Timeline - Design Evolution - Wall Cladding

Past Three Years

Preconceived Ideas

Dorothy and I are not fond of vinyl siding.  It is unappealing because it is ubiquitous, looks cheap, is petroleum-based, has a lot of embodied energy, is subject to wind and hail damage, has a short life span and mostly ends up in land-fills. The commonplace 4 x 8 sheets of cedar-veneered plywood would not be a bad choice except for requiring perpetual maintenance.  Real cedar clapboards are beautiful but have the disadvantages of requiring ongoing care, coming from old growth trees and being expensive.  Our search for alternative cladding that was inexpensive, low-maintenance and green took some unexpected turns.

Fibercement -- the New Green
My green building research kept pointing me towards fibercement siding as the greenest

Fibercement lap siding

choice for cladding.  I even went so far as to buy a used electric nibbler to use for cutting it someday.  It is made from cement and renewable FSC-certified (Forest Stewardship Council) wood, holds paint two or three times longer than wood, is virtually wind and hail proof, has a long lifespan and comes with a reasonably low level of embodied energy.

SmartSide
At one point, a building supply salesperson tried to sway me away from fibercement with a product called SmartSide that appears to be an OSB-like board that can stand the weather. He gave me a sample and told me to take it home and soak it in water for a while to demonstrate its durability. I did and it swelled.  I emailed the company and was told that it was not designed for underwater, just wetting as would be expected with any cladding.  Fair enough.  It is indeed a green product since it comes from renewable wood chips from plantation trees and the finish comes with a long-term warranty.  For green-ness, its other attributes pretty much match those of fibercement.

Metal Siding?
Until two years ago, metal siding had not entered my mind. When my stepson , Keith, said that he was going to use it on their energy efficient house, my first reaction was, "Are you kidding?"  Bu

Siding underway for Dawn and Keith's house;
 note that, for energy conservation, the amount
 of glazing on north and west sides is minimal

t after I helped install it, I came to realize that he had made a wise choice -- it's definitely an unique finish for homes, it's DIY-friendly, it's virtually maintenance-free, it lasts for plus or minus a century and it has a recyclable end-life. If there is a knock against metal siding, it is that it has fairly high embodied energy which, to some degree, is off-set by its recycled content.

Comparative Pricing

When the various options for cladding were compared, the SmartSide was the most expensive, the steel siding was the least expensive and fibercement was intermediate. After being so impressed with the steel siding that we installed on Keith and Dawn's house, the price sealed the deal for steel.

Installation
The panels that we installed on Keith's two-and-a-half story house were long -- some were over twenty feet -- which were a struggle using ladders instead of scaffolding. All of our walls are single story height which will make installation easier. The color we have in mind is white because of its timeliness and its high reflectance against solar gain in summer.

Well glazed southern exposure

The one thing that I would change from the typical installation is the trim at the corners and around the openings.  If the appearance of the metal trim sold with the panels could be modified to look more like the trim used with old-fashioned clapboard or fibercement siding, the house would for us appear more "residential" and less "commercial". Accordingly, I plan to rabbet well-dried pressure treated 2x's to receive and conceal the edges of the metal panels just like the metal trim does. Then, in order to minimize maintenance, I will paint the wood on all four sides with the best paint I can find and hide the metal J-mold (that would ordinarily be exposed around the openings in typical installations) under the rabbets.

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Update - November 2019
We did indeed follow through with white steel siding with pressure-treated trim boards painted white.  For details, go to "Construction - Steel Siding".

Timeline - Design Evolution -- Earth Contact North Wall

Last Four Years

As a DIYer, it was hard for me to imagine ahead of time the structural complexity of a high concrete wall that is essentially a retaining wall, -- backfilled on one side and not supported on the other. It took Steve Rehagen, who drew our house plans and Mark Bachetti, our structural engineer, to educate me.  Prior to Steve and Mark, I went through a couple of budget-driven iterations that would never be stamped by a structural engineer as required by the Building Director.  

The wall is 92' long, 54' of which is 12' tall with the remainder 8' tall.  In order to maximize earth contact for the AGS system, the inside of the wall must remain open to air circulation. Consequently, a long, narrow storage area will abut the wall with all of the storage taking place on its south wall so as to leave the north wall unencumbered.   The disadvantage of this arrangement from a structural standpoint is that there will be no right-angle interior stem walls to brace the north wall.  Hence, its similarity to a retaining wall.

Dry-stacked Concrete Blocks

Originally, we envisioned more earth sheltering than we ended up with and the

First three courses of dry-stacked blocks
for our solar collector for the AGS system 

quintessential text on the subject is Rob Roy's "Earth-Sheltered Houses" which was an early acquisition and influencer.  He advocates using dry-stacked cinder blocks for earth contact walls -- primarily 12" thick rather than the usual 8" thick. Apparently, dry stacked (mortar-less) concrete blocks originated with the Corps of Engineers.and produces a wall that is not only stronger than a mortared wall but a wall that rivals a poured concrete. So our first vision was a 12" dry-stacked concrete wall.  Dry-stacking would be by far the cheapest approach and the most DIY-friendly but the amount of labor involved with stacking 60 lb blocks 12' high would be formidable. Also such a wall would be hard to insulate. Insulation appended to the outside tends to be disturbed by backfilling and insulation on the inside is not as effective because it is on the wrong side of the thermal mass.

At the time of this writing, we were constructing the walls for the solar collector for the AGS

Parging dry-stacked blocks with
 fiber-bonded cement

system using dry-stacked blocks. The photo above was taken while the first horizontal bond beam course was being filled with concrete and horizontal rebar.  A second bond beam coarse was similarly used higher up in the wall and many of the cores in the blocks were filled with concrete and vertical rebar.  As is typical, both sides of the walls will be coated with fiber bonded cement which makes the joints between blocks stronger than 3/8" mortar joints. Dry-stacking is perfect for this small project but I am glad that we cannot use it for the north wall because it is not as straightforward and easy as it might seem -- minor variations in the size of the blocks complicate stacking them level and plumb, particularly when half-blocks are mixed in with full-sized blocks.  

Complete Blocks 

Last year, I came upon a St Louis start-up making insulated blocks for house walls (Complete Block Company).  After several visits with Herb Walters, the inventor, I become convinced that Complete Blocks were exactly what we needed for our project. With proper equipment, the 200 pound blocks could be dry-stacked to form our long wall in

Dry-stacking the blocks with lifting equipment; notice the
 stamped concrete exterior; the mating surfaces are sealed
with an elastomeric material as the blocks are seated

one or two days.  They would be poured off-site with or without insulation in them. As can be seen in the lower photo, they fit together in tongue and groove fashion then vertical rebar is added after stacking.  It is threaded and epoxied into holes in the slab or footing then tensioned from above.to pull the blocks into tight contact with with each other and with the slab or footing.  Our project would require insulated blocks only at the periphery then solid blocks for most of the wall in order to give thermal mass for the AGS system.  As mentioned above, the intrinsic insulation would be more effective if it were on the exterior side like with insulated concrete forms (post on insulated concrete forms).

Despite the perfect match between Complete Blocks and our needs and a generous offer

Notice the tongue and groove mating and the horizontal
rebar; note also the intrinsic insulation and furring strips
 (for attaching interior finish materials such as drywall);
the vertical rebar on 16" centers is not apparent here

from Herb to help with installation for essentially the cost of the blocks alone, we decided to go a different route.  The system was so new that there were no structural data available that a structural engineer could use to stamp our plans. We are still a couple of months away from constructing the north wall so I recently contacted the company to see if data now existed and any engineers stood ready to stamp our plans.  The answer is still essentially "no".

Poured Concrete Wall
Meanwhile, the default position was to pour concrete in order to keep the project moving. The wall that Mark designed is 1' thick and rests on a monolithic footing (poured at the same time as the slab) that is 1' thick and 8' wide.  The amount of rebar extending from the footing into the wall and interlaced within the wall is mind-boggling -- literally tons of number 4, 5 and 6 rebar.   Presently, I am vetting potential vendors and do not know yet the cost of pouring such a tall wall.

As for insulating, a poured wall would be as problematic as a dry-stacked cinder block wall.

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Update
A month or so after this posting was published, I made the decision definitely to go with a poured wall and worry later about some creative way(s) to insulate it to at least R-20.

Timeline - Design Evolution - Roof Cladding

Since Two Years Ago

Steel Panels

While we waffled considerably on wall cladding, roof cladding turned out to be a no-brainer.  In retrospect, it is hard to understand why there are so few steel roofs except in the southern

Asphalt shingles

states.  I am not sure how the cost stacks up against asphalt or wood shake shingles when professionally installed but, for the DIYer, a standing seam metal roof is cheaper than buying and installing his or her own shingles. We did consider "barn tin" type corrugated galvanized metal roofing that that we have admired in books and magazines but local code prohibits it. 

Cost

The cost of metal roofing fluctuates with the thickness of the metal and the way it is fastened.  Obviously, the thicker the metal, the higher the cost.  As far as fastening is concerned, there are two ways to fasten standing seam roofing -- exposed fasteners and concealed fasteners. The first utilizes hex screws with heads matching the color of the steel.  The screws have neoprene washers under the heads to seal out water. The other system typically utilizes clips that are installed first then the panels are snapped to place over them. 

Pros and Cons of Fastener Styles

(The rest of my comments are based partly on my research and partly on my having helped my step-son, Keith. install a metal roof recently.)  

The advantage of exposed

Exposed fasteners (click to enlarge)

fasteners is that the system is a third cheaper than

Concealed fasteners (click to enlarge)

systems with hidden fasteners, which is what makes the cost of metal competitive with asphalt. And they are faster and easier to install, particularly for a DIYer. 

The disadvantage of exposed fasteners is that, unless care is used in setting the hex screws so that they are not over-tighten or fail to seat fully, water will eventually follow the screws through the panels. This is one of the reasons that 30# felt is used under steel roofing.  Another disadvantage of screwed down panels is that they cannot react to the thermal expansion of the metal as it heats and cools.  This is more important as the panels get longer.

The advantage of hidden fasteners is that there are no breaks in the surface of the panels that can leak. If the panels are installed correctly, they shorten and lengthen in response to temperature changes by sliding on the clips.  The disadvantages of hidden fasteners for the DIYer is that there is a steeper learning curve and the added cost.

Slippery Slope

Installing metal roofing on a steep roof is dangerous because, unlike rough asphalt, it makes a perfect sliding board.  In my view, a DIYer might want to think twice about installing it on a steep roof.  And, if s/he does decide to do it, a safety harness is an absolute must.

Sustainability

Steel roofing is the most sustainable among roof claddings.  While it has fairly high embodied energy, it is less so than asphalt or aluminum.   It contains a high recycled content,, has a recyclable end-life and lasts longer.  It also is available in highly reflective colors which help to limit the amount of radiant heat penetrating the roof in summer. Asphalt shingles are petroleum-based, rarely have recycled content, almost always have a landfill end-life, have a shorter lifespan and lower reflectance. Shake shingles too often come from old growth trees, have a limited lifespan and end up in the landfill or, worse yet, are burned.

Our Choice

We will be using a light colored reflective steel roof.  The good-news-bad- news story is that the roof pitch is so low as to make slipping off the roof unlikely. but our budget dictates the use of exposed fasteners.

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Addendum, June, 2017
By the time I placed the order for the metal roofing, I had given up on the use of exposed fasteners due to a lower pitches to all of the roofs than originally envisioned.  

Odds 'N Ends - Managing Salvaged Lumber (Cont'd)

This is the second of two posts on managing salvaged lumber.  The first post discusses de-nailing; this one is about preserving the lumber until ready for use.

Storing De-nailed Lumber

At first, I stored salvaged lumber stacked tightly together, like on the racks at home centers, and under a heavy-duty Craigslist freebie pool cover.  Moreover, the hard-won boards were stacked on top of salvaged 4 x 4s to keep them off of the ground. Needless to say, termites found this arrangement convenient.  By the time I discovered my stupidity, their munching was still confined to some of the shortest and most expendable 2 x 4s -- but they sure got my attention.  And let me add that my experience with protecting things for extended periods of time with anything resembling a "tarp"  or plastic sheeting has made me aware that ultraviolet radiation always wins and coverings leak.  When they do, mold can be a problem, both from the standpoint of deterioration of the lumber as well as health concerns.

After my experience with the pool cover,  I followed a different  protocol.  I covered the ground under a prospective stack with something to control weeds and grass -- old tarps, old carpet, old carpet pads or black ground cloth. (as can be seen in both photos).  I then arranged salvaged concrete blocks in grid fashion.  Supported by the blocks were 2 x 4s or 4 x 4s cross-ways of the stack that were shimmed with the help of a long straight edge as necessary to compensate for the unevenness of the ground to ensure that the boards would lie perfectly flat lengthwise.  I am hoping that the 8" tall blocks, will dissuade at least the lazy termites. 

Stickering

When green sawmill lumber is stacked for air-drying, each layer is separated by narrow

Air-drying green lumber -- stickers between every layer

boards called "stickers" laid cross-ways.  It is important for drying green lumber to have all four sides exposed to air. However, for seasoned lumber, I reasoned that exposure to air on three sides should be enough to keep lumber that is stored outside dry, so I used stickers between every other layer for all the salvaged lumber.

At the time of this writing, one sizable stack of 2 x 4s and a stack of 1 x 8s have been dismantled for making wall trusses and concrete forms, respectively, and no deterioration is evident -- no termites, no rot, no mold, everything is cool except for lots of stink bugs (we are having a horrendous infestation stink bugs in the Midwest because there are few natural enemies to keep them in check (see food chain). As an example of stacking recycled lumber, the bottom photo shows 2 x 4s that were pre-cut for wall tursses then restacked with three sides of each board exposed to the air.

Covering

Using the pool cover is a bad idea because stacked lumber needs to breath.  I covered the new stacks with loose sheets of barn "tin" weighted down with heavy stones. And, since, our area is in the tornado alley of

Storing salvaged lumber -- stickers every other layer

the Midwest, I lashed each stack together by looping wire over the tin and under the stack then twisting it tight.  The loops are spaced about 5' apart along the length of the stack.  So far, we have had numerous tornado warnings and one close call but no direct hits to test the efficacy of the arrangement.

Of course, the tin does not fully cover the ends and sides of the piles but this is not important because the surfaces that are most prone to wetting are also the ones most exposed to air and sun.  The exposed areas turn gray but remain in good condition.

Spacing the Stacks
If I had it to do over again, I would have spaced the stacks so as to be able to mow completely around each stack with the riding mower.  As it it now, the mowing has to be augmented with a string trimmer, not one of my favorite things to do.

Odds 'N Ends - Managing Salvaged Lumber

This is the first of two posts on working with salvage lumber.

Work Table

De-nailing boards can be boring and tedious if the work area is not efficient, particularly when the volume of de-nailing is great.  Most of my salvaged lumber came from tearing down three old houses, two garages and several farm outbuildings.  The amount of de-nailing was substantial and seemed daunting at first but, once I got set up with an efficient work area, turned the radio on to PBS and settled into a routine, I rather enjoyed it.

The shanty for the work bench, provided mid-day shade and support for the work table.  The latter had several two-by-

Shanty-covered work area constructed from salvage

four arms extending outward from under the table as well as several blocks on top of the table (click on photo for closer look at the work table arrangement).  It also had a trough at the back of the work surface into which the nails could be tossed.  Because the boards usually had nails protruding from more than one side or edge, the table top was seldom useful.  However, the naily boards could be suspended between the 2x arms or between the blocks on top of the table and de-nailed without the boards wobbling around.  The working height of the table was lower than might be expected in order to gain plenty of leverage with less effort.

Tools

Four tools were most effective for pulling nails -- a claw hammer,  a flat tool, a wrecking bar

and an end cutter long enough to have leverage but no so long as to be unwieldy with one hand.  A short piece of 2 x 4 for a pivot under the claw hammer or end cutter, and sometimes the wrecking bar, was necessary for pulling long nails.  A circular saw was also mandatory.

De-nail or Cut-off?

During deconstruction, when a wall could be laid down for dismantlng, the top and bottom plates could be driven off of the studs with a sledge hammer without damaging the ends of the studs.  However, when walls were dismantled while still standing, the more usual case, the

A naily stud suspended on 2 x 4 arms; notice the toenailing

studs had to be driven sideways off of the plates which invariably damaged the ends of the studs.  Rather than wasting time removing the nails from the damaged ends, it made sense simply to cut off the studs, nails and all, with a circular saw.  Such was necessary more often than not when the stud was toenailed with four nails even when the wall was laid down for dismantling. Unfortunately, the shorter boards are not suitable for reuse in a typical 8' wall without being spliced.

The lumber brought in from the tear-downs was piled randomly in the open for several months without deterioration even in our hot, humid summers.  The randomness and the protruding nails provided plenty of air space between boards to keep them air-dried. After de-nailing however, the need for proper stacking became critical, which is covered in the next post on salvaged lumber.

Construction - French Drains - Design, Fabrication and Installation (Cont'd some more)

Grading of the Building Site and Setting the Laser
My excavation of the building site left uneven contours in which water pooled after a rain. The first thing that the contractor did with a track loader just before a frog-strangler rain was to smooth and slope the grade.  As a result, the site was dry enough in a couple of days to resume work.  

The laser beam was then set up at 5' above final floor height to serve as the bench mark for all subsequent excavation and grading.  The proper fall for French drains is the same as for soil pipe -- quarter inch per foot which is a 2% fall.  The laser was then set for 2% to avoid having to calculate the fall as the trenching progressed.  For instance, the easternmost trench began at the north end at 14'  (5' from laser to floor level plus 9' below floor level)  and ended at the south end near the future rain garden at 17' automatically.

Rock for Backfill
Several truckloads of two kinds of rock for backfill were delivered by the contractor -- natural pea gravel (the brown pile in photo) and 1" clean quarry gravel (the light gray piles). Since the French Drains were made from

In goes 1" clean

single wall culverts (French drain construction) and might be damaged by backfilling with 1' clean from a height of over 10', we decided to bed the drains on a few inches of pea gravel then cover them for a few inches with more pea gravel before dropping in the 1" clean.   In addition to protecting the culverts from the coarse rock, the gravel would also facilitate water flow into the perforated culverts as well as carry water parallel to, but outside, the culverts -- at least for a while. Our soil engineer had warned that any gravel not protected by the proper geo-textile fabric would eventually silt up and behave more like the adjacent soil. As far as the the geo-textile wrap for the culverts was concerned, it was designed to filter out silty soil whether it contains gravel or not, thereby rendering future siltation of the gravel moot.

Last-Minute Changes to the French Drain System
The drawing shows the planned French drain system having seven north-south

N-S French drains in green and yellow; manifold in red (click on photo to enlarge)

drains with some of the eastern-most connecting with a diagonal "manifold" that empties at a future rain garden. While the internal diameter of the seven drains is 8", the connecting manifold is 12" and of double-wall construction in order to bear the weight of heavy vehicles on the driveway. 

What the drawing does not show are two last-minute changes to the system.  One is a long east-west French drain connecting the north ends of the seven north-south drains. The culvert-less trench was lined to a height of 6' with geo-textile fabric before backfilling with rocks and closing at the top with a "burrito wrap" of the fabric.  

The original design for all seven of the N-S drains was a pea-gravel-protected, fabric-wrapped, perforated, culvert backfilled with 1" clean and topped off with soil.  The trench was not to be lined with fabric. The second last-minute change was to use the same fabric, rock backfill and burrito wrap that was used for the E-W connector for the eastern-most (#7) drain even though it already had a wrapped

Digging E-W connector to a depth of 9 feet

culvert at the bottom. The rationale for these changes was to intercept ground water as it flowed from N-E to S-W anytime the water table rose decidedly above the height of the wrapped culverts (9' below floor level) even though the probability was minimal. 

Trenching, Installing and Backfilling
The trenching was done by a backhoe with a 24" bucket beginning with the N-S connector then the westernmost N-S drain and progressing eastward with the rest of the drains.  As soon as a trench was dug and the bottom lined with a couple of inches of pea gravel, the pre-made wrapped culvert was snaked in and lowered into place with ropes by enough volunteers to ensure its safe handling and proper orientation in the trench.  As soon as the drain was in

"Snaking" in a pre-made French drain

place, it was embedded in more pea gravel then backfilled with 1" clean to within a couple of feet of the top.  Then enough soil was swung in from the next trench being dug to bring the backfill to grade.

Construction - French Drains - Rationale, Fabrication and Installation (cont'd)

This is the second of three posts on the French drains.  The first post delt with the rationale for and the prefabrication of the drains from culverts.   This post bridges from the prefabrication phase to the installation phase in the third post.

Overall Design
The individual homemade drains were detailed in an earlier post and can be seen in the distant background in second photo.  The

12" double wall conduit for the manifold

perforated portion of each 8' drain is 60' long to which enough additional un-perforated pipe was added to reach daylight downhill near the future rain garden or to empty into a common 12" manifold that went to daylight near the garden. The perforated sections and one 20' section of unperforated pipe were assembled ahead of time. The remainder of the system had to be assembled on site as the trenches became available.

 

Entire system ready for installation

Professional Help
The need for an elaborate system of French drains and its cost was not anticipated when budgeting originally. Consequently, I tried to imagine ways of trenching and backfilling without professional help (original plan). However, it became clear that the additional cost of help could somewhat, but not entirely, be justified by savings of time, materials and equipment rental. 

In terms of time, it took only two days to lay the French drains in mid-April which allowed us to get a leg up on what is usually our wet season in May and early June. This was perhaps the primary benefit of seeking help.

In terms of materials, rock dropped from a height of 5' is sufficiently self-compacting to support foundation footings and slabs. Therefore, rock is preferable to soil for backfilling because soil has to have the correct moisture content then must be compacted in shallow layers (lifts) with compacting equipment. In terms of material costs, the pay-off from using professionals is that they have the right combination of equipment to minimize the amount of dirt that has to be removed.and replaced with expensive rock.

In terms of equipment rental, no mini-excavator or compactor was necessary -- no small savings.

Brian Hayes Construction
Consequently, we did the right thing in hiring Brian Hayes, a local contractor, at a time when he was not overbooked and able to do the work himself.   As luck would have it, his Dad (with a lot of help from a youthful Brian) had DIYed their home-place in which, as a science teacher, Mr Hayes had incorporated sustainability concepts that were way ahead of the curve.  

Brian was not only willing to work with a DIYer but seemed to take genuine ownership of our energy-neutral project (perhaps partly in his Dad's memory?).  He provided the rock and did the trenching and backfilling for the French drains. He facilitated the rapid installation of the AGS system, he graded the house footprint to final depth in preparation for the rock sub-base for the concrete slab and he dug the shallow trenches for the foundation footings -- all of this in essentially five working days despite having to deal with an amateur track-loader operator (me) and a volunteer crew.  Conservatively, he saved us as much as two months time over DIYing the French drains and the AGS system.

Brian's invoice equaled +/- 20% of our total home-building budget.  The ratio for the French drains to the AGS system was 8:2, i.e., 80 % of the 20% went for the drains, a cost that is somewhat easier to reconcile by knowing that any conscientious construction let into our wet hillside would have required them irrespective of our need to use them to protect the AGS system.  The 20% for installing the AGS system was more in line with what was budgeted.  

Our hope is that unanticipated synergies during the remainder of construction will help to offset the French drains costs.

Prime Examples of Unanticipated Synergies Immediately
Our project already has enough life to attract unanticipated synergies, most of which so far have taken the form of volunteer labor and opportunities for salvage.  Brian brought another dimension.  His 35-year experience in the field, and I, with my research-based design, were able to collaborate amiably on the fly as the French drains and AGS conduits were laid, producing much better outcomes than I would have had sticking to the original design. Since part of Brian's business is razing old buildings (60 or more per year), he now plans to watch in our behalf for salvaged lumber opportunities - another unanticipated synergy.  Still another:  I thought our narrow dead-end street precluded semi-truck deliveries, which meant unloading onto a main street and using the track loader to schlep individual skids several blocks (as I did with the pallet of geo-textile material). Through Brian's connections, a vacant contractor's property at the end of the street will be available as a turn-around for semi's.

First the Driveway
But back to the actual construction of the French drains, the first thing Brian prescribed was to site and rock a driveway to give access for the delivery of rock for the French drains and a place to dump it.   It also would be mandatory for the

Rough-in for drive and turn-around area near future garage

Ready-Mix trucks and others delivering materials later. Accordingly, I used garden hose, then marking paint, to outline the driveway to the street and the turn-around area near the future garage.   With the track loader, I removed about a foot of soil. 

As a naive DIYer laying out his first driveway with garden-hose-and-paint precision, I envisioned a nice driveway from the time the first gravel arrived until we moved in. Wrong!   By the time gravel truck after gravel truck arrived, it was deeply rutted and had to be repaired over and over.  And, when dumping space closer to the house footprint was usurped by installation of French drains, the driveway to the street became the default site for several more truckloads of gravel which spilled over the sides of the original driveway footprint to the extent that it became impossible to tell exactly where the driveway was supposed to be.  Oh, well!

To continue the story on French drains go on to the third post.

Construction - French Drains - Rationale, Fabrication and Installation

This post is the first of three on the French drain system installed below the house to prevent ground water from comprising the Annualized GeoSolar system.  

Why Are French Drains So Important for Our Project?
Just to review, we are using a passive solar system called Annualized GeoSolar in lieu of conventional heating and air conditioning.  It captures the heat from the summer sun and

stores it in the soil under and adjacent to the house. 

The keys to the AGS system are conduits (red in top drawing) angled slightly upward from the solar collector in front of the house (blue). A total of ten conduits fan out through the soil a few feet below floor of the house then terminate in a common solar chimney behind the house (green).   Heated air traveling slowly and passively from the collector to the chimney gradually raises the ground temperature to a floating year-around preferred temperature of 74 degrees (+/- 4 degrees). When heat is lost through the envelope of the house in winter, it is replenished from the enormous thermal

mass under and adjacent to the house. Since heat seeks cold, the heat that enters the envelop during summer goes immediately into the mass to augment the heat already being produced by the solar collector for the upcoming heating season.  Of course, during cold months, the chimney has to be closed to keep counterproductive cold air from dropping into the conduits.

Ground Water Problem  
For the system to work, the soil under and adjacent to the house must remain perfectly dry because water carries the heat from the conduits to the water table before it can be used to condition the house.  In dry climates with a low water tables, all that is needed to keep the soil dry is an "insulation-watershed umbrella" (orange in the second drawing) which not only insulates the soil for a distance outward from the house to increase the size of the thermal mass, it also keeps rain and snow-melt from saturating the soil in the thermal mass.  In wetter climates with high water tables, the umbrella is not enough.  The water table under the house (curvy blue line in second drawing) must be lowered sufficiently that it is unable to steal heat from the conduits.  In our case, French drains are necessary because the water table is known, through the monitoring of four piezometers over several seasons, to rise in the late spring to the level of some of the conduits and much too close to the others.


Typical French Drains

Perforating with circular saw

Typically, a French drain lies close to the surface of the soil such that it is possible to fabricate the drain safely by either entering a shallow narrow trench or reaching in from above. Also typically, the drain is about a foot square in cross-section and contains clean stones of consistent size, say, 1" in diameter, with a 4" perforated pipe wrapped with geotextile fabric embedded in the stones a couple of inches from the bottom.  Then the entire drain is wrapped in geotextile fabric. Most of the water trickles through the rocks. The pipe provides rapid egress for water when the rock bed is full. The outer geotextile fabric keeps soil particles from entering and clogging the rock bed while that around the pipe provides additional insurance against a clogged pipe.

Hog ringer with hog ring  

Homemade French Drains
Our situation is unique in that, protection for the AGS conduits required the drains to be eight to ten feet below floor level (black line at the bottom of the first drawing) and situated in narrow trenches too dangerous to work in.  Consequently, I pre-made the drains and had them ready to drop into the trenches with ropes from above.  

The drains were fabricated from eight inch single-walled culverts that were perforated on both sides in the lower hemisphere with a circular saw whose blade guide was rigged to control the depth of cut. The perforations were about 4" apart. Then three culverts were joined together with one unperforated section using split unions secured with wire to make 80 ft lengths. Finally, the perforated sections of the culverts were wrapped with perhaps the only geotextile fabric extant that will not be clogged by our wind blown loess (silt) (research on fabrics).   The 12' width of the fabric was cut by the supplier into 36" strips which was the perfect dimension for overlapping  the culvert on top, rolling the edges

Hog-ringing the seam

under twice and fastening with hog rings. In order to eliminate the possibility of the culverts rotating relative to each other during handling and thereby causing some of the perforations to be in the top, less effective, hemisphere, hex headed sheet metal screws were used to secure the culverts to each of the wire retained split unions. 

Since at the time of lowering into the trenches, the textile fabric roll on top of the culverts

was to be used to position the assemblies in the trenches, it was important to prevent rotation of the fabric on the culverts during handling.  So a few sheet metal screws were driven through the roll into the culvert. 

Finally, the up-slope end of the pipe assemblies were closed by doubling the fabric back

Hog ring in place

over the culverts a few feet, wrapping and folding then securing with hog rings.and sheet metal screws similar to the way the fabric was handled along the length of the pipe.

Here we have focused on the individual drain. A succeeding post discusses the entire French drain system comprising seven legs -- some joined to a common "manifold" before reaching daylight and some going to daylight directly. Excavating and backfilling the trenches.are covered as well.

For a complete story, continue on to the  second post on French drains. 

Odds 'N Ends - Whole Wall R-value

The Envelope and Green Building

The skin of a building comprises the walls, roof or ceiling, floor, windows and doors collectively known as the "envelope".  Green building is largely a matter of keeping heat from entering or exiting the building through its envelope and doing so with minimal impact on finite resources.

Heat Transfer

Heat is transferred in three ways: 

• Conduction - through solid objects, called "thermal bridging" when it is applied to green building
• Convection - through fluid motion (air is a fluid), called "air infiltration" in green building parlance
• Radiation - heat transfer in a straight line through space such as sunlight passing through a window and warming a floor

R-factor

Insulation is just another solid object through which heat passes. The better the insulation,

the slower heat passes through it.  In fact, the "R" in "R-factor" means "resistance" to the

passage of conductive heat and is usually expressed either in terms of R-factor per inch or R-factor for the entire thickness.  For example, 2" thick solid foam is labeled R-10 which makes it is R-5 per inch while batt fiberglass insulation for 2 x 6 walls is R-19 or R-3.5 per inch.

Comparison of fiberglass batts vs. blown-in cellulose

Air Infiltration
Even though it is not its primary function, insulation can also be a barrier for air infiltration. Blown-in foam insulation totally stops air leakage. Cellulose can be packed so densely that little or no air passes through it. Loose fiberglass (not batts) can be similarly densely-packed. The low-tech rice hulls that we will be using for insulation in a 15" wall also makes air leakage relatively moot, although we still plan to do all we can with caulk and spray foam to stop leakage. Fiberglass batts, on the other hand, are difficult to fit into the space between studs precisely enough to stop air.  And it is even more difficult to do so around such obstacles as electrical and plumbing components.  For dense-packed fiberglass and cellulose, for spray foam and for rice hulls, it is inappropriate to base the R-factor on resistance to conductive heat loss alone. All of these insulations, ramp up whole wall R-value by eliminating air infiltration either nearly or totally.

Whole Wall R-values

The effectiveness of an insulated wall is compromised when structural members, like studs and headers, penetrate completely through the wall.  They serve as bridges for heat transfer (hence "thermal bridging") that degrades the R-factor for the whole wall. (Have you ever noticed how snow melts faster over cathedral ceiling rafters than over the insulated spaces between them?)  Therefore, the whole wall R-value that takes into consideration thermal bridging is an important concept.  A 2 x 6 wall on 24" centers, for example, goes from the R-19 stamped on fiberglass batts to R-13.69 due to heat loss through the studs, a 27% drop.  A 2 x 4 wall on 16" centers experiences the same 21% drop, going from R-13 to R-10.*  To brag a little, the super-insulated home we are building not only widens the space for insulation to 15", but it also uses truss walls instead of stud walls to minimize thermal bridging.  Altogether we expect a whole wall R-value of over 50 which will be necessary for sole dependence on passive solar heating and air conditioning.

Air Sealing is the Secret

The recommended minimum for wall insulation in our climate zone is R-18.  Not even 2 x 6 walls insulated with fiberglass batts with a whole house value of R-13.69 meets the minimum, much less the ubiquitous  2 x 4 walls.  However, if the envelope is thoroughly sealed against air infiltration, the house is significantly more comfortable than a drafty house with the same amount of insulation.  Conversely, a house with serious air infiltration might be impossible to make comfortable with any amount of insulation. 

Air sealing is finally getting its due.  Building codes for new construction now require that all potential air leaks be caulked or spray-foamed before closing up the walls and ceilings. And blower-door testing can be added as a way of measuring the thoroughness of air sealing. The reward for doing the right things for sustainability -- sealing and testing -- nets a speedy return on investment through lower energy costs.

Replacement Windows
The energy benefit, from replacement windows derives not from upgrading the glass itself from double pane to single pane, considering that single pane is R-0.85 and double pane is  R-1.5 - 2.0 -- nothing to write home about.  The benefit from window replacement is the opportunity it provides for sealing air leakage through and around the window openings, especially the leaky compartments on either side of a window that previously housed the window weights. Replacement of metal framed windows has the added  benefit of significantly reducing conductive heat loss.
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* These whole wall figures were used on page 12  by Michael Morley in his book, "Building with Structural Insulated Panel (SIPS)"  while comparing SIPs, with their minimal thermal bridging, with conventional stud wall construction.