Earthshipdetails

Details, details, details...

The next big step towards completion was the framing inspection. BUT in order to get the framing inspection signed off many other bits and pieces had to be finished up. Regional building requires that the electical, plumbing, gas, and vent inspections be finished before they will come out to inspect the framing. We hired out all of these jobs, except for the venting. Each one has little surprises (like the previous plumbing job when I learned that you can't bury rigid copper pipe!) Even the contractors made mistakes and had to come out to make changes. Most of these items were pretty close to completion. The plumber had to make a few more connections, and the electrician had to wire the front face/hallway. We hadn't started the gas line yet, except that when I cut the trench for the wire from the solar array to the house I also cut the gas line trench. The plumbing was mostly tying up loose ends and was done quickly. The gas line really didn't take long either. Outside of the house the gas plumber used flexible pipe and inside he used the rigid black pipe. This was very straight forward and we could have done it except that we don't have a pipe threader for the black pipe, or a fuse welder for the flexible.
The plumbing was mostly tying up loose ends and was done quickly. The gas line really didn't take long either. Outside of the house the gas plumber used flexible pipe and inside he used the rigid black pipe. This was very straight forward and we could have done it except that we don't have a pipe threader for the black pipe,

or a fuse welder for the flexible. I'm told that the inspectors inside of city limits are very picky about the way that gas pipe is laid and buried. For us the inspector walked up, looked in the trench and said "That's supposed to be 18" deep." I said "it is." and that was it. He looked at where we had our appliances (stove, water heater, and dryer) stubbed out and signed us off.

Vents: L to R, the hotwater heater (5" type B pipe), battery box vent (11/2" PVC) and plumbing vent (3" PVC). I still need 2 more fresh air vents.

Plumbing and dryer vent: The 3" PVC is our toilet outlet. The two lines coming in from left and right are the drains if we turn off the gray water planters (more on that later). The silver pipe is our dryer vent. The strange requirement for the dryer vent: a maximum of 25 feet long BUT take off 5 feet for a 90 deg. elbow and 2 1/2 ft. for a 45. Also it can't be within 3' of an operable window.

The gas entrance, awaiting an outside regulator, and the 500 gallon propane tank.

The electrical inspection didn't go as smoothly, though. First the electricians came out and put the conduit and junction boxes in the main rooms. This was a long time ago. We still had to make a few decisions about where different outlets would go and the front hallway wasn't waterproof, so we had them not do that part then. When we were finally ready, they were in the middle of another job and couldn't get free for a couple more weeks. Once they were on our job they spent a couple of days doing the wiring and we called in the inspection. We didn't pass. Again there are all of these little things that I would never think of. Of course everything needs to be grounded correctly. The ground rod for all of the interior solar components was pounded as far as it could go, and about 10 inches of the 8 foot rod were still above ground. The solar installer cut off the rest and the inspector said "no way." So we had to pound another ground rod in for the solar. The inspector also required two ground rods for the AC electrics and there is one outside by the solar panels too. In addition to all of these rods (5), there is a water bond (the ground is attatched to the 80ft of buried copper pipe that supplies water from the cisterns) and a gas bond. This must be the best grounded house there ever was! We also learned that code says that there has to be two separate circuits in the kitchen (two different circuit breakers) and that the closest outlet to the kitchen must be on one of the kitchen circuits. Why I don't know, but they made us do it. The one that makes the least sense to me, though is this one:

This will be our kitchen and all of those boxes are separate outlets. Apparently code requires a outlet for every two feet of counter top. So our tiny kitchen with limited solar power has seven outlets in it. SEVEN! I tried to explain that I wouldn't have enough power to run all the appliances that could be plugged into all these outlets, but it was no use. I guess the idea is to cut down on the use of multiple outlet plugs with the high wattage appliances, but I still think it's stupid. The inspector also made us run a wire from outside the house into the inverter room just in case we (or a future buyer) would want to hook into the grid. There were several other details that we had to change, but we did finally pass.

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