Model Eco-Home
Ashe County, West Jefferson, North Carolina
Mountain Mission Farms Model Eco-Home was started in the Fall of 2000, but work had to be restarted again in February of 2001. Winter was hard on the newly dug footers.
The footers were then formed with a new product called Form-a-Drain by Certainteed. This material is plastic, has the shape of a 2X6, but is permanently left as part of the footer. The form is hollow and has slits that face inside the house and to the exterior. These slits allow the product to act as a drain for water on the outside of the house and on the inside it becomes a part of the radon abatement system.
Next, rebar was placed in the forms and then they were filled with concrete. All of the rebar used in our footers came to us as scrap left over from the new ASU Convocation Center in Boone. Since it was specified for a very large building, it was three to five times larger than required for our job, but ended up costing one tenth the price of new rebar.
The footers form the base for the outside walls which are made of ICF blocks (Insulated Concrete Forms). This form was also filled with concrete to form a permanent structure. Use of this material was chosen because of its simplicity and ease in construction and also because the finished product would be a stucture of superior quality and efficiency. Walls using ICFs have a working insulation efficiency comparable to a stick built home with R50 outside walls. We chose to use the award winning IntegraSpec® form produced by Phil Insul Corporation of Kitchner, Ontario. We found this product far superior to any other product available in the marketplace. See our Sponsors Page for more information.
The first construction on outside walls began with the building of a foundation wall on the descending slope side of the home. It created a level plane to meet the other footers. This gave us an even level for pouring the next floor. This wall was 9 feet high and ran 54 feet in back and another 35 feet on the side of the house.
Once that was complete, we were able to begin building the basement walls. The back wall was set to face 190 degrees for maximum sun exposure. We built the frames for the six windows and two doors on that wall. This would form our basement solar collection area.
We decided to add a large garage door in the basement to allow us to more easily move materials, bikes, equipment, and furniture in and out of the house. It also provided us with an access for a tractor during construction.
Slowly we completed this final basement wall. We worked on this part through February 2002, celebrating our first anniversary since starting the house. We were fortunate that we did not have a lot of snow to deal with and the weather remained somewhat mild. This was unlike our experience in prior years in the rugged Appalachian Mountains.
As of the end of February, we completed the final wall. The last steps before filling these walls with concrete, will be to mount the supports for the main floor trusses and set the large steel beams seen below laying in the basement.
Erection of walkboards, bracing, and setting of scaffolding was done to allow the concrete pumping crew to move around on the inside of the perimeter wall. Once this wall is set, bracing and scaffolding was removed and used to support the first floor walls.
From the back of the house we will be able to walk out at ground level on the eastern side and a deck will circle that level to allow exit from the western door.
Our next step was to
raise the beams that will support the top floor.
Since we couldn't get a crane into
the basement nor could we bring in a trackhoe, we decided to use our old yankee ingenuity
and come up with a way to lift them in place. The first ideas was to lift the beams
by rocking them on wood blocks, just like the old timers used to do.
We had to pass on that idea because there were no wood blocks to be found.
We called around three states to find that all that were available were in use.
Our Plan B involved making 17' derricks out of wood and use a chain fall to lift
the beams into place. This worked superbly. Two of us lifted the beams that
were two sections bolted together for over 60' and then gently pushed the end into the
wall. We then put posts under them and put braces on the derricks to support them in
place. We then hand lifted and bolted the last 8' section to them.
With
that complete we then poured the walls with cement and after a few days began setting
floor trusses.
As soon as the floor trusses were in place, we began the construction of the main floor.
With the floor decking in, we began the outside walls.
After
completion of the outside walls, we poured them with concrete....
....and then began the
construction of the interior partitions.
With that complete, we
then started placing the roof trusses.
Weather slowed our progress, but the roof trusses were completed and the roof decking has been going on.
After the completion of the roof deck we covered it with a new non-allergenic underlayment. This material is made especially for metal roofing and will not hold moisture like traditional tarpaper. Our final roofing material will be aluminum shingles made of 98% recycled product.
