Construction week 12: the first floor

This week, the team finished installing the ledger boards, hung our floor joists (supplied by Kott), finished the interior structural framing, and set a floor on top of the floor joists. Construction is starting to resemble a more traditional site-framed home. Over the weekend, we had a family picnic in the house and even had our first official guests over to join us (of course we all wore hard hats).

We forgot to mention on the blog that last week was International Passive House Days. There were several events and tours happening around the city. There is rising interest. Mark also gave a couple tours of our place (outside of the PH week events). One to a group from NRCan (Natural Resources Canada) and one to a group of fine folks taking a Passive House course. Seeing as how our build has been garnering interest and tour requests, we will post a sign-up form (eventually) and open them up to the public. We are all-for raising awareness for Passive House...we are also pretty proud of what we’re building and happy to show it off. We'll get that going soon.

Next week, work will be geared towards the main floor walls. 

In the new toasty basement

Welcome to the main floor

Construction weeks 10 & 11: foundation complete

Last I wrote, I left us on a cliffhanger, didn’t I? Wood and hammers and nails — oh my! 

Oh no.

I jumped the gun. Much prep was yet required before framing could begin in earnest. Those tasks included:

1. Glued the last few stacks foam to the outside of our basement walls

All that foam combined (R-4/inch) should have an R-value of 74. (Ontario Building Code requirements for a foundation are as low as R-12 on the walls only).

Last layers of foam held in place while glue sets.

2. Installed the frost skirt

Because the bottom of our foundation isn’t quite deep enough to guarantee that it will be below the frost line on any given winter, we needed a frost skirt. (This is a standard detail for shallow foundations in Canadian construction). It’s a thin layer of foam installed horizontally around the permitter of the building at foundation depth. Typical frost penetration is around 4 feet in Ottawa, but last years' exceptionally cold winter brought that to 6’. A frost skirt is used on shallow foundations to extend the path that frost must travel to reach the bottom of a foundation. Bad news if it were to happen — expansion, contraction (heaving) leads to cracks and structural damage. 

Frost skirt and overlapping and waterproofing membrane.

3. Waterproofed the foundation

Using a Nudura waterproofing membrane, which is a peel-and-stick rubberized sheet. This required some patience because the foam had to be cleaned and dried prior to application. It wasn’t adhering as snugly as we’d have like to see, either. Some temporary strapping helped with this. A dimple board, held on place with metal fasteners, was layered over top of the membrane. Bam. Waterproofed.

4. Set up drainage

Water shall not pass (our membrane) and will weep if it dares to encroach. Weeping tile was placed around the perimeter of the foundation and connected to the storm sewer. There is a filter sock around it to prevent it from filling up with sand. (Am I the only one who finds the term weeping tile odd? There is no porcelain or ceramic whatsoever. It’s a plastic pipe with some nylon around it. Weeping tile does sound dramatic, however. I therefore think it sticks).

Dimple board and weeping tile.

5. City inspection

Our city inspector wanted to check things out prior to back fill. So he paid a visit. He decided he wanted to throw in an additional check, which threw a bit of a wrench in to our coordination efforts (see next step).

6. Backfill

There were two steps to the backfill process. First we covered the drain tile with clean gravel (as to not clog the nylon with sand and silt straightaway). Cue city inspector – who gave us the thumbs up. And then we filled up the hole with native fill (some of which has been sitting around and taking up precious room on site and some that was stored off-site).

My oh my. What a difference this back fill has made. Now that half of the foundation walls lie underground, it actually looks and feels like a basement from the outside. 

Backfill stage 1: clean fill

Backfill stage 2: native fill

7. Sill plate leveling and installation

This sill plate is what our first floor walls rest on. It’s a 2 x 6” piece of lumber that’s installed on top of the concrete, leveled with grout. 

8. Ledger board and air barrier prep

The ledger board is what our first floor floor rests on. Remember those ledger bolts that were screwed into the concrete? These hold up the 2 x 10” ledger board. But out air barrier goes up first – Siga MAJPELL 5 membrane. Mark had a Periscope broadcast on this last week. They installed it with excess available to overlap once the second/main floor goes up. (Gotta keep that air barrier line as clean and streamlined as possible!)

Air barrier detail over ledger bolts

Ledger board install

And so forth

That’s the house up-to-date. Additionally, we had a few deliveries made and spent some time shuffling our construction materials around as we suddenly had a lot more room with the backfill out of the way. Our neighbours were no doubt pleased to regain their front lawn. And we lost a couple days due to bad (wet) weather.

Lotsa stuff out front. 

Behind the scenes, there was a bit of good news. We applied for our first construction mortgage withdrawal. Mark explained our house build to the appraiser, and why our breakdowns/allotments should be different. The appraiser accepted Mark’s breakdowns — whoot! We have been reimbursed for Phase 1. Foundation complete. This helps alleviate some of our financial pressures.

For next week: wood and hammer and nails — oh my! 

Meet our builders: Cornelis Grey Construction

Exterior rendering of Casey and Natasha Grey's Passive House in Manotick

[Post written by Casey Grey of Cornelis Grey Construction]

Working with Mark, Meghan and PLOTNONPLOT was a must for us. Since we had already built a Passive House for ourselves, we obviously knew we had values that aligned. This partnership was meant to be. Ultimately, the building industry needs to change and there’s no way one person can do it alone. We all have to work together if we’re going to have any sort of impact in this life.

Although the term “Passive House” is widely unknown, “saving money” is something we can all relate with. In a world where everything seems to become more and more expensive, it’s about time we start saving some money. That is what Passive Houses do. They save energy which, in turn, saves money.

As a Builder who lives and works in a Passive House, I can vouch for all the benefits. It was the smartest decision (other than marrying my wife, of course) that I have made in my life. With solar panels on the roof that are a part of the MicroFIT program, we actually make money every year instead of paying energy bills. I’m also giving my family healthier indoor air quality and a more comfortable place to live. To top it all off, all these decisions help the environment in more ways that I can count.

I’m sure you’re all tired of hearing about saving the environment so I ask you to think of it differently. A way that actually makes more sense. It’s not the environment we’re trying to save, it’s humanity... The environment was here long before us and will be here long after us. No matter what we do, it will adapt. Even if that adaptation requires getting rid of humanity. Let’s work together towards a future that costs less money, betters our health and saves lives. The decisions you make today could make you a hero for generations to come. That’s why we decide to build Passive Houses.

Watch our house build on Periscope

My techie husband has started to Periscope from site. What does that mean? Periscope is social video streaming. You can follow him live when he's on site, listen to him explain things as he walks around the house, ask him questions and interact. The future is now.

Follow him @marktrosen. He'll probably announce the live stream on Twitter beforehand. If you're not following him on Twitter yet, get on that. He's been posting his own updates there too. AND if that's not enough, our builders Cornelis Grey have been Periscoping too. Follow them @cornelisgrey.

Mark's first broadcast on Periscope

Construction week 9: ICF walls

Our basement concrete ICF wall sandwich.

Our house has taken shape! This week revolved mostly around setting up our ICF walls, which Mark discussed in his post from earlier this week. 

On Friday, we filled them with concrete. Our guys from Cornelis Grey leveled and troweled excess as they went. We rented a concrete vibrator to help ensure the concrete made it all the way down to the bottom of the hollow ICF walls. However, we may skip this step next time 'round, seeing as how the concrete had no trouble making it down and the vibrator actually cause our walls to bulge in a couple small sections. (These bulges are easily remedied, however, by shaving off some of the foam prior to gluing the exterior layer of additional foam. Still...the perfectionists in us would prefer no bulging.)

I was ecstatic to finally be able to walk inside our future home, the first floor at least. I can start to visualize where everything will be. Très cool. 

We posted a site sign over the weekend. Fortunately, our site, with all the construction material lying out on the front lawn, didn’t suffer from any Halloween pranking. I was a little paranoid that our port-a-pottie would be tipped or our foam would be toyed with. We should be able to clear up the front yard this upcoming week, or week thereafter, by backfilling the foundation and freeing up the backyard for materials storage and site facilities. And to make room for our neighbors fantastic front yard skating rink. Yep, winter is coming. Fortunately, the forecast looks pretty decent for the week ahead (no snow yet). Great framing weather! Next week will be another big one. Lots of change as we go up another level.

Wood and hammers and nails — oh my! 

Cheeky site sign.

Foundation Construction Details

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Slab and foundation/basement walls with insulation and frost skirt

With the slab poured and the ICF well under way, I thought I would write a quick post with visuals explaining the construction methods and materials being used. I've created some images to go along with all the photos we've been posting to hopefully add some clarity to what you've been looking at so far!

The images above and below show the concrete foundation and foam insulation as it will be once completed. The image below has labels calling out the various layers. 

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Components of the foundation

The biggest difference between our foundation and a typical residential foundation is the lack of concrete footings.  A typical foundation would pour strip concrete footings right onto undisturbed soil, then pour the concrete walls, and finally pour the slab inside the walls. In our home, the slab is poured before the walls and will actually support them, which is why it is so much thicker (8" instead of the standard 4") and has so much steel rebar in it. It is also completely contained within the foam insulation tray, eliminating any thermal bridging through the concrete to the ground. The end result of this is a concrete floor that will retain the heat it absorbs from the house above, rather than simply dumping it through into the ground. 

The walls on top of the slab are made up of three layers. First is the ICF (insulated concrete forms) from Nudura. These are like Lego for grow ups. They snap together to form the walls and are held apart by integrated webbing. The cavity is 6" wide and on Friday we will be pouring it full of concrete. Watch for photos this week showing the alignment system that will ensure the walls are straight and true as the concrete is poured. 

Once the concrete is poured and the walls straightened, we will be adding two more layers of foam from Styrorail to the exterior to build up the insulation value of the walls. The first layer has horizontal wood strapping embedded, and the second layer will cover this wood and effectively embed it in the middle of the wall. The foam will be glued in place using PL 300 glue, which is specifically formulated not to deteriorate the foam over time. The horizontal wood strapping gives us something to tie back into when we go to install our siding above grade. 

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The slab poured and the first layer of ICF in place. 

Now let's talk about the big white elephant in the room: why so much foam? The amount of insulation is one of the trade offs required to achieve passive house performance on such a challenging site. Because of the limitations of orientation and south-facing window areas, we have to compensate by beefing up the thermal envelope more aggressively than you might find in other passive house projects. The final thickness was determined after several rounds of refinement of the energy model (using PHPP for those keeping track). The really nice thing about this configuration is that all of the concrete is on the warm side of the thermal envelope, where it will hold its warmth, and is protected from expansion and contraction. This alignment becomes especially important when we get to the design of the framed walls above...more on that soon. 

ICF at the end of 1 day's work.  

Construction week 8: the slab

Work started this week with more rebar — the critical metal mesh which reinforces our structural concrete slab. Once the metal work was complete, our structural engineer, Peter Campbell, came by to inspect and sign-off on it. Check and check. We were ready for concrete.

I am relieved to say that the concrete pour went really well. The team was great and the slab looks great. But this step did not want to happen. First of all, concrete is surprisingly expensive. We had a hard time assembling quotes. Ended up having our guys at Cornelis Grey tie and prepare the metal, ordering our concrete from one company, and a concrete pump truck from another company. A lot of extra coordination. And then on the day before the pour, our concrete team tried to cancel on us! Fortunately for us, Mark can be very persuasive and eventually it all worked out. Once underway, they had to pause work several times to clear leaves off the wet concrete, but otherwise all good.

On Friday, our Cornelis Grey team started installing the ICF forms for our basement walls. This work will spill over to next. And today we ventured out to the Herrmann's. We ordered our Gaulhofer windows and doors through them and they have been sitting in their immaculate warehouses for a couple months now. We finally found the time to visit them. Boy are they spectacular. And those blue doors! Swoon. They will be a joy to operate every day. Really looking forward to getting those installed. We’re still hoping to be closed in before Christmas.

This was a big week. We have a fab slab. Now it’s onwards and upwards — with walls! Speaking of those walls, I think it’s high time I get Mark to post a little something about them. There aren’t enough hours in the day. 

And some more pics from the week:

Concrete pour -- hand troweling near the wall rebar

Machine leveling

Site inspection

Our big blue door!

Construction weeks 6 & 7

I’ve fallen behind on my blogging over the past couple weeks as I’ve started a new full-time job. Which means Mark is handling almost all aspects of the build and I’m playing catch-up over my evenings and visiting the job site on weekends. Thank goodness Mark’s more than capable and is starting to roll up his sleeves on the blog-front too. This is good for all of us, because he’ll be much better at explaining many of the build aspects than moi.

Weeks 6 and 7 were laying the foam for the tray — our structural slab. Read Mark’s post on this, if you haven’t already. Towards the end of the week our team at Cornelis Grey started tying rebar for the slab, on which the concrete will be poured. Hopefully they’ll be finished this laborious task by Monday and we can get the concrete going as soon as possible next week. They have around 1,500 ties to complete, all manually.  They’ll probably never want to see rebar ever again in their lives after this…