While prepping the tower and mezzanine, we also worked on the bedroom eyebrows. It was just too big for one video. More on what “bedroom eyebrows” are after the video.
The Video
Bedroom Eyebrows
Bedroom eyebrows are not some sort of double entendre that only earth sheltered home builders get after a long hard day. They are simply the structures we used to keep dirt off the windows while still having a hilly appearance. You see them in Peter Vetsch earth shelters all the time. However, I suspect (from construction photos) that Peter’s eyebrows are big heat radiators that drastically reduce the thermal efficiency of his buildings. I wanted to avoid that problem, so I needed mine to be thermally isolated from the actual home.
I did this by separating the shotcrete into two phases. After completing the bedroom shotcrete and waterproofing it, I added a saddle of 4 inch thick XPS Foamular 250… This is the kind that can handle 25 psi of pressure and is intended for burial. Above the XPS, I build another rebar framework and put shotcrete over that. Or at least, that is what I wanted to do.
In more practical terms, I used tapcon screws to mount treaded wood 2x4s directly to the bedroom shotcrete. Then I drilled holes in the 2x4s to hold the rebar framework… So there is a little edge all the way around where I sacrificed long-term insulation for a more buildable structure. I have since considered other ways I could have done this and may do it differently if I ever had to do it again, but I don’t think the performance will be too bad. Certainly still better than a more traditional house.
The Gallery
I am tired of typing, you may be tired of reading, so let’s just skip to the gallery.
Various stages of progress
Bedroom south eyebrow rebar
John helping with the rebar above the hall roof
Sherri and I often have end of the day discussions that get caught on timelapse
David was almost 13 and going thru a bit of a goofy phase
Another goofy David Pic
Even Sherri decided to get in on the goofy poses. Maybe it was the heat?
Hunter leaving me an Easter Egg to find. This is the appropriate punishment.
Not to be outdone, Michael also made a number of goofy pics
Michael again
Sherri and David posing for the time lapse cam. They like to leave these little Easter eggs in there for me to find.
Lots of turtles around
Office Apse viewed from the roof of the garage. This big area was going to get a bit water tank, but I ended up deciding it wasn’t worth the money.
Kids playing on the office apse jungle gym
After putting the french drain for the office apse, this time before the shotcrete so we wouldn’t have to deal with any mess
Kids playing on the office apse jungle gym
The eyebrow for the master bedroom apse was the most elaborate
The day after shotcrete on the perimeter walls, we got started on prepping the steel arches and setting them up for another round of shotcrete. This particular apse is special because it will eventually be my office (where I will spend most of my waking hours), and because it needs to be in (along with its retaining wall) before we can bury the garage side of the house. The work was all pretty simple compared to the bedrooms, and I didn’t take much time to stop and take pics, so this post should be short. But first, the video…
The video:
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Apse
An apse is the semi-circular end of a vault. They are pretty common in earth sheltered homes because they can hold a lot of load, but usually, they are at the back, completely buried. I put mine up front and included a window. Hopefully, it turns out to be a good idea. This apse will also be my office, and I spend a lot of the time on video conference calls, so hopefully, the acoustics are OK. At least my head will be near the window and not near the acoustic focus point.
The Gallery
This is how the guest room looked the morning after shotcrete.
It looks warm enough in the pics, but the temp was probably less than 40 and freezing over night. I left this propane heater in the room to keep the roof warm while it cured.
I was pretty happy with how the mud room roof turned out…
This is the top of the playroom apse. Because it was out in the open, it also needed its own little parapet wall…
Hunter checking on the camera as he flipped the steel arch. He had welded 3 sides of each leg, but needed to flip it to weld the 4th.
Positioned the first arch here and took a quick pic just to get an idea of the scale of the office…
The office apse steel at the end of the first saturday…
Here I am looking quite grizzly, but happy things are working out.
Office apse with mostly just the horizontal rebar.
Michael messing with the camera… He likes moving past it very slowly so it looks like he is moving normal speed and the rest of us are high speed.
Snow stopped our progress for a couple months.
Snow…
Sherri did most of the lath work during a brief warm spell in February… Sorry, no timelapse.
For some strange reason, I have always wanted to build a block wall. So of course, I had to work at least a bit of that into the plans. I chose to build the bathroom out of block because it was all internal walls and I liked the idea that it may slightly brace the quonset hut before we added concrete over it. We also had this idea that the garage would be finished first and it would be great to have a bathroom in there so we could use it during the rest of the build…
Also, I have often joked (only half kidding) that I would like the bathroom to be waterproof so we could clean it with a power washer. And that would require no drywall…
First, the Video…
Glass Bottle Wall
I have also wanted to make a glass bottle wall for a long time, but with a low R value, they are not practical as an exterior wall in Michigan. Instead, I plan to finish the gap between this bathroom wall and the Quonset ceiling with glass bottles… This way, it will be an internal wall and will let light in from the garage skylights while still finishing off the bathroom wall to the ceiling to provide privacy. Video to come later… much later. Maybe after we move in.
Pro-tips
1) Buy half blocks, etc. When you go to price the blocks, you will find that the full 8″x8″x16″ blocks are pretty cheap. In my case, they were 86 cents each. But then if you look at half blocks, you will find that they cost almost twice as much for half as much block. At first, I said, “No way, those are for suckers, I’ll just split the full blocks.” And while it is true that some of the full blocks come designed to be split, it was not easy and I wrecked half the blocks that I tried. Eventually, I realized that those half blocks were expensive because they were worth it! I also bought 4x8x8 blocks and cut those in half for some quarter blocks.
2) Pay for delivery. Blocks are heavy and it took hundreds to make even my small bathroom. You could make a bunch of trips with a pick up truck (be careful not to overload it), but for the money you would pay in gas, you could just have them delivered all at once and without risking wear and tear on your vehicle. Delivery also saves you time, and time is money.
3) Cut the blocks for electrical as you go. I guess we were just so excited to be building that we forgot to do that. When I came back later, it looked pretty easy in the video, but… If cutting the block had cracked it, how would I have replaced it? It was also pretty challenging to get the ENT boxes to fit in the holes with the conduit attached to the tops, and then I had to run the conduit and wires all the way up to the top of the wall and back down again, which wasted a few extra dollars. Plus, you just look silly for forgetting.
4) Make sure your concrete dye is a nice liquid or powder so you can mix it accurately. Mine was a lumpy semi-solid mass that had been sitting on the shelf at Home Depot well past its expiry date and this made it very difficult to get a uniform color. I found that I could blend the color by wet sponging the wall later, but it still doesn’t look quite right.
Gallery
Here are some pics from along the way…
This was the plan for the bathroom. The shower plumbing was supposed to come up in the wall, inside the blocks, but it was placed about 6 inches off… We discussed how to adjust the bathroom to fit and ended up moving the ind wall back another 8 inches, so things ended up a little bigger than this.
Get your blocks delivered. They are heavy and delivery is cheaper than all the trips it would take to carry these safely in my pickup truck.
Sherri waiting patiently for me to setup the camera
Blocks at the end of the second evening, before the bond beam went up.
Before the bond beam
View of the door buck and scaffold inside.
Laughing about something… Sherri has water in her bottle with a pin hole in the top that she was using to help smooth out the walls.
Michael helping out on the inside while Sherri and I finish up the outside.
Half done the inside, and I am leaning back to adjust the camera.
Sherri finishing up surface bonding the last wall
A view from the inside…
I had accidentally touched up some of the outside with lighter cement from the inside (see above the door), oops. I decided to try and smooth it out.
The surface after sponging to smooth out the color and texture.
I installed the toilet flange with a hammer drill and some tapcon screws. Easy.
Brand new toilet… Oh the horrors it will see.
After the walls and door were in, we could add a toilet…
