Hi Everyone!
These are interesting times in the building industry!
The manufacturers that supply the building industry are backed up on their orders and the wait time for materials is getting longer and longer. Many people do not know that most of the lumber, at least in this area of the country (Michigan) was coming from Canada...now, that lumber is getting more expensive because of tariffs on the incoming lumber. Ultimately, the prices of everything are going up..
The improving economy means that the long lead times, rising costs of materials, and the shortage of companies able and willing to work on a new build, remodel, concrete slab, chicken coop, hobby shack, etc, etc is not going away any time soon. What is happening, is that unlicensed, uninsured and semi-skilled people are stepping up to do the work that the licensed and insured companies are not able to get to. This wouldn't be the first time in history that this has happened..in fact, during the great recession, we saw a cleansing period where most of these aforementioned individuals were forced out of the building industry because of lack of demand and poor quality.
I have always been in favor of people contracting their own projects...even building parts of or all of their own projects as homeowners. Now, you may be thinking, "Hold on, I have no business picking up a hammer, let alone building a house!" Yes, I definitely would agree with you if you are telling me that.... But you may have a relative or friend that can! What I have discovered in my lengthy time in the building industry, is that if a person entertains the notion of building something themselves, they either have what it takes...or knows what it takes to build something.
That is where I come in. Throughout my career, I have helped numerous do-it-yourselfers to build their own homes or remodel their places. Sometimes I was on site, and sometimes I consulted from hours away via smart phone and video conferencing.
A normal scenario would see me designing the project (house, barn, she-shed, whatever..), helping the homeowners to pick out the suppliers for their project, doing the energy analysis on the home for their local building department, working with the homeowners to get their permits pulled, and the list goes on and on. Depending where the project is, I will most times be the person leading the team of installers for such items as Insulated Concrete Forms (ICFs), Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs), earth shelter framing, and so on..
I am mentioning this all right now so that I can get your attention...If you have entertained the notion of building something yourself, email me and tell me about it...use this email address: hybridhomeguy@gmail.com. I can also help you if you are acting as your own contractor and not building a thing!
I offer many packages that include me personally designing your project and then navigating you through the different processes to lessen the learning curve and save you money. I will be in your corner for the entire build ready to answer any questions that you may have.
If you are thinking about getting the ball rolling on a project, send me an email and tell me all about it...when you email me, I will send you a copy of my book Build Green Make Green Save Green for FREE! (While supplies last)
All you have to do is email me and tell me about the project that you are thinking of building...here's my email address again: hybridhomeguy@gmail.com.
All the best!
Adam
The Hybrid Home Guy
Talk about living a healthy sustainable life.
Sunday, July 22, 2018
Sunday, June 17, 2018
Passive Solar
Greetings everyone! It has been a long time!
A quick update on me, as far as building, we are very busy like everyone else and personally, I am trying hard to spend as much time as possible with family as we live and work this small farm that we own and live on.
I'll get right to the topic, passive solar..
By now, most people understand the concept of passive solar (orienting a structure to let sunlight through the windows during the cold months, and shading the house from the sun during the warm months), so, this post is going to be about a (kind of) recent experience that I had when a high end designer contacted me to discuss a cutting edge project that would be going up in the area near where I live.
I felt honored to make it to the phone interview portion of the designer's search for the perfect builder for their clients. I was blown away by their first question: Are you familiar with passive solar? I didn't want to be rude or seem arrogant, but I responded with, "Are you familiar with Google?". So, I pretty much lost that opportunity to be the storybook builder in their eyes.
Why did I respond with that comment? Well, quite frankly, I, having lived in the trenches and working with some of the most savy green innovators was taken back that a design firm, which charges its clients a bunch of money to guide cutting edge projects, hadn't even taken the time to research my accomplishments or that of the famed Team Hybrid. Now, immediately, I think to myself, "Man, how did I become so arrogant?" In reality, I felt sorry for their client who is paying a gob of money to them to end up with a house that is very close to slightly above what we build as a norm. I asked my wife about how I could ethically take that project knowing that the clients could have spent that extra money on their home. I decided that even if I was selected, I would turn down the job because I just couldn't get past that fact.
As I probably mentioned, I did not get that job..I wasn't selected because it was determined that I wasn't a good communicator. Perhaps it was my response, perhaps it was because I had a tone in my voice and had an off the wall response to each of their questions. In reality, I decided with that first question that the design firm and I would never be able to get along because I lost all respect for them in less than a minute.
My overall take on this situation, is that there are all sorts of people in the world. Some are meant to work with certain people and others are meant to work with others. It is important to determine in the first stages of a project, that would be the meet and beginning design stage, if the team can be compatible. If not, there should be no more time wasted.....especially in an industry where time is money. In that design firm's defense, that is exactly what they were doing. Maybe they asked me that question and expected that response, maybe they did research me, we shall never know because we parted ways immediately and moved on.
Several years ago, I started designing all of our projects in order to get to know the client and their ideas better. I learned so much by being the designer. Designing a house and building the house have a huge advantage over going to someone to draw the plans, then shopping for a builder to figure out the vision and build the project.
Passive solar has been around as long as there as been an Earth and a Sun, and Google Earth can help you or anyone else get the full advantage of passive solar....spend part of a rainy day checking out what I mean and you will probably say, at the very least, "That's pretty neat".
Have a great week and enjoy the weather!
Adam
The Hybrid Home Guy
A quick update on me, as far as building, we are very busy like everyone else and personally, I am trying hard to spend as much time as possible with family as we live and work this small farm that we own and live on.
I'll get right to the topic, passive solar..
By now, most people understand the concept of passive solar (orienting a structure to let sunlight through the windows during the cold months, and shading the house from the sun during the warm months), so, this post is going to be about a (kind of) recent experience that I had when a high end designer contacted me to discuss a cutting edge project that would be going up in the area near where I live.
I felt honored to make it to the phone interview portion of the designer's search for the perfect builder for their clients. I was blown away by their first question: Are you familiar with passive solar? I didn't want to be rude or seem arrogant, but I responded with, "Are you familiar with Google?". So, I pretty much lost that opportunity to be the storybook builder in their eyes.
Why did I respond with that comment? Well, quite frankly, I, having lived in the trenches and working with some of the most savy green innovators was taken back that a design firm, which charges its clients a bunch of money to guide cutting edge projects, hadn't even taken the time to research my accomplishments or that of the famed Team Hybrid. Now, immediately, I think to myself, "Man, how did I become so arrogant?" In reality, I felt sorry for their client who is paying a gob of money to them to end up with a house that is very close to slightly above what we build as a norm. I asked my wife about how I could ethically take that project knowing that the clients could have spent that extra money on their home. I decided that even if I was selected, I would turn down the job because I just couldn't get past that fact.
As I probably mentioned, I did not get that job..I wasn't selected because it was determined that I wasn't a good communicator. Perhaps it was my response, perhaps it was because I had a tone in my voice and had an off the wall response to each of their questions. In reality, I decided with that first question that the design firm and I would never be able to get along because I lost all respect for them in less than a minute.
My overall take on this situation, is that there are all sorts of people in the world. Some are meant to work with certain people and others are meant to work with others. It is important to determine in the first stages of a project, that would be the meet and beginning design stage, if the team can be compatible. If not, there should be no more time wasted.....especially in an industry where time is money. In that design firm's defense, that is exactly what they were doing. Maybe they asked me that question and expected that response, maybe they did research me, we shall never know because we parted ways immediately and moved on.
Several years ago, I started designing all of our projects in order to get to know the client and their ideas better. I learned so much by being the designer. Designing a house and building the house have a huge advantage over going to someone to draw the plans, then shopping for a builder to figure out the vision and build the project.
Passive solar has been around as long as there as been an Earth and a Sun, and Google Earth can help you or anyone else get the full advantage of passive solar....spend part of a rainy day checking out what I mean and you will probably say, at the very least, "That's pretty neat".
Have a great week and enjoy the weather!
Adam
The Hybrid Home Guy
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
My Take on the New Economy
When a person is in an industry long enough, they
often recognize trends and will adjust their business for these trends. Well,
at least that is how it is supposed to be. I have related business to perch
fishing in the Great Lakes on more than one occasion. In short, it is easy to
see where the perch are biting on a lake because that is where all the boats
are parked and the area becomes crowded and the perch either move on or are
fished out. Who found the fish first? The word must of gotten out that the
perch were in a certain location, otherwise no other boats would have been
parked in the location where the perch are. It’s important to keep ones lips
sealed when it comes to fishing but inevitably, people will find where the productive
areas are simply by watching. Business is no different.
Call it envy, call it drive, call it what you will
but the fact is, people want to be as successful as other people. In the
building business, the large suppliers take years to adjust to the trends and
that is currently happening with Andersen Windows Corporation. I have insisted
on using Andersen windows for many years and not just because they offer a great
product that compliments the types of homes that we build. For years, I and a
few others have tried to get Andersen to focus on sustainability and there
seemed to be a refusal to do that. Andersen Windows brought me and others up to
their Bayport Minnesota ‘hub of operations’ for meetings on sustainability and
also to have me tour their facilities to see how they could get the word out
about what makes them sustainable in their business practices.
I would get frustrated because Andersen would get
this information and never seem to do anything with it. There was a big
management change at Andersen and everyone I knew there moved on and my
involvement in their sustainability practices no longer mattered to the new
leadership. Andersen was very generous to me and my team and helped us spread
the word about sustainability as best as they could at the time. I remember
what my rep from Andersen would say, “..You have to understand that getting a
large company to change is like steering an aircraft carrier with a trolling
motor..” This is very true. Now, I see that Andersen is putting its full focus
on Net Zero and is very excited about sustainability, which is a great
thing….but several years behind, as the trend and economy has once again
started an inevitable change.
I am not trying to pick on Andersen Windows,
especially after what they have done for me personally and after the people
that were let go from the company did to spread the word about building earth
friendly homes. I am using my relationship with Andersen Windows as an example
of how the industry works. I used to get an email from time to time asking me
what I was doing next and what I thought that the industry was doing. I
remember taking a ride on the Andersen Corporate Yacht on the Saint Croix River
with Andersen executives and being shown the reports of what the building
industry was going to do in the future. I am amazed at how spot on those
reports were for looking five years into the future. I remember seeing a report
that Grand Rapids Michigan was going to be a top location in the country to
live and that report and the other information that I had access to is what
lead to us buying our farm just outside of Grand Rapids. Recognizing trends and
being fluid enough to make the changes in real time is one of the keys to
keeping the schedule book full.
It seems like there are plenty of builders who are
building energy efficient homes now, mostly because our building codes require
it. The question is, “what is trending now in the building industry and should
we forget everything we have learned along the way?” Great question, I am glad
you asked!
Sometimes it seems like humans forget about the
things that they experienced along the way and other times it seems like you
meet a person who uses everything they experienced, good or bad, and have found
a way to use those experiences to differentiate themselves from others. The
latter speaks to part of the question above, “Should we forget everything we
have learned along the way?” The answer is, “NO!” don’t ever forget what you
did or what you have learned. That is a very important part of the puzzle in
what is trending right now or will be trending in the near future. Before, a
different age group with different motivations was what was keeping the
building industry alive during the downturn. Now, those same motivators are a
‘given’ with the new group that is starting to be interested in building. There
are still plenty of people for everyone to build for, and the leaders of the
pack are still attracting the people who are not finding companies that fully
understand exactly what certain homeowners are looking for.
Where do I think things are going in the building
business? Well, to answer that, I will have to say this. I can think about what directions the industry is going and I can know which way we are going to go in
the industry. I am not much for sticking to any one thing, and I find
myself being like a glacier, where I keep moving and gathering things along the
way. That means that I am still taking the company that I am a part of and
building extremely energy efficient houses, but, that is the baseline. There
are many things that matter in a house that is friendly to all the stakeholders
with the inhabitants and The Earth being the biggest focus. These many things
change and evolve or devolve. The ‘Things’ that I am aware of are more than Geo
Thermal or insulated concrete forms.
I have seen a large number of people interested in
earth shelters and living off of the grid. Likewise, I have seen many people
interested in our way of life on our farm and all of these ‘Things’ are
becoming important to people that are hoping to build one day. The biggest
‘Thing’ that I have picked up on (ok, this is the tidbit that you have probably
been waiting for) is that the new generation of clients that we have, ninety
plus percent of them all mention having a parent(s) living with them at some
point during the ownership of their new or remodeled house. Another ‘Thing’
that I see is that multiple family members are buying larger pieces of land and
building multiple houses on that land so that everyone can live near each
other. I have not heard one mention of LEED for Homes or Net Zero, rather, the
conversations get filled with, “..I need extra counter space because I can a
lot of food each year..” and/or ..”I would like the kitchen windows to line up
on both houses, even though the houses are not very close to each other so that
we can make sure mom is doing ok.” Bringing
the family back together could be the theme, you heard it first here!
Remember though, that the energy efficient, earth friendly, inhabitant friendly
home is a given in this equation.
Thank you for reading my blogs and thank you to
those who email me, I enjoy the feedback.
AB
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Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Outside of the lifetime design box..
Greetings everyone!
For nearly a decade, one of our five design criteria
for the houses that we design and build has been ‘lifetime design’. Lifetime
design is the idea that a house is designed for its inhabitants to age in place
and includes such features as wider doorways and wheel chair turning radiuses in
kitchens and bathrooms.
Recently I was presented with a challenge when one
of our homeowners emailed me because they couldn’t tell if their radiant heat
system was working or not. I called the homeowner and asked her to explain to
me why she thought that her radiant heat system was not working. She told me
that the thermostat on the wall said that it was sixty eight degrees but that
her feet and legs felt cold even though the floor had radiant heat.
I was baffled after my phone call with this
homeowner and I decided that I needed to drive to the house to make sure that
everything was working properly with their heating system. One of the first
things that I do when I go to check out a radiant heat system is to take off my
coat and lay the coat on the floor with the inside of the coat touching the
heated floor. After the coat is on the floor for awhile, I will put the coat on
and usually the coat is toasty warm if the floor is being heated properly. As
soon as I walked in to the house, I took my coat off and laid it on the floor.
I could tell right away when I walked into the house that the heating system
was working because the house was nice and evenly heated. I wouldn’t need to
use the coat test mentioned above to see if the heating system was functioning
properly, but I did leave my coat on the floor anyway so that I could enjoy the
warm embrace of my radiant heat warmed coat on my way back to the truck when I
left.
I inspected all of the pumps and gauges on the
radiant heat system to make sure that everything was ok and thermostat and
boiler were working perfectly. After I spent time checking everything else, I
sat down and asked the homeowner a few questions. During that conversation, the
homeowner told me that she had poor circulation in her legs and feet. Sirens
started to go off in my head because I had discovered an issue that I had not
even considered!
A big selling point in a sustainable home is the
fact that the home is designed for the inhabitants to grow old in the house
without any need for future modification. Something that is not being
considered is the comfort of those homeowners when they encounter circulation
problems in areas of their bodies. There is no real answer at this time for how
to combat the issue of homeowners feeling cold in their homes even though their
heating systems are functioning properly. The best that any of us can do at
this point is to be aware that homeowners can and will experience any number of
adult onset conditions as they live in the houses that we design and build for
them, with access and mobility being most likely the biggest concern.
I brought the issue up to a heating and cooling
person that I know and told him that I thought it was interesting that this
woman couldn’t feel the all encompassing warmth of her radiant heat system. His
reply was, “Why didn’t you just have her reach down and put her hand on the
floor to see if it was warm, then you wouldn’t have had to make the trip and
the issues would be resolved.” I thought about his point as I was loading our
woodstove at home. I have to kneel down to load up the woodstove and just as I
was trying to stand up, I was thinking, “I should have had her put her hand on
the floor and saved a trip down there”. I mention this, because I had a hard
time getting up off of the kneeling position because my mobility is slightly
limited thanks to a lifetime of adventure and working hard.
My mind started to wander even more, as I thought
about the heating and cooling guy’s comment. We can’t ask someone to reach down
and touch the floor to prove to them that their heating system works, especially
since I can barely do that!
How can we help people with our houses? Before, the
question would be, “How can we help people lessen the load on the planet by
having their houses use less energy.” Don’t get me wrong, this is still a very
important and valid question! For those looking to the future and as green
building continues to grow by leaps and bounds, I think it is time to put a
tighter focus on what the house’s inhabitants will go through in their lifetime
in the house. That would help to better direct and define ‘lifetime design’.
AB
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Thursday, November 26, 2015
A discussion about geo thermal
Geo Thermal has been in the building industry long enough
for there to be solid results on how these heating and cooling systems
are working in ultra energy efficient homes. We have multiple houses that use
geo thermal systems for heating and cooling just as we have multiple houses
that use conventional and hybrid heating and cooling systems. Because of an
increased interest in geo thermal systems lately, I thought that I would put my
thoughts together and let everyone have access to them.
In the past, I would always be against geo thermal systems in the
houses that I designed and built because of how little those systems would run
in the types of homes that we were building. Another reason that I would be
against the geo thermal systems is because our HVAC subcontractors would always
say, "What do you want to use for the supplement heat?". I have a
problem with that. Apparently, the geo thermal systems that our 'subs' were
installing around the state would not work below about 28 degrees Fahrenheit,
well, let me rephrase that, the systems would switch functions at about 28
degrees. Inside of geo thermal units, there are electric elements that will
heat the air or liquid depending on what type of heating system the house has
(forced air/radiant heat?). That is why the 'subs' would ask what supplemental
heat source we wanted, because using the 'onboard' electrical elements in geo
units gets very pricey. One of our past homeowners who has geo thermal in his
house told me that he had an $1,800 electric bill during a cold month a winter
ago because his geo thermal unit heated his house with the onboard electrical
element.
So why is there still so much hype over geo thermal? In my
opinion, because it is a cozy blanket/warm feeling for people buying a house in
a time when energy prices are unstable. A recent conversation that I had with a
potential client opened my eyes to the opinion I just gave. The potential
client ask another builder about building an energy efficient home and the
builder said, "Well, we put geo thermal in all of our houses." The
builder became confused when asked further about what made the house energy
efficient. Putting geo thermal in a conventional 'production builder' house may
make sense, because a propane fired furnace would cost a fortune to run in a
house like that. I don't know enough about the house in question to form any
other opinions. The point is, a
'hot button' is not always the best fit even though everyone is always
mentioning it.
I will go on record as saying that geo thermal has its place in
the building industry and may or may not be the best fit for any particular
project. As I said to someone recently, .."the
answer to the question of if geo thermal is the best fit for your project is
like a law question, it depends." Science
is what dictates what is used in house. As I mention in my book 'Build
Green, Make Green, Save Green', I feel that Newton's Third Law of
Motion (..This means that for every force there is a reaction force that is
equal in size, but opposite in direction. That is to say that whenever an
object pushes another object it gets pushed back in the opposite direction
equally hard. )(Rice University) can be applied in its own way to a house.
Meaning, that whomever is building the house must remember that for everything
they do to a house, whether it is insulation or installing a wood burner, that
something else will occur as a result of that installation. Mold and mildew is
an example of this point, so is indoor air quality. Another example is
something I hadn't considered a while back. A person I knew well told me that
his father built an Insulated Concrete Form (ICF) house a while back and that
he wanted to pick my brain. I said "OK", and he started to tell me
that his father's house had a weird, almost 'septic' smell to his house. I
asked if there was an air exchanger in the house and this guy said, "No,
he just opens the windows a little bit to get the house to breath." Would
anyone ever think that make up air could come through plumbing vents? That is
what was causing the 'septic smell' in his father's house. Equal and opposite
force. Also, opening windows in the winter to get the house to 'breath' kind of
defeats the purpose of having such a tight exterior envelope if you ask me!
When I am designing a house and getting ready to estimate the cost of the house, I always have multiple heating systems figured for that house. By doing this, we can see which system will be the best pay back for the house. We have houses that are Platinum Certified LEED for Homes houses that have natural gas fired boilers, propane fired boilers or natural gas fired forced air furnaces. We also have used propane fired forced air furnaces in several of our houses because we have found that those heating systems don't run very hard in the homes that we build and don't cost very much to run.
I am certainly not bashing geo thermal companies or people that
want or have these heating and cooling systems. I am simply giving my input
based on multiple case studies of houses that we have built. Whenever I hear or
see an email of someone asking about geo thermal, my first response is in the
form of a question, "Tell me why you are thinking about using geo
thermal". Sometimes people get defensive, so I will follow up my question
saying something like, "there is no right or wrong answer, I am just
trying to understand more about what you want and need." Recently, I met
with a potential client who mentioned geo thermal and she answered my question
about geo thermal in her own way. I asked her a follow up question that sounded
something like, "what do you heat with now, what does your current house
use as a heating source?" Her reply was, "this house is all electric,
but we always heat with wood, using the wood burner downstairs.." Again,
another follow up question, "Do you want a wood burner in your new
house?" To which, she replied, "definitely". Had she replied,
"No, burning wood is too much work for us..", then I would have asked
further questions about what fuel sources were available and geo thermal to see
if the system may be a good fit for them. Instead, knowing that they want to
heat with wood means that the heating system that we would install in their new
house would basically be supplemental heat until such time as they no longer
wished to heat with wood, which could be 20 or more years into the future.
Are you tracking so far? Good. My point in all of this, is that
there is much discussion and 'scientific-ness' that goes into selecting the
parts of a house, heating and cooling systems included. That is why I always
called our houses 'Hybrid Homes', because of the origin of the word hybrid.
Latin for hybrid is mulus which translate to mule. A mule is the first hybrid
in recorded history and dates back to the ancient Romans who combine a donkey
and a horse. This combination of a donkey and a horse had to be very specific
or else the offspring would not be a mule nor be able to function as a mule,
which was the reason the ancient Romans would go through all the trouble of
tracking down these specific animals. For the record, the correct combination
for creating a mule is a male donkey and a female horse.
As you can see, you can still combine components to create
something else, but in order to have the outcome turn out as the designer or
builder intended, the combination of components has to be correct to not create
an unfavorable result. This is normally the case in the building industry and
thankfully more builders are catching on and understanding the importance of
what goes in to a house.
In closing, I will continue to say that geo thermal has its place
in building. In fact, if anyone reading this can explain geo thermal better,
than please do in the comment section. I want to learn more about why people
are so interested in geo thermal if the system is so limited.
Thank you for reading, stay tuned for more entries coming soon..
AB
Friday, July 31, 2015
Building the Largest Underground and Off-The-Grid Farm on the Planet - Part 10
Welcome back for Part 10!
The homeowner scheduled the shotcrete pump company
and we finalized the concrete mix with the concrete company that we chose to
supply us. The mix for the shotcrete on the earth shelter domes was unique in
that it set up in under an hour and the concrete company did not want to supply
us with the concrete if we weren’t comfortable with the timing. The concrete
company was located about twenty minutes away and that only left forty minutes
to use all of the concrete on the truck before the concrete would begin to
harden. Luckily I had worked extensively with this concrete company on other
projects so I was able to talk them into trusting us that we could pull this
off. Secretly, I had no idea if we could do it or not, but I figured that I
would never know unless we tried it. Little did I know, the dispatcher at
another plant an hour or so away told the dispatcher of this plant that we were
tough enough to pull it off so they approved our concrete loads.
Everything was scheduled to begin early on Monday
morning and our lift machine was delivered over the weekend. When we left that
previous Friday, everything was dry, the clay around the domes was hard and the
ground looked even enough to drive a lift around every inch of the domes. Part
of our crew arrived on Sunday because we wanted to get an early start on that
Monday. Like others in the construction business, I was glued to the weather on
my phone over the weekend because there was talk about rain on that Sunday, we didn’t
hear anything about rain until we left that previous Friday.
(Flooding along the barn dome. We worked for several hours to pump the water off of the site.)
When we arrived to the jobsite on Sunday afternoon,
we had hoped to unload a few of the tools we needed then go and catch a movie
in town to relax for the grueling week ahead. The rain was pouring down hard as
we drove up close to the domes and that is when we saw the standing water
everywhere from the torrential downpours. Instead of going to the movies, we
went and rented water pumps to try to get the areas around the domes dry before
the morning. Thankfully the rain stopped and we were able to pump all of the
standing water out from the domes so that the ground would have a better chance
of drying out by the morning. I was worried that the lift would get stuck or
worst yet, tip over if we had to drive through the mud. It was dark by the time
we finished pumping the water and all I could think about was going to bed and
trying to get some sleep before the most physically demanding week of my life.
(Flooding from a heavy storm. We worked several hours to pump all of the water off the site.)
The alarm went off early and everyone met in the
kitchen of the funeral home turned bunkhouse for breakfast. No one knew what
was about to happen, but the crew I had assembled was used to the unknown and
also very good at figuring things out as they happened. The shotcrete pump
owner and his son stayed with us in the funeral home, so we could all get to
know each other before we got to the project. I really like the two guys, they
were funny and appeared to be hard workers like we were. They mentioned that
shotcreteing was a lot of work and normally one guy would only last fifteen
minutes manning the hose. I thought in my mind that we would run the
shotcreteing hose like a hockey team
changes its lines up. We would switch guys every ten minutes to keep everyone
fresh. It was a great plan on paper, but it didn’t work as I had hoped as you
will read about later.
We were on site before sun up on the first morning
of the ‘spray pour’ as it is called in the documentary of this project named Sheltered:
Underground and Off-The-Grid. I remember wondering where Crazy Joe was
as I heard the first concrete truck coming into the long winding drive way. The
shotcrete pump machine was running and we were assembled near the front of the
small dome. I was concerned that Crazy Joe may not show up and that would mess
up my plans of rotating our time on the shotcrete hose. Just then, Crazy Joe
comes around the corner in the driveway and passes the concrete truck in the
long grass along the driveway.
(The special mix concrete being dumped into the shotcrete pump machine.)
I was
relieved that he showed up and I just smiled when he ran up and apologized for
over sleeping. He disappeared into the small dome just as we were instructing
the concrete truck where to pull up to and start dumping the load of concrete
that was forty minutes into its one hour set up time. As I put my hard hat on,
I looked up and Crazy Joe came up to me with blood running down his face. He
had hit his face on one of the wooden braces inside of the small dome connector
tunnel as he was running to get a tarp on the floor. The blood he wiped off of
his face was quickly replaced with a fresh stream and I took a closer look to
see if he was hurt or injured. One is worse than the other and it was apparent to
me by the look in his eye, that a cut on his nose was not going to stop him
from spraying shotcrete, so I yelled, “Clean that up, let’s get ready to rock!”
He yelled back, “Aight!”
(The crew during the first minute of shotcreting. It was a tough ride but we figured it out!)
The noise on the jobsite from all of the diesel
engines roaring was deafening. I could not hear anything and found that the
best way to communicate was to point or have someone knock me on the hard hat
when they needed to get my attention. Like a child with a new toy, I grabbed
the concrete hose which weighed forty pounds per foot with concrete in it,
through up over my shoulder and stepped into the area between the little dome
and the greenhouse dome. I looked at Crazy Joe and he looked back at me with
the grin that let me know that we were going to be in for the ride of our
lives! The first shot of concrete came out of the hose with a lot of pressure
and a short burst. The force and power of the spraying concrete caught me off guard
and my 240 pound six foot three inch frame was pushed backwards like a palm
tree in a tropical storm. I righted myself and dug in for the next short burst,
that time I was ready for the power of the hose and the concrete sprayed on and
stuck to the burlap. We were thirty seconds into the ‘spray pour’ and I was
already wondering how we were going to shotcrete the entire complex with just a
hand full of guys..
Stay tuned for Part 11 and ride along as the team digs in to shotcrete all of the domes..the team fought through injuries and didn't stop until the Largest Underground and Off-The-Grid Farm on the Planet was shotcreted!
(One of our team members getting washed off after the burlap blew out and he was covered in concrete. His head was burned from the lime in the concrete.)
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Building the Largest Underground and Off the Grid Farm on the Planet Part 9
Building
the Largest Underground and Off-The-Grid Farm on the Planet—Part 9
Welcome back for Part 9!
There are many things that have to be figured out
ahead of time if you work with concrete. Once concrete sets up, putting holes
in the concrete or adjusting concrete is very difficult and time consuming. One
of the many things that had to be determined before we could shotcrete the
earth shelter domes was ventilation and where those ventilation tubes would
come out of each of the five earth shelter domes and various connector tunnels.
I decided that we would run the ventilation for bathrooms, cooking vents, dryer
vents, and air exchanger vents out the sides of the domes. Luckily the founder
of the earth shelter dome company was watching our weekly videos on this
project and noticed the episode where we were running the tubes out the sides
of the domes. He emailed me and told me that all ventilation has to come out
the front wall or the top of the domes near the ridge of the dome structure. He
told me that the way we had the ventilation pipes was not right and that as the
earth settled around the domes, anything coming straight out of the sides of
the domes would be broken off from the pressure of the settling earth. Because
of this email, we delayed shotcreting so that we could reposition our
ventilation ports to the top of the domes.
I studied a great deal about earth tubes and passive
ventilation for this project because the homeowner and I felt that non
mechanical ventilation would be a good fit for this project. The more I studied
about the earth tube ventilation idea, the more I found that there was a very
distinct line right down the center of the people who believed the earth tubes
worked and those who didn’t think that the earth tubes would work. Briefly,
earth tubes are a passive ventilation system which includes pipes of a specific
diameter run underground for certain distances with the idea that the ground
would pre-condition the air as it comes into a building. I questioned if this
system would remove the high humidity that Michigan gets in the summer time,
and I wondered how introducing humid air into a structure which is constantly
battling humidity would work. I created what I thought was a good solution and
we will cover that in a future installment of this series. We will also discuss
the low voltage Panasonic Whisper Green bathroom fans which we used on the
project in a future installment of this series.
We spent the time to rerun the ventilation pipes in
each of the five domes. We made the pipes coming out of the top of the domes
just long enough to shotcrete around without the pipes hindering our need to
walk around on top of the domes to shotcrete. The plan was to connect the pipes
during the backfilling of the domes which would occur several months from the
time the domes were shotcreted.
Around this time, our friend Pam from out west
emailed me to let me know that the burlap on her earth shelter domes had been
exposed to the sun for less time than what the burlap material on our project
had been exposed to the sun and they found that her burlap was deteriorating
from the exposure to the sun. The next day after that email, I went to random
spots on each of the five earth shelter domes on our project and checked for
deterioration of the burlap. In some spots, the burlap was very weak and in the
areas that were covered with the tarps all winter, the burlap was in great
shape still. I emailed Pam back and asked her how they dealt with the bad areas
of the burlap when they shotcreted her domes and her response was that they
used cardboard as a backer in the areas that had deteriorated burlap. The
burlap is what stopped the shotcrete from passing through the rebar and wire
mesh. She offered another piece of advice and that was that the spray from the
shotcrete left an incredible mess all over her concrete floors and the clean up
was very difficult. Pam recommended moving tarps around as we sprayed the
shotcrete, which we did and I still thank her til this day for that piece of
advice.
The value of videoing our project and putting it
online was paying off. If I didn’t receive the emails I mentioned above, the
shotcreting of the domes and the cleanup following the shotcreting would have
been a real game changer on the project. Filming the project and putting up a
video every week on Vimeo allowed many people to follow along and those people
often caught something that I missed or suggested a course change as we neared
pivotal points on the project.
With the emails and my gut instinct, I created a
list of duties for each person who would be working on our crew during
shotcreting. I figured that we could shotcrete the domes in six days and that
would allow us to work normal length days that would not only keep our crew
fresh but also avoid any overtime charges from the pump company or the concrete
company. Skeptics of this system of shotcreting for an underground structure
often mention the fact that ‘cold joints’ were the biggest issue in multi-day
concrete pours. Cold joints are basically the point where concrete meets when
poured at separate times, for instance, pouring concrete on a Monday and then finishing
the pouring of more concrete the following day.
The cold joint concern came to me in an email from
some random person who was watching the weekly videos. This cold joint concern
got me thinking, so I contacted the founder of the earth shelter dome company
and told him what I was thinking. My idea was to stop the shotcreting each day
in non impacting areas, such as the center of connector tunnels and not
stopping on the sides or parts of the domes. He agreed that the best way to
avoid cold joint problems was to stop and start the concrete pours in the areas
with the less force against them and/or in areas that didn’t create a breach in
strength in any one of the domes. Can you imagine what would have happened if I
didn’t get those emails? Thank you everyone who was back seat building while
watching the videos, you all helped save me a lot of grief!
Now that we had a very clear path of what we needed
to do to successfully shotcrete the largest underground and off the grid farm
on the planet, the next issue was getting Mother Nature to cooperate. The
weather was warming up and we finally were able to schedule the pump truck and
the concrete and get our game faces on for a week of shotcreting.
Stay tuned for Part 10 and ride along as the small crew
sprays nearly 900,000 pounds of concrete in a week to create the outer shell of
the largest underground and off-the-grid farm ever built!
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