1005 West Fairview Ave

On friday the walls were raised with minimal complication. The walls, bulit in two sections each, were on the ground with the edge on the foundation slab. Orignially the plan was to raise the walls with human-power, but they proved to be too heavy and a crane was brought in.

First the moisture wrap (which goes under the entire foundation) was secured onto the edge of the foundation, and caulk was applied so that once the walls were in place a moisture-proof barrier would be created. 2x4s were placed under the edge of the wall, so that as it was lifted, it wouldn't get punctured by the sill bolts.

Straps were wrapped around the top of a section, and the crane lifted it up. The wall was suspended in the air just a few inches above the perimeter, and when all the bolts were lined up with the holes in the wall's frame, the wall was lowered, checked to be level, and wooden 2x4 braces were put into place to keep the wall from falling forward or back. Then washers and nuts were put on the sill bolts to hold the wall down.

The only difficulty came with the first section of the north wall when, as it was lifted, a few points of connection in the joists came apart. The wall was lowered, everything was re-secured and it was successfully lifted into place on the second try.

On Saturday, a wall-raising ceremony, or Weihefest, was held. A traditional evergreen branch was tied to the peak of the roof, and we celebrated. Numerous people attended from all corners of the community including school board and city council members, city employees, neighbors, even visitors from other states (architects and students) came to partake in this community event.

Talented local photographer Nick Mann took the photo shown here, as well as a number of pictures, which you can see by visiting:

http://www.pbase.com/urbana_photographer/passive_house_march06

We held a "wall raising" ceremony to mark the occasion of getting the walls standing. I got a bunch of pictures and will post a few, but Elizabeth Simpson, the woman who will be the owner of the house, let me know that Nick Mann, a local photographer, had posted a bunch of pictures of the event.

Nick graciously let us use a picture here. He has a whole page of pictures from the event on his website, which has lots more, including pictures from many other local events.

I should also mention that Elizabeth will be joining me in posting items to this blog. Glad to have her aboard!

Three walls of the house are built. (There was still some work left on one wall, framing up the doors and windows.) The next step is to stand the walls up. The fourth will will be built in-place with the other three.

They've started assembling the frame of the house.



The framing material actually arrived a couple of weeks ago, in three fairly compact bundles that got dropped almost at random on the 1005 lot and the lot next door.

The pink stuff over on the right in this picture is the insulation around the slab. The framing materials are the two bundles under blue tarps and the more distant bundle under an olive tarp.

The first thing Mike had to do was to get all the material on our lot and organize it.



Here's an end-view of the main structural pieces of the frame. The i-beam shape provides both great strength and a lot of space for adding insulation.

Mike told me the dimensions of the pieces and the materials, but I've forgotten the details. I'll get them and post an update, but the i-beams are roughly 12 inches deep, with all that space to be filled with insulation.



Here's the almost assembled frame for the east wall of the house, lying on the slab. You can see how the i-beams go together. You can also get a pretty clear idea what the profile of the roof is going to be.

These last two pictures were taken Monday, and there have been several nice days since then, so I suspect there's been quite a bit of additional progress already. I'll try to get out and take some more pictures tomorrow.