Stauffer’s Lake Mecosta Home

Jeff and Deb Stauffer decided to be their own general contractors on a new home to be built near Mecosta, MI. They contracted with Controlled Environment Structures (CES) to design and rough in the house. The first challenge was building on a surface that was only 2’ 4” above the water table. After a soil engineer approved the grade conditions, our structural engineer designed a custom concrete shallow footing. It had bearing 1’ above the water table, but was insulated with R-5 expanded polystyrene (EPS) insulation, which compensates for the lack of typical 42” depth of a conventional uninsulated footing.

The second challenge was the uneven backfill demands on the structure. The house was to be built on a 9’ wood basement with backfilling on only one side. The design was not conducive to interior shear walls to compensate for the lopsided pressures, so CES designed a system using large buried EPS foam blocks on the backfilled side of the basement to greatly reduce the horizontal pressure of the grade. When completed, the basement contained a sunken theatre room.

CES provided an innovative open web floor truss system from Space Joist. The zigzag web members are all recycled steel and result in consistent dimensional accuracy, excellent strength, environmental regard, and lots of open space for mechanical, plumbing, and electrical to be channeled through. That last feature saves labor and money because those trades don’t have to cut numerous holes in the typical solid webbing of wood I-beam type floor joists.

The main and upper floor exterior walls were constructed of 6 ½” Insulspan structural insulated panels (SIPs) in the ready-to-assemble (RTA) format, which makes an already rapid installation considerably faster. The house area was topped with standard trusses, but spray foam was applied to the underside of the roof sheeting to retain maximum thermal effectiveness of the house shell. The bonus room over the garage employed 10 ¼” Insulspan roof SIPs with the dormer prefabricated at their factory.

Thermally efficient BuiltBest windows were purchased through CES and the house was covered in Insulspan’s brand of housewrap for its superior quality. The home’s living space adds up to 8,600 square feet, plus an under garage storage area and screened porch off the lower level. The Stauffers will enjoy the place for a long time to come, not just because it’s designed for their wishes, but because it’s been built for their needs of long term durability and economy.

The Stauffer’s Finished Home and Garage