Radiant tubing and rebar

We put down the 3 inches of foam board and then started putting down the rebar.

The rebar is on 12 inch centers and tied at each crossing.

We added rebar sticking out of the grain bin and tied it to the rebar inside because we wanted it all tied together when the next portion of concrete is poured.

Then we started putting in all of the radiant tubing.

Tar was added around the grain bin where concrete would be touching it. The tar will prevent the concrete from making the bin deteriorate too quickly.

The final picture of the radiant tubing. Now we just have to wait until it is dry enough to pour concrete!!!

Getting there....

The grain bins are now up and the tops have been painted red to match the barn and one of the other outbuildings. The roof material that will be in between the grain bins will be a grey color. So, we are thinking that the colors will be red,grey,tan and/or green. We go back and forth on the colors but still have time to make that decision later.

We laid down a layer of foam over the gravel in the bins first. Chris ended up finding some 1 1/2 inch foam on Craigslist and bought it to use. At $10 a sheet 20 feet long it was a bargain. We purchased enough to put foam  under all of the concrete for $300. Unfortunately, once we got it home and unbundled it we discovered that there were alot of places where the foam had bad spots we had to piece together. So, our great deal ended up being a good deal still but we had to use 2 layers of foam where we were going to use only one. Honestly, it is probably better because now there is 3 inches of foam to insulate the concrete instead of 1 1/2 inches. Live and learn.
 

Again the rebar came off of craigslist. We paid $4.50 a 20 foot stick. This rebar was new and basically leftover from other jobs that a contractor was selling. We got enough rebar for the entire downstairs ( almost 200 sq foot) for less than $1000.

Chris decided that it would be best to extend the rebar out of the grain bin ( since we will be pouring the middle at a different time). Then all of the rebar will be tied to each slab that we pour and it will help to keep the slabs from ever cracking or shifting.
]

The start of laying the radiant tubing after laying out all of the rebar. 

We went around on the inside and outside of the bins and coated the places that would be under concrete or under dirt with a waterproofing tar.

We are getting close to pouring the concrete!! Now we cross our fingers that the weather stays good on the weekends so that we can get it done!

This is the sun set view that our front porch will have.

Going vertical !!

We started working on getting the grain bins up over the weekend. The first one is now up and we are waiting on parts for the second. We hope to get the second one up this weekend.(Fingers crossed!) When we took them down we number each piece, so it went together like a big puzzle. The best thing we bought for the grain bins....grain bin jacks! When it was taken down Chris had made his own version of bin jacks but we were able to find some at an auction earlier this year. They cost $250 for 4 of them BUT we should be able to sell them for the same cost when we are done with them.

First you have to put one ring together and then assemble the roof. This is by far the most time consuming,frustrating part of the assembly. Chris thought that by putting up two rings instead of one it would make it easier...it did not. So, we learned what not to do with #2.

Two rings put you six feet in the air for the side walls and the center is 72 inches higher than that. The ladder climbing was horrible. I am thankful to my brother-in-law Cory for coming to help most of the weekend....I didn't have to climb as much, which is good because I hate heights! 

This is what the jack looks like. There are also two on the other side.

Close-up of the jacks. They are really simple but made the whole process easier! On a side note....there are approximately 300 bolts per level of the grain bin...and at least that many in the roof too.

To add a new ring you have to lift the whole bin. There were a total of 7 rings that went around it. 6 of them were 32 inches and one was 24 inches. Each level of the bin is a heavier gauge metal. the heaviest at the bottom.

One up!!! The second one started. I took the picture from farther away to show you just how big the bins are. To me a 24 foot circle on the ground seemed small but with the bin up it seems HUGE!

Shelter from a storm....

One day we were outside working on the foundation and someone pulled into our driveway. The lady asked us if we wanted a storm shelter. Well, in fact we were going to put one in someday...it just wasn't going to happen yet. She said that they had lived in a trailer while building their home and had a shelter put in. Once the house was built they no longer needed the shelter. ( they built an earth contact home). So, we drove over there and took a look at it. Chris spent a few evenings digging it out of the ground with the backhoe. We called a concrete company that sets septic tanks and they were willing to move it for us if we had a place already dug out to put it in. We spent the next few nights digging out a place for it to go. Then had it moved. The cost of the new storm shelter- $280 to move it!!!  We have to dig out a bit in front of it and put in some retaining walls. We are going to use one of the grain bin doors on the front of it because it needed a new door. It will just have to wait still until it is finished...the house is higher on the list of things to get done!

This is what you use to move 12000 pounds of concrete.

It had to be held out on the boom and then spun 360 degrees.

It will have a lot more dirt around it before we are done. We have to have dirt moved in to go around the foundation of the house and this storm shelter. I will update when we get it done!

The gravel less septic system we came up with....

 When looking up the different types of septic systems, we found that the gravel less system would work out the best for the area we had in mind for the septic drain fields.

This is from  http://www.cleanearthenvironmental.net/septic-systems.html : Gravel less conventional systems overcomes some of the drawbacks of graveled systems. These drain field systems consist of a series of connected chambers that are typically 15 to 40 inches in width. Typically these chambers are manufactured of molded high-density plastic in 10' to 12' foot lengths. Some systems include pipes within the chamber, others do not. CleanEarth Environmental exclusively uses the Infiltrator chamber system as we have found this system to most effective when allowed in Florida soils. Native soil is compacted slightly around the chambers to provide stability and then filled in above the chamber. When placed into service, waste water is carried by pipe from the septic tank to the chamber run and flows directly against the soil. As in the graveled system a bio mat forms on or near the soil level and works to consume solids that pass out of the septic tank. One real advantage of the chambered system is its ability to hold much larger amounts of water. This is useful in locales where the water table can rise close to the surface and in instances when there is a temporary surge as a result of extra guests. Obviously shock loading over prolonged periods of time is going to be detrimental to the biomat as oxygen will not be available to parasites during these periods. " Of course trying to do this build on a limited budget, Chris was able to come up with his version of the same system. He decided to use plastic barrels that we purchased from a car wash for $3 a barrel. After cutting one barrel up you end up with two sections or almost 5 feet of coverage. We ended up laying out about 120 feet of perforated pipe and covering it with these barrels. The cost of the barrels were around $70 and the pipe to lay in it was around $300. The holding tank itself is a poly tank that Chris found on Craigslist for $300. We were able to dig the trenches with the backhoe attachment on the tractor but were not able to dig the hole for the tank itself. The neighbor happens to have a backhoe and is willing to dig the hole for the tank in exchange for a frame to an RV that we had. So we should have a cost of less than $700 for our septic system, as long as the neighbor shows up with his backhoe. HOW THE BARRELS WORKED...

We took the barrels and marked the hole that the pipe would go through when we cut it in half.

We then used a sawzall to cut the barrels in half and a jigsaw to cut out the area for the pipe.

Then the bottom is cut out .

The end that was cut off is then attached to the center for support.

This is what the barrels look like when they are done.

We then dug a trench with the tractor and took a lazer level to make sure it was all level and started laying out the perforated pipe.

This is the pipe at the end to join the next section. It is a solid pipe and will not have barrels over it. The trenches that we dug make a back and forth pattern with the solid sections on opposite ends each time. This is the barrel being buried. We added another to the row after this picture. The barrels overlap by about half and are screwed together to hold them in place.

 
 

Black water/grey water split plumbing

Running the plumbing for the house. There will be four full baths so there is quite a bit of plumbing to do. The four inch pipes will run the black water( water from the toliet) and it will end up in the septic system. The rest of the water, grey water, will run through the 2 inch pipe and be sent to a well that is currently not used. The grey water will be stored there and used later to water plants.

Just a closer view of how the black and grey water are split.  "graywater is household waste water from all plumbing fixtures except toilet and garbage disposal, which is blackwater. Rural homeowners with individual sewage disposal septic systems commonly divert at least their washing machine water away from the septic tank. The longer your septic tank has time to settle out solids, the better. And the less bacteria killing soaps and detergents in your septic tank, the better. Diverting graywater also reduces the load carried by your septic system leach field, greatly extending its life expectancy and effectiveness. In recent years, attention has been drawn to recycling graywater to conserve water and make better use of its fertilizer potential. Phosphate rich soaps and cleaning chemicals are considered pollutants when discharged directly into waterways, primarily because they accelerate algae growth, which in turn leads to oxygen depletion for fish and other marine life. The beauty of this 'pollutant problem' is the fact that mild household cleaning supplies are excellent sources of nutrition as liquid fertilizer for irrigation of trees, privacy hedge rows, and ornamental planterbeds." (https://www.thenaturalhome.com/greywater.html)

This shows where the grey water will be diverted out to the left of the two trees will be the holding tank for the grey water.

To get the fall needed for the black water we had to dig down quite a bit because of the distance from one side to the other.

So, after the plumbing was set and we ran pipe for the electric to go through( because the floor will be concrete), we got to move about 8 ton of 3/4 inch rock into the circle. That was far from fun but at least we had some equipment to help us out.

We have only filled one of the circles so far. Our plan is to fill them with rock and then put up the grain bins. After the grain bins are up we will fill in the other areas with rock ( about 4 inches throughout). Eventually we will get to the rebar and radiant floor tubing that will run in all of the main floor of the house, and then comes the concrete.

Phase two of the tire footing...

After leveling the ground some we started the process of building forms for the concrete that will sit on top of the buried tires. To make the stakes for the forms, my brother-in-law Cale, came up with the idea of using leftover pieces of conduit that were cut by electricians on one of the jobsites Chris was working on. The leftover 2 feet of conduit are usually thrown away. There were enough to make most of the concrete stakes. We ended up having to buy a couple of sticks of conduit from the hardware store and that cost around $30. The pieces were cut into 2 foot pieces, two holes were drilled into the conduit to be able to attach them with screws to the boards that make up the forms, and the bottom was cut at an angle to be able to hammer it into the ground easier.

In this picture you can see that the size of the concrete beam that we will pour is not exactly equal in size to the tires.

Bending the forms around the curves of the grain bin was not easy. We had to use two 1/2 in boards because there was no way to bend an 1 board around that curve. The wood came from a pile at an auction ( we paid $5 for the whole pile because some of the boards were broken or molding) it was not the best quality wood but worked just fine for what we needed. It was only going to hold concrete and then be torn off and burned.

On the straight portions we were able to use 2x8 's, that we did save to re-use on other projects later.

We were able to get two piles of these sticks of rebar (already cut to the right length even) at an auction for $25 a  stack.

We had to drive sticks of rebar into the tires before pouring the concrete. The recommendation was to put one every two feet, we put them every  foot. When able to, we drove them into the tread of the tire. We found out quickly that it is tough to do. We had to weld a piece of rebar to make a T and then sharpen the end to pierce the tread by pounding it in with a sledge hammer. We then pulled that piece out and hammered in the straight piece of rebar that stayed in. If we put the rebar T in too far into the tire, we could not pull it back out and we had to manufacture a couple more of them because of this.

There is concrete!!!

10 yards of concrete delivered by two trucks. One of the trucks got stuck and they had to call a second truck to come and pull the first one out. It cost about $1000 for all the concrete footing.