Progress on the House

We’ve been making steady progress on the house over the past couple of weeks, as of Sunday 8/28.

Most progress was made on the spetic system.

Above is the 30×30 foot hole for the septic drain field. it is set so that the marks on the wall are where the top of the1 foot gravel bed should be. We have already put the 12 inches of “magic” non-draining dirt on top of the sand layer.

Filling the septic hole & magic dirt with water on Friday afternoon. The pool of water lasted until Monday morning, proving that indeed the magic dirt did the job and prevented the packed sand form draining the water away too quickly.

After laying out 6″ of gravel, we started laying out the septic tank drain field. The plan calls for 5 rows of 25′ of drain tile. We ordered a plastic 6 port (one input, 5 output drains) distribution box from Amazon.

Here is the final layout after getting a preliminary layout evaluation from the county health dept. What you don’t see is that the end of each line, instead of being capped, is tied back across like the distribution end. That is an optional layout that ensures that all lines get equally used.

Now the filed gets covered with another 6″ of gravel, getting at least 2″ above the 4″ pipes. Note the 5 foot inspection port over the distribution box and the edge of the 6-7 foot bank on the left.

The drain field is about half covered. Note the black fabric weed cover that keeps the sand from filling the interstices in the gravel bed. Also note the inspection port is about 2/3 covered.

This is looking North up the hillside after grading and shaping the hillside. Note the white inspection port over the distro box just below the rear bumper of the dark vehicle and the removal of the cliff section from the road above.

In other news, we removed another bunch of dirt from behind the house to cover the rainwater tanks behind the house.

Two more dirt piles that got dumped on storage tanks out back of house.

Going back to the above pictures of the dirt piles, you can see the start of the house siding going up. You can’t really see the color of the siding since it’s in the shade (North side of house) but it is only a couple of shades darker than the roofing color.

This is the finished view of the tank covering. The gravel patch at the lower center is the end of the 10′ overflow pipe. The top of the tank is about 4-5 feet deep in the soil so it shouldn’t freeze. Notice in the east wall of the house is the swamp cooler (in my office). Given the very low humidity (currently 40%) a swamp cooler seems like a lower energy cost solution to cooling. It is extraordinarily close to the swamp cooler we had on Powell Way in Riverside. Of course, I will have AC and a generator if need be, but I think that a well insulated house and swamp cooler should do nicely for most of the year.

Here is one view with the North side siding complete.

A better view of the North side of the house with the front door set back under the room. You can barely make out the dark wood of the front door (behind the white vent pipes)

In other news, the break from the hot weather seems to have brought out the flies. It turns out that something in the iPhone screen spectra seems to attract them. I have also seemed to misplace the two flyswatters I have, so I picked up two more at WallyWorld today (2 ea for 97 cents).

However, in the next display they had a high tech equivalent, powered by 2 each AA batteries.

When unwrapped and ready for use.

Finally, I will try to embed a short view of the storm clouds on the northern horizon. I captured this about 2 weeks ago, but it is typical of how the spotty rains come and go.