All tarped up!

I have no idea why it's taken me this long to post these pictures. There was one week in mid-Oct where it was fairly nice and things dried up (it had been raining off and on for a few weeks). We got tarps on everything during that dry window and then it started to rain again a few days later, so perfect timing.

Tom scowling at the camera.

 The two main tarps are 40ft x 60 ft, so a lot of the berm is covered too. It should keep the snow melt off so that we can get started right away in the spring, and more importantly, it will keep water off during the freeze/thaw cycle for those weeks in the winter when it's above zero, sunny, and melting during the day, and below zero and freezing during the night. You definitely want to avoid water getting into the tire walls when those freeze/thaw cycles occur. This should hopefully be the only winter we have to do this; we hope to get the roof on by the end of next summer/fall.

That's about $500 worth of tarp in this one shot. Probably $600 of tarps all together. They're the good quality super thick ones so hopefully we can reuse them for other purposes in years to come.

Summer's over!

It's starting to get cold and rainy out (getting close to zero degrees Celcius on some nights) and "real life" is starting to take up more of our time. We will be tarping up very soon and calling it for the season. We got over 500 tires pounded (only about 20 small sized tires left to do along the south wall to support the windows), culverts, insulation, cisterns all backburried. It was a productive summer, and we look forward to starting back up next summer. Thanks everyone for your support and enthusiasm! :)

Updated Tire Count

We're close to being done pounding tires! So close. Updated tire count on the front wall (the south facing wall that will support the windows):
1st row: 215's---38 tires pounded
2nd row: 205's---3 tires pounded (35 more to go)
There will only be two rows total for this front part.

All lined up and ready to go. Any takers?

Screen Doors

I was away at a conference so it was just Tom out here with all the animals. We had been talking about installing screen doors on the trailer and rabbitry to keep flies out. He checked a bunch of stores and unless you're willing to pay hundreds of dollars, your only options are absolute garbage. So, he made and installed two doors himself while I was gone. I just got back and together we Maghda-proofed them with some chicken wire. She absolutely destroyed the screen on the screen door at our house in Brandon trying to paw at the doorknob to open the door. She's relentless, and she can open doors as long as they open inwards.

Trailer door. The "T" is to prevent the screen from sagging.

Rabbitry door

Bonus pic: Maghda + puppies!! Under the spare camper.

More packout

Finishing up the initial packout. We filled in the scallops/valleys between each pair of tires a few weeks ago. Now we've connected them with more concrete mix. I like to think of the filled scallops as O's that we just connected by a bunch of X's. We still have just shy of 50 tires to pound along the front (south facing wall to support the windows). Once the tires are done we'll be continuing packout with adobe, making the walls one relatively smooth surface with no lumps.

Bonus pic: Maghda had puppies!!!

South tire rows

We need to do two rows of tires along the south wall to hold up the windows. We've decided to use 215's for the first row and 205's for the second row. This wall is not load-bearing; it just has to hold the weight of the windows. The smaller sized tires should be fine for this, and will make it nice & quick. We've lined up the 215's and it will take 38 tires for the first row. We had four enthusiastic volunteers come out Saturday and we pounded 13 tires! We've now finished tire #16 so 22 more to go for the first course.

Tire count

We are done the main tire wall! The only tires left to pound are the ones to support the south-facing windows, which will be maybe 70-80 tires. We've got clay piled up in a line right beside where those tires need to go, so it should be super quick filling them up.

The back wall consists of 444 tires total
First course (size: 265): 54 tires 
Second course (size: 265): 52 tires (less tires because of the culverts and a few blocks to fix spacing issues caused by the culverts)
Third course (size:245): 56 tires
Fourth course (size:235): 57 tires 
Fifth course (size:235): 57 tires
Sixth course (size:235): 56 tires 
Seventh course (size:225): 56 tires
Eighth course (size:225): 56 tires 

Our back wall is supposed to be 8 feet from finished floor level, including the bond beam. Each course is about 10-11 inches, so our bond beam may need to be about 18 inches tall. The bond beam needs to be a minimum 8 inches, so it really would have been cutting it close doing a 9th row, plus we are getting sick of pounding tires anyway.

Initial Packout

We've finished the main tire wall (more on that later!---the only tire pounding left to do is two rows along the front to support the south facing windows) and have begun packout. The initial packout is done by filling in between the tires with a cement mixture to prevent any compacted earth from the tire above from falling through. We used an entire pallet of cement and a decent amount of sand, clay, rocks, and beer bottles to fill all the gaps. Tom and I got 70% done in a single day (and that includes taking the evening off to put our feet up and watch a movie). We had lots of practice with cement over the last few summers while building the rabbitry, so the initial packout went super fast!

More earth being moved

Tom (left, white hat & blue shirt) and volunteer Scottie (right, red shirt) holding the 4" rigid foam insulation in place as clay is dropped on either side of it to keep it upright.

Our pond is getting bigger and bigger.

West wing wall is done!

The west end will be our back entrance. The two concrete strips on the ground mark our mudroom. The tires extend 3 tires past that so our roof will overhang the width of 3 tires outside of the entrance, which will be nice getting in/out when it rains.

Pretty soon I've have to mow our floor!

Hard at work on the 8th row. The back wall is lower than the front, because of the sloped roof, so the back wall will be a total of 8 feet high from the finished floor level.

Slowly starting back up again after 3 weeks of rain

Updated tire count: 374 tires total
First course (size: 265): 54 tires so far
Second course (size: 265): 50 tires so far
Third course (size:245): 54 tires so far
Fourth course (size:235): 53 tires so far
Fifth course (size:235): 51 tires so far
Sixth course (size:235): 50 tires so far
Seventh course (size:225): 49 tires so far
Eighth course (size:225): 13 tires so far

I'm wondering if we'll break the 500 tire mark by the time we're all done. We collected around 1000+ tires, so I guess we'll do lots of tire flower planters, tire lawn ornaments, and other crafty things to use them all up.

One tire pounded today

It's rained for at least two weeks now, and we've been able to pound a tire or two here & there. One today, and maybe three or four total since it started raining. Today has been the first full day of sunshine, and with a day or two more of sun we should be back in business. Can't wait!

While I was away...

I've been out of town for a few conferences, but lots has happened while I was gone (despite it raining most of the time I was away!) The cisterns have been put into position and backburried. Sorry the pics are a bit out of order; I had others taking photos for me while I was away. We're all set to start the 8th course and the two courses that go along the front (to support the windows) once the rain clears. Unfortunately it's supposed to be at least another week of rain to come :(

7th course

We are now starting the seventh course of tires. We'll likely do eight courses. We also need to do probably two courses along the front to support the windows in the south-facing wall. We've had so much rain over the last few days that we can't do much at the moment, but if we get some sun and things dry out, we should be done tire pounding in two weeks or sooner!

300 tires pounded!

We've reached the 300 tire mark and have just started the 6th course. We've got enough 235's to do the 6th and 7th courses. Whatever sized vehicle they go on must be pretty popular around here. The updated tire count on June 18th was 210 tires, so we've done 90 tires in just four days---that's just over 22 tires a day! It's supposed to rain on the weekend though, which will decrease our average.

Updated tire count

We've extended the wings a bit and added another course. Count so far (210 tires total):
First course (size: 265): 51 tires so far
Second course (size: 265): 50 tires so far
Third course (size:245): 49 tires so far
Fourth course (size:235): 47 tires so far
Fifth course (size:235): 13 tires so far

A lot of earth was moved today

We need lots of clay for pounding tires and backfilling. We're sourcing the clay from a spot on our property. Our pond/lake just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Hope to raise some trout in there next summer. 

Cisterns

Ever wonder what $10,000 looks like? Well, I've got your answer:

Three 2,000 gallon cisterns.

Space on either side of the 4" rigid foam insulation being filled with clay.

Tire Count

How many tires so far? 146. We are using fairly large tires so each one takes a while to get pounded. But, using larger tires means we will need less of them.

First course (size: 265): 48 tires so far
Second course (size: 265): 46 tires so far
Third course (size:245): 48 tires so far (more than second course because they are smaller)
Fourth course (size:235): 4 tires so far

Still need to extend the side wings a good amount, so no course is officially "done" yet.

Weeping Tile

The weeping tile and gravel is in. It goes along the first course of the back wall and out along the sides to help mitigate any water accumulation that might occur. Culverts have been placed in the second row of tires, and we're currently working on the third row of tires, extending the wing walls of the first and second course as we go. 

 

The join of the two lengths of porous pipes.

Some tire pounding and then more rain

Stephan (left), Tom (right), Scottie (taking picture)

It stopped raining long enough for things to dry out a bit, so the guys pounded 11 more tires along the second row. New volunteer Stephan has come to help out with the build and learn from our resident Earthship Academy friend Scottie. And now it's raining. Again. Should be dry by the weekend (cross your fingers!)

Rain days

It's been raining for the past few days and expected to rain some more this week off and on, so not too much is getting done. On the plus side, the cistern for the rabbitry is filling up fast!

Setting up the second course!

We've finished the three walls of the first course and are getting things set up for the second course. Still need to extend the first course out along the "wings" on either side. So far, the first course is only 41 tires (those big 265's are very common here; they take forever to pound but you need a lot fewer of them to do a row). The wings will probably add another 10 tires on each side.

Culverts have been placed and buried!

Annoying gaps on the second course need to be dealt with.

Finished camp shower

What's behind this corner?

 Not exactly "roughing it" anymore! The camp shower is complete.

Our electric water pump isn't strong enough to pump water out from our pond, so we need to use the gas pump to pump it into a big plastic barrel near the shower, and then we can use the electric one to run the shower itself. One bucket lasts for a half dozen showers give or take.

 Waterproof on/off switch. Turn water on, get wet, turn water off, soap up, turn water back on, rinse soap off.

Shower head hose attachment gives really good water pressure!