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Our Earth Sheltered Home

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27 Apr ’12 - 3:57 pm

Finally finished the pour with a rough screed

Proceeded to bull float filling in the low spots as we worked along

A few finishing touches before we start power troweling. Using a piece of foam insulation is a good way to disperse your weight on the cement before it sets up to do some hand troweling.

The Sun was really beating on us, so we had to hop on the power trowel, before we got behind. You can see where we boxed out for the drain for the shower

The finished product. We spent the rest of the day watering the slab, but we still had some cracking. Someone once told me there are two kinds of cement, cracked, and hasn't cracked yet. We also added fiber reinforcement to all the cement as well as the wire mesh and rebar.

We had poured the slab on friday morning and after letting it set up overnight, you can see out bond beam we had cut into the third course here

I spent the next 15 hours stacking block and finished the shell

With the slab in we decided to raise the front one more course

My father stopped by and called it the fortress of solitude and says it looks like it can take a direct hit.

The pond is staying full nicely and the back field is taking the grass

This is what we had left over for block. Hoping to use it for a root cellar.

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27 Apr ’12 - 4:27 pm

When we finally finished stacking all the blocks it was time to start surface bonding the rest. Tools were a wheel barrow, hand sprayer, and a trowel.

We started by spraying the walls with water to keep the blocks from sucking the moisture out of the surface bonding. We proceeded to put on a skim coat, and then going back and insuring we had at least a 1/8th inch thickness.

It is important to not work in direct sunlight else the sbc will dry to fast. We would leave a unfinished edge on the side of about 6 inches to feather in the next bag.

The bottom of this wall was my first coat of sbc, and the top was where I went back after the walls were all stacked

Interior all finished being coated.

At this point I was getting better with the application, I almost wish I would have done the outside first, so my rough work would have been buried

Started knocking out the exterior

Last wall

Finally finished as it was getting dark, this would become the norm over the next 3 months

With the left over blocks we threw up a quick shell for a rootcellar

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28 Apr ’12 - 3:58 pm

We then proceeded to cut and bend some rebar for our top bond beam.

We then broke out our diamond tipped skill saw and started cutting out the block. A face mask is important for this.

And proceeded to drop rebar vertically and ran it horizontally.

7:00 a.m. the next morning the pump truck showed up.

Shortly there after the cement truck showed up. We ordered the same mix as ICF, a pea gravel mix with fibers mixed in. I was concerned with the walls being totally filled all the way down, but my calculations were 13 yards with a yard for clean out, so that is what I ordered.