Home B.A.S.E.: 2007 - Building Academic Skills and Experiences "Ten years of success."

2009-05-23T18:29:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, May 20 2009

Mayor Coleman getting ready to speak to celebrate the home. Notice the Home B.A.S.E. logo behind him. Well done Home B.A.S.E. class of 2007!

The geat new sign in
front of the home.

The very large crowd that was in attendance at the event.

We doubt that any other event

held for a class in our

district would draw this many

non-school people.

2009-03-13T07:09:00.000-07:00

LEED Platinum !

Monday, March 16, 2009

Uses 73% Less Energy Than Other Houses!

Interview on WOSU Radio - Click Here (3:57 minutes)

Presentation at the Green Energy Ohio Solar Workshop on March 28, 2009 - Click Here (11:53 minutes)

Jetson design website featuring this home

The first Platinum-certified residential dwelling in the State of Ohio!

The residence at 258 N. 21st Street, in the North of Broad neighborhood of the King Lincoln District of Columbus, Ohio was awarded LEED Platinum certification by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) for achievement in green home building.

The home was built by a collaboration consisting of non-profits, government, corporate and educational entities.

Below is a partial list of the donors/builders/consultants

A full list will follow

The home was initiated by Roger Beck (Technology Education Teacher) with the students of the twelfth grade high school college preparatory 2007 Home B.A.S.E. class (Building Academic Skills and Experiences). Roger Beck also served as a the contractor and project manager. The Home B.A.S.E. class partnered with the Columbus Housing Partnership who was a full partner throughout the project and without whose help and supprt, this project would have never been started or completed!
The Home B.A.S.E. Foundation
Columbus Housing Partnership
American Electric Power
The City of Columbus
NeighborWorks America
Limited Brands
The Home Depot
Betsy Pettit, FAIA, at The Building Science Corporation Inc.,
The Contract Lumber Corporation, Pataskala, Ohio
Josh Lloyd, Associate AIA, LEED AP, at Phillip Markwood Architects.
Joe Sullivan, Sullivan/Bruck Architects
Edward Mooney and Moses Insulation

Kitchen with sustainable, green cabinets by Green Leaf Cabinetry topped with locally made beautiful concrete counter tops by Oberfield's Inc. (614)551-0129). The beautiful interior of the entire home was designed by Cynthia Grauduss who is an not only a fantastic designer but also an expert in sustainable, green interior deisgn. Grauduss Architecture and Design ( 614.561.7226) - A must contact for sustainable interior design.

Master bath: Recycled ceramic content floor tile, 1.1 gallon low flush toilet in all the bathrooms (Curnayn Sales 440-846-1280), natural lighting and ventilation.

Bedroom: Extra from another large project, the Shaw carpet (Rite Rug 778-4155) has no V.O.C.'s and will be taken back and made into carpet when it needs replaced.

Front landscaping with native Ohio drought resistant plants.

Urban Oasis. Beautiful native Ohio wetland plants that love water and that are drought resistant fill the rain garden.

Green Features

Site – Sustainable site, public transportation, services within ½ mile, shopping, parks etc., walkable.

Water

Low flow Gerber 1.1 gallon/flush pressure assisted, high volume toilets by Gerber (Curnayn Sales 440-846-1280).
Low flow faucet fixtures
Rain garden and landscaping – protect the watershed, pollutants Designed for typical Central Ohio year rain events, not long soakers
Downspouts to rain garden overflow to dry cistern
Overflow from cistern to street
Drought resistant plants
Low amount of turf.
The turf is a low mow mix requiring two cuttings per year and no watering.

Indoor Air Quality
All sealants and glues low to no V.O.C. (Franklin International, a Columbus, Ohio company, 1-800-877-4583)
Hard surfaces: Donated blemished Maple hardwood flooring ( Sheoga, an Ohio Company 1-800-834-1180), “Green” recycled content ceramic tiles for bathroom floors and shower surround
Panasonic fans with timer control in bathrooms to keep moisture out of the home
Tight enclosure to keep unwanted air infiltration from happening – air movement causes water and heat movement. “Make it tight, ventilate it right”.
Fan cycler installed on fresh air intake to provide for the correct air change per hour to avoid a “sick” house.
No or low V.O.C. paints Geen, no off gassing cabinets
No V.O.C. off gassing counter tops
Two inches of foam underneath slab to keep the slab warm and water from condensing and wicking into the basement
Radon tight sump pump well All ductwork will be sealed 1” of foam on the outside of the walls to prevent condensation on the interior of wall cavity.
Two drain tiles systems used to drain foundation water. One on the outside and one on the inside. Both were covered with filter fabric to keep them from silting up. Both drain tiles themselves had filter fabric wrapped around them. Hancor, an Ohio company

Materials
Concrete counter tops (Oberfields)
Metal roof with at least a 60 year life, is made from recycled steel and manufactured by a local company Dimensional Metals.
Home waws as PVC free as possible.
PVC free ABS drain waste vent system, Hancor, an Ohio company
Polyethylene drainage pipe, Hancor.
Cementous siding
Metal, durable, and very recyclable metal roof
Hardwood flooring
Materials used in the kitchen cabinets. All cabinets were made from formaldehyde-fee wood that was Forest Stewardship Council certified. The doors were made from scraps from the cabinet manufacturing operation. Green Leaf Cabinetry.
Advanced Framing
House built on a 24” module to avoid waste
Roof sloop built to a 24” module so that there was hardly any OSB (oriented strand board) waste.
Two stud corners
Floor joists at 24” module
2 x 6 studs at 24” O. C.– use only as much wood as a 2 x 4 wall framed at 16” O.C.
Only a single top plate
No solid headers over windows in gable end walls
Stacking framing – (see trusses to basement in stairwell)
One edge of each window falls on the 24” module.
No double cripple stud under window to catch the edge of the rough sill
Drywall clips used instead of wood blocking
Composition beams used instead of solid lumber
Water management system for keeping the house warm used from the Building Science Corporation out of Massachusetts.
Walls flashed correctly from the eaves to the foundation
House wrap used and flashed correctly
Windows flashed correctly – see blog
Behind porch slabs – the walls were flashed with a rubber membrane to overlap the concrete foundation waterproofing.
Metal drip edge at the bottom of the siding to kick out the water that gets behind the siding
Siding has an air gap between and the 1” foam to not trap water behind the siding and allow gravity to pull it down the wall and kick out away from the house via the drip edge
Back dams behind on all window rough sills to kick water to the outside when the windows leak and all windows will leak at some time.
Less then 2.4 pounds waste from the building. Almost all of the materials in the dumpster outside will be recycled.
PEX PVC free plumbing system, and Manablock distribution system, (Curnayn Sales 440-846-1280)
Recyling of construction waste.
Locally manufactured shower enclosures, Swan Freedom, a Columbus, Ohio company.

Energy
House uses 72 percent less energy than other houses.
Triple pane Gilkey Windows from Cincinnati
Northtowne Heating and Cooling: Ductwork and Bryant 97% efficient furnace.
2 x 6 walls framed with advanced framing techniques, Contract Lumber Inc.
97 percent efficient furnace
The SER of the air conditioner was also bumped up because of the high efficiency of the furnace
2” of sprayed in soybean based foam in each wall cavity to stop air leaks and thus heat movement.
3-1/2 “ of dense pack cellulose insulation in addition to the 2" of sprayed in foam in the walls.
House sealed very tight.
1” foam on the outside of the building to warm the walls.
Continuous foam insulation from the bottom of the interior slab, the band board (which also seals) and to the bottom of the ceiling of the basement.
Two Kilowatts of solar photovoltaic panels that will be grid tied (Third Sun Solar and Wind)
Apricus solar thermal system ( Tom Reiker 614-563-2857) provides up to 70% of the domestic hot water needs.
LED can lights
Fluorescent lighting throughout the house.
Renewable energy consulting from Green Energy Ohio.

Landscaping/Site

Innovative landscaping plan with drought resistant plants coupled with capturing all of the rainwater on site to make a perfect urban oasis that uses no water in its maintenance by the Columbus Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, contact Matt Leasure (614)-224-6601
Selection of all of the plant materials that were chosen specifically for this site to be drought resistant, native to Ohio and that will thrive at this site. Vinnie Tremante 614-224-4473.

2008-05-04T18:19:00.000-07:00

Sunday, May 5, 2008

The landscaping in the front of the house is finished. We have native Ohio plants including tall prairie grasses. The landscape plants are also drought tolerant.

The kitchen island was installed along with the vanities for the bathrooms. There are no pictures of the vanities due to the small space in which to take a photograph.

2008-04-20T18:42:00.000-07:00

April 20, 2008

With some beautiful weather last week, the house is beginning to be wrapped up.

Left and above left: The solid maple flooring ready to be sanded.

The recycled content tile in the master bathroom. The shower surround will be also be tiled.

The newly rebuilt stonewall ready for landscaping this week.

The approach to the driveway with the porus pavers that are seeded with grass seed which is ready to grow.

2008-04-13T10:33:00.000-07:00

April, 13,2008

The house is starting to get it's interior flooring and cabinetry installed.

Below: Shaw carpet squares installed in the upstairs. One noticeable feature was the absence of the "new carpet smell" which is the result of the toxic organic volatile organic compounds that off-gas from all other brands of carpets.

Below: The native maple hardwood flooring that has just begun to be installed.

Left: "Green" cherry kitchen cabinets supplied by Greenleaf Cabinetry that were installed by Dave Miller, Chad Boyd, and Roger Beck

Below: A series of picture taken of the same hallway/closet during the build.

2008-02-19T17:29:00.000-08:00

February 4 - 16, 2008

The 97% efficiency furnace has been installed.

This is the door hardware for the house on top of the carpet that will be on the stairways and in the bedrooms. This is Shaw carpet that is non-toxic to humans and is made from carpet and can be made back into carpet once the life of the carpet has been reached.

Here is a messy job of reworking the insulation in the rim joist area of the house located in the basement.

Here is a shaky shot (due to a long aperature opening time) of the mess created in reworking the insulation.

This is like the picture below but is taken with a tripod to avoid the "jiggle" when one enlarges the picture. This was taken with a longer aperature time like the picture in the previous post but this one will look good when englarged.

2008-02-03T19:38:00.000-08:00

January 28 - February 3, 2008

The interior has it's first coat of paint and the trim was installed throughout the house.

Looking at the stairway, basement and bathroom doors.

View from the kitchen to the front of the house.

View from the kitchen to the front door.

Interior of the front bedroom.

2008-01-27T09:48:00.000-08:00

January 14-January 27, 2008

The energy performance of the house continues to be outstanding. The only heat source in the house is a little kerosene heater that is still being kept at it's lowest possible setting. With some very cold outside air temperatures such as five degrees, the house temperature will be 65 degrees F. If the outside air temperature goes to above twenty degrees, the house will be 69-70 F degrees.

Construction is moving forward with organization and planning to finish the home. Landscaping stone has been selected and ordered, the paint has been ordered, and the trim is scheduled to be delivered this week.

Judy Doll (right) talks to The Ohio State University students who are in charge of O.S.U.'s effort to build a solar decathlon home to be place on the national mall. These students toured the house to gain any information that will help them in their efforts.

Their concept seems really outstanding.

Go Bucks!

Interior of basement with finished drywall.

Our living room with the only heater that is heating the house.

Thermometer reading 68 degrees with an outside temperature of twelve degrees Fahrenheit and some windows cracked upstairs.

2008-01-13T15:20:00.000-08:00

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Thanks to Edwards/Mooney and Moses, the house has been extremely well insulated. This company is extremely knowledgeable, does top quality work and knows about green, high performance building.
Our insulation was "soy-based" with a cellulose (ground up newspaper) cap.
The drywall will start to be finished.
The landscaping should start this week.
With just a small heater in the house the house stays warm. One of our volunteers will be happy to know that our thermometer (visible in the picture) does go past forty degrees and was sixty degrees in the house today when the outside air temperature was forty degrees.

The house has the drywall hung.

Same shot as above but with just the insulation and the ceiling drywall.

Looking from the master bedroom towards the front of the house.

Something to be careful of. When the drywall scrappers came to the house, they were going to put the drywall into this truck and take it to the landfill. Lucky we were on site and were able to catch them before they did that. We had them put the scrap into our dumpster so it can be reclaimed.

Great pains were taken to seal and insulate all cracks. This is around the front door.

All of the electrical boxes were sealed.

All of the ceiling penetrations were also sealed. This is the foam that has "oozed" out of the perimeter of the box.

A snowy Saturday when we came out from working on the house to take this picture. Within forty-five minutes from when the snow started, all of the streets had become very, very slippery. Later, some had said this these were the biggest snow flakes they had ever remembered seeing. In the picture are a mentor, adult volulnteer, teacher, and a Home B.A.S.E. student from 2007.

2007-11-17T15:39:00.000-08:00

November 11 - 17, 2007

The plumbing inspection passed this week.
We will go for our heating, ventilation, and air conditioning inspection this week.
That inspection should pass and we will call in for our framing inspection.
Insulation should happen the Monday after Thanksgiving.
The city attorney stopped by on Saturday to take a tour of our house.

Our front porch railing is all but done. We tore out the awful back porch steps and will have new ones this week and also railings for that too.

Our house sits up really high.

The sidewalk has it's forms done and inspected and is ready to be put in this coming week. Our downspout connectors are now fully connected and will run under the sidewalk.

It may not be a big deal for some, but our house is now hooked up to the grid. Our sump pump is no longer connected to a house 75 feet away with an extension cord which is constantly being cut. This had required constant monitoring every time it rained.

We now have operable outlets on every floor which means we can connect to our own house for our tools and most importantly, our radio.

The landscaping can go forward at any time.

2007-11-11T11:33:00.000-08:00

October 21 - November 11, 2007
We have passed our electrical inspection and the plumbing and heating inspections just have one small item each before they pass. This week, those issues will get taken care of and we can go for a structural inspection.

The landscapers have started and the house is ready for the inspections to pass so we can start to insulate and then drywall.

GREEN GREEN GREEN
As part of our green build, we have been using our lumber in a very efficient manner. We have followed the Building Science Corporation advanced framing techniques. Below shows what is typically done in residential construction.

To put in an outlet for the refrigerator, our electrician put in a massive amount of wood to hold up a receptacle box.
See the picture below to see how could have done the same task with less wood and less time.

Here is our fix. Besides wasting less wood, we now have more room in the wall for insulation.

2007-10-21T15:53:00.000-07:00

September 9 - October 20, 2007
As we almost come to a point where we will be no longer be doing anything with sixteen penny nails, 2 x 6 lumber and using our saws, we want to say thank you to Contract Lumber for supporting ten years of high school students working to end poverty housing in America.
http://www.contractlumber.com/

There has been a lot of interest in our house and we have given several tours.

The Ohio Solar Tour with Green Energy Ohio.
Associates of the American Instituted of Architects (AIA, Columbus chapter).
Building Industries Association (B.I.A.) of Columbus.
Sustainable Worthington
We have a beautiful urban city street in Columbus, Ohio where we build as this view looking south shows.

This is a view looking north.

Our rough electrical work is now finished with the plumbing to finished the week of October 21.

This is a view of our kitchen.

Interior of downstairs bathroom.

Our ground to the reinforcing bar was cut off at some time so we had to dig down, chip away the footer so the electricians could tie into the steel to make the correct ground. This inspection passed.

Close up of the mechanical ground clamp to the piece of reinforcing bar in the footer. e would not have had to t

Nice early morning view of our house in the fall.

2007-09-09T12:41:00.000-07:00

Weeks from August 20 - September 8, 2007
Because of the uniqueness of our house, Mayor Coleman made a special hour-long appearance at our site.The event was sponsored by the Columbus Housing Partnership (http://www.chpcolumbus.org/), Green Energy Ohio (http://www.greenenergyohio.org/page.cfm?pageId=3), and Home B.A.S.E.

The solar panels have been installed, both photovoltaic (electric) and solar thermal (fluid to heat the domestic hot water).
The photovoltaic panels were provided and installed by the Third Sun Solar and Wind. http://www.third-sun.com/
The solar thermal panels and system were provided and installed by Solar Usage Now. http://www.solarusagenow.com/
The front porch railing has been almost completely painted by Will.
The gutters have been installed.
Dave Miller has been instrumental in finishing the last tiny bits of framing. A section of the upstairs wall that had badly bowed studs was pulled into line along with adding studs for efficient drywall hanging, trim , and electrical box installation.
The roof was completely finished on the garage and main portion of the house. Only the porch roofs remain to be finished.

Mayor Coleman inside of our house addressing fifty people and news media about the importance of sustainability and Columbus' commitment to become a leader in being a sustainable city.

Geoff Greenfield with Mayor Coleman on site. Scotte Elliott, the third person to the right of the mayor in the picture (white shirt beard) was responsible for initiating the idea of having solar thermal on our house.

Solar cells being installed.

Our house with the solar thermal (left) and the photovoltaic panels (right) installed.

Ground view of house.

Solar photovoltaic panels.

Solar thermal panels.

Electrical inverter which converts the Direct Current, D.C. , from the solar panels to Alternating Current for home use.

Solar thermal pre-heat tank that is heated by the solar thermal system to provide up to 70% of the hot water for the house.

Will painting the top of the porch railing black.

Gable returns are finished on our house.

2007-08-19T14:40:00.000-07:00

Week of August 13 - 18, 2007

Thank you Contract Lumber for our porch which Will B. is painting.

Dave Miller installed cabinet blocking for the kitchen cabinets and blocking for the time on the first floor.

This is the water distribution system which was donated by Curnayn Sales Inc., (440) 846- 1280. This manifold is called a Manabloc and used a non PVC piping system. Each faucet is connected directly to the Manabloc.

The gable returns on the back of the garage are finished.

2007-08-12T13:05:00.000-07:00

Weeks from July 30 - August 11, 2007

The front and back steps were put in.
Cynthia, the interior designer for the project, has been been getting the interior together by researching and selecting such things as lighting, island placement, cabinet finishes, and plumbing fixtures etc. She and her husband John (an architect) came out to site to verify the measurement for our cabinetry.
The framing around the stairs was completed.
The piping to the rain garden was redone and the site was cleaned with the materials to be recycled.

Front steps being finished.

The wall that sits to the right beside the staircase and that will hold the spindle wall was framed in.

The house, garage, and site was cleaned. Ninety percent or more of what is in the dumpster will be recycled.
L to R: Will (HB'07), Scott (HB'06), and Andy Miller (intern/student teacher January to May '07) Not shown is Tom E. (HB '07)
GREEN GREEN GREEN
Advanced Framing Technique:
Trusses, wall studs, and floor joists are stacked so that only a single top plate is used saving wood.
Source: http://www.buildingscience.com/

The stairwell to the second floor was furred out with 2 x 2's so that the drywall will make "clean" flat plane up to the ceiling of the second floor.

Sarah Demetroff frames in the basement stair opening for drywall.

Dave Miller fixed a spot where two walls met upstairs so that door casing would fit and not have to be ripped to a smaller width.

The drain pipe to the water garden is redone to provide the correct height of this inlet to the garden.
L to R: Tom, Megan, and Craig Bickle

2007-07-30T15:10:00.000-07:00

Weeks of July 16 -July 28, 2007

The great news is that our stairs are installed. We can't thank Contract Lumber and Framing enough http://www.contractlumber.com/
They provided the stairs and Roy who guided the entire process and worked a lot harder on the day the stairs were installed than he thought he'd have to.
And thank you "D" for setting things up.

Our finished stairs.

L to R: Nathan, Roy, Jessica, and Cody.

Nathan who worked for the entire day with us installing the stairs and helped with the hour long cleanup.

The other big item that has been happening for the last two weeks is that the drainage pipes from the downspouts to the street and to the rain garden have been trenched and mostly put in. This would ordinarily be an easy task but with the complex routing of the pipes to a rain garden and cistern, it has taken time.

Megan installing the sump drain to the street.

Vinnie getting ready to put the trencher to work for the last bit of trench for Megan.

Craig, who has been with us since the beginning, is loading the trencher onto the trailer at the end of an entire hot day of trenching.

Tom and Craig, lay in pipe to the rain garden. It rained "buckets" the previous day. Our basement is still high and dry though.

Photograph of the outflow pipe from our overflow cistern connected to the pipe which will take the excess water to the street.

2007-07-16T07:24:00.001-07:00

Week of July 9 - July 14, 2007

The metal roof is now on the main house. It was donated by Dimensional Metals http://www.dmimetals.com/

Finished siding.

Franklin Adhesives Caulk http://www.franklinadhesives.com/
was donated and specifically used for this pre-finished fiber-cement siding and it's performance and color match was spectacular.

64 sheets of donated Georgia Pacific http://www.gp.com/ drywall was donated. Here 34 sheets are being boomed into the house to go into the basement before the stairs are installed. The stairs will be provided by The Contract Lumber Company http://www.contractlumber.com/
Anne, Megan, Sarah, and Dave M. cut the opening to the basement.

Thank you Josh Lloyd for working with Georgia Pacific to obtain Dens Armor Plus for our basement. This drywall has a fiberglass exterior instead of paper on the outside thus depriving mold of a food source.

Loading drywall into the basement.

Anne ... well... ask her next time you see her on what she is doing. The board is attached to the floor by one threaded fastener.

We had a problem in our dry cistern overflow pit for our sustainable rain garden design. We solved the problem with a poured wall and technical help from Brad Nardolson of the Righter Company http://www.rightercompany.com/. The catch basin is lined with filter fabric and both the earth and rock are brought up together in4"-6" lifts.
Above, Sarah, Mr. Link, and will put in the first load of stone.

We had to fill in the catch basin to a depth of six feet, one wheelbarrow at a time. You can see how deep the basin is.
That's Sarah, Phil, and Mr. Link.

Vinnie, and Mr. Link fill in and tamp the earth while Phil and Will seal the inside of the catch basin.

All of the day's work was done with pick, shovel, and wheelbarrow.

Megan, Mr. Link, Tom (behind) Scott(behind) Vinnie, and Will with the filled catch basin.
The perforated pipe sticking up allows the homeowner to monitor the water in the catch basin.

Progress on our roof #1.

Progress on our roof # 2 and digging out and putting earth into the wheelbarrow for the catch basin.

Progress on our roof # 3. The other side of the roof was finished the next day.

Scott bending metal for the roof.

2007-07-09T07:59:00.001-07:00

Week of July 2 - July 7, 2007

The soffit and facia are complete around the house. Siding on the garage is finsihed with the rest the house to be finished this coming week, weather permitting. The perimeter of the basement was framed in this week to allow for the insulation to be sprayed onto the walls.

End of the day on Saturday.
Front row: L to R - Jim, Megan, Vinnie
Back row: L to R - Trey, Justin, Earnest

The siding is finished on the garage.

The basement walls are framed in.

Woking on Saturday.

2007-07-02T14:44:00.000-07:00

Week of June 25 - July 1, 2007

With the help of Mike Walda who is the founder and owner of Bear Cub Industries (named after his construction company), http://www.bearclip.com/, who came to Columbus and volunteered his time, we got the garage 80% sided. This product can save approximately $1,000 per house in cement board siding costs due to the ease of installation. In the video watch how easily the panels are placed on the walls and that Josh and Mike do not have to hold onto the panels. Also the accuracy of the job is perfect.

The 1 inch insluating foam which was donated by Edwards, Mooney & Moses of Columbus, Ohio was installed enabling the house to start to be sided. Spray foam was also installed behind the tub and shower areas of our bathrooms to allow us to put in those enclosures for the rough plumbing.

Nice additions to the week was the three former students who were on site. Heather Meena '06, Colin West '01, and Eric Harter who was a student of Mr. Beck's from 1986-1980 when he taught at Gahanna High School.

Dave Miller and Heather finish a porch detail.

Edwards Mooney & Moses install the spray foam in the bathrooms.

VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO
Click on the link below to see how easy it was for us to insall the cement board siding using Bear Industries' Products.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQOK5VS1CAQ

Eric Harter after just having nailed up the last piece of siding on the north side of the garage.

This a really good view of the Bear Clips. After easily being broken off, the remaining Bear Clips provide the necessary but seldom used air space/drainage plane to prevent house failure of water behind the siding.

Mike Walda and Josh Lloyd at the end of the day with the garage 80% sided.

HIGH PERFORMANCE DETAIL
This is a fuzzy picture but it had to be included. Here Mike Walda is counter flashing the Z-flashing above the garage door to make sure the struture drains the water correctly.

HIGH PERFORMANCE DETAIL
Here is the same type of flashing detail but along the entire perimeter of our garage. There is a rubber tape that seals a drip edge and the housewrap (provided by http://www.contractlumber.com/) then goes over the rubber tape.
HIGH PERFORMANCE DETAIL
This is entire flashing system at the bottom of the garage ready to be sided. The dark strip at the bottom is the cement board starter strip with the Bear Clips attached. http://www.bearclip.com/

HIGH PERFORMANCE DETAIL
OThe one inch foam applied to the outside of the house will keep water from condensing on the inside of the wall cavity.
Our house has been in gestation since the fall of 2005, and now we know...

IT'S A GIRL!

Enlarge the picture and see how each vertical seam was Z-flashed with plastic to help keep water out.

Colin West from the Home B.A.S.E. class of 2001 installing the one inch foam.

All phases of the project are going on. Vinnie and Victoria talk pick out and discuss the native Ohio plants which we will put into our landscape plan.

Dave Miller whose help has really kept this project going, is working to cut and install weather stripping for the garage door which by the way, came out beautifully.

2007-06-24T18:16:00.000-07:00

Week of June 18 - June 23, 2007

The first piece of finishing the house has begun!!! On Saturday, the crew of Alex, Will, Craig Bickle, Megan, Vinnie, Scott Walker, Chuck, and Mr. Beck were on site to start putting the metal garage roof on. The result is wonderful for all of us who have worked on every phase of buiding this great sustainable house.

A metal roof is very sustainable in that it should last up to four times longer than an asphalt shingle roof. Also, when the roof does need replaced, the roof materials can be very easily recycled.

The materials for our roof were donated by Dimensional Metals Incorporated http://www.dmimetals.com/ . The materials are extremely well formed and strong and this metal roof will be one of the major factors that make our house high performing.

Dimensional Metals Incorporated is also located within 15 miles of our house which means using this metal roof is very much more sustainable due to low transporation costs.

Dave Miller was with us and on Tuesday we finished all the framing punch out items on our list for the second floor.

Alex and Will putting up facia.

Vinnie bending the roof panels to form a drip edge.

A beautiful metal roof is starting to take shape.
Scott and Chuck putting up the first panel after the soffit and facia have been installed.

At the end of the day. From the left:
Vinnie, Megan, Scott, and Chuck.

Good look at the quality detail of the straight facia and soffit.

The completed south facing roof. The north side is half done. We expect to have the entire roof on the garage completed this week.

We graded the entire lot including the lot next door to ours. The cistern was also dug but we have a problem. The gravel backfill of our house intesects with the hole. If we use this cistern as is, our rain garden overflow will migrate next to the house foundation. We are working on a fix but is that doesn't work, we will be forced to abandon and fill in the cistern.

This came flying across our building site today as a complete surprise. We still don't quite know what it was.

Jessica Perotti (Home B.A.S.E. '03 and her mother, Victoria visited the house on Sunday to see the site so as to be able to begin to help with the sustainable landscape plan that will be using native Ohio plants.

2007-06-03T18:34:00.000-07:00

Week of May 28 - June 1

Thanks to Lifestyle Comfort Systems for donating the labor to install our heating system. The rough heating system is now finished.

GREEN - HIGH PERFORMANCE FEATURES

We seal all of our duct work to make sure the air gets to where it is supposed to go. The duct sealing mastic was donated by United McGill. In the picture to the left, the mastic is the grey material with the jagged edges around the corners of the duct work. We are trying for almost a zero duct leakage in the final test.

Duct work in the basement. Notice the sealing done at the seams.

Our high performance fan that only uses 14 watts of energy. The fan is so quiet that it is hard to tell it is even on.

Notice the gap in the back draft damper illustrated by pencil inserted in the gap. This is unacceptable to us.

We purchased these spring loaded dampers to replace the awful back draft dampers included in our bath fans. This should help the heating system to perform adequately. We are trying to control the heat, air, and moisture movement in the house. By controlling the air, we will also be able to control the heat and moisture movement too. These types of dampers will help us with this control.

The basement windows were installed this week. Our house is now officially "dried in".

Our high-tech locking system for our house. This locking system has to withstand a certain amount of "foot pounds" if you know what we mean. Wondering how we get into the house with the doors screwed shut? Using a ladder, we get in though a second story window.

We sure hope our donated locks arrive soon.

2007-05-28T18:07:00.001-07:00

Week of May 21- May 26, 2007

We are just about done with all of the framing except for some very small items and we just wanted to thank Contract Lumber www.contractlumber.com for all their help and support without which we would not have been able to do this project. Contract Lumber has been with us since our first house in 1996-1997. They have provided technical support, some very, very valuable labor, plus just about all that is seen in this blog to date. Their expertise in building knowledge and materials is extensive and formidable. Thank you Contract Lumber.

PS Since we have been with Contract Lumber of over five years, we believe that entitles us to a trip to Cancun.

Thank you Northtowne heating who supplied the labor expertise to install the heating system in our house. In this picture to the left, we are bringing up the trunk line for the second floor after the duct work in the basement has been completed. All of the heating equipment and duct work was supplied by Haebegger Heating and Cooling who sells Bryant equipment.

We are installing a whopping 97% efficient furnace in this house.

These next three pictures shows us drying in our front porch. The photograph to the left is Will and Alex from periods 1/2/3 .

Periods 3/4/5 drying in the porch. If one clicks on this picture to enlarge it, something obviously funny has happened. We'd like to tell what happened, but whatever happens on the site stays on site.

The photo is the front porch that has been "dried in" (made water tight). Notice how we use a self stick ice and water shield and wrapped it over the facias of our roof making it so these boards will not rot. In the house and garage, we used treated 2 x 6 lumber to achieve the same results. This is one of the many details we used to make our house durable and high performing. If you go through this blog one can see the other details we have used.

This is a shot of our garage with it's garage door installed. It's starting to look like a home.

Lindsey in the garage nailing down the bottom plates in our garage using 16d galvanized nails into treated sill plates. We used Borate treated sill plates which are very non-toxic to the environment and do not corrode galvanized fasteners like other treated lumber. Borate is the same natural mineral that is used to whiten clothes. Many of us "Old Schoolers" remember the commercials for 20 Mule Team Borax commercials whose product is still sold to whiten clothes.

2007-05-19T06:17:00.000-07:00

Week of May 14 - May 18, 2007

Thank you Contract Lumber www.Contractlumber.com for providing and installing our front/back and garage service doors. Contract Lumber provided Therma-Tru doors which are of excellent quality.

The large garage service door was installed and our garage is now lockable so that we are now ready for roofing and siding material storage.

Almost all of the framing bits that need to be finished for our structrual inspection were finished this week.

We will soon start the finishing stages once the installation of the heating, plumbing, and electric systems get started and are completed. The heating system is tentatively slated to begin on Saturday, May 26. Plumbing will come next and then electric.

Our porches passed their strucutural inspection this week and the students got to meet and talk to the structural inspector on the details of his important job and other topics related to structural inspecting. The students in the picture to the left are adding material so that the alumninum cladding can be installed.

In the ten years of our high school building affordable homes for the America's working families, we have come to understand that it is emotional power that comes to us through this building experience that provides the powerful personal uplift, relationship building and individual growth that is possible in this endeavour.

Friday the 17th was one of those powerful days.

We had students, our mentors Dave Miller and Jim Dupriest, and our student teacher Mr. Miller on site. Jim has been with us for four years and recently has had some neck problems and has not been on site since January but out of the blue he was with us yesterday. Also, Mr. Miller's parents came to site from Michigan and built with the us. What a powerful inter-generational experience for our students to see the parents of Mr. Miller working on our site along with both Dave and Jim. And on top of that, we were all working on such a fantastic affordable, energy efficient, and high performing home on a wonderful warm and sunny day. Our nine years working to help end poverty housing in America has given us the insight that still holds true and that is that we all originally come to build and to help, but we stay and come back because of the realtionships that we build in the process.

From left to right:
On porch: Jim, Megan, Mr. Miller, Dave Miller, Andy Miller
On ground: Anne, Vinnie

2007-05-13T17:35:00.000-07:00

Construction as of Saturday, May 11, 2007

Starting the trusses on the garage.

Trusses continue.

Sheathing.

Almost completed garage with house. The garage is completely dried in now (5/13/07) and is awaiting it's large garage and service entry door.

Concrete porch in and porch posts. Students starting to put windows in.

Windows almost all in. The house is awaiting it's front and back doors which will be installed in the upcoming week. Notice the house wrap now on the entire house and the gable returns that have been built on the rakes.

Green Sustainable Building Practice - Window Installation

Wrap rough sill with flex-wrap up and around side jambs. Note the installation of a back dam to have what water does seep in drain back out. According to building scientists, all windows will leak - eventually. This window protocol was taken from the Building Science Corporation's Water Management Guide.

Cut the house wrap above the head jamb and fold it up.

Apply caulk to the window opening. Check to see that the caulk is compatible with the house wrap.

Apply a self-stick waterproof membrane to the side jambs.

Apply a self-stick waterproof membrane to the head jamb. Overlap the side jamb waterproof membrane.

Fold down the house wrap flap and which will overlap the waterproof membrane at the head jamb. Seal the top flap with tape.

The bottom of the window is not sealed to let water drain out.

The concept is to "shingle" the waterproofing materials.

2007-03-24T19:06:00.000-07:00

Week of March 19, 2007

The garage concrete slab was done on Tuesday. During the week while we waited for the concrete to cure enough to work on, we put the finishing touches on our front porch roof, worked on framing bits on the inside of the house, cleaned and organized our construction waste. With this done, we can have our site graded and get ready to implement our landscape plan. Since it has been our goal to limit our construction waste from the beginning of the project, we have surprisingly little waste to deal with.

Saturday we put up the walls on our garage. We built these walls at school during December. Take a look at the December 10, 2006 journal to see us building these walls. With the slab in place, we could measure the exact distance the bottom of the garage door beam had to be above the floor. Mr. Miller, Eugene, and Jesse finished the modification of the beam over the garage door opening on Friday. This 22 foot wall will be moved to site and installed next Tuesday.

VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxGzbRwdQeI

Click on the link above to see our garage being built. With such a rainy week and cloudy beginning to the morning, Saturday turned out to be really warm and sunny.

End of the day. We would have completely finished the back of the garage but we have to cut the door opening in the concrete a bit bigger and we can't do that with the wood wall up. Notice the housewrap on the garage. This feature is usually never done by builders but we are keeping all of the wood assemblies dry and if they get wet, they can dry and not rot.

A nice end of the day and now we have two buildings on our site.

Look at the March 11 journal entry just two weeks ago to see Home B.A.S.E. working in a snow storm.

2007-03-17T14:11:00.000-07:00

Week of March 12, 2007

We had almost the full spectrum of weather this week: warm, sunny, torrential rains which flooded our basement, cloudy, snow, sleet, and cold with partly sunny skies.

The front porch with the hip roof was fnished this week. The garage foundation was squared up and the sill plates attached so the walls can go up. We cut off the anchor bolts which were incorrectly placed so as to be flush with the top of the sill plates. We have a video of that below.

Also, the finished grade elevations for the concrete garage slab and apron were established.

Flashing to keep water that filters down between the porch slabs and the house was applied according to the Water Management Guide from the Building Science Corporation http://www.buildingsciencepress.com/books.asp?CatID=21
See the green/high performance detail below.

VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO
Steel anchor are bolts no match for Home B.A.S.E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIHnHjCQvTc
Grinding off the anchor bolts after we countersunk them into the sill plates. Notice the snow on the sill plates.

Framing for the front porch.

Sheathing the front porch in the rain.

High quality work in fitting the hip supports.

Mr. Miller and the finished front porch.

Finished back porch.

Finally, a picture of the Loch Ness monster! Someone unplugged our sump pump from the outlet next door the day it rained 1.5 inches. We finished the cleanup on Saturday.
Mr. Beck said his feet were numb by the time he got to the pump.

Green High Performance Green High Performance
Here we are applying the waterproof membrane supplied by the Contract Lumber Company www.contractlumber.com
This membrane goes underneath the housewrap and extends below the sill plate to keep the water from wetting the wooden parts of the house. This is done only where a porch slab contacts the house. On the rest of the house, a metal drip edge will hang below the first course of siding and will "kick-out" the rain water away from the house.

The garage, squared and plated.

The trusses for the garage will be delivered within a week.

2007-03-11T08:21:00.000-07:00

Week of March 5, 2007

Our project is seemingly going just a bit faster now.

We put on our front porch roof trusses this week along with taking out the bracing of our gable end trusses and straightening them. Our trusses are about eleven feet tall, and straightening and re-bracing them was a really big job.

Our back porch is completely finished and the concrete was ordered for the front and back porches and the garage floor. That concrete flatwork will be done when the ground thaws enough for that work to proceed.

We intend to start on our garage this week.

These clothes are illustrative of what it takes to build this house and what we go through every week. Those who were on site Saturday, worked in the rain throughout the morning. They continued to work in the afternoon, and it became partly sunny and warm. Can you identify the wearers of these clothes? Hint, the five present in the picture are Craig, Jesse, Megan, Vinnie, and Jimmy.
Left: Taking apart the trusses. We came in on Monday and started to take the trusses down from the front porch roof. We didn't think we could do that in three hours. Not only did we take them down, but we took them apart, cut them to the correct dimensions and had them ready to take back to the truss company to re-press the truss plates back on. We took them back to the truss company on Wednesday and we picked them up on Friday. Thank you Truss-Worthy Truss company, a division of the Conctract Lumber Co.

We get a lot of extremes in weather, sometimes all in the same day. these pictures were taken on Wednesday. By Friday, we were down to t-shirts. Far left: putting up the back porch trusses. Right: Anne is nailing in blocking to support the back porch trusses.

Measuring for the ledger which will carry the front porch roof sheathing.

Round II: Installing the front porch.

The students who stayed until the end of the day on Saturday always get more than they put in.

Those who build together, build community together. This picture, taken at the end of a long workday, is a visual joke for those who who were together on Saturday.

2007-03-03T08:49:00.000-08:00

Week of February 27, 2007

Friday was a day without classes for the students but they came out and put up the front porch beam. The crew was led by Cassie's father who is a contractor who came out to work with us.

Megan and Vinnie stayed until 5:30 to finish up the odd and ends framing bits and sat on the beam for the end of the day picture.

This pictures below show what could have been a very disheartening story. On Saturday March 3, the entire morning was spent laying out the front porch roof in the living room so that the crew would be able to efficiently lay it out working up in the air on ladders.

However, in our effort to move the project along, we fast-tracked the ordering of the trusses before the porch had been built. Our porch was built in the center of the porch walls (by code) which made as-built porch, four inches shorter than the trusses.

Mr. Beck came out for three hours on Sunday to figure out how to make this right without taking down the trusses but there was no other alternative than to take them all down. So an entire Saturday was for naught.

Will have to take them down next week.

Laying out the front porch in the living room.

Building the front porch, round one.

2007-02-25T08:31:00.000-08:00

Week of February 19, 2007

The temperature got just a bit warmer which allowed us to finish the last framing bits before we start to add the construction details to the building enclosure which will allow the house to deal with managing the moisture. More on that in the later entries when we get to them.
Megan and Vinnie apply sheathing to the bandboard.

Eugene and Jesse shoveling our walk. Not all jobs on our build involve nailing and it was very nice that these two did this job.

Upper left: The class installing sheathing over the bandboard and chipping the ice and snow off of of the back porch gravel.
Upper right: Scott and Phil saw under the bottom plate to enable them to bump out the wall. A huge thanks is owed to Dave M., Scott, Craig B. Stacy W., and Phil who came out to help us this weekend.

The best part of site is lunch which was provided by the Link's.

Explain the Green High Performance Building Feature:
Look at where the shadow is cast on the wall cast by the roof line. Notice where it is in relationship to the top of the second floor windows. Also, look at the same feature in the picture above of Phil sawing. Where the bottom of the shadow hits the south wall of the building is not an accident. Josh Lloyd, who drew up the plans, designed for the roof line shadow and the placement of the windows to work together. Can you explain why it is important to have the shadow/window relationship as it is on our building? Josh will explain that to you in next week's journal entry.

We now have garage walls ...

...and a water-tight roof.

2007-02-16T17:19:00.000-08:00

Week of February 12, 2007

We only had one day on site this week. School was closed for two days and the other day we were going to be on site it was -3 degrees.

We had lots of snow this week but on Saturday, we did some work moving a wall.

Students outside our house on Saturday. It snowed most of the day.

Green-High Performance Construction Feature
Our concrete flatwork subcontractor just sent this picture that he took with his camera phone to document that he did indeed put in the foam beneath the slab. This foam beneath the slab is critical to keeping a basement dry and warm.
1. It reduces the moisture coming to the slab.
2. Warms the slab keeping moisture from condensing and wicking to the inside of the basement.
3. The cut-outs in the foam are directly over our pier supports for our posts that support the first floor. The concrete basement slab will bear directly on these concrete piers.

Getting subcontractors to do something that they don't do and have never done before is another one of those little educational "discussions" that has taken place during the construction of this house.

2007-02-09T11:41:00.000-08:00

Week of February 5, 2007

School was cancelled Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week and Friday was a professional day for all of the teachers at the high school with students not in attendance. On Saturday, Home B.A.S.E. hosted a design charrette for next years' build.

Thursday was the only day we had on site this week.

It was very cold and it had snowed and put about three inches of snow in our house which we had to shovel out.

Also on Thursday, Contract Lumber arranged to have our very steep roof trusses installed. By the end of the day on Thursday, we had our trusses and roof deck on.

Shoveling out the inside of the house in very, very cold weather.

Shoveling the front walk of our house.

Putting On The Roof Trusses

First truss.

VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO Click on the link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-T9QQLx3Jk

Starting the roof deck.

All finished.

2007-02-02T14:30:00.000-08:00

Week of January 29, 2007

It was a very, very cold week but extremely cold weather usually brings sunny days :)

We started the week with one long wall laying flat on the 2nd floor deck ready to raise and ended the week on Saturday, February 3rd, with all of exterior and interior walls up!

Mr. Dunaway, our pincipal and Mr. Nally our assistant principal supported us by visiting our site on Wednesday the 31st. Here is a picture of Mr. Dunaway, kneeling second from right, with one of our classes. Green Detail: Notice the foam inside of the header area above the window opening. We elimated the 1/2"OSB sandwich core and replaced the full 2 1/2 " air space with foam and sealed it air tight.

Monday was so cold that we didn't go to site in the morning class. In fact, we've been hit this entire week with a blast of cold artic air. As you can see in the photos, we are all dressed with lots of layers on to keep us warm. Enlarge the picture and see the snow that we constantly had to be clearing from our floor deck.

The photo. on the left shows Craig and Tom working on the interior walls. Advanced Framing/Green Detail: Since we are not using two top plates, we are using Simpson Strong Tie plates with N8 nails to tie the walls together. Also notice that there are no jack studs in the closet door opening or any other interior door opening. In the photo to the upper right, Jesse, Will, Phil, and Craig are framing a complex wall detail. These details were framed at school about a month and a half ago and all of our angled walls fit perfectly.

If you enlarge this photo, one can see the remants of snow after the floor deck was shoveled off to start the days' work.

VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO
Click on the link below for a video of the front wall.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF7PVBuAdtw

The photo in the upper left shows us using our pevee, a new addition to our tool box this year. This simple tool enables us to push and pull our walls straight to an existing chalk line which is barely visible if one enlarges the photo. Being able to easily pull a wall in on the second floor is a big time saver. The photo on the right shows Tom, Will and Jesse at the end of the day in 18 degree weather. It was seven degrees at the start of this day. For cold weather work, we put our cordless drills, sealants, and adhesives inside of the ice chest that has a light bulb in it to keep the batteries from draining and the other materials in a working viscosity.
End of the day on Saturday - a day that was from 9 A.M. until 6 P.M. If one enlarges the picture, one can see all of the walls up in the interior. Also, the temperature dipped to about 0-degrees Farenheit with wind gusts up to 40 mph so we really braced the house. Our house really gets it's strength from the roof.

2007-01-26T18:26:00.000-08:00

Week of 1-21-07

This week we moved all of our walls to site, the second floor joists were installed along with the entire floor sheathing for the second floor. One of our joists was in the incorrect spot but that was remedied. We also incorrectly located our second floor window that looks onto the stair landing. We noticed that after the entire wall assembly had been put together with lots of caulk, nails, and sheathing. A tear-apart remedied that problem but it took us about 45 minutes, and of course we all ended up wearing lots of caulk.

Thanks a million to our menter Phil for leading the sheathing crew on the second floor deck.

Also thanks to Greg F., Kathy D., Josh L., Steve S. and Craig B. our community volunteers who came out to help. Our first parent, Megan's dad came out to help for the entire day too. He did really well and we hope to see him again.

Our first faculty member, Ms. Abbott came out to support the students. She probably thought that she would come out and just support us, but she was spotted helping to lift the large wall sections. L or R: Will, Ms. Abbott, Alex, Vinnie, Tom, Megan, Mr. Beck.

Thank you Contract Lumber and Framing www.contractlumber.com for putting in the second level floor joists for us. That saved us a week's time.

The Righter Company http://www.rightercompany.com sent Mike out with the lowboy trailer and we loaded all of our second floor walls onto it and they were transported to site. The day was very cold but we got all of our walls to site so if we put the floor deck on Saturday, we could start with the walls.
Click on the two videos below to see how we install floor decking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-MDzgVruzk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjGjKeoYpg

If you want to see the high tech. way we put the walls up on our second floor deck, click on the link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H33-5xMknHw

The link above shows how the walls get to the second floor. The picture to the left shows the wall sections assembled, straightened, squared, ready for sealant and wall sheathing to be followed by lots of nailing. Besides the large amount of energy saving because of the extra insulation, we find the 2 x 6 stud construction at 24 inches between studs nails up a lot more quickly than conventional framing. By looking in the background, one can really tell we are up on the second floor.

2007-01-19T10:15:00.000-08:00

Week of January 15, 2007

The entire first floor has it's interior and exterior walls framed and is now ready for the second floor deck.

A correction and omission from last week's blog and good news about a former student.

1. The company that graciously donates their resources to move our walls is the Righter Company:
http://www.rightercompany.com/
Our apologies for misspelling their name in last week's blog. They have helped move our walls for two years, donated hard hats to the entire class, and also donated a job box were we store all of our power tools. Thank you Righter Company!
2. We forgot to put "D's" picture last week. D stopped by last week and helped us a bit and even "gave it all for Home B.A.S.E." by getting getting construction adhesive on his brand new Contract Lumber coat. He has a tremendous amount of experience in construction and anytime he is with us, he makes what we do better. Below is Don "D" McClary III of Contract Lumber and Framing.

3. Two weeks ago, Mike Rigo Home B.A.S.E. 2000, was diagnosed with a tumor on his brain stem and underwent surgery on Friday the 19th. He was under ten hours of anesthesia. An after site visit to Mike on Saturday showed that he was doing better than expected after just coming out of the intensive care unit. He only took two aspirin for pain in the 24 hours after the surgery and the prognosis is encouraging. Mike, this is something duct tape can't fix so you will be in all of our thoughts and prayers :)

On Friday, some students came in on their day off and assembled and stood up the north wall (on the left). Our mentor Jim came was with us too on this day when we had to scrape snow off of our floor deck. After site, we all went out to have a bite to eat together at a local cafe that uses local and organic ingredients. Eating at locally owned restaurants keeps 43 cents of every dollar in the community as compared to 19 cents for a chain restaurant located outside of our community. More money in the local Columbus economy helps more families be able to afford their own homes.

Above left: We are framing the first floor wall with recycled sheathing.
Above right: Notice the caulk around the window and on the top and bottom plate which will help keep our house weather tight and dry. We also put constuction adhesive below on the floor deck under the walls which help stop air infiltration. Air moving through a wall or house is the same as moisture and heat moving. We used the Cold Climate Builder's Guide from our partner, the Building Science Corporation.
http://www.buildingscience.com/
Just a note though, when there is caulk or construction adhesive on site, we usually end up wearing either or both.

We have used Titebond polyurethane construction adhesive donated from Franklin International which we really like because it is much more pliable than the traditional construction adhesive. We also use Franklin polyurethane caulk. http://www.titebond.com/

Left above: Standing up the
front wall. From left to right you'll see Craig, Tom, Megan, and Phil our mentor.

Above right: the front wall is up.

2007-01-12T10:33:00.000-08:00

Week of 1-8-2007

A big week for us as we are finally on site and the house can start to take shape. We ended the week with an all day field trip on site where we sheathed the floor deck and assembled, sheathed, and stood up our first wall.

A television crew came out on Friday the 12th to tape us for the local news.

Scholastic Magazine will be taking pictures of the build this week to feature us on their cover and with a story in their nationally distributed magazine.

An update will be sent on when both of these media pieces can be seen.

Sawing the concrete floor so if it does crack, the cracks will be controlled to crack along these cuts.

Because of Contract Framing,
http://www.contractlumber.com/
part of the Contract Lumber Group, our floor has it's structural floor joists installed.

Floor joists at the end of the day. Enlarge the picture by clicking on it and the caulk that was put on to seal the house is very visible.

An unavoidable gap between the bottom of the band board and the sill plate. If you click to enlarge the picture, you can see the large air gap and the garage two lots away. We put a sealant underneath the entire band board to keep out the leaks and to help insure a high performance house. This detailing is not done in conventional construction.

Typical view of our sealed band board.

Sheathing the floor deck.

Finally our walls are on site. This picture shows the walls being unloaded from a truck whose services were donated by the Reighter Company. The driver, Waldo, was our driver last year when he delivered our garage walls to us from school. See last year's blog at the bottom of the following link. Waldo is on the left.
http://06homebase.blogspot.com/2006_01_01_06homebase_archive.html

Sheathing our first wall after the floor was sheathed.

Lunch!

Group shot at the end of the day of those who stayed late to finish and stand up our first wall.

Long shot of the finished wall on the finished floor deck.

2007-01-05T20:32:00.000-08:00

Week of January 1-5, 2007

Our concrete finisher came in this week and the concrete slab is now in our basement.

We placed two inches of polystyrene foam underneath our slab before the concrete was placed on top. This is another of our high performance building techniques. This foam is very, very important to keep mold from growing. What the foam does is insulate the bottom of the slab and keep it warm. If the bottom surface of the slab is cold and the humidity underneath the slab is at a certain temperature, water will condense on the underside of that slab. Concrete can wick water vertically upt to 400 feet. If there is free water on the underside of the slab, it will be wicked into the basement through the four inch slab. Edwards, Mooney and Moses supplied the foam. Among building scientists, this is one of the most important things builders and homeowners can do when building a house with a basement.

We'll have more pictures in a bit as soon as they come in from several different sources.

Finishing the slab.

2006-12-29T20:02:00.000-08:00

Week of December 25-29, 2006

This was winter break for us but we kept the project moving by putting in the outside and interior perimeter drain tiles. Usually builders put in weep holes in the bottom of the walls to let in water from the outside of the building run underneath the basement concrete slab. The Building Science Corporation however thinks it's a bad idea to introduce water underneath the house which makes sense. We also ran on interior drain around the entire inside of our basement. The idea is to capture the water outside the house and have that water be transferred to the interior piping and to the sump well to pumped out. In this manner, we hope to eliminate most of the "free" water under our house.

Another feature of our house build is that we put in a filter fabric on top of the gravel to keep the soil from filtering down and clogging the gravel and thus not letting water reach our drain pipes to be piped away from the house.

We also use polyethylene piping from Advanced Drainage Systems. A lot of times, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) piping is used. The manufacture of PVC is very bad for the environment so we are working to keep our house as PVC free and and "green" as possible.

Putting in the piping was very muddy and wet. Randy, our plumber, also hooked up our water tap.

Excavating the cave-ins around the bottom of the footer where our exterior drain pipes will be placed.

This is a view which shows the excellent water proofing done by Edwards, Mooney, and Moses. Without any prompting, they came by and checked the job and noticed that some of the waterproofing got a little thin because of the rain. They came by without being asked and reapplied the waterproofing.

Also shown is the filter fabric which will help filter out the pipe clogging mud.

Here is the backfilling taking place. In the background is a "slinger" truck. This truck can carry soil or rock and can "throw" the stone right where you want it. Since our house is on a typically narrow turn of the last century city lot, we couldn't get any heavy machinery in to backfill every side of our house so we used a slinger truck to shoot the material in where it was needed.

In the foreground shows our water service pipe coming out in a white sleeve. The water service pipe goes to the street and connects to what is called the water box where the city water comes off of the water main and connects to our water service pipe.

2006-12-22T19:38:00.000-08:00

Week of December 18-22, 2006

This project started late in October 2005 and there has been a tremendous amount of work to get this project off the ground. Now our efforts are finally showing as we are now out of the ground which is fantastic!!

With the footers put in place last week, our concrete walls went up.

The concrete wall forms being put up for the walls. The ones that haven't been used are in bunched together in the middle.

Our beautiful finished walls - finally!

The first class scrapes off concrete form ties on a very cold morning.

Alex is down in the "hole" scraping off the footer top in preparation for the water proofing spray which will be applied by Edwards, Mooney and Moses. We spray the top of the footer not just the wall to add to our chances of keeping our basement dry.

2006-12-18T17:25:00.000-08:00

Week of December 11, 2006

Work was being done on site this week in preparation for us to begin.

The sewer line was connected to the tap. Our excavator didn't have to go into the alley to make the connection so we saved about thirteen hundred dollars.

Steve Hoy surveying came out again and set our surveying stakes because the machinery for the excavation destroyed the old ones. http://www.hoysurveying.com/ It seems like the excavation machinery including trucks, are really "surveying stake seeking missiles" in disguise.

We made our first trip to site on Thursday and saw the excavation of our basement and we could see that a trace of the original 1917 house. Ray Prendeville gave a very good talk on the history and mission of the Columbus Housing Partnership and we also toured two homes. One home was a rehab across the street and the other was a house almost exactly like ours will be.

On Friday the footers were formed and the concrete was placed in them. Notice the plastic around the footers which is part of our green, high performance building strategy(Nathan Yost of 3-D Building Solutions who is also a consultant to this project http://www.3-d-buildingsolutions.com/projects/default.htm) . Nobody in Columbus has done such a thing. Later we will cut the plastic away from the sides and leave the plastic only on the bottom of the footer. Water can wick up about 1000 feet in concrete and the plastic will help prevent the walls from being moist and help prevent mold. According to Betsy Pettit from The Building Science Corporation who is a consultant to this project, http://www.buildingscience.com/ located in Massachusetts, "Implementing strategies like this is actually about reducing probability." This should make sense to people in construction because managing commercial construction is about managing the probability of risk.

Our building partnership believes that managing that risk should reduce the probability of: being hurt financially by rising energy prices, not being able to afford the aggregate cost of the home over the life of the mortgage, building failures, unhealthy buildings which adversely affect the health of the occupants, and the effect of our consumption on our planet.

Implementing proven, high performance building strategies that are being used in other parts of the country but that are new to an area is both exciting and exhausting. We will keep you informed about those strategies as we progress with the build.

On Friday, we had a very low key groundbreaking. Just great people getting together with a picture or too and no speeches. Many people were at the groundbreaking including former students from a long time ago, city officials, CHP (Columbus Housing Partnership) officials, friends, Green Energy Ohio members, our mentors http://homebaseadults.blogspot.com/ Columbus Green Building Forum members and a lot of others. Tom Wymore and "D" were there from Contract Lumber and Framing and made it a point to work out the some framing details with us and we greatly thank them for that! http://www.contractlumber.com/

2006-12-10T17:12:00.000-08:00

Week of December 4, 2006

For the coming week, our sewer tap will happen on Tuesday and Wednesday and the substructure consisting of the footers and basement walls will be started on Thursday.

We have scheduled a very low key ground breaking for Friday December 15, 2006 at 12 noon. even though the excavation machinery should be doing that on Thursday. It will be more of a gathering because we are starting on site rather than a true ground breaking. We are not putting out any invitations but if anyone wants to be there, feel free to attend. There will be nothing to eat or drink. I'll put in the time for this on this blog later in the week so check again. Our formal red carpet start will happen in January when our floor deck is on and we raise up our first wall.

This week we finished framing the side walls of our garage. That makes for only the back wall of the garage left for us to modify a bit. We initially thought that we could move 22' walls if we had enough people to help move them. Experience in framing the back wall all in one piece showed us that this really couldn't be done so we need to separate the back wall and make it into two sections.

Squaring the wall using tape measures and equal length diagonals.

After squaring using tape measures, the wall is also squared with the sheathing as it is nailed on providing for a second check for wall squareness.

We thank Phil, our mentor for helping us.

2006-12-03T10:38:00.000-08:00

Week of November 27, 2006

We took a big step forward this week when:

1. We Signed the contracts that will finally allow us to begin the utility and foundation work for our building. The picture to the left shows the surveyed and staked lot done by Hoy Surveying this week that locates the house and garage on our lot.

2. Lisa F. and Meera P. of the Columbus Green Building Forum, Home B.A.S.E. students, and a Home B.A.S.E. teacher met on Saturday to work on the interior details of the house. We want to make this 1,500 square foot house a handmade jewel with exquisite interior design detailing to showcase outstanding green, energy efficient, and high performance affordable housing.

3. We received confirmation from American Electrical Power (AEP) that our application for the electrical grid tie-in for our solar panels was approved. That means that the electrical output that is generated from the solar cells on this house will be sold back to AEP to reduce the cost of the energy consumption for our home.

This is the second class framing some of the last interior walls of the house.

Click on the picture to enlarge it so see the quality we are building into our walls.

Some studs were a bit too long in the bathroom plumbing walls of our house. Here is Megan helping Anne cut them to the correct size to re-frame the entire wall. Learning how to spot an error, understanding that these are only errors and not mistakes, figuring out a strategy to fix it, fixing, and moving forward is tremendous internal strength to develop. Some Home B.A.S.E. students who commit to the class learn to understand, internalize, and practice that character trait in a supportive learning community during the course of the year.

We are very proud of the work we have done so far. Behind these students, except for just a few walls, is an entire panelized house ready to be taken by truck to our site when our foundation is complete.

Phil is our really wonderful mentor that helps us be successful beyond our current abilities http://homebaseadults.blogspot.com/2005/09/phil-starting-his-first-build-with-us.html

We are keeping all of our short scraps to be either mulched and returned back to the earth as compost or used in our house somewhere thus keeping our environmental footprint as small as possible

2006-11-26T17:35:00.000-08:00

Week of November 20

We continued framing our interior walls and have approximately fifty percent of those completed.

Alex, Anne, and Megan came in on Saturday over Thanksgiving to frame the particularly difficult bedroom # 3 closet.

On the same day, core team members Josh, Meera, and Stacey, met to finalize some details of the home before on-site construction began.

2006-11-17T19:19:00.000-08:00

Week of November 13 - 17

We continued on the framing of the interior walls.

2006-11-10T19:24:00.000-08:00

Week of November 6-10

We received the delivery of the lumber for the interior walls of the house from Contract Lumber. This is the first time we had framed walls (exterior) using advanced framing techniques and 24" on center framing. For the interior walls, we went back to conventional 16" on center framing and found out how much easier it was to frame with the 24 inch module.

Lynden of Contract Lumber puts the material right where we need it. Our school is a fantastic place to build because we can even store our materials where they won't get wet.

On Saturday the eleventh of November, the girls basketball team came in and with the help of some of the Home B.A.S.E. students and Phil, they framed the garage.

The photo. to the left shows the completed garage standing up in our school ready to be trucked to site. When the garage foundation walls are finished, the garage will be trucked out to site stood up and attached to each other.

2006-11-03T19:02:00.000-08:00

Week of October 30 - November 3

We finished framing all of our exterior walls. The picture shows the precision of the student framing. Notice all of the studs aligning at 24 inches on center which allows for one truss to fit exactly on each stud. By doing so, we can eliminate the the top plate in the entire house for both the exterior and exterior walls. We think wood is a tremendous building material and this helps us extend this wonderful renewable material.

2006-10-23T19:01:00.000-07:00

Week of October 23

We continued to frame our exterior walls. We are almost finished with those.

2006-10-20T18:59:00.000-07:00

Week of October 16

We continued to frame the exterior walls.

2006-10-13T11:58:00.000-07:00

Week of October 9, 2006

We continued to layout and build our walls at school. At the end of the week all of long, 34' walls have been built in smaller pieces and the window and door framing framing were also built and installed. Phil, a new mentor for this year was out with us again.

Laying out the walls.

The long exterior walls.

Saturday, 10/14
CW starting on the left. Mrs. Seymore, Lisa, Katie, and Meera decide colors, finishes, and floor covering for the house.

2006-10-06T14:59:00.000-07:00

Week of October 2-6, 2006

This week at school we started to frame the exterior walls of our house . All of the framing material is provided by the Contract Lumber Company. Once we build the walls, the Righter Company will send a large "low-boy" trailer out and will transport the walls to site for us. We have two of the four longest walls framed excluding the window framing which we will do starting on Tuesday.