Glenn's Underground Cabin Update

[glenn kangiser]

So... I generally check the garden in the morning if I have time - a quick look at the water system - dampen emerging new seedlings in case they or their friends need encouragement to pop out of the ground. 





A look around for the evil gophers - set traps if needed then on to the next thing.  I thought it was about time the garden started paying back a bit today so checked and pulled a few of the biggest beets.  Red this time.  Figured we might try to eat them before the gophers do....


Some were bigger than I had thought they would be.   [idea]





Washed them off and took them in the house.... It was Sassy's turn to deal with them.... She fixed us a nice big pan full of nice sliced beets and tops....   yum...







I asked Sassy what beets were good for.  Must be something since we don't like to eat them when we are young..... hmm

She tells me beets will make me virile..... or was that viral..... I guess I better go ask again...

[Ernest T. Bass]

Nice looking produce, there! Sorry about the fire.. Some pretty intense shots there.

About the drip tape.. Would that stuff work with a low-pressure gravity-fed system? I'm thinking of elevating a tank out in our field just 6' or so.. We have a creek that runs most of the year a few hundred feet from the garden, so I'm wondering if a simple system that consists of a solar panel, a startup controller and a low-power DC surface pump would fill it for us in the summer time. Any pointers, or guesstimates on what something like that would cost?

[glenn kangiser]

Thanks to cows and horses the garden is doing better. 

The fire is bad. The Pizza Factory was one of the places you could pretty much count on being able to eat at without getting the runs.....

Drip tape works at low pressure.  According to this down to 4 psi or 10 feet .... however it says it will work at lower with questionable results.  I run mine with a 15 lb regulator.

http://www.dripworks.com/category/ttape1

Low power pump could pressurize the drip directly without the tank if water is available all year.  Use a 15 lb pressure regulator on it. Regulator about $5.  Pump - under $100 - Harbor freight has one for $35.  http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result?q=12v+water+pump

You could use the irrigation timer I showed above if your pump has a pressure switch on it like an RV pump.  When the valve closes the timer would shut off.  Or pump into a taller tank and have a float for shut off - same pressure switch type pump.

Looks like this one would work for either application.  http://www.amazon.com/Fimco-Volt-2-1-G-P-M-Pump/dp/B000NYX870/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1336920876&sr=8-2

Bottom of the tank at 10 feet gives minimum 4.33 lbs pressure (.433 per foot of head -elevation).

[Sassy]

Mother's Day flowers right from our garden 

[NavyDave]

Beautiful flowers Sassy and Happy Mother's Day.....can't wait till we start getting produce like that out of our garden! Soon hopefully.

[Sassy]

Thanks NavyDave!  The beets were really good   

Happy Mothers Day to all the mothers on CP!

[glenn kangiser]

Looking forward to more garden produce myself, Dave.

Got a bit of the floor back together tonight.  I salvaged the area in front and to the side of the fridge.  The roots were small enough there they did not cause major problems.  I patched it in with the CBRI floor - edges solid for about 2 inches wide then three little piers in the center and used a burlap potato sack for reinforcement rather than chopping off a piece of landscape netting.  I will likely blend the edges from the concrete to the mud a bit with Pourstone so we can just repair the paper bag floor in that area.

I put the original wood divider back in and tried to do a decent job of leveling the concrete and edging it.  We will see how it works out in a few days.

Got the hole in the Bathroom filled now too.  We will see how the ditch to the outside goes from here.....

[glenn kangiser]

Guess I forgot to mention..

Digging through the roots and claystone with a rotohammer sometimes makes it a bit hard to feel things you don't remember are there.  I apparently didn't take a pix of this or remember where I put it... However even if I didn't do all of that, a Rotohammer chisel will chop through it pretty good.  [ouch]






Fortunately I keep a few Wirsbo Aquapex splices and fittings around, have my own tool for it, did remember where the water shutoff was and managed to fix it within about 15 minutes.  Managed to put a couple serious scratches down the 3" sewer pipe too, but ... didn't go through... Yea....

[Redoverfarm]

I am glad things like that happen to someone else for a change.    I was beginning to think I was the only one. 

[MountainDon]

I guess that came as quite the surprise. 

[glenn kangiser]

It was a bit of an , "Oh, darn" moment, but not all that bad I guess. 

This is why I now recommend putting French drains in at the time of building your Underground Command Center.....






A bit easier to do at the time of building and after building the ditches have to go on the inside of the walls and through the house if there are water problems.

I recommended it to my friend, "J" and he did it.  During the worst rains of winter, even though he had not expected to see it, there was water coming out of his French drains.  That made him happy.  [ouch]

I remember considering it when I did it as I had asked Mike Oehler about it in a phone conversation.  The problem at the time was that it was near winter, the ground was harder than the back of my head and there was not enough time to deal with it.  The thoughts of mischievous gophers rerouting my drainage around the walls had not yet crossed my mind. 

Note that I am putting it all in in such a manner that I can run a snake down it and clean all sections of it one way or another.  I am using 3" sewer piping and necessary fittings. 

[glenn kangiser]

Between fits of digging the ditch and working on the floor I got hungry for garden food.  Sassy offered an egg sandwich and I requested some German Potatoes with vegetables from the garden..... Sure - no problem so breakfast was decided... [idea]

So I went scrounging for vegetables and whenever I could remember what I started out to do I headed back to the house with our bounty.






Onions - first ones we ate that the gophers didn't.   [ouch]


Off to get potatoes ... not done growing yet so I groveled around in the dirt until I found enough for a meal.  Sorry to those of you who think food comes from stores... I have bad news... food comes from dirt.... dirt and composted animal manure... that is what gives it that great flavor....






Added some tomatoes from the hydroponics in the greenhouse.  Sassy cooked down the onions and bacon, added cheese and peppers from the our last years saved plants and breakfast was ready.




Mustn't forget a couple eggs from the chickens after getting rid of the egg eating hen.....







Yum.... tastes good 



Oh yeah... got some purple top turnips for later too.....

[OlJarhead]

I'll be RIGHT over!!!

[Sassy]

Hey OlJarhead, we got plenty left - made a BIG pan of German potatoes    Only thing is, ya gotta bring a few slices of your homemade cheese!

[OlJarhead]

Hey OlJarhead, we got plenty left - made a BIG pan of German potatoes    Only thing is, ya gotta bring a few slices of your homemade cheese!

LOL well that might delay my trip for a while! LOL I ATE all of it!

So I guess I better get making more!

[glenn kangiser]

Hurry up OJ... I'm eating them up... but we can make more.  Nice thing about leftover German Potatoes is that the flavors blend as they sit in the fridge and by dinner time they taste even better.  [ouch]

Worked on getting a section of floor back in today.  It is a real pain to try to live in a cave with ditches open in it.  So now is a good time to review the CBRI light duty concrete floor one more time.  Sent update pix to Photobucket throughout the day from my phone. 

I discussed the floor with "J" the other day.  I was wanting to make bigger sections without the wood.  He wished he did smaller sections with the wood as he had a few hairline cracks and he believes that would have stopped them as well as set off the floor with the wood dividers.  Also - it may limit how much I need to repair next time the tree roots grow out.  I do not want to remove the tree.  So I decided to replace it similar to before but this time with the CBRI floor instead of the soil cement.  The soil cement floor was the least satisfactory fo the floors we tried.  Old looking like Adobe but too soft.  Kinda dusty over the years as it wears.



I replaced the wood at the proper elevation then cut a screed board to the proper length dropping it down 3/4 inch for the top of the sand fill.  Next I put the jute erosion control netting in place ( originally Ken Kern said Hessian so erosion control netting has worked out as an acceptable substitute).  Wetting the jute down makes in lay flat and helps it to bond to the cement in the concrete.

Now it is ready for pier holes to be pounded into place with a digging bar.  Drop, drop, drop until a solid bottom is felt.  The damp sand or soil will stay open until concrete  is poured in them shortly.  Repack any that fill with loose sand.





I like to add Fibermesh into the mix for additional strength.   It is available at most Concrete plants for around $7 a bag - good for about a cubic yard.

[ben2go]

Looks like ya trimmed up today. 

[glenn kangiser]

It's not that white, Ben..... [ouch]  Another point though... hair was used in old plaster for reinforcement.   

In this application I like to leave the concrete wetter than normal.  I read from someone that does similar in sand casting concrete objects that the sand removes the water from the concrete faster in thin applications so it does not seem to lose any strength.  Also using a 1 cement to 3 sand ratio so it is pretty strong.  No rock in this application other than what is in normal concrete sand - say.. pebbles up to about 3/16 with a few larger.

Plaster sand would be best for the top coat but not readily available last Saturday.




I held the can up about a foot as I poured to help the concrete go to the bottom of the hole.  Note the refrigerator hovering over the floor.  Strapped it back to a log as that was easier than moving it.... HEAVY....


Next I troweled down the piles a bit to prevent interference with the top layers and to make it adhere to the jute netting.





After that I mixed the first plastering layer of concrete, troweled it well into the netting and screeded it off.






Wasn't that easy....

I'm on break now - I think I would like to get the color coat done tonight too.... see if it hardens enough and ..... if my energy returns.... 

[ben2go]

Looks good. 

[glenn kangiser]

Thanks, Ben.  It is pretty flat again without the root bump  sticking up.  [ouch]

It was still too wet last night and besides, my get up and go got up and went. 

[glenn kangiser]

Got onto the top coat this morning.  We wanted to try for an even more durable surface this time.  Some of the other floors I had done had a few too large a pebbles in them and made finishing a bit of a chore.  I got better sand this time.  That was an improvement.

I also got some acrylic add mix for it.  Kind of like the old added Elmers glue to the concrete mix or as a bonder.  Makes it tougher.



That is what I used.


I flipped my screed board over to the un-notched side and it was ready to use to screed level with the wood insets I have between floor sections.  I nailed them direct to the hard clay with two 60d nails.  I pre-drilled first to prevent splitting the board.  I put a temporary edge on the bathroom threshold and will do the bathroom floor to match later.




After the concrete had firmed up a bit I put splotches of color in random locations.  I like the colors to vary from intense to light and not be smeared out too much or they all go to one usually rather ugly color. [ouch]

While the colors look much too intense when wet, they will drop back to about half of their brilliance when the concrete is cured and dry.


Color is available in powder or liquid.  In this application I think the liquid is a bit easier to use, though either work well.  I don't waste it by coloring the entire batch.  Just throw it over the regular concrete.  Stamps can be used also but we find the smooth floor to be easier to clean.




The colors will be a bit less intense yet with the final hard troweling.

[Ernest T. Bass]

Always fun to watch you do that floor--thanks for all the pics.. I know I'll be looking them up again someday soon when we do it.

[glenn kangiser]

Thanks, Andrew.  I think this is one of my better attempts at the floor.  Should be ... I've had enough practice....

New this time - acrylic added to the top coat, and screeding with a 2x4 for a flatter floor.  Before I screeded the sand only then put the 2 layers of concrete over top about 1/4 inch thick without screeding them again.  That worked pretty good since the floor is thin but this seems to give a flatter floor yet.

Here is about what I am ending up with.



In working the concrete I noticed that the Fibermesh was well mixed throughout the entire batch.  I spread all of the pieces well as I added them into the rotating mixer.  The acrylic is added to the last minute or so of mixing to prevent excess air entrainment. It makes a very nice troweling mix.

Nice thing about this floor is that is does not require or even want good compaction for a slab on grade.  Simply ram the piers in with the digging bar and grout them for solid support. 

We found that a piano on tiny casters may punch a hole through it, but that is easily fixed.  It works out to about a 300 to 500 lbs per inch point load on the tiny roughly 1/2 to 3/4 caster figuring about 1/2 inch bearing so highly in excess of the floor rating. 

That was on a pretty thin one.  This one is slightly thicker at 3/4".  Probably would not have the problem.  Just be careful, eh?  [ouch]

[glenn kangiser]

Guess who came to visit?   





A little rascally Coral Bellied Ringneck Snake....that's who. 


http://www.californiaherps.com/identification/snakesid/ringnecks.id.html

http://www.californiaherps.com/snakes/pages/d.p.pulchellus.html


He was trying to make a hasty exit near the new floor in front of the fridge when I spotted (him?).  [ouch]


Sassy brought a cup and we captured the tiny fella then I started looking on the net to identify him.  Obviously a newly hatched baby, I had never seen one of this species here before.  Something new every day.   

[Redoverfarm]

They are quite common here.  My son kept one as a pet several years ago.