Week 5

What a rainy week! Have you ever seen Missoula rain like it did last Wednesday? We usually get 10 minute blasts before the sun decides it just can’t hide any longer. Continuous rain throughout the week made for muddy days as the Make My House crew plummeted through several major tasks.

The first few days we made several structural changes to the remaining portion of the structure. During demolition, we dismantled the 350 square foot addition due to a failing foundation. We were able to salvage the remaining 3/4 of the main level by supporting the underside of the floor pack with an engineered system designed by Dave Roberts of Apex Engineering. By raising the home and restructuring the existing rubble stone foundation bearing system, also allowed us to level out slumping areas. This process essentially recreated a brand new main floor while reusing as much lumber as possible. Other rustic lumber salvaged from demolition will be reused as exterior window and door trim.

Foundation is ready to be poured

The garage and addition foundations were poured and ready to build on! Last Wednesday MMHG poured the footings using L.S. Jensen’s ready mix containing 30% fly ash. Fly ash is a by-product recycled from coal energy production. For more information on using fly ash in concrete work check week 4. Pouring the footings in the pouring rain can make for a mucky day, but it’s ever so important to stay focused on the schedule so that we can bring you 6 Saturday demonstration seminars during July and August. In a sense, the rain allowed us to work slowly and methodically. Using concrete that contains fly ash usually setups up in half the time of regular concrete. The rain definitely slowed the pour prep and the cool air slowed the setup time. After running 125 feet of footing we were pleased to find it dead level from end to end. The mud was indeed a challenge, but we were able to fill and float all the surfaces and the cool weather bought us precious time. On Thursday morning the footings still needed a little more time to set up before we could build the forms for the foundation walls, so the morning was spent cleaning up the site and organizing our reclaimed pile of timber. Thursday afternoon was spent building the forms for the foundation walls. The pressure was on Thursday afternoon because we had an inspection Friday morning with the city to approve those forms. It got a little hectic Thursday night because the sun set too early and the forms were not built yet. So the crew had to frantically yet meticulously construct the rest of the foundation forms Friday morning before the inspector came over. As the city inspector pulled up, got out of his truck, closed the door and proceeded to come over to inspect those dreaded walls the crew literally had the last two nails pounding in as the inspector approached. HOLY COW! Talk about cutting it close. The whole crew breathed a huge sigh of relief as the forms got the official stamp of approval.

Green Team workers

After passing the inspection MMHG immediately called L.S. Jensen for more flyash concrete and they were at the site within 30 minutes with 2 huge trucks ready to convey concrete into those forms. At least the sun was out on this particular day and the crew was amped given the morning circumstances. Fortunately pouring the walls went well and the pouring was accomplished in about 2 hours.On the home addition, which will become the new kitchen, we utilized a system of insulated concrete forms (ICF’s) which can be purchased through Missoula’s local building and design center, Boyce Lumber. The ICF’s are like an oversized foam lego system that provides an R-22 insulation value on the conditioned crawlspace. These days more and more buildings are being constructed using ICF’s of various R-values. We chose the R-22 to exceed the Energy Star requirement for conditioned crawl space. The existing foundation walls will be insulated with a poly foam and rigid foam. Once the stem walls were poured the crew was eager to go home, shower and get into some warm dry clothes.

This week we worked some on the weekend cleaning up the site and backfilling the foundation walls with the huge piles of dirt that had been excavated for the new foundations.

Another amazing week for the Make My House Green™ Crew! Next week is going to be even more exciting as the crew starts the framing. By the end of next week our old 1925 house will come to life and take form as real house, no longer to be just three walls exposed with a huge tarp as a roof. Please welcome John Freer and his Riverworks crew as they kick off the Green Team phases of the MMHG project.