We need to finalize the design on our exposed concrete floors.  The design we need to establish (decide on) includes the following elements:

1. The color, if any, of the concrete;
2. How that color is set in the concrete (stain or integral);
3. The finishing of the concrete (grind into the aggregate or just into the ‘cream’);
4. The sealant (if any); and
5. The level of polishing.

Reviewing Alternatives

Bryan spoke with Bill Clyne, who explained the differences in the various alternatives facing us, including the maintenance and other issues.  Bill recommended that we visit Safeway’s new ‘The Market‘ store in downtown San Jose.  The floor in this store is stained, sealed and polished, and has received accolades from many people.

Bryan visited the store and was fortunate to meet with Safeway’s product manager for the The Market line.  Safeway has two The Market stores, with the first store opened in southern California (Long Beach) and the second store in San Jose.

The stained and polished concrete looked great in the store.  it was a warm ’earth tone’ and not a cold gray concrete.  Jo-Anne wants our floor to have a warm earth tone and not gray concrete.

(Bryan received permission to take photos of the stained and polished concrete floor in The Market.)

Stained and polished concrete floor with saw cuts to control cracking.

Grace integral color chart against the stained and polished concrete.

Floor area with a deeper grind, exposing the aggregate.

Section of signs identifying the 'green' features of The Market.

With the rebar in place, the forms are being set in the locations where the concrete will be at 3 inches and where it will be at 5.25 inches.

Bill Brown visits our job site to review progress and discuss the findings relating to finishing the concrete.

Uponor 5/8 PEX on an uncoiling spool, ready for installation by Matt Jung (88HVAC) on the weekend.

After checking the perimeter forms, Bill Brown’s team started laying out the reinforcing steel (rebar) over the hollow core concrete panels on our ground floor. There will be at least three inches of concrete covering all of the hollow core concrete panels.

Lots of Steel

In the living areas, we are using #3 rebar, 18 inches on center, each way.  Interpreting this, the rebar is 3/8 of an inch in diameter and it is put down in a grid, with each ‘square’ 18 inches by 18 inches.  The garage will have #3 rebar, set 12 inches on center each way.

Also, we are pouring concrete to two levels on our ground floor.  Where there is hardwood flooring, we are pouring 3 inches of concrete over the hollow core concrete panels.  Where there is exposed concrete, we are pouring 5.25 inches of concrete. 

Where there is exposed concrete, we will have the PEX tubing for our radiant heating set on top of the rebar.  We will have to ensure the PEX is fastened securely to the rebar so it doesn’t float up in the concrete where it could be damaged by the 1/2 inch deep saw cuts in the concrete that are designed to control the cracking that will occur in the concrete.

Starting to tie the rebar together.

The rebar is set at 18 inches on center, each way. The intersections are tied together with wire to hold the rebar in place until the concrete is poured and cured.

Setting forms by the Bridge Hall at the front of the house.

Forms in place at the front of the living room. This edge, with the concrete and steel I-beam, will be seen by everyone when they enter the house.

Rebar in place at the front of the house (but not in the garage).

Jorge recording hours at the end of the day.

It is good to see the rebar mat in place as we want to complete pouring concrete before Thanksgiving.

We had to put our project on ‘hold’ for several months while we had our interior stairs and two bridges, with the corresponding posts and railing systems designed, engineered, approved, fabricated, installed and inspected.  Then, the stainless steel posts had to be welded to the steel beams in the house.

Having completed those items, we re-engaged Bill Brown Construction to complete pouring the 5+ inches of concrete on the main floor and the 3 inches of concrete in the lower floor (basement).

Cleaning Up the Site and Setting Forms

Bill Brown’s team arrived on site and started working on ensuring all the forms were in the correct position.  After several months, some of the forms had moved a bit so they needed some adjustments.  With three people working, the cleanup was done quickly.

Front of house looking much cleaner, ready for measuring.

West side of house, where forms need to be set.

The kitchen is now a good location for a lunch break.

Dining room with feature concrete wall, ready for rebar and forms.

The entire roof of our house and the front wall are made from SIPs (Structural Insulated Panels) that are manufactured in Canada by Insulspan.

Dave Stevenson called us to let us know the SIPs are ready to be shipped from their plant in Delta, British Columbia.  We need to have the main floor concrete and structural framing ready to receive the SIPs.  The manufacturing of the panels is complete, so that item is off the critical path.

Now, we need to focus on concrete.

SIPs from Insulspan

We had several alternative SIP manufacturers and chose Insulspan for a number of reasons.  The team at Insulspan included Dave Stevenson, Lorne Shepert and Nancy Yao.  It was great to be working with Canadians on our project here in California.

Today, Dave had one of his colleagues, Bill Edwards, take photos of our completed SIPs.  Each panel is numbered and will be assembled at our job site.  The SIPs have chases cut for our electrical wiring, so the wiring should go in nicely. We planned for rigid conduit to go through the SIPs that will carry the DC wires from our solar panels through to the inverters in the East Mechanical Room. 

Our engineers of record, Innovative Structural Engineering, reviewed the shop drawings for the SIPs and wet-signed two copies of those shop drawings.  We will file the shop drawings with the City of Monte Sereno.

All photo credits to Bill Edwards.

Our roof SIPs, waiting patiently in Delta, BC for shipping to California.

Each SIP is unique and numbered so it can be assembed at our job site. These are all roof panels and are 12¼ inches thick, resulting in an R47 roof.

These are the gable roof panels. Our roof will have a 12:12 pitch, resulting in a 90 degree angle at the top of the roof.

You can see the splines in these roof panels. These splines are similar to an I-beam, with a thin web between the top and bottom flanges. The thin web reduces the thermal bridging.

Here are our wall and pony wall SIPs. The front wall of our house will be made from 6½ inch SIPs as will the pony walls on our flat roof. In this stack, you can see the 45 degree angle pony walls that will support the gable roofs.

One of the two interior bridges in our house will have glass decking.  The supplier of the glass decking is Sierra Glass Block, which is the distributor in Northern California for the GlassWalk system.

This feature glass decking will be one of the last components to be installed as we want to limit the number of items that could be damaged through simple accidents on our construction site (e.g., dropping a hammer).

We have been working with Terese Eiseman Keller of Sierra Glass Block and she came by our project site to review the structural steel bridge and take some photos.  Terese had not been to our site since July.

Terese Eiseman Keller, from Sierra Glass Block, taking photos of the bridge that will have the glass decking.

We had heard about the Passivhaus standards in Europe and thought it would be good to understand this standard for building extremely low energy homes.  Bryan attended an all-day seminar today on passive house design and construction, which was led by Katrin Klingenberg.  The November 2009 issue of Dwell Magazine has a two-page article on the Passive House standard.

Learning About Passive Houses

At Vivian Sam’s suggestion, Bryan attended one of the monthly meetings of the Passive Buildings California chapter, which meets on Sunday afternoons in Berkeley.  It was a good event where Bryan met a number of people that are on the leading edge of high performance homes.

At this meeting, Bryan learned about the free seminar offered by PG&E regarding the Passive House standards so he signed up to attend the session held at the PG&E training center in San Ramon.

Spending the Day in San Ramon

The session on Passive Home design was led by Katrina Klingberg, who is the Executive Director of the Passive House Institute U.S. and who also designed and built the first certified Passive House in the U.S.  Katrina, a German architect, spent the entire day presenting the concepts behind Passive Houses to the 50+ people in the seminar.  She is doing another seminar tomorrow.

Overall, we concluded that the Passive House standards are not very applicable to the climates in the Bay Area.  The standards focus on a significant heating load, as is required in Germany.  The heating load results in a focus on triple-glazed windows and a super-insulated, ultra-tight building envelope.  Although our building performance should result in a very low heating and cooling requirement, the focus of the building design would be on super-insulation and creating an ultra-tight building envelope. 

Overall, it was a good day and it was fun to meet and have lunch with Katrin Klingenberg.

Katrin Klingenberg presenting Passive House concepts.

Passive House seminar at PG&E's training facility in San Ramon.