need concrete advice please!

[vojacek]

we're building the 2 story universal cottage on slab. we plan on staining the concrete. we will hire the truck to come pour,(21yards@$75/yard) but will be doing everything else ourselves. any advice? i really want a nice finish, and have seen some local houses under constuction that have large circular markings. how is this achieved? i have tried calling contractors here, but everyone wants a job and is no help for a owner/builder.

[Tim Baughman]

There is a site I go to that has the info you're requesting. It's a DYI'er who had a bermed house built in Maryland. They stained there own concrete floors. These folks are really good to answer questions. Also they have their own forum for questions.

The web site is as follows:

http://www.ourcoolhouse.com/

Best of Luck

God Bless
Tim

[glenn kangiser]

There are two ways of getting large circular markings on the slab.  One is a troweling machine.  They usually have 4 blades that are 3 or 4 feet in diameter kind of like a 4 bladed lawn mower with no wheels.  Here is a picture from a site with more pictures- link below.
http://www.gymart.com/weareconcrete.html

To make it go left you lift the handle up- right push down -holding up slightly balances it.  The blades are adjustable pitch running lower on softer concrete and higher as it gets harder.  The machine can be rented at a contractor supply.  The other way of getting the circular marks is by a skilled concrete finisher manually troweling it off by hand on knee boards like this.



I highly recommend in fact I insist (bossy ain't I) on you finding a few helpers familiar with concrete work to help you do your slab.  You have a few critical hours to maybe a few frantic hours if it starts setting too fast and gets away.  Once it sets up you may own a giant lumpy unusable mess.  Many times you can go to a local concrete company and ask if they know workers who do side concrete finishing jobs, assist with forming and are willing to help owner builders doing their own work.  This may require you doing your pour on a Saturday.  I have never had trouble getting extra help this way and have poured or overseen the pouring of about 300 slabs average 2400 square feet.  I also removed a 3000 square footer when it got away from my men on a hot summer day.  You pay for removal too

That said,  after the concrete is poured -rodded off, tamped and bull floated, get after all the edges, work around pipes and problem areas - run an edger around it even if it seems too wet because later you may not have time and the rocks will be down making it easier to finish as it is setting.  If you use a machine you will want to steel trowel the edges by hand as the machine will not usually work too close to the edges.  If all stake tops are kept below the edge of the forms then the machine may be allowed to go over the edge of the form slightly.

What will the outside temp be when you pour.  What skill levels of help do you have now

For this size house I would recommend at least 3 skilled people and a couple helpers.  Possibly less if the skilled people are good and have all necessary tools.  For acid etching you will want a smooth finished floor.  What you see is what you get.

Much more info.
http://www.concretenetwork.com/index.html

[Shelley]

If you're pouring all 21 yds at once, listen to Glenn.  You need help.

 Course, you could do smaller batches and be creative where the expansion joints go.

As himself loves to say any chance he gets, "concrete is like a woman Shelley...it can turn on you at any time"

Didn't look, but think that Gay Goodman of www.fauxrealfloors.com suggests not power troweling it.  Stain doesn't absorb as well.  I'd probably risk it if it were me.  I'd want the smooth finish.

 I prefer colored concrete burned with a power trowel to get a mottled color.....but I've said that b4.

[vojacek]

thanks for the great advice and links. we're starting to realize what we've gotten ourselves into. but with my good attitude, my husband's ADHD, some pretty skilled friends and awholelotta shiner, we might make it. so if you don't see some progression photos soon, it means we gave up, sold out and bought one of those particle board houses.  :'( just kidding.... thanks again
mrs.v

[Daddymem]

Yes on the pictures please!  We are meeting with a contractor tonight and the universal is one of our homes to go over and one thing that is missing is a good set of pictures of one of these houses.  The closest we figured out was that the first floor is similar to John's saltbox (same general layout).

[glenn kangiser]

I have to take a work break so will check back tomorrow night.

After you get that slab under control have a Shiner for me, Mrs V.  I'm confident you can do it as long as you have some experienced help.

Shelley, you did not tell me your husband was a man of such infinite wisdom.  That analogy is so straightforward anybody can understand it.

[Amanda_931]

Yes, this is on-topic.   See a couple of paragraphs down.

There's a new video (DVD) out, Building With Awareness, in which we get to watch an "as green as possible" but "with Aesthetics" Straw Bale house being built--under code--in New Mexico.

I did learn why some people in that area are calling a "clay-straw" mixture cob--these guys are adamant about calling their 75%sand/25%clay mixture that they bought from an adobe supplier mud and occasionally even clay.

But the designer did do his slab floor in a way that took only two buddies and himself, stained it and surface distressed it so that in the video it looks a lot like stone.

Basically they poured it in wheelbarrow-loads with irregular edges, and if it didn't look right put more lines in to grout along with the lines between wheelbarrow-loads.  

Apparently he's been living there for a couple of years now with no particular problems.

It does hit a bunch of my design hot buttons--Loft bedroom accessible by ladder, have to go through the kitchen to get to the bathroom, battery bank for the house is in the house (door only from outside, but still.  And furthermore they had it set up on their shed roof and moved it the 25 feet to the house--why I don't know)

I do believe that I've seen 400 sf houses that managed space better than that 600 sf one.  Although if they were counting outside measurements, it might be close.  There's a foot-wide adobe wall for interior thermal mass, for instance.

Two different people teach you how to do earth plaster, though.  And they're good.  I've got a booklet by one of them.

AND you get to sit through what seems like a twenty-minute disclaimer--we aren't liable for anything up to and including a defective DVD, AND click that you accept their terms.  And the woman announcer's voice drives me nuts.  The music is a little much too--but it was composed for the occaion!

But the production values are excellent.  And with this kind of video that really is important.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0007RDR7E/104-3912253-9893536?v=glance

[conohawk]

... and a whole lotta shiner ...

Shiner indeed!  This displaced (some would say exiled) Texan was mighty glad to find Shiner being carried by a local grocery here in Bellingham, WA last summer (just as I was clearing my property and building the first structure).  

[conohawk]

... There's a new video (DVD) out, Building With Awareness ...

I have watched the DVD twice now (once with my small children in the room, and once when I could pay attention).  

What came as a very pleasant surprise was the amount of detail provided for subjects as diverse as graywater plumbing,  plaster composition, and rubble trench design.

By the way, the builder of the house, Ted Owens, has been very quick to respond to emails containing follow-up questions and comments.  Also, he is considering putting together a companion text (in electronic format).

[Amanda_931]

Yes, it's not like going to a workshop and all you have to do is toss bales around.

Walls are the easy part of building a house.  Straightforward fast and easy.  (unless you're having to peel green logs, and then set them--green--on the foundation with a tractor!)

There's a nice chapter on installing under-floor pex tubing for his heating system.  (none under the shower, though).

[John Raabe]

I will be doing a review of this DVD in the near future. The website link and trailer looks quite good.

[DavidLeBlanc]

Amanda;

You and I seem to agree on a couple of things: loft bedrooms and bathrooms off of kitchens. Neither appeals to me either!

I would be most interested to know how you would lay out a 400 sq. ft. house better than the NM 600 sq. ft. one!!

I imagine the reason for the batteries and solar cells being on/in the house itself is a matter of efficiency. One loses a lot by moving DC over power cables even fairly short distances. That's why Westinghouse's AC beat Edison's DC for the US power grid.

[Amanda_931]

I think the only thing Owens uses with DC is one of his pumps--cistern not well--although I was surprised to hear him say the deep-by-east-coast-standards well pump was 110 and not 220.

In one of my--fruitless--attempts to get running water up here I was going to go PV direct to an "improved" spring (we did it wrong!! way down the hill.  It seemed stupid to go from 12v to 120 to go down the hill and then back to 12 v for the pump--dankoff slow-pump looked like the best of the lot.  But seems like it was over a thousand dollars worth of wiring.   So yes, I know.  (Complicated story, at least three other pressing reasons for not doing it.)

[Amanda_931]

There's a Southern Living cabin plan that goes like this.

Imagine a 20 x 20 square--actually it was at least one foot larger.  Run a wall (or an overhead beam?) maybe 6-7 feet from one of the walls.

With built in dressers/closet 12-14 feet of this smaller cut makes a bed room  Not room for much else.   curtained archways, not doors.  The rest of it is divided into storage cabinet and between that and the wall, a very small hall and a tiny bathroom.  And then the 12 x 20 area becomes kitchen/living room.  Front and back doors, plans show covered porches front and rear.

Can't find it with a search just now.