Why ICF?

We will be using Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF) for the walls of the buildings. The best description I’ve every heard for ICF is “stay in place concrete forming that provides insulation after the concrete is poured.” We will be using a 3.125 thick inter and outer panels to give a continuous R value of 28, with the thermal mass of a solid 6 inch concrete wall.

The Quadlock system is one of about a dozen different ICF systems, all have good points and bad points. We chose the Quadlock system because it is very DIY friendly and ships in a flat pack so it takes fewer trucks to deliver a project this size. Quadlock also has 3 1/8 thick panels most others offer a 2 1/4 inch thick panel, this gives a better r value and blowout protection when filling with concrete.

Building code is changing, and more and more often a continuous insulation is required to achieve the insulative value required, a 2×6 wall with R28 cavity insulation has an effective R value of R19 if you have total air sealing, an ICF wall with a value of R28 has an effective rating of R28 I used the Applied Building Science calculator to get the stud wall values.

I had the distinct pleasure of attending a two day conference with Joseph Lstiburek the man that may not have invented building science, did make it main stream. Based on the work by Joe and his team I am striving to have a house that is orders of magnitude tighter than the standard track build house, and 10 times tighter than the upcoming code changes in 2021.

For more information check out the Quadlock site. If you are really interested or really bored the Quadlock training video gives a pretty good overview of the process.

First Pour

We are building three buildings, House, Guest House, and Shop, because of the size of the project the concrete contractor has agreed that the two out buildings slabs will be poured, then the main house, then the walls of the out buildings, and finally the the walls of the house.

The day started early with the crews and pump trucks arriving at 5:30

38 meter pump truck.

The crews hung out till 6:50 when the first concrete trucks showed up. They had a crew of 17 workers and no one was ordering workers around, everyone knew what needed to be done next and just did it. One of the lead men did find a Supervisor.

Supervisor

By one thirty the crews were picking up and getting ready to call it a day.

Guest House.

So the guest house and shop foundations are curing and we will be starting to set the walls this week, and they should be pouring the foundation for the main house soon.

Why Kerrville

Why Kerrville, I worked in Kerrville back in the 80’s as a contractor for Hill County Telephone Coop. I loved the town and the people, in 2000 SBC relocated Becky and I to San Antonio and we would take day trips to Fredericksburg and Kerrville to visit wineries and museums. When we were approaching retirement we started looking for land to build our dream house, in 2017 we looked at properties from Spring Branch and Blanco around the Texas Hill Country around to Fredericksburg to Kerrville. Becky had the rules that it had to be close to an H-E-B, and a Hospital. She didn’t want to be 60 minutes from the nearest doctor or grocery store. With a population of 52,000 Kerr county isn’t tiny, but it is much smaller and more laid back than Houston or San Antonio.

When this property hit the market I drove out with my daughter that Saturday and liked what I saw. Becky and I drove out the following day and she agreed that it was what we were looking for, and we made an offer that day. After three years of planning and about 100 versions of the floor plans we decided it was time to start construction.

High points of Kerrville

The weather, our lot is from 1954 to 1830 foot above sea level, we have almost as much elevation from the building site to the bottom of the valley than from Galveston to Katy. Kerrville temperatures run 4 to 10 degrees cooler than San Antonio or Austin. Humidity is 3 to 8% lower than San Antonio and we are only 60 miles away. Because of the lower humidity, it gets hot a little faster, and cool much faster. There are more heating hours and much fewer heating hours than San Antonio, so it is much more friendly to sitting around outside in the evenings and enjoying a camp fire.

Attractions.

The Museum of Western Art

Kerrville Hills Winery

We are located about 30 miles from Fredericksburg and the start of the Texas Wine Trail and the National Museum of the Pacific War and 60 miles from San Antonio.

All Approvals

We have all the necessary approvals from the HOA and the Bank and we start construction soon. I’ll be taking before pictures soon and should be posting more updates.

Playing with the drone

Took the drone out this morning to get a few picture to the east so that I could get at feel for the view once the cedars are removed.

This picture was taken at about 30 feet up.

As was this one, both are facing east down the hill from the front of the property.

This picture was taken at about 65 foot above the ground facing the same direction.

The Start of the Journey

We have purchased 10.72 acres in the Texas Hill Country just south of Kerrville.  I will be documenting the whole process from clearing the land to hanging the pictures on the walls.

With the damage caused by hurricane Harvey we will delay building for about two years to let costs come back to normal and allow us time to get the cedars cleared and our home designed.