Building Our Igloo Protecting the House from Moisture Infliltration

When houses with stone or concrete walls are built on a slab, you can have problems with moisture from the earth being sucked up into the walls. This can cause mold and peeling paint.

Fortunately, there is a fairly simple solution to this. Modeled after a system used by the Romans, you provide an air space under the slab and vents in the walls to let the moisture escape.

There are a number of companies who provide a system that serves this purpose. Our house is being built using the IGLU solution.

The heart of this system is an interlocked grid of little plastic “stools” that sit on the ground and have the foundation concrete poured on top of them.

Here’s a picture of the IGLU system being put in place in our house.

Building an IGLU base on a house in Le Marche
IGLU system
Click image to enlarge

I’ve also included this small photo gallery of the progress on the IGLU construction. You can click to enlarge the photos.

 

If you want to see more about how this all works, here’s a you tube video from the manufacturer that shows more.

Sources
Images: Copyright © Our Big Italian Adventure
Video: IGLU’ ®

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