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BACKGROUND & PROGRESS


(June9,'98)          The idea for this home project started about 25 years ago when Bill became interested in earth-sheltered houses. Our own experience started in 1996 when we acquired some beautiful wooded land (about 30 acres) on a hillside in what some call Virginia's "Little Switzerland."
          We selected a design from a catalog produced by Davis Caves Construction, a company belonging to Marty and Ruthanne Davis of Armington, Illinois (our daughter, Krista,  actually found them on the web - the rest is history!). We hoped to break ground in August 1998, and move in by Spring 1999(we did break ground in August, but didn't move in on time, as you'll see).

(Dec 27,'98)          Well, the good news is that we now have a house structure under roof! The builder poured the concrete roof (all 22 truckloads of it!) on Friday, Dec. 18, just before the cold weather set in. As soon as the Davis Caves Construction crew is finished with waterproofing the exterior, and our excavator, Highland Pipeland (run by Jim Skinner of Monterey, VA), finishes backfilling the dirt, we will have a house ready to enclose and finish!. By the middle of January we should have windows and exterior doors installed; then the local subcontractors start with all the inside "stuff" - you know, the electricity, plumbing, framed walls, drywall, painting, suspended ceiling (yes, we are having a suspended ceiling - in order  to have room to run any wires, cables, pipes, etc. later - thought this would be prudent in a house with concrete walls!), cabinets, etc. We are in the process of getting some pictures of the structure that will be suitable for posting - watch for them here and on the Davis Caves Construction site!          
          
(Mar 1, '99)          The exterior is virtually complete (stucco will be the last thing applied to the exterior surface, after all the interior work is finished). The interior walls are framed, the heat ducts are roughed in, and the plumbing is being installed. Next will come the electrical and telephone wiring, then in April the sheetrock and painting will be done. The suspended ceiling will follow, after which the heat vents can be completed, and cabinetry and floors can be installed. Hopefully, by summer '99, all will be complete!

(Feb 11, '00)     Well, we had a slight delay (of 7 months). We went back to Maryland and renovated and sold our house there. Now we are permanently in Virginia and slowly resuming work on Fox Run. The water system (well) is hooked up to the house now, and within the next week, the geothermal heat pump will be functional. The sheetrock is on the walls (with all utilities, wiring, etc. roughed in), ready to paint. However, painting must await construction of  the stone hearth and wall for our soapstone wood stove. We're told that it is a dirty, dusty job, and so painting must wait until that is finished. We are in the process of acquiring field stone for the stove wall.

(Mar 29,'00)     Talk about slow!!! What should have taken a week or so has stretched into a month - the geo-thermal heat pump is now fully functional! And it does a nice job of heating(and cooling) the entire house - hold the temperature to within one degree of what the thermostat is set on. It uses 2400 feet of pipe buried about 6 feet in the ground as a heat exchanger. It is based on the principle that temperature underground is nearly constant  all year, so it is more efficient to take heat out of the ground than it is to try and take heat out of air that may be well below freezing! In addition to having heat in the house, the well finally passed the contamination test (on the third try!), so we now have safe, potable water in the house. The stonemasons finished the fieldstone wall that backs up the wood stove, so now we are ready to clean the house thoroughly and begin the interior finishing.

    Before we can paint, we must parge the interior columns. Parging is basically applying a skim coat of concrete to the columns (or walls; we'll do the same thing to the exterior of the house at some point) to fill in rough spots, provide color to complement the wall paint, and cover the surface with whatever is the desired preference in texture. We are going to use a mixture of Portland cement, sand, water, and an acrylic polymer product called "Dynobond" that we found in Canada (see their website, dynobond.com, for details of their product). The Dynobond is waterproof, freezeproof, very adhesive, and adds strength to the parging material. The task before us now is to parge the columns before the carpenter builds ceiling soffits around them (for the suspended ceiling to attach to). We ended up first parging the interior columns with the cement/dynobond compound, then spraying them with a Rustoleum "stone-finish." It actually looks pretty good!


    (Dec 2000) Well, we still aren't in the house. We both went back to work, in the local area, which slowed things down considerably. We hope to resume work on the interior of the house in theSpring, and move in as soon as the appropriate plumbing, lighting, electrical outlets, flooring, cabinets, doors (interior), etc. are done - not completely, but sufficiently for us to "camp out" until the complete interior is done.

          Now(Summer 2001) it seems that, due to the cost overruns on concrete, electrical work, etc. we need some more money to finish the interior - but the lenders are scared off by the "alternative house style," so the work continues a little at a time.

       (November, 2001)Well! Good News!....we now have two working bathrooms (at least a full bath and a powder room, but nevertheless, two working toilets, sinks, etc. , plus one complete tub and shower!) ...the two rooms are painted, floor tile installed, doors hung, and fixtures installed!..we are awaiting electrical work (have been on the list fot a couple of months)....then we need to meet two more requirements to get a certificate of occupancy - more electrical work (outlets, switches, and lights, at least in the rooms we consider essential when we first move in), and a functional kitchen sink (which we are going to do by installing (temporarily) the laundry room base cabinet, counter top, and deep sink in the kitchen area)...of course, there are other things that we will choose to do before we move in, like hang a few more doors, put trim on doors and windows, paint some more, stain woodwork, and carpet a couple of rooms...so we are now projecting possibly moving in by late Spring 2002!