Author Archives: ellen
Radon Report
I picked up a Radon test while browsing in Home Depot. Just thinking that it might be good to see what the concentration was before I bought expensive radon vent fans and sealed up the sump hole. I followed the … Continue reading
You Stain, You Gain?
Alberto introduced the idea of staining the concrete several months ago and I panned the idea, did not want to think about extra expense at the time. But when the concrete was finished and Alberto said the next step was … Continue reading
Boiler Struggles
Planning for the boiler install has taken quite a bit of study. Similar to installing the radiant system itself that required learning about pex, radiant pipe layouts, Manual J, heat loss calculations, flow rates, btu’s per square foot, etc. etc. … Continue reading
Videos of the Concrete Pour
I’ve been taking a few videos of parts of the construction progress. I used iMovie to create files that are small enough to load here. These are “mobile” size snippets of the concrete pour. I’m one day off on … Continue reading
Boiler Flue
The boiler flue and air supply need only plastic pipe to connect to the outside. Most new furnaces use PVC now instead of metal flue. I didn’t want to put another hole in the roof so I ordered a concentric … Continue reading
May Snow!
Denver has an interesting climate. Snow tends to fall most often in the spring. This year it snowed on the first of May (and the second had more flurries.) This snow does not tend to stay around long and in … Continue reading
USGBC Denver Rocky Mountain Green Conference
This is the roof we toured at the conference! It is “semi intense”, planted in trays and suffering a bit from the extreme conditions in Denver, cold, heat, wind and sun. Also has suffered from lack of maintenance. But it … Continue reading
Work Truck
Bought this truck to carry construction materials for the remodel. Found that renting a truck was getting to be trouble and UHaul seems to keep raising its rates although they do have nice work trucks. Car rental companies don’t have … Continue reading
Arvada Rent Alls
We are fortunate to have a tool rental agency so close to our house. Arvada Rent Alls has been a great resource for temporary use of expensive tools. Each spring our son-in-law rents a tiller to get the garden started. … Continue reading
Triangle Tube Boiler
We first heard of small, highly efficient, condensing boilers from Melissa when she did our Energy Audit. After some research, I found many recommendations for the Triangle Tube boilers. They have stainless steel heat exchangers, and copper piping. They are … Continue reading
Radon Mitigation
Zone 1 has the highest concentration of Radon in the ground. Radon has been found to be a naturally occurring cancer causing element that is concentrated in homes that have direct contact with the earth especially in Level 1 (Red) … Continue reading
Radiant Installation
Unfortunately the pex roll was unweildly and as the first zone was unrolled, the pex became extremely tangled. The 1000 ft. roll came in a box and did not have a plastic sleeve to hold it in place. Several crimps … Continue reading
Radiant Design Revisited
Since the excitement of the new floor is out of the way, time to go back and talk about the actual layout of the oxygen barrier Pex used in the radiant floor. The references and calculations used to design the … Continue reading
Water Loop in Action
The water supply trunk loop is connected and stubbed out. This is the longest above the concrete connection. The pipe near the wall will connect the washing machine and the other connection will run to the guest bathroom. This long … Continue reading
De Floor, de floor!
The concrete was poured on March 18th after six months of work by Alberto’s crew to remove the old concrete and dig out for the waffle boxes. Then the installation of the vapor barrier and the boxes, the insulation, the … Continue reading
Really Rebar
The engineering plan from Crown Jade uses rebar instead of post tensioning cable to reinforce the concrete in the floor. The computer program that the engineers used to design the floor system was a Post Tensioning Insitute product. Post Tensioning … Continue reading
Insulstar!
Quite a bit of time went into researching the insulation for under the slab. The engineers were concerned about the insulation holding up to the stresses that the wafflemat would be mitigating. Apparently no other customers of Wafflemat had required … Continue reading
Crown Jade Engineering Drawings
Mark Benjamin of Crown Jade Engineering delivered the final plan for the Waffle Mat system just was the plastic vapor barrier was being installed. The plan is engineered with the PSI concrete standards using a PSI computer program that took … Continue reading
Structured Plumbing
We are interested in wasting as little water as possible and to that end, we designed a structured plumbing system that allows for the hot water to circulate within a loop system of pipes to deliver hot water at the … Continue reading
Passing the Underground Rough In
Signed Sealed Delivered. 12/10/12 It was not easy to pass the plumbing inspection. Not because the inspector was difficult or picky, quite the opposite. Our inspector was VERY helpful and wanted to see us pass and recommended wet venting the … Continue reading