The shell is done!
We said goodbye to the builders (a few weeks ago) and now pretty much the rest of the building is on us.
We decided to leave the wooden bucks up and the front plastic in place until we finish each exterior flat wall. These will function as doors and windows allowing us to work inside as it gets cold. We made hinged openings so we can choose to open or keep them closed easily. Right now it is very dark inside with all the openings closed up. We hope this means it will be warm in the winter with a heater so we can keep working!
The house is at about the same finish level as a house that is waterproofed but the siding isn't up yet. The inside dome walls are done except to paint. All the vents have PVC sleeves that are caulked with NP1 Urethane caulk. This caulk is rumored (info from the builders) to not only adhere great to the airform but to last 20 yrs or more when exposed to the elements. These openings will all get boots and sealed again before winter sets in.
Since the builders left we have been working hard. First we coated the top of the exterior urethane insulation (this is a ring of insulation around where the airform connects to the foundation) with a primer and then the silicone coating that we will use on the entire exterior. We did this first in prep for back filling around the exterior. Next up on the project list was to put in a 3rd drain pipe close to the surface all the way around the house. It is another socked perforated pipe encased in stone right up against the house. It is most likely overkill (we do have 2 others below it on the stem wall and next to the footer) but it is easiest to put in now. We know we get a lot of run off behind the house. Now we have all the water coming off the house itself as well.
Next up on the digging list was the final trench!
I am so happy that we are done digging trenches for the main part of the house. Of course when we go to build the green house and the garage.... more trenches. BUT we will celebrate now anyway! This one goes from the well head to the house. We aren't ready to connect this one yet so we back filled all but the area at the well head and put in some plastic wrapped pine shavings bags. These can easily be removed when we are ready to run the lines and with any luck the shavings can still be used afterwards.
We also started to finalize the grading around the house. We dug out a flat "back yard" that will have a low stone wall as a step down and moved all the dirt to the front and low side of the house. We are excited to be getting rid of our massive dirt piles. We still have more to do on the front but we returned the mini excavator and will do the rest as we have breaks from inside work waiting for supplies etc.
Last on the list of projects is inside conduit. We have been doing conduit like crazy. After the builders left we had to trouble shoot anything that was run over by the lift. The lift was a one wheel drive not very maneuverable machine. It would constantly get stuck on flat ground and required a 50 point K turn to maneuver it around. I guess that wouldn't be a K turn .... it would be something else. Because of its maneuverability issues several things were run over and a few broken. We have finally fixed the broken, vacuumed out the ones that lost caps, added extensions to get above the floor level and run the rest of the conduit!
One of our dilemmas was "How do we get new runs into areas now blocked by the tie beams bisecting the interior". We briefly tossed around digging under and drilling through before deciding on drilling under. We used a 1" diameter super long bit to drill through the 2" pink board insulation that is under the beams. It worked like a charm! So much easier than the other options.
Now to raise the level of the interior fill! This is a task we are not looking forward to. It means lots of wheelbarrows of stone since the skid steer can't drive on all the surface conduit AND we don't want to risk cracking the tie beams that now bisect the dome floor.
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