Concrete Floors

June 18

I headed up to the lot about 9:30am and arrived just in time to see the cement truck pulling away.  As I got to the basement I saw that 7/8 of the basement floor was poured and leveled. 

The sub told me that because our footings were a little deeper than they are used to (because of the radiant heat) they ran out of concrete and were waiting for a second load to come.  He also said he'd have to pour the garage in two separate pours because of the raised area in the larger garage.

You can see how deep the concrete floor is going to be.  This was a great relief to us because now we are not worried that the framers will puncture a tube when they install the sill plates for the walls.


When we came back later in the afternoon it was all finished.  The landing area in the garage looks great.  This is where we will keep our extra freezer.  We will eventually install a sink here too.  This raised level should help keep the leaves and garage debris down in the garage and out of the house.

One more overhead shot.  When we came back the next morning we saw a large crack running across the entire floor.  Luckily, it will be covered up by carpeting so we don't really care. 

Soon we'll have walls up in the garage and we won't be able to take these overhead pictures.  Which, for Noah's safety, is a very good thing.  He is way too brave and we worry about him stepping right off the garage floor and falling.

Just in case you wondered, the pressure in the PEX held up just fine.  In fact, the pressure went up just a little bit while the concrete was curing which we thought was interesting. 

While we were there the first load of our lumber arrived!  Noah loved watching the driver maneuver his fork lift and when he stopped to talk to us for a minute Noah was ready to jump up in the cab and drive.

Faux Manifold

June 13
Wednesday morning, Mark and Emily met us at the lot to help us finish up the last four zones.  We had to reconfigure the last zone in the family room area a bit so we didn't run out of PEX tubing.  In the guest bedroom we tried to deviate from my design, but realized that it needed to go down exactly as planned.  Rob and I actually got out our Sharpie and measuring tape and drew out several quick lines and arrows so we'd know where to lay the tube.  We were surprised at how much more quickly we were able to finish the layout doing it that way.  Too bad we waited to figure that out until we only had one and a half zones left to finish.

Mark and I went back over the whole floor with the stapler to make sure there were staples about every two feet.  There were some stretches of tubing where the staples were close to five feet apart and because the tube is full of air it would have floated to the top of the concrete while it was curing.

While we did that, Rob and Emily finished up the details on the manifold.  The sub who is going to create the real manifold and connect all our tubing to the boiler asked us to make sure the tubes were labeled with the zone and the loop.  Emily colored the supply side of the loop red to indicate that it was the hotter water.  The return side of the loop was colored blue to indicate cooler water.  The water doesn't really change temperature that significantly but it does make it easier to tell the tubes that belong together in the loop.  If I'd been able to create a "perfect" design the tubes would have gone red blue red blue red blue and so on. 

We needed to fit all the tubing into a two foot space.  Unfortunately, part of that space was right on top of a monolithic footing so that gave Rob about a foot and a half to work in.  He could have started the first loop an inch or two closer to the footing but as it turned out he ended the last loop at exactly the two foot mark.  He used the conduit to line the tubing up in order and hold them in place for the concrete pour.

This is the back side of Rob's design.  Dad suggested that we run the loop for the little bedroom straight back through the manifold and under the wall.  Doing this kept the two tubes out of the mechanical room, out of the doorway (that was already crowded) and out of the hallway that was already going to be super warm due to all the other loops running through there.  It also gave the tubing a straight shot from the boiler to the room instead of turning three corners before it started heating the room.  Our builder said if we wanted to do that we should run the tube through a metal conduit to offer protection from any nails that might go through the stud wall into the concrete floor.

Here is Rob standing proudly next to his creation.  The outer pieces of rebar hold up the 2"x4"s.  The bottom 2"x4" has holes drilled through it for the tubing to run through which keeps it from flopping around and ending up in the concrete.  The top piece of wood is for stability.  There are two short pieces of rebar holding the conduit tightly together and the rebar tied crosswise behind the conduit helps everything stay up.  I was impressed!

Mark and Emily were standing next to the manifold while we were starting to clean up.  For fun, Mark blew into one tube to see if he could blow on Emily.  The air came through (just as it should have).  Rob decided this was a good way to do a basic pressure test so he capped off one end with his thumb and blew into the other end.  He had done about three loops when he realized we were paying the heating contractor to do this and he didn't need to become lightheaded trying to prove we did a good job.

The next day the heating contractor capped off one end of all the tubes, hooked the other ends together and installed a pressure valve.  Basically, this will stay on until the boiler is installed.  We can watch this valve as the basement is finished to make sure none of the tubes are damaged.  It's reassuring to know that we will be able to see immediately if there is any damage that will need to be repaired so our heating will work as it is meant to.

Next up, Concrete!

All in a Day's Work

June 12
After being rescheduled twice it was finally time to get our radiant heat installed in the basement.  Monday evening (after FHE ended), Rob and I went up to the lot and moved most of the bundles of XPS right next to the foundation so we would be ready to start the next morning.  Rob and I picked up Granddad around 8:00 am, borrowed a couple of tools from Laurie and Bryce and were working by 8:30.  We couldn't have had more perfect weather.  My sister, Karen, showed up about an hour later.  That ended up being the perfect crew for our first full day of work.

We started in the northwest corner of Rob's office and dropped full sheets of XPS insulation.  By the way - the printing on the foamboard is not permanent and it will stain your fingers, or your clothes, or your hat if it is even the slightest bit wet.  We discovered that putting a board on our head and balancing it was the easiest way to move them.  They weren't a bit heavy, just a little bulky as they were 4'x8' (by 2")

The first part went down super quickly and according to plan. 

Once we had all the full size boards down we went back and filled in the gaps.  We wanted to leave as few as possible without excess waste of the boards. 

We were glad to have Dad supervising because of his knowledge in this area.  If it had been up to me, I would have rearranged the boards so we could cut larger pieces and have fewer smaller pieces to fit in.  He convinced us it would be just fine to fit the puzzle pieces together and that it would do as well a job insulating.  Doing it his way allowed us to have enough foam board left to insulate our cold storage room.  (disclaimer - it still bothered me to see the little bits and pieces fit in here and there, but I tried to remind myself it was good enough and I'd never know the difference once the concrete was poured)

We had to leave the foam board off the monolithic footings and we also had to leave it off the area where the footings still needed to be poured to connect with the foundation.  It was odd to step on that area as the gravel base sloped away at that point and the foam board was definitely bouncy.  It also made it difficult to staple the tubing down as the board flexed when we pushed the stapler down.

We had all the insulation down around lunch time so we texted Jesse.  He wanted to help us lay out the walls.  His spray paint is orange.  Ours is green.  I'd been working on this for so long that I wanted to paint the lines for the walls and doorways.  This is important so we know where to run the PEX.

We had the spray paint out and were joking about tagging the walls (kind of like we did the cement) since it was going to be all covered over with insulation and sheetrock anyway.  Karen talked me out of doing it, but I was able to convince Grandad to do a little tag.  Isn't it cute!  Now we'll always have a little bit of Granddad & Grandma's love in our home.
 

B+B

Once we had all the walls and doors marked it was time to lay out the PEX.  Maybe someday I'll do another post extolling all the virtues of this tubing but for now I'll just say I'm glad someone invented it because we wouldn't have been able to make this work without it.

We started in the study and then worked our way into the family room before we finished for the day.  We were able to get four loops down our first day which left four loops for the second day.

Rob built a nifty little fake manifold to support and organize the tubes as they come into the mechanical room.  This was one impressive piece of work!

In the picture above you can see the three loops (six tubes) going through the doorway into Rob's office.  This is the door that will open to the audio-video rack.  He's doing a great job on that design and will hopefully put together a post with those details.

This is how our basement looked at the end of the first day.  We were so pleased with all we had been able to accomplish and were so grateful that Granddad and Karen came to help. 

The insulation works because it was definitely warmer standing on it then it was standing in the backyard area.  Rob thought ahead and brought our little 10'x10' shelter which was perfect as it gave us a shady place to take a break every once in awhile and to eat the lunch that Grandma so graciously picked up for us.

At one point, Karen looked up and saw a sundog (a rainbow circling the sun).  That was pretty amazing to see, but then we realized that it was a double sundog.  Granddad started talking about ice crystals in the sky, but I preferred to consider it a blessing on our day and on our home.

Hydronics Layout

This is part of what I've been spending my time designing. 

First, Rob and I had to figure out how many zones we wanted in the basement.  Each zone is controlled by a thermostat, so all the rooms or areas in that zone would be consistently heated. 

We decided we wanted the office to be one zone, the family room and bathroom would be a second zone and the bedrooms would be a third zone.

Then, Ray (over at Peterson Plumbing Supply) worked up our heat loss calculation.  This is determined by several factors including the size of the room, how many exterior walls there are, and the number and size of windows and doors.  I know there is more than that, but that's the simple version.

He determined how many loops of PEX we need for each zone, how long each of those loops need to be and the distance they need to be laid from each other. Then I took those calculations and started to design the best way to fit the linear feet of tubing into each room - from the boiler - through the room - back to the boiler in one continuous loop without crossing the lines.  Each colored line in my drawing represents one loop.  We had two loops in zone 1, two loops in zone 2 and four loops in zone 3.

 

If we had an exterior wall that wasn't covered by earth (which is two and one half walls of our basement) we needed to run the PEX closer to the exterior wall (two lines of PEX at 6" centers) and that tubing needed to be the line that came directly out of the boiler so it would be the hottest.  As we moved into the interior of the room we were able to space the tubing at 12" centers.  I couldn't run the PEX too close to the walls.  I needed to run it through doorways and not under walls.  I had to avoid the areas where cabinets were going to be installed.  All of those factors played into how the design came together.

Some of the rooms were easier to configure than others and some of the areas I got too fussy about trying to make it perfect.  Also, you can't bend PEX too tightly or it will kink so all those square corners are really rounded corners but VISIO doesn't do curves too well (at least not in a way that makes it easy for me to caluclate linear feet). 

It was nice to have the design laid out ahead of time.  We had to make a few adjustments as we worked but overall we stayed pretty true to the design. 

Gravel and Grading

June 11
Today was another exciting day where we could really start to see the house take shape and get a feel for how we will be able to use and utilize our lot.  I'm still in "Goldilocks" mode...

The house is too big ...

The house is just right.

The lot is too big ...

The lot will be just right.

I went up first thing in the morning and they were just starting to grade the lot and bring in the gravel.  The guys from Savage were super friendly.  They introduced themselves and answered the two quick questions I had.  Then we chatted for awhile about what was happening.  I could tell they really liked their work.  I like that the people who are building our home take pride in their work.  It makes us feel good about the quality of work they bring to this job and I believe it leaves good vibes in our home too.

Watching these big trucks maneuver is pretty amazing.  I don't even like to back up in our little truck and have never backed up a trailer in my life.  I also realized that I'm glad we were the first house built on our corner of the street.  I don't know how many times these trucks drove up onto the lot next door, but that can't be good for their soil compaction.  (remind me I said that when the trucks and machines are working next door making noise and dust)

I wasn't able to stay long enough to watch them throw the gravel into the basement.  They use a big truck that basically is a super conveyor belt and the driver has such good control of the flow and the direction that the guy in the pit just has to do a little raking.  We had a crazy busy day, our lights were being delivered, I had to run to Sam's Club to get dessert for our FHE group (which meant I also had to make time to clean the house before they arrived) so I had to leave just as they were getting the conveyor truck loaded up.

But, the light delivery went easier then expected (except for the damaged lights - but that's another post),  the trip to Sam's was successful and living in a small apartment means we can get it spic and span in almost no time (hmmm....back to "the house is tooo big"?). 

So, Rob & I headed back up to see the progress.  When we got to the lot there were only two men left with their front loaders working on the grade.  (hah - I had to google to find out the difference between bulldozers and front loaders - these have wheels, not tracks so they are loaders)

I had so much fun watching these guys work.  They know exactly how close to get to the edge of the foundation before turning.  They can dump their load with precision.  They work at an area for a while and when they are finished we have a lovely, useable space.

This first picture is the loader that was working at the bottom of the lot.  Here you can see he is just starting to create the pile that will be on our property line.  He'll move the dirt piled up by our gully.  He'll move the dirt piled up behind Rob's office and will attack the pile behind the family room from the bottom.

This guy is moving the dirt from the top of the lot.  He's taking the dirt and putting it near our property line and a little bit onto the lot next door. You can see he's already moved the pile behind the garage and is starting to work on the pile behind the family room.



The loader working on the bottom of the lot again.  You can get a better idea of the soil he has to relocate.  Once he had the pile near the gully area moved he started to work towards the house.  He kept the dirt out of the gully, he didn't break any of our tree branches off AND he didn't fall in the gully.  Somehow, even when he was backing up he knew exactly where he was.  I didn't see him turn around once.  He just kept moving (except when he stopped to take a phone call).  The pile closest to the family room is partially carried away and partially knocked down into the gap.  They really want to fill most of that gap with gravel so he was pretty deliberate about how much soil he allowed down in that gap.  Again, the control of these operators is astounding.  If I were responsible for moving that dirt it would be in the gap, covering the nice level gravel in the family room, or I would have backed up into the gully and fallen in. 

I thought these two pictures were fun because you can see the grade change from the garage level to the walk-out basement level. 

And, Look! 

We have our own little Alp.

Of course it didn't last long.

Here you get a nice overview of the basement floor.  With the gravel down we had a much better idea of what we needed to do when it was time to lay down the XPS insulation.  We will have to fit it around all of those monolithic footings and the plumbing stacks.  I am standing in the single car garage, looking over the wall where the tv will be.  You can see the corner of the double car garage and the outline of our cold cellar. 

This is a quick picture of the thermostatically controlled vent that will go into our cold storage room.  It will automatically close when the temperature drops below a certain level (we still have to find out what that is).  I forgot to ask if it runs on batteries.  There will be no power in that room so it must.  I am so new to the idea of having a cold storage room that I didn't even realize we had to open and close the vent depending on the weather.

Here we have a nice shot of the front of the house with the preliminary grade finished.  The horizontal black line is the approximate level of the sidewalk from the driveway to the front porch.  There will be one or two steps from the sidewalk to the porch.  (Jesse promised!)  I didn't want to have to climb a bunch of steps to get into our house and I didn't want to have to worry about shoveling them in the winter either.

The arrows indicate the slope.  The yellow rectangle is about where our front door will be.  We'll have a nice rock retaining wall where the yellow blobs are.  Hooray!  My desire for a rock garden is going to be more than adquately satisfied with this yard.  In fact, we'll have to add some rocks in the back too, next to the deck area.  I want to be smart when we landscape this yard.  I want it to be water wise and practical. 

Jesse asked us some very specific questions about the final grade we want on the lot and since we didn't realize we had control over that Rob and I were both a little caught off guard.  Oh boy!  Another thing to study and imagine and plan.  Luckily, he said we have a little bit of time to think about it. 

Anyone know a landscape architect who works for free?  Or for really good cheesecake?

Isn't this pretty?  Just a nice view of our garages, dropping down to our basement and look how lovely the valley is this spring.

The Doors

Rob and I wanted doors at his office that he could shut; if it got too messy and he wanted it "out of sight out of mind" or if he needed privacy or quiet, or just wanted to keep busy grandchildren out if necessary (although that hasn't been a problem yet). 

Even though his office is long enough for the doors to swing in we didn't want them hung that way because they would block access to the video rack.  We didn't want the doors swinging into the family room either because we didn't want to worry about impeding on the pool table area. 

I was hoping we could do pocket doors, but those are more expensive to install and can be troublesome down the road.  We waffled with different ideas for a while and considered going with narrower French Doors so the swing wouldn't be so wide.  While browsing the internet we saw some examples of sliding barn doors and immediately recognized that this was a perfect solution. 

 (Both of these images are from realcarriagedoors.com)

It's a fun way to add character while being practical and useful. 

Check out the gallery of doors at this website

Our builder suggested a company that we could purchase our hardware from, but frankly, it was too boring for us so I hunted down some other options.  Once we had decided on the hardware we were going to use to mount the doors we needed doors.

Rob's brother-in-law, Bryce, is an accomplished woodworker so we asked him if he would consider helping us make some doors.  He was willing but we hadn't even really gotten into working out details when Rob asked if it wasn't possible to purchase existing doors and not worry about the hassle and potential difficulty of building doors from scratch.

I'd been looking at our inspiration images and realized that most of the ones we both liked were not really rustic barn doors but were more clean-lined or vintage style doors.  I'd seen vintage and antique doors listed on KSL Classifieds so I got back on and started looking in earnest.  I found a lot of possibilities but it was tough to find two matching doors that were larger than 24" wide. 

I finally called an antique store in town and asked if they carried doors.  I was delighted to hear that they had quite a few available.  Right out in front of the shop were two matching doors.  We looked them over, checked out all the other doors they had and decided these were our doors. 

The doors came out of a motel from southern Idaho that was being torn down.  Unfortunately, the sales associate couldn't remember the town or the name of the motel and the shop was so busy that she didn't have time to call the seller and ask for the details.  I wish I'd asked her to at least try to find out and get back to us.

 I'm enchanted by the numbers.  We got door number 7 and door number 1 (the 1 is facing the back). 

However, I'm not sure exactly what to do about the numbers.  After the doors are cleaned up I am  going to restain them in a dark espresso as they are quite orange right now.  I'm not sure how much the numbers will be impacted / covered up by the stain, and I was also planning on doing a light sanding before applying the stain so that will affect the numbers too.  I thought about tracing the numbers and then repainting them on, or finding a stencil in a similar style and painting numbers that were more meaninful to us personally.  Or, I could just cover them up.  Or, I could tape off a rectangle around the number and leave the original finish there (but honestly - I think that would not really work).

Wouldn't they look awesome painted in a bold color, like the inspiration picture above?  I'm not sure I could convince Rob to go to that extreme though.

I'd appreciate any suggestions, ideas or experience you have to share, in cleaning the old wood, in staining the new color and especially what to do about those numbers.
 

I suspect the hardware is brass plated and not true brass, but it's still pretty cool looking.  We bought some black ceramic knobs and are going to have the brass knobs on the family room side and the black knobs on the office side (unless I change my mind).  We'll just have to make sure that the door stoppers are mounted at the correct distance from center to stop the doors before the knobs crash into the door frame.

The Foamboard Arrives

June 8

Once we had decided we were going to install radiant heat in the basement we knew we needed to figure out a way to insulate between the earth, the tubing and the concrete slab.  It's important to keep the heat in the house and not have it travel down to heat the earth.  That would not only be a waste of energy it would also be super expensive.  One option for below slab insulation is to use Bubble Foil.  Another option is to lay down Extruded Polystyrene Foam Board (also known as XPS).

Rob and I talked read what information we could find online, asked lots of questions and decided that XPS was the best option for us.  Some installers & suppliers think the bubble foil doesn't really have as good an r value as the XPS, so we would have had to lay down two layers, and that doubles the cost.  Also, by using foam board we'd be able to staple the tube right to the board as opposed to having to lay down a layer of concrete reinforcement (we've heard it called cattle fence and cattle guard, but it's really a type of rebar that is in 6" squares and comes in large flat sheets or large rolls) and then zip tie the tubing to that. 

We researched the price and realized that Home Depot had the best price.  After I worked out a design to utilize the best way to lay out the 8'x4' sheets we went down and ordered 61 sheets.

Rob wanted to haul it to our garage in the back of our little truck.  This would have meant multiple trips from the store to our garage, then multiple trips from our garage to the lot.  I gave him my funny look, which I'm pleased to say he recognized instantly (it's only taken 30 years) so he quickly asked about delivery.  Then I gave him my big smiley face. 

After we rescheduled the delivery once (due to delays getting the foundation started), we tried to reschedule it a second time, but they couldn't fit us in, so we just had it dropped at the lot a couple of days early. Luckily, it was well packaged and protected from the elements and from UV rays. This stuff doesn't like being exposed to the elements so we wanted to leave it wrapped up as long as we could.

The truck arrives with our XPS.

The first stack was easy to get off the truck.  The second stack took a little more maneuvering with the fork lift.  The top two bundles actually looked like they were more likely to tip off when we were there in person.  But the driver knew just what to do to keep everything balanced.

Noah and Grandpa get a kick out of watching the forklift.

61 sheets of XPS (and our VERY CROOKED porta potty)

We were very glad the foam board was well bundled as we had a pretty good windstorm move through and one of the smaller bundles ended up in the road.  It also made it easier for the crew to move out of the way when they brought the big gravel trucks in.

Kudos to Home Depot.  The employees we worked with for this specific order were great.  The customer service rep in the special order department answered every question we had and was super helpful and friendly.  The driver was pleasant and professional and skilled with his forklift. 

We Have Footings

Thursday, May 24
We went up to the lot this afternoon to meet Jesse, our build supervisor.  He seems like he will be a nice guy to work with and reassured us that our presence was always welcome on the site, as was our input. 

When we got there the footing forms were all in place and the pumper truck showed up and got situated for the first concrete pour.   It was pretty impressive to watch the pipe extend from the truck. There was just a minute where the truck bucked a little bit and Jesse said he'd been on a job where the ground was too soft and the driver hadn't set his bracing properly and when the crane and pipe extended out in front of the truck the balance and weight were off and the truck tipped over.  That would have been crazy to see and I'm glad the driver today did everything correctly.

The forms were ready and the pumper truck was ready and in place so we just needed to wait for the concrete trucks to show up. 

We only stayed to watch them pour the first few feet of footings.  The driver of the pumper truck wore a remote control unit around his neck and controlled the flow of concrete and even moved the crane with the joystick controls on the box.  See kids, playing video games can prove helpful in your job as an adult! 

We came back after running to Home Depot to order 61 sheets of extruded polystyrene boards that we will be laying down in a week and a half.  Luckily, HD will deliver them right to the lot for us so we don't have to figure out how to transport them and where to store them.  We'd love a little help laying down the foam boards (and getting them cut to fit around the plumbing and monolithic footings) and then getting our pex tubing laid down and fastened to the boards.  As of right now we are shooting for Tuesday, June 5th through Thursday, June 7th.  Those days are a little flexible depending on weather and subs.  We are already about a day and a half behind the "original schedule", but what happens on a spreadsheet doesn't always translate perfectly to real life.

Seeing the forms and concrete laid out like this really help us get a feel for the house.  Of course, it helps that I've been designing the hydronic heating plan on Visio and Rob's been designing the wiring plan so we both have the floorplan pretty well memorized. 

I LOVE seeing our trees peeking into the picture.  I LOVE that we have trees!

What can I say?  It's wet concrete.  It's our house.  It's inevitable.  This will be under the front door for ever.  After I drew it in, Rob started getting second thoughts about ruining the integrity of the finish so I smoothed it over a little with my finger.

Here we are standing at the footings to the front door of our house.  The garage wall is the long wall to the right in the picture.  All of these footings are going to support our house and keep it stable and safe.

Jesse said they will let the footings cure for a couple of days and then get the forms in for the foundation.  I'm excited to see those go in because then it will really start to look like a house.
We have a dumpster parked right in front of our lot.  Literally.  I hope I don't have to spend too much time going around cleaning up after the subs.  Today we found a beer can, the crust of someone's sandwich and this uneaten lunch. 

The Dig

Visionary Homes  staked out the house on Monday, May 21 and started the dig on Tuesday, May 22.  We were flying back from Florida, so Grandma and Granddad H went up to get a couple of quick pictures for us.  By the time we got home it was close to 11pm so we went up to the lot first thing Wednesday morning.

This was the view we saw as we entered the subdivision.  That's our hole and our dirt!  If you look at the top of the picture you can see the sunlight moving towards the mountains.  We were there about 7:30 am.  We didn't feel like it was dark up there, but you can see we actually were in the morning shadow.

They started later in the day on Tuesday than they had originally planned so they didn't quite get the hole finished.  Here Rob is standing at the back corner of the single car garage.

This image gives you a pretty good idea of the slope on our lot.  The front corner (near the backhoe) will be the guest bedroom and bathroom.  This lot really will provide a very nice walk-out basement for us.  The deepest edge of the hole will be the tv wall and sitting area for the family room. 

 

Here Rob is standing in the sitting area of the basement family room at the back of the house.  You get a really good feel for the slope here.  We weren't sure why there were different levels of soil dug out.  I guess we'll understand better when we go back to see the footings poured.

This is a good shot of the hole.  We are standing at the northeast corner of the house.  I've added a very simplified layout so you can get a feel for the flow of rooms.  The family room is in the bottom corner closest to where I was standing to take the picture.  There will be one bedroom and a small laundry in between the office and the south bedroom (thanks to Brian for the idea of adding a laundry to our basement).

Granddad sent a text saying we had good topsoil.  I was excited to see for myself.  From walking the lot before the dig, I was afraid it would be super rocky.  I'm going to have to watch closely to make sure they don't cart too much of this good stuff away.  Our builder was saying he might push some of it over to the neighboring lot to our west.