log home and pond

[patrick_g]

Pat,
You should have turned that into an indoor swimming pool!

Hey, It isn't like I haven't heard that before

Lots of folks thought I was going to have an UNINTENTIONAL indoor swimming pool. You probably know the test you do for moisture in concrete before picking a floor or wall covering. I did the taped down square of plastic vapor barrier on outside walls and the floor slab and never got moisture not even a slight discoloration of the concrete so we were good to go with any floor or wall covering we wanted. I even put some porcelain tile down in part of the basement and that can't take hardly any moisture from the backside or it will pop loose.

When we excavated for the basement we had to dig a trench to let the accumulated ground water drain out or it would have been a swimming pool from the gitgo. I have pix of my wife beside big icecicles on the side of the excavation.

We used no membrane or painted on coatings or additives in the concrete. We did use a product called InsulDrain which is 4x8 sheets of 2 1/2 inch rigid foam with tongue and grove on the edges and a vertical and horizontal grid of channels on the side you turn out toward the back fill. The channel side os covered with a sheet of Tyvec filter cloth to keep the fines out of the channels. Any water in the back fill (gravel on bottom and sand on top) in contact with this insulation goes through the filter cloth into a channel and falls to the bottom where there is a 4 inch perforated drain pipe in washed septic gravel wrapped in geotextile. This pipe surrounds the basement at the level of the foundation and drains to daylight at a back yard pond. This drain and the two others have never stopped running clear water since their installation.

I have no sump or sump pump. There is a floor drain in the equipment room and it takes the condensate from the geothermal heat pump.

The only time water got in the basement is when I was settling the back fill sand with an engine driven 2 inch pump and got a little carried away and overflowed a spare hole in the wall sleeved with a plastic 2 inch conduit. Turned out we didn't need it as it has been plugged. The snap ties (part of the forming system) create channels for water to get through the wall but this only happed (just a little here and there) when I was at work with the pump turning the sand fill into a self compacting slurry.

I have had no water problems in the basement since the DIY pumping exercise during construction. This year set new records where we got more consecutive days of rain and more rain in the period than any other year since records have been kept. I had friends and relatives calling from out of state after they saw news coverage of Oklahoma floods to inquire about the basement. Absolutely dry. If ever there were to be a time for some basement moisture this was it.

The deal is that concrete will pass water under pressure even if it isn't cracked and most concrete has cracks even if they are very small. the InsulDrain product prevents a head of pressure by not allowing water to stand beside the wall. NO pressure, NO leaks.

Pat

 

[laurencen]

Well guys and gals it been a while but back at it, the pond is great, had a bad pour on the concrete basement, took a month to convince the contractor the concrete is poor, with open agregate and honeycombing its rough, figure its the enviroment of fast growth here in saskatchewan, too much work and little time, this week and next have a demolition crew removing the basement, then hopefully first week november re poured, we will miss the 15th november completion, looking like february now, have to dig a large hole for burying the concrete, my tractor will be buisy next few weeks, will take some pictures. On a good note our log home is standing, looks great but its 150 miles away and needs a home.

Laurence

 

[patrick_g]

Laurence, Sorry to hear of your setback. Stuff happens. Hopefully you will be on site before and during the second pour to inspect the forms and observe the pour since the contractor may be in the mood to cut corners to salvage what little $ he can.

Bummer, dude, In by Christmas, roaring fire, etc. Oh well.

Much more important to get it right than to get it quick. You don't want the opportunity to regret at your leisure what you do or allow to be done in haste.

Hang in there.

Pat

 

[laurencen]

Hi Pat, the concrete guy he used was told several times it did not look right, only told me it will be OK, well it was not, we had honeycombing all over, he got a engineer who as per building code the honeycombing can be 1 inch each side, in this case several areas were in excess of one inch so it comes out, I again will be watching the progress and definatly stop the guy if its not right, this was supose to be a no brainer and the first stage has issues, at least he knows what to do this time, figure the concrete guy had a few too many jobs on the go, cut corners and rushed the vibrating and this is the result. Digging a hole today, sure takes a while but at least we are out in the fresh air

 

[patrick_g]

Hi Pat, the concrete guy he used was told several times it did not look right, only told me it will be OK, well it was not, we had honeycombing all over,concrete guy had a few too many jobs on the go, cut corners and rushed the vibrating and this is the result. Digging a hole today, sure takes a while but at least we are out in the fresh air

There are WRONG ways to pour concrete that will tend to separate out the gravel from the "mud." One of many is improper use of a"back stop" board (typically a scrap of ply) to help keep the crete from overshooting the hole when dumping from a chute. Once separated out the gravel resists remixing by such methods as a vibratory concrete tamper and SHAZAM, honeycomb. I only got one very tiny little area of honeycomb, and it was just surface cosmetics, luckily. Wall was 12 inches thick so 1/2 inch of honeycomb on the surface of a small area was not too troubling.

Best of luck to you the second time around.

Pat

 

[laurencen]

Well its going slow now, we demolished the first basement and re poured a second, way better and now we have the rear walkout wall built, floor above and the floor nailed good but then came the snow, we need good weather in the 0 to -10deg C, its been in the -20s last 3 weeks and lots of snow. These pictures were taken 3 weeks ago, today the snow has drifted in some 6 feet deep at the back

 

[laurencen]

Here are some pictures of the log construction, it is being built about 175 miles north of us, then un assembled and like a large lego set assembled with seals and windows, thiugh with the snow here its looking like a project for early next year, we had a completion date of Nov 15th this year, we missed this, the basement was backfilled using a trackhoe and final to grade using the CK20, did not want heavy equipment packing the dirt around the basement walls due to pressure, nature will pack and settle the soil over time without point pressure on the walls

enjoy

 

[Wayne County Hose]

I don't know if it has been mentioned, but a company out of Minnesota called Aquacide makes all kinds of safe chemicals for ponds. I use their Aquacide pellets to control the cat-tail growth in my pond with absolutely no ill effects on insect or fish.

 

[cmhyland]

Add Trout to the pond... They eat Mosquito Larve.. And then you can eat them.... It's the circle of life.. you mave have to use some comercial trout food to supplement....

I have a neighbor with a pond like yours... The average trout is about 5lbs... 2 + Kilos.... A lot of fun on a light flyrod....

Regards,
Chris

 

[patrick_g]

the basement was backfilled using a trackhoe and final to grade using the CK20, did not want heavy equipment packing the dirt around the basement walls due to pressure, nature will pack and settle the soil over time without point pressure on the walls

enjoy

I backfilled my basement excavation with gravel wrapped in geotextile over the French drains but mostly with river sand, not particularly clean but suitable for fill. We did not use a plate compactor or heavy equipment. I backfilled with my little Kubota.

Then to compact the fill I used a 2 inch engine driven pump to make the sand into a slurry which self compacts when it drains naturally. There was no visible subsiding later on. It went easy and fast. The only down side was my accidently getting over zealous and getting slurry above a sleeve through the basement wall for wires. I forgot to plug it and I washed a couple wheel barrow loads of sand into the basement but with no permanent problem just some shoveling and sweeping.

The water table at my location was about 5 ft below the surface grade so the water is about 5 ft or more above the basement floor level but the wqalls and floor are virtually perfectly dry and when covered with plastic to test for moisture passage there is none indicated even after a week of coverage on wall and floor test spots.

Pat