"The Shed"

[Byron510]

It's funny that you mentioned the release part. We used diesel on the forms for the footing, and I thought I'd be doing the same here on the drain form. I had a finisher come by and look at the project. I wanted to discuss surface finish, hardness, possible use of concrete densities and hardners. We walked past the form, and he said he uses vegetable oil. It's cheap and environmentally friendly. So my next run to Cosco will involve a gallon of vegi oil.

Byron

[jason]

Really nice to see you get your house and dream shop Byron! Keep it the nice work!

[James]

YES. I am envious too. Well done.

[Byron510]

Don't be envious yet, wish me the strength and energy to get it finished!
This project feels like it dragging on endlessly. However it's simply just got too cold outside and I can't do concrete until temps come back up - for best results anyways. So I'm forced to make time. The 2 week outlook still isn't good, a pour doesn’t seem likely until well into February at this point.

However in this time I have reflected on the slab, and added hydronic in floor heating to the project list. This mostly thanks to my friends and you guys looking out for me. I picked up the heat loss calculations from the plumbing engineer today, and I'll deliver this with the updated insulation detail to the city tomorrow for approval. Then I can buy my $1500 in Pex and manifold parts, plus another $100 or so in tools for the job. But I still havn’t tied all those rebar intersections yet, so really I need to get my ass in gear!

But I have a question for anyone out there that might be able to help, as I can't find a good answer. Circuit spacing next to the footing walls and in front of the doors?
Attached you’ll find a copy of my insulation detail for background info.
Basically it’s;
2” extruded polystyrene on the outside of the footings (R10),
3” expanded polystyrene under the slab (R12),
R20 bat in the walls,
R28 min (maybe R40) in the ceiling. Possibly Rocksol in both walls and ceiling – not yet confirmed but leaning in that direction.
Doors are typically questionable, as I don’t believe the specs (R20 value at ¼” thick! I’m thinking not, but that’s what they have posted). Steel man door is unknown, prepare for negligible insulation factor.

Temp here in the winter rarely see -10C (15F) for any duration. According to statistical average, the coldest month is January, which sees 1-7 C (34-44 F), lowest ever being -17C (0F).
So when it comes to laying ½” circuits under 260’ in length, spacing these 12” apart, with 4x 6” spaced circuits around the outside footing walls. How far into the shop from the 16’ bay door (and 3’ man door for that matter) should the 6” spaced circuits go back into the slab? For a climate mentioned above, does anyone know?
Any educated insight out there would be helpful. Will the same 4x circuits at 6” be fine in front of the bay door, where the slab literally extends outside to the drain footing?

Byron

[two_68_510s]

http://www.avenir-online.com/AvenirWeb/ ... DHome.aspx

Give this a free trial, it might help you out.

[Byron510]

I've spent a few nights this week tying re-bar intersections and thankfully i have finished them all as of mid day today,. It took 5 rolls of wire to secure the 890 intersections. I was told I could have skipped every second one, but I wanted the grid to be stable as I will not start to tie the Pex tubing down for the heated floor.

I am so thankful however that this part of the job is completed. I am equally thankful however that I put styrofoam insulation down first. Not because it's necessary from an engineering point of view, but because it was way easier on my knees while kneeling down between the 16" grind of re-bar set at 1 1/2" high and complete this task of securing the intersections over the last couple of weeks.

[Byron510]

Another bit of preparation was also completed today on the drain trough form. I was advised this past week from a finished who dropped by that a very effective method of form releasing agent is simply vegetable oil. Now the standard seems to be diesel oil/fuel, applied with a brush or roller. Now I don't know about you guys, but I certainly like the idea of NOT getting diesel on my hands, or on anything - anywhere near where I work. So I took this suggestion to heart, and included a 5 gallon jug of oil on my Costco shopping trip one night this past week. Today I used a paint roller and tray to apply two coats, about 2 hours apart, to all surfaces of the form. And I didn't have to worry about anything that slopped on the ground, which did make me happy. I'll obviously turf the paint tray and roller as being soaked in oil, it likely would not be a good idea to use this any where near paint!

[Byron510]

Coming back to tying the wire on the re-bar intersections; I need to pass along a trick I devised in the process. Last weekend I posted that I liked the twisting tool which my good frined Dan suggested I look into purchasing. However, after about hours use, this twisting would start to hurt the hand and wrist. Also the job was still taking quite a bit of time. Well I took this twisting tool idea bit further....and added power, because anything that involves a power tool MUST be better

With very little on hand to form or fabricate a tool, I started with a simple 3" uncoated nail, and took the head off. Next, using the side cutters I bent the pointy end into a semi circle. and placed the nail in my trusty, and very week used, screw gun and placed the gun on high torque/low speed.

Man this worked like a hot damn. Turns out that you can buy this kind of tool, but this one cost me about $0.01 and worked for roughly 85% of the job - because 15% had been mostly completed with the hand twisting tool previously purchased ,and the first few dozed tied with side cutters.

Well, the bent nail worked like a hot damn - and I got really fast with it for the last half of the job. I'd say I completed the second half of the job in about 1/8 the time I was spending in the beginning. I'd say that was progress.

[Byron510]

And here is how I did it.

First I cut a pile of loops, bending them around a 1/2" bar and cutting them to length. My advise to you if you are doing this yourself - buy these pre-cut, because they are available, and so cheap that I used the same amount of money in wire that it would have cost to purchase them pre-made anyways! Mine were about 6-8" long.

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Next, feed the loop under the intersection and grab it with the hook on the drill and pull up. You'll be holding onto the two loose ends in one hand with the hook tool holding the other end.

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Pull up on both ends, and fold the loose ends over the hook and fold these down.

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[Byron510]

Now simply twist them by turning on the variable speed drill. The winding action pulls the bars together and you have a secure joint.

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It worked awesome.

The only way this tool could be better is if the steel were at least tool steel and the tool was tapered down the full length right to he point. This taper would aid pulling the hook out of the wire loop which is now quite tight. I struggled with a few depending on the angle, but honestly it wasn't that bad. Especially comparing the job to the hand twisting tool and the pliers I originally was using.

Next up - Pex tubing for heated floors, and a small concrete pad form outside the man door - which I barely started digging today.

Byron

[510rob]

solid.

[Byron510]

I spent the week in the Canadian Arctic (Inuvik, about 100km south of the arctic Ocean at the start of the Mackenzie Delta), but most of that time spent working, I found myself planning this coming weekend in my mind...
A lesson in Hydronics, or in floor heating. So, first up, I have to say there was significant outward pressure to "add" this feature; pressure from good friends and family. These influential people in my life are a god send, so it's only proper to take their advise into full consideration when warranted. I researched their advise, and came to the conclusion that they were right - in floor heating does make sense, and it really spoils us as users of the shed

So, last week I submitted the heat loss study, but I needed a planned layout. I didn't have much time this week to work on this as my work day was pretty much from wake up to hitting the hay. However the flight home from the arctic is not a short one, as the trip from Inuvik back to Vancouver covers just over 5 hours in the air - roughly equivalent to Vancouver - Montreal, or LA to NYC. Thursday was the day to return home - without a proper drawing program at my disposal, I made a 6 pixel grid in an excel spread sheet and literally mapped out my heating grid.

According to my heat loss calculations/study submitted to the city, 6 circuits were required. Ideally these are of equal length. This I was able to closly achieve at 230-250' per circuit. But man did it take a while to figure that out, I drew, altered, redrew, altered again - all the while manually counting the grid to achieve circuit lengths. But it was done, and I had a map to go by.

Friday morning I quickly dropped into the City Inspectors office, and talked the the guy who will inspect the job. Super nice guy, he gave me some hints, looked at the heat loss calcs and said I was on track - just give him a call when it's done and is under pressure (50 psi test to be completed with inspector present).

Friday late afternoon saw a trip to the plumbing wholesaler, and here's what $1400 will bring you home; 1500 feet of Oxybarrier Pex tubing,
a water manifold that includes valves and flow meters for each circuit, a motorized thermostatic control switch, and a couple pieces of black pipe and a 0-100 psi gauge for pressure testing.

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Friday evening I started by making up a jig of sorts that would hold and locate all 12 pipes at the manifold. This was simply done by taking three pieces of plywood, screwing them together and drilling out the feed and return line pattern – then drilled the holes. These were then fixed to the wall and I ran a test piece of pipe with an elbow on the bottom just the make sure I could insert the works for real – seemed to work fine; next!

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Saturday morning saw the 1000’ roll of pex up on a horizontal bar. My thoughts were that I’d simply pull off the lengths as I needed them, and this rolling action would help eliminate the tube from twisting – it sounded like a good idea. But in reality, as soon as I cut that clear plastic, that roll exploded into a spider web in short order! I pulled what I could to start the first circuit, but it quickly became clear that my dispensing of the tubing was failing – huge! So I then built a rolling drum out of plywood and 2x4’s, and an hour later this dispensing method did prove to work out much better.

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[Byron510]

Take II; back to that first circuit. The outside two circuits are placed at 6” apart, and the rest of the grid has a 1’ spacing. 6 hours into the day and I finished 1 ½ circuits – family duties interrupted, and that was the end of Saturday.

Sunday started early, and I picked up where I left off, finished off the second circuit, only to realize after it was in place - AND CUT - I realized I did not consult my painstakingly accurate mapping of the circuits – I missed a loop, cutting the circuit short by nearly 80’ – DAMN!!! Check twice, cut once – age old wisdom, should have followed it. The 150’ that was tied down at that moment was scrap, as I cannot have any joints in the system to pass inspection. I ripped out the circuit and started again. Also this meant that I was short of tubing as 1400 of the 1500 feet I bought was to be utilized.

From this point on I watched my own map very closely. Dear old dad came by mid morning, and things certainly progressed quicker with another set of hands on deck. However I feel bad for nearly killing him again, having the old guy on his knees all day. It was hard on me, so when we came to the second last circuit and he asked to stop kneeling – I could see where he was coming from. But he helped keep the tubing fed to me a strait line and held it down with his feet while I secured it with cable ties which was still a big assistance. I’m so thankful dad can comes by and lends a hand.

Here are some pics of what it all looks like tonight. I’m standing in the area missing the last circuit. I couldn’t buy the correct oxybarrier Pex locally today, so I’ll get some more this week and finish laying the last circuit.

[Byron510]

The manifold tree looks fairly orderly, and spacing accuracy of the tubes was kept to the map design. In this way I’ll know where absolutely every pipe is, should I ever need to drill a hole one day. In 4487 above, you'll note an area painted on the insulation in orange - there will be no hydronic tubes in this area - this is where my tubing bender and Hossfeld bender will be mounted to the floor.

The next job will be picking a location height for the manifold, cutting all the pipes to the right length and then installing the manifold itself.

[greenthumb]

meticulous attention to detail as usual Byron. That looks great. I may have missed this earlier, but what is your plan for heating the water?