Turns out that despite its strength for construction, the concrete is really inefficient for radiant heating. In order to combat the inefficiency of the concrete, the plumbers have been busy laying insulation. I don't think I have ever seen such a highly insulated house before!
The plumbers started last week in the cellar. Since its the cellar, they began with a moisture barrier. Once the entire floor was covered with the moisture barrier, the plumbers then covered the entire cellar floor with one inch of styrofoam. The most amazing thing is how tedious a process covering the floor with insulation can be. The insulation comes in sheets, about 3 ft. long by 2 ft wide, which need to be cut to fit close to perfectly. It was like the floor was tiled with styrofoam. By the end of the day on Thursday, our cellar was beautifully tiled with styrofoam. And then, the fateful question posed by Joern to the plumbers: "Can you drill a hole from oustide the house into the cellar?" Joern has a grand plan to run a wire underground between his parents house and our house, to connect to our central house computer, as Joern will then be able to work at his parents house on our computer. This goes with our anit-WiFi stance (not because of electro-smog, but because WiFi is annoyingly slow,) plus it would take a really strong signal to communicate between Joern's parents' house and our cellar. So, before the day ended on Thursday, a beautiful hole was dug into the top of our cellar for Joern's cable.
On Friday morning, Joern and I headed to the bakery to pick up breakfast, and we left my cousin, Elizabeth at the apartment to sleep. When we got back, Elizabeth was awake, with news, Joern's dad had called, and said there was a "small problem with the house." Turns out that no one bothered to cover the beautiful hole, and we had quite a bit of rain on Thursday night. The plumbers arrived on Friday morning to about 1/2" of muddy water filling most of our cellar! They need to pump out the cellar and remove all the insulation and moisture barrier, so that everything could dry out!
This is now what our cellar looks like:
A little sad, because this was much farther along last week :(
The plumbers decided to ensure proper drying, that they would begin this week insulating the top two floors, and then returning to the cellar last. Poor guys. But after two days, there was some major progress.
The plumbers decided to ensure proper drying, that they would begin this week insulating the top two floors, and then returning to the cellar last. Poor guys. But after two days, there was some major progress.
Our foyer, filled with insulation
We found out that the radiant heating tubing does not lie on top of those styrofoam tiles. Nope. Another layer of styrofoam, about another 1/2" thick, covered with a rather thick plastic goes on top of those styrofoam tiles! So, we have at least 1" of styrofoam insulation between our concrete floors and the radiant heating! No hot ceilings in our house! Here is a good view of both layers in the kitchen;
The styrofoam tiles on the bottom also had to be cut with a special burining tool to create channels for the pipes and tubes running along the floor:
And this is what it looks like when installed on the floor:
In some cases though, it would be too much work to cut out the styrofoam. There is a special material that is used like a "grout" between the tiles to create a tightly insulated cover, which they also used to insulate around the longer pipes:
As of last night, most of the first floor was completed and the second floor is finished:
Living Room:
Master Bedroom:
I even found a surprise when I walked into the master bath:
We have a bathtub! It will be installed within the week, as it must be installed before the Estrich (the untranslatable concreteish layer that is poured over the radiant heating,) which is set for next week!
I realize that the progress isn't overwhelming like it was during the building phase, the interior isn't as easy to notice the changes. But, now I realize that every time something is completed now in the interior, the house begins to look more and more like a home!
