Construction - DIY Concrete Wall Insulation

A recent post delt in part with the construction of the concrete east wall of the future

garage pictured at the left with the French drain at its bottom.  It needed to be insulated exteriorly then backfilled to almost half of its height.  Here I am using that wall to demonstrate a DIY custom insulation method that I will be using subsequently for those parts of the north and west walls that lie above the horizontal insulation/watershed umbrella. (There is no need for insulation below the umbrella so as to maintain as much uninhibited earth contact as possible.) The method I am using was somewhat described in another post in conjunction with the first retaining wall west of the house. What follows is a more detailed account. Remember that a click on any photo enlarges it for better viewing.

Acknowledgement
The DIY design described here is a bastardization of the proprietary product Insofast.  Perusal of the Insofast website was encouraging -- the product would seem to be perfect for insulating our concrete walls inside and out. However, for our  requirements, their quote was at least $3,000 more than the following DIY method.  And Insofast maxes out at an insulation thickness of 2.5", which would have worked for the garage, but not very well for the house. Nevertheless, I am indebted to Isofast for stimulating improvisation.

Overview
Essentially, the insulation is expanded polystyrene (EPS) (styrofoam) supported by metal drywall track (ordinarily used as the bottom member of a metal stud wall, i.e., the part that is fastened to the floor).  Even though the track is galvanized, there would be a limit as to how much moisture it could endure before rusting so I am wrapping the entire assembly in plastic sheeting to isolate it from the concrete on one side and from the outside environment on the other side.  The secondary function of the track is to support the cement board cladding that serves as a base for the stucco finish.

From my drywall supply company, the track comes in two widths -- 2 1/2" and 3 1/2" -- and two gauges -- 20 and 24.  For the garage where maximizing the R-factor is not critical, I used 2 1/2".  For the house walls, I plan to step up to 3 1/2" track for a higher R-value.  As for thickness of the track, the thicker 20 ga is more suitable for supporting the heavy stucco wall.  It then takes two thicknesses of  foam board --
1 1/2" and 1" -- to fit the 2 1/2" track. The plastic sheeting is good quality 6 mil that I buy from a farm supply store in 24' widths -- the kind sold to farmers probably for covering hay. 

My original intention was to use one thickness of 1/2" cement board but, after finding that it was not rigid enough to support a thin layer of stucco, I used two thicknesses. Even two thicknesses would be too compressible and would have to be backed up by something more rigid for long term durability in high traffic areas.  In our case, most of the insulated concrete walls will be below grade after backfilling and most of those above grade are away from high traffic areas.  The lone exception is the east wall discussed here; it will be in a high traffic area but less than half of it will be exposed.

Therefore, I covered the top of the first layer of cement board with a pressure treated 1 x 6 and butted the second layer of cement board up against it.  Not only does the 2 x 6 make the top of the insulation more rigid but it also widens the wall by 1 1/2" which will work better with the stick-built truss wall above it.

Shop-Made Tracks
The drywall tracks that support the insulation and the cement board were shop-made

Drilling holes for the Tapcon screws 

ahead of time.  All but the first track at the south end of the wall and the last track at the north end have to be back-to-back.  Before screwing them together, one of them was

Pre-made tracks already cut to length for the north garage wall

perforated on one of its short sides with holes large enough to accomodate the 3/16" Tapcon screws that fasten them to the concrete wall.  The drill press and a long wood block cut from a 2 x 4 to fit inside a track and marked to guide hole placement made short work of holes drilled 8" apart, which was more frequent than necessary but it gave more options for screw placement during installation.  Next, the pre-drilled track was clamped  back-to-back with another track and the two of them screwed together with metal screws in pre-drilled starter holes.

Screwed-together double track showing holes for Tapcon screws in the bottom piece

Jumping ahead to the time when the tracks would be fitted to the wall, let me share what I found to be the best way to cut them to length.  Use straight-cutting metal shears to cut all four short sides at the cut mark.  Then, instead of trying to cut across the long dimension of the back-to-back tracks, simply to bend the tracks back and forth a few times to "worry" the metal into separating.

Pre-cut Foam Board
Purchasing ESP is cheapest in 4 x 8 sheets but, to fit the present situation, the sheets need to be split lengthwise into 24" pieces.  I have sawed them by two methods and prefer one over the other for the sake of accuracy. The less desirable method is to use a straight edge guide and a circular saw.  Accurate cuts are difficult for several reasons that I will leave up to the reader to find out for him/herself.  The other method is to get someone to help run the sheets through a stationary saw against a proper rip fence. For this, I have used both my table saw and my radial arm saw.  (The latter works for me because the saw table is quite long -- 16' -- which is atypical for arm saws.) Either saw does a splendid job of making a mess of the shop, so I recommend planning ahead and cutting as many sheets as possible in one session to minimize the number of times the mess has to be cleaned up.

The advantage of using a stationary saw is that the sawn edges are straight and each piece is a standard width.  The straighter they are the better they fit the tracks and the less air space exists between the foam and the track.  Air spaces are also minimized by having consistent and matching widths of the two pieces of foam that go together to fit the track.  I had some 1 1/2" foam pieces left over that were cut with the circular saw for the west wall behind the retaining wall.  When they were matched with the 1" that were cut with the radial arm saw, there were air spaces up to 1/2" in some cases -- which was acceptable for a garage wall but would not be for the house walls.  And a stationary saw is mandatory for accurate cutting of thin sheets like the 1" due to the foam's flexibility (even when they are doubled up to increase rigidity).

The pre-cut 1" and 1 1/2" foam panels are easier to cut to length and install between the tracks when they are glued together.  Accordingly, a spray adhesive specific for EPS did the trick.  Just be careful that the edges are flush when gluing. 

Installation of the Track and Insulation Panels
In order to protect the track from moisture, the plastic sheeting must be in place before the

Plastic sheeting covering the near side of the wall;
remainder thrown over the top of the wall temporarily;
 four tracks installed supporting four courses of insulation

first track is installed.  The 24' width of the 6 mil plastic sheeting was a little more than the length of the wall so all I had to do was cut a piece from the roll that was a couple of feet longer than twice the height of the wall.  It was draped over the wall so that it reached the ground and turned outward a foot or so on the near side of the wall.  The balance of the sheet went over the top of the wall and hung down on the far side temporarily. The plastic was left long towards the south (left) end of the wall so that later it could be folded under the cement board in such a way as to protect the left side of the first track.

Tracks and insulation installed, ready for cladding

The south corner track, a single member rather than back-to-back, was cut to length and screwed to the wall through the plastic using a hammer drill, drill/driver and 
1 1/4"  x  3/8" Phillips head Tapcon screws. The first section of foam was cut to length and fitted into the single track, in this case, to the left.  The next (double) track was then slipped over the right side of the foam and pressed by hand or even tapped with a block of wood and a hammer so as to eliminate as much as possible any air spaces between the foam and the left and right tracks.  It was installed with the track having pre-drilled holes to the right. While holding the track firmly towards the left, the right track was screwed to place through the plastic sheeting.  The remainder of the sections were installed in a like manner.  At the north end, the plastic sheeting was folded back over the last track to protect it from the right side.

Installing the Cement Board

Sheet plastic folded back over the wall so as to protect
the tracks and insulation from the exterior environment;
first layer of cement board partially installed 

The cladding comprised the cementitious (cement) board and a top coat of stucco both of which will always absorb some moisture from the environment. So the plastic sheet was brought back over the wall to cover the top of the insulation, hang down in front of it and extend over the French drain at the bottom so as to separate completely the insulation and tracks from the cladding and direct any running moisture to the drain.

Unfortunately, the cement board comes in 3' x 5' panels which doesn't equate well with the tracks on 24" centers.  So they had to be cut to width as well as length which is best done with a nibbler rather than a circular saw in order to avoid the noxious and health-impairing dust.  My nibbler was originally purchased for $80 on Craigslist at a time when I thought I would be gladding the exterior of the house with fibercement board (which later morphed into preference for steel siding which will require a different nibbler). It wasn't until later that I found out that I was lucky to have the fibercement nibbler because it cuts cement board as well.

The installation of the board was time-consuming.  In order to hang it with the same

One-by-six in place; second layer of cement board
butted up against it and ready for parging with stucco

cement board screws that are used for fastening the board to the bathroom floors and shower wall studs, pilot holes had to be drilled in the metal track.  And in order to keep the twist drill sharp for the metal, holes had to be drilled through the cement board first.  This meant three tool changes -- a cordless drill with a 3/16" masonary bit, a cordless drill with a 1/8" twist drill and a drill/driver for the screws.  

The mismatch between the cement board sizes and the 24" OC of the tracks created multiple left-over pieces.  Since I knew that there would be two layers of cement board, I didn't hesitate to work the small pieces into the wall for the first layer even though they were not as rigid as large pieces.  The 3' x 4' second layer pieces covered up the multiple seams of the first layer and added rigidity.  

Adding the Stucco
Fortunately, parging the cement board with stucco was easy after my experience with fiber bonded cement for the dry-stacked block walls of the solar connector.  The material that I

Wall after stuccoing; French drain covered with a layer of
 clean rock; about half of the wall will be buried in
backfill starting with +/- 4' deep at the north corner and
ending with +/- 2' deep at the south corner 

used was Quickcrete Professional One Coat Fiberglass-Reinforced Stucco.  And, as with the fiber bonded cement, getting the consistency just right is critical for easy handling. If it is too dry, it falls off instead of sticking to the wall and, where it does stick, tends to be too thick.  If too wet, it falls off and, where it does stick, tends to be too thin.  With a little experience, the right consistency goes on easily a trowel-full at a time (painfully slow) and can be troweled to a rather smooth finish. The manufacturer recommends limiting the size of each mix to that which can be applied in one hour.  An 80 lb bag mix was about right for meeting the time requirements during the hot summer after I waited to start the project in the afternoon when the wall was in the shade.

It is mandatory to keep a hose or sprayer handy.  Whether the substrate is concrete, other stucco layers or, as is the case here, cement board,  it must be kept moist for the stucco to adhere properly.  And the stucco should be kept moist for a couple of days afterwards to control crazing due to shrinkage as it cures.

In the present situation, both layers of the plastic sheet were trimmed so as to overlay about half of the top of the French drain so that any moisture between the inner sheet and the wall or between the outer sheet and the cladding will be directed to the drain but without completely covering the drain with plastic.

Interior Surface of the Concrete Walls
The east wall of the garage used here as an example and all of the concrete house walls that are insulated on the exterior will be insulated on the interior in a similar way using plastic sheeting, metal track and ESP foam board.  The only difference will be drywall for cladding instead of parged cement board.   

Insulating both sides of the wall will give a nominal R-20 for the garage where 2 1/2" tracks were used and R-28 for the house walls where 3 1/2" tracks were used.  An R-20 for the garage is probably overkill but an R-28 for the house is marginal compared to the R-50-ish stick-built walls and ceilings.  Fortunately, I can live with it since the amount of concrete that will be exposed above the insulation-watershed umbrella will be minimal. 

Backfilling Against the Wall

Provisional backfill to ward off the runoff from behind the wall;
the carpentry  work can now resume  in earnest

The reason for interrupting the carpentry phase and concentrating on the garage wall was to insulate and clad it so it could be partially backfilled to force the runoff from the the backfill behind the house away from the east garage wall and to cover the French drain.  Accordingly, I dropped a few track loader buckets of dirt against the wall to suffice until the entire slope could be properly contoured eventually.

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.