Subfloor progress and backfill

The subfloor has been completed along with the basement stairs, which should keep any more weather from impacting the basement. The basement walls have also been backfilled where appropriate on the exterior:

Even though this concrete has cured for a week, NCC still has special bracing inside to ensure there are no problems with the added load of the dirt backfill:

Floor System and other details

Click through here to view my General Contractor's latest blog post on this project.

Floor trusses going in place

Today, work started on the floor trusses, after the interior load bearing walls were completed:

Basement ICF ready

Here's a few photos from yesterday afternoon - all the ICF blocks for the basement level are ready for the concrete to be poured, which should start today. The most time consuming thing is cutting out the locations for the windows and building a wooden structure in their place to support the concrete until it hardens:

Concrete Progress

Footings are all hardened, and the crush rock is laid - should see the floor slab and walls start soon.

It's always interesting building a house in MN...

Wake up the next day, and it all looks like this! Don't worry, the footings are under blankets, settling in nicely:

Foundation work begins

The fine gentlemen at VanHaren Construction started work today on the footings. Here are some photos from mid-day:

Excavation Nearing Completion

I talked to the excavator as he was finishing up today. The cement guys should be starting to pour the footings tomorrow, as weather allows - up to 6 inches of snow is predicted by Saturday morning!

Continued excavation work

Wow, there is a LOT of dirt getting dug up! The excavators worked until it was too dark today - here are some photos near the end of the day:

My General Contractor - Northfield Construction

My general contractor has a very nice web site and will be doing some blog posts of his own throughout this build. The first one is here.

Good progress over the weekend

Here are some more recent photos - should be ready to start pouring concrete later this week!
Click through for larger images:

Excavation Progress So Far

Some snow ended work a little early today, but good progress so far:

Tree removal - before and after photos

 Here's what the lot looked like Friday morning, before we started dropping trees:

Here's what the lot looks like now, after the trees are down:

Just doing the Lord's work: "God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.'" - Genesis 1:28

The work begins

I closed on the lot a few days ago and started dropping trees yesterday. Should finish that work today. I will post some before and after photos later this weekend. Already met a few of my future neighbors who helped out with a Bobcat, great people! Plenty of free firewood for anyone who wants it, shoot me an email!

Closing date finally set!

Well, this just shows how slowly real estate transactions proceed where there are foreclosures and title corrections in the mix. And lawyers. Nothing I had to deal with, just a lot of waiting, but finally the end of the tunnel is in sight. Can't wait to start dropping trees to make room for the excavation.

In the meantime, my general contractor and I have the final survey and grading plan with retaining walls done and out for approvals/permits from the city and whatnot, so we should be ready start work right after closing. Hopefully there is still no snow when we are dropping trees, as that will just make it harder, of course.

Lot purchase agreement signed!

Well this blog should finally take off in the coming months as I'm picking up a signed purchase agreement on a great lot here tonight. Should close on it in early September and then the real fun begins!

Pros and Cons of ICF vs stick frame building

Here are a number of benefits of building a home using ICF that I have learned so far:

• Insulation aka "R Value": ICF walls have a huge R value, typically four to five times higher than a stick frame wall insulated with R-11-rated insulation.
• Thermal Mass: Concrete is incredibly dense, thermally-speaking, and thus the walls of your house act as a giant heat sink, meaning daily changes in outside temperature have little effect on the inside of your house. This winter, while researching all this, I stood in the basement of an ICF home that was being built. The home had been "air tight" since fall, but there is still no HVAC installed by mid-winter. Even though it was below 0F outside, the basement still felt rather warm, probably 50F. All this from just insulation and thermal mass.
• Peace and quiet: ICF homes are incredibly sound-proof. Enough said.
• Structural strength: ICF contractors have shown me pictures of ICF homes surviving tornadoes that completely destroyed all the stick frame homes around it, and also ICF homes that survived Hurricane Katrina largely unscathed. Nothing beats real-world testing! In test labs, ICF walls survive TNT blasts and 180-360 MPH wind speeds, depending on design.
• Operating Cost: Because of the above benefits (and others), ICF homes are cheaper to insure, and much cheaper to heat and cool.

A few cons to ICF:

• Construction cost: ICF homes do typically cost a bit more to build than stick frame homes, though it seems this varies a lot by builder. This is why I'm taking my time and shopping around to find the best deal.
• Selection: Most general contractors either don't know what ICF is, or don't want to learn how to build houses with ICF walls. Definitely do not be a guinea pig for a contractor who has never done it before. Make sure they have built at least six ICF homes already!

The Process Begins

Hello everyone! I have created this blog to document my process of building an ICF home. ICF stands for Insulated Concrete Form. It is the process of building the walls of a home with concrete poured into Styrofoam blocks. The benefits are great over traditional "stick frame" homes, and I will likely write another post explaining this further in the near future.

Anyway, right now I've got a lot picked out and I'm soliciting bids from a number of general contractors who specialize in ICF building. Stay tuned for progress as it happens!