I get by with a little help from my friends
For all of my friends; from the oldest to those I havent yet met. Where would I be without you?
A Disclaimer:
Because it has taken me months to get around to writing this blog entry, I am going to post it without quite as intense proof reading as I normally would use. Also the apostrophe/quotation key doesnt work on our keyboard anymore so there arent any of those. Hopefully you still enjoy the read!
The last blog entry accurately described approximately 2 weeks of this past winter. After it rained the dickens in December and our now 10 year old awoke to 5ish gallons of ice cold water falling on him when the foil bubble insulation we had stapled up filled up and gave way. We decided to seek a drier shelter for the remainder of the winter. At the yearly New Years Family Party we spent the night and didnt leave until March 4. Communal living seemed to be the theme of the winter, we thoroughly enjoyed sharing time, heat and food with family and friends. 4 kids were being homeschooled with 1 preschooler wanting to be a part of everything. I became the school lunch lady and occasional art and PE teacher. We will be homeschooling again this year and are very much looking forward to improving schooling techniques and upping the ante on extracurricular activities.
On March 4, our family headed to Kauai to visit my parents who had had possession of our middle daughter for a month. We stayed in a tent in their front yard for 6 weeks through some amazing rain/thunder/lightning storms. When we left, our oldest stayed behind for a month and ended up taking a roadtrip up the Alaska Marine Highway with his Grandma. When we got back, we moved into The Bunkhouse. Kelly had built a spruce log platform with 2 rows of straw bales all round. Some of those dear friends I was mentioning gave us a wall tent and Kelly promptly built a frame complete with a loft for the kids with windows, a nice front door, camp kitchen with greywater collection and a killer woodstove that makes it nice and toasty. He also rigged up rainwater collection that helped with garden watering immensely(though for much of the summer it rained so much that I didnt have to water the garden). We got all moved in to The Bunkhouse and it was time for Kelly and Caius(10) to leave to go seaining. My dad became a Prince William Sound seiner this year and Kelly signed on to be a deckhand. (I grew up on a fishing boat and he wanted to experience some of these stories firsthand.)
Before you get too worried Dear Reader about how progress will progress lets jump back to the earthship a bit....
Kelly spent last summer finishing up the roof structure for the house. All 7 vaults are complete as well as having the framed in walls with windows installed on the faces of the vaults. The framed walls are welded into the vaults via sheet metal plates bolted to the dimensional framework. The roof structure of the garage wont be built until next summer at the earliest... The stovestack has been installed up from where the masonry/rocket stove will be, through the 2nd floor and up through the roof 4 feet. This takes the form of a 1 foot culvert salvaged from our local landfill. The plan is to run stovepipe up through the culvert possibly surrounded by perlite as kind of an improv metalbestos. To help with as/des(cent) Kelly welded some cool stairs into the NE valley where we will be getting onto and off of the roof.. When its all said and done you should be able to walk from the ground level outside up onto the roof via the large terraces/berm we will be building in the future. On top of the rebar framework went salvaged concrete reinforcement wire(have I mentioned we love our friends yet?) and hog wire 1 layer thick over the whole roof. Then came the expanded metal lath. it took about 110 sheets of it to cover the entire roof. We installed Pex tubing around the perimieter of the roof to give the lath a form for a drip edge and to melt off snow load so it doesnt fall on our heads(the roof or the snow)..
Kelly and Caius fished for 3 months in Prince William Sound and got back just in time to experience the end of summer/ beginning of fall which werent easily discernable since all it seems to want to do is rain. We have had some great volunteer efforts this year including some new friends who have been coming and staying for a few days at a time thus helping us all keep the co-housing/communal living thought process at the front of our minds. The storage room bottle walls are bordering on complete( this is a short sentence for the amount of time/energy/bottles that went into these walls. The wine bottle wall has 1000 bottles in it and the beer bottle walls I have no idea how many.) which leaves us with the South wall bottles to fill in around all those windows. We have (finally) started applying cement to the roof(September 24) and are hoping to get it done before snow sticks and it gets too cold for the cement to cure.
Our mixture for the roof contains:
1-portland cement
1-lime
2-perlite/recycled styrofoam(harder to find but cheaper and doesnt absorb water)
2-sand
1 3/4- liquid (1/2 and 1/2 water and latex paint)
a small handfull structural fibers/ mixer load.
It is an amazing product and fun to apply, kind of like a thick cream cheese frosting. We are applying it approx. 1 inch thick and will be going back to trowel it on from underneath in areas we find are too thin..
When we get all the cement applied, we will be coating it with some kind of waterproofing product.
Normally I like to blog about some other topic that I find relates to our house and our journey at the beginning of an entry but today I saved it for the end.. Maybe because 2012 is coming down the homestretch or maybe because Im seeing through many examples in my own life right now that an end is often(or maybe always) a beginning..
A Close one door and another will open sort of thing.
A lot of reformatting has been going on in the general vicinity of my space this past year. There are infinite opportunities to be active/reactive or passive. If we can allow ourselves the honesty to really examine our behaviors, I think we will see that often when we are dealing with a situation, we are not actively seeking the present solution rather, we are reacting based on an issue we have had in the past. We are feeling past pains rather than looking at the present issue. Repetitive Emotion Injury is a term I am wanting to add into Urban Dictionary. I havent found the right definition exactly but it relates to Identity Crisis and many of the woes of our culture. NOW is the time my friends(new/old/as of yet unintroduced) If we live in the present our journey will be that much more enjoyable. And it is the journey that matters. So reach out, be active in your relationships. Dont take out your pain/anger/sorrows on the person in front of you right now when the intensity you may be feeling has a deeper source. As Buddha said(or at least Facebook claims that he did..) You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.
We all are one and feel the same ways. If we practice acceptance of this key point we will find that we know how others feel because we too have felt those feelings. And Practice it is. We may never be masters of our destinies but if you Practice in the now then that now will be well spent.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Long time no blog
Starting off this blog entry is kind of like calling an old friend that you haven't spoken to in some time. There is a feeling of guilt and a small knot of dread in the bottom of your stomach as you think that your friend may not even want to talk to you since you haven't called in so long...
But when they pick up the phone and say, man how time does fly I've just been thinking about you! its all good.
Now that we're past the awkward moment, it feels nice to be back.
We are living in the earthship.
There, that was anti-climactic. We really are living in the earthship, though not quite to its full potential. At this point we are nestled in under the subfloor of the second story, backed up against the tire wall. Really, nestled is a loose term. When the weather is freezing we nestle quite nicely. When it gets to raining in December, nestled turns to drippy in a jiffy! Nonetheless, we have our wood cook stove fired up and attached to a 60+ gallon hot water tank so we have boiling water on tap and 60+ gallons of water stays hot for a long time. Now we'll backtrack and let you know where these months have gone.
When we last left off, Kelly had completed 3 of the 7 dormers.. He continued working on the roof through the summer, the welding of the house section of rebar framework was finished in September(2011) The garage roof section has not yet been started as we wanted to focus on the house first..In his vault building project he started on the "easiest " vault, one that had a face and two valleys going evenly back to the lodgepole. There are 5 vaults that have a triangular footprint. 2 of the vaults are more of a barrel vault shape with parallel walls going out to the face. If I just switched to chinese, understanding may come when I put some pictures up of the second floor. Otherwise you'll just have to come see for yourself. The process of designing this roof has been hugely expansive as far as Kelly and my communication goes. Having to talk through concepts that you have only had to face minimally on a high school geometry test some years ago is a difficult exercise at the best of times. Still, piece by piece, it went into place. 4000 feet of 1/2 inch rebar have gone into the structure so far and the garage will use a considerable amount as well. Sometimes I stop and look at the roof and it gives me the chills along with a somewhat fanatical giggling fit as I ponder what could have been and how never in my wildest dreams have I imagined such a home as this one seems it will be.
While Kelly was busy working on the roof, I have been busy with homey things like making dinner, keeping children in line and planting and harvesting a larger but surely more rabbit eaten garden than last year. I also continue to work 2 days a week at a local chinese restaurant. All in all, my house progress has been limited to starting on the bottle walls that will make up parts of our south window wall, and installing the granite sill that runs the length of said wall. We were hoping to be dried in by the time winter came but between everyday life, social activities, Kelly and I both working for money occasionally and October it just didn't happen.
When we found that we were not going to be in the house by snowfall, we started formatting a Lower 48 road trip for the family to head off on. If we weren't going to be in our house, by god, we weren't going to sit and look at it all winter. So we did our best to tie up loose ends and head off down the highway. A few weeks before we were hoping to leave, loose ends began to fray and all of a sudden instead of a comfy, warm woolen hat we had a big tangle of yarn. But somewhere in that tangle is a 1977 Toyota Chinook Motorhome that actually does sleep five, a full year of homeschool curriculum for two students, a well stocked traveling pantry and a sense of unfulfilled adventure that just wont quit. Since we had promised so much to the kids and it wasn't looking good for leaving the state, we decided to take an instate road trip. In November. It was a week of adventure that left us feeling like we'd like to have a nice fire to put our feet up next to. We went to Seward, Anchorage, Wasilla twice, and only as far north as Willow since Alaska had an unusually frigid November. We slept in the motorhome a couple of times in zero degree weather with toe warmers on all toes and water bottles full of hot water. We camped in roadside pullouts, the Wal-Mart parking lot, next to a very actively used dog mushing tunnel and at the trailhead of Thunderbird Falls(which would be more aptly named Toyota Prius falls as it doesn't even make enough sound to tell if it's running). We got to hole up in a couple of hotel rooms(thanks Uncle Harry and T-T-Tia!) and camp at an old friends house(word up. Shannon) during a crazy windstorm with gusts over 70mph.. We ate good food, junk food and almost every genre of restaurant except steak and thai..Our favorite restaurant was Kansha which brought us so many Hawaiian delicacies I got kind of teary eyed every time something new showed up..
Well, I probably better get going....
So nice to visit old friend, I will look forward to next time. I hope all is well in your worlds and that wherever you are, you are warm, dry and nurtured. That is the stuff of life that I am finding to be important.
Parting is such sweet sorrow..
Take Good Care!
But when they pick up the phone and say, man how time does fly I've just been thinking about you! its all good.
Now that we're past the awkward moment, it feels nice to be back.
We are living in the earthship.
There, that was anti-climactic. We really are living in the earthship, though not quite to its full potential. At this point we are nestled in under the subfloor of the second story, backed up against the tire wall. Really, nestled is a loose term. When the weather is freezing we nestle quite nicely. When it gets to raining in December, nestled turns to drippy in a jiffy! Nonetheless, we have our wood cook stove fired up and attached to a 60+ gallon hot water tank so we have boiling water on tap and 60+ gallons of water stays hot for a long time. Now we'll backtrack and let you know where these months have gone.
When we last left off, Kelly had completed 3 of the 7 dormers.. He continued working on the roof through the summer, the welding of the house section of rebar framework was finished in September(2011) The garage roof section has not yet been started as we wanted to focus on the house first..In his vault building project he started on the "easiest " vault, one that had a face and two valleys going evenly back to the lodgepole. There are 5 vaults that have a triangular footprint. 2 of the vaults are more of a barrel vault shape with parallel walls going out to the face. If I just switched to chinese, understanding may come when I put some pictures up of the second floor. Otherwise you'll just have to come see for yourself. The process of designing this roof has been hugely expansive as far as Kelly and my communication goes. Having to talk through concepts that you have only had to face minimally on a high school geometry test some years ago is a difficult exercise at the best of times. Still, piece by piece, it went into place. 4000 feet of 1/2 inch rebar have gone into the structure so far and the garage will use a considerable amount as well. Sometimes I stop and look at the roof and it gives me the chills along with a somewhat fanatical giggling fit as I ponder what could have been and how never in my wildest dreams have I imagined such a home as this one seems it will be.
While Kelly was busy working on the roof, I have been busy with homey things like making dinner, keeping children in line and planting and harvesting a larger but surely more rabbit eaten garden than last year. I also continue to work 2 days a week at a local chinese restaurant. All in all, my house progress has been limited to starting on the bottle walls that will make up parts of our south window wall, and installing the granite sill that runs the length of said wall. We were hoping to be dried in by the time winter came but between everyday life, social activities, Kelly and I both working for money occasionally and October it just didn't happen.
When we found that we were not going to be in the house by snowfall, we started formatting a Lower 48 road trip for the family to head off on. If we weren't going to be in our house, by god, we weren't going to sit and look at it all winter. So we did our best to tie up loose ends and head off down the highway. A few weeks before we were hoping to leave, loose ends began to fray and all of a sudden instead of a comfy, warm woolen hat we had a big tangle of yarn. But somewhere in that tangle is a 1977 Toyota Chinook Motorhome that actually does sleep five, a full year of homeschool curriculum for two students, a well stocked traveling pantry and a sense of unfulfilled adventure that just wont quit. Since we had promised so much to the kids and it wasn't looking good for leaving the state, we decided to take an instate road trip. In November. It was a week of adventure that left us feeling like we'd like to have a nice fire to put our feet up next to. We went to Seward, Anchorage, Wasilla twice, and only as far north as Willow since Alaska had an unusually frigid November. We slept in the motorhome a couple of times in zero degree weather with toe warmers on all toes and water bottles full of hot water. We camped in roadside pullouts, the Wal-Mart parking lot, next to a very actively used dog mushing tunnel and at the trailhead of Thunderbird Falls(which would be more aptly named Toyota Prius falls as it doesn't even make enough sound to tell if it's running). We got to hole up in a couple of hotel rooms(thanks Uncle Harry and T-T-Tia!) and camp at an old friends house(word up. Shannon) during a crazy windstorm with gusts over 70mph.. We ate good food, junk food and almost every genre of restaurant except steak and thai..Our favorite restaurant was Kansha which brought us so many Hawaiian delicacies I got kind of teary eyed every time something new showed up..
Well, I probably better get going....
So nice to visit old friend, I will look forward to next time. I hope all is well in your worlds and that wherever you are, you are warm, dry and nurtured. That is the stuff of life that I am finding to be important.
Parting is such sweet sorrow..
Take Good Care!
Monday, March 14, 2011
The Melting Pot
You know that capital(ism) oppresses the worker- the workers in our country bear all the burden of labour, and their position is such that, however much they work, they can never get out of their brutish situation. All the profits earned by their work, with which they might improve their situation, give themselves some leisure and, consequently, education, all surplus earnings are taken by the capitalists. And society has developed so that the more they work, the more gain there will be for the merchants and landowners, and they will always remain working brutes. And this order must be changed.
from Anna Karenina- Leo Tolstoy 1870's
This post is dedicated to my parents and theirs who have worked so hard.
The Melting Pot
Once upon a time, there were many thousands of cultures around the globe, each with their own mythology. Their mythology guided the members of those cultures in daily life. It whispered of food and dress, marriage and seasons. Over many generations each culture formed a plan of livability(thank you Barry) for All of its members. The members of these cultures had guidance in what to eat, how to raise babies and countless other pieces of information that were absorbed as life went on. Life was simple and fulfilling.
Fast Forward to 2011...
The children of the culture of capitalism are cast adrift in an ocean of information. We are told from an early age that we can be anything we want to be, yet there is also a pressure to BE something. There are infinite combinations of belief structures, lifestyles, and tax brackets each with their own personal style and form of transportation. It has been impressed upon us that what we do may become who we are and for this reason we are encouraged to pursue livelihoods that will provide a sizable income. Every day life often revolves around money for people of this culture and it is worshipped by many. Acts of horrific violence have occurred in money's name while our planet and its inhabitants are ever in jeopardy from toxic corporate practices happening around the globe.
Growing up in the best of both worlds, I often heard that Hawaii was a cultural melting pot. Many strong cultures coming together providing a safety net of traditions and family life. The fire under our global melting pot continues blazing hotter and hotter as nationalities mingle, bringing a full spectrum rainbow of children of generations to come into this world, information, products and technologies are updated at a constant rate and people communicate across many thousands of miles in an instant sharing what they know and exposing truths that may have gone unknown. Humanities power has never been so great in recent history, but what is all of this power being used for?
Whenever I un into someone at the grocery store or post office or wherever I may happen to run into someone I know, they ask so when are you starting back up working on your house? I am delighted to answer that we have been working on it all winter. When I say we, I mainly mean my husband, Kelly who has been working on welding the rebar structure togther that will be holding our roof. This winter has been an adventure in trimming back expenses in the wake of the insurance settlement for our previous house, I have gone back to work a couple of nights a week at a local Chinese restaurant and am trying to make one huge pot of soup a week for distribution to anyone who might need some.
While I have been bouncing about doing my things, Kelly has been hard at work outside in sometimes below zero weather. He has so far built 3+ dormers of the 7 that will make up our main roof. As an electrician, welding was something he had been exposed to but never had put in any serious time at. We got temporary power hooked up in October and have one year until that has to be taken down. So that worked out well with Kelly and welding and lighting and now that we are movng onto theproperty in two weeks it will be nice to have for creature comforts while we live in our airstream trailer until the house is ready to move into.
from Anna Karenina- Leo Tolstoy 1870's
This post is dedicated to my parents and theirs who have worked so hard.
The Melting Pot
Once upon a time, there were many thousands of cultures around the globe, each with their own mythology. Their mythology guided the members of those cultures in daily life. It whispered of food and dress, marriage and seasons. Over many generations each culture formed a plan of livability(thank you Barry) for All of its members. The members of these cultures had guidance in what to eat, how to raise babies and countless other pieces of information that were absorbed as life went on. Life was simple and fulfilling.
Fast Forward to 2011...
The children of the culture of capitalism are cast adrift in an ocean of information. We are told from an early age that we can be anything we want to be, yet there is also a pressure to BE something. There are infinite combinations of belief structures, lifestyles, and tax brackets each with their own personal style and form of transportation. It has been impressed upon us that what we do may become who we are and for this reason we are encouraged to pursue livelihoods that will provide a sizable income. Every day life often revolves around money for people of this culture and it is worshipped by many. Acts of horrific violence have occurred in money's name while our planet and its inhabitants are ever in jeopardy from toxic corporate practices happening around the globe.
Growing up in the best of both worlds, I often heard that Hawaii was a cultural melting pot. Many strong cultures coming together providing a safety net of traditions and family life. The fire under our global melting pot continues blazing hotter and hotter as nationalities mingle, bringing a full spectrum rainbow of children of generations to come into this world, information, products and technologies are updated at a constant rate and people communicate across many thousands of miles in an instant sharing what they know and exposing truths that may have gone unknown. Humanities power has never been so great in recent history, but what is all of this power being used for?
Whenever I un into someone at the grocery store or post office or wherever I may happen to run into someone I know, they ask so when are you starting back up working on your house? I am delighted to answer that we have been working on it all winter. When I say we, I mainly mean my husband, Kelly who has been working on welding the rebar structure togther that will be holding our roof. This winter has been an adventure in trimming back expenses in the wake of the insurance settlement for our previous house, I have gone back to work a couple of nights a week at a local Chinese restaurant and am trying to make one huge pot of soup a week for distribution to anyone who might need some.
While I have been bouncing about doing my things, Kelly has been hard at work outside in sometimes below zero weather. He has so far built 3+ dormers of the 7 that will make up our main roof. As an electrician, welding was something he had been exposed to but never had put in any serious time at. We got temporary power hooked up in October and have one year until that has to be taken down. So that worked out well with Kelly and welding and lighting and now that we are movng onto theproperty in two weeks it will be nice to have for creature comforts while we live in our airstream trailer until the house is ready to move into.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
In other news,
I am a big Barbara Kingsolver fan. I am not usually a hero worshiper but she is borderline. I just finished her most recent book "The Lacuna". As it started out, I was not jumping in with both feet. It was a bit on the political side for me, but then as usual, her storytelling magic comes alive and I burn through it, struggling to glance up to check on the kids every once in a while...She is an author that has been able to tie up lots of loose ends for me. In one book she will touch on so many ponderances that are or become near and dear to my heart. Anyhow, in "The Lacuna " the story is set over the course of an authors life in Mexico and later the United States. I think one of the most mind blowing parts of the book was that during the World War, the people of America teamed up to support the war. The women took over the factory jobs, because the men were all off fighting. Americans young and old scoured the country for any metal that could be melted to manufacture bullets. Writers donated their typewriters, Grandfathers their brass canes. The slogan of the people was something along the lines of "In America, we make do with nothing new"..It was said that after the war, manufacturing would boom and there would be products formulated that were beyond all imagination. Now, the part I find touching is the slogan. Where has the mindset gone? It seems to have disappeared into that manufacturing boom. Consumerism is at an all time high. We are trashing the planet with our disposable lifestyles. Many find they are trapped in the this lifestyle, an affliction that leads to many of our societies greatest problems such as depression, anxiety, broken families, alchoholism....the list of consumerism based ills is infinite...How are we to break this cycle? In the greater scheme of things, this is a short lived trend. The disposable opulence of the 20-21st centuries is something never seen on such a massive scale in world history. I firmly believe that change is in the wind. The information superhighway that is the internet and all the mobile communication makes education of the masses as easy as typing in google. More and more people across the globe are acting with intention and starting to see that we aren't required to repeat the mistakes of others....
Since my last post the fall harvest time has been coming to a close and as I write, the first sticking snow (1&1/2 feet)has fallen. In the last two months, between our biggest kids starting school and a longish wait for the rebar to arrive:
10/10/10 was a Global Work Party put on by .350.org. In this area, our house was chosen as the official site for that days work. That Sunday, around 25 volunteers from 2 to 65ish years old worked on putting together our first beer bottle wall(15 bags of mortar and approximately 1000 beer bottles made two 8 foot long by 3 feet high sections of wall) , making bottle bricks
for the south walls that we will be working on once the house is closed in, scraping and cleaning the Thermopane glass panels for the trombe wall and installing the track to hold the Thermopane glass. A good time was had by all who attended and our heartfelt thanks go out to all the people who were there to help. We finished the day with a potluck. Good Fun, Good People, Good Food!
We have tarped off the entire second floor and roof area as our beautifully built subfloor could not be left exposed to the
elements. We now have a temporarily dried in house to work on/in...
Cleaned up the yard and consolidated all of our building materials, camper and coffee bus as well as covering more area for shed and storage space.
Finished the rough dirt moving and landscaping( We had a tractor on loan for the summer and before we returned it made sure that any water coming off the roof would drain away from the house)
The rebar did finally arrive (See entry from Friday, May 28; Life 101), praise be. In anticipation of its arrival 1/4 inch X 6 inch strips of steel plate were glued and bolted down to the subfloor all along where the roof will attach. We also cut the lodgepole down to 10 feet from the subfloor and affixed another piece of steel plate to the top the log. Before we go any further I should tell you a bit about our roof.
Our roof will be a welded frame of rebar and a mishmash of wire mesh. We have been and continue to be in the R & D stage of the roof process. The closest design name I could find is a folded plate dome. That name and tons more information is available at flyingconcrete.com, an amazing website full of houses that will blow anyones mind. Our original thought was to go with a concrete roof but we have such a large roof that it would be too heavy to risk doing without professional help. However, everyone we talked to felt that the shape we were planning on was sound we just needed a lighter material. I purchased a large amount of torch on roofing (or Brai) this summer out of someones yard and we will torch it on to the rebar/mesh framework. Once that is in place, we are planning to sprayfoam the underside of the roofing and framework. At this point, sprayfoam is the only suitable product available on the consumer market. We are not too happy with this plan, though we do plan on using the product that has a percentage of soy based ingredients. The only other possible hope at this point is a new mushroom based packaging product. Right now, it is only available to consumers in the form of packaging, but it is supposed to be super light and super strong...I don't know much more, but we have sent a letter to the company/research firm asking if they would be interested in testing their product on our house. We'll see. We have some time to figure it out. We have 8 vaults to build out of 2500 feet of rebar first.
Since my last post the fall harvest time has been coming to a close and as I write, the first sticking snow (1&1/2 feet)has fallen. In the last two months, between our biggest kids starting school and a longish wait for the rebar to arrive:
10/10/10 was a Global Work Party put on by .350.org. In this area, our house was chosen as the official site for that days work. That Sunday, around 25 volunteers from 2 to 65ish years old worked on putting together our first beer bottle wall(15 bags of mortar and approximately 1000 beer bottles made two 8 foot long by 3 feet high sections of wall) , making bottle bricks
for the south walls that we will be working on once the house is closed in, scraping and cleaning the Thermopane glass panels for the trombe wall and installing the track to hold the Thermopane glass. A good time was had by all who attended and our heartfelt thanks go out to all the people who were there to help. We finished the day with a potluck. Good Fun, Good People, Good Food!
We have tarped off the entire second floor and roof area as our beautifully built subfloor could not be left exposed to the
elements. We now have a temporarily dried in house to work on/in...
Cleaned up the yard and consolidated all of our building materials, camper and coffee bus as well as covering more area for shed and storage space.
Finished the rough dirt moving and landscaping( We had a tractor on loan for the summer and before we returned it made sure that any water coming off the roof would drain away from the house)
The rebar did finally arrive (See entry from Friday, May 28; Life 101), praise be. In anticipation of its arrival 1/4 inch X 6 inch strips of steel plate were glued and bolted down to the subfloor all along where the roof will attach. We also cut the lodgepole down to 10 feet from the subfloor and affixed another piece of steel plate to the top the log. Before we go any further I should tell you a bit about our roof.
Our roof will be a welded frame of rebar and a mishmash of wire mesh. We have been and continue to be in the R & D stage of the roof process. The closest design name I could find is a folded plate dome. That name and tons more information is available at flyingconcrete.com, an amazing website full of houses that will blow anyones mind. Our original thought was to go with a concrete roof but we have such a large roof that it would be too heavy to risk doing without professional help. However, everyone we talked to felt that the shape we were planning on was sound we just needed a lighter material. I purchased a large amount of torch on roofing (or Brai) this summer out of someones yard and we will torch it on to the rebar/mesh framework. Once that is in place, we are planning to sprayfoam the underside of the roofing and framework. At this point, sprayfoam is the only suitable product available on the consumer market. We are not too happy with this plan, though we do plan on using the product that has a percentage of soy based ingredients. The only other possible hope at this point is a new mushroom based packaging product. Right now, it is only available to consumers in the form of packaging, but it is supposed to be super light and super strong...I don't know much more, but we have sent a letter to the company/research firm asking if they would be interested in testing their product on our house. We'll see. We have some time to figure it out. We have 8 vaults to build out of 2500 feet of rebar first.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Distractions
I think I will start off my entry with a big thank you to my husband. He got up at the crack o dawn one morning and took down a legal bull moose! What this means is that 2 families will have some full freezers this winter, What this also means is that we will spend another two days butchering, grinding, packaging and eating moose meat...Yay! This brings me to our topic of today.
First off: The Earthship
Attention space cadets!
This is your captain speaking, the morning report will now commence.
The tire pounding sector has at last completed its assigned project, all members of the tire pounding sector shall be reassigned other duties for the time being. The concrete bond beam of the South Wall was attacked by a swarm of worker bees and also stands completed, somewhat resembling the parapets of old world construction. Thank you to all bees. The hole crew has been filling holes...............hey! where did the hole crew go?
And there is our problem.
With three kids, that adds a whole other plethora of distractions. Add that to the gardening/fishing/hunting/harvest season and the fact that winter is coming and we are lucky if one of us can give the project our full attention each day...
In all actuality we have made a lot of progress this year. However, we were hoping to be moved in by August...But we're not, and thats okay. The house is coming along famously as you can see by the pics. Distractions have played a large part in the slowing of our forward momentum. But we have had a great summer of productivity and fun. It is a rare opportunity we've been given, to get to build our own rendition of what we want in a house. The process of building any home is a growing experience for individuals or couples alike. So many people have said " Building a house was the hardest thing my spouse and I ever did."
We were like oh yeah, sure... But now we see the light. Every person looks at things in their own unique way and sometimes hours or days can be spent hashing over the smallest of details. Sometimes we will argue for a long time over one detail and come to find out that we both wanted the same thing only we explained it from totally opposite ends of the spectrum.
Lets pick up from where the Earthship report left off.
After completion of the tire pounding on the house wall, we started to prep it for the concrete bond beam. Much ado was made about whether to build the form out of wood or cans...We ended up re-using our form boards from the South wall form and using cable staples to attach metal lath from the tires up onto the form board. We also pounded 5 1/2 foot pieces of rebar down into each tire on the top course and let it poke out up into the form for something to attach the continuous running rebar to. There were 3 horizontal continuous pieces of rebar. In order to pour the bond beam, we had to decide what direction we were taking with the roof. We added Allthread(long pieces of bolt that you can cut to length as needed) in the places where the roof framework will attach. The day of the concrete pour was a bluebird day. We hired a pump truck to dispense the concrete as the bond beam was 9 foot in the air.. (see pics on Ship of Fools Facebook page) With only one blowout of the metal lath we declared the project a success!
As the bond beam preps were occurring we started thinking about the wisdom of building our composting toilet system inside the house. There was already a plan to put the water tank outside of the house tire wall so as to keep our water cold and not take up valuable floor space. We ended up building a form for a 2 room storage area outside the tire wall which would allow for composting toilets and water to be accessible but not in the house. It also gives us some nice utility/storage area which will be handy for overall organization of the household.. It also allows us about 200 extra square feet of bedroom area upstairs as the storage area is covered by the 2nd floor. Love it!! As a byproduct of all this awesomeness the composting system plus 400+ gallons of water should keep the storage areas from freezing..
The other project occurring simultaneously to the bond beam prep was the building of the South facing window wall. It is post and beam construction with 8-6x6 posts and 4 pieces of 4x12 spanning about 64 feet of wall. That wall will be filled with an assortment of windows and the space around the windows will be filled with bottle wall. We want to let in/absorb as much passive solar as possible..
After the concrete bond beam was completed, it was time to install the posts and beam that would support the subfloor. The posts are made of log and the beam is 3 pieces of 4x12. Off of the beam hang the floor joists which span from the beam over the top of the tire wall out over the storage area.On top of the floor joists goes the plywood which completes the subfloor. My dad rooted around in the local Spenard Builders Supply and found 25-22 foot 14inch TJI's which built almost our entire subfloor. As they had been sitting in the lumber yard for some time they gave them to us at the screamingest deal around. (We also purchased aforementioned 6x6's and 4x12s out of the bargain bin) We purchased our 2x6's for the window framing from Home Depot which was somewhat of a disappointment , but sometimes convenience is the route taken.. We had hoped to use the locally produced rough cut lumber but it is cut at actual dimensions which makes it harder to work with and it would have taken a while for a sawmill to cut our order as the end of August is a busy time for project doers.. So anyway, we used dimensional lumber and it has turned out very well.
The most recent addition to our house was the standing of a 23 foot lodgepole. This is a big log about 14 inches around at the base. We hired a boom truck to come help us set it into place..It was very nervewracking having that huge chunk of wood way up in the air. My heart raced the whole time it was suspended...Now that the lodgepole is in place it is time to start thinking about the roof....Until next time!
First off: The Earthship
Attention space cadets!
This is your captain speaking, the morning report will now commence.
The tire pounding sector has at last completed its assigned project, all members of the tire pounding sector shall be reassigned other duties for the time being. The concrete bond beam of the South Wall was attacked by a swarm of worker bees and also stands completed, somewhat resembling the parapets of old world construction. Thank you to all bees. The hole crew has been filling holes...............hey! where did the hole crew go?
And there is our problem.
With three kids, that adds a whole other plethora of distractions. Add that to the gardening/fishing/hunting/harvest season and the fact that winter is coming and we are lucky if one of us can give the project our full attention each day...
In all actuality we have made a lot of progress this year. However, we were hoping to be moved in by August...But we're not, and thats okay. The house is coming along famously as you can see by the pics. Distractions have played a large part in the slowing of our forward momentum. But we have had a great summer of productivity and fun. It is a rare opportunity we've been given, to get to build our own rendition of what we want in a house. The process of building any home is a growing experience for individuals or couples alike. So many people have said " Building a house was the hardest thing my spouse and I ever did."
We were like oh yeah, sure... But now we see the light. Every person looks at things in their own unique way and sometimes hours or days can be spent hashing over the smallest of details. Sometimes we will argue for a long time over one detail and come to find out that we both wanted the same thing only we explained it from totally opposite ends of the spectrum.
Lets pick up from where the Earthship report left off.
After completion of the tire pounding on the house wall, we started to prep it for the concrete bond beam. Much ado was made about whether to build the form out of wood or cans...We ended up re-using our form boards from the South wall form and using cable staples to attach metal lath from the tires up onto the form board. We also pounded 5 1/2 foot pieces of rebar down into each tire on the top course and let it poke out up into the form for something to attach the continuous running rebar to. There were 3 horizontal continuous pieces of rebar. In order to pour the bond beam, we had to decide what direction we were taking with the roof. We added Allthread(long pieces of bolt that you can cut to length as needed) in the places where the roof framework will attach. The day of the concrete pour was a bluebird day. We hired a pump truck to dispense the concrete as the bond beam was 9 foot in the air.. (see pics on Ship of Fools Facebook page) With only one blowout of the metal lath we declared the project a success!
As the bond beam preps were occurring we started thinking about the wisdom of building our composting toilet system inside the house. There was already a plan to put the water tank outside of the house tire wall so as to keep our water cold and not take up valuable floor space. We ended up building a form for a 2 room storage area outside the tire wall which would allow for composting toilets and water to be accessible but not in the house. It also gives us some nice utility/storage area which will be handy for overall organization of the household.. It also allows us about 200 extra square feet of bedroom area upstairs as the storage area is covered by the 2nd floor. Love it!! As a byproduct of all this awesomeness the composting system plus 400+ gallons of water should keep the storage areas from freezing..
The other project occurring simultaneously to the bond beam prep was the building of the South facing window wall. It is post and beam construction with 8-6x6 posts and 4 pieces of 4x12 spanning about 64 feet of wall. That wall will be filled with an assortment of windows and the space around the windows will be filled with bottle wall. We want to let in/absorb as much passive solar as possible..
After the concrete bond beam was completed, it was time to install the posts and beam that would support the subfloor. The posts are made of log and the beam is 3 pieces of 4x12. Off of the beam hang the floor joists which span from the beam over the top of the tire wall out over the storage area.On top of the floor joists goes the plywood which completes the subfloor. My dad rooted around in the local Spenard Builders Supply and found 25-22 foot 14inch TJI's which built almost our entire subfloor. As they had been sitting in the lumber yard for some time they gave them to us at the screamingest deal around. (We also purchased aforementioned 6x6's and 4x12s out of the bargain bin) We purchased our 2x6's for the window framing from Home Depot which was somewhat of a disappointment , but sometimes convenience is the route taken.. We had hoped to use the locally produced rough cut lumber but it is cut at actual dimensions which makes it harder to work with and it would have taken a while for a sawmill to cut our order as the end of August is a busy time for project doers.. So anyway, we used dimensional lumber and it has turned out very well.
The most recent addition to our house was the standing of a 23 foot lodgepole. This is a big log about 14 inches around at the base. We hired a boom truck to come help us set it into place..It was very nervewracking having that huge chunk of wood way up in the air. My heart raced the whole time it was suspended...Now that the lodgepole is in place it is time to start thinking about the roof....Until next time!
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Onward and Upward
The Fifth Course.....sigh. Shouldn't we be at dessert yet? 120 tires to go.
The peak of the Season Food Fest was held at Jackson Gardens this afternoon. Kenai Resilience asked people to bring a dish made with local foods. We truly are at the peak of the season here in Alaska and the chill is returning to the air. The grass is less green than it was for the more vibrant months of summer... The earthship continues. The fifth course is finished, the sixth has begun. What this means is that the 24 tire wall has three courses left counting the one we're on. The 15 tire garage wall has four courses remaining.....
The South facing window wall is two courses high and is being prepped for the concrete bond beam pour. The bond beam runs continuously the length of all tire walls. It sits on top of the pounded tires, is at least 8 inches square(ours is 12) has at least two continuous horizontal rebar running through with vertical pieces of rebar pounded down into each tire and into the ground beneath. The framed in window wall will be sitting on the top plate which will sit on the bond beam which will in turn sit on the tires (and the green grass grows all around all around and the green grass grows all around). We are building the South wall crazy strong by using plywood to form along the tire wall. This will allow the concrete to fall down into the gaps around where the tires come together making a 2 1/2 foot thick thermal mass wall. There will be insulation on the outside of this wall until we can build a greenhouse the length of it.
Another project we've begun is the packing of the gaps in the tire walls. Earthship Biotecture suggests filling these gaps with a straw/clay/sand mixture that you throw at the wall to get in all the gaps. I propose to use Salvation Army reject clothing dipped in cement to stuff into all of the gaps. This route is being taken for two reasons. Firstly, here in Alaska we are having a rainy summer to say the least. The sun came out this afternoon and that is the first time I have seen it directly since August 5th. That sunny evening was the first in a couple of weeks... and so on and so forth. Anyhow, not much sun for South Central Alaskans this summer. However, I haven't had to water my garden since June! When it is so wet all the time, I don't see how a heavy mud mixture is going to fully dry. Cement will cure even if it is humid... Secondly, because it is cheaper and less labor intensive to use clothing as straw is 13.00 a bale and sand is $130+ a load. We could go to the beach to collect the sand, but time is of the essence so we are trying to take reasonable shortcuts wherever possible. The clothing is free and so is the cement as the landfill has a literal ton of it just sitting there.
I'm going to leave off for now, as we are just plugging along trying to finish the tire pounding so we can move along to all things bigger and better (or at least new and exciting)
The peak of the Season Food Fest was held at Jackson Gardens this afternoon. Kenai Resilience asked people to bring a dish made with local foods. We truly are at the peak of the season here in Alaska and the chill is returning to the air. The grass is less green than it was for the more vibrant months of summer... The earthship continues. The fifth course is finished, the sixth has begun. What this means is that the 24 tire wall has three courses left counting the one we're on. The 15 tire garage wall has four courses remaining.....
The South facing window wall is two courses high and is being prepped for the concrete bond beam pour. The bond beam runs continuously the length of all tire walls. It sits on top of the pounded tires, is at least 8 inches square(ours is 12) has at least two continuous horizontal rebar running through with vertical pieces of rebar pounded down into each tire and into the ground beneath. The framed in window wall will be sitting on the top plate which will sit on the bond beam which will in turn sit on the tires (and the green grass grows all around all around and the green grass grows all around). We are building the South wall crazy strong by using plywood to form along the tire wall. This will allow the concrete to fall down into the gaps around where the tires come together making a 2 1/2 foot thick thermal mass wall. There will be insulation on the outside of this wall until we can build a greenhouse the length of it.
Another project we've begun is the packing of the gaps in the tire walls. Earthship Biotecture suggests filling these gaps with a straw/clay/sand mixture that you throw at the wall to get in all the gaps. I propose to use Salvation Army reject clothing dipped in cement to stuff into all of the gaps. This route is being taken for two reasons. Firstly, here in Alaska we are having a rainy summer to say the least. The sun came out this afternoon and that is the first time I have seen it directly since August 5th. That sunny evening was the first in a couple of weeks... and so on and so forth. Anyhow, not much sun for South Central Alaskans this summer. However, I haven't had to water my garden since June! When it is so wet all the time, I don't see how a heavy mud mixture is going to fully dry. Cement will cure even if it is humid... Secondly, because it is cheaper and less labor intensive to use clothing as straw is 13.00 a bale and sand is $130+ a load. We could go to the beach to collect the sand, but time is of the essence so we are trying to take reasonable shortcuts wherever possible. The clothing is free and so is the cement as the landfill has a literal ton of it just sitting there.
I'm going to leave off for now, as we are just plugging along trying to finish the tire pounding so we can move along to all things bigger and better (or at least new and exciting)
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Note to Selves(mine and Your)
Each time I work on one of these I am sure that it will be easier than the last time, not so yet. Summer is continuing to be in full swing complete with out of state license plates, no seats at the Merc (a most popular restaurant around these here parts) and long lines of people most everywhere you go.
The Earthship building is moving slowly but surely. We have poured the concrete slab. This required many hours of prep work before the actual pour. We laid down a vapor barrier, 3 inches of foam board insulation, 4-140 foot runs of pex tubing, one layer of metal mesh and miscellaneous rebar all over the place... Then the concrete trucks arrived and it was a crazy couple of hours. We started with 3 people and had 6 by the end of the pour. Then it started raining(of course) and my husband and a friend stayed up till 5 am trying to get a nice finish on the pad. They ended up putting up a visqeen tent over the entire house and working with the headlights of their trucks all night. Luckily, I came down with a cold and was sent home after the pour. When my husband arrived home, he was covered head to toe in concrete and was soaking wet. But it's in, and we can now move forward again. Sometimes this process seems like a lot of hurry up and waiting. The gravel and concrete pads were two BIG steps in the building of our home. Now, comes more of the fun stuff. Tire pounding will be resuming and we will start to assemble the post and beam part of the south wall.
Before we move on however, lets talk about the concrete pad some more. In the Earthship books, they recommend putting your flooring on the ground. They have formulated a mixture of the naturally occurring soils that they use like concrete. However, here in Alaska that would be a cold floor! The temperature of the ground here is around 40 degrees where as in other places the temperature of the ground is more like 60. Many homes in Alaska(and probably other places) use warm water/glycol circulating under their flooring to achieve a comfortable environment. This is a more passive form of heat than say a monitor or forced air heating system, it also is more efficient as your are heating a mass that holds heat longer. It seems to me that our culture is so bent on heating air and keeping it hot, that we forget that people(and animals) have been using thermal mass to stay warm for as long as well, time.(Think lizard on a rock, cave dwellers etc) I also find heating air to be an apt metaphor for our lifestyles in general. We spend so much energy on making money to pay our bills which keep stacking up, all the while spending less time with our families which leads our children to believe that they have to go to college to get the highest paying job they can so they can support their families when the time comes. I have recently been learning more and more that "opting out" is a possibility. If we look at how many hours we spend every month on each bill(ex. food bill 700$ 35 hours @ 20.00$/hour) , I think we would see that those hours could be spent on growing food... Which expenses are necessary? That is up to each individual person. I think we can all find things we could opt out of. If we as a culture decided to simplify and reduce our needs, many of which are a necessity of the 40+ hour work week and the convenience lifestyle, I think it would be beneficial.
A closed loop under floor heating system will be one of our houses forms of heat. The water/glycol(we're not sure which yet(any input is welcome)) will be in a closed loop system that runs a couple of laps in the masonry stove. The masonry stove will be our other form of heat. Once again an ancient technology, a masonry stove is a big pile of rock with a firebox. When you burn a roaring fire for a small amount of time, the rocks hold the heat for up to a couple of days. If you were to hire someone to build you a masonry stove, it would cost thousands of dollars, but the concepts are pretty simple. One of the reasons for the high cost of manufactured masonry stoves is that the materials are often shipped. And who wants to ship a big pile of rocks anywhere? I have yet to travel anywhere that didn't have rocks, so this seems kind of goofy to me. I am going to leave off for now and keep working on the house, We'll see you next time!
The Earthship building is moving slowly but surely. We have poured the concrete slab. This required many hours of prep work before the actual pour. We laid down a vapor barrier, 3 inches of foam board insulation, 4-140 foot runs of pex tubing, one layer of metal mesh and miscellaneous rebar all over the place... Then the concrete trucks arrived and it was a crazy couple of hours. We started with 3 people and had 6 by the end of the pour. Then it started raining(of course) and my husband and a friend stayed up till 5 am trying to get a nice finish on the pad. They ended up putting up a visqeen tent over the entire house and working with the headlights of their trucks all night. Luckily, I came down with a cold and was sent home after the pour. When my husband arrived home, he was covered head to toe in concrete and was soaking wet. But it's in, and we can now move forward again. Sometimes this process seems like a lot of hurry up and waiting. The gravel and concrete pads were two BIG steps in the building of our home. Now, comes more of the fun stuff. Tire pounding will be resuming and we will start to assemble the post and beam part of the south wall.
Before we move on however, lets talk about the concrete pad some more. In the Earthship books, they recommend putting your flooring on the ground. They have formulated a mixture of the naturally occurring soils that they use like concrete. However, here in Alaska that would be a cold floor! The temperature of the ground here is around 40 degrees where as in other places the temperature of the ground is more like 60. Many homes in Alaska(and probably other places) use warm water/glycol circulating under their flooring to achieve a comfortable environment. This is a more passive form of heat than say a monitor or forced air heating system, it also is more efficient as your are heating a mass that holds heat longer. It seems to me that our culture is so bent on heating air and keeping it hot, that we forget that people(and animals) have been using thermal mass to stay warm for as long as well, time.(Think lizard on a rock, cave dwellers etc) I also find heating air to be an apt metaphor for our lifestyles in general. We spend so much energy on making money to pay our bills which keep stacking up, all the while spending less time with our families which leads our children to believe that they have to go to college to get the highest paying job they can so they can support their families when the time comes. I have recently been learning more and more that "opting out" is a possibility. If we look at how many hours we spend every month on each bill(ex. food bill 700$ 35 hours @ 20.00$/hour) , I think we would see that those hours could be spent on growing food... Which expenses are necessary? That is up to each individual person. I think we can all find things we could opt out of. If we as a culture decided to simplify and reduce our needs, many of which are a necessity of the 40+ hour work week and the convenience lifestyle, I think it would be beneficial.
A closed loop under floor heating system will be one of our houses forms of heat. The water/glycol(we're not sure which yet(any input is welcome)) will be in a closed loop system that runs a couple of laps in the masonry stove. The masonry stove will be our other form of heat. Once again an ancient technology, a masonry stove is a big pile of rock with a firebox. When you burn a roaring fire for a small amount of time, the rocks hold the heat for up to a couple of days. If you were to hire someone to build you a masonry stove, it would cost thousands of dollars, but the concepts are pretty simple. One of the reasons for the high cost of manufactured masonry stoves is that the materials are often shipped. And who wants to ship a big pile of rocks anywhere? I have yet to travel anywhere that didn't have rocks, so this seems kind of goofy to me. I am going to leave off for now and keep working on the house, We'll see you next time!
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