Building Update #8 - Family Work Weekend Day 1

We are racing the clock to get our foundations poured before it gets too cold, so this weekend is an all hands on deck evolution.  Dad is helping out on the site and Mom is bringing lunch and providing dinner after.  Baxter is not doing much of anything!  Friday the foundation drains and crushed stone were laid on the house foundation and were almost completed for the garage.  Saturday Jake, Dad, and I spent the day starting to put together our custom foundation insulation which will also serve as our concrete form.  

Garage site mostly prepped.  The big board (installed by Jake) is where our electrical service will come in.

Rebar and reinforcing mesh for our foundations.

House site prepped for foundation.

Measuring more than twice to make sure the foundation will be square. 

First layer of foam started.  Measuring and cutting holes for the pipes slows down the process.

First layer of foam complete.

Specially cut sides installed.

Close up of a corner.  Luckily rocks are readily available to help hold things down.

Building Update #7

The sub-slab plumbing is done.  Jake did the code-required hydro-static leak test and found one leaking fitting, which he replaced.  The second and third checks were good.  The city Plumbing Inspector is scheduled to show up today.  If we pass, we can fill in the trenches and start prepping for our foundation pour.  

After two days of digging rocks by hand, we got smarter.

Finished sub-slab house plumbing. 

Finished sub-slab garage plumbing.

Technical Post #2 - Passive House Plumbing - Design

Plumbing our house, with no basement or crawlspace, has required careful advance planning and design.  A significant portion of our drain, waste, and vent piping will actually be buried under our foundation slab, which means we have to plumb it before we know where the walls will be.  In order to do that, we had to design the plumbing system for the entire house, because once the foundation is poured, we can't change anything underneath it.  With assistance from an engineer and a plumbing designer at my office, I did the plumbing design with significant input from Jake who 3-D modeled the entire house (and plumbing piping) in Sketch-Up.  

Jake's 3-D model, showing the underground plumbing.

House plumbing riser diagram (not to scale).

Jake used the location of the electrical conduit as a reference point, and then used pegs and strings to layout where the walls will be in order to locate critical piping like the toilet drain, or vent piping that needs to run in interior walls. 

Strings indicating exterior and interior walls, or for alignment in a room.

Once Jake has finished the sub-slab plumbing, and the Code Enforcement Officer has inspected and approved the installation, we will fill it back in and then cover the entire site with crushed stone in preparation for the foundation insulation.  

Building Update #6 - Pick-Ax Plumbing

Yesterday Jake started the process of putting in the sub-slab plumbing.  He measured to within a half inch where all of our drain/sewer lines would be running.  When he was done we started digging - and found out that the pick-ax would be required.  After several hours of wrist-jarring shoveling we finally got it dug out.  Jake wins the prize for rolling the largest rock out of the trench - Gibralter - that easily weighed over a hundred pounds.  My largest rock was probably only about half that!  

Our newly rolled driveway and site makes getting up to the house with a car much easier.

Putting stakes with strings in the ground to serve as reference points to mark pipe runs.

The plumbing plan.

Measuring and then painting the drain lines to be dug out.  The pipes sticking up are, from left to right, telephone and data, electric, and water.

All laid out and ready to dig.

This was a lot harder than we thought it would be.

Gibralter.

Building Update #5 - Utilities are In

Last week a significant amount of progress was made.  Our water connection and meter pit went in, our water and sewer pipes were run up to the house and garage, and our electrical and cable/telephone conduits were run.  We plan to install our sub-slab plumbing this week.  Once the sub-slab plumbing is run, we will cover it with crushed stone in preparation for laying our foundation insulation and pouring our foundation slab.

The flags to the right mark where the power pole will be placed.  The stakes to the left are where our buried electrical conduit is waiting.

New rock sculpture made from old and 'new' rocks.

Garage site - the blue and grey piping sticking up are our water and electrical/cable, respectively.  

The house utilities.

House and garage sites taken from edge of the woods.

Looking up the power line at the top of our property.

Looking down the power line easement on our property, just a minute before Baxter disturbed a wasps nest and I ran out of the woods yelling.  Final damage: 7 stings to my head, neck, and upper body.  Baxter and Jake: Zero stings.  

Meter pit before.

Meter pit after.

Building Update #4 - House and Garage Sites Level

The huge piles of rock are gone and the garage and house sites have been leveled and staked.  The driveway looks more like a driveway than tire tracks - progress!

Garage Site

House Site

Garage Site

House Site

Driveway Shaping Up

Building Update #3 - Leave No Tree Standing

Two weeks of blasting and our site is unrecognizable.  I originally thought that the blasting would be confined to the footprint of the house and garage, plus a couple feet.  The reality is that the entire center of our land is completely cleared of trees and brush, and blasted with jumbled piles of rock reaching over ten feet high.  The Blasters claim it will look like nothing ever happened when they are done...

Looking up the driveway:

  The house site:

The garage site:

If you can see into the setting sun - piles of rock and sand: