30x40 Earth Berm Passive Solar in Maine

[Dog]

 
Oh this ought to be interesting....

[EcoHeliGuy]

I would do it a little differently, Your right as to why it's not melting, But I would not do what your about to do to green cement.
Heat the house up again with the heaters, then use separate fans to blow at the floor. Reason being there will naturally be an air barrier do to hot air rising. By using a fan you are destroying the air cushion at the floor level. think of it as the window in your car, the interior can be hot, but the window will still fog up unless you blow air across it.  So use a fan to move tons of warm air across the surface, instead of blowing hot are in one spot and cooking the floor. nothing fancy, a couple of the osolating fans people use in the summer would work fine. Also do not remove all the water, water helps melt ice.

[llamaman]

Is there a reason you cant just salt the ice to loosen it up first

[Redoverfarm]

No Bishopknight  the heaters will not run in the verticle position.  .  Just be careful that the flame is not directed to the concrete in close proximity.  It will scale it.   If you had someway to temporarily build an air chase say 4' wide and length depending on how much you wanted to tackle and direct the hot air through that chase.  I was thinking of saw horses 8-10' apart and 2X to bridge between them.  Then cover with plastic to create a square tunnel.  Once that melts the plastic   just more it over a couple feet and repeat the process.

llamaman It is not good for completely cured concrete let alone some that I guess you could say still green in a way.

[glenn kangiser]

I don't think the concrete will get hot enough to pop if he uses a weed burner and a sump pump to pump the water out.  They used a weed burner to dry oil base polyurethane in the winter on stamped concrete with no problem at fasion fair mall a couple years ago.  Key is to not concentrate the heat more than enough to melt the ice to warm water.

How about a weed burner flaming directly on the ice to make hot water in holes that will melt more then pump in out with a small electric sump pump.  Make small holes so as not to have to heat up too much at one time - move - make another etc and keep pumping the holes out with the sump pump -

Just an example

http://www.flameengineering.com/Red_Dragon_Propane_Torch_K.html

[Bishopknight]

Thanks everyone.

I'll give these ideas a try and let you know how it goes.

[EcoHeliGuy]

Any update's from the weekend?

[Bishopknight]

Yes,

Pictures coming tonight hopefully. Left camera at friends house monday.

1. Removed 60% of ice on slab.
2. Installed 3 more windows
3. Bought and installed entry door

Btw, here is my latest floor plan and some shots of the kitchen and what I want the kitchen range hood to look like. ( if you can't see the pics below, let me know )

[glenn kangiser]

Cool, BK.  I'll bet that ice was a lot of work.

I don't see the range hood yet but got the floor plan and interior rendering.

[Bishopknight]

I fixed the pic above.

Ya it was ridiculous. I used a tile floor scraper initially then switched to the 10 lb sledgehammer. Sweat. Blisters. Hand cramps.

[Sassy]

Nice plan!  I love the range "hood" - sounds like you did some heavy duty hard labor

[glenn kangiser]

Nice range hood too.  That ice really sounds bad - I couldn't live like that.  2 inches of snow here today is plenty.

[Dog]

What planet did you say you're from?  10lb sledgehammer...how fun!
The plans look really good.

[soomb]

looks good.  The design does not waste space with long hallways and the like, the open nature is sure to make it live big.  Look forward to your progress.

[Bishopknight]

Heres some pics finally, all in order. They aren't very good but you get sort of an idea of what I went through.

[MaineRhino]

Looks great BK!  Nice to see that ice finally melting, with some help of course!

[glenn kangiser]

Looks like a lot of work, BK.

[fishing_guy]

Shoveling the driveway is bad enough...let alone shoveling the inside of a house.  Ouch!

[pickngrin]

Looks like a ton of work, too bad they don't make a zamboni attachment for a lawn tractor. 

I noticed in the first picture of this series you've got a wall up with a window rough opening not fully framed.  Did you do that because you weren't sure the exact size window that would go there?  I noticed you've picked up many if not all of your windows through craigslist and I'm hoping to do the same thing, but it's almost impossible to know in advance what's going to be available through that type of source.  Of course plans and permits need to be taken care of in advance of actually building. 

I've enjoyed following your progress - best of luck the rest of the way.

[Bishopknight]

I wish it was only shoveling! Its more like, swing the sledgehammer as hard as you can into 5" of ice. 

No no, I was just in the middle of framing the rough opening for that window.

The 4x3 Anderson window on the west wall, I most recently got off craigslist for, get this, only $25. Brand new in plastic wrap, 400 woodwright series. Evidentally the contractor wasn't going to use it and he thought no ones building lately so... It would probably be at least $250 new at Home Depot, guaranteed. The ad is still up, guess they haven't taken it down yet.  http://southcoast.craigslist.org/mat/1017423415.html

As for windows and permits. I had a rough idea of what the window sizes would be for the permit and then looked for close sizes. As long as you're meeting egress code, I dont think any Code Enforcement Officer is going to have a problem with a window size off by a few inches.

I've got some tricks for Craigslist. Heres the link I use for searching 6 craigslist zones nearest to me. It uses a website tool called "crazedlist" which is great. Once you're done looking at one area, click the [X] so you don't have to scroll down. Its preselected for "materials" so I can just type in what I want. I normally keep it on "anderson 400" for obvious reasons...
http://www.crazedlist.org/index.cgi?areas=239,240,357,4,169,198,38&catAbbreviation=mat&query=anderson%20400&minAsk=min&maxAsk=max&thiscat=8&submit=Search

So heres my craigslist window breakdown. All of these are Anderson 300-400 series windows.

$400 (100/ea - 3x5 Double hung)
$100 ( 48" Half Round ( unused so far )
$693 (231/ea 3x6 Casement )
$200 (6x3 office window Casement )
$25   (3x4 Double Hung )
--------------------
$1,418 total

est retail price
--------------------
$3,880 + taxes and delivery

saved 64% off

[glenn kangiser]

Thanks for the link, BK.  That solves a problem I have had with Craig's list.

[EcoHeliGuy]

Do I see power cords running through water? 

I would get a wood stove in there as soon as possible.

[glenn kangiser]

Sassy and I drilled holes in the rain for 2 days last week - cords in puddles and everything.  I guess since the welder generator was on the truck and not grounded to earth it was isolated from us and not even a quivering muscle.

I'm not that bad though -- If she would have gotten a serious shock I'd have kicked her loose. 

[Bishopknight]

Some pics from this weekend







This is my girlfriend Grace who came up to help

[glenn kangiser]

Looks like you are gaining on it, BK. 

Nice to have good help.  I got Sassy to work in the rain last weekend.