Tires everywhere

When we started researching tire foundations we came across many videos on youtube and various other sites. The most helpful site was http://earthship.com/Earthship-Designs/tire-building-code.html because it got more into the details that were needed to do it the right way and the codes involved.  

We dug a trench three foot deep to set the tires in. Chris laid it all out with a builders level before we started digging. Once we started, we found out that there had been an old barn on that same site that had burned and the previous owners had buried it. We had to dig out a ton of trash leftover from the old barn.

Just more pictures of the trench. We picked up tires from a friend of ours who owns a tire shop. He let us pick through his pile of tires that he had to recycle.We ended up with too many BUT we have plans for a root cellar that we will be able to use them on.

Laying out the first row of tires. There will be three rows staggered on top of one another. You have to fill them with dirt, take a sledge hammer and pound it under the lip of the tire,fill some more,pound some more...until the tire does not give under your weight. It takes way more dirt and pounding then I ever thought it would. About 15-30 minutes a tire. ( we put over 400 in the ground)

This saved our backs from all the digging anyway!!

The third row of tires. You fill in with dirt around the sides and compact it too. We did put a laser level on each row to make sure it was in line the whole time.( It still was not perfect but pretty close!)

On of our helpers, she liked to go "dig for treasure" because we kept finding stuff buried in the dirt.

The final row and filling in the gaps.

We started the tires in August and finished in November. With only two (maybe three) people working on weekends and evenings when we could. Most of the time the weather would not cooperate. It was 100 plus degrees or raining it seemed every time we wanted to work on it.