Amicus, American Clay, Rainwater Tanks, Woodpeckers

What a productive weekend working on the house! Yesterday was gloomy and misty, which provided a nice excuse to pick up our porcelain tile from Amicus Green Building Center. The owner, Jason, was there this weekend so we had a chance to visit with him and bounce ideas off of him. I may have written this before, but it's worth repeating -- before you go to Home Depot or Lowes, check out your local businesses -- especially those specializing in green products -- and support these companies. The knowledge base of the folks at Amicus, complimented by their exceptional customer service is great. But their variety of products and extremely competitive pricing is even better. We've really had great experiences working with Jason and his crew at Amicus, so pay them a visit when you need some supplies.

While picking up the tile, we also stocked up on American Clay Earth Plaster, since we ran out applying it in the guest bedroom and hallway. We had bought a relatively small amount initially, and now we needed more. So we picked up 10 bags of American Clay Loma for the base coat.

After we got to the house, we unloaded the tile and the 50 lb. bags of clay, and then I mixed up four buckets of clay for use this week. Andreas spent time digging a trench by the rainwater tanks for the freshwater pipe to come into the house. It's tough work and slow going.

We were on a tight schedule, since our friends Chris and Greg invited us over to dinner, so we couldn't work through the evening. (The dinner was wonderfully delicious, and it was great to have a fun, enjoyable evening off.)

Sunday was extremely productive. Andreas continued digging the trench and got the PVC piping for the rainwater tanks mostly set up. I worked inside on the American Clay installation. While applying the clay, I was listening to music on my iPod and heard a beat that wasn't consistent with the music. At first, I thought Andreas was attacking the dirt with his shovel. Then I had images of Woodpeckers flashing through my mind. I went to the North side to see if the woodpecker was back. No sign of it. But I head the noise again. I banged on the stucco and, sure enough, the woodpecker flew away from the back of the house. To make a long story short, we now have three holes in the stucco from that stupid woodpecker. It's not wood, there's nothing there for him, why is he doing this? I tried scaring him away, which seemed to work for the rest of today, at least.

Back to plastering -- I should tell you that we've had a change of heart with regard to the color for our walls. The drywall walls (i.e., the interior framed walls) will remain as bright white painted walls. The exterior walls (i.e., the compressed earth block walls) that I'm covering with American Clay, will just be tan -- the natural color of the clay -- which is called Snow Canyon. When I'm applying the plaster, it reminds me of chocolate icing my Mom used to put on cupcakes. When that dries, it turn much lighter and looks like a suede jacket. It's warm, inviting, and masculine. And it goes great with the stained concrete floors, the kitchen cabinets, and the white walls and ceiling. So rather than trying to lighten that clay through expensive additives, we're going to stick with the natural snow canyon look. The basement clay application will be lighter, though, since I already have a 50 lb bag of the final coat of plaster mixed with the white additive.

By the end of the evening, the application of American Clay was completed in the entire great room. Tomorrow night, I'll apply it in the master bathroom and start on the master bedroom. Hopefully by Wednesday the entire main level of the house will be covered in clay - in a good way. Then I can move on to bathroom tile installation!

Project Update

Sorry for the infrequent posts. Lest anyone think we've given up on the house, nothing could be further from the truth. We have been making progress, which is refreshing!

What's really great is that the passive solar design of the house and the TerraBrick wall construction with concrete floors as thermal masses really work! It's been sunny, but relatively cool, all week, and the nighttime temps have been in the 30s/40s. We've been working in the house very comfortably without coats/jackets or any supplemental heat -- just the sun during the day heating up the bricks/floor which emit the heat at night when it's cold outside.

Here's a quick snapshot of what we've been busy with:

• The main level interior walls are painted with American Pride paint from Amicus Green Building Center. One of the neighbor's children said we should paint the walls green, since it's a green house. Her sister insisted we should paint the house as tie-dye and get bean bag chairs for furniture. Also a cool idea. But we opted for white interior walls and ceilings to keep things bright.
• The Modern Fan Company ceiling fans arrived from YLighting yesterday, and the extensions arrived today, so we will install those next week when we install the recessed LED lights in the ceiling. We've been coordinating with Tom the electrician to schedule a time for him to install the outlets and light switches.
  
• The concrete floors have been stained (two coats) and sealed (two coats) and they look magnificent!
• The main level building envelop TerraBrick walls mostly have been prepped for American Clay Earth Plaster application. I need to finish that work in the guest bedroom, and then will be able to start applying the plaster - that should be a fun, but time-consuming, project.
• When Steve Clark's crew came for the drywall install, we told him the only rooms in the basement to get drywall were the bedroom and bathroom. We forgot about the ceiling over the stair landing and the hallway to the basement bathroom and bedroom. With German precision, Andreas cut the drywall and we screwed the drywall boards into the joists; now we need to tape, mud and paint that.
  
• We have been putting together our kitchen cabinets from IKEA after dinner each night this week. I know, they're not the greenest choice in the world, but they're better than many other options that are available to us. The decision to go with IKEA was budgetary, but the quality actually is pretty darn good. It just takes time to put the cabinets together, and the instructions are not the best.
  
• With the exception of some PVC piping we need to purchase yet, Andreas now has all of the parts required to finish the rainwater capture system installation. But since he'll be traveling for a bit for work, it'll be tough to get that done as quickly as we'd like.
  
• We're working through some deck installation questions and getting quotes for the deck. The quotes have been all across the board in cost and time to complete.
  

Lots of other small details are being tended to, such as meeting with potential subcontractors to get quotes to finish up certain projects, etc.

Shaken, Not Stirred

Bond. Bond Beam's the name. This week marked a significant milestone for the house construction project. The bond beam forms were completed, they passed inspection, and the concrete was delivered/poured. Now the Post & Beam construction of the house, which is the code section that the plans were approved under, is complete. We have concrete columns, a continuous bond beam across the top, and the structure is in place to support the roof. The TerraBricks technically are in-fill for the walls, although they certainly are strong enough to have been a structural component of the house. Obtaining approval for the TerraBricks to be structural would have been a significant hassle and expense, which proved unnecessary with the post & beam option.

Now that the bond beam has been poured, the contractor for the CEBs & pouring of the concrete (Willie is the guy's name) just needs to replace some FSC lumber they used and clean up after themselves. Once that's done, we can settle up and put this contractor experience behind us - for good.

Even though we're a few weeks behind schedule, our primary contractor, Aaron from Cornerstone Building Services, thinks much of that time will be made up on the roof installation. I hope he's right - Mother Nature has other plans as it rained all day today and showers are in the forecast for the next five days.

Timeline Until We're Under Roof

I just received an email from our contractor, Aaron Holmes with Cornerstone Building, providing a revised time line to get the house under roof and interior framing completed. I thought I'd share it here:

- Complete stacking of TerraBricks above window and door headers & create Forms for the Bond Beam - this week
- Inspection of Bond Beam by City - Monday morning
- Pour Bond Beam - Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning
- 2 days for bond beam to cure before removing forms
- Framing for Roof & interior first floor - April 30th & May 1st
- WeatherShield Doors & Windows delivered and installed May 1st
- Electrical & Plumbing Rough-ins in first floor - Week of May 4th

As you may recall from the house plan post (see post entitled For Larry M.) there is no second story of the house, so the list above is a substantial amount of work to get the house closed up so interior projects can be initiated. Very exciting! Let's hope everything stays on track!

Forms, Concrete, Oops (I told you so!)

For the most part, this house project has been a positive and rewarding experience. And when we've had minor issues, I've kept a positive tone (well, most of the time). This post isn't one of those times.

The subcontractor whose crew made and stacked the TerraBricks has been challenging to work with (I'm being polite right now). When the owner of the company is there, the crew works quickly, efficiently, effectively. The second he turns his back or leaves the job site, they're the slowest, least motivated people in the entire world! When we all were on-site filming for Renovation Nation on Thursday, they got a ton of work done -- more than three times the amount of work they got done on Wednesday and on Friday put together. The difference? The owner was there and our contractor was there.

For the most part, their quality of work has not been an issue, it's just the speed of their work (or lack thereof) that's been the challenge. That, combined with rain over several days, now has us about two weeks behind schedule. There's a lot of work to do yet on the concrete and TerraBricks before the framers can come back and install the roof, frame the interior of the first floor, and then install the windows and doors.

I wrote above, "For the most part, their quality of work has not been an issue...". Well, on Saturday it became an issue. The crew was late to work in the morning. They were supposed to be on-site by 7:30 to complete their work on the concrete forms. They didn't come until after 8:30 and then several of the guys ate their breakfast before unloading the tools and ramping up to work. The concrete was scheduled to arrive at 9:00am. So they put everything behind schedule. To make up for it, one of the geniuses on the crew decided to take a short-cut with a column and did not use the required wire reinforcement to hold the column forms together. He trusted his 2'x4' external supports that were still resting in settling back-filled clay dirt that people were walking around.

You can just guess what happened! The weight of the concrete busted the form, the supports fell away, and the concrete went all over the outside of the back of the house. They got it cleaned up (in a half-assed sort of way) and now they have to do that work over again. Ugh. It wouldn't be such a big issue, except that puts us further behind schedule and we had a long conversation with the owner of the company about our expectations on the concrete forms and he assured us everything would be done to the highest standard. We knew something like this was going to happen, and it did. While I generally like being right, I would rather have been wrong on this. It's a good thing the work crew was still there when this happened, and it's a good thing the Renovation Nation video crew was not still there, or the end result would have been even messier! You'll see the fouled form in the last pic below.

The crew was able to get most of the concrete work done, but not all of it. They still had some window headers to form and three columns to form, then more concrete to pour. The only reason they got as far as they did is that Andreas worked his tail off carrying extremely heavy buckets of concrete from the concrete mixer truck to the various parts of the house where the concrete had to be poured. He carried at least 100 buckets - that likely was more than any of the paid crew!

There are several other jobs this crew could do for us on our house, but they won't be given the opportunity. I'm counting the days until they complete their work so we can be gone with them!

Lights, Camera, Action!

They didn't say I couldn't tell people. And I think it's good promo for the show, so hopefully I can post this.

You, my dear readers, are some of the first to know that our home construction will be on TV! Planet Green Channel's show, Renovation Nation, filmed several projects on our site this past Thursday and Saturday.

It was a fantastic experience - the crew was a lot of fun and very talented, and the show's host, Steve Thomas, was super nice and great to interact with. The three projects they filmed included: - Making & stacking of the TerraBricks - Forming and pouring concrete columns - installing the EIFS system on the outside of the house The first two were real projects. The third was a bit early in our construction sequence, but we had the sub-contractors who will be installing our EIFS system come early to demonstrate, on our house, how it's done. That told the whole story of how the TerraBrick wall system works in the Virginia climate.

In addition to interviewing Andreas and me, our architect John Spears, our contractor Aaron Holmes, the concrete sub-contractor Andy Bartley, and a whole host of other folks who have been instrumental in our house's design and construction success thus far may appear on the show too!

And as you'll see in the next post(s), some work actually got done while the show was being filmed, which is a good thing!

The show was a great experience and we look forward to our house being on TV this summer. I'll certainly post here when we know which date it will be on so you can tune in to Planet Green channel to see for yourself.

In the mean time, if anyone has any contacts at Dwell Magazine, please let me know. In all the years I've been reading Dwell, I can't recall their publishing a Compressed Earth Block house and I would be very interested in their publishing our house (after the construction is completed, of course).

Here are some photos from the Renovation Nation video shoot.

Last Photos for Today

More Photos

Some Photos

The TerraBrick/CEB manufacture should be complete now; the crew will be placing the door and window bucks and continue stacking bricks. I've been out of town for most of the past three weeks, hence the infrequent postings, but here are some picks I took with my iPhone on Monday on my way to Dulles Airport to catch my flight to Denver.

Saturday, CEB Demonstration

WOW! What a fantastic day! We were hoping some folks from the green community would stop by to observe the manufacture of the TerraBricks/CEBs during our demo that we had scheduled and announced a few weeks prior. We had well over 100 people throughout the course of the three hour demo period, with some arriving early and others still coming after the end of the demo. The weather was spectacular, friends and relatives were able to come by, and my colleague, Scott, and his wife, Laura, brought cupcakes that folks enjoyed.

The folks who attended were a mix of people from within the green community, including Jason from Amicus Green Building Supply in Kensington, MD, some folks who consult and supply "clean energy solutions" and a whole host of consumers - and even a delegation from the Government of Costa Rica - who heard about CEBs and wanted to check out the demonstration as they consider this technology for their home construction.

The demo was a great marketing opportunity for our architect, John Spears, with the Sustainable Design Group, our contractor, Aaron Holmes with Cornerstone Building Services, and the folks at TerraBuilt who leased the Green Machine to us.

It was also great to show off our construction project to my family members who were in town visiting from Pennsylvania.

We'll have some short videos coming soon in another post showing the Green Machine in action and the crew stacking the bricks.

Our Contractor, Aaron Holmes, talking with a demo attendee.

John Morris from TerraBuilt explaining the Green Machine.

A normal miter saw is used to cut the TerraBricks/CEBs.

City of Falls Church green program leaders gather to watch the crew set some of the TerraBricks.

Setting the TerraBricks.

Our friend, Jeff, ready to video the crew set the TerraBricks.

TerraBricks in place - two levels high.

Friday, 3/20, Brick Making

While we were installing the radiant system below, Willy, John Morris and Aaron were outside manufacturing the TerraBricks/CEBs. During the afternoon, we welcomed a number of Falls Church staff who dropped by to observe the CEB making. While civilizations around the globe have been building with earth for generations, it's now a unique construction process here in the U.S. where the "norm" is construction methodologies designed for quick assembly. Unfortunately that results in a disposable house with a significantly shorter lifespan than expected for our solid CEB house.

Willy on the left and John Morris on the right, ensuring the quality of each and every CEB!

Matt Brown and Jason Widstrom, City engineers, observing the CEB manufacture.

Andreas protecting his hearing and wondering if and when
they'll make a quieter version of the Green Machine!

Our clay soldiers all lined up, ready to be stacked as a wall.

Thursday, 3/19, Change of Plans, but Good Progress

We were scheduled to install the pex tubing in the basement for our radiant heat flooring system. But things fell a bit behind schedule on Thursday as there was a last-minute change in plans on how to install the tubing. Our architect learned of a staple system that fastens the pex tubing to the 2" extruded foam board insulation. So that stapler had to be obtained while the plastic staples were sent overnight for a Thursday morning arrival. Well, that didn't go as planned, but it all turned out fine in the end (as you'll see in the next post) and Andreas and I didn't have to work in the cold rain.

Meanwhile Bartley Corp.'s team was on-site to add yet another 4" of stone to the basement, plus the 2" extruded foam board. They wrapped up their work while our contractor Aaron, Willy Obando who oversees the crew for making and stacking the TerraBricks/CEBs, and John Morris from TerraBuilt who was training the crew and managing the operation of the Green Machine, were testing out the machine and the getting everything set for brick making.

TerraBuilt's Green Machine Arrived Today

I spoke with our contractor, Aaron, a few moments ago and he shared that the "Green Machine" by TerraBuilt arrived on-site today. Aaron is working with John Morris from the company to find the right mixture of clay soil, sand and Portland cement to make the TerraBricks (CEBs).

When asked why we chose to build with TerraBricks/CEBs, I would have to say there are a number of reasons this innovative technology appealed to us. Primarily it is because the thermal properties from this construction method will allow us to use much less energy and, if we want energy independence as a nation, we need to CONSERVE energy in addition to increasing our sustainable, clean, domestic energy capability such as solar and wind power. And to conserve energy while living in a home that proves to be comfortable, acoustically pleasing, and sustainable - it's a match made in heaven. While I hope to video the demo of the Green Machine on our lot this Saturday, if you can't wait, please visit http://www.terrabuilt.com for their video of TerraBrick/CEB construction.