Embedded Files
Post date: Jun 22, 2017 1:52:41 AM
My house was built using techniques that are definitely not traditional in New Mexico. But I have a neighbor who is building using more nearly traditional techniques: adobe walls and hot water radiant heating.
Very similar to other houses, the beginning is a trench for the foundations. At the bottom of the trench is a steel-reinforced concrete footing. Atop the footings are placed Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF) which you can see as the white in the photo. Only the outer part of the form shows because the inner part has been cut down so as to connect the floor slab with the foundation walls. The ICFs were also reinforced with steel, then poured full of concrete to form foundation walls. Within the foundation walls a base of rocky soil is packed. On top of that comes usually 4” of (hidden here) white Styrofoam insulation. To add to the thermal mass of this house the contractor put another couple of inches of rocky soil, also compacted. You see that as the brown base in the photo (left).
Atop this brown rock comes steel mesh, used to reinforce the floor slab. Wired to this mesh is (red cross-linked polyethylene — PEX) tubing to carry hot water for heating the floor, and thus the house. In this house are three separate heating zones. The ends of the tubing for each heating zone go to the utility room, which is at the farthest end of the photo. In the first photo you can see small forests of vertical pipes. These are for the heating, sewer, water for washing, and conduits for electricity. Most of these pipes and conduits are laid beneath the Styrofoam insulation.
After all this is inspected, the next step is be to pour the concrete floor slab, which will connect with the concrete and reinforcing steel in the stem walls. Around the perimeter are rods sticking up, which secure the walls to the foundation. In the background is a pallet of concrete blocks, which will form the first layer of the walls. The white pipes are drain, the red pipes are heat, and black is insulation over water pipes.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse