1005 West Fairview Ave

Dave Stecher took these pictures on December 6th and 7th. I still have a couple more pictures that he took after these. I'll get them posted shortly.

After the plumbing was installed, they spread out the gravel to form a 6" base, and placed the concrete formwork.



The pink extruded polystyrene (XPS) insulation has been placed around the perimeter of the slab. The thickened edge will rest on this material. Inside the perimeter, 4 inches of sand has been placed to bring the grade up to the top of the pink insulation. The white styrofoam (EPS) will eventually be placed overlapping the XPS by two feet.

I understand that there hasn't been much work on the site over the holidays, but that it should resume soon. I'll try to get out there myself and see how things look.

I've been lazy about getting out to the site to get pictures, but there has been work progressing. This picture (and the next few I'll post) were taken by Dave Stecher.

The plumbing was installed and inspected (denoted by the green sticker) The blue tubing is the water line, the vertical white pipes are from left to right: kitchen drain, shower drain, second floor soil stack, bathroom sink, floor drain, toilet.

You can also see in these pictures the white expanded polystyrene (EPS) insulation slabs which had been purchased on December first from ACH Foam Technologies in Waukegan, IL. The foam is being stored where the slab will be to prevent the ground from freezing.

This shows the partially installed plumbing, as it was last Friday.

There's nothing special about the plumbing, in terms of energy savings, in this house. There's a device called an "air admittance valve", that makes the plumbing vent pipe through the roof unnecessary, but the state plumbing code does not accept those yet. So, the plumbing in this house is being done just as in an ordinary house.

Dave Stecher tells me that code does still allow the water line to run in the same trench as the sewer line, as long as there's enough vertical separation (18 inches, perhaps). But our sewer line is high enough that the necessary vertical separation gets the water line a little too close to the frost line. That's why we're going with the horizontal separation.

I hope to have another update yet today. The plumbing is supposed to be going in. I'll try to get some pictures.