Day 40: Wall top plates and ledgers

Today we cleaned up after wall lift #3. We spent the remainder of the day installing wall top plates – seen in the following pic.

The top plates are 2X10 inch pressure treated boards. They are attached through J-bolts to the top of the wall all the way around the perimeter of the home. The roof will be securely mounted to the top plates.

We also installed 2 ledgers for the loft to the north and south walls. I watered the porch slab at the end of the day to help it cure properly.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate your comments.

Day 35: Wall lift #2

We did some final preparations for wall lift #2 in the morning.

• Positioned a seat for a porch roof beam.
• Hung a pressure treated ledger for the loft from the east wall.
• Finished placing all vertical rebar.
• Placed J-bolt supports for the utility room north wall top plate.
• Filled any gaps larger than 3/8 inch in the walls and around window bucks with closed cell spray foam to prevent grout from leaking out during the pour.
• Added a few more metal bands around ledgers to keep them snug against the wall during the pour.

Pacific Coast Concrete Pumping and Las Anamas Concrete showed up after lunch.

The calm before the pour.

Justin and Marty getting ready for the hose.

Joshua, Justin, Marty and Trevor filled, consolidated, managed the hose and cleaned up - repeated for about 100 cores.

Raphael, doubling as Integral Construction staff photographer, was busy shooting photos.

I got to fill a few cells in the utility room.

We had another successful pour with no blowouts. Thanks for reading. I enjoy your comments.

Day 18: Ready for pro beach vollyball

Today we placed the remainder of the Insul-Tarp and spread approximately 2” of sand over the top. The inside of the house looked like a beach at the end of the day – see pic below. It spread much more easily than the gravel.

The use of sand is questioned given results of the "sand under concrete slab" search I did. Nonetheless, it is required per California Building Code.

Some other tasks completed today:

• The remainder of gravel was spread in the utility room.
• A vapor barrier was placed over the gravel in the utility room. Insulation is not required because the room is not heated.
• Sand was placed over the vapor barrier in the utility room.
• 5 inch diameter joles were drilled at the top of the 1st course of APEX block at every other vertical core where a rebar will connect to the concrete slab – see pic above.
• Big Creek Lumber dropped off the window buck material – see vid below. The window bucks for my home are pressure treated 3X8 douglas fir beams that will frame the window and door openings. They provide a stable surface to attach the windows and doors.

Green comment for today:
When designing a home in a winter heating season climate, place the majority of properly shaded window surface area on the south wall in the northern hemisphere, and on the north wall in the southern hemisphere. This will take advantage of free winter heat from the sun. This is one of the fundamental concepts of Passive Solar Design. Start with a value of 50% to 75% of your total window area. Then use a building energy analysis tool like HEED to compare designs with more and less window area with your starting point. You will find a percentage that provides the lowest heating energy need annually. This percentage is the most thermally efficient for your home. There may be reasons other than energy efficiency to increase or decrease the window surface area, but at least you will have a starting point to deviate from.

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