Tag Archives: Quonset

Adding the Umbrella

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Posted on September 16, 2017 by

In the previous post, we added the first layer of dirt over the home.  In this next step, we add the “umbrella” layer to keep the first layer of dirt dry and warm.  The umbrella is made of layers of rigid insulation and billboard vinyls and topped with a pond liner and carpet.  Of course, I’ll try to give you some details into the practical construction of this umbrella, but first, the timelapse video.

The Video

Not so easy

When I read John Hait’s book oh PAHS (Passive Anual Heat Storage) he talks about coming up with the umbrella idea because it made it easier to cover the dome in insulation.  So I guess I thought it would be the easy part and didn’t really put as much pre-thought into the install as I have for other aspects of this home.  However, I was very wrong.  It was not easy and don’t let the video make you think it was.

The first challenge was getting the pieces to stay where you put them.  This was hard enough on the flat spots and only got more and more challenging for the steeper slopes.  I tried a number of things like using wood stakes (I used my table saw to cut a 2×4 into wood weges that were 1/4 inch thick and 6 inches long and pushed them into the sheet to give it traction).  The stakes helped with the first layer, but I couldn’t use them on the second.  Tape helped a little, but was often foiled by the tiniest amount of sand or moisture. I even tried sliding the insulation between layers of vinyl, but that was difficult to do precisely.

The second challenge was getting the shapes all cut just right.  It was enough of a hassle to cut away for the skylights, etc.  But dealing with trying to fit rigid rectangles to the compound curvature of a hillside as the sand shifted under your feet was incredibly frustrating.

Then we added the billboard vinyls, which wasn’t too bad.  Gluing them with the HH-66 was also pretty straightforward.  But once the vinyls were on, the insulation became more difficult to manage. If the underlying layer shifted, it was very difficult to get back exactly how you wanted it (butt jointed with no gaps).  It also became much much harder to add the next layer of insulation.  Even walking on it was difficult in the steep areas and we kept sliding off.  Normally, I would have considered the slide as fun, but it wasted time and messed up the insulation again.

Getting the giant heavy pond liner up there (hardly shown in the video) was also a challenge and dragging it messed up the underlying vinyls and insulation.  Pretty stressful actually.

Then the carpet layer helped…  It was pretty good in terms of ease of install and its weight actually locked in the underlying layers pretty well while also making it easier to walk around.  Most of it was in pretty decent shape and some of it was even brand new (trimming from an install?), but some of it was gross.  I recall one had fingernails and other nastiness on it as if it had been stripped from a repossessed home where the evicted tenants were not big on cleaning (I assume people that disgusting were evicted ;).

Regrets

In the end, I had a few regrets.

Primarily, I wished I had put a bit more insulation right up against the vertical sides of the building.  It would have been easy to add it there and I wouldn’t have had to worry so much about it after the dirt was added and those steep sections were just so much harder to insulate.

I also wished I had dumpster dived for a couple more carpet loads.  It was clear to us that carpet prevented erosion.  We only had erosion in the spots that had no carpet.  You could see that the erosion stopped in nice square shapes along the edges of the carpet layers.  We ended up coming back and adding carpet to those spots, but it was much more work later then it would have been before adding the final dirt.

I am not yet sure if I will regret not putting more insulation.  As I said, it is about running out of time and money.  Did I insulate enough?  Was it thick enough?  Did it go out wide enough?  Even John Hait says he didn’t think he went wide enough.  I think I am OK there, but wonder if I will regret not spending a bit more on insulation at this stage.

Silt Fence

The silt fence was a county requirement with a fine of several thousand dollars if it wasn’t installed after excavation.  The regulations include that it should be installed correctly, which requires a trench first so the bottom of the fence can be buried to actually catch any silt that runs off the site.  To do this, there is really nothing better than a little tractor with a plow.  I highly recommend it to save hours of annoying digging.

One other pro-tip is to screw a piece of scrap wood as a furring strip to the stapled side of each post.  Those staples don’t last long and it is much easier to add a strip of wood now that will hold the fabric in place permanently.  Or maybe you prefer to go back and fix the fence every few weeks.

Gallery

A gallery of pics…  A bit light for this section because no one was feeling like taking pics and it was also difficult to get any good angles on the umbrella anyway.

Making Copper Tiles for the Ridge Cap

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Posted on March 19, 2017 by

I have always been a big fan of Copper roofs, especially when they patina.  Copper roofs last hundreds of years and just look so much more interesting than asphalt ones.  Problem is that they are just too expensive.  But with my earth sheltered home project, I was going to have very few square ft of roof, so copper suddenly became affordable again.  Making the tiles myself would also significantly reduce the cost. For this first part, I was really just wanting to put a copper cap on the front and back ridge of the garage. This post is about how I did that.  At some other point, I may also make diamond tiles to cover a few hundred feet of regular roof…  But first, this video

The Video

Alternatives

I had put stucco on the front and back of the garage and this ridge cap was to cover the 12-inch ridge along the top of the shotcrete wall…  Looking back, I could have done it a few other ways.  For instance, I could have just wrapped the top of the wall in lath and then just put stucco right up over the ridge.  Another option would have been to put tile up along the ridge.

I had planned to use copper shingles for all the skylight caps also, but now that I am older and wiser, I plan to just cap the second skylight on the garage with copper and switch to using large format tiles (that I can get for about 1$/sqft) on the other 5 skylight curbs.

The tools

The Press Break Roll was pretty fun to use and getting it 40% off from Harbor Freight made it even better.  One of these days I’ll put more details about it under the “tools” section of this website and maybe make a more focused video.  In the meantime, I can put the original crate back on top of it to keep the dust off so it is ready to use next time I am in the mood.

Along with that, I needed a nice mallet for pounding the copper, good aviation snips for cutting it, pliers, etc.  Generally speaking, pretty standard stuff.

The Gallery

Pictures help tell the story, so I put a bunch in the description of each image…  Enjoy.

Cutting a side door in the Quonset Hut

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Posted on November 24, 2016 by

 

Back when we did the shotcrete on the Quonset hut, we bucked out a side door between the garage and the mudroom.  Leaving the Quonset intact was important because we did not want to weaken the Quonset structure before adding the wet concrete load.  However, the buck keeping the concrete off this section meant we could cut it out and make a doorway without needing a big concrete saw.  Well, now with the mudroom roof on, it is time to punch the door thru the side of the Quonset.

This segment also covers putting the lights up on the front of the garage.

The Video

 

The Gallery