It has occurred to me that I have not shared pictures of what the final project will look like.   The West elevation will face the street.

*Note to self – remove “Palindrome Writer” from resume.

Dan and his plans will be taking a stand on February 24th at the next Passive House Seattle meeting to be held at the Phinney Neighborhood Association, Room 3 (in the upper blue building) from 5:30-6:30pm (conveniently just prior to the 7-9pm Eco Building Guild meeting held in the Community Hall that is in the lower building at the same location).  The address is 6532 Phinney Ave N, Seattle WA 98103.

Dan will be discussing his passive house project which is coming along nicely.  If you are in the area please stop in – Dan is great at describing his project.  If you want a preview, click on the link to the video that is being made about the project then scroll down to see Dan http://www.thehousethatsavedtheworld.com/videoclips.html.  Be sure to check out the other videos on that page that are being made as part of “The House That Saved The World” project too!

I hope to see you there!

-Linda

There was a bit of excitement the day the slab went in.  Dan had arranged for a boom pump to place the concrete in the forms, but the concrete became jammed and was unable to be pumped out.  After an hour of trying another pump was called.  At the two hour mark the second pump arrived and it was much bigger – so big in fact that Dan had to quickly prune a tree at the front of the property so that the pump arm could swing under the power lines and over the tree in order to be able to place the concrete.  The skill the operator exhibited while swinging the pump arm around was incredible.

Here's a hoop for Dan to jump! (Public domain image)

Dan the *Enviro-Tamer had a pretty big hoop to jump through when he went to the City of Seattle for a building permit for his Passive House.  He wanted to use structural foam underneath the load bearing portion of his foundation, but that use had not been permitted in Seattle before on a residential project.  Armed with a lot of research from Insulfoam (the structural foam manufacturer), the backing of his Structural Engineer Carissa Farkas, and a lot of persistance, they made a few requested tweaks to the plans, everyone was satisfied and the permit was issued.

This was a very critical step in Dan’s project. 

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A truck from CAD brought crushed recycled glass to be used as fill instead of pea gravel under the slab.  The glass had a faint aroma of beer, giving you an indication of what some of the bottles had been used for. The glass was delivered via a conveyor belt that the driver controlled with a remote control device.  As a matter of fact he drove the whole truck remotely which makes his rig the best RC vehicle I have ever seen!  If the construction industry is looking for new sources of income, let people pay to have 5 minutes of operating the truck! I know I would love to have a chance to drive it!

The utilities are in and todays’ work was to cover them up and make a smooth layer to place the foam on.    The weather looks good for the next few days so Dan has called for the concrete to come Monday morning.

The plastic will go down once the sand is tamped and then the foam will go in.   In the meantime, Stu, a friend of Dan’s, stopped by and joked about being mentioned in the blog.  I can’t promise fame & fortune Stu, but there might be notoriety if you are lucky!

Some of the foam that will go under the foundation is on site.  Dan was able to find some extra foam that a roofer was getting rid of that he can use under the slab.  He pointed out that all of the foam has a density rating stamped on it and he made sure to check that it would work for this project and reject the pieces that were too soft.   Coming soon is a detailed article about the foam, where it came from, how come there is more than one density, and how it works to make this project a Passive House.