dress the driveway back up over the top of that.  He says the bull rock will provide much better footing and distribute the weight out better.  Hope it works. 

1.2 Million Pounds of Chunky Liquid Gray

At least that's what my little sister said, at 4000 pounds per cubic yard. 

To put yesterday in words would be impossible.  Crew showed up at 0700, and then spent the better part of 3 hours getting things ready... closing off the drainage trenches, shoring things up, moving my precious orange fence around...   It was pretty cold still so I was happy to wait a few hours so we wouldn't be pouring sub 40 degree concrete.  By the time the pumper showed up, and then finally the concrete behind him, it was approaching 11 AM and mid 50 degree temps under a beautiful purple/blue sky... Perfect everything...

Let me say that I don't think you can run an operation this big (and don't get me wrong, I'm not running it, I was a spectator for this one...) and not have problems.  Nothing in the concrete business appears to be small or light.  Everything you can touch is heavy, sharp, wet, or nasty.  The guys that do this work amaze me.  It's one thing to see a 24 year old guy down there, but some of these guys are approaching 50 and do this every day.  They are strong, but ultimately only the smart ones survive it...  You can see it in how the older guys work.  They are more patient...

So yes, a few problems.  At one point a concrete truck got stuck by backing too far into the washout, which we were able to fix by moving some plastic around so the trucks didn't have to back up so far.  And at the end of the day, the pumper had some trouble getting off the site.  He weighs 80,000 pounds.  His front axle is a double steer, and a rear twin tandem.  He gets about 6 mpg in diesel down the road.  I found out the hard way that he is completely covered in oil (actually a release agent) that keeps concrete from binding to him.  He looked clean, but by the time I climbed up on top I had realized my mistake...slippery. 

An impressive sight.  He has a remote control pack of switches, which he uses to control his arm, about 130 feet out there in this case.  I can't remember the actual rating, but he was telling me that pumpers are measured from the ground to the boom as it is standing straight up.  Which he actually had pretty far up in the air at one point while getting his boom uncurled.

The concrete supplier started out slow, but by the end of the pour it was one right after the next. 

My red tubing took a whoopin' for sure.  The concrete falls from the high point in the boom, but mostly that last 10 feet through the rubber hose on the end, and it is flying fast as it comes out the end.  You can be splattered with concrete at 30 feet away...  All that weight hitting the tubing, and then the guys standing on the cables and tubes while they moved it around was abusive to say the least.  Yet, it had to be done, so I nervously watched my pressure gages from about 25 feet (yea, you got that one, about 5 feet too close).  Even today the pressure is still holding on all 4 manifolds.  Although I do have one suspect that is about 2 PSI lower than the rest???  In retrospect we probably should have tied the tubing down with wire instead of cable ties.  The reason we didn't was that the engineers were balking at ANYthing being tied to the cables.  So the compromise was the cable ties, as they wouldn't be strong enough to resist the eventual tensioning of the cables (7 days from now). 

My fear with the tubing is that although it didn't break, I am pretty sure it got moved around significantly.  Could be enough to get it under a wall surface, where it could get poked by a framing nail.  The other problem could be that it got kinked over the top of a cable.  That being said, I never witnessed either while watching the pour. 

For those interested in a radiant system, I would suggest you tie with wire ties and a hand twister.  I experimented with a pull twister but that didn't tie very good, and seemed better at breaking wire and launching them across the garage.  The little 5 dollar twister would work well. 

At one point, we had 13 guys out finishing.  By the end of the night (about 10 PM) they were down to 3.

This is from the back of the house.  I figured they would start the pour on the opposite side of the house and work towards the pumper, but I would be normally wrong.  Turns out you want to set the concrete first that you want to work the finish the most on... Garage and porches.  Yet at the same time, you also want to place the concrete above the floats so they can work on that as well.  So they were really all over the place, and the management of the operation pretty much goes to the guy holding the hose at the other end.

Now, if you think he is just standing there watching the concrete come out, you would be wrong.  The thing is moving around fairly wildly, and it's a minimum 100 pound push to get that hose to go anywhere.  Ultimately it will only go if the boom operator moves it, so they are using hand signals back and forth as they go.  I didn't notice it 'till the end of the day, but this guy was the only one to duct tape his pants where they go into his boots.  Obviously he did this for a reason.  They could dump a 10 yard concrete truck in a few minutes, and this stuff could bury you alive...  or seriously get into your boots;-)

You can see the "waffle" effect of the beams well from up here.  And I will never fall in one of these again.

Should have duct taped my movie camera to the end of this thing and had him twist that around up there in space... 

Here are some finished shots from today...

The concrete "dowels" or rebar that you see sticking up is for the ICF walls.  They 5/8 inch rebar spaced every 18 inches or so, and will tie the floor to the walls, mostly for shear forces, as I doubt there will be much tension.  One advantage for sure of the ICF is it creates a "box" structure on both sides of the slab, which makes everything super strong...

By the way, my wife and I were in complete joy to find the simple act of walking around now on the house without cables, tubes, and ditches in the way.  She is a tad challenged in the department of conceptualizing space, and I think she is now getting a real view of the shape and size of things, and we are likin' it.  The kids were funny running around on the slab, and standing in their future showers pretending to be clean.  I am still nervous to have them out there, though.  Every piece of wood has nails in it, every rebar end as sharp as a razor, and if it's gray it's either concrete or mud, but you sometimes have to step into it to figure that out...   Being city kids, though, this is a good experience for them. 

And finally, the sad part... My road didn't hold up so well.  Fortunately, my tube survived.  Looks like I have to get a dozer back in to clean things up a bit...  That's close to 5 million pounds of stuff up and down this road in 5 hours.  That's abusive.

Enjoy the rest of your week... next monday... ICF begins... the big IGLOO...   Looks like I'll have to have that road fixed before I can get another (even bigger) pumper in for that operation, but certainly a lot less concrete... 

Keep checking back!

Getting Ready for the Concrete

Well, headed out to the lot this morning after a long nap...  Laid down on my son's bed and then the cat came and "zapped" me...  Anyway, I got to the lot later than I had planned. 

Didn't really have much planned but to stare at all the stuff that would get covered up tomorrow, but in the end, I worked my rear end off out there.

First order was to fix the little valve I broke the other night in the cold.  I had just sheared off the metal pin between the handle and the ball valve.  Then I plugged the drain hole from the other day and filled the standpipe all the way to the top.  Walked around and looked for leaks... Nope... (so I thought).

So then, tried to get as much water and ice off things as I could.  The ice chunks were pretty huge considering they had had lots of time to melt.  I tried to take a picture with my foot in it so you could compare size.  These came out of the plastic sheeting covering the perimeter of things.

It took about an hour, but I was able to finally get all the plastic pulled back from around the edge of the slab.  My thinking was get the thing opened up so it could at least breathe some tonight and get plenty warm before the concrete hits it tomorrow morning.

Researching concrete "cures", it appears that when you freeze concrete, it stops the curing process and greatly weakens the concrete for life.  There are work arounds to this, but in short warm, not cold, not hot.  Ice is also a problem because it is cold and also can create a "void" in the concrete.  I think we will have pretty good weather for this whole operation...40's by the time they pour, warming to almost 60 tomorrow, and then the actual concrete temperature should stay between 50 to 55 degrees for the next week.  It is even supposed to mist and rain starting a few days after the pour... perfect.

So, I am just about to head out, and standing over by the Master Bath, and I hear a hissing sound...  Hmmm... Too cold for rattlesnakes (but one can never dismiss that possibility)...  After searching around, I finally find another hole in a pipe...  It wasn't leaking water, but rather air from the system being under pressure.  I really had to dig around because the air was actually coming out of the roofing mastic they had smeared all over one of the pipes...  Dang... So, with the sun going down in 1 hour, I am off to HD again for another part....  It is just a pinhole leak, but rather fix it the easy way...

While at HD, I also picked up the stuff to run power all the way down to the house from the T pole.  I think I will run two outlets on stakes, and also picked up some stuff to put a dusk to dawn light on a pole out there.  Not sure what the light will do, but I must say it is pretty creepy out there in the pitch black of night.  Hope I don't get zapped while hooking all this up... There isn't really a shut off on the meter, just breakers, and I need to be inside that box to hook it up...  bbbbzzzzzzzttttttt.

Ok, I know you just log on to look at pictures, which so far have been pretty boring...  Here is another boring picture... These are the electrical floor boxes...  Not exactly rocket science to hook these up, eh...  And builders charge you a ton for stuff like this...  dang.

These are in the Rec room by the way, fed through the dining room wall.  Had to get power under what will be the air hockey table...  The other one will be in their little theatre area.

Ok, the concrete guys say they will start pouring at 10 am, and have the concrete in place by 1 pm...  I am sure they will play with it for hours after that... At some point I have to get the wife and kids over there to make our mark somewhere in the concrete...  Have to come up with some cool saying, like "One Small Step for Man..."  has somebody used that one??

I hope tomorrow goes smooth... But even if it doesn't, I will never have to look at all these cables and red tubing ever again.  Nor have to walk across this stuff to retrieve whatever tool I forgot out there in the middle somewhere... 

Wish us luck...

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...