Colorado Earthship Build: Day 26 (Atrium framing)

We were lucky today. We had a lot more cloud cover for much of the day, which was a really nice break from constant sun.

There is a lot to cover for today, so let’s get started.

I talked yesterday about us cutting large 6×6″ (15x15cm) posts to put on top of the trex plating around the atrium entrance. Well, this is the saw that we are using to cut those posts.

It’s like a super-sized skill saw. This thing has a 16″ (40.5cm) diameter blade. It’s heavy and temperamental. Here is a shot of Zsolt cutting one of the beams while I’m standing on it to keep it from moving.

I didn’t use the saw myself; most of the time Phil did the cutting. I think that is because he knew how difficult the saw can be. Zsolt’s first cut was a little off, but after that he figured it out and the other cuts turned out well. Good thing too, because with framing, we’re extra picky.

There were using a lot of the 6×6 beams upstairs as well and they only have the one beam-cutter saw, so we were hauling 16′ (4.9m) posts upstairs.

For us working below, this meant taking the post up top, having it cut then taking the cut piece back downstairs. Not very efficient to say the least. However, once they got all of their posts cut for upstairs, we stole the saw and were cutting them right at the pile in the garage, as you saw above.

As you can imagine, there was a lot of measuring, cutting, screwing and bracing today. Here is Zsolt and I measuring for the cross beams up over top of our heads. As you can see, this was after we had already spent considerable effort putting in the upright columns and the spans across them.

Once we had our measurement, we had the next post cut and we had to hire extra help to put it up top. The span was just over 8′ (2.4m) and the footing was a bit complicated. Here is us starting the lift.

Colt and Lou are the ones helping us. You can see me at the end in the hat and glasses, trying not to hit my head on the bracing.

We did get it up and over the top without any incidents, so that was a bonus.

After putting it in place, we had to screw it down, of course. Here is me up top doing just that.

The screws are really just to keep it in position. The real work comes when we pull out the big powered drill with the 22″ (56cm) long 1/2″ (12.5mm) auger bit and drill down through the posts. We then take a sledge hammer and drive rebar into the holes we just made. This is not easy. First of all, the big drill and long bit are finicky and can take quite the force to push down through that much wood. Then there is the whole precariousness of being up on those beams in awkward positions.

Unfortunately, my photographer wasn’t around when I was drilling the first couple of holes and driving in the rebar, so we don’t have a picture of that. We’ll be working on that again tomorrow, so maybe we’ll get a picture of it then.

We had the second cross beam cut, and got Greg and Jeff to help us this time to put it up and over the first one we put in.

That’s where I was working all day, along with Zsolt and Kat. The above picture was pretty much where we were when cleanup was called, though we did get one more post cut, but not installed.

Here you can see it from above how far we got today. Yeah, there is a tonne of bracing in there to keep everything as straight and level (plumb is the word they like to use) as possible. This thing is going up 16′ (4.9m) so small errors below will lead to large errors above. We try to be as exact as possible.

As you well know by now, if you have been following along, many others were working on many other things while we were building the framing around the front entrance. Let’s go see what they were up to.

Here is a picture of Jean working on that massive interior can and bottle wall I’ve shown a few other times. Jean is the site coordinator and is responsible for organizing the build with all of the people coming from all over the planet. AND she does can/bottle work on top of that. She is one busy woman.

Here is another picture of Phil, whom we all know by now, who looks like he is in the middle of building an ark and checking on the rising level of the water. Actually he was working on framing the upstairs portion of the atrium.

Here is a fun picture as it seems everyone has stopped to contemplate the arch on the west side. A lot of work has gone into that thing so I’m not surprised people are stopping to consider it.

Yes, the crane arrived today and put the logs on the roof of the second level.

This is what the roof of the second level looks like now.

Emily was spotted seemingly trying to make some sense of the spaghetti pile of cords that comprised the battery recharging station. That was no simple task to untangle all of that and kudos go to her for clearing it up.

Upstairs, you can see they have been busy. The logs are in place and there is a lot of big ass framing now around the hole in the floor where the atrium will be.

Here it is again, looking from east to west.

Remember all of that awesome bottle work that went into making the steps? Well, some of them have seen some abuse. I took this picture of one that was broken. I’m not sure what they’re going to do to fix that.

Downstairs, in the interior, the plumbers and electricians have been really busy rigging up all of the rooms. We can’t enclose anything until the inspectors have seen everything. The pluming inspector was there today and I’m assuming it went well as we didn’t see anyone ripping anything out.

There was a funny plumbing moment this morning when they had a compressor hooked up to do a pressure test on the plumbing. You do that to find leaks before you run any water through your pipes. Anyway, they were testing away and Kat and I were out front at the atrium entrance where we have been working. The main black water pipe that exits the house comes out under that door. It’s not connected to the septic yet, so it just has a rubber cap clamped on it right now. Or at least it did.

When they pressurized the pipes, the cap blew off down the hill and bounced off a truck. It sounded like a gun going off too. No one was hurt, not even the truck, so it ended up just being a funny incident.

Getting back on track, here is a picture of one of the bedrooms, with the framing in for the closet at the back.

A closer look at that wall on the right reveals all of the plumbing and electrical work that has gone into this place. Each bedroom has its own bathroom (six bathrooms in total in the house) so you can imagine the plumbing nightmare this is.

Kris was busy today building the spot where the electrical panel is to be placed. In the case of this house, having the garage means you have a convenient spot to put your batteries and electrical boxes.

That’s it as far as stuff that we have pictures for around the site.

Today was, however, graduation day for some of us. Those of us who are leaving this weekend (Kat and I included) received our Earthship Build certificates and there was a pizza party for everyone. Here are several pictures of us all feeding our faces at the trough, as it were.

Ombeline (I hope I spelled that right) went all out and made a bunch of tasty treats for those who wanted to pitch in $2. There were six different items, and I’m not going to describe them, because I can’t do it accurately. I will say they were all quite tasty though.

And more pictures of everyone hanging around the desserts. It became the center of attention after the pizza was all gone, as you can probably imagine.

Well, Kat and I have one more day. Saturdays are more relaxed and we will probably hit up the farmer’s market one last time before heading in to the build site. I would like to finish putting in those cross beams over the atrium door before we leave. That’s my goal for tomorrow.

Colorado Earthship Build: Day 25 (Installing the atrium door frame and more)

Another clear night and another clear day. It was very nice and cool last night but another scorcher today with no breaks from the sun. Kat and I have been pretty vigilant about using sunscreen so neither of us has had any sun burns, but you do come home feeling a bit baked after spending all day in the sun.

We were back at it today, working on the atrium. We were extra lucky today because Lou, the plumber, said we could use his radio. So we plugged in our phones (first Kat’s then mine) and had a grand ol’ time listening to music that we normally enjoy.

That’s nice, Dave, but what did you actually work on today? I’m so glad you asked.

The first thing we did was finish the trex plating that we couldn’t finish before due to the concrete pour we had to finish first. Here you can see Kat drilling away on a piece of trex. We drill holes in it so the anchor bolts come through.

After that, we took that door frame we made yesterday and installed it. Doesn’t this look snazzy?

Another thing you can see in that picture above is the start of the 6″x6″ (15x15cm) posts that we are putting on top of the trex plating. There are two layers of that, raising the wall up a full 12″ (30cm). It seemed a bit odd to us, but they did that because they need the vertical columns to reach a certain height and needed the extra boost underneath to reach it. If you are wondering, these posts are truly 6″x6″, not 5.5″ on a side.

Here we have a picture of myself, Jen and Steve contemplating the Phil as he’s contemplating the stuff down below in the atrium. Contemplation chain, as it were.

Mike R came by and he and Phil had a long discussion late in the afternoon about atrium details. They came down from on high (the roof/second floor), brought their drawings and details were discussed.

It turns out there are supposed to be vertical columns in line with the door. We ran a string line across the whole atrium and the door did not meet the string, though it was pretty close. We ended up having to remove the door from its location and move it south about 3″ (7.5cm). It’s always fun to take apart and redo stuff. Taking screws out of trex is not always easy, let me tell you.

Speaking of screws, it seems the screws of choice for this work site use the torx bit. Now if you know nothing about screws, torx is a lesser used bit that has a six pointed star. The screws themselves are pretty nice, but the choice of bit, to me seems a tad odd. Also, no matter how many torx drill bits they seem to buy, they always disappear.

Anyway, I took a picture of the atrium at the end of the day. You can see how we have shifted the door frame forward. We’ll remove those blocks we put in front and rip a spacer to fit in the over hanging part. You can also see that most of the 6×6 post work is in place as well.

By the way, don’t drop the end of a 16′ (4.9m) 6×6 post on your finger. It hurts a lot.

Yesterday I said I thought they would have all of the trusses in for the upper floor green house, but I was sorely mistaken. Now that I think about it, they couldn’t put those in until the logs are in place, so that means that the bond beam at the back needed to be poured first. And so it was.

That big concrete pumping truck showed up again today and aside from waiting for the actual concrete to arrive, it managed to pour the whole thing. I’m not sure how much of the buttresses were poured, but I’m pretty sure some of them must have been.

Once that settles up, the nailing plate will go on and the logs will be put in place.

Here you can see all of the framing work they have been doing upstairs. There are now railings around the atrium hole and door frames for ends of the catwalk. You can also see all of the interior framing they have done in the previous picture.

More upstairs, but from a different angle. You can see they have put flashing underneath the edges of the door frames on the catwalk. That’s because those doors are exterior doors. The sections over the roof that they open up to are patios. Only the stuff behind the knee high wall will be interior, as far as the two ends are concerned. The center section will have a stairwell coming up through the atrium. You can see where they have left the gap for the stairs on the closer side.

I mentioned a while back that there would be six cisterns in this place. I have a picture of the four at the back after having been put in place. This house will be able to store a crap load of water. At 1700 gallons per cistern, that works out to 10,200 gallons (38,760L). You certainly won’t go thirsty at this place.

Just in case you thought it was being left behind, the arch over the east side garage entrance is catching up to the west side one. I watched one time on the west side how they get the concrete up there and they parked a wheel barrow full of the stuff and then just took a shovel and heaved it up over the lip. That is some serious work out, I’m sure.

Now this is interesting. This is a sand filter built from a wooden frame and a piece of lath. You throw your sand through this to eliminate clumps and make sure that it is all uniform. As you get further into your finishing coats for plaster and such, you would use a finer and finer filter, with smaller and smaller holes to make the plaster more refined. We won’t be seeing anything too refined as we’ll be heading out long before that.

Remember that interior can and bottle wall? Well it’s come a long way. It even has electrical conduit and junction boxes and so forth all setup.

Here is a finished bottle wall around the exterior east side door. It’s very well done and kudos go to Heather and all of her helpers for doing a great job.

Two more build days to go for us. There will still be a lot left to do when we leave, but we have certainly accomplished a lot as well. When we get to building our own place, it certainly won’t be built nearly as quickly.

Colorado Earthship Build: Day 23 (Atrium nailing plate and concrete form)

You know it’s going to be a rough day when the excavator is dragging itself up the hill.

We’ve been working that excavator pretty hard, so I’m not surprised if he’s getting a little slow 😛

There was a bunch of weird stuff that happened today.

Take for instance this picture. It looks like I have been replace by an donut eating alien.

And this person kept popping up in odd poses.

Though, she almost fell out of the window after that one.

This is where we started and ended our day: at the front of the atrium. We had to finish the trex nailing plate. It requires a double plate and the joints from one layer couldn’t overlap the second so we had more angles to figure out.

We had a hilarious moment in a not-really-funny kind of way today. Jared, one of the guys who was responsible for building the form for the atrium pour was around. I thought he would be able to tell us what angles to use for the cutting of the plates. His answer? “Oh it doesn’t really matter, just make it up.” That was funny and disturbing all at the same time.

Luckily, I had a pretty good idea what the angles were from all of the cutting I did yesterday, except now they had to be applied a bit different for the second layer. We eventually got it to work and our joints looked pretty snazzy, if I do say so myself.

To put the second plate on, you have to tighten the nuts on the anchor bolts nice and snug, then use a grinder to cut off the excess threads sticking up passed the bolt. I took a picture of Russ doing just that, with sparks and all.

Believe it or not, it took us until after lunch to finish the two layers of nailing plate. Kinda crazy when you think about it, but hey, when it’s all trial and error, it takes a while. It did feel like it was slow going though.

Probably because this crazy lady kept showing up and striking weird poses.

After we finished the plating (at least, as much as we could) we had to build concrete forms to pour the end pieces that were missed originally. I have never build a concrete form before and it wasn’t the most pleasant experience because I was trying to do it quickly. Mike R came by a couple of times and asked if it was going to get poured today. I answered, “I hope so.”

Here is a picture of the one side that we did.

We ended up finishing just a bit after clean up was called. We were using bits of previously built concrete forms screwed together with bracing and what not. It didn’t look pretty to me, but Phil came over and looked at it and said it was okay. So tomorrow morning, that will be the first thing we do.

Here is what it looked like from above at the end of the day.

Today, when we arrived on site, Kat snagged a before picture of what is going on up on the roof. Here you can see they have started the framing of the vertical green house wall for the second/back floor. Yes, the floor is wet because we had quite a bit of rain last night.

This is what it looked like by the end of the day. All of the framing in place, along with the big beam up top. Also, all of the tires for the back wall have been pounded and the can wall form for the upper bond beam has begun as well. The buttress forms are in place and ready to go, though I don’t think they have the rebar in them yet.

Quite a bit done for just one day.

The bottle work beside the doors is coming along and looking quite fine. Heather truly does a fine job.

Here is a closeup of freshly laid bottle bricks placed in mortar.

We had a visit from the lonely monkey bottle wall inspector today. As you can see, he does look pretty lonely, but at least he has a place to sit.

Remember those arches they are building above the entrances to the garage? Well, they’ve made quite a bit of progress.

You can see in that picture how they have extended a can wall up the outside of the arch. This is because the top of the arch is supposed to hold soil for some planters. It should be pretty neat when it’s all done.

Tomorrow, after we pour the missing concrete corners, we’ll start working on the framing for the atrium.

Colorado Earthship Build: Day 22 (Windows and trex plate)

Oh the things I do for my fans. We had a big, but brief, storm last evening and the wifi went out here at the campsite so I got up extra early this morning to do my post about what we did yesterday.

We’ll start off with that glass stuff we kept mentioning the other day. Those who were here on the weekend were very busy.

Doesn’t that look snazzy? It’s really starting to look like a house now. Don’t worry about all of the rough finishes, those will all get covered up soon enough.

As you can see from that above picture, there were some large square areas that seem to be missing their windows. Well, right below them, still in their box, were the Velux openable windows that Kat and I helped to install first thing. There are four of them going across the front. Openable windows are a requirement to meet fire code for egress (i.e. escape routes). The Earthship Biotecture guys seem to like the Velux brand, but if you’re building your own, feel free to search for other (i.e cheaper) options.

Once those windows were in, Phil had us working on the nailing plate and insulation for the atrium. This was no easy task. This is what we started with.

You can see the insulation has been started around the exterior wall, but we needed two layers of it. Also, we needed to put the nailing plate on top, made of Trex. There are a lot of funky angles there, none of which were detailed in the drawings. So there was a lot of trial and error to find the correct angle to make the cuts at. I went through a lot of scrap wood, let me tell you.

You might also be wondering about those blocks of wood embedded in the concrete pour. That’s so we have something to screw the insulation to. It’s difficult putting screws into concrete.

Here is the other side that has part of its insulation already installed.

Oh another thing that was messed up? If you look at the section facing the camera that has the insulation on it already, that high wall was supposed to extend over top of the lower wall where they meet. We ended up having to drill several holes and put rebar pins in there so we can pour the corner pieces. We’ll need to build a form box as well, but we didn’t get to that. This was one of those days where the time seems to just run away from you. We didn’t event finish getting the first plate of Trex on there was so much fiddling and measuring, and remeasuring and so on.

I’m sure we’ll be back at it tomorrow (well, today actually).

WE INTERRUPT THIS POST TO BRING YOU GOATS!!!

Now back to our regular scheduled programming.

Here are some of the other things that went on around the build site.

A close up shot of one of the installed windows. Yes, this is double paned glass.

The arch over the west end is coming along very nicely.

Here is a progress shot of the interior can and bottle wall that will separate one of the bed rooms from the atrium. Lots of plumbing and electrical conduit going through the back ground walls too.

Heather, the bottle whisperer, has begun the bottle work beside those doors we installed last week. That’s going to look pretty nice when it’s done.

I’d just like to leave this post with this message.

I mean, just look at how awesome this person is, photo-bombing my attempt to take a picture.