~Adobe House Durango~

Landscaping starts in a big way

2011-05-21T17:18:00.000-07:00

The dining room viewed from the stairs.

The soaking tub in the master bath.

The master bedroom looking toward the privacy wall in the great room.

Looking at the great room from the dining room.

The great room looking from the fireplace.

One of three artists who were on site during the Parade of Homes.

A view looking west off the east end of the courtyard.

The courtyard portal off of the Garage shop.

There are many grasses in the landscaping that sway in the breeze.

The Garage shop portal. Hard to get projects done when there is a place like this to idle away the day.

The iron work in the wall notches look like candelabras. The notches were added to allow our dog Raider to look out at the world.

We were amazed at how much the flowers grew in just one season.

We had an incredible number of hummingbirds throughout the summer. We planted specifically for them.

Grasses, Penstemen, Sunflowers and more. We are thrilled with what we created.

Parade of Homes
In April we decided to collaborate with 4Core (Four Corners Office for Resource Efficiency) to enter our house in the Durango Home Builders Parade of Homes as a demonstration house for sustainable building and energy use. The Energy Tour was a great success but we felt we were preaching to the choir in that tour. The Parade of Homes would allow us to reach folks who may never given energy conservation a second thought. The Parade of Homes was scheduled for two weekends in early October. We still had a lot of detailing to complete over the summer so when the snow melted, we went to work. We planted our fruit tree orchard and then went to work on filling out the landscaping in he courtyard.

I completed welding the iron work in the courtyard wall and installed the sections in place. The Courtyard wall was now officially finished. We added two solar hot water panels in August. (I will add a post about the mechanical system later that will explain the decision to add solar hot water.) John Ford came back to finish out the Master closet while we scrambled to complete other details and to finish prepping the house for winter. By September the landscaping was amazing. We were as ready as we were ever going to be.

The Parade of Homes was a huge success. We had four volunteers on site at all times to answer questions. 600 people toured the house. Jenny had created printed bullet points about energy features throughout. We were happy that the vast majority of folks who were on the tour took the time to read all of the bullet points and most wanted to engage in conversation about what they were seeing. 4Core told us they'd never had an event that was so well attended. It was a huge success for them as well. We were told over and over again that it was by far the best home on the tour. The judges raved about what a fabulous house it was. After the votes were counted for the award presentation we were disqualified from the competition because we were not members of the Home Builders Association. I guess they didn't want a first time home builder/owner to sweep the awards. We were at peace with this and had actually thought, early on, that this might happen. Our award was all the wonderful praise we received over the four day event. It was a nice way to bring the project to a close.

Courtyard adobe wall goes up

2011-05-21T16:18:00.000-07:00

Our sons Forrest (foreground) and Cameron help pour the concrete bond beam that caps the adobe wall.

Cameron and I leveling the concrete

Filling in the forms with concrete up over the entry. Lyle (not visible in this photo hoisted over 5,000 lbs of dry concrete mix over the course of the day. He wasn't tired until I shared this info with him.


Me, the entry gates and a lot of snow.

Entry gates looking from the outside of the courtyard.

The Courtyard wall
In late June we began work on the courtyard wall. We had enough 7" blocks from the house build to complete this project. Lyle stayed on to construct the wall and to help with the bond beam. Our sons came for a visit in July and we put them to work on the bond beam as well. The wall was complete (less iron work and entry gate) by mid August. Jenny went straight to work planting the courtyard to get things started before the cold weather arrived.

The Energy Tour
In September, we volunteered to put the house on a tour of homes that demonstrated low carbon footprint energy use. The geothermal heat pump, adobe thermal storage, passive solar design, CFL lighting, and energy star appliances throughout were the story for our presentation. It was a fun event...but exhausting!

The entry gates
I designed and built the entry gates through the winter and installed them in February. With just a vague initial idea of what they should look like, they took on a life of their own. We were pleased with the results.

The earth plaster color coat goes on.

2011-05-21T11:08:00.000-07:00

Thomas mixes finish coat plaster

Jody and Jen detailing one of the Nichos

The final plaster crew: Jen, Corey, Jody, Kevin, Thomas, and Griffin

The light fixture in the office. What a great place to work!

Curt Nelson lending a hand in getting the wiring completed

The Master bedroom fireplace is finished.

The Saltillo tile and decorative tile on the stairs are finished.

A glimpse into the powder room.

Color coat interior plaster
The color coat was applied over a one month period. Griffin worked some days on his own tackling small places like closets. Some days there would be one or two of the crew available and when we got to big rooms like the great room we had five on the plaster team. It was an amazing transition. The brown coat reflected little light so as a result the rooms seemed dark. When the color coat was applied the rooms were full of light. All the agonizing over colors vanished as the team moved from room to room. All the colors were beautiful.

Moving in...early
Our lease on the house we were renting expired on the last day of May so we moved our belongings into the garage of the new house and set up a bedroom in one of the upstairs bedrooms that was complete. We had water but no electricity. We completed the wiring in the upstairs and kitchen over the following week.

Lighting goes in
We gave each room a week to dry before I completed the installation of lights and switches. Master electrician Curt Nelson stopped by to give a hand when he was free. His help was greatly appreciated.

Certificate of Occupancy
We called for our final inspection and on June 20th we received our "Certificate of Occupancy". It was a great moment and Jenny, being Jenny, made it a wonderful celebration with flowers, champagne and a framed certificate. We still had much work to do to truly complete the house but the bulk of the work was done and it felt like home. The master bath tile was delayed from Mexico and would not be installed until October. The guest bath and the powder room were complete so the delay was only a minor annoyance.

Returning to the blog

2011-05-21T10:12:00.000-07:00

I have been bad about adding entries to this blog. Seems that life after building has kept me very busy. There is much to share about the rest of the house project including pictures of the finished project. So here are the rest of the entries.

Stucco and flagstone are complete and work progresses inside

2009-05-11T19:08:00.000-07:00

The stucco color coat is complete. A sealer will be applied to the stucco and flagstone to repel moisture. This will darken the color slightly.

This is the view from the east end of the house looking at the master bedroom portal and the east guest bedroom portal.

This is the view from the west end of the house looking at the garage, kitchen portal, and the west guest bedroom. The second garage opening is not visible as it is set back from the first opening.

The entry door from Santa Fe Doors and the flagstone work by Little Guy Masonry. Copper drains pipes will be added to the front posts and and a doorbell then this area will be complete.

Jenny's efforts at site restoration have paid off!! The native grass and wildflowers are up and getting taller everyday.

This is the tile pattern in the laundry room.

This is the utility sink in the laundry room. The brown coat has been added up to the grout around the tile work.

This is the powder room vanity. It is the wildest of the color schemes. We found this sink several years ago and have been dragging it around in anticipation of building a house. It has finally found its place.

Flagstone work
Little Guys Masonry wrapped up work on the Portals and around the garage this past week. As with all their work, they did a wonderful job. We had them add some additional stone details in the interior which turned out nicely. The exterior stone will get sealed when we seal the stucco.

Stucco color coat is complete

The stucco crew returned on Friday, May 8th and finished the exterior color coat. They had already applied the color coat to the walls that did not have flagstone details (which had not yet been completed) but we kept them at bay until all the stone work was completed to assure that the two tied together well. The completion of the color coat completes the exterior of the house and we will now bring in the excavators to complete final grading around the house and dig the trench for the patio wall.

John and Griffin finish the brown coat

All the interior walls (with the exception of the guest and master bath) have a brown coat of earth plaster and are ready for the color coat. The brown coat took almost 4 weeks to complete. Griffin has been working with Jenny in mixing and selecting colors for the final finish coat. I picked up a load of Kaolin clay in Albuquerque while on a tile buying trip. We are ready to begin.

Tile and sinks

Since the earth plaster must butt up against the tile on the cabinets, I have been focused on getting the tile set and grouted. I completed the laundry room, powder room and guest bath vanity and tub. Jenny found several beautiful Talavera painted sinks for the guest, and master bath as well as the powder room. I set them after the tile was in place and then grouted around them. The faucets she selected are perfect. These rooms will be stunning when we are finished.

Lael is working on the granite tiles in the kitchen and I am setting the Saltillo tile on the stairs. Lael was part of the original Earth Block crew, who I have hired to help with other miscellaneous task. He is a very skilled craftsman who is versed in many trades. The master bath tile is delayed because the factory in Mexico that makes them was shut down with the swine flu outbreak. I did plumb and set the master soaking tub. We were missing a cabinet for the master bath vanity and, after waiting 4 weeks for it to arrive find that it was destroyed in transit. Getting things here in one piece has been a challenge. The tally to date for damaged items shipped to net one good item is as follows:

2 geothermal heat pumps

3 geothermal hot water storage tanks

2 geothermal pump systems

4 toilets to net three

2 vanity cabinets (assuming the next one is in one piece)

Appliances and the garage doors have yet to arrive... I have my fingers crossed.

Heading towards our CO (certificate of occupancy)

We are focused on wrapping up work required for a CO around the end of May. There is still a long list of tasks to complete but we will continue to work seven days a week until they are finished. The house just gets more beautiful everyday and all those who work on it or come visit have said how much they love it. The local paper used three color pictures of the interior work for an article about the spring green living expo in early April. The reporter wants to do a more in depth article once we are completely finished.

Stucco gets a brown coat and the fireplaces get a coat of mud

2009-03-22T18:38:00.000-07:00

This is a view of the house from the lower Gulch loop road. The brown coat of stucco is complete and will cure before applying the final color coat.

This is a view of the house from higher up on the lower gulch loop road.

This is the fireplace in the great room. The scratch coat of clay, sand, and chopped straw has been applied to the expanded metal lath. A second coat of this mixture will be applied once the first coat is completely dry.

This is the fireplace in the master bedroom. It reminds me of a Mexican bread oven. The scratch coat is still wet in some places.

Ben has joined the plaster team and is prepping the door openings by working a clay, sand, and chopped straw mix into the metal lath that has been attached to the wall and rolled into the door jamb.

The entry portal with it's copper flashing. The copper will oxidize to the color of an old penny in a few months.

Stucco brown coat goes on
After completing the scratch coat, the stucco crew started in on the brown coat. The scratch coat is put on fairly thin and then roughed up with a hand-held rake to give the brown coat something to cling to. The brown coat is not brown. It is a fibered cement product that is put on more thickly than the scratch coat and is worked to a flat sandy surface with a sponge trowel. The final coat will be the color coat and it is applied about 1/8 inch thick. We are going to hold off on the final color coat for awhile to let the first coats dry thoroughly.

Interior doors are installed
John and Griffin have been finishing up the installation of the interior doors. Once the jambs were anchored in place the doors were removed and taken to the garage which Jenny just finished painting. The doors will be stored there until the walls are plastered. The guys have been stapling expanded metal lath to the drywall around the door jambs and to give the plaster a strong surface to bond to.

We have heat!
Dave Himes has been working on the geothermal system and we now have heat. All the zones are wired together and a thermostat has been mounted in the office to regulate the temperature. Dave also got the domestic water plumbed and we can now use the hose bibs on the outside of the house to draw water. It will be great to pull the little sump pump from the cistern and secure the lid. I worried about critters falling into our drinking water.

The fireplaces get a first coat of earth plaster
I have been working on covering the expanded metal lath on the fireplaces with a mix of sand, clay, and finely chopped straw. The straw was placed in a large plastic drum and chopped fine with a weed eater. This mix was worked into the metal lath to assure that about 1/4 inch of it penetrated to the other side of the lath. When it dried, the surface was very firm and well anchored to the lath. I will add another layer of this mix to the first layer before we use a brown coat. The total thickness will be about one inch of material. I am very impressed with the strength of the earth plaster mix and like the idea that it is very low in embodied energy.

Electrical panels are powered up
I flipped the main breaker on the electrical panel that powers the heated space and also installed temporary receptacles in the bathroom dedicated circuits to have a good distribution of power throughout the house for the crew. It will be nice not to be dragging long extension cords all over. With the door jambs in place we need to avoid pulling extension cords around as it would damage their finish.

The entry and vigas are capped in copper
I had copper panels cut for the tops of the exposed vigas to prevent water damage to the wood. They are just wide enough to cover the top where snow would sit. The copper will heat up with the sun exposure and the snow will melt and slide off. The copper flashing wrapped around the entry portal turned out really well. The copper is very shiny right now but it will turn the color of a penny very soon.

We continue to make good progress and are getting closer to putting the brown coat on the interior walls. That will be another milestone for this project.

Cob and Stucco Scratch Coat

2009-03-14T20:24:00.000-07:00

This is an interior window opening that has been wrapped with metal lath and then coated with Cob (clay sand and chopped straw).

This is a detail shot of the cob.

The master bedroom fireplace is ready for a cement-based base coat. The final coats will be earth plaster.

Ramon with Quintanos Stucco is applying the exterior scratch coat around the garage windows. The coat will be left to dry completly before applying the brown coat. The color coat is last.

With the stucco scratch coat, the house is now all one uniform surface material and we can get a better feel for what it will finally look like.

Raider has been working on some pretty demeaning stupid pet tricks and wanted to share one with you. For a guy who perpetually thinks he is starving, this trick takes a lot of discipline.

Interior Detailing before plaster

Griffin, Chet, and Kris have been applying metal lath to interior wall corners and any locations where materials change or where there are surfaces that need leveling out. They then apply a clay, sand, and straw mixture called Cob to the lath making sure to work it into, and behind, the metal lath. This process will make the brown coat plaster easier and prevent cracks where dissimilar materials join together. The Cob is the first layer, followed by a brown coat, followed by a finish coat (with color) similar to the exterior process.

John has been setting interior doors in the guest bedrooms and bath and getting this area ready for the earth plaster brown coat. Once the door jambs are in place he will remove the doors from the jambs and put them in a safe place while we plaster the walls. The door jambs are narrower than the wall thickness to allow the plaster to roll into the face of the jamb.

I have spent most of my time watching over the Stucco crew as they prep the exterior. There are a lot of decisions to be made at this stage. They arrived about a week earlier than I would have liked. The stone masons are still working on the exterior flagstone details and I have copper flashing to attach to the top of the vigas and the entry portal.

The Water Treatment System is Installed

The mechanical room just got a little more cozy this week with the addition of 5 more pieces of equipment. Mark Quesenbery with Hague Quality Water installed our water treatment system. The water in rural Durango is very hard and will eat hot water tanks and copper plumbing in short order. The mechanical room could have easily been twice its current the size. With Dave Himes' (Southwest Geothermal) CAD layouts, we made the best of the small space. With the addition of this new equipment, it is apparent I will need to fabricate another metal rack to mount to the ceiling for a second pressure tank.

The master bedroom fireplace takes shape

In my spare time, I have been fabricating the small master bedroom fireplace. This one has gone much smoother than the great room fireplace and has inspired me to redo parts of that one. I hope to apply the base coat to the metal lath next week.

It has been another busy week with lots of folks on the site. Even though we are making great progress, it will be nice when we can get back to a small crew again.

Drywall and detailing for stucco

2009-03-06T19:48:00.000-08:00

The fireplace was put to use warming the house while we work.

Jenny applys three coats of linseed oil mixed 50/50 with paint thinner. It really brings out the redish color of the lintels and beams.

This is a view of the house from across the Gulch.

This is a view of the house from Horse Gulch Road .

The entry portal is complete and ready for a copper flashing detail around the top edge. The front door is from Santa Fe Doors and is a 10 panel knotty alder with a distressed finish. They did a very nice job on all the doors. They are perfect for the house.

The drywall is installed and ready for earth plaster prep. This view is from the kitchen looking through the dining room and into the great room.

The great room fireplace exterior frame is in place and covered with expanded metal lath ready for a coat of fiber filled cement.

Drywall goes on the framed walls

Our drywall crew showed up after the plumbing and framing inspection. There aren't a lot of framed walls in the house so this work went fairly quickly. The garage recieved a traditional drywall process including a texture. The rest of the house received only a tape coat since these walls will be covered with an earth plaster. This is the first time we can see what the rooms are like and how much natural light they receive. I really did not like the drywall process. It generates a lot of scrap that is not recyclable. We took three loads of scrap drywall to the landfill with John's trailer.

The stone masons move to the outside work

The interior stone work is complete and the stone masons moved to the outside of the house to do the door threshholds, window sills, and portals.

Treating the exterior wood

Jenny has been painting all the exterior timbers, posts, and vigas with three coats of linseed oil mixed 50/50 with paint thinner. This treatment has really brought out the color of the rough sawn timbers.

The fireplace exterior takes shape

I have been working on creating the shape of the two fireplaces using 1/2 inch electrical conduit and expanded metal lath. I made CAD models of the fireplace shape and used these to generate a template for bending the conduit to shape. The vertical pieces were fastened to a welded top and bottom plate and the horizontal pieces were fastened to the walls. The verticals and horizontals were attached to each other with tie wire and then a layer of expanded metal lath was attached to this structure. I will cover the metal lath with a thick coat of cement with vermiculite and glass fiber filler. the whole structure will then be covered with earth plaster.

It has been a crazy couple weeks with so many crews on site. We will have the stucco crew on site starting next week.

Interior walls, Portals, Plumbing, and Electrical

2009-02-27T19:03:00.000-08:00

The master bedroom portal is being framed. The unfinished wall above the bathroom window has been left open to blow soy foam into the ceiling and wall cavities.

The kitchen portal and west side guest bedroom portals add a wonderful stepped view of the house. It reminds me of the Hopi pueblos

The soy foam insulation blown into the framed wall cavities. This stuff is great because it is not a petroleum- based product. It cost a little more but we like the idea of using soy beans for insulation instead of oil.

This is the electrical panel in the kitchen pantry. It feeds all the circuits in the heated space (with exception to the laundry room). We have a main disconnect on the exterior of the house, a panel in the garage that feeds the mechanical room panel, the pantry panel, and all the garage electrical needs.

We have been framing out the interior walls and this image is of the great room wall that screens the master bedroom and also houses all the media equipment. The stone crew has set flagstone on the top of all the low walls.

The corner beehive fireplace is in place and we set earth blocks for the banco. The stone masons covered the banco with stone.

The flagstone on the banco wraps into the window sills. This will be a great place to sit and read a book on a sunny winter day.

Soy foam in the great room pony wall cavity above the dining room ceiling. The foam is 11" thick. The stone masons have covered the low wall between the great room and the dining room with flagstone.

Wiring and plumbing in the guest bathroom wall. The domestic water lines are PEX tubing. Blue tubing for the cold water and red for the hot. PEX is great stuff to work with and is also used in the radiant in-floor heat.

Jenny has been working on the landscaping. There is native grass seed sown on the cut slope and it is covered with a nylon netting with aspen fiber fill to retain moisture and reduce erosion. This fabric was recycled from our neighbor's, Mike & Michelle Chapman, re-seeding project.

A busy couple months

I have been remiss in adding entries to the blog but the weather has been very cooperative and we have made the best of it. On sunny days we moved the work outdoors to construct the Portals. Stormy days were good for framing interior walls. While Griffin and John tackled these tasks, I worked on electrical wiring, domestic water piping, and waste drains. This past week we have had the roofers from TL Roofing on-site completing the portals roofs.

Flagstone detailing by Jake and his crew at "Little Guy Masonry"

The stone masons have been on site the past two weeks applying capping stones on the parapet walls and completing all the interior flagstone detailing. The interior work includes stone on the window seats and capping low walls in the great room. I had a semi load of flagstone shipped in from Sedona Arizona ( http://www.azflagstonesupply.com/ ). Some was snapped to size for window sills and capping the parapet wall and the rest was random pieces for bancos and the portal floors. The stone is of excellent quality and the masons enjoy working with it.

The fireplaces are taking shape

The fireplace installers wrapped up the installation of two Adobelite beehive fireplace kits which will be finished with an exterior framework and stucco coat that will give them their final shape. This work has been the only struggle for me on this project. Very poor communication and differing perspectives on craftsmanship have resulted in compromised results. Maybe someday in the future, I may redo some of this work.

We passed Inspections!!!

This week we passed the Electrical Rough-Inspection, the Framing Rough-in Inspection, Domestic Water Plumbing Rough in Inspection, and the Drain system Rough in Inspection. We are now cleared to start drywalling.

The Mechanical Room takes shape

Dave Himes with Southwest Geothermal has done a great job piecing together the equipment for the Geothermal system. This has been no small task due to an undersized room and the large amount of equipment that must fit in the space. I fabricated two racks to allow stacking equipment. We are on a well that has hard water which requires equipment to treat the water. This, in addition to the radiant heat system and the geothermal water to water heat exchanger gives the following list of equipment:

Geothermal water to water heat pump

80 gallon storage tank

40 gallon buffer tank

80 gallon electric domestic hot water tank

Pressure tank

Aeration cistern

Carbon filter

Hague water filtration and softener system

The Interior and Entry doors arrive
We ordered our doors from Santa Fe Doors in Albuquerque NM (http://www.santafedoor.com/ ). They arrived a little over a week ago and we are very happy with them. The design is perfect for the house and the workmanship is excellent. The front entry door and the garage portal door were given a distressed look that really sets them off.

So you can see we have been hard at it and a beautiful house is emerging as the result.

The ceiling and roof go on

2008-12-08T19:41:00.000-08:00

The 2x8 tongue and groove ceiling in the guest bedroom section of the house. Electrical wiring is ready to be routed in the frame walls once they are in place.

The roof framing above the T&G is sloped 1/4" per foot. An electrical box is visible in the T&G and plumbing for the roof drain is ready for roof decking.

A pony wall is in place to accept the vigas in the great room and the roof is being framed over the kitchen and dining room. The parapet wall is framed around the guest section and ready for siding.

The canales in the garage parapet wall. They are made of cedar and lined with copper.

A closer look at the canale. Contact me if you are interested in purchasing these for your house project.

The membrane roof is almost complete over the garage, kitchen, and dining room. The larger box in the foreground is for the island vent pipe and the box in the background is for the dryer vent. I was concerned about leaks around the duct pipes so we built these structure to move the point where the pipe penetrates the roof above any possible pooling water.

The membrane roof above the master bedroom is close to completion. The fireplace is ready to install the flue pipe. The parapet walls and chimneys will be capped with flagstone.

The great room looking southeast from the dining room. There will be a kiva fireplace in the far corner.

The great room looking south towards the front door.

The site is contoured, almost all the excess soil has been hauled away and we should be ready for seeding in the next couple weeks.

The Roof
We pushed on to get the roof completed before the winter weather hit for real. John and Griffin completed the 2x tongue & groove ceiling in the guest bedroom section of the house and followed the next day with the sloped framing above the T&G. Curt Nelson and I installed electrical boxes and wired the ceiling and the guys followed with the roof decking. The next section was the master bedroom which was done in the same way. I hired two additional natural building craftsman to help speed things along. They worked on the kitchen and dining section. The weather was sunny and warm while we completed these sections and built the parapet walls. Canales (scuppers) I had fabricated earlier were installed in the parapet walls. The roofing crew from T&L Roofing arrived Wednesday November 26th and started laying down 6" of rigid foam and the EDPM membrane roof. We ended the day by covering all the roof sections with 6 mil plastic film to protect our work from the rain and snow promised for Thanksgiving day.

Our friends Arne and Jan Vanderburg spent Thanksgiving with us and Arne helped me shovel and sweep snow off the roofs on Friday. He and Jan headed back to Cedar Crest around 1:00 while Jenny and I returned to the site to complete the snow removal.

Monday, December 1st started with the arrival of a crane to set the last of the vigas over the great room. These were leveled and the T&G was placed the following day. The framing for the sloped roof and electrical wiring was completed by mid day Friday and the roof decking was nailed in place. I completed the drain assemblies on Saturday. The roofing crew had completed all the other roof sections by late Friday. I covered the great room roof with plastic late Sunday in preparation for a snow storm promised for later that night. What a relief to only have one roof section to worry about.

The Site
While all this was going on, Mark Jenkins was installing the water cistern and doing final shaping of the site. He has been hauling off the excess soil to our architects property nearby. Jenny and I will scatter native grass and flower seed in the next couple weeks and cover it with straw.

Stopping to smell the roses
I finally slowed down enough on Sunday to spend time just enjoying the interior of the house. The great room has a ceiling height of 14'-3". It is an amazing space. With all the ceilings in place the structure is really starting to feel like home.

Post, Beams, and Vigas

2008-11-05T19:07:00.000-08:00

Posts, Corbels, and one 22 foot 10x12 beam are in place ready for vigas.

John guides a viga into place while giving signals to the crane operator. Griffin positions the other end.

Griffin steadies a viga while it swings into position

Another viga swings into position over what will be the kitchen.

All vigas are in place and ready for leveling in the guest bedroom portion of the house. You can start to get a feel for the space with them in place.

This is a view through the dining and living areas toward the master bedroom, taken from the kitchen area. You can see the posts with corbels holding up the big beams. On Wednesday morning a light cover of snow reminded us that winter is fast approaching.

The Roof Structure Starts to Take Shape

On Tuesday, October 28th, we began working on posts for the interior of the house. I built a jig for cutting the ends of the post square to their axis and then fabricated metal plates for anchoring the post to the floor. They consist of a plate that is lag bolted to the bottom of the post having four sections of angle iron welded to it and another flat plate that is bolted to the floor or, in a couple locations, welded to a piece of rebar protruding from the concrete. John and Griffin cut the posts to length and then attached corbels to their tops. The posts were then positioned and the metal base plates were welded solid. The 10" x 12" beams were prepped and Mark Jenkins lifted them into place with the big excavator. His help made a back-breaking task almost effortless. We ran lag bolts through the beams and down into the corbels to anchor everything together. We were then ready to lift vigas into place.

Jenny and I worked on staining the 2x6 tongue-and-groove fir for the ceiling. We used a product called "Lifetime" http://www.valhalco.com/when.htm which is not really a stain but a chemical/mineral compound that is added to water and causes rough cut wood to turn barn wood gray. We did not get this result with the T&G due to the finished surface. Our wood darkened a slight silver color from its original blond and turned a slight salmon red color. We are happy with the look and also like the idea that "Lifetime" is non-toxic.

Monday November 3rd, we finished up the beam installation and began measuring the ends of the vigas and planning their positions in the rooms. I hired a crane to help us place the vigas on Tuesday. John, Griffin and I placed 33 vigas in 3 hours.

November 4th, election day: a great day for America and the world!

Wednesday morning, November 5th, we awoke to snow. I called John to tell him it was snowing at our house and maybe we should wait out the weather. He replied "Yeah...it's snowing up here on the bond beam as well!" So much for taking a day off for bad weather. I quite my whining and headed to the site. The day was spent leveling the vigas and attaching the metal anchor straps in the guest bedroom section of the house.

The Bond Beam is Completed

2008-11-05T17:29:00.000-08:00

The house looking out at the hills to the south. The area in the lower half of the image is open space. There are several earthen dams along the drainage that runs through the center of this space that provide water for wildlife. Deer and Elk migrate south through the openspace from the high mountains to the lowlands along the New Mexico border in the late fall and back again in the spring.

The concrete pumper truck driver getting into the Halloween spirit.

This shot was taken seconds before the front face of this vertical form blew out.

Sarah and John working the concrete. The vertical section to the left started to blow out while I was leveling the concrete. You can see bracing holding the lower portion of this form in place.

The end of block wall celebration and a farewell to Sarah and Thomas. From the left: John, Sarah, Thomas, Griffin, and Lyle.

Raider posing next to the septic tank. The septic system is in and inspected. The Jenkins get the lower portion of the property contoured and ready for native grass and wildflower seed which we will plant in late November.

The framing crew arrived on October 20th and had the garage framed in a couple days. It's no wonder frame structures are so popular.

By the 24th the garage was being sheathed with OSB.

Two truck loads of post, vigas, and beams arrived on October 27th. This marks the beginning of the roof structure phase of construction.

The Final Phase of the Bond Beam
Once the guest bedroom area and the great room block walls reached their full height, forms were assembled and the final section of the bond beam was poured. This part of the bond beam included some vertical sections that tied the lower walls to the taller walls. Some of these vertical sections were over 4 feet high. In addition, there were three lintels that were formed using rough sawn 2x lumber to match the wood lintels used throughout the rest of the house. The inside of these wood facias were lined with Bituthane and 2" foam. Five lengths of #5 rebar were hung in the form for strength. The pour started out rather badly as two of the vertical sections blew out with the force of the concrete being pumped into them. We scrambled and put the forms back together using 2x4 bracing and bar clamps. The rest of the pour went well. The concrete was leveled, straps were positioned to hold the vigas, and anchor bolts were inserted along the inner and outer perimeter of the bond beam for roof framing. The team gathered at the end of the day for a celebration marking the end of the block work and a farewell to Thomas and Sarah. Lyle will stay on until the fireplace butresses are completed. John and Griffin will stay on to help with the roof structure and interior details

The Septic System

Danette Jenkins and her son, Mark, arrived on October 24 to begin work on the septic system. The tank was dropped into place and pipe was routed down to the distribution box. The distribution box was connected to six 100' rows of infiltrators configured as two rows in each of three 6' wide trenches. The system was inspected and approved on the 26th. The system was buried and the ground contoured and ready to start landscape restoration. We will wait until the cold winter weather arrives to scatter seed. We will use a mix of native grass, wildflowers, and native shrubs and trees. We purchased most of the seed but some we have been collecting around the area.

Framing the Garage

Since the block walls took a month longer than planned, I decided to hire a framing crew to put up the garage and master bath tub room. That frees John, Griffin, and me to focus on getting the roof structure for the main portion of the house competed before winter. Frame structures go up amazingly fast and are a relatively cheap construction process. Unfortunately, it requires a lot of lumber which comes from clearcut forest in the pacific northwest and needs to be hauled a long distance to this area. In addition, the frame structure is not a good thermal barrier. Heat within a wood structure finds a path to the outside through the framing.We accepted this method of construction for the garage because we will only be tempering the space to keep things from freezing and because it is a relative small space.

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The Bond Beam- 1st phase

2008-10-11T09:25:00.000-07:00

The fall colors continue to amaze us. What a great place to work!

The bond beam form ready to pour (the Simpson straps have not been installed ).

Where the bond beam steps up in elevation.

The pier footers and rebar ready for sonotubes.

The clearstory windows in the great room. Rough-sawn lumber is assembled and set in place ready to complete the rest of the form work. This will be a lintel/bond beam. When the forms are removed the rough sawn lumber will be exposed and give this concrete detail the appearance of being a wood timber lintel.

This is the view through the clearstory window in the west guest bedroom. This window is 9' in width and 2'6" in height. It will be made up of three awning windows.

The 1st level bond beam is poured

The walls in the kitchen/dining area and the master bedroom reached full height in late September. The crew set up forms along the top of the wall to pour the bond beam. We put 2" of blueboard on the outside face of the form, and added rebar. We cut 3' lengths of 22 gauge Simpson strap material which were bent into a "U" shape and tacked to the top of the wall where the vigas will be positioned. Once the concrete is poured, the ends of the straps will protrude out the top of the bond beam and we will wrap them over the top of the vigas and nail them in place. A small piece of bithuthane will be placed between the viga and the concrete bond beam to isolate the wood from the concrete.

On October 3rd the concrete was pumped into the forms and another milestone in the project was reached.

The remaining walls continue upward

The walls in the great room and guest bedrooms continue upward to their final height. While the crew placed blocks, John and Griffin worked on the clearstory window details. With the clearstory window bucks in place, we can see the wonderful view they frame. The length of these openings is too large for a traditional wood lintel so we are creating a concrete lintel that has a fascia of rough sawn 2x material that will give the appearance of a solid wood lintel. John assembled the bottom and sides of the rough sawn material and lined it with bithuthane to minimize the moisture in the concrete contacting the wood which might cause it to warp. This was lifted into position and the balance of the 2nd phase bondbeam was tied into this. I trust the structural engineers (http://www.odiseanet.com/ ) calcs on this, but it looks scary. His design calls for 3 #5 rebar near the bottom of the bond beam, but we will add three more near the middle for my peace of mind. We will brace this detail very securely for the concrete pour.

Portal Piers

When the foundation was poured, the crew talked me into waiting to put in the piers for the portal posts. In hindsight, this was a mistake. Digging holes after power, drains, and other infrastructure have been buried is inviting disaster. Once the piles of blocks thinned out enough to get to the pier locations, I had the Jenkins back to excavate for these. We hit the phone line, main DWV drain and a roof drain in the process. It also required cutting away some of the blueboard at the base of the foundation and cutting french drains. A lesson learned...

The footers were poured on October 9th and the piers were poured the following day. I hope to get the holes backfilled Tuesday. Timbers, Vigas, and Corbels are on order and should arrive in about two weeks. It is raining today (Saturday) which makes it a good day to work in the shop on the canales.

The Lintels Go In

2008-09-24T07:16:00.000-07:00

We continue to add perlite to the wall cavity as the structure grows.

Preparing the window sills for concrete.

Concrete is in place and the sills are now ready for flagstone. This will make a great place to sit and read a book.

Andy cutting the 8" x 12" timbers to length for the lintels. The saw has a 16" blade.

John Ford working on details above the great room window. There are a series of four clearstory windows (facing due South) that will span 18' above this window allowing excellent passive solar access.

This is the kitchen entry and window on the west wall. It is ready for the bond beam forms. The blocks of wood are called "gringo blocks" and will be used to fasten the forms for the bond beam. There will be an 11' Portal off the kitchen. A nice place for outside dining.

This is the view from the east we have used throughout the building process to date as a reference. The lintels are in place over the master bedroom french doors and the pass-through to the master bath soaking tub. This side will also have a portal and patio area.

The fall colors have been spreading across the hills at an amazing pace. What a treat to spend my days in such a place.

Perlite

We continue to add perlite to the walls as they go up. It is a dusty material and the particles have sharp edges which often wind up in our eyes. Fortunately, they float out easily on their own as our eyes water. We try to do this work when the crew is not on-site as the dust goes everywhere.

Window sills

We began forming the window sills and pouring concrete. The exterior of each window sill will have a 7" flagstone sill sloped at 5 degrees and the interior will have a 16 inch flagstone window seat which will give us a great place to soak up the winter sun.

Lintels
On September 2nd a truck load of 8" x 12" rough sawn timbers were delivered to the site. I began cutting them to lengths needed to span the top of window and door openings. The lintels are 8" high by 24" wide and extend beyond the openings by a foot on each side. John Ford pinned two lengths of this beam material together using #4 rebar and then capped the ends with half -inch plywood which were glued and screwed in place. The crew then assembled and lifted these monsters into place. With the lintels in place, the mass of the structure is becoming more evident. The views from the windows are now fully framed and the timing couldn't be more perfect. It is now September 24th and the fall colors are the best we have witnessed here in the Gulch. Every day the oaks, willows and cottonwoods become more brilliant. The view changes all day long as the sun moves across the sky. It is hard to stay focused with such a wonderful display across the valley.

The Earth Block walls go up

2008-08-31T14:58:00.000-07:00

Jim Hallock of Earth Blocks, LLC sets the first block in position. Only 15,499 blocks left to go!

The crew. Jim Hallock and Rich Gillespie are on the right.

Blocks are staged and ready to start stacking. Window and door bucks are in the foreground ready to be set in place. Metal story poles are set and braced with 2x4s.

Jenny helps feed wire into the conduit. She is standing in what will be the kitchen pantry which will be home for the main breaker panel for all the heated space breakers. There is a main disconnect on the outside of the house, a main breaker panel in the garage, and a subpanel in the mechanical room.

Electrical boxes are 4x4x2.5 inches. They are screwed to a 6 inch block of 2x4 and the block is screwed to the earth block. This box is attached to an interior wall which is made up of two 10" wide block walls so the gap between them is much less than the 7" in the exterior walls.

Since the electrical box is the same height as a block, there are no special cuts required to clear them. Once the wall passes the box, we foamed the cavity behind it.

Here the walls are at the 3' mark. Door bucks have been set in place.

The cleaning crew arrives. Jenny and Raider come over everyday at 5:00pm to help me sweep up brick debris, nails and other items that might damage the concrete floor.

We hit the 6' mark on Labor day weekend!

Jenny shows us a glimpse of the 400 bags of Perlite insulation. The gap between the walls is 7" and the Perlite fill at this width has an insulating value of R22.

A metal structure called Durawall is place across the walls at every fifth course to bridge the inner and outer walls. We had to make up our own custom configuration since it is not available to span a 24" wall. This solution Rich came up with is really strong. At the back of the walls is a piece of OSB that seals off the end of the wall by the door buck. We used metal framing channels to attach it to the blocks. We could have joined the walls at the window and door bucks by turning the blocks, but this would have create a thermal bridge between the inside and outside.

We used yogurt container lids to post notes for the brick layers and to remind myself of activity or features that would occur in the area. The excess mud will be scraped off the walls before the final finish is applied (traditional 3 coat stucco for the exterior and earth plaster for the interior). The small voids between the blocks are purposefully left to provide an anchor for the final finish which is forced into the gaps as it is applied.

Blocks
On August 8th Jim Hallock, Earth Block LLC, set the first block in place. This left 15,499 blocks to be set to complete the walls. A small crew returned on Saturday to lay the first course. These blocks were set in portland cement since they were in contact with the foundation and at slab height. Getting the first course level and straight is critical to making the rest of the wall look good. Eber had spent several days the week before setting story poles in the corners. These are used to attach string lines for getting blocks level, the rows level, and the walls vertical. The full crew arrived the first of the next week to begin setting blocks in earnest. The team was able to place two rows of inner and outer wall blocks per day. All but the first course of blocks are set in a mud slurry about the consistency of a chocolate milk shake. The block surfaces are wetted down before the slurry is applied.

Window and door bucks
I created window and door bucks which were anchored in place. These will be screwed to the block walls as they rise and will be used for attaching the door jambs and window frames. The gap between the inner and outer walls at the door and window openings will be closed off with OSB attached to the blocks using metal framing studs. The gaps are then filled with spray foam. We could have bridged the opening with blocks but this would have created a thermal bridge for sucking heat from the interior.

Electrical
While the crew set bricks I installed the wiring and electrical boxes. Jenny helped pull wire through the conduit under the slab. This was done by first sucking a pull string through the conduit with a shop vacuum. Once this was done, we taped the electrical wire to the string and one of us fed the cable into the conduit while the other pulled on the string. The electrical boxes are 4x4 inches which is the height of an earth block so there is no need to trim block heights to bridge the boxes with the next course. The boxes were set in the wall by first screwing them into a 6 inch piece of 2x4 and then attaching the 2x4 to the block using a couple 3 inch torques head screws. The blocks accept nails and screws but regular gold deck screws will snap of heads. The electrical boxes are firmly anchored and the 2x4 gives a good surface to affix the first wire staple. Once the next course of blocks were placed, the cavity behind the box was filled with insulating foam.

Insulation
When the walls got high enough, we began filling the 7 inch space between the inner and outer wall with Perlite. Perlite is a pumice material that is popped similar to popcorn and is used as insulation and in the nursery business in potting soil. Perlite is nontoxic, low in embodied energy, and the source we got our material from is not too far from Durango. The perlite comes in 4 cubic foot bags and we will use about 400 bags of material to fill the walls. Perlite pours easily but is dusty and very light. It is best to put it in the walls when there is a slight breeze and to use a mask and glasses to keep from breathing the dust or getting it in your eyes. I did this activity over the weekend when the crew was not on site to spare them the dust.

Progress
As of Labor Day weekend, the walls on the lower level are at, or in some places just shy of, 6 feet. It is starting to feel like a house.

Pouring the slab and all that comes before

2008-08-04T17:51:00.000-07:00

Jenny moisture conditioning the engineered fill before compacting. Some of the electrical conduit has been installed.

A high speed conveyor shoots 3/4 inch gravel into the foundation. We added about 6 inches of this material.

The gravel was rough leveled around the conduit and plumbing.

The 6 mil vapor barrier is being placed in the foundation and the seams taped.

The high speed conveyor shot 3-4 inches of sand into the foundation on top of the vapor barrier.

The 2' blueboard foam is laid out on the sand, seams taped and the radiant tubing is stapled in position.

A closer look at the radiant tubing and plastic staple system

The upper bedroom slab is poured and dry colorant/hardener is worked into the surface. The garage slab is being poured with no colorant added. The main floor slab was poured the following day. All slab work started at 4:00 am to allow it time to set up before the afternoon rains. We were blessed with a couple dry days.

The next phase of the project was installing all the conduit for the electrical and media wiring. The conduit we placed in the footers was now linked together to allow pulling wires under the slab and into the cavity between the inner and outer adobe walls. In addition we assembled the domestic water circuit which includes a hot water recirculation loop that will eliminate the need to open the faucet and wait for hot water. The loop is on a timer that will circulate the hot water during times of the day when it is needed. We also installed the supply and returns for the radiant floor heating system. Dave Himes with Southwest Geothermal laid the zones out and set up four manifolds within the house that will run two zones each. We set up two additional zones in the garage that will be used to keep the area usable as a shop during the coldest months.

All the domestic water lines and the radiant supply and return lines were wrapped in insulating foam tubes. Once this was done, we back filled the area inside the footers with 3/4 inch gravel. We used a truck with a high speed conveyor that could throw the gravel over 100 feet. This saved a lot of work since the only other option we had was to hand carry the gravel in buckets. The gravel was leveled, compacted and then covered with 6 mil plastic vapor barrier. Jenny laid out the plastic and taped the seams. Just as she finished the last seam, it started to pour. We had about 1 1/2 inches of rain and we returned Monday morning to a lake. The day was spent pumping out the water.

The following day the truck returned to finish the back fill with sand. The truck threw in 3-4 inches of sand which we then rough leveled. Over the next three days, we used the laser level and a 4' piece of 2x4 to level the sand before laying down 2 inch blueboard. We taped the seams and were then ready to layout the radiant tubing. The radiant tubing was fixed in place with plastic staples pressed into the foam board. The depth of each material added to the interior of the foundation was worked out so we would wind up with 5 1/2 inches of concrete for the slab. This will provide a substantial thermal mass for storing heat.

Block Making Begins

2008-06-29T13:56:00.000-07:00

The earth block press making 7" x 14" x 4" blocks.

This machine blends the site soil with 6% Portland cement and adds a small amount of moisture as the mix passes along the outfeed auger.

Pallets of 10" x 14" x 4" earth blocks. The blocks are wrapped to retain moisture while the Portland cement cures. The blocks will be ready for use after about 2 weeks. We will wait a month before using ours.

We had originally planned on using sun dried adobe bricks from New Mexico for the wall structure of our house but the possibility of using the soil excavated from the site to make blocks was an intriguing option. Jim Hallock and Rich Gillespie of Earth Blocks Inc. http://www.earthblockinc.com/overview.htm made some test blocks from the site soil and determined that it would make great blocks. They set up their block press and started cranking out blocks on June 19th. Earth blocks are made by blending about 6% Portland cement with the soil and a little moisture which is then compressed in a form with a hydraulic ram. The press is capable of making over 250 10" x 14" x 4" blocks per hour. After about a week of block making, we have close to 8,000 blocks on site which is a little over half of what we will need for our walls.

French Drains, Waterproofing, Insulating, and Drain System

2008-06-29T12:20:00.000-07:00

Forrest and Trevor digging in french drains along the front of the house.

Forrest installed the 2" foamboard along the shallow frost protected foundations and they are ready for backfilling.

The MiraDri and MiraDrain material attached to the retaining wall and the french drain at the base of the footer. This area is ready for backfill.

Kevin Jenkins spent half a day with a small tracked excavator digging shallow trenches for the DWV (sewer drain system). I had placed sleeves under the footers where needed at the correct depth to create a constant 1/4" slope to the network of pipes. Drain pipe was laced through the sleeves and glued together. Vertical pipes were placed in the correct locations where toilets, sinks, tubs, showers, washer and vents go. The location of these vertical pipes will be checked several times before the concrete slab is poured to make sure they are correct.

Our son Forrest Crawford, flew on from San Francisco while on break from school to help for a week. With Trevor Green providing assistance they installed French drains along the entire front of the house. Forrest then cut 2" foam board to attach to the shallow frost protected foundations. Another piece of foam 2' wide was cut and put flat on the ground at the base of the foundation and at a slight angle to shed any water away that might find its way down to this depth. This sheet of foam was just above the french drain. Once this work was completed, we back filled the exterior of the foundation.

Work on waterproofing the retaining walls began once the concrete had cured for seven days. Werner Heiber helped me apply a very sticky waterproofing membrane from Carlisle called "MiraDri". It forms a bulletproof seal to keep water from penetrating through the concrete but is miserable stuff to apply in hot weather. Once the 3' wide sheets become warm they stick to themselves, us, or anything else they come in contact with. We worked early in the day and stored the cut sheets in the shade until we were ready to attach them pulling one out at a time.

Werner headed off on vacation (well earned) and Ed Oaks came on board to help attach another Carlisle product called "MiraDrain" over the "MiraDri". This product is a dimpled plastic board covered with a drain fabric which forms a space across the entire retaining wall surface for moisture to flow down to the french drains dug in at the base of the footers. This stuff was pretty easy to install. Ed and Trevor then worked on french drains along the base of the back retaining walls.

We are now ready for backfilling the tall retaining walls. The land profile around the building will be contoured and we will start to see how the house nestles into the slope.

Retaining walls go up

2008-06-15T19:15:00.000-07:00

One side of the form is mounted on top of the footers, rebar is installed and another panel is added at the correct width for the wall being created.

Joe Hernanedez aligns the pumper truck nozzle and monitors the fill while the truck operator controls the boom with a remote control. The crew follows finishing the surface of the concrete and adding J bolts where needed.

The finished foundation ready for the next step.

As soon as the forms for the footers were removed, the concrete crew started setting up retaining wall forms. The house design called for a 6' retaining wall to run the entire length of the house with stepped down wings off each end. In addition the guest bedrooms on the upper level of the site required a 4' retaining wall at the back side where this section of the house is bermed into the slope.

More plumbing, electrical conduit, and sleeves were installed at this stage before the forms were fully assembled. The pour occurred on Monday afternoon June 16th without incident and forms were removed the following day. By Wednesday, the concrete crew was gone along with all their equipment. I had to wait a week for the concrete to cure before getting a small tracked excavator into the structure to dig sewer drain pipe trenches.

Cast in Concrete

2008-06-03T06:53:00.000-07:00

The pumper truck and the first concrete truck in position for filling the forms.

Joe on the left watching the action. The pumper truck operator is on the right with a remote control unit for his rig.

The quality inspector doing an air content test on a batch of concrete.

This truck is full of rejected concrete and ready to tip as you can see. A strap was attached between the top of the hopper and another truck and was kept taught while the driver of this truck inched forward back onto the drive.

The concrete pumper truck showed up at 8:00 am and began setting up while Jenny and I placed the last of the media conduit sweeps in the forms. The pour started at 9:00 and Joe's crew was wrapping up by 3:00 pm. One concrete truck leaving with a load of rejected concrete drove off of the compacted drive and sunk into the soft soil and was close to rolling. With help from another truck they were able to get him back on the drive without mishap.

We will see if our conduit survived the pour tomorrow when Joe's crew pull the forms.

Plumbing goes in the forms

2008-06-02T20:18:00.001-07:00

This is a mix of roof drain, electrical conduit and sleeves for the radiant lines in an adobe wall between the great room and the master bedroom. We put couplings on the end of the conduit against the form wall and then wrapped them with foam to create a void in the concrete around them. We pulled the coupling up tight against the form with tie wire slipped through the form and twisted until tight.The radiant sleeves were just taped at their ends and suspended by tie wire and pulled to the bottom rebar with tie wire.

Here is a typical array of media and electrical conduit.

Jenny and I worked nonstop Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to get all the plumbing required in the forms. Dave Himes with Southwest Geothermal was on site taking care of all the sleeves through forms between rooms. We worked on the electrical conduit that will allow us to pull wires up in the gap between the double adobe walls. Curt Nelsen with Nelsen Electric stopped by several times to cheer us on and to look over our shoulder and keep us code compliant. In addition, we had to install conduit for the media wiring, Photovoltaic, and roof drains. We worked until dark and started again at daybreak. We were just completing the last tasks on our punch list when the pumper truck showed up Monday morning.

The Foundation Forms are assembled

2008-05-29T18:38:00.000-07:00

Joe and his crew are setting up forms. The forms in the lower right are footers for the framed garage. The forms in the center are roughly 2'x2' in profile and will require 2" foamboard insulation on outside to protect them.

Forms for the guest bedrooms are being assembled.

The concrete crew from Advanced Concrete Solutions showed up on site Tuesday May 20th to begin setting up forms for the foundation. The foundation is a complex design which is a mix of deep footers with stemwalls for the framed portion (the garage) and shallow frost protected areas for the Double adobe walls. Since the walls are 24 inches thick our Structural engineer, Jeff Ruppert tried to minimize the amount of concrete required to support the walls where possible. In addition, there is also a 6' tall retaining wall where the guest bedrooms step up from the main floor (this was to accomodate the sloped site and to allow for south facing windows in this area for more solar gain). The north side of the guest bedrooms are 4' below grade which required a retaining wall as well.

Joe Hernandez and his crew were amazingly quick in understanding the layout and getting it forms in place. In spite of rain Thursday & Friday, they had the forms ready the following Thursday.

A concrete pour date was set for Monday June 2nd. Now it is our turn in the trenches to place electrical, media, water, and radiant plumbing in the forms.

Earth Day Earth Work Begins

2008-05-09T16:56:00.000-07:00

By early February, the snow was over 4' deep and didn't melt off until early April.

Late April: Mark cuts into the slope, Kenny moves it down slope, and I compact it.

Our site looking across Horse Gulch. Looks a bit like a sand and gravel pit from here. It will take a lot of native grass seed to restore the site

Jenny and I set stakes for the house corners. We used triangulations based on a CAD model I created.

Filling and compacting engineered fill in the footer trenches.

After an incredible winter that saw a snow accumulation of well over 4 feet, we finally got back on the site on Earth Day. The site is now level, footer trenches are cut, and we have been compacting a foot of engineered fill into the trenches. We should be able to start setting foundation forms by the end of next week.

Since the wiring and some plumbing goes into a 4" gap between the double adobe walls and under the concrete slab, there is a tremendous amount of desk work at this point. There will be no going back if we forget something. This is the reason wood floor structures over a crawl space are such a popular construction method. They are much easier to plumb and wire. However, they lack thermal mass, which means they are unable to store passive solar energy and instead act as a heat loss, requiring more fossil fuel to heat the house. Our double-wall adobe will have plenty of thermal mass and hopefully require very little energy to heat.

We have been struggling with the budget and continuing to get bids for things that seem unreasonable. High fuel prices are causing many materials to skyrocket. On the plus side, lumber prices have dropped due to the subprime lending debacle causing fewer houses to be built with a resulting lower demand for lumber. To bad we aren't using much wood. Another problem is getting experienced, but not over-qualified, crews to do the adobe work. All of this has definitely resulted in sticker shock. We continue to look for every opportunity to control costs.

Winter arrives

2007-12-31T09:05:00.000-08:00

Winter arrived with about a foot of snow and brought work on the site to a halt. The ground has not frozen yet and is a quagmire under the snow. We have decided to put the project on hold until spring. There is plenty of design detailing to do over the winter along with sourcing materials and selecting subcontractors. There is also some great snow in the backcountry calling to us so we are off to check it out.

Filling in the geothermal source field

2007-12-06T09:03:00.000-08:00

We had a three ring circus going between Danette, Kevin, and me.

Jenny tries out the compactor.

We arrived at the site early Monday morning and started filling and compacting the remaining soil in the geothermal source field but as the sun warmed the site, the ground thawed and things became very slippery. We came close to burying the 2000 gallon water truck trying to get it closer to the hole. Even the excavator was sliding around on the slope which, I would imagine, is very unnerving if you're sitting at the controls. Danette took it in stride. Kevin seemed to enjoy hot roding the skid steer around in the mud. It rained last night and the forecast is for more through the weekend. This puts things on hold until the site dries a bit.

I have had several people ask how the geothermal system works. Here are a couple links to sites that have more information on how it works.

http://www.bluesky-energy.com/ This is a Denver area company that installs systems (not the one we are using)

http://www.waterfurnace.com/ This is one of the geothermal equipment suppliers

Geothermal Source Field

2007-12-02T12:52:00.000-08:00

Laying out pipe in the Geothermal source field

Vibrating screen used to create fill to bed the pipe

Pipes bedded and soil compacted as weather hits

Lake formed by the rain being pumped out

Ken Jenkins wife, Danette Jenkins mother of three and excavator operator for the family business created this hole and Gordon Heinrich and Dave Hines of Braxis Engineering along with my labor, laid out the tubing for the Geothermal source field. Assembly took about four hours but filling in the hole became a bit of a problem as we had a difficult time finding a vibrating screen to sift the soil for bedding the tubing. Stones could damage the pipe and hard soil clumps create air pockets around the pipe which reduces thermal connection with the soil. Once the equipment was located it took about one and a half days to sift enough soil to bed the tubing. We scrambled to get the first eighteen inches of fill in place and compacted as the snow and rain began. The following day I returned with a rented pump to empty the lake formed by the 1.5 inches of rain that fell.

Construction becomes official 11/08/07

2007-11-08T12:44:00.000-08:00

Raider by the temporary address sign

Jenkins putting in a culvert for the driveway

Taking a break while clearing oak

The project became official with the installing of our temporary address sign. Raider, our new companion from the Humane Society poses for the camera. Putting the culvert in allowed us to get on the site to start clearing and chipping the dense oak on the build site.

The Begining

2007-11-08T12:00:00.000-08:00

After agonizing over the Strawbale house project my wife and I had been planning for almost two years, we decided to kill the project for a number of troubling reasons. We sold the land and bought another property in an area known as Horse Gulch. The lot has a great southern exposure that begged for a good passive solar design. We hired local architect Greg Madeen who is well versed in all forms of natural building including; strawbale, adobe, and rammed earth, to design a passive solar adobe home that would nestle into the pinion, juniper, and oak covered south facing slope towards the front of the property. The wall profile will consist of two 10 inch adobe blocks with a four inch gap between them filled with perlite. Greg's first pass design was very close to what we had invisioned and, with a few small adjustments, was ready to be detailed out. We began excavation work in early November with hopes of getting the drive, septic, power, and cistern in before the snows made progress too dificult. We decided to use a geothermal mechanical system in the house so the first project became digging a hole 105' x 36' x 7' for the source field.

The house project progress entries begin at this point