I’m happy to report that I’m not as woefully behind on building as I am on blogging. In fact we’re looking good right now- as far as productivity goes we’re running like a well oiled machine. Hence the lack of computer time.
So, there are way too many things to update in one shot (stay tuned for future posts on our subfloor, *fabulous* last minute office addition, and final plaster) so I’ll deal just with the water situation. We did at long last purchase another cistern, for indoor use, as well as a small ($100) 12 Volt pump so that we can move our rainwater from the outdoor tank. I’m getting ahead of myself though… First we built a 12 foot diameter (10 foot high) earthbag room. This will be our systems room, housing the water as well as our power station. There’s enough room left over for storage of dried goods or whatever else we might need to put away.
Having the cistern on-hand and the room built, we next encountered the interesting task of getting the tank into the house. We fiddled around building ramps, challenged each other’s gumption, took a few runs at it- before Shane finally had the bright idea of calling a neighbour with a picker truck to lift it in for us. Brilliant! He had it in with no problem in a matter of minutes, and we were able to offer him our fuel tanks which we had no use for but he was happy to have for his shop.
With the tank in place on a platform inside, we were able to complete building the rafters and put the roof on. Nothing is ever quite that simple around here though. We discovered a fair amount of dirt in the cistern and wanted to clean it out before filling it. The room is spacious for it’s function but not quite big enough to leave sufficient room to tip the tank on it’s side and get in to clean it out. And of course there’s only one of us small enough to fit into the opening in a cistern- the claustrophobic one.
Long story short- I did make it in and out without too much fuss. (Though I didn’t entirely appreciate Shane taking the opportunity for an impromptu photo shoot while I was trapped inside. Nor the “come on baby, smile for me” prompting.) And the cistern is filling up with rainwater- I think we’re up to 600 US gallons now. We should be able to completely fill it over the next few days and with any luck we’ll get more rain and be able to refill our outdoor tank.
rafters in place
- cistern in place
Canadian Dirtbags 