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.)
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