All Tanked Up

Jeff and I are so excited.  Not only is the house almost completely burried but this morning we got our septic tank installed.  We didn’t expect to do this till much later but it made a lot of sense to take advantage of having a big excavator “Goliath” here.Glenn from Tri-Agg had to make about a 15 point turn to get his big truck turned around and in place to set the tank.

In this picture you can just see the tank off to the right.  I still have a bit of work to get the rest of the fill up on the house but we have already had some rain and NO DRIPS!

Cheers

 

Tag Team

Working along with John Mosier of Buzy Bee Excavating, Dozy and Goliath played tag team with our weekend earthmoving project.  They piled earth up on the ramp next to the house while Dozy and I spread it over the top.

Since John was finished with creating a nice slope on the hillock next to our parking area and providing separate piles of fill and top soil, we asked him to dig us a hole for the septic tank.  This is something that we could not do with Dozy  so we took advantage of having Goliath here.  Tomorrow morning the tank will get delivered.

Dozy & Goliath

 

Dozy may look bigger in this picture than Goliath the Excavator but that’s just a matter of perspective.  This weekend we needed a much larger and more capable machine to do some major earth moving.  With a base of over 700 yards of “Mt. NOAA” sand already on our house, we still need a fair bit more fill to get it completely covered.  Plus add in a layer of topsoil.  Fortunately, we have both enough fill and topsoil to complete this just in the hillock next to our parking area.

However, this earthmoving project was a bit too much for Dozy so John Mosier of Buzy Bee Excavating came by to help us out.  His masterful operation of the big excavator “Goliath” made light work of it.There were a couple of pretty substantial stumps that John had to deal with but eventually he got them dug out.

Moving West

With most of the SE corner filled, we concentrated on filling the SW corner. We were slowed down a bit this weekend because the last batch of fill we had delivered had a lot of rocks in it.  We need to be real careful to not let rocks lay up against the waterproofing.  That’s one reason for the white foam boards but there are some gaps.

By the end of Sunday, we were pretty tired and we still have some more filling to do.  But it was great being able to stand on solid ground, on top of our house, and enjoy this view.

 

Over the Next Hump

 

It’s amazing how quick Tyrell the tracked  loader is at moving material.  I didn’t think we were going to get much past covering the entrance but we just kept going.  After creating an earthen ramp from the north barrel vault to the east end, we were able to make it over the top.We then started to  fill in the SE corner.
If you were wondering about the white foam boards that you have seen in these pictures, their purpose is three-fold. First, they are acting as an extra layer of protection for the waterproofing layer. There are some pretty substantial rocks in this fill material. We have been trying to pick them out (for a later use as a rock wall), but we wouldn’t want anything to puncture the membrane. Secondly, the foam boards act as a thermal break between the concrete shell and the surrounding earth.  Lastly, we have a huge stack of left-over foam boards from the shell forming process.  Burying them over the shell solves a construction waste challenge

Over the Hump

 

With the help of Tyrell the tracked loader we made speedy work of covering the north entrance vault.  Dozy laid the ground work on Friday creating the ramp.
 The strength of our barrel-vaulted structure, especially after being bermed, is evident in this picture showing Tyrell’s heafty 5,000 lbs. parked on top of our entrance.
Today was beautiful but very hot. Even with only a part of the shell covered, it was much cooler inside.  Just one of the many benefits of an earth sheltered structure

Yet Another Milestone.

It’s time to crack open a bottle of the Good Stuff.  Our Waterproofing is DONE!!!!     Scott and his crew showed up bright and early and were finished by 3 pm.  As you can see in the above picture, parking was a little tight.  Yesterday we had another 12 loads of sand fill delivered making it a total of around 500 yards of material awaiting to be placed over the top of the house.

Here David, Scott and Alex are finishing the last bit of waterproofing on the SE wing.

Totally unrelated, but here is a picture of Johnny and our home made trailer.  You can see the extra mounds of sand in the background.

 

Time to Take Stock…..Piled

Yesterday, John Mosier of Buzy Bee Excavating delivered “a whole lot” of the sandy fill material from the “hill” next to the NOAA Pacific Fleet Operations Center in Newport.  The huge mound of sand that was created from the construction and is affectionately known as Mt. NOAA. We are certainly doing our part in making that mountain into a mole hill.

The waterproofers will be back tomorrow to finish their job.  Then I’ll be using Dozy to berm up as much material as I can. Next week, John will bring his big excavator to lift material over the shell to fill in the South side.

North to South

It was a busy weekend. Friday, we completed the berm up to where the waterproofers left off the previous week. Saturday we took a jaunt into Eugene to pick up some supplies. It was scorching hot in the Valley. Our car’s thermometer read 95 degrees at 11 am when we left to head home where it was only 85 degrees.

Jeff & I spent the rest of the day cleaning up inside the house. We then started to apply a concrete sealer to part of the floor. Since we have not decided on, (nor can we afford) any kind of flooring, this sealer will make it easier to keep the concrete floor clean and adds a  nice sheen to it.

Scott Bond of LDC Inc along with his workers David and Alex showed up Sunday morning and started on the West end. They completed the whole West end and will be back on Thursday to finish off all the waterproofing.  More of Mt. NOAA will be showing up on Monday and will be stock piled in our parking area awaiting the “final burial”