| Glass and Interior Walls |
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| Well FINALLY we've started to make progress again. The mess with the framer really set us back, and then it took about a month to get the glass ordered and installed. I don't know what took them so long....but it did! In this picture we have 10 out of 15 windows installed. Each window is double-paned tempered glass. All of the glass measures 46" by 90" except for the pieces over the operable windows, which were custom cut to fit. Each full sheet of glass weighs about 200 pounds, so I'm told. I had the glass guy do the installing. You can easily see the part in the middle of the building |
| This space is for a solar hot water heater and also makes up the roof for the utility room. Some how the framer screwed this up too. The drawings show it to be 8 ft. wide. The yahoo made it 9' wide, causing a few difficulties with the kitcher -- like suddenly it was 1 ft. narrower. THEN the operables were put in. The first ones were WAY wrong. I was very, very, very specific in what these windows needed to be, what size, how they needed to open, etc. Once the correct windows were installed, it was MUCH nicer to work inside. The wind was much less of an issue. We installed the doors and temporarily covered all of the large holes with plastic, and it suddenly seemed |
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| like a house. We bought this door at a building material salvage yard. We paid a lot for this one, but it is a very nice door. It was unfinished and required some work, but that was fun stuff. The other door we found in the clearance pile at the local Home Depot. I wanted to build the doors out of pallets, as shown in the Earthship books,but I didn't have the time right now. So, with the wind mostly out of the house and the weather warming up, we figured that we could start mixing cement again, and get started on the interior walls. First we finished (almost) the east planter |
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| wall. This picture doesn't show the best part very well... we put those blue bottles in, right along the top. You can see them poking out on each side of the wall. Building can walls seems just about idiot proof. As long and you mix the cement correctly, and make the wall plumb, it's hard to mess up. I was a little concened about the way we used the wood blocks instead of cans, but now I think they'll work just fine. Some of them apparently swelled in the wet cement and then shrank in the dry cement, and are now a little bit loose, but I think that the cement plaster that we will apply will make |
| everything hold together just fine. We decided to have another work party, since the weather was getting nicer and we were feeling motivated. Of course, nothing can ever go as planned. A couple of days before the party a huge snowstorm moved through. It was nice enough on the day of the party but...the effects of the storm were certainly felt. |
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| The middle U has that egress window which has not been installed yet. I covered the hole with a piece of plywood, but there were a few crevices and BAM snowdrift in the bedroom! This picture shows about half of the snow. The worst part, though... |
| was that the porta-potty was blown over. Not just blown over, either. The whole thing was completely filled with snow. We had to dig it out before we could right it! So far, this work party was business as usual for the Crow's! |
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| Our primary objective (after digging out the bedroom and the porta-potty) for the day was to get the first layer of void-filling done. In this we were successful. Essentially, we are trying to make the walls smooth. You have to go one layer at a time so that everything drys correctly and it doesn't just dry up and fall out of the void. We've chosen to do this first layer with cement and cans. Often plain old mud with some straw mixed in is used. We chose cement because: 1. we already know how to mix large quantities, so there is no experimentation needed and |
| 2. it just seems like a good idea to have any exterior walls filled with the most impervious material that we have. Since we were already doing the exterior walls this way, there wasn't much more to do for the interior walls. |
| With a bunch of volunteers, we got the first layer up in a few hours. Everyone wants to know why do we use the cans. They are there mostly to take up space, which makes the pack-out go more quickly. The also give a little grip to the next layer and, since the layers don't have to be as thick, make the whole thing dry more quickly. |
| (Melissa, the recovering tire pounder!) |
| So, in a matter of weeks we have gotten glass, operable windows, doors, our rough plumbing, one planter wall, and the initial pack-out finished. Finally forward progress. Although it is MUCH nicer inside with the glass and doors, there isn't any insulation, so it still will get cold inside. Before we can insulate, we have to finish the electrical rough-in and do the interior gas plumbing. Once those are completed we can have our framing inspection and start working on our finishes. |
| After such a long winter lull we are motivated and inspired once again! |
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