Attempting to Live a Sustainable Lifestyle in St. Louis

Framing started this week, however they’ve only been able to work 1.5 days thus far because of all of the rain. Yes, the rain is still an issue and since this has been the wettest start of a year on record in st Louis, we’ve been paying the price (literally).

Once this place gets under roof, we’ll no longer be prisoners to the elements and I’m sure at the same time the rain will stop.   As you can see below we’re doing 2×6 construction which will allow us thicker walls for more insulation.   And the construction is occurring around the steel frame which will keep us safe from St Louis’ recent rash of earthquakes.

Hoping things pick up next week and we’ll be able to see some of the finer details, e.g. recyclable chute, chimney effect design and more.

Radiant flooring was installed today before the slab is poured tomorrow. The installation of this system is very important to get the expected performance. The wire needs to be attached to the steel reinforcement mesh, which should be just 1-1.5″ below the surface of the pour, in order for the heat to easily radiate up. Additionally, you might see the reflective insulation below the radiant wire which should keep the heat from going down into the ground.

We’re really looking forward to enjoying the warm cement in the winter and enjoy not having to run our furnace at a very high temperature.

Forgot to mention, the technical folks at Warmzone.com were great. They can offer so much more info about installation than the site can and they’re willing to spend time answering questions and talking with you. I would highly recommend talking to someone from there before and after you bought your radiant cable.

We’re officially well into spring and the concrete walls have been poured.  The wet weather (among other things) has held us back, but with the short walls in and the slab (with radiant inside) being poured soon, the framing can begin pronto.

Though it’s difficult to tell from this angle, the amount of space we’re adding is not significant.  It’s actually the configuration to our lifestyle which will make the place so great.

In preparation for framing, the wood has been delivered.  Also on the right are the reflective rigid insulation sheets which will go under the radiant floor to push the heat upwards.  See radiant post.

You might be thinking, “how come no bamboo plywood sheets?”  Would love to, but at $180/sheet, it’s a bit out of our price range on this project (okay, it’s WAY out of our price range).  I could see some application on a smaller job though. Maybe the living unit above our garage.

Finally now that the moons have aligned and the steel workers have returned from Spring Break (only joking), the steel is finally being erected. This steel (of which I understand is ~95% post-consumer) will act as the skeleton to hold our addition in place. Additionally, it is allowing us to span some wide distances on the inside of the house, without having to use a 2ft wide wood beam, which one would’ve had to nearly duck under.

So that’s the good news. Now the bad news is that they can’t complete the steel work because some *ssholes stole some of the steel. Luckily, these were smaller pieces that I’m told won’t prevent us from pouring the concrete, but in any case, it’s likely a bit of a delay to get the pieces re-fabbed and have the erectors come back out.

Hope they can cover my house in the meantime, so that rain and pigeons don’t make their way in.

Went to Atlanta a week or two ago for leisure and noticed some interesting acts of conservation which made me think “why don’t we do this in St Louis?”  Of course Georgia’s in a drought and we’re not, but who knows, one day we could be.

Firstly, I went in at least a half dozen restrooms where I saw Falcon Water Free urinals.   These were in newer and older places, so thought that was interesting.  Supposedly they save 40,000 gallons of fresh water per year and that’s pretty sweet.

The next thing I noticed was the great deal of fountains or other non-essential aqua-displays which had been turned off.  This really gave me the sense of how serious their drought was.

Another interesting phenomena i noticed were the variations of hand-dryers; with the most interesting being the Xlerator hand dryer at Ikea.  This easily beat out the Mitsubishi model at another place.

And finally, there were some neatly designed sky-rises; which are actually popping up everywhere cause Atlanta doesn’t appear to have a good urban plan.  (E.g. Developers putting buildings wherever they please)  Here’s one in particular:

 I’m holding my breath while I say this, but…………….the project has restarted. This past week the carpenters moved in and started demolition work in preparation for the steel erectors.  (btw, I’ve been told that the majority of steel in these types of projects  is 100% recycled) They took the roof apart and demo’d out the rear brick wall.  Since the place won’t be under roof for weeks, a big tarp has been draped over the opening.

I had requested that we save the roof tiles and as many bricks as possible. This probably seems obvious to most readers, but it’s definitely not the easiest nor the cheapest approach for contractors.  We more easily could’ve just thrown them in the dumpster and not have had to worry about them EVER again. However, I’m REALLY hoping that I can find a new home for these 700-800 French style roof tiles.   Whether this means selling, donating or reusing I’m not sure.

The removal of the roof and the tiles produced two huge stacks like the ones below.  The carpenters put them in the front part of the house, but i needed to get them moved so that they could work throughout the house.  So on Saturday, I started moving 1 of the 2 piles downstairs.  I have to say, i underestimated how much effort this would be. In the end, I moved 230 tiles in that couples hours (5lbs/each x 230 = 1150lbs).  Tomorrow I’ll go back for the other half.

If I don’t find a reuse for these things, I’m going to be really frustrated or at the very least my back will really hate me.

I’ll likely post to my neighborhood discussion board (Tower Grove South), post to the Rehabber’s club site and post to Craig’s List.  If anyone knows of any other places which might be interested in buying or taking these off my hands, I’d be happy to hear.

The tile is a French style Mound City product 15″ x 7″.  After I move this 2nd pile, i still have about 400 more tiles to go when they remove the remaining part of the roof.  Did I mention, I’m trying to reclaim the bricks as well?  This is rough work I tell ya!!!