Odds 'N Ends - Work Attire (Cont'd)

Work Boots

Except for hunting, I always bought cheap boots.  They were not very supportive, especially when standing on a ladder or stepping on a nail, were usually so wide that, even with heavy socks, almost needed to be double breasted where they laced and they wore out quickly.  In anticipation of doing construction, I went to a large boot emporium and

My sticker-shock boots 5 years later

threw myself on the mercy of the court, saying something like, "I want to buy a good boot like professional contractors wear", and added something out of character for me, "price is not an issue".  Without hesitation the clerk took me to the Carolina boot rack and picked out a pair of short boots that cost just south of $180 (gulp! that is five times more than I had ever paid for expensive dress shoes back when the dollar was worth something).

Best decision I ever made.  The boots came in more than one width so fit was no issue.  There was no breaking-in period; they were comfortable from day one.  And they have special mid-sole construction to cushion the feet against ladder rung pressure.  As I was coughing up for them at the checkout counter, I ask the clerk, "How long can I expect theses boots to last if I wear them daily?".  She said, "About a year".  I did the math -- that's fifty cents a day if I wore them every day for 365 days.  Well, for whatever reason, she was way conservative because the boots are still going strong after five years.  And, believe it or not, the original boot-strings are still in them.

Making Boots Last
Seems to me that my investment in boots paid off for two reasons -- keeping the leather supple and protecting the toe from wear.

Growing up in the country, I was early on familiar with neatsfoot compound, an oil-based product available at most hardware, work shoes and shoe repair stores.  We used it on tack -- halters, bridles, saddles, harnesses -- as well on leather footwear. It waterproofed the leather and kept it supple.  I had used it in adult life, on hunting boots primarily, so there was no hesitancy about applying it to my new work boots and I am sure it alone has added several years to their longevity.

I think it is safe to say that the toes of most boots wear out first due to scraping on rough surfaces while working on hands and knees.  If the toes can be preserved, the life of boots

Kind of wear Tufftoe prevents

can be extended.  There is an after-market product called "Tufftoe" that is easily applied by the consumer and is offered as a service by some shoe repair and boot stores (our local bootery will apply it for $15 which is about what it cost me online for the product and I had to apply it myself).  It coats the toes with a tough rubbery material that sticks like glue after the leather has been properly prepared for it and protects the toes from wearing out.  I would recommend a visit to the Tufftoe website if you have boots or athletic shoes with vulnerable toes.  A word of caution however:  If you are doing both neatsfoot compound and Tufftoe, be sure to apply the Tufftoe first so its bond with the leather is not compromised by the oil.  Notice in the

third photo that the Tufftoe is peeling away on the top edges due to my having applied it after neatsfoot oil treatment. That said, I took the boots to the original emporium to be sure the the same model of boots would still be available when the old ones wear out and the clerk said that a certain amount of peeling can be expected in any case due to flexing of the leather over the toes.

Gloves

Seasoned construction workers have tough hands because they are typically young or

younger and have skins thick enough to protect against injury. Unfortunately with age, the skin thins out and injures easily. Consequently, I have had to wear gloves year-round and have experimented with several iterations.

Latex coated work gloves have proven to be the most useful --  both the warm weather variety shown here and the heavier colder weather variety.  The amount of dexterity they afford is amazing.  I have no trouble picking up small nails or washers and yet they are thick enough to protect against most injuries.  The heavier winter type are almost as dexterous but, unfortunately, are not thick enough to protect against severe cold.  Another advantage to the latex coating is that it reduces the amount of effort necessary for carrying heavy objects.  The friction between the latex and the surface of a heavy object frees up muscle power, that would otherwise be used for grasping, and reallocates for carrying the item.  If there is a knock against wearing most gloves is that they sometimes catch in the threads of drywall screws such that the glove on the non-dominant hand wears out fastest.

Health Issues

In the previous post, I advocated long sleeves, long pants and a broad brimmed hat as the best way to stay cool in hot weather.  Such a get-up is also important year-round as the best protection against basal cell skin cancer, which increases in frequency with age due to long-term sun damage.  I didn't cover up while young and have paid for it with more than a dozen basal cells removals in later life.

Wearing long sleeves after the skin thins with age affords some protection against scraps and bruises to the arms.  According to my dermatologist, my skin would not be so susceptible to laceration if it weren't for the sun damage in early life.  UV rays seemingly break down the attachment of the outer layer of skin (epidermis) to the inner layer (dermis) such that the epidermis literally peels away from the dermis with the slightest insult.  And the blood escapes not only through the wound to the outside, but also spreads laterally between the two layers of skin and produces ugly bruising.  So, young workers that go shirtless or work in short sleeves are not doing themselves a favor if they anticipate putting their skins in harms way late in life.

Sun glasses are important as well, not just to keep from squinting, but for long-term eye protection.  Solar radiation over time is a major contributor to cataracts.   

Odds 'N Ends - Work Attire

Staying Cool During the Summer

So far, our St Louis summer has been hotter than last summer as measured by

heating-degree days. However, I am pleased to say that, while the hot weather slows my pace somewhat, I am still able to get in 9- and 10-hour days in 90+ degree weather -- weather that is made even worse by the high humidity that rises up the Mississippi River valley from the southeastern states (we are in the "hot-humid" zone that's orange on the map.)  I am pretty sure that my productivity would suffer if I hadn't learned from my elders how to dress for such weather.

"Farmer Attire"

Growing up in a small central Illinois community, I knew a lot of farmers.  Most of them, particularly the older ones, wore denim overalls, long sleeve shirts, "clod-hopper" boots and either straw hats or "gimme" hats.  (Gimme as in asking the seed or implement dealer, "Gimme one of them hats".)  Many of them also switched to cotton long underwear in summer after having worn wool in the winter.  They sometimes didn't smell so great in July but they knew how to beat the heat.

By contrast, you typically see construction workers today wearing shorts and tee shirts or no shirts.  Which do you think is more comfortable in the heat and humidity -- the farmers I knew or today's workers?   Having worked in both get-ups, I can testify that the farmers knew what they were doing.  For instance, we had one of the hottest summers on record in 2012 when the daytime highs were in the 100s for dozens of days, sometimes as high as 112 degrees.  I worked at least 8 hours a day tearing down a two story house and, if you have ever done deconstruction, you know the work is much more strenuous than most phases of construction.  I am convinced that I could never have done as much in shorts and tees due to something called evaporative cooling.

Evaporative Cooling

I have worked in "farmer attire"  -- bib overalls, long sleeve shirts and a floppy broad brimmed hat for most of my adult life.  When I hear it from my younger friends for being old-fashion, I explain the advantage my arrangement has over their flimsy clothing or bare skin in terms of evaporative cooling.  Once my clothing is ringing wet with sweat, it has a cooling effect that is not possible with thinner clothing where perspiration evaporates too rapidly for effective cooling; bare skin is even worse. The bibs on the overalls add an extra layer that helps to cool the chest.   When I come in for lunch, I change to dry clothing while inside but switch back to the wet clothing before going back out so as to benefit immediately from evaporative cooling rather than suffering from the heat while waiting for dry clothes become saturated.

Carhartt Overalls

The Carhartt overalls have some advantages over the denim "farmer type" bibs and definitely over typical pants like jeans in that the "pants" part of the bibs are held up by the shoulders.  Therefore, not only do the pants never slip down or the shirt tail rise, there is no uncomfortable pants belt pressing into the skin when overlaid by a carpenter's tool belt.  

The Carhartt bibs have other unique features that bear mentioning, aside from the fact that their duck material is tougher

and wears better than garments made from denim.  The buckles on the shoulder straps lie flat whereas most other bibs have protruding knobs on the bibs that engage the hooks on the straps.  Many of us like to wear wide suspenders on our carpenter's belt to shift the weight of the tools and fasteners in and on the belt away from the waist and onto the shoulders.  The suspenders lie on top of the shoulder straps of the overalls and press the bulky fasteners on most overalls into the skin whereas the flat fasteners on the Carhartts are comfortable under the suspenders. Unfortunately, the knobby fasteners that close the gaps of the sides at the waist are often uncomfortable when pressed into the flesh by the carpenter's belt laden with heavy tools.   Seems to me that flat fasteners of some sort instead of knobs at the waist would improve the Carhartts even more. 

Knee Pads

Another advantage to Carhartts is that they have built-in compartments in the legs for after-market knee pads that are quite effective for working on hands and knees.  They are not bulky enough for serious hands and knees work like laying flooring but are thick enough to save the knees during other kinds of construction work.  And they sure beat shorts and bare knees!

The pads are available online at www.softknees.com or 888-4KNEEPAD for nominal cost.  The openings to the knee pad pouches in the Carhartts are at the bottom.  The pads are rolled tightly and slipped through the openings.  When a pad clears an opening, it springs open and lies flat.  They cannot easily be removed even for laundering but, when the overalls wear out, the pouches can be cut open and pads moved to another pair of Carhartts.  I work with three pairs of pads and none have shown any wear after use in several pairs of bibs each over quite a few years.

Construction - Garage Floor; Addition of Earth Contact East Wall

The garage floor was not poured at the same time as the house floor.  One reason for the delay was to kick the cost of it down the road.  But the major reason was that it would be doubling as a part of the insulation/water umbrella and I was not ready at that time to commit mind space to its exact design.  As noted below, the garage was under-excavated simply because I had not given an umbrella-floor combination enough thought.  

Reality Check
Progress on the entire house-building project has been and will continue to be snail-paced mostly because of the limited amount of work a DIYer alone can accomplish. The agreement I had with the Building Director when applying for a permit is that, since I was responsible for the design of the house, the architectural drawings did not need to be as detailed as is typical.  The upside of this arrangement is lower architect fees but the downside is that I have more stuff to keep track of on the fly. Not committing mind space to the garage floor at the time the site was excavated is a perfect example of how difficult it is for one person to prioritize and coordinate the myriad facets of construction.  Some things have to be back-burnered until they are more pressing and some simply drop through the cracks.  

Finally, the time came when the garage floor had to be dealt with and, by delaying, I created extra labor to get it right.

The original excavation would have been pretty accurate if it were not necessary to install the insulation/watershed umbrella under the floor as that part extending eastward from the house proper.  But the excavation needed to be lowered at least by the thickness of the foam insulation board for the umbrella.  So I tried to catch the soil at just the right time after a rain that it worked easily with hand tools -- which leads into an interesting discussion about our unique bluff soil.

Factoid About Our Unique Soil

In-letting for 4" of foam insulation

Smooth sand base for the insulation

Most of the soil covering the bluffs originated in the Mississippi River flood plane where it was deposited by receding glaciers.  The finer particles in the deposit were picked up by the wind and dropped on the bluffs (which themselves were left standing by the glaciers). The fine-grained silty soil, called "wind-blown loess", is extremely rich and drains reasonably well except that, when it dries out, it is almost as dense as plaster-of-paris and hard to work with.  Underlying the loess at depths that vary greatly throughout the bluffs, is a layer of what the local soil conservation agent calls "glacial till" and what we old-timers call "hardpan".  It is a layer that, when it is dry, is almost impossible to penetrate with hand tools. It is a layer that I had to dig through with the trackloader when excavating the hillside for the house such that the loader was often over-matched.  However, both the loess and, to some extent, the hardpan are somewhat more manageable if one catches them between the mud and dry stages.  Hence, my hesitancy to start digging until after a rain.   

Insulating the Garage Floor as Part of the Umbrella

Middle section of insulation in place

The foam board insulation under the garage floor needs to be 4" thick for the first 8' from the house then 3" for the next 4" followed by 2" to complete the coverage.  I started the inletting for the foam with the first 8' next to house.  When it was reasonably accurate as to depth and levelness, I coated the soil with enough sand to be able to make a smooth bed for the foam.  I laid the insulation in place over the wide footing next to the wall, stood foam board against the leading edge of the footing then installed two layers of  2" thick XPS in the new excavation.  To stabilize the foam and protect it from the wind temporarily, I covered it with a little more sand. Eventually, more sand would have to be added before the floor could be poured; more on this later.

Final section of insulation in place

Next, I hand-excavated for and installed the middle 3" section of insulation.  The 2" section was handled in the same fashion. Finally, I added sand in lifts and hand-compacted them after soaking the sand with a lawn sprinkler to make it more compactable.  By the time Jamie Schultz and crew came to do the pour the sand had dried to the extent that I soaked it thoroughly the night before so they could compact properly with a plate compactor just before covering with plastic and pouring the concrete.

Raising the Height of the East Wall of the Garage
In retrospect, I should have designed a higher concrete east wall for the garage in order to

Rebar and door buck in place for adding four feet to the
height of the east wall; notice also the 2 x 10 forms bridging
the garage door openings

have more flexibility for contouring the final grade of the soil east of the garage. The more I tried to justify leaving most of the wall stick-built, the more it became apparent that a higher concrete wall was necessary.  Consequently, on the day that Jamie Schultz and crew came to pour the slab for the screened porch (previous post), they erected forms and poured a four-foot high wall on top of the insulated concrete foundation.  The cost was probably twice what it would have been at the time the rest of the walls were poured.

Pouring the Garage Floor
The floor was designed to be 1 1/2" lower than the house floor at the back of the garage and 3" below at the front.  I snapped chalk

The new east wall uncovered (in the background);
the slab pour underway

lines on the back wall and along the side foundation walls to mark the height of the pour. Across the openings in the insulated concrete forms underlying the garage door locations, I installed 2 x 10 forms to confine the concrete and for screeding at the 3" level.  

When Jamie and crew arrived, they removed the wall forms and, while waiting for the ready-mix truck, plate-compacted the sand that I had soaked the night before and installed 6 mil plastic sheeting.  The day was warm so the pour cured rather fast and could be finished by early afternoon.

Handling the Cold Joint Between the Wall Addition and the Foundation
My design and management of the east wall of the garage was driven too much by cost.

There are three deadmen in the middle of the north wall;
the fourth and fifth are affected by turning the corners
and involving the east and west walls

We turned the north wall southward into a short section of east wall in order for it function as one of the critical deadmen for the long north wall that was to be backfilled without internal support.  I should have had the entire east wall of the garage poured in concrete by at least half way up in order to have more flexibility for managing the grade east of the house.

The disadvantage of retrofitting the east wall is that a cold joint is formed between the concrete of the insulated concrete form foundation and the new wall.  My concern was that the joint would leak water into the garage.  So how to fix it?

One possibility was to gunk up the joint on the exterior with tar-like materials and hope that

they would not lose their effectiveness with age, assuming they adequately sealed the joint in the first place, given the contamination of the surfaces by deposited dirt. The other possibility was to install a proper French drain opposite the joint to siphon water away before it could infiltrate the joint.  I oped for the latter.

Typical French Drain Installation
So I more or less followed the typical protocol for French drains albeit with some customizing in order to use up some left-over materials. After the ditch for the drain was dug, I threw in a few inches of sand to level the ditch and to deepen the drainage plane below the drain (first photo). Then instead of buying pre-perforated corrugated pipe with a geo-textile sock already on it, I used some pipe left over from the solar collector conduits and geo-textile material left over from the French drains that under-gird the house.  I used the same technique for perforating the pipe that I had used early on for converting culverts to French drains (DIY French drains made from culverts).  I also used the same technique for attaching the material to the pipe as I used with the culverts. 

There was already a footing-level French drain so it was a matter of  uncovering it and inserting a wye for the new drain (first photo).  I then lined the ditch with left-over geo-textile fabric and fastened it to the wall temporarily (second photo).  As is typical with French drains, I covered the bottom of the fabric with a couple of inches of  3/4" clean rock before laying in the pipe and connecting it to the wye (third photo). More rock was added to cover the pipe.  The edges of the fabric were overlapped to cover the rock and secured with hog rings (third photo).

The drain was left exposed instead of backfilling immediately because the outside of the garage wall will have to be insulated before the soil is added.  It will be insulated in the manner that was described in an earlier post .  As soon as the wall is insulated and covered with stucco, I will backfill nearly to the top of the wall at the back and sloped towards the bottom of the wall at the front.

The footing French drain for the west and north concrete walls, as well as the east wall into which I tapped for the new drain, was not as carefully done because it will be covered by the insulation/watershed umbrella and the backfill sloped so severely away from the house that it is unlikely that it will ever see water once the umbrella is in place.  It's function, besides meeting code, is to siphon off enough water to eliminate hydrostatic pressure on the walls while the uncompacted backfill settles on its own before the umbrella goes in. 

Consequently, I used home center perforated pipe with a sock, no fabric lining for the ditch and sand instead of rock for the drainage plane.  If there were to be no umbrella, I would have bought perforated pipe and covered it myself with the geo-textile material shown here that has been scientifically designed for fine silt soil like we have.  The store-bought fabric that I did use instead of the special fabric can be expected, in the absence of an umbrella, to admit enough silt to clog the pipe and render the drain useless eventually.  The same would be true for lining the ditch with local store-bought material -- it would not filter the silt sufficiently to keep the gravel bed clean and unclogged indefinitely.

Construction - Screened Porch Floor

This post focuses on the next-to-last phase of the concrete work, viz., the screened porch in front of the house.  Remember that you can click on any photo to enlarge it for a closer inspection.

Footings and Foundation
I over-excavated the soil next to the house to the level of the foundation footing and then sloped it downhill in order that the insulation/watershed umbrella can installed on top of the footing and sloped downhill enough to drain well.  In the process, the soil under what will be the concrete floor for the 14' x 16' screened porch on the front of the house was also over-excavated.  In order to compensate for the over-excavation, the footing for the porch foundation was much taller than it was wide on the downhill side which complicated forming it up for the pour.

I mimicked the forms we used for the 8" tall footings under the house foundation by using

Forms for the footings

some of the same salvaged 1 x 8s and the same lightweight braces. As a result, we almost had a blowout because the bracing and the 1 x boards were too weak and barely able to hold the weight of so much concrete on the tall downhill side.  Consequently, the footing after the forms were removed looked pretty amateurish. 

Poured footing; notice the bulge just beyond
the corner due to a near blow-out

I thought I had learned my lesson and made sure the forms for the short foundation wall on top of the footing would be, if anything, over-engineered.  Wrong! Despite robust 2 x 4 framing for the plywood form walls, we almost had another blowout.  As soon as we started the pour, a wall started bulging due to weakness of the spreaders that tie the two sides of the form together across the top.  Instead of using 1 x 4s and two 6d nails on each side, I used 1 x 2s and one 16 ga 2" nails from a nail gun. We had to stop the pour while I  added several 1 x 4s in the most susceptible areas and re-nailed the existing 1 x 2s with 6d nails.   If I were to do it again, I would use 1 x 4s and regular nails for the spreaders throughout and 2 x 4 stakes for all of the braces because they can be driven with a sledge hammer to a greater depth than the 2 x 2 stakes that I drove with a heavy hand mallet.  Fortunately, the wall did turn out to show a little less amateurism than the footing.

Poured foundation 

Backfilling
Before the slab can be poured, the backfilling must be continued until the cavity inside the footing and foundation is filled

Backfilled with sand to the height of the footing prior to
installing insulation

to within 5" of the finished floor level in order to support a 5" thick slab.  Also the foundation wall must be insulated in order for it to function as a shallow frost-protected foundation. Then insulation must be used horizontally under the floor as part of the watershed/insulation umbrella. Accordingly, I used sand to fill the cavity to the top of the footings in lifts (layers).  The sand was not wet enough for proper condensation so I hosed it down before condensing it with a manual compactor.  A good overnight rain finished the compaction.  In retrospect, I should have borrowed a friend's plate compactor for better compaction with less effort.

Insulation As Part of the Insulation/Watershed Umbrella
Over the sand, I layered mostly EPS but some XPS foam board following the

Horizontal and vertical insulation starting at the level
 of the top of footing

recommendations of Hiat, i.e., 4" thick for the first 8' out from the house then 3" thick for the next 4' followed by 2" thick. This 4-3-2 pattern was also used for the garage floor as described in the next post. For the rest of the subgrade umbrella on all sides of the house, the pattern changes to 4-3-2-1 in order to reach out a full 20' from the house. 

In order to satisfy the requirements for a shallow frost-protected foundation, the porch foundation must be insulated on both sides.  Inside, I merely stood EPS against the wall. For the outside, I will eventually install expanded polystyrene insulation board 2 1/2" thick supported by metal drywall track and covered with

Form for cantilevering the slab outward
with rebar to support the edge

parged cement board.  (This process was previously discussed in the recent post on the first retaining wall.) For a finished look, the slab will will be cantilevered out over the concrete of the foundation by at least 3" in order to cover the insulation and parged cladding. To this end, I built a peripheral form that would allow the slab to overhang the wall by the width of a 2 x 4 and controlled for height of the slab by way of  2 x 8 sideboards.  In order for the floor to drain southward, the sideboards were installed at the same height as the house floor next to the house then angled slightly downward such that the floor will fall 
1 1/2" over a distance of 15'.

Final backfilling, ready for 6 mil plastic and concrete pour

Slab Floor
After the insulation was in place, I covered it with a thin layer of sand to isolate it from the wind and to buy some time while another rainy period passed.   When the weather permitted, more sand was added in lifts and each lift hand-compacted until nearly flush with the foundation wall, thus leaving space for a 5" thick slab.

Completed slab for screened porch with cantilevered edge

Six mil plastic sheeting was fitted over the sand on the day of the pour. Jamie Schulte, the contractor that had previously poured the wide footing for the tall concrete north and west walls, the walls themselves and the slab for the house, returned to pour the porch floor first then to pour the forms for raising the height of the east wall of the garage.   The next day he came back to pour the garage floor.  The garage pours are the subject of the next and last post on the concrete phase of construction.

Construction - Pre-made Exterior Window-Housing Wall Sections

After considerable research on windows and doors, I decided in favor of Pella fiberglass casement windows and fiberglass doors. (For more details on window selection, see a previous post on window design.) The building code specifies that the total window area be at least 8% of the livable floor area.  Furthermore, 4% of the windows must be operable plus egress-friendly in rooms, such as bedrooms, that do not otherwise have direct access to the exterior.  Our passive solar design that situates all but one small east window in the south wall meant that, to meet code, the windows would have to be large and bunched together.  We meet code by utilizing 9 pairs of windows plus one unit of three windows with each window 3' wide and either 5' or 6' tall.  The size of the windows automatically render moot the egress requirement.

The Pella rep was somewhat taken aback when I specified individual windows instead of enjoying the advantage of pairs of windows being joined at the factory with fiberglass mullions as is typical. There are a couple of reasons for keeping them separate.  First, it would be impossible for me, working alone, to install two heavy windows in one piece -- even the individual windows will be a challenge. Second, cost is reduced by about 10%.   

So let me share how I went about using mostly downtime caused by bad weather to assemble in the shop the wall sections that will house the windows.  Eventually, the sections will in interspersed with individual trusses for a wall thickness of 15" insulated with rice hulls to an R-50.

Jigs To Standardize the Wall Sections

Fortunately, there was enough room on all sides of the table saw to use it to support a jig of about 7' x 8' in size.  I would have preferred to use salvaged lumber for the jig but quickly learned that it was too non-standard. Therefore, I used new lumber to insure that all wall sections would be identical -- square, plumb and level.  And I found out by trial and error that it would take mostly new lumber to standardize the wall sections as well.

It took two jigs to make a wall section.  The first one on the saw (top photo) was used to cut and fit the side of the assembly facing the interior of the house then the cut pieces were disassembled and set aside. Then the same jig was used to cut and fit the side facing the exterior which varied with the interior assembly only in the window sill area.  

The next task was to join the interior and exterior assemblies.  This was done by removing from the saw-top jig the 2 x 4 on the left side of the exterior assembly and matching it with

the left 2 x 4 for the interior assembly that had been set aside earlier. They were transferred to the truss jig that was described in detail in a prior post on wall trusses (second photo).  The left interior and exterior 2 x 4s were nailed together to form a truss then the truss was moved  back to the saw-table jig. The right interior and exterior 2 x 4s were similarly nailed together in the truss jig and returned to the saw-top jig. The final step was to fasten all of the individual pieces together in the saw-t jig to make a three dimensional wall section.

Storage
The wall sections will not be needed for a couple of months so it became imperative to protect them from the elements, particularly since some of the gussets for the trusses were OSB.  I tried first to wrap them in stretch wrap but soon realized that was folly -- it was hard to accomplish and it leaked even in light rain. Instead we moved all of the sections onto the house floor and thoroughly enclosed them with plastic and battened-down tarps.  

The OSB pieces that will line the window openings were cut and stored separately with the intention of adding them later after the walls are raised, thereby reducing the weight of the sections for easier handling and delaying their exposure to the elements as long as possible.  In the same vein, I am erecting the weight-bearing interior walls before assembling the exterior truss walls so as to be able to get the exterior walls under cover as soon as possible after they are in place.

Design - Sustainable Building Practices - Cont'd

The first post on this topic delt with site selection and house size.  Here the intent is to identify sustainable practice goals and see how well we meet them.

Criteria for Selecting Sustainable Methods and Materials

From the outset, we tried to understand what we needed to do to employ carbon-phobic

methods and materials, based on my research in print and online that went back several years, well before we had even bought land.  Here are the major criteria for selecting sustainable methods and materials that I came to appreciate.  Most of them are covered in the two books shown here (click on images to enlarge).

• Embodied energy used in manufacture or extraction
• Embodied energy used in transport to building site
• Amount of finite resources in the material, like petroleum or old-age timber
• Amount of recycled content in the material, like in steel roofing
• Amount of toxic waste sequestered in the material, like fly ash in concrete and drywall
• Recycled material instead of new, like salvaged lumber and old limestone foundation stones 
• Minimal waste of materials during construction, like using dimensions that utilize off-the-shelf lumber sizes
• Advanced framing or better
• End-life disposal:  recycled (steel roofing) vs. landfilled (asphalt shingles)
• Amount of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the material, like in adhesives, finishes and floor coverings

Sustainable Practices Discussed in Other Posts

Sustainable practices that we have already employed or will be employing and that I have already or will be discussing in many other posts bear mentioning here again:

• Frost free shallow foundation
• Wall trusses that maximize insulation and minimize thermal bridging
• Hinged fiberglass windows and doors with insulated low-e glass
• Rice hull insulation; R-60 to R-72 walls and ceilings
• Blower door testing for air infiltration
• Slab edge insulation (in conjunction with frost free shallow foundation)

  

  Slab floor construction with slab edge exposed

• Fly ash concrete and drywall
• Framing with wall trusses made from recycled dimension lumber
• Steel roofing and wall cladding
• Passive solar conditioning; no energy-gulping conventional heating or air conditioning (references to the AGS system appear in many prior posts starting with first post on Annualized GeoSolar) 
• Airlock between living space and exterior doors
• PEX plumbing system
• Tankless water heater with underground "homeruns" to hot water faucets
• Low-flow faucets; dual-flush toilets
• Energy recovery ventilator
• LED lighting with motion activated switches and task lighting
• Kitchen cabinets, built-ins and casework from locally harvested hardwoods
• Retaining walls from recycled limestone
• Numerous rain gardens to capture surface runoff until it can soak in
• Landscaping with native plants

Striking a Balance

Unfortunately, we have found it impossible always to follow the best practices for sustainability due to circumstances beyond our control.  For instance, my original plan was to use gravel from recycled concrete for the sub-base under the slab-on-grade floor but the recycler did not have a slinger truck for spreading the gravel.  I thought we would use it also for the driveway but found out that it contains rebar fragments that puncture tires.  We may have trouble buying drywall containing fly ash and the floor was poured too late in the season such that the "winter mix" did not contain fly ash. And I am sure there will be instances when we will have to compromise for budget reasons such as giving up on using a damp-proofing material for the earth contact wall made from recycled asphalt shingles that was several times more expensive with less functionality, as it turns out, than the method we ended up with.

Impacting the Sustainability Movement?
I think most would agree that our project will still set a reasonably high bar for sustainability. As explained in an early post, we understand the limited impact of one little project like ours on the big picture but the chances are it will have some effect. At the time of this writing, (April, 2016) page views (hits) to this blog numbered over 6,000 with nearly a third coming from foreign countries.  The last check before publishing this post showed the following distribution among the top ten countries represented:

               -  U.S.                                              4,148         (69%)
               -  Russia                                             385
               -  Canada                                           147
               -  France                                             143
               -  Brazil                                               126
               -  Ukraine                                           114
               -  Poland                                              99
               -  China                                                67
               -  Germany                                           64
               -  United Kingdom                                 54

The other 700 visits originated from places all over the world like Indonesia, Japan, India, Scandinavia, Africa,  Australia, New Zealand, Turkey and the middle east.  Are we impacting the sustainability movement?  One can only hope that a modicum of folks somewhere have gleaned a few useful grains or at least have begun to think about sustainability.

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Update, summer of 2019:  the number of page views to the blog has grown exponentially until they number just under 100,000. 

Update, summer of 2024:  page views now are 180,000; not overwhelming but, considering the limited audience, enough to make blogging on sustainability worthwhile.

Design - Sustainable Building Practices

Building green is not just about energy efficient windows, low-flow faucets and lots of insulation.  It starts with site selection, continues through construction and culminates with the owners enjoying a low carbon lifestyle indefinitely.

Site Selection

For site selection, an important issue is personal transportation -- by what mode and how far.  An urban in-fill location, such as ours, is preferable to suburban, exurban or rural because it reduces travel to infrastructure such as schools and churches, shopping, work, medical care and entertainment.  Proximity to public transit is also a plus; we are a few blocks from a bus line and a short bus ride from a light rail station.  And what an advantage is has been during construction to have the lumber yard, the rebar supplier, a home center, wholesale plumbing and electric dealers and a farm and home store -- all within a few miles.

Site Stewardship during Construction

Here the issue is minimal site disturbance -- limited excavation and respect for topsoil and trees. Our ranch design surrounded by an insulation/watershed umbrella unavoidably requires much more site disturbance than would a multistory conventionally-built house of similar size.  To our credit, though, the topsoil has been carefully removed and set aside for future use.  And erosion is being controlled by straw bales, silt fencing and a retention pond (which has had to be dredged twice during the first year and a half).

Erosion control with silt fencing, straw bales and a
retention pond.

Site Stewardship Is More Difficult When Working Alone
A distinct negative is that working alone takes a long time and site disturbance is protracted.  In an attempt to ameliorate this problem, construction was halted in late fall so I could use the track loader for some serious dirt work.  I was hoping that before the ground started freezing and thawing I could install the downhill portion of the insulation/watershed umbrella -- that part in front of the house -- so that the slope to the street could be returned to its original contour and native plants could a be started immediately for erosion control. So the considerable excess dirt in front of the house was moved to behind the north wall as the first 5-6' of backfill and the hillside was graded.

My intention was that, as soon as the proper contours have been established, erosion could be controlled with an erosion control blanket with native plant seeds sown under it for germination in the Spring. Unfortunately, unseasonably wet weather around Christmas interfered and we went into a crisis mode to make run-off from our property stay on our property using additional silt-fencing and another dredging of the retention pond. It is now May and pouring the footings, foundation and slab for the screened porch and pouring the garage floor has delayed installation of the umbrella to the extent that any definitive planting in front of the house will have to be delayed until Fall and may have to be annual rye grass as a temporary cover crop until it can be replaced by something better later.  We are committed to native landscaping but now recognize that it may have to be done more gradually than we would like.


House Size Matters
Of course, the larger the house, the more energy it consumes -- both during construction and during its life.  In my view, a McMansion that touts its structural insulated panels (SIPs), its geo-thermal HVAC system, its top-of-the-line windows and, even, its photovoltaic solar panels or wind turbine is nothing but sophisticated greenwashing.  True, such a home is better than a McMansion with no regard to sustainability, but size does matter. 

Each square foot of floor space has an impact on sustainability -- more concrete, more lumber, more drywall, more copper wiring and plumbing, more floor coverings, more insulation, more roofing, more furnishings, etc.  At a minimum, each additional square foot impacts sustainability by way of its embodied energy.  And window size and placement also have a bearing.  Ever notice the expansive windows that face north and west even in so-called "green" houses?  

However, the real impact on finite resources plays out during the life of the dwelling. More space requires more energy to heat and cool, regardless of how efficiently it is done (unless it is done strictly with renewable energy -- which is our case).

Our floor plan is essentially a 2,800 sq ft two bedroom/two bath ranch with a third bedroom piggybacked on as an abbreviated second floor giving total living space of 3,000 sq ft. About 450 sq ft of the 2,800 sq ft slab is non-living space that the principal author of the AGS system calls a "vertical basement" and we are calling "storage".  Another 110 sq ft comprises the entry air-lock which could be considered quasi-living-space. 

If our plan is overly consumptive, the master bedroom and the living room-kitchen-dining room "great room" might be considered somewhat generous. However, I rationalized this bit of extravagance to some degree in the following ways:

• Most of the lumber will be either recycled or grown locally
• The "extra" space impacts sustainability mostly via an increase in concrete for the floor, wood for the ceiling and metal roofing, but concrete does sequester industrial waste (fly-ash), wood ceilings come from plantation-grown trees less than 300 miles away and metal roof panels have recycled content and a recyclable end-life
• The extra space will have no impact on the amount of wiring because the longest circuits were shortcutted beneath the slab using donated wire; the same goes for the supply side of the plumbing
• At our age, we will not be the principal owners of the house -- either through inheritance or sale after we are gone, it will be occupied by younger folks with larger families who will appreciate and enjoy the roominess

However, the justification for the added space that is most defensible is that our passive AGS system will provide zero-energy conditioning year-round for the life of the house regardless of the size of interior space.

The next post on sustainable building practices focuses mostly on the construction phase.