leangreen.org recycled renovation on a low-budget ration

Before closing up our walls, we need to kill the terrorizing leaks. Last week's leak alert level: six buckets. As expected, the intersection of the old and new roof does not want to seal. Our patches seem improved after another re-layering and re-gooping of the cursed roof triangle this weekend. Today's rain should test the job. It's drizzling, zero buckets so far.

Tigger tours the back landing-pad for the garage and mechanical room. We have a drain in the middle of the concrete patio that works well, but we need a threshold at the doors to the mechanical room to prevent water from splashing back into an unfortunate low point at the corner of the door. The water's been getting into the mechanical room and then the bathroom, a constant reminder of our unsealed state. We bought about $100 worth of metal, rubber and caulk for the threshold work and then decided to use a bucket of leftover concrete instead for a $0 waste-reduction solution. Gary Gray, the Denver Pool Pro who doesn't mind dipping his hands in cement, is out for almost two weeks to help us get the walls closed up. We also plan to build a dam within the mechanical room in case the big hot water tank explodes. The water tank is not yet purchased but needs to be chosen so we can plan for the exhaust flue before closing up the walls. The list of things to do before closing up the walls does not seem to end.

We worked this holiday weekend.  The goal:  finish installing the fiber cement siding on the addition.  The Certainteed fiber cement panels come in 4 foot by 8 foot sheets. They are affordable (at one dollar per square foot), straightforward to install, contain 30% pre-consumer recycled material (a mix of fly ash, a waste by-product from coal production, and wood fiber) and promise durability (resistant to fire and insects while boasting a 50-year warranty). We can paint the panels any color and they provide a clean, smooth contrast to the redwood's horizontal boards.

We use the front yard as our workshop and we overflowed onto the sidewalk and street.  Because our walls don't conform to a 4 foot by 8 foot grid, we custom cut each panel according to the window and door layout along the wall.   To install, tasks included measuring the cuts to the panels, cutting the boards with our trusty aluminum guide (lent by Tom) and the circular saw outfitted with a Diablo blade, drilling screw mounting holes on a 15 inch grid, and then painting the boards with two coats of Yolo exterior paint in Forest 02 color.  On the exterior walls, we've covered the plywood sheathing with 30 pound felt paper.  We then haul the boards up the ladder and screw in place (where Jim's help is much appreciated).

On Saturday, we started the south wall when we ran out of critical supplies: boards, a working saw blade and paint.  Hello, preparation!  So we reviewed our work on the north wall and decided to install 2 inch wide trim (using spruce wood) around the windows.  Despite our best efforts to snug the cement boards right up to the window edges, the flashing was uneven, causing less than square results.  Those went up quick although they required lots of pre-painting by the painting machine, Jen.

Although we didn't reach our goals, we did have root beer floats. Dom, a new addition to the pack, did not help at all, but he didn't run away or get in any fights either. We have more photos of him posted here.

We installed PEX tubing in the drizzling rain and pressurized to 60 psi with success. We laid the tubing at 8" spacing except for the perimeter where we tightened the distance to around 4" to make up for heat loss at the exterior walls. We used zip-ties to attach the tubes to the 12" grid of rebar which is floating above 2" of polystyrene insulation and 4" of drainage rock. We have some concern about the lack of insulation at the perimeters walls, but the engineer and architect have specified that the concrete slab adheres directly to the concrete footings. We may lose some of the heating system efficiency, but we don't want to compromise the foundation's strength.

We had a minor delay in pressurizing the tubes for the inspection because our PEX-to-manifold adapters were for 5/8" tubing rather than 1/2" tubing. Our inspector showed up a little early, we weren't ready because of the adapter mix-up, and the inspector promised to return to verify the pressure and sign the job card before the concrete pour tomorrow.

For the concrete pour, we will forgo the tooling of expansion joints and accept the fact that cracks will occur in the slab which will be our finished floor in the entry, living room, kitchen and garage. We ordered a 7 sack mix (a high ratio of concrete) to increase the slab strength and finish quality. We also asked for microfibers in the mix to help prevent cracks. Over time, we expect a somewhat random or dendritic pattern of hairline cracks which might even be emboldened if we decide to stain the concrete. Our radiant heat expert friend, Jeff Stangeland, suggested that using iron sulfate for stain is a non-toxic alternative to acids and it would give the concrete a rust tone. That decision is a long way away. We hope tomorrow brings us a clean, strong and smooth-finished slab.