Log Home Sub-Drain – Frost Wall

On Thursday, June 12 2008, Eric and Ben were set to give a full day to build our log home – even though we are still just at the foundation wall stage.

They headed into the property and that’s just what it took – the entire day. By the end they were both hungry, dehydrated, tired, and dirty.

Starting the Day Building A Log Home

The day started with digging a 6″ deep trench alongside the frost wall footing to lay Big-O aka sub-drain with a filter sock. The plastic pipe is 4″ in diameter and black. The purpose of the white sock is to filter back any fine silt – ensuring the plastic pipe is accessible to water flow. The pipe and sock will eventually be placed around the perimeter of the house.

Once the sub-drain was in place, Ben carried on and finished off the height of the frost wall with remaining Logix block forms. (If you want to know more about Logix, run a search on this site for the search term styrofoam). After ensuring that the walls were level with the tops of the footings, Ben placed 2×4s across the top of the blocks to hold them in place while they backfilled the frost wall trench by hand.

With the styrofoam forms in place, leveled and stabilized, Eric and Ben ensure that the top 6″ of fill over the sub-drain is coarse gravel…

…then continue on to backfill the entire frost wall from both sides.

Here’s a shot of conscienscious workmanship. This is one corner (the top ’step’ of the frost wall) meeting the north wall’s footings. The sub-drain at the corner will eventually be connected to remaining pipe around the entire house.