Onward and Upward

This is a picture of the lowest point we will reach in the renovation. Yesterday, Zach and I mixed 30 bags of concrete and poured this 8"x16" reinforced concrete footing. These first 8 inches of upward progress will support a 6 foot ICF wall (Insulated Concrete Form), and a 4" concrete slab to be formed and poured in the coming week.

Zach and I are enthused to try out a relatively new and emerging green building product in the form of our ICF utility cellar.
ICFs are made from expanded polystyrene (EPS - same stuff they make Styrofoam coffee cups out of), but they represent a huge energy savings with insulating values of up to R-50, and provide amazing strength with a perfect and continuous reinforced concrete form. EPS is not our favorite green insulator considering some of the biodegradeable alternatives (recycled cotton, recycled newspapers, soy, and straw to name a few), but EPS has come a long way.



We chose a company called Greenblock, whose simple leggo-like assembly system, high R-values, and handy embedded furring strips made for a perfect combination. Additionally, although Greenblock is a world-wide manufacturer that has been used as a standard European building system for over 30 years, they have a small local distributor in Woodland Park. Zach and I were pleased to be greeted by a professional and friendly old hammer swinger named Jeff who graciously agreed to hang out and wait for us after hours to sell us the meager two-bundle order we were requesting. We were treated to a full introductory class in Jeff's office and later followed it with a quick wall building tutorial in the warehouse. We certainly didn't feel like we were dealing with a multi-national corporation. Jeff made it easy for us to choose Greenblock, and we hope to host him for an ICF class in Denver on our next project this fall.



The ICFs, which come in 4'x1'x11.25" blocks, will be stacked like a brick wall on top of our new concrete footings at the bottom of the cellar and braced with standard framing lumber for support. We will then pump 4000 psi concrete with a mixture of %20 fly-ash (to replace some of the Portland cement - a diminishing resource in increasingly high demand as China and India pour more concrete foundations and walls than we can imagine) into the bottom of the forms and fill them like a pudding cup. It's a clever and elegant system. We're excited to move forward.



This is a huge project for a two person crew, and at times it can get a little daunting. Fortunately, our requirement to recycle or reuse no less than 75% of the waste materials from the project has facilitated the building of a few morale boosters in the form of landscaping. In order to collect the rubble and dirt from our demolition, we built outdoor planter boxes out of FSC-certified (Forestry Stewardship Council) 2x6s and brick posts. The boxes we've built so far have provided a need for over 10 cubic yards of landscaping fill. The rest we take to recycling facilities first, and landfill last. I'm proud to say that we've only taken three trailer-loads of waste to the landfill so far, and I feel confident we will make our goal of 75%.



Now that the boxes are filled, Hanna and Malin have started to gather a collection of beautiful native grasses, shrubs, and flowers and have started to implement a drought-resistant and low water use landscape design. The house is whirring with a wonderful feeling of progress. Although it may look like a bunch of vagrants and hippies are camping out waiting for Phish tickets, this EcoEnovation is in full swing, and before we know it, it will be time to dress her up and present her to the neighbors. Until then, we persevere!