[Greenbuilding] Which insulation? How to install?

[Sacie Lambertson]

Cistern integral to the house foundation is an excellent idea, one I wish I
had thought about when we poured ours.  We knew we would put one in, just
didn't think in the right sequence, so ended up with the more costly way of
having another hole dug and a big concrete box brought in afterward.  Works
well though; all the rain from our many small roofs go into it.

We plumbed for a second cistern too, for indoor use, in case water becomes
a problem in our area, as it probably will around the whole country in our
near future.

Sacie

On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 2:19 PM, RT <archilogic at yahoo.ca> wrote:

> On Mon, 28 May 2012 13:59:35 -0400, el Stronzo di Nord wrote:
>
>  On Sun, 27 May 2012 15:05:21 -0400, Eli Talking <
>> elitalking at rockbridge.net> wrote:
>>
>>  I was planning on the addition being built over grade slab,but one day
>>> my contractor client got so enthusiastic with
>>> her excavator that she assumed a crawlspace and excavated accordingly.
>>>  It will be a crawlspace.
>>>
>>
>> Rather than futz with all of the challenges/headaches associated with a
>> wood-frame floor, I'd tend to stick with the original plan to utilise a
>> slab as floor, but elevating it to the top of the stem wall foundation now
>> that a hole has been dug.
>>
>> It could be a suspended slab if it is desired to utilise the volume
>> beneath.
>>
>
> An addendum to the above would be:
>
> If there is sufficient height beneath the suspended slab and if the slab
> is an ordinary cast-in-place-on-top -of-re-usable/removable-forms type,
> with maybe a concrete beam to shorten the span of the slab...
>
> An idea worth reviving IMO is the "rainwater cistern in the basement" that
> was common in many (most ?) of the farmhouses built in the 19th and
> early-to-mid 20th C in my old neighbourhood of Oxford/Brant/Waterloo
> counties in SW Ontario.
>
> That cistern was the potable water supply for the house to help relieve
> some of the load on the groundwater well or in some cases, it was simply a
> more palatable alternative to high iron/sulphur content well water.
>
> In some more modern homes where there might be an attached garage, the
> cistern would be in the foundation volume beneath the garage floor slab. In
> some cases when the cistern was abandoned, a doorway would be punched
> through the foundation wall separating the basement and the ex-cistern and
> the cistern would be turned into a root cellar.
>
> --
> === * ===
> Rob Tom                                 AOD257
> Kanata, Ontario, Canada
>
> < A r c h i L o g i c  at  Y a h o o  dot  c a  >
> (manually winnow the chaff from my edress if you hit "reply")
>
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