I am going to have a well insulated house, or a very large ice chest!

Newt ran around yesterday tracking down the foam I wanted to use for under the floor. He had a challenge, because we didn't want to wait for a special shipment, so he had to visit multiple Home Depot stores to get all the foam that is needed for under the slab.

Today, the concrete contractors were busy laying it down. They added more gravel, so the plumbing was pretty well buried. Then they got the gravel evened out.

Here he is spreading the gravel and getting it roughly even.

 

Then he uses a screed, just like it was concrete, to get it very level, and even.

Once the gravel is evened out, he lays down the next piece of foam.

 

They are cutting out places for the plumbing to come up through before they can lay this piece down. You can see where the radon vent is sticking up through the other piece of foam. 

Once they get the foam sheets down, they are putting tape over the seams to hold it in place, and to work on making it resist passing vapors up from the ground.

Putting tape on seams.

When I left, they were expecting to be able to finish the foam, put a layer of plastic sheeting over top, and get the wire mesh down by lunch tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon if all goes well, I am going to go out, and paint lines where the walls, doors, windows, cabinets and radiant tubing will go. I am going to do that so that when Newt and I work on laying the tubing, it will already be worked out where everything is suppost to go.

With the walls and other features marked, if we decide to make a change to where we are laying the tubing, we will know where we should avoid. We don't want to lay tubing under cabinets, because it won't heat effectivly under them, and if food is stored in the cabinets, the food could go bad prematurely. I certainly don't want to put heat under my refrigerator. It is best to avoid putting the tubing under walls, because when they attach the walls to the concrete, they could punture a tube, if the tube is up too high in the concrete.

It looks like Newt and I are going to try to lay the PEX down on Saturday morning. I am not sure how successful we will be, since it can be difficult to bend it when it is cold, and Saturday is certainly not looking like balmy weather.


Now I have mentioned that we have quite a bit of wild life in the area. We also have interesting domesticated animals nearby. At one house on my road, they have peacocks. I decided to take a photo today through the windshield. It didn't turn out too bad, but I will have to get some when they have their tails spread.