Sunday, July 23, 2006

Basement Heating

This is a continuation from the post below. I guess I only get to put up 5 pictures at a time.
Anyways, pictures of the rebar and insulation board. The green lines are the rooms marked out so they can lay the heating tubes.


The red tubes are made to hold high pressure. The boiler heats water that is then pumped through the tubes that will then heat the concrete that is poured over. Once heated, this will allow steady heat without the need for air blowers and fans, keeping a steady temperature. The tubes are attached to the rebar to keep them from floating up, and the concrete will be poured over to the height of the insulation board along the sides, about 5 inches.


New Deck, Concrete

New things are happening. The decks are going up. So far, They have the frame up for the deck outside the master bedroom. It looks bigger than we expected, so far. The main deck should be started up tomorrow.


The garages also had their cement poured. The patio outside the nook was poured as well. That will finally allow them to put up the structural posts that hold up the overhang over the nook patio, as they rest on top of the concrete, and finish off that part of the roof.


We're waiting for a custom arched beam for the front portico. That will create a barrrel roof entryway. That should be arriving any day now, and then the front entryway can finally be roughed in.

In the basement, we're getting ready to pour the concrete. The structural fill (gravel stuff) was leveled and recompacted. Insulation board was layed out. Because we are using radiant heat, that keeps the heat fron escaping into the ground. The insulation is placed along the whole bottom as well as the sides.
Rebar is layed out to give better structure, needed because there is some risk of soil expansion which could cause the concrete to heave. The rebar will help hold all the concrete down and keep it from raising unevenly, or hopefully not raising at all.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Windows going In






New stuff to report at last. The shipment of windows arrived and they began to put them in. Almost complete. The sliding doors are very nice and sturdy. These really change the feel from inside.
Caissons were also drilled to support the deck in back and front, and they put up the roof/overhang for the front porch. The large decorative trusses are starting to go up in front as well. A mistake was made in the angled truss over the garage, where a bigger beam was supposed to be used o they're going to have to yank them.
Next work up is to finish the windows, start work on the deck, and get the basement ready with the radiant system and pour the slab.