Knock on Wood?!
It has been a couple of weeks since I've been able to provide an update regarding our progress toward building our Earthship home. I've been neglectful of the blog as a fury of activity has been taking place. I'm hesitant to say anything positive about our outlook as I'm a bit superstitious so if you wouldn't mind, could you knock on wood before I proceed?
I trust that you've knocked on wood (real, not fabricated!) so I will carry on...
As you may have noticed if you've been keeping up with our progress from the start, I've abandoned our initial 3-stage checklists as everything has been pushed into the last couple of weeks. Essentially, many of the to-do's were interconnected and so nothing could proceed without something giving. As I stated in the last blog post, Guns a Blazin': Building a Rifle Range Backstop... Sure, Why Not?!, we found a bit of a loophole that allowed us to lawfully continue with the initial stages of our build without having the building permit from the county and the approval from the EPA to utilize tires in constructing our home. This is one of those areas where everything is closely interwoven and so without the building permit, the EPA is hesitant to issue the "beneficial use of scrap tires" permit. However, after being open with the county and the EPA and sending in the proper paperwork, we were given the go-ahead to proceed with our build! We may, however, have the building permit in time for the first workshop but we are happy to have a backup plan in the meantime.
Zac was able to install the rainwater harvesting system on the micro-cabin as well as the temporary electric pole on our land to provide water and electricity throughout the build. The water-hauler is coming today to fill the 825 gallon cistern we purchased to get us going and once Zac has a chance, he is going to clean the metal roof and complete the piping to be able to begin harvesting rainwater for cleaning and general use throughout the next several months. We'll be sure to do a "how-to" post with pictures once he has completely set up the rainwater harvesting system! The electric is going to be inspected today and we hope that DP&L will be able to come out by early next week to turn it on.
Zac and I wanted a way for workshop attendees and volunteers to clean off after a long day and were hoping to build a solar shower if we had the time. But, alas, time is quickly slipping from our grasp so we decided to bite the bullet and went for a quick fix instead. We ended up purchasing a two-room shower tent and an outdoor hot water shower powered by propane. We figured that it would be nice to provide a modicum amount of luxury because after working so hard, a nice warm shower is much appreciated. The luxury may only last long enough for a 4 minute shower but 'tis better than nothing!
The 60-foot office trailer we obtained from a couple in DeGraff, OH will hopefully be delivered to the land in the next week or so. We will be using it for additional temporary storage as our shipping container is stuffed to the gills!
Zac and I are firm believers in doing things ourselves and hate to pay for something if we can find a way to do it. Thinking of it now, I suppose that goes without saying considering the point of this blog and yet, I shall digress... While we had considered paying someone to bush-hog our land prior to the build, it would be more sustainable to find a way of doing it ourselves and put the money toward a piece of equipment that would be worth its' weight in gold as we progress through the years. This belief led us in search of an old tractor as new ones are ridiculously expensive and lack character and charm in our opinion. We stumbled upon this gem on Craigslist. It is a 1941 Farmall H. It was a solid tractor, had a great deal of charm and was within our price range. And so we are now proud tractor owners! We now need to find and purchase a bush-hogger but may settle for borrowing one in the meantime.
We're continuing to work with the county to obtain a building permit and have found that we are encountering a greater amount of steps than initially expected in obtaining the permit. As I said in the last post, I truly believe our naivete has been a strength and we are trying to take each task and hurdle as it comes; attempting not to lose our minds in the process. I feel totally out of my realm most days as I have taken on the role of default project manager as Zac has literally zero time to devote to these tasks. I found myself feeling a bit sick and dizzy after speaking to two geotechnical engineers on the phone for about an hour last week. We will be utilizing such an engineer to test compaction rates of our soil and compare that to the compaction rate achieved in an earth-rammed tire. Once Zac has moved the dirt around on our land and mixed up the soil sample we've obtained, he will pack our first tire with earth as an experiment to test for the compaction rate. A sample will be taken from that tire and sent to the lab for testing. Once we receive the results, we will be able to provide the county with some measurable rate that we'll be working to attain with each tire rammed with earth throughout the building of our home.
As hinted at in the previous paragraph, Zac's upcoming weekend will be spent using a large Bobcat to collect all the dirt we'll need for the build and to prep the land for the first workshop. We plan on returning that to the rental agency early next week and will then rent a smaller Bobcat for the next 4 weeks to make the tire foundation portion of our Earthship Build a bit easier.
I think that about sums up all that has been going on the past several weeks. We are anxiously awaiting the first Earthship Build Workshop on April 12th and 13th and are so looking forward to meeting and working with everyone who has registered thus far. We currently have about 30 people registered to attend and are expecting a few more registrations in the coming weeks. If you'd like to secure a spot at the first workshop, you can do so here.
I trust that you've knocked on wood (real, not fabricated!) so I will carry on...
As you may have noticed if you've been keeping up with our progress from the start, I've abandoned our initial 3-stage checklists as everything has been pushed into the last couple of weeks. Essentially, many of the to-do's were interconnected and so nothing could proceed without something giving. As I stated in the last blog post, Guns a Blazin': Building a Rifle Range Backstop... Sure, Why Not?!, we found a bit of a loophole that allowed us to lawfully continue with the initial stages of our build without having the building permit from the county and the approval from the EPA to utilize tires in constructing our home. This is one of those areas where everything is closely interwoven and so without the building permit, the EPA is hesitant to issue the "beneficial use of scrap tires" permit. However, after being open with the county and the EPA and sending in the proper paperwork, we were given the go-ahead to proceed with our build! We may, however, have the building permit in time for the first workshop but we are happy to have a backup plan in the meantime.
Zac was able to install the rainwater harvesting system on the micro-cabin as well as the temporary electric pole on our land to provide water and electricity throughout the build. The water-hauler is coming today to fill the 825 gallon cistern we purchased to get us going and once Zac has a chance, he is going to clean the metal roof and complete the piping to be able to begin harvesting rainwater for cleaning and general use throughout the next several months. We'll be sure to do a "how-to" post with pictures once he has completely set up the rainwater harvesting system! The electric is going to be inspected today and we hope that DP&L will be able to come out by early next week to turn it on.
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| Double Shower Tent |
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| ZODI Outback Gear Extreme SC Hot Shower |
Zac and I are firm believers in doing things ourselves and hate to pay for something if we can find a way to do it. Thinking of it now, I suppose that goes without saying considering the point of this blog and yet, I shall digress... While we had considered paying someone to bush-hog our land prior to the build, it would be more sustainable to find a way of doing it ourselves and put the money toward a piece of equipment that would be worth its' weight in gold as we progress through the years. This belief led us in search of an old tractor as new ones are ridiculously expensive and lack character and charm in our opinion. We stumbled upon this gem on Craigslist. It is a 1941 Farmall H. It was a solid tractor, had a great deal of charm and was within our price range. And so we are now proud tractor owners! We now need to find and purchase a bush-hogger but may settle for borrowing one in the meantime.
 |
| 1941 Farmall H Tractor |
As hinted at in the previous paragraph, Zac's upcoming weekend will be spent using a large Bobcat to collect all the dirt we'll need for the build and to prep the land for the first workshop. We plan on returning that to the rental agency early next week and will then rent a smaller Bobcat for the next 4 weeks to make the tire foundation portion of our Earthship Build a bit easier.
I think that about sums up all that has been going on the past several weeks. We are anxiously awaiting the first Earthship Build Workshop on April 12th and 13th and are so looking forward to meeting and working with everyone who has registered thus far. We currently have about 30 people registered to attend and are expecting a few more registrations in the coming weeks. If you'd like to secure a spot at the first workshop, you can do so here.
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