Building a new house and shop (4 Viewers)

[1911]

Plan for the earth-sheltered house. Sorry if it's too small to read, but maybe you can get the idea of the overall shape and dimensions. North is to the right; most of the windows and doors will face east, and the hill will be behind to the west. The hatched areas on the plan are interior room roofs and/or overhead storage. For the most part, the rooms will be concrete domes 12' high.

 

[Solace in Solitude]

Nice!! For some "Danny reason", I had it in my head that an earth home would be round or hex or something.

 

[Weedhopper]

Me too. I think I've seen pictures from the 70's or 80's of earth homes with round fronts.

 

[1911]

Thanks for the picture. A little hard to read so here is a question for you: how wide is it(N/S) and how deep is it(E/W)?

It's about 150' N-S. The deepest E-W dimension is the four-car garage on the north end, at about 50'. Everything except my office on the SW end and the kick-outs along the back side are modular concrete domes with square footprints, 24' on a side. So there will be seven of the 24' domes to make most of the house and garages, plus the other stuff I mentioned.

Also, if you don't mind the slight "hi-jacking" questions about your project, I've got a couple more:
What were you doing for water proofing especially on the roof?

Waterproofing is an elaborate process of coating and testing multiple times, and then a heavy 10 mil membrane over all the concrete, before burial. French drain(s) all across the back of the house too.

How deep was the dirt on the roof going to be? Any special vegetation considerations?

The goal is to have at least 9' of soil above the roof. If you can do that, then there is enough thermal mass to keep the house close to the soil temperature, which is about 70 degrees year-round here in north Texas. Since we're building it into the side of a hill that is much higher that that, it shouldn't be hard to do. As far as vegetation goes, you want something that will hold the soil and keep it from eroding, but not big trees with roots that might try and invade the concrete. Haven't decided for sure what we will plant yet; partly it will depend on the pH and composition of the soil, which we will learn from and engineered soil analysis that will happen next week. Hopefully some native grasses and wildflowers, that won't ever need mowing or any real maintenance or care.

 

[jeffro109]

Interesting, I really would have expected the design to have as much southern exposure as possible. Might be a difference between being above and below grade for heat retention in the winter / not too much sun in the summer.

 

[1911]

Interesting, I really would have expected the design to have as much southern exposure as possible. Might be a difference between being above and below grade for heat retention in the winter / not too much sun in the summer.

You are correct, if you were building the house farther north, or anywhere with long cold winters - in that case, you'd want all the southern exposure you could get for passive solar heating in the winter. In Texas, we have the opposite problem, i.e. mild winters but summer heat. So for this location, we want as much light as possible in the morning, when summer temps are cooler, but to be protected from the afternoon and evening sun as much as possible, hence the east-facing windows. Being below grade (built into the side of the hill) will give us more thermal mass, which will make indoor temps more stable/less variable. The more thermal mass, the better. There is a 10,000-gallon water cistern in the design, cast into the back of the house. This will add even more thermal mass, besides just water storage.

 

[1911]

Progress, but slower than I would like of course. Had hoped to be finished with the apartment and moved in by now, but some sub-contractors were late and then others got dominoed behind that.

Cabinets are now all in; paint is next. Counter tops and window sills all measured for granite, but now the cutting and installing is running 2-3 weeks out.



Septic system builder finally showed up today, and least got the pit dug for the holding/digestion tanks. Going to use multiple tanks, as this one septic system will serve both the apartment and the house, and I wanted it over-built. Also only wanted to do this one time.



Meanwhile, the excavation for the main house is on-going and made substantial progress. The whole length of the house is done and close to grade (it still needs some depth back into the hill).



Some of the arsenal of machinery used to excavate the hill (dump truck not shown).

 

[scrapdaddy]

Nice! Granite tops in the shop apartment...living large!

 

[1911]

Nice! Granite tops in the shop apartment...living large!

Mrs. 1911's doing; I'm trying to convince her that we're only going to live there for like 9 months or so (until the main house is done), but she's not buying it.

 

[1911]

Septic system is going in this week; two thousand-gallon digestion tanks in series went in yesterday:



The drain lines came on a trailer, pre-packed with plastic "peanuts" (about the size and shape of Styrofoam packing peanuts, but made of hard plastic) held around the drain pipe with netting. A very clever idea; saves the time and money of having to gravel-pack every drain line in the ground. I'll try and remember to take a photo of them today, before they go in the ground.

Other than that, the apartment (the guys working on it all call it "the lodge", sounds posh) is getting painted this week, and final electrical and plumbing fixtures next week. We'll move in ASAP so we can get our current house on the market, which has been super hot here for the last year or so - houses selling in one day; houses selling with multiple offers over the listing price, etc. A classic case of more demand than supply, but it can't last, so we really want to sell ours while we can take advantage of it. Have already been moving boxes and furniture into the shop, one trailer at a time.

 

[1911]

Photos of the pre-packed drain pipes.





The grooves in the peanuts are for more surface area, to get greater bacterial action in breaking down the black water.

They come in 10' lengths of three. Our county regulations stipulate the trenches must be 3' wide, so you can fit three pipes side-by-side in each trench.



County regs also required at least 400 linear feet of drainage surface, but I wanted it over-built so we will have 600 linear feet.

After the drain pipe is laid, it is covered with geotextile cloth to keep the peanuts from silting up:

 

[scrapdaddy]

Very cool stuff. So much has changed since we built our home. I really enjoy reading about your progress. I went back and reread from the beginning and like you, we're on 80 acres, but at the time we had to build what we could afford. You've got some great ideas and I know from experience you're going to love living your dream. Keep it going!

 

[1911]

Very cool stuff. So much has changed since we built our home. I really enjoy reading about your progress. I went back and reread from the beginning and like you, we're on 80 acres, but at the time we had to build what we could afford. You've got some great ideas and I know from experience you're going to love living your dream. Keep it going!

Thanks Ron.

Did I mention that I'm a Missouri native? Born in the Phelps County Memorial Hospital, Rolla.

 

[scrapdaddy]

That's cool! I'm @ half way between Rolla and St. Louis. Pretty country down there.

 

[firestopper]

Damn, I had to go 12' deep and 60' long on my leach fields. Modern technology rules.

Looking really great!

 

[mdsims]

Photos of the pre-packed drain pipes.





The grooves in the peanuts are for more surface area, to get greater bacterial action in breaking down the black water.

They come in 10' lengths of three. Our county regulations stipulate the trenches must be 3' wide, so you can fit three pipes side-by-side in each trench.



County regs also required at least 400 linear feet of drainage surface, but I wanted it over-built so we will have 600 linear feet.

After the drain pipe is laid, it is covered with geotextile cloth to keep the peanuts from silting up:

Is this the full 600LF? Looks like 120 (40x3). Where did you run the rest of the field? What is the total depth of cover? I take it you can't or shouldn't drive on top of it.

Awesome progress, quite envious of your project and the future uses of such a great space.

 

[1911]

Damn, I had to go 12' deep and 60' long on my leach fields. Modern technology rules.

Per my county regs, the leach field pipes must be at least 18" deep but no more than 3' deep. Guy doing the install says that is because there are more bacteria to work on decomposing the black water at shallow depths; I have no idea if that is correct or not. Seems like deeper would be more sturdy for driving over it with tractors and etc.

Is this the full 600LF? Looks like 120 (40x3). Where did you run the rest of the field? What is the total depth of cover? I take it you can't or shouldn't drive on top of it.

No, that is just one trench/run out of five. I just took the photo of one to show the drain pipes close up. Plus, they were burying the last one while digging the trench for the next one. But your math is good - it is 120 linear feet per each 40'-long trench, x 5 trenches = 600'. There is plenty of space to run trenches there, since we cleared the red cedars (junipers) all the way back to the creek (but left the hardwood trees). We laid the lines out between the hardwood trees. I will take a picture of all the lines from a ways back, if you can see them after they're all buried.

As I mentioned above, the depth of cover will be a minimum of 18", but usually more like 2'+. They used an electronic surveying instrument to make all the trenches level, so that the liquid distribution will be more or less equal, but the surface is not perfectly level, so there will be a little variation in depth. I asked the installer about driving over it; he said it would be fine to drive a tractor or a pick-up truck over it, just not a dump truck or similar.

 

[mdsims]

Very cool! Following along intently. Thanks for sharing the details.

 

[Weedhopper]

Ya, me too. Very cool.

 

[1911]

Progress this past week:

Septic system is finished and buried, ready to use. County inspector approved it (this is the ONLY permit required for the entire project; shop, apartment, house, everything! Got to love rural Texas and the lack of regulations/government intrusion in your life). I climbed up on a large dirt pile (from the excavation of the hill) to try and get a picture of the whole layout, but you can't see anything because all the soil from the trenches is just piled next to the trenches:



Final photo of the digestion tanks, just before burial. Only one hatch on the first tank will be accessible from the surface to pump the tank, if necessary. Installer says that all the solids will stay in the first tank. He recommends having the first tank pumped once every 5-6 years so that solids don't accumulate to the point of filling it up - but on the system on our current house, we have have never pumped it in 13.5 years, and it still works perfectly.



Painters have been in the apartment for 2.5 days; they should be finished today. Granite for counter tops and window sills was cut yesterday, and hopefully will be installed next week. We are planning on moving in by this time next week. We signed a contract with the realtors to put our current house on the market by April 1st, so we have a ton of work and moving to do before then. Fortunately, the new place is only 4.5 miles / ten minutes from the existing house. I make two-three trips a day with my 5'x10' single-axle trailer full of stuff, stacking it in the shop for now.

Pulling down some old boxes that had been stored above my office in my current shop since we moved here, I found this guy:



I've waged a constant war against squirrels since we've been here. The little bastards get in everything; make nests in my shop insulation, chew up plumbing risers on the roof of the house, eat the chicken food, and are general pests. But we have hundreds of post oak and other trees on our current place, and the squirrels breed faster than I can shoot and poison them, or the hawks, owls, and rat snakes can eat them.

As far as the construction on the big house goes, the excavation is finished, except that we left maybe a foot or so above grade to do the final leveling just before we start pouring concrete. Since that won't be until after the current house is sold and closed on, we thought it best to leave it for now. Also, the excavation ran over budget, and I'm running out of ready cash until the current house sells.

That said, we do need some technical data on the soil and rock beneath the home site - because of the weight of the concrete home, we must ascertain the weight-bearing capacity in lbs./sq. ft., and the plasticity (basically, how much the clays in the soil will expand or move with moisture), ad a few other things like pH and etc. So, I hired a geotechnical engineering firm in a neighboring county (our county is too small to have such) to drill some cores under the home site, and analyze them in the lab.

The truck-mounted coring rig on location:





Cores were taken at two different locations on either end of the home site, about 30' in from each end. The cores are about 2.5" in diameter and look like this when they come out of the simple tube core barrel:



The weight of the rig will push the core barrel through soil. When the going gets harder (compacted soil or solid rock), they can put an hydraulic hammer on it:



They can also drill with a simple bit and an auger, and collect the cuttings from the bottom with the core barrel.

In any event, samples are taken every foot for at least 25'. Samples are bagged, sealed, and marked with footage and orientation (top and bottom), and boxed for transportation to the lab:



Not sure how long it will take for the lab testing and to get results, but there is no hurry since nothing more will be done on the big house until after the current house is sold.

The next two weeks will be hectic, just getting the apartment finished, moving into it, and getting the old house cleaned out and ready to list.