19) Foundation, ICFs & Radiant - July'17

Time to build the walls. Here's a close-up of the innovative ICFs, or Insulated Concrete Foundation forms. Concrete is poured inside the two foam walls, no need for the metal and plywood walls of traditional building. These walls are high performance and perfect for passive solar building, there's no thermal bridging, no air leakage and they provide a total of 13 inches of insulation between the cold ground and the warm basement.

ICFs of the main building in contrast to the normal framed walls of the hot tub room on the right:

Layout of the basement radiant tubing. Notice the blue insulation under the pipes. A total of 6 inches of underslab foam goes a long way to isolate the heated floor from the 50° annual average ground temperature. In contrast normal foundations conduct this cold directly into the basement, adding to the heating demand. .

The crew is leveling 4" of concrete over the radiant piping.

Four pipes. The white 4 inch one is outflow to the septic system. The two pipes on the right are for the well: water intake and the other to carry electrical wires to power the pump. The pipe on the left is the line that leads to the spring house, the water supply for the hot tub.