Putting a Lid on Things

In mid January, the weather finally warmed up enough to get the new roof put on the smaller section of the building.  We had been waiting for months, as the roofing crews could not install the nifty new membrane roofing system.

Unlike traditional hot tar roofing of days gone by, the newer technology is a heat fused synthetic envelope that once installed, forms a completely sealed, one piece membrane with no seams, no chances for water to penetrate as the roof ages.

The company installing ours, Buck Roofing from Merriam Kansas is yet another company I have worked with in the past and had nothing but good experiences.

First task was to tear off the years of old hot tar roofing so we could take a look at the wooden decking underneath.  Some damage we knew about, the termite damage was a bit of a nasty surprise.  No worries tho, we replaced the bad decking and treated the termite damage just in case they ever decided to come back.  While we did have the entire building treated prior to the concrete pour, it never hurts to make sure...

 After the tear off, the insulation layers went down.  Just 3 inches of foam decking gives us not only an R-30 insulation layer, it provides a cushion under the membrane roofing in case of impact from hail, ice, Santa's Reindeer, etc.  Once complete the roof will be rated for full pedestrian traffic, much as a restaurant rooftop rooftop deck may have.

Foam down, the guys started laying the membrane.  Blinding white, it will provide us a reflective barrier against the summer sun, hopefully cutting our cooling bills even further.

Completed, the roof is amazing looking.  Can't wait for a good hard rain to test it out!

Thanks to the guys at Buck Roofing, they did a fantastic job.

The Concrete Must Flow!

The big day finally arrived!  It was time to get the concrete poured and the real work of building out the new digs could get underway.

It was cold, arguably too cold to pour, but as we were indoors and rented some HUGE heaters, we decided to get it done.

Dan Wilson Concrete showed up with some huge trucks, a concrete pumper and some of the hardest working guys I have run into in a long, long time.  Concrete work is largely done by hand.  Until you see just how much, it is hard to believe.

 

The day began by simply getting the pour started.  Amazingly, that was the easy part.

 

The pumper was able to get the concrete into almost every corner of the building.  If not, they were looking at using wheel barrows to haul it in by hand.  Glad it worked...

It took most of the morning to get it all poured, leveled and floated.  Once it started to set, the incredibly difficult job of final floating and polishing the floor began.

Yep, he is wearing concrete skates on his knees.  These allowed him to hand float the hard to get and finicky areas.

 

Turns out they ended up hand floating almost 4000 square feet of concrete!

 

Finally, they broke out the power floats.  These polished the concrete to a high shine.

Again, I have to say, this was an amazingly hard day of work for these guys, they deserve every penny they make, possibly a lot more!

I wish I had really good pics of the finished floor, it is a thing of beauty.  Unfortunately the extreme cold kept fogging the lenses of my camera so most of my shorts were ruined.

Next:  HVAC, Framing and the rough in begins!

Radiant Heat System

One of the coolest thing we are investing in for the new building is a fully heated, radiant floor system.  After looking at both electric and water based hydronic, the hydronic system got the nod.  Basically it is a system of tubing that carries heated water through the concrete, warming it and then the room.  The preparation is significant and most of it had to be completed before the concrete was poured.

Our system was designed and built by the good folks at ECS Geothermal.  They had the most competitive bid and were enthused by the possibility of adding a solar boosting system I have designed to the package. 

First step was laying a reflective barrier down on top of the gravel.  This will prevent the cold of the soil under the slab from leaching heat from our nice warm concrete, while additionally reflecting the heat back up through the slab.  It came in gigantic rolls, Nita and I had a grand time getting it all set.

 

 

 Nice look for a floor, but a bit too Sci-Fi for me...

Once the reflective barrier was down, Dan and the guys from Wilson Concrete came back in to install the rebar grid that the tubing will be attached to(as well as adding strength to the concrete slab)

 

Grid installed, the ECS crew started the process of laying several hundred feet of 3/4 inch PEX tubing onto the rebar.  This is the tubing that will carry the hot water from the heaters through the floor.  Set on 8" centers, it was a ton of work for them to get it all arranged and secured.

The manifold set.  This is what will connect to the valves to distribute the hot water.

Next, the concrete must flow!

Gravel and Frikkin Lazers

Now that the plumbing has passed inspection, the gravel bed was next on the list of things to do before we could pour the new concrete.

Dan busted out the Bobcat and got to work laying in the gravel.  To make sure it was level as possible, they used a frikken laser system that was checked the bed every few inches.

 

Checking the level.

 Even with the Bobcat, and believe me, Dan is an amazingly talented guy in that thing, this was incredibly hard work.  These guys busted their asses to get the bed as dead level as possible.  I hope they had a few days off after this!

Level, pretty and ready to go!

Infrastructure Begins

 Now that we have a nice big field of mud to play with, it is time to start getting some of the mechanical infrastructure dug in.


First up, Plumbing!

After the usual bid process, we opted to go with another local company for our plumbing work.  Fred Pflumm Plumbing came in well under budget and had by far the most professional walk through of the project.  We are thrilled to be working with them

As Tim and the guys started in, we ran into the usual oddball issues with our old building.  The main sewage line to the city was no where near where we suspected it was, and it turns out that some of the demolition work done back in the 1970s was just thrown in a hole and buried in place.  That meant Tim and the guys had to bust out a small digger to get through many feet of broken brick and concrete to find what they needed.

 Over a short weekend, the guys from Pflumm got the underground plumbing in and ready for inspection.  This part of the process went amazingly fast.  The process began on a Saturday and we had the inspection passed by Tuesday afternoon.  The drain system was fully tested.  A 10 foot standpipe was connected to the drains and filled with water.  As all the drains we capped off, any leak in the system would be revealed by this low pressure test.  After 12 hours, no leaks and the inspector passed us with flying colours.

 When we purchased the building, I knew there were a few oddities here and there.  One of the more fun things we found was this gem.  The old water line came out of the meter about 4 foot deep and some some odd reason, was bent up and put through the wall above ground level.  I honestly have no clue why this may have been done.  It makes no sense at all...

Tim and the guys buried a brand new copper line 4 foot down in the soil and penetrated the wall at that depth so freezing should not be much of an issue now.

I am still perplexed by this miracle of modern plumbing.  (Ignore my foot in the pic)

 Once the plumbing was tested and inspected, it was time for Dan and the guys to come back in and get the gravel down in preparation for the concrete.