Walls, Windows & Roof

The biggest danger during this stage of the project is weather delays - until the walls are up and the roof is on you can't really do anything else. If possible try to plan the slab and underground works for just before Christmas, this will give your slab time to cure properly and the maximum 'nice weather window' for this work to be done.

We weren't organised enough and ended up having the slab done in January, which meant a couple of weeks of rain delays.

How it all plugs together...

Even though they are probably the largest physical portion of the house, they seemed to be relatively easy to handle in our case. I think that the reason they were relatively easy is that I was only dealing with 3 trades, and they didn't have to work on site at the same time.

Here's the order we did everything in;
1. Ground Floor Walls
2. First Floor Floor Trusses / Flooring
3. Ground Floor Roof Trusses
4. First Floor Exterior Walls
5. First Floor Roof Trusses
5. Measure up for windows and doors (don't go off the plans - being out by only a few mm can be a huge problem!)
6. Roofing
7. Ground and 1st Floor Internal Walls
7. Window and External Doors

This order is specific to our style of construction; if you're building brick veneer or other methods the order will be different.

The reason for this order is that our walls (EcoBlock) are a complete system incorporating structure, facade and insulation; this means that we can place the trusses directly on to the completed wall.

If it was standard brick veneer construction we would have needed to put up the frame and the brickwork separately. When this happens, generally speaking, all the framing is done at the same time (ground internal and external walls, 1st floor floor trusses, 1st floor internal and external walls and all of the roof trusses).

The walls are ICF (see the end of 'The Environment' page), which means we had a single crew set out and build the entire thing - no brickies, no carpenters, no insulation to install. The walls were 'poured' one floor at a time (about 3.2m), which is why we needed the first floor floor to be installed - they needed to work off it to set out and pour the 1st floor walls.

Once the ICF walls were up, we put the roof trusses on and had the roofing material installed, this made the inside relatively weather proof, allowing our windows, doors and internal stud walls to be installed without any weather hold ups.

I installed the windows and external doors myself with the help of a few relatives and friends, at the same time my carpenters were doing the stud walls, so when we got really stuck we called them in for a bit of helpful advice.

Things to plan before you start them...

As long as the walls, windows, doors and roof are in the right spot, there really aren't too many things that can be overlooked.

With an ICF house there is one thing that you can do prior to the pour that will make your life a lot easier down the track - much the same as with the slab, plan out where everything will go and install before the pour. Don't forget, sometimes things need to go through walls and into another room, so it's not just up and down, you need to consider 'across' also...

Even though you can cut out the EPS on the inside of the wall to run your services, it's much better not to for two reasons;
1. The EPS is a major piece of that R3.7+ insulation rating, chopping it out will have a reducing effect,
2. It is time consuming, messy work to cut the EPS out.

Things to plan for before the pour:
1. Electrical - power points, light switches, appliances, exterior lights, switchboards, etc.
2. Plumbing - taps, drains, shower heads, appliances, gas pipes, water pipes, etc.
3. Communications - data, intercom, doorbell, CCTV, security, home automation, TV antenna points, telephone points, etc.
4. Heating / Cooling - ducts, return air paths, vents, gas supply, refrigeration pipework, etc.
5. Miscellaneous - ducted vacuum pipework and points, safes, etc.

I made sure that I put in conduits for what I thought was all of my electrical and communications wiring (as it turns out I needed more). What I should have done was do a complete plan, the same way I did with the slab.

I should have sat down with my electrician and plumber over the drawings showing the fit out and planned where everything was going to be installed. They could have drawn it all on my plans then I could have gone through and installed conduits before the pour.

Where I did install the conduits everything worked out perfectly, it was a simple matter of inserting the cabling at one end and pulling it out of the other... so I can't see any reason why everything else wouldn't have worked out as well.

What we wanted to achieve...

Our goal was to have a home that would be cheap to run, nice to live in and stand the test of time.

We built out of Concrete and Steel, so the 'stand the test of time' part is well and truly under control, but from the point of view of being nice to live in and cheap to run, we had lighting and insulation to consider.

Generally speaking, the lowest insulation value anywhere in the structure of a house is the windows / doors, closely followed by the walls. This meant that we had to do something about increasing the insulation in these two areas to keep our bills down and our comfort levels up.

What we've done...

The easiest way to get around the insulation thing is to have no windows and only one door - great insulation, but causes a couple of compliance problems, means you'll spend a fortune in lighting and probably isn't going to be particularly nice to live in... so instead we had the house designed for maximum passive benefit, chose the best possible insulation on the product we used and supplemented the windows with 'E-screen' blinds.

Walls...
As I mentioned above and on 'The Environment' page, we built our walls from an ICF (EcoBlock).

EcoBlock in the wall size that we selected has an insulation rating (R value) of more than 3.7, with render and plaster it is even higher. So that took care of insulating our walls.

Windows...
Windows are a difficult one - on the one hand you want to let in as much light and free winter heating from the sun as possible, while on the other hand, you want to keep the heat in (or out) once the house is at a comfortable temperature.

Our answer to this was Double Glazed high performance windows, correctly sized eaves and a good choice of window furnishings.

Right from the outset we had our Architect design our house so that the areas we occupy the majority of the time all face directly north and have very large windows. This is so that we didn't have to turn on any lights until the sun goes down and also to take advantage of free heat from the sun.

To make sure that the free heat from the sun didn't make our house too hot during the summer months we also had him design our eaves to stop any direct sunlight from getting into the house from November through to February. He did a great job of that - on the longest day of the year (December 21st) there was a tiny bit of sun coming through the windows for a short period of time and on the shortest day of the year (June 21st) we had sunlight all the way from the windows to the other side of the rooms.

Even though we chose windows and doors with a 5 Star WERS rating, that is nothing like the R3.7+ rating the rest of our house has, so we also install 'E-Screen' blinds. E-Screen blinds claim to block very large percentages of heat from entering or escaping, while still letting plenty of light in - ideal for summer. Something you should know though - they also let the light out at night (so no walking around in your undies at night unless your neighbours are very close friends!).

A quick word of caution; 'Low Emissivity Glass' (Low E) stops heat getting in from the sun ALL year - no free heating in winter. If your eaves are sized correctly you should only have 'Low E' glass on the East and West facing windows (East is very debatable), and if your Architect is really good, there should be almost no windows on those sides of the house anyway (because the sun is so low in the sky in the East and West, it is virtually impossible to use eaves to control what time of the year sun 'shines in').

Roof...

Our roof is colourbond for a number of reasons;
1. It requires much less maintenance than a tile roof,
2. It heats and cools faster (which is what is needed for our Heat Recovery System and we have a Purging System for the hot months),
3. It is light weight and easier to install, which overall makes it cheaper (roof trusses are further apart, so there aren't as many and it is very quick to install so the labour costs are reduced),
4. It sounds great when it's raining

The colour of our roof was selected to be a good source of heat in winter for our Heat Recovery System (see Bits & Pieces - Supplementary Heating and Cooling), which is why we chose a darker, less 'reflective' colour. If your house doesn't utilise heat recovery, you should consider the lightest and most 'reflective' colour you can get to stop heat build up during the summer months.


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Out of the ground (Slab and underground works) The structure (Walls, windows and roof) Fit out (Plumbing, electrical, tiles, plaster & paint) The Environment Bits & Pieces
		Walls, Windows & Roof The biggest danger during this stage of the project is weather delays - until the walls are up and the roof is on you can't really do anything else. If possible try to plan the slab and underground works for just before Christmas, this will give your slab time to cure properly and the maximum 'nice weather window' for this work to be done. We weren't organised enough and ended up having the slab done in January, which meant a couple of weeks of rain delays. How it all plugs together... Even though they are probably the largest physical portion of the house, they seemed to be relatively easy to handle in our case. I think that the reason they were relatively easy is that I was only dealing with 3 trades, and they didn't have to work on site at the same time. Here's the order we did everything in; 1. Ground Floor Walls 2. First Floor Floor Trusses / Flooring 3. Ground Floor Roof Trusses 4. First Floor Exterior Walls 5. First Floor Roof Trusses 5. Measure up for windows and doors (don't go off the plans - being out by only a few mm can be a huge problem!) 6. Roofing 7. Ground and 1st Floor Internal Walls 7. Window and External Doors This order is specific to our style of construction; if you're building brick veneer or other methods the order will be different. The reason for this order is that our walls (EcoBlock) are a complete system incorporating structure, facade and insulation; this means that we can place the trusses directly on to the completed wall. If it was standard brick veneer construction we would have needed to put up the frame and the brickwork separately. When this happens, generally speaking, all the framing is done at the same time (ground internal and external walls, 1st floor floor trusses, 1st floor internal and external walls and all of the roof trusses). The walls are ICF (see the end of 'The Environment' page), which means we had a single crew set out and build the entire thing - no brickies, no carpenters, no insulation to install. The walls were 'poured' one floor at a time (about 3.2m), which is why we needed the first floor floor to be installed - they needed to work off it to set out and pour the 1st floor walls. Once the ICF walls were up, we put the roof trusses on and had the roofing material installed, this made the inside relatively weather proof, allowing our windows, doors and internal stud walls to be installed without any weather hold ups. I installed the windows and external doors myself with the help of a few relatives and friends, at the same time my carpenters were doing the stud walls, so when we got really stuck we called them in for a bit of helpful advice. *Things to plan before you start them...* As long as the walls, windows, doors and roof are in the right spot, there really aren't too many things that can be overlooked. With an ICF house there is one thing that you can do prior to the pour that will make your life a lot easier down the track - much the same as with the slab, plan out where everything will go and install before the pour. Don't forget, sometimes things need to go through walls and into another room, so it's not just up and down, you need to consider 'across' also... Even though you can cut out the EPS on the inside of the wall to run your services, it's much better not to for two reasons; 1. The EPS is a major piece of that R3.7+ insulation rating, chopping it out will have a reducing effect, 2. It is time consuming, messy work to cut the EPS out. Things to plan for before the pour: 1. Electrical - power points, light switches, appliances, exterior lights, switchboards, etc. 2. Plumbing - taps, drains, shower heads, appliances, gas pipes, water pipes, etc. 3. Communications - data, intercom, doorbell, CCTV, security, home automation, TV antenna points, telephone points, etc. 4. Heating / Cooling - ducts, return air paths, vents, gas supply, refrigeration pipework, etc. 5. Miscellaneous - ducted vacuum pipework and points, safes, etc. I made sure that I put in conduits for what I thought was all of my electrical and communications wiring (as it turns out I needed more). What I should have done was do a complete plan, the same way I did with the slab. I should have sat down with my electrician and plumber over the drawings showing the fit out and planned where everything was going to be installed. They could have drawn it all on my plans then I could have gone through and installed conduits before the pour. Where I did install the conduits everything worked out perfectly, it was a simple matter of inserting the cabling at one end and pulling it out of the other... so I can't see any reason why everything else wouldn't have worked out as well. What we wanted to achieve... Our goal was to have a home that would be cheap to run, nice to live in and stand the test of time. We built out of Concrete and Steel, so the 'stand the test of time' part is well and truly under control, but from the point of view of being nice to live in and cheap to run, we had lighting and insulation to consider. Generally speaking, the lowest insulation value anywhere in the structure of a house is the windows / doors, closely followed by the walls. This meant that we had to do something about increasing the insulation in these two areas to keep our bills down and our comfort levels up. *What we've done...* The easiest way to get around the insulation thing is to have no windows and only one door - great insulation, but causes a couple of compliance problems, means you'll spend a fortune in lighting and probably isn't going to be particularly nice to live in... so instead we had the house designed for maximum passive benefit, chose the best possible insulation on the product we used and supplemented the windows with 'E-screen' blinds. Walls... As I mentioned above and on 'The Environment' page, we built our walls from an ICF (EcoBlock). EcoBlock in the wall size that we selected has an insulation rating (R value) of more than 3.7, with render and plaster it is even higher. So that took care of insulating our walls. Windows... Windows are a difficult one - on the one hand you want to let in as much light and free winter heating from the sun as possible, while on the other hand, you want to keep the heat in (or out) once the house is at a comfortable temperature. Our answer to this was Double Glazed high performance windows, correctly sized eaves and a good choice of window furnishings. Right from the outset we had our Architect design our house so that the areas we occupy the majority of the time all face directly north and have very large windows. This is so that we didn't have to turn on any lights until the sun goes down and also to take advantage of free heat from the sun. To make sure that the free heat from the sun didn't make our house too hot during the summer months we also had him design our eaves to stop any direct sunlight from getting into the house from November through to February. He did a great job of that - on the longest day of the year (December 21st) there was a tiny bit of sun coming through the windows for a short period of time and on the shortest day of the year (June 21st) we had sunlight all the way from the windows to the other side of the rooms. Even though we chose windows and doors with a 5 Star WERS rating, that is nothing like the R3.7+ rating the rest of our house has, so we also install 'E-Screen' blinds. E-Screen blinds claim to block very large percentages of heat from entering or escaping, while still letting plenty of light in - ideal for summer. Something you should know though - they also let the light out at night (so no walking around in your undies at night unless your neighbours are very close friends!). A quick word of caution; 'Low Emissivity Glass' (Low E) stops heat getting in from the sun ALL year - no free heating in winter. If your eaves are sized correctly you should only have 'Low E' glass on the East and West facing windows (East is very debatable), and if your Architect is really good, there should be almost no windows on those sides of the house anyway (because the sun is so low in the sky in the East and West, it is virtually impossible to use eaves to control what time of the year sun 'shines in'). Roof... Our roof is colourbond for a number of reasons; 1. It requires much less maintenance than a tile roof, 2. It heats and cools faster (which is what is needed for our Heat Recovery System and we have a Purging System for the hot months), 3. It is light weight and easier to install, which overall makes it cheaper (roof trusses are further apart, so there aren't as many and it is very quick to install so the labour costs are reduced), 4. It sounds great when it's raining The colour of our roof was selected to be a good source of heat in winter for our Heat Recovery System (see Bits & Pieces - Supplementary Heating and Cooling), which is why we chose a darker, less 'reflective' colour. If your house doesn't utilise heat recovery, you should consider the lightest and most 'reflective' colour you can get to stop heat build up during the summer months.