Slab Poured!

Yesterday, as promised, the slab was poured. The foundation is now finished! I'm no expert, but it looks pretty good to me. It's nice and smooth inside the house, and the porch has a nice swept finish and a subtle gradient sloping away from the house. The porch also has sidewalk-style grooves which "cut" it into squares, which looks nice and controls cracking. The fixtures for the plumbing and the radiant heat all seem to have behaved well, no floating or tilting at all.


We had an impromptu slab cristening (we poured beer on it) last night, as the ladies from Juicebox showed up while we were showing Nick & Brad around the site.

Left to Right: Nick, Brad, Cary, Iris, Tricia, Aimee, me.

Ready for the Slab

Radiant heat tubes, pipes and conduits for water, waste, propane and electricity, the vent for the stove, and everything else that needs to travel through the floor have been placed into the foundation footprint, ready to be entombed in concrete. The wire mesh will keep everything in place when the concrete is poured. The pink foam insulation will keep the heat circulating up into the house instead of traveling down into the pea gravel & dirt below.


Looks like a lot of work to set up, doesn't it?


Here's a close-up of the Tube Junction for the radiant heat. When the house is finished, this will be in a small closet under the stairs, accessible from the bathroom. The rest of the apparatus will be in the Mechanical Room on the other side of the wall. Pressure gauges are cool.

Backfill and peafill

Friday the stemwalls were filled with pea gravel. You can also see the pink foam insulation which is strapped to the stem walls all around the interior of the space to be heated. Cary wants to know when we're going to install the slide and the swingset.


Here's a shot where I can really start to see the floorplan taking shape. I've labeled it to help you see it too. Before you ask, the mechanical room is the place where we'll have the water shutoff, electrical box, propane valves, phone & cable lines, controls & hookups for the radiant floor, etc. Since we won't have a basement or an attached garage we made a little room especially for that kind of stuff.

Foundation Drains & Insulation

Foundation insulation and drainage pipes installed in preparation for today's back-fill and delivery of the pea gravel. The foundation drains are really nicely designed. The black flexible 4" pipe is pretty standard stuff, but I was impressed by the white PVC drains installed to receive water from the downspouts. They are all nicely sloped and tie into the foundation drains at the SE corner of the house, from which a drainpipe will run the water back into a low spot about 30' away. I was lucky enough to get to the site before the guys had finished laying the fabric over the drainpipe, so Steven showed me the system. Looks like the foundation should stay nice and dry.


View to the SE, you can see where the drains all come together and turn away from the house.


The openings in the uprights are all capped with duct tape to keep dirt & gravel out during the backfill and further construction.

Stem Walls Poured

Stem walls are what the walls will attach to. They rest on top of the footings. The excavated area will be filled back in to a foot or so below the top of the stem walls. On the inside the stem walls will be insulated with rigid foam, then center of the foundation will be filled with pea gravel. On top of the gravel, and inside the outline created by the stem walls, our radiant-heat slab-on-grade floor will be poured.


Mom, Grandma & Cary review the progress.

Septic Installed & footings poured

The drainfield is built, inspected & approved! In the background you can just make out the house site. It's fair distance away, down what little slope we have on the property. The soil here is almost totally clay, so drainage can really be a problem. It took quite a while just to find a place on the property that was suitably percable to get a septic permit. But now here it is! Wonderful.



The septic tank itself is just off the southwest corner of the house. The excavator also dug out the foundation area, and the concrete guys got right in there and poured the footings, as you can see. These guys aren't wasting any time! In the background you can see the tank & drainfield.