Building our Adobe Home

Cool comfort in the summer.

2011-11-16T12:28:00.001-07:00

We promised to add a review of the summer performance of our adobe home and here it is. Although temperatures get up into the 90's during the hottest days of the summer the overnight temperatures drop down into the 50's on most nights. Although refrigerated a/c or evaporative coolers (swamp coolers) are used almost universally in the area, we chose to have absolutely no assisted cooling in our adobe other than the beautiful characteristics of the thick adobe walls.

Opening the lower panes of the windows on the south and the upper panes of the windows on north, and with the help of prevailing breezes from the south, cool air flows in, warm air flows out, and the thermal mass inside the home (thick adobe walls and brick-on-sand floors) cools down overnight. This cool interior combined with quality insulation, and a limited number of small windows on the north, east and west keeps the home comfortable throughout the heat of the day as the following graph covering two weeks in August, 2011 clearly illustrates.

Outside temperatures (red) vary from a high of 98°F (37°C) to a low of 53ºF (12°C). Inside temperatures (green) stayed in a comfortable range from a high of 78°F (26°C) to a low of 68°F (20°C).

Passive Solar Heating Works!

2011-02-25T08:43:00.001-07:00

With the weather back to normal it is interesting to see how the temperatures in our adobe home are maintained throughout the outside temperature cycles. Here you can see how the winter sun covers much of the room via the south-facing windows. The trombe walls (seven in all) stay approximately 80° on the inside surface continuously radiating warmth into the rooms. During the day the sun directly warms the brick floors and inside adobe walls. These continue to warm the rooms overnight when we lower the insulating shades over the windows. The shades help keep the warmth from escaping during the night. The end result (see the temperature graph below) is very impressive. Although the outside temperature drops as low as 20° and never gets above 65° (these are normal for this time of year) the room temperatures stay comfortable. With our thermostats set at 63° the radiant heat boiler never came on during the entire week surveyed. You can see the room temperature rose as high as 76° and only dipped below 65° once (on a cloudy day).

Of course around the 1st of February when we experienced a low of -30°, our boiler had to work to keep the room temperatures at 63°. However, even when the outside temps hovered around 0° during the day, the sun warmed up the rooms to almost 70°. I would conclude that our passive solar system combined with the thick adobe walls really works to save energy costs and keep the home very comfortable.

In the summer we will be back to report on the solar adobe's performance in the summer heat.

Living a Dream.

2011-01-30T08:02:00.004-07:00

Living room with kitchen in the background.

I have to admit, there were times when I didn't know if we would get everything completed and actually move into our dream home, but here we are, all moved in and loving every minute of it.

It is hard to capture the true essence of the home with photos, but here you can see some of our favorite design elements.

The living room is where we spend most of our time. We can visit, watch TV, enjoy the fireplace, or just hang out whether we are working in the kitchen or snacking in the breakfast nook (to the left of the kitchen in the photo). The door leading in from the air lock entry is on the right.

Solar Heat

We moved in on 3 December and for the first 5 days we had no heat (the propane tank was not hooked up). We had only the sun and our fireplace to warm the inside. Good thing we had clear skies and warm sun because the temperatures dropped to the low teens over night and never got above 28°. But inside our adobe it ranged from a cool (but tolerable) 60°in the morning to 71° by noon. Now we have the propane tank hooked up and filled up, and heat to warm the floors when necessary.

The Count Rumford Fireplace

The passive solar continues to work great, as long as the sun is out. Temperatures in the morning drop down to our thermostat settings of 63°, but by noon it is up to 70°-72° without any help from the radiant heating system. Of course the rooms on the north side of the house are closed off and don't enjoy the benefits of the passive solar. They include my bathroom, the utility room, and closets and are designed to be thermal buffers to the living areas.

Air Lock Entry

Another wonderful design element is the front entry air lock. It is an entry room, we also use as mud room, fitted with two insulated entry doors. Thus, any cold air that blows in as the outside door is opened is trapped here before it can get into the living room. It is also a good place to leave winter coats and shoes and a convenient stash of firewood.

East Wing Hall

The layout of the house exposes all the living areas to the warming rays of the sun in the winter but an engineered overhang of the roof shades them in the summer. The two spare bedrooms (one we use as an office/crafts room), utility room (including washer/dryer, water heater, and the boiler for the radiant heating system), a large storage room (which also functions as the closet for the back bedroom) and the spare bath with shower make up the east wing. The utility room, spare bath and large storage closet line the north wall while the bedrooms line the south and enjoy the benefits of the passive solar heat, with a long narrow hallway in between.

The master bedroom, and master bath also enjoy southern exposure (and passive solar heat) while two walk-in line the north wall. Separating the two wings is the open kitchen/living room, or great room.

Keeping to the "old look" theme, the master bath has a new claw foot tub but the vanity is an 1880's wash stand with a marble top and a ceramic vessel sink. The towel rack is a pueblo style ladder.

Here is a brief video tour of our adobe home.

Master bath with 1880 wash stand
vanity with vessel sink.

Master Bedroom

Final Color Coat

2010-11-04T07:56:00.001-06:00

The southern exposure.

Looking at the west and north walls.

The exterior finish of our new adobe home is all complete. The stucco protecting the natural adobes is on. The flagstone atop all the parapets and buttresses is installed and sealed. The windows and wood trim is all primed and painted. The roof is complete with seamless cutters and drains (rain collection barrels will be added later). Of course flagstone porches and the final grading will be completed once all the construction inside is completed. We can't wait to move in.

North side showing the "air lock" entry.

Insulation

2010-10-28T08:05:00.000-06:00

R-49 insulation has been blown into the attic. Miller's Insulation arrived at 9am and by noon they were gone. Over 16 inches of fiberglass insulation blown in.

We are now ready for winter. Speaking of winter, the low temperature yesterday was 24°F. But inside the adobe the temperatue of the trombe walls was 70-74° and the room temperatures were in the 60's - with no heater. This passive solar thing realy works

Scratch Coat of Stucco

2010-10-17T17:42:00.000-06:00

Saturday morning the process began.

Sunday morning it looked like this.

The first coat of stucco, the scratch coat, has been applied. In an instant, one day really, it looks like a real home. After a few days of curing the second, brown coat will be applied. Finally, after some more curing the color coat will complete the stucco process. That will finish the outside work.

Stucco Ready!

2010-10-14T15:33:00.005-06:00

South elevation, looking North.

Window trim detail.

The stucco contractor has installed the felt paper, chicken wire, and metal lath to all the areas that will be stuccoed. It took almost three days but they did a beautiful job. All the small detail on the south side slowed the process.

The state inspector has given the job his approval so all is ready to start applying the stucco tomorrow. All the surfaces shown in black will be stucco. It is a three step process: the scratch coat (heaviest), the brown coat, and the color coat. In our case we have chosen to use an acrylic color coat to prevent or minimize cracks.

North elevation, looking South.

Since the trim has all been painted, once the color coat is applied the outside of the adobe is all complete.

Windows, Doors, and Roof!

2010-10-10T08:54:00.006-06:00

Yeilding Adobe w/window, doors, and roof.

We finally have the home "weathered in." Now we don't have to worry about rain and the damage it can do to our adobes. The roof is a solid sheet of white 60 mil Dow TPO roofing system. Under the TPO on top of the roof decking is 1/2 inch foil lined foam insulation. That is in addition to the R-49 blown-in insulation in the roof cavity.

Territorial Trim

The windows are getting their "territorial trim" that represents the style preferred by the residents during the late 1800's when many were new arrivals down the Santa Fe Trail.

The "trombe walls", the walls under glass that will help heat the rooms during sunny winter days, are being sealed and tinted a darker color, before the glass in installed, to increase the heat they generate.

Tinted Trombe Wall

The light colored square at the bottom of the trombe wall is the color sample of the stucco we are using on the outside walls. We tried to match the color of the soil on our land. The stucco will cover the parapets and chimney as well as the outside walls so there will not be so much white showing as it looks in the photo.

Dressing the walls.

2010-10-02T17:33:00.000-06:00

Before

Adobe walls can look a little ugly when they are first layed up. However, with a little mud and a lot of care they soon look beautiful. We have decided to keep our inside walls exosed.

After

The fireplace also looks a little rough to begin with. But it will be the only use of stucco inside the house.

Thermal Mass

2010-09-28T07:35:00.002-06:00

As the walls are dressed or touched up and the roof is framed, it is time to recall why we chose an adobe home in the first place. On a day when the crew were working on dressing the inside walls and framing the roof at 4 pm the ambient temperature was 88° F (see inset).

Temperature on outside of wall.

Temperature on inside of wall.

The house currently has no windows or doors and no insulation in the ceiling. After sitting in the sun all day I took the temperature of the outside of an adobe wall in direct sun light. It was 115° F as you can see in the following image.

Directly on the inside of that wall, in the living room, the adobe wall measured just 75° F. Remember there are no windows or doors and no insulation. That is the magic of thermal mass. The walls cool down over night (when the temperature dropped to 52° F) and then hold that coolness during the day.

Inside north wall.

Brick floors.

On a wall on the north side of the room, away from the sunny south wall, the adobe wall temperature is still lower, 67.8° F! And the brick floors a comfortable 69° F.

Ceiling Beams

2010-09-07T18:23:00.002-06:00

Today most of the ceiling beams went up. These are 6" x 10" white fir some as long as 24'. Later adobes will be laid up between them. These beefy and beautiful beasts are really going to add a dramatic look to all the rooms. It's hard to believe that all 20 were lifted into place in one day. Of course there are a lot of small ones still to be installed and all of them have to be secured with steel straps to the bond beams. Then the parapets and decking can be added. The windows are in the on-site storage unit so as soon as we get the roof on we can install the doors and windows and make her weatherproof.

Bond Beams and Door Bucks.

2010-09-04T09:00:00.004-06:00

Leonardo inserting a log screw.

Himself working on bond beam.

Bond beams, 6" x 10" wood beams that run on top of all the adobe walls, are attached using 15" log screws. The log screws are employed every 3-4 feet to make sure the walls are secure and give the ceiling beams something to rest on. Here, Leonardo is inserting one of the log screws. Below, even himself gets into the fun.

John files the door opening.

One of the great attributes of an adobe wall is if it is a little out of shape or an opening is not wide enough just get out the adobe file pictured here and shave a little off. Here, with the door opening a little narrow at the top, John rubs a little off. The door bucks are 2" x 8" rough cut fir timber that frames the door opening and will eventually hold the pre-hung doors. It is all starting to feel like a real home now.

Wall Covering

2010-08-31T09:42:00.001-06:00

West wall with insulation.

The 2" rigid insulation, already protecting the foundation and sub-floor, is now going up on the adobe walls. This will add R-10 insulation to the 14" adobe walls. The insulation will go all the way from 24" below ground to the top of the parapets. I love these walls!

Burrowing Owl Habitat Added

2010-08-25T18:25:00.002-06:00

Source: "Use of Artificial Burrows
by Burrowing Owls, Dept of Engergy"

Source: U.S. Dept of Energy,
Sept, 2005

While the Tierra Laja crew were working on the bond beam, we took advantage of the hole left where they mined our dirt for more adobe blocks and installed a Burrowing Owl Habitat. The design came from an article written about a project in the Richland, WA area where over 22 similar Owl homes were installed with great success. The Burrowing Owl has a habit of taking over abandoned gopher holes so if you can provide something that resembles a gopher hole they tend to move in. It was very simple. At the bottom of the 4' hole we set a 5-gallon bucket upside down with a 4" hole cut in it. In this hole we attached one end of a 12' perforated flexible 4" drain pipe. The other end of the drain pipe was angled up to the surface with 90° turn about half way. Hopefully, a family of owls will move in before too long.

Walls - Day 14

2010-08-21T08:25:00.001-06:00

The adobe walls are up to the height were the bond beams are to be installed. The bond beam is a 6" x 10" beam that is attached to the top of the adobe wall to add stability. It can be made of either wood or concrete. In our case, we chose wood. Our bond beam will consist of a lamination of 3 rough cut 2"x10" fir beams. These will top all walls, windows and door openings, tying everything together. On top of the bond beam will be the 6"x10" ceiling beams.

Walls - Day 12

2010-08-19T10:04:00.001-06:00

The adobe walls are almost complete. Heavy 4"x10" window and door bucks (frames) dominate the south wall. The passive solar windows, doors, and trombe walls (glass faced adobe walls that absorb the sun's energy during cold sunny winter days) will be installed in these massive frames.

Nichos are in, buttresses are in place to add outside support on long walls, and the fireplace continues to grow. The nichos are made on 14" walls by turning the 10" x 14" adobe lengthwise leaving a 4" depression. This adds bit of flair to an otherwise blank wall, and provides an area to display interesting objects.

The buttresses are required by the New Mexico adobe building code to provide external support to walls that run 26 feet or more without other reinforcement such as being linked to an internal adobe wall.

An artistic touch has been added to the upper body of the fireplace as Ever takes it on up to the ceiling. Here again the steps and ledge provide some additional interest and allow for more decorative objects. Of course the fireplace body will be stucco, unlike the rest of the adobe walls on the inside.

The Walls - Day 9

2010-08-13T16:42:00.001-06:00

Four more coarses and the 6" x 10" bond beams will be run on the top coarse to secure the integrity of the walls. The adobe crew are now busy installing the door and window bucks and adding the decorative niches in the walls.

Simultaneously, we are choosing the color of the color coat of stucco to match the color of the soil on our land. Rio Bravo it is!

Let the fires begin!

2010-08-10T09:10:00.009-06:00

Fireplace here?

Friday we had a fireplace foundation and a blank space in the northeast corner of our living room. Today we have a fireplace. Over the weekend Joe Tibbets of Southwest Solar Adobe held a Rumford Fireplace Workshop and our adobe home was the host site. This was a hands-on, working class. Our fireplace was the class project and everyone worked really hard.

Deborah gives a hand.

The class consisted of masonry contractors, builders, adobe professionals, and owner/builders. It was great to see how the women were so eager to jump in with their trowels, get their hands dirty, and lay bricks. As the fire box began to grow and was capped by the unique throat sculpture, the class left our signatures on it for posterity. But three professionals from Soledad Canyon Earth Builders, guided by our instructor Jim Buckley , were at the heart of the creative design and construction effort. They built the arch forms, pieced together the brick trim (fashioned after a similar fireplace spotted by Sassy in Santa Fe), and dressed up the masonry. Thank you Jim Buckley and Soledad Canyon!!!

Artists at work.

Signed throat.

The unique thing about the Rumford Fireplace (named after Count Rumford who wrote about them in the 18th Century) is that they are tall and shallow (ours is only 12" deep), and engineered with a sophisticated streamlined throat to eliminate unwanted turbulence and exhaust smoke without loss of heat. No grate is used in a Rumford, the fire is built in teepee fashion against the back wall of the firebox. The fire burns hot and clean, minimizing the buildup of creosol in the chimney. Ultimately, stucco will encase the body of the fireplace, leaving the brick arch outline the firebox. A matching brick ledge above will give us a place to hang Christmas stockings. So, fun was had by all and we have a beautiful, super efficient fireplace to warm our living room during those cold winter nights in our Land of Enchantment.

JR, Himself, Antonio & Raul

Jim on top of things.

Our new Rumford!

The Walls - Day 4 & 5

2010-08-09T07:26:00.003-06:00

Once the Tierra Laja crew get rolling the walls grow quickly. Doug, the owner of Dunn Rite Electric, is working right along with them, gouging out the wiring runs and chopping out space for the outlet and switch boxes as the walls go up. With the fireplace workshop coming up they want to get as much done as possible so the walls would be ready to lock into fireplace that will be build. Here they continue to lay adobe even as a storm approaches. You can see the tent ready for the workshop over the weekend.

The Walls - Day 3

2010-08-04T17:11:00.001-06:00

More adobes in the mud today. We had to hold progress to the 5th coarse so the electrician could run the wires through the walls to the outlets for the exterior walls. Never-the-less, one gets the definite impression that a home is rising up.

Among all the hubbub, Lorraine is still working her magic on the floors. Looking east, the utility room, 2nd bathroom, and hall floors are all bricked in. Here she is working on the two back bedrooms.

The Walls - Day 2

2010-08-03T15:11:00.003-06:00

The beautiful adobe walls are starting to show their character. The first coarse is made up of cement stabilized adobes, according to the Santa Fe County Adobe building code, but each coarse thereafter is made of natural adobes, i.e., dirt. Each block is melted to the next with a slather of mud. When dry all of the adobe walls are like one solid slab of earth. If the owner, that's me, had delivered the window and door bucks (4"x10" rough cut timbers) in time we would see them installed as the walls grow. However, the timber is coming in three days so, until then, we will build around their absence.

Poor Lorraine, the floor lady, after enjoying the piece and quiet of our home site all to herself for a week, now must work around the adobe crew of 9. Now only the very early morning hours and late evenings are hers alone. But she is very thankful the adobe crew put down plastic sheets to protect her beautiful brick floor. The light colored brick shown is the brick she has crafted this morning, not exposed to the overnight rain.

Things are going UP!

2010-07-31T10:45:00.003-06:00

We're getting some elevation on our home site. Guides for the crew laying up adobes, called both "speed leads" or "story poles" are being put up in preparation for the construction of our adobe walls. The first coarse of adobes are "fully stabilized" or waterproof required by the adobe construction codes. All the rest of our adobe are simply mud blocks. The story poles are placed at the corners of two exterior walls or the intersection of an interior wall and an exterior wall. They make it easier for the adoblero to make straight level walls. Of course simultaneously the brick floors are being completed and the electrician is laying in the wiring and installing outlet boxes between adobe courses. It's like a well oiled machine. . . most of the time. The walls will start to go up next week.

Brick Floors Started

2010-07-22T11:52:00.001-06:00

Our brick floors are now emerging. There was some delay caused by the radiant tubing expanding in the heat and pushing up in the sand above the level that the bricks for the floor are to lay. I should have planned for more sand than the 1.5" specified. With more fill sand, say 3", the leveling of the dirt under the sand and the flatness of the wire grid (which holds the radiant heating tubing in place) would have been less critical. Never-the-less, as you can see, now the bricks are going down. And they look beautiful! Our brick lady, Lorraine Duran is doing a beautiful job. You can tell she "loves her art," as she puts it. Mind you, she has been doing this for almost 30 years so she has had some practice. Indeed, after these photos were taken she completed the entire living room the same day.

Road and Drive

2010-07-14T13:09:00.048-06:00

With the rainy season coming up we decided to go ahead and put in the drive and improve the road to our land. We filled in the trench for the power/water/phone lines, and graded the road and drive. Then 4" of road fill was added to give us all weather access. This will come in handy soon. In a couple of weeks, we are going to have some extra traffic. With the adobe walls going up it is time to put in our fireplace. The Southwest Solar Adobe School is scheduling a "How to build your Rumford Fireplace" class with our home as the class room. Jim Buckley, Mr. Rumford Fireplace himself, is flying in from Seattle to conduct the class. Jim is going to build our fireplace while he instructs the class and Joe Tibbets, Director of Southwest Solar Adobe, and I will be Jim's helpers. This will be a lot of fun and we will get a great Rumford fireplace built by the Master.

Radiant Heating

2010-07-06T08:40:00.005-06:00

Matt's team (MR Concrete) is working on the sub-floor, leveling, adding dirt here, removing dirt there, preparing to install the sub-floor insulation. The insulation, 1" of underground rated (R-5) foam board, goes under about 8 inches of thermal mass that includes 4 1/2 inches of dirt, 1 1/2 inches of sand, the 2" brick floor. The thermal mass in the floor will work nicely with the adobe walls, storing heat in the winter and cool in the summer to smooth out the seasonal day/night thermal cycle. The radiant tubing runs through the sand, and the sand is topped off with the brick floor. All-in-all we will have a nice quiet and cozy back-up heating system for our passive solar design in the winter and can circulate cool water during the summer. Here the radiant tubing, installed by Plumbing Express, is ready for the sand covering.