Friday, November 13, 2015

bob the builder 4


BOB THE BUILDER 4

Another alternative to hand digging your pit, or at least most of it if money is tight, is to just dig to four feet.  My first digging project ever was, obviously, dubbed The Test Pit, and as I was ignorantly using the wrong pick ( thin and light rather than the heavy and broad Maddox ) I couldn’t get past four feet deep.  Everyone says go down ten to twelve feet to get the stable year round temperatures, but if you can’t afford the supports for feet worth of dirt on the roof this does not apply.  If you are just using the Advanced Redneck Building Underground Technique ( AR-BUT ) which is an insulated roof over a pit, rather than a buried structure, what you are looking at is very stable temperatures in a low range rather than a year round temperature of 55 degrees.  Say, 40 when it is zero outside and 75 when it is 100 outside.  Four feet, or six or probably even eight feet deep, you are looking at using the earth as a temperature battery, evening out fluctuations.  My advice is that if money is tight now, the pit is four feet deep.  Then, when you save more, get the backhoe back out there and dig a trench ten foot deep and fifty to a hundred foot long and install an air well to stabilize the pits dwelling by drawing in the deeper year round temperatures.

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( An air well is deeply buried pipe, sewer pipe to get the needed diameter-don’t be a dumbass like me and use too narrow of pipe which does not draw air-which is in the shape of a U.  At the far end the pipe is at the surface [protect from rain as you don’t want moisture getting in and forming mold], plunges down ten feet to the horizontal pipe, runs to your structure location, then straight up.  Draw the air through by having a 12v car or computer fan [the little inch or two fans, cost like ten bucks each.  Have a lot of spares and you can draw directly from the solar panel if the battery dies.  At least you’ll warm or cool while the sun is out verses not at all] on the inside pipe opening, not the one away from the structure ).

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My point is that my four foot deep pit and my six foot deep one both stayed about the same temperature.  You aren’t necessarily sacrificing performance by not digging as deep.  If you keep the structure walls at six foot high, and extend the roof over to the berm of earth on the edge of the pit, you are looking at a mounded structure which you can just cover with plastic sheeting and your inch of dirt, the pitch being slight enough to allow rain to drain off but not enough to take the dirt with it ( again, this is desert building.  We have gully washers but as the dirt is dry rather than previously saturated, I don’t lose roof dirt in heavy rains ).  Herein lies my second improvement, after machine over human digging.  More insulation.  My only insulation now is the roof and exposed wall around the doorway.  In my more luxurious building, the floor and walls get insulated in the dwelling, plus I double the roof insulation ( the usual is stick and fiberglass bats.  I’d cover over that with rigid board, having wood, then plastic sheeting, then rigid board, another sheet of plastic, then the dirt ).  This only adds a few hundred dollars to a 200 square foot dwelling, along with the guesstimated $1,000 for the backhoe for the pit and another say, $500 for the trench and pipe.  Most likely two grand total for pit, trench and added insulation.

More Next Time-END

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26 comments:

  1. Ahhh the pit of doom. I like it. My situation is a bit different involving my son living with me, my weekend daughter and parents who insist on visiting.occasionally. I'm planning the 1000 sq. ft house.. Not quite a McMansion but i get good solar gain and have a 20 acre woodlot for heat. Codes in my county require at least 800 sq. ft. so I don't have as much flexibility.

    Yes underground or partially underground has a lot of pluses. Still not sure If I can pull that off.

    Look forward to the rest of this series.

    BTW, are you using a new conditioner? Your hair is radiant!!!!

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    Replies
    1. I wouldn't think your location really needs underground.

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    2. Hey Jim. Nightshift here. I could get by with solar and a woodstove. The big plus is cooling. During this summer weeks over 100 and nighttime lows in the 90s makes for misery without AC. With the humidity here though I
      Imagine condensation would be a major issue. I want to do a basement but with our water table the county thugs frown on them.

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    3. How about, as we were just talking about, the two foot down covered with insulation mound? Most of the basement bennies without the water table issue.

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    4. It has promise. I want to do a root cellar/storm shelter anyway. Could have multiple uses.

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    5. It works out good, expand it. A 4 or 5 foot high basement sounds stupid, but think how inexpensive and unobtrusive it could be.

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  2. Use rigid foam insulation on the OUTSIDE of the building (floor too) and you'll avoid the thermal bridging from other methods and your heating/cooling system will be more efficient. Last winter got much colder for much longer than previous winters and for the first time I saw the effects of thermal bridging in our cheapass stick & batt house (I didn't design or build it). The white painted drywall on all exterior walls had ominous vertical gray stripes every 16" on center and they were much colder to the touch. They disappeared when it warmed up.

    Next crib will be much more efficient as I will design and build it myself - like I did our Florida house.

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    Replies
    1. So, the outside shell is insulation? Is the floor like when you insulate a concrete slab to get solar gain?

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    2. Yes, the styrofoam goes under the slab, at least 4" worth.
      Same with the walls and roof. Then you install whatever finish materials you want over the insulated walls. For the roof I'd suggest 5V metal, because it's lighter and less expensive than shigles or the rolled stuff, and has like a 50 year warranty. The flavor of your pirated rain water will be more pleasant too.

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    3. Excuse my ignorance of construction, but as I see these commercial buildings going up I see the outside rigid board insulation with stucco over them and I think, "doesn't all those nails act as a conductor of heat". I could be wrong, but it doesn't seem like it would be all that different than old school stick and fiberglass, other than cost and ease of construction. Or, do the nails just act to form condensation and lead to those mold problems, even as the heat is held in?

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    4. One way to eliminate that 'bridging' is to stagger your studs. Using a wider plate sole and sill plate, staggering stops that. Example - using a 2x6 stud (5 1/2" wide), you install 2x4 studs on inside and outside face so that stud only secures one side of wall material. What you end up is with a curved CONTINUOUS air space between the studs that allow your insulation batt or blown fiberglass beads to be a continuous sheet, rather than stop at each stud. More expensive - more studs. But it is one method.

      Your window glazing works more efficiently up there closer to your ceiling. When looking out a standard window, you see the view surrounded by the room which is darkened. When glazing is up near the ceiling, the light spills out on the ceiling which spreads the light, and also allows you to place your furnishings against the wall more easier. Can cause code issues if your windows are supposed to be emergency exits though.

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    5. I've thought of the two wall, staggered stud idea before. With rigid board between, possibly.

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  3. Jim this is a must read you will love it http://straightlinelogic.com/2015/11/12/assholes-by-robert-gore/

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  4. I have no experience with it directly, but have heard good things about a solar chimney. The jist of it being a black pipe enclosed by glass. A nice side effect is you get a dehydrator in the deal.

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  5. Price/value wise insulation on the roof is better than soil on the roof for stabilizing temperatures according to some research I have read - at least after the first couple of inches of soil (just enough for some plants to hold snow and provide evaporative cooling. The cost to build a sturdy enough roof to hold much more is way more than the cost of just putting up more insulation. The opposite holds however for the walls... Also instead of insulating the walls directly you can always do the PAHS system of insulating (and water proofing) out @ 20 feet from the walls with tapering thickness of insulation about equivalent to what you would have put on the walls originally, once the mass of dirt is warmed up over the summer it give the heat back to your structure when winter comes.
    Plastic and insulation (when buried) are your friends from the petroleum age. Bury them in a way that can keep you warm and dry and you will be happy.
    The mass of the earth is another friend entirely use its mass to hold the warmth and keep it dry and stable with the petroleum friends.

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  6. Sounds similar to a Navajo hogan. Four feet or so underground and the excavated dirt thrown on top.

    I have to laugh when I compare the B-POD (Bison Pit of Doom) to other survivalist sites who feel that you need a 100,000 square foot McMansion underground cement bomb shelter with hard wood floors, jacuzzi tubs, and granite countertops in order to survive.

    Sometimes good enough IS good enough.

    Idaho Homesteader

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    Replies
    1. Other than less than perfect waterproofing, you can't beat Indian construction.

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  7. Can't do holes to live in here, they will be ponds in short order. I have seen some homes that used berms with lots of drain pipes around the perimeter. Mold would be a killer here as well. We had 60+ inches of rain this year so far. I have found the foam panels and the sprayed on foam (if you can afford it) works great, no mold if installed correctly. I did a metal building with it and its worked great so far, 2 years.

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  8. peak oil.

    http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/11/13/oil-supply-reaches-high-water-mark/

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    1. Puff piece confusing economic collapse demand destruction with the Great 300 Year Fracking Miracle.

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    2. The US and China have the same oil problem domestically: Huge annual production, and tiny reserves. It's like a McD- customer with a soda straw of large diameter sucking on a small diet coke. Venesuala has the opposite situation with a tiny straw sucking on a 2 gallon Circle-K monster diabetic shock-maker.

      No worries about fuel availability for the MBZ 240D in the next 50 years. Syrians make Diesel fuel with barrel refineries and open fires. Dot-gov regulation is a much bigger threat. That car puts out at least 20x as much soot/NOx as a 2009-2015 "cheating" VW TDI car, and I'm never letting it go. Mid-sized 4150 pounds.Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. Zero to fifty-four mph in Nineteen seconds! Whoo-hoo.

      Looking for 300D turbo part car with good OM617A and 5-sp manual. Diesel infrastructure is mostly to keep the little battery chargers that use Kubota 300cc engines going. Solar summer, Diesel winter. Mercedes scoots fuel and parts, but an IDI Diesel 1980's Isuzu or Toyota would be fine.

      The World Oil Glut of 2015 is a fine opportunity to make lots of paper money, like 1938 before WWII. The money is fake, just like the oil.

      pdxr13

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  9. For roof care you have to be attentive more than normal rotten. If you can’t give too much time to this RV Roof Repair Coatings is a proper care for your roof.

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