Interior Stucco Phases 1 & 2 Complete

Phase 1 was to cover the tire walls. First, we needed to "pack-out" the void space between the tires in order to create a planar surface for the finish coat. We used a very lean mortar mix for this.

Here's the PLx4 family once again massively contributing to the cause. From left to right: Pauline, Preston, Pearson and Peter. Thank you so much!

Here's Preston scraping the splatter from the floor. The walls at this point are ready for the finish coat.

This completes Phase 1. On to Phase 2: the dome ceilings, which only required the finish coat.

This turned out to be quite time consuming so our friend Earl pointed us to this YouTube video where the Honey Do Carpenter built a pneumatic stucco sprayer. So we built one:

And is worked like a charm! But it was super messy and since it was gravity fed only worked up to a certain angle.

That was a lot of work! Thank goodness we had help with the big domes. Here are BJ (left) and JP (right) applying the finish coat by hand where the stucco sprayer couldn't reach. Thank you so much!

While YP mixed up the stucco and kept our hoppers full:

Michelle (left) and Ro (right) helped with large dome #2. Thank you so much!

Phase 2 complete!

Phase 3 will be the bottle walls, which will happen next year.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Interior Floor Pour

Interior concrete floor poured! Very satisfying to have finished this stage of the build.

We started by adding crushed stone to increase height so that the finished 3" concrete floor will be flush with the existing interior footings.

Here Brice and Theodore are doing the heavy lifting:

Victoria was instrumental in laying down the 6 mil plastic layer on the gravel:

Meanwhile, Bruce was busy making rebar chairs out of leftover 2" rigid foam insulation. He is using an electric wire as a hot knife to make easy and clean cuts (i.e. no bit of styrofoam flying everywhere!)

Next came the 6x6 welded wire mesh and the in-floor heating tubes:

Thank you to the whole Buchy family for helping to prep the floor for concrete (from left to right) Victoria, Theodore, Brice, Bruce and Luciana:

Ready for the concrete truck and pumper. It was a hectic event so not too many action pics to show but here are a few to convey the gist.

Earthship friends BJ (right, middle) and JP (right, bottom) helped with the pour. Thank you so much! BJ operated the concrete pumper nozzle while JP and YP screeded. The two gentlemen on the left were the concrete pumper truck operators.

After screeding and some setting-time comes the finishing work. Here are the finishers (from right to left) Chris, Roy and YP. Thank you so much!

Roof-Vent Lid Mechanisms

The greenhouse roof vent lids are operable using counterweights.

The counterweights are concrete blocks/large rocks/gravel held within diamond mesh baskets.

The counterweights are just enough to lift the lids using gravity.

The lids are pulled closed using ropes and tied off to custom fabricated cleats.

The ropes run through custom fabricated pulley blocks.

A special THANK YOU to the PLx4 family for helping with the install! From left to right: Pearson, Preston, Peter and Pauline.

Stem-wall Ground Insulation

The prevent frost heaving you can insulate on the ground instead of digging below frost level. This is called a frost protected shallow foundation or FPSF. Here we frost protect the greenhouse stem-wall using this method.

We used 4'x8' sheets of 2.5" thick expanded foam insulation covered with a layer of 6 mil plastic. The plastic layer prevents the styrofoam from absorbing moisture so that its insulation value is not reduced.

A 6" layer of dirt protects the plastic from mechanical and UV damage.

The dry-well is also insulated to help prevent ice from blocking the greywater from draining in winter.

Ever wondered if ground insulation actually works?

Here you can clearly see the boundary of the insulation where the heat from the ground hasn't reached through to melt snow.