Red State, Green House

I swear I checked Lotusknits this morning and there was nothing new. Check back later, and she's linked to this site in a big article about Blog Action Day.

So welcome, knitting type people with an interesting in green housing. What you'll find here is a construction diary/blog about a the house my wife and I are building in an Atlanta suburb. Our home is being built out of some of the most environmentally friendly and energy-efficient materials available today. I will also take time (occasionally) to talk about some of the available materials and products that we are using that you too can use in your own home.

And since most of the people coming here from Lotusknits are, of course, knitters, I will say that I do not knit, nor does my wife. However, I am particularly fond of Melanie's Fascination Street and Ruby Soho colors, and I think that every knitter on the planet should make this hat right here. Because it's awesome.

Feel free to look around, and I'm happy to answer any questions anyone might have.

There are somewhere around 70 different companies that make ICF blocks in various forms. During my research for the construction of the house, I looked at probably about 15 different block companies. The cost of the ICF blocks was fairly similar between all the different companies. When all was said and done, we settled on Logix ICF blocks. We did this for two reasons:

1) Quality of Block. The Logix block was one of the more recommended blocks. Some contractors in various online forums had negative things to say about certain brands, but Logix seemed to to be universally accepted as one of the better ICF blocks on the market.

2) An available contractor. It took me a long time to even find a contractor who worked with ICF in Georgia. I finally found two who could do the job (a third disappeared on me) and both of them would have certainly done an excellent job.

We ended up choosing our contractor because he was local, knowledgeable, and he was the Logix distributor for my area. Our IFC contractor is a man named Bill Brown, who is the owner of ICF Total Solutons, a company based out of Buford, GA. His company acts as a distributor and installer of Logix ICF blocks. He can provide ICF walls individually as a sub-contractor, or he can build the ICF walls as part of a whole house package, through a custom building company he co-owns called Shivani Customer Home Builders. As the construction of our house progresses, you will be able to find pictures of our home on their website as well.

In our particular situation, we partnered with Bill and Shivani Custom Homes to build the shell of our home, including exterior finishings, and some of the inside, like the drywall and mechanicals. Kim and I will be installing all of the flooring, cabinets, trim, and handling all of the painting ourselves.

I'd like to take a moment and press pause on chronicling the construction of the house, so that I can offer a few words about Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF). ICFs are basically concrete form walls made out of hard foam blocks. These blocks are the single most important piece of the puzzle in making our house a strong, super-insulated structure that will help to better regulate air temperature, keep out noise, and survive hurricane-force winds.

The easiest way to understand Insulated Concrete Forms is to think of ICF blocks as giant lego blocks. Each block is made out of Expanded Polystyrene, which is a polymer-based foam product that looks and feels like a hard styrofoam. The inside of the block is a hollow cavity where concrete is poured, providing the strength of the wall. One each side of the cavity are 2.5"-3" of styrofoam that remains in place after the concrete is poured, unlike traditional concrete forms which are removed once the concrete hardens. The hard foam, combined with the concrete, creates an exterior wall that is remarkably energy efficient.

I should point out that that this particular foam product does not release any CFCs or HCFCs during it's production.

A single Insulated Concrete Form block

The blocks typically measure 48" wide by 16" tall, with various thicknesses. Blocks typically come in 4", 6", 8", and 10" cavity sizes. Most residential ICF construction uses 6" blocks. A 6" cavity block with 3" of foam on each side gives you a wall that is literally a foot thick. My wife is particularly excited about the deep window sills that this allows for.

Each block has six black spacers, called webs, like the one that you can see in the picture above. The webs serve multiple purposes. In addition to keeping the foam spaced correctly, the webs provide a place to hang horizontal steel rebar before the concrete pour, and each end of the web is a furring strip, which allows you to hang drywall, siding, or any sort of covering material directly to the block. Brick or stone can be attached directly to the block by screwing wire mesh into the furring strip and applying mortar. There is no need to stick-frame the interior of an ICF block wall, nor do you need to sheath the exterior, since the 3" thick foam is it's own moisture barrier. The webs are spaced 8" apart, so you have double the fastening points of a 16" on-center stud wall.

There are also several specialty blocks, including corner blocks, 45 degree angle blocks, brick ledge blocks, T-wall blocks, and taper-top blocks. These blocks allow for a variety of design choices in customizing ICF homes. Completed ICF homes look no different from stick-built homes, and the only way you can even tell is from the wall thickness.

Hopefully this has given you a brief glimpse into the world of ICF. I'll be covering this topic in even greater detail as the blog continues. In the meantime, feel free to ask any questions you might have in the comments. I will also be linking to various ICF resources, including my specific brand, in the near future.

Doug finished up the basement dig and the initial house grade on Tuesday. He did a fantastic job and the big hole looks incredible. Unfortunately, I have no stills of the completed basement hole. It appears I was using my video camera more than my still camera during this time. I will hopefully have some video clips of the action after the weekend.

In the meantime, here are some more pictures of the initial hole from Thursday:

That absolutely is not the shadow of the photographer in that picture. You must be drunk or something.


I had contacted the surveyor a week earlier to come out on Wednesday and stake out the corners of the house for my builder. I was already leery of the surveyor from the initial survey experience, and my further experiences with him continue to leave me unimpressed. You will not find his name here among my other, qualified and capable contractors.

Long story short, he did not show up as planned on Wednesday. On Thursday, I called him and he said that he had a message saying he could not start until after Wednesday. "No, I said ON WEDNESDAY." He was able to come out late Thursday to stake, but he had ignored my instructions to slide the house 5 feet to the east of where it was on the site plan, in order to leave extra room for the driveway. My builder, Dan Kesselring, asked him to just move it five feet, but he said that he would have to go back to his office and redo the calculations, costing us even more time.

Awesome, this guy. Just awesome.

Fortunately, Dan just had him stake out the house in the initial position and then moved the house over himself when the crew came to frame up the basement pad.

Late on Tuesday the 14th, our grader arrived with his extremely large Caterpillar Bulldozer in tow. This is the kind of beautiful machine that makes me weep like a baby and makes my wife roll her eyes and say, "So?" This beast was able to push 24" pine stumps out of the ground like they were mere weeds.

Gas mileage? Well, it's probably in gallons to the mile.

Our grader was an incredibly cool 73 year old man named Doug. Doug is retired, but he takes occasional grading work when the opportunity arrives. Mostly to get out of the house, I suspect.

Doug missed Wednesday due to a nasty burn incident. However, he was back at it on Thursday, pulling out stumps and beginning to dig out the hole for the basement, with almost no regard for the 100 degree weather and the bandage covering a good portion of his arm. That's the technical definition of hardcore, people.

The hole at the end of the day on Thursday



This is the dirt pile after one day. It got bigger.

On Monday the 13th, we kicked off two days of tree removal. Sadly, we had to take down 16 trees, mostly pines, in order to place the house and the septic tank. This is probably the least green part of the entire project. Don't worry, though, as there are something like 40 trees remaining on the property, including several specimen oak trees (30" diameter or greater) that were not touched.

We used our regular tree service, Wesig Tree Care. Pat Wesig, the owner, is a tree conservationist and has done work for us several times. He always does the job quickly and for a reasonable price. This time was no exception, as Pat and his crew took down and removed all 16 trees in less than two days, and had the site cleared out and ready for grading by late Tuesday afternoon.

Some of Wesig Tree Care's handiwork



These large oak trees at the front of the lot are protected in a tree save area

In order to catch up, I'm going to post descriptions of the work done by our contractors in weekly updates. After I catch up, I'll try and post at least a couple of times a week.

After an epic battle with the Planning and Development department of DeKalb County (a story for another time), our building permit was granted on Friday, August 10. I immediately called the Environmental Inspector, Mr. George Sharp (aka Sharpy), to schedule the final environmental inspection. Sharpy arrived within half an hour and gave the all clear to begin construction.

Building Permit - DeKalb County, GA





This is the lot prior to breaking ground

It would appear this site is running a little behind schedule, not unlike the house whose construction this site will chronicle. Welcome to my life.

My name is Chris, and over the course of the next few months, this blog will present a construction diary of sorts about the extremely energy efficient Craftsman style home that my wife Kim and I are building in an Eastern-lying suburb of Atlanta. This green house (in philosophy, if not in actual color) will be constructed using Insulated Concrete Forms and other environmentally friendly, energy efficient technologies and materials.

In the first four weeks of construction, I've already shot over two hours of video footage and dozens of still images. I hope to have these available for you in the coming days.

In addition to progress updates on the construction of the house, there will be occasional articles and information on the various technologies and materials used in building this home. If you have questions or comments, please join in the discussion.