Craftsmanship in Concrete – Alterstudio House Progress

Slab on grade Concrete foundation.

2×6 SYP lumber for forms. Note the mitered corners.

After slab pad is compacted we dig beams and install a vapor barrier and a ton of rebar. Note the rebar above slab for a house board-formed wall post-pour.

Notice the Metal bands set into the slab? These will be part of the future site-built windows!

Lots of rebar sticking up through the slab to incorporate into the future board-formed concrete house walls.

David Moody on the left is the Project Manager, Matt Risinger in the middle, and Eric Rauser, AIA on the right. We have an amazing team and that’s what’s needed for these complex projects.

Fiberglass wall ties on your left and Metal ties on your right. We tested both on a mockup wall.

Here’s the fiberglass tie. Pretty neat system.

We have glass dying into concrete walls on the house so we mocked up the recess channel for windows.

Nothing like Board Form! Texture and look are so unique.

Close up on the fiberglass tie.

Close-up on the metal tie.

Mock up wall we built to show some options to Architect & Clients

We had a 2″ sandwich of Owens Corning XPS foam in the exterior concrete walls to separate the inside from out.

The vertical walls are really where the craftsmanship shows. Tons of work into making these forms near perfect.

Removing the fiberglass wall ties. We cut them flush and they are so hard to see.

Plywood end caps for protection.

Architect Ernesto Cragnolino, AIA onsite for a meeting. The plans from Alterstudio have been superb.

Main family room fireplace inside a board formed wall. We used an Isokern masonry insert.

Notice the tape and caulk used to contain the concrete as it wants to seep out onto the existing slab. There is no additional flooring over this slab so great pains have been taken to protect it.

Complicated wall with fireplace.

Notice the blue tape at the bottom of the wall formwork.

Cross-section of a wall with foam.

Thought these roof trusses made a cool shadow.

Here’s the completed Family Room fireplace wals.

We framed the whole house with LSL Timberstrand studs. These man-made 2×6’s are perfect straight and will give use near-flawless smooth drywall.

LSL Studs are especially helpful in kitchen walls like this one. Walls behind cabinets MUST be flat.

Notice we sheathed the house with CDX plywood. I like having the real plywood so that we have some hygric bu

Hallway to Master with some raking light need to be straight & flat. LSL studs get me there.

Notice the 2′ Strip of Pressure Treated CDX on the bottom, then regular plywood above.

No overhangs on this elevation so we used a more “bullet proof” weather-resistive barrier WRB. This is a 40 Mil peel & stick product from Polyguard

We use mulch against the board-form walls to ensure mud isn’t splashed on the concrete. We’ve found those stains are tough to remove later. Better to prevent them to begin with.

Alum-a-flash WRB from Polyguard.

This is my first house with this WRB but we really like it. The silver face gives much longer UV resistance than a non-faced product. They say it can go 12 months before cladding is installed.

The nearly flat roof has internal gutters you can see on the right then the fascia is steel.

Steel fascia and internal gutter system.

TPO inside the integral gutters.

Most of the exterior windows are site glazed steel and you can see the steel dividers in this picture.

Fleetwood sliding doors with custom color are a nice complement to the steel windows.