Harvesting rainwater

 

We have the pumping system installed for the irrigation system.  The solar panel is mounted on the roof of the greenhouse.  It charges a 12 volt battery which powers a small 1/12 hp direct current pump.  I have installed a hose bib (technical term for a garden faucet) on the outside of the greenhouse, and a pipe for a future underground supply system. 

 

In my last post, I glibly suggested that we would install broadcast irrigation heads without regard to water conservation measures, but it has not rained for over two weeks.  Even though we have readily available well water, I may rethink that strategy.  It is not an urgent priority, but I hope to have the underground sprinkler system in before the end of the summer.

I ran the pump with the sprinkler on full blast for one hour and the tank went down 6”.  That is enough to provide us with nine hours of irrigation.  It takes 1/2” of rain to fill the tank, which we normally get on a regular basis. 

The hose leading from the tank (suction header) has a stainless steel grille on the end to keep it from reaching the bottom of the tank when the water level is low.  It would also keep out large debris, but the design of the system should not let any large debris into it.  I have attached a milk bottle as a float so that the end of the suction header is submerged just below the surface of the water.  This will provide the cleanest source of water to the system. 

 

 

We installed a fence around the perimeter of the garden, and promptly captured a turtle.  It left turtle-belly tracks all around the inside of the fence before it found its way out under the gate.  Now we need to plug that little gap, and we should be relatively critter proof.  That still leaves it open to the deer and raccoons, but at least we are narrowing down the field. 

Our lawn appears to be the perfect spot for turtles to nest.  We area about 500 yards from the river, and the soil conditions seem to be exactly what any good mama turtle wants to lay her eggs in.  We have observed two Painted turtles deposit their clutch within 40 feet of the house.  A couple of days later we woke to piles of dirt all over the yard as some scavenger tried digging them up.  We only saw a little evidence that they had found any, so there is hope for a crop of turtles yet.  Judy has marked the gestation period on the calendar, and I will reposition the construction camera to become a turtlecam.

 
Next week a couple of carpenters will be helping me get started on the cedar shingle installation.  There won’t be anything posted next week, but should have plenty the following. 

Grass is planted

The excavating work is finally done.  The topsoil has been spread out restoring our view of the meadow, and providing a place to plant the garden.  I spent a day raking and leveling the grade to prepare for seeding, and spread the seed.  The stock price for Aleve went up that day.

We have used three blends of seed provided by Michigan Wildflower Farm.  The first is a blend for use over drain fields that has a number of native grasses and wildflowers, but does not develop extensively deep root systems like the native prairie grasses.  The second is a blend of seven fescues that are all very drought tolerant and require no watering in our climate.  They are very slow growing, and will only get about 8” long.  It can be mowed if desired to look like a lawn, which we might do if we are planning to entertain, but otherwise we will let it grow naturally.  This seed is planted next to the house in about a 15 to 25 foot exclusion zone for potential food sources provided by seed bearing plants.  The third seed mix is a wildflower and prairie grass mix that is designed to attract wildlife.  This covers any remaining open ground that was disturbed during construction or as part of the restoration.  The original owners had installed a gravel driveway that did not suit our needs, and we removed it after using it for construction, and are restoring it to native plants.

I did design the irrigation system with the help of my new friends at Tractor Supply Company.  They inventory a small solar panel, a 1/12 hp DC pump, and storage batteries.  With various pipe and fittings, I will have a solar powered irrigation system going by the end of the weekend.  Our 1,000 gallon cistern filled up after one ¼” rainfall, so we needn’t worry about conserving water for our small garden as that is a fairly average rainfall in this area.  We can install a broadcast sprinkler system rather than a drip irrigation system, and still have plenty left over. 

I had constructed a shed to be used later for a greenhouse, for use as a tool shed and field office during construction on top of two 6 x 6 wood timbers.  I located the shed out of the way during construction knowing that we would need to move it afterwards.   I installed two eyebolts in the timbers, and with the help of the excavator's bobcat and a cable, we towed the shed to its current location near the garden, and on top of the rainwater cistern.  The solar panels will fasten to the roof of the greenhouse.

 

Judy has started planting the garden, with tomatoes, squash, a couple of berry bushes, and a pumpkin plant.  We should have corn, and beans by the weekend, and then we need to install a fence that the deer won’t jump over, and the bunnies won’t burrow through.  I will have to stand out there in a straw hat and a rake like Mr. MacGregor. 

We did have one casualty for our experiment already.  The water treatment system we were so excited about has been returned to the manufacturer for a refund.  We were getting a rotten egg smell from the water which is caused by a bacterium that munches on oxidizing iron.  Our iron content it turns out is pretty high, and that particular treatment system did not do anything to help in that regard.  We are still looking at other treatment options that will be more comprehensive without using salt.  Salt can cause health issues, changes the texture and flavor of the water, and it is constantly adding salt to the aquifer, which is not good for the long term.

A few things have changed...

A few things have changed since I last wrote. 

We had a small grade change that could have affected the sumac grove.  The site provided an abundant harvest of boulders which we used to build a retaining wall/rock garden.  This helped to manage the grade change in a shorter distance and helped preserve one of our favorite features on the site.  I rented a small backhoe for a day to move them all into place. 

We had planned to install cement plaster over the exterior of the house.  I had done some cement plaster repair work on our last home.  We appreciated the durability of the material that had served for over 100 years on that home, and wanted to replicate that on this home.  After further consideration, we decided that this surface was too important to leave to amateurs in terms of not only appearance, but in the weathering qualities of the material. 

We decided to bid out the installation, and found only two contractors in the area with any experience, and neither had done an entire home.  The bids were far outside of our budget.  I did finish up the cement plaster on the foundation, using up the last of the mortar mix.  The cement mixer has been banished to the back of the garden shed. 

Plan B involves installing plywood sheathing over the exterior rigid foam and installing a pre-stained cedar shake shingle.  The stain is two coats and is finished on all sides of the shingle with a 25 year warranty, and the shingle has a 50 year warranty.  Our first home had cedar shingles that at 110 years required some repairs, so we are confident that the material is durable a bit beyond our lifetime. 

We are beginning to discern patterns for opening and closing windows with an eye on the indoor and outdoor temperatures and humidity levels.  This time of year we can open the windows when it is chilly outside without sacrificing comfort inside.  The thermal mass of the floors keeps us comfortable as the cool air gently cools down the concrete slabs for the daytime.  There is nothing like a cool breeze as you sip your morning coffee and watch the deer graze their way across the meadow.  Even if it is scented by the invasive, though not unpleasant, Autumn Olive bushes.

I have installed the trench and liner for the rainwater harvesting system.  I designed this system as an antidote to a deep aversion I have developed to cleaning gutters.  This is the no maintenance, barrier free gutter system.  A trench, six feet wide and sloping from one end of the house towards a concrete cistern, circles the entire perimeter of the home. It is lined with used rubber roofing that was supplied from a tear-off by a Langerak Roofing Company, a commercial roofing contractor in the area I have worked with in the past.  They stockpile this material in their yard to avoid landfilling it.  They give it way to people who find alternative uses for this material for hunting cabins to pond liners.  I scrubbed the material where it lapped, brushed on a contact cement, and installed a 3” wide ribbon of adhesive that I purchased from Langerak. 

I installed a 2x4 treated board six feet away from the foundation which I secured in the ground with stakes.  This board is two inches below the height where the liner adjoins the house.  If the system ever overflows, then it is designed to overflow onto the lawn.  At the bottom of the trench is a drain tile with a fabric cover called a sock.  The sock is designed to keep small sand and silt particles from clogging the drain tile.  I was more concerned about insects making the tile a home. 

Earthworm Excavating has re-graded the site and installed the base course of gravel.  We used pea gravel as a bedding material to hold everything in place as it is less expensive.  Pea gravel has rounded edges and will not puncture the rubber liner.  On top of this we will have about 4” of one inch round stone.  The larger stones will not deflect as much when you walk on it and has a different texture. The gravel will slope two inches from the house towards the lawn, so that leaves will be less inclined to collect at the foundation wall.

I had installed rigid plastic pipe under the sidewalk and driveway before we poured them.  I excavated the pipe to expose the ends.  I folded the liner partway underneath the pipe, and then held it taught over the pipe opening where I cut a hole smaller than the pipe by about one inch.  I then forced the rubber roofing over the pipe.  The smaller diameter hole left a half inch band of rubber ringing the pipe around with I fastened a band clamp to hold it in place.  I then brushed sand back under the rubber liner to prevent ponding water in the liner around the pipe joint.  The duct tape holds the sock in place so that the gravel does not dislodge it.  I have carefully graded all of the rubber so that there will not be any areas that will puddle.  I do not know if any ponding under the gravel could be potential breeding grounds for mosquitoes, but I have assumed the worst. 

Currently the liner is nailed to the starter course for the siding.  When the gravel is installed I will trim this off and glue it to the foundation wall, both to prevent water from infiltrating behind the liner, and to prevent insects from gaining access.  This may fail as the soils settle over time and it will require periodic inspections. 

The small pipe coming out of the foundation wall is from the sump pump.  We had a long discussion with the building inspector on where to put the discharge.  This pipe expels water from the footing drains.  Based on what I have seen so far, there is little to no risk of this pump ever operating.  However if it did, the discharge should be just ground water, and putting it into the rainwater system is fine.  The concern is if there is a chemical spill in the basement that would contaminate the water in the sump pump.  At this time we are not storing anything that could cause any problems, but future owners might not be as attentive.  I put a wire mesh screen over the end of the pipe to keep gravel and rodents out of the pipe. 

The advantage of the 6’ wide gravel strip is that it captures all of the water from the 30” overhangs regardless of how hard it is raining, it acts as a maintenance strip by allowing easy access around the perimeter of the house, it reduces the potential for pests to infiltrate the home, and it keeps water away from the foundation walls.  The wide eaves would normally prelude planting near the foundation walls, but we prefer the minimalist aesthetic. 

We also installed the cistern which is a 1,000 gallon tank typically used for septic tanks.  It is enough volume to capture half the volume of the runoff of our roof.  Our use for the rainwater includes irrigating the garden and washing the car and driveway.  We did not install graywater toilet fixtures in the house that use rainwater.  Flush fixtures that use rainwater require some water treatment to keep out particulates and organic matter in order to keep them functioning.  Though I have a background in water and wastewater treatment and wanted to implement the technology, it was not a technology my ever practical wife wanted to have to deal with in the event of my demise or impending dementia.  I suspect my demise is imminent on occasion. 

 

Because of the extra volume of water coming into the tank, I installed a 100’ long overflow drain, which is a drain tile with a sock extending out towards the sumac grove from the short length of blue pipe in the foreground.  We used solid pipe near the tank to perfect the seals into the tank and to prevent water infiltration from leaks that could eventually soften the soils and cause the tank to settle.  The soils should be more than capable of accommodating the rainwater overflow load, but in the event they are not more tile can be added and the system is designed to overflow into the yard in the event of an unusual rain event.  

Remaining is the pump and irrigation system which I have roughly sketched out in my mind.  In the next couple of weeks we will be planting a garden and I will be forced to have completed engineering of the system if I expect to forestall my demise.   

Buddy smiling for the camera

We have also become re-acquainted with the local wildlife.  The deer have made a regular circuit through our site, and we see them several time a week.  Butterflies seem to be in abundance this year, turkeys, squirrels which we had not seen before, our brace of eagles, a murder of crows, and two turtles that Judy has named Buddy and Wilson.  Wilson: for the markings on his shell that look like the hand print on the soccer ball in the Tom Hanks movie Castaway.  The cats have claimed the home as their own turf, and thoroughly enjoy the wide window ledges.  Mollie the day cat, bakes it’s brains in the sun, and Lizzie the night cat keeps an inventory of all of the nocturnal animals on the site.

 

Next week we will finish the grading and begin the installation of the plywood sheathing, and I hope to have started seeding the lot and planting the garden. 

Were in!

We finally moved in with much less anguish than anticipated.  Rae came down the weekend before the move to help us finalize some of the remaining projects in the new house.  Cleaning the cabinets and the job site were a priority.  You may have noticed the large piles of debris in the pictures looking outside the living room window in previous posts.  We had been stockpiling wood scraps for recycling.  The pile was often a source of materials during the project for backing material and little odds and ends.  It is a relief to regain our view. 

 

 

Jake and Rae returned on moving weekend to help unpack.  By the end of the weekend we had almost all of the boxes unpacked, and most of the pictures hung.  We had accumulated a lot of pictures over the years and our tastes have changed since the 70's, so we ruthlessly discarded pictures and frames that no longer suited our new environs.

 

We took three small trailer loads to Kamps pallets for recycling.  The clean material is ground up with in big chipping machine and a large electromagnet removes all of the nails.  They resell this material as landscape mulch.  Construction debris which can contain treated lumber, painted wood, or wood with glue, is chipped and sent to a pelletizer that compresses the material for fuel.  They buy back pallets after sorting based on the condition, and will send a check once they have determined the value anywhere between 3 and 5 dollars each. These are resold to end users. 

Our total landfill for the project included four “Bagsters” from Waste Management.  The Bagster is a three cubic yard fabric bag that you purchase a many of the big box lumber centers for about $30.  You can keep it on your property as long as you wish.  The fabric drains nicely, so you don’t pay landfill costs for rainwater.  You also don’t pay for a weekly rental rate for a dumpster.  When it is full, you call Waste Management, and they come out with a truck with a small crane attached which picks up the entire bag for about $75. 

I ended up taking two pickup mini-van loads of the rigid foam insulation to the dump as well.  Though I originally identified a recycler it turned out they did not accept this type of foam, and I did not have time to find an alternative use.  They did take a load of Styrofoam we had collected.  I had about one cubic yard of scrap metal which I redeemed for about $35.00, and about four pickup loads of cardboard which I was able to recycle at no cost.  Total out of pocket cost of construction waste will end up being about $400.    

In the process of condensing a five bedroom home down to a two bedroom home, we ended up donating a lot of furniture to Habitat for Humanity's Re-Store along with some leftover construction materials which I was happy to find a home for.  I also have worked on historic homes for the last 35 years, and had many tools that I will no longer require which also found a home at Re-Store.   

 

 

My office is put together now so I can operate efficiently, though I still have a wire management problem that I have to figure out.  Rae's creative genius provided dual purpose for my office space which will eventually become the dining room.  We installed our old dining room table against the far wall which looks like a library table, will act as a conference table, and can easily be pulled out into the room and used as a dining table when we have company.  Two of my favorite prints, a series of watercolor thumbnails by Mary Blocksma looking out her cottage window on Beaver Island in Lake Michigan, hang over the table.  We will need to re-frame them to get them to scale right in the space.  Below that is a mantle clock that belonged to my great-grandfather.

The inspiration for the color scheme in the house came from this not quite complete set of 20's and 30's era National Park reproduction posters.  We would not have had the courage to have selected such bold colors on our own, but we implicitly trusted Rae's capacity to assemble a color palette and make it all work right.  We do have strong opinions about our likes and dislikes, so we may not have been her best clients, but we are very pleased with the results.  The last two posters came in this week, and will be mounted shortly.  

This week we are preparing for the final push.  We have been getting estimates to complete the cement stucco.  Our experimentation with the stucco on the foundation gave me such a case of tendonitis that I am prepared to find someone else to finish the job.  Besides, Judy was concerned about workmanship quality for something that will be such a permanent and prominent aesthetic feature.  I agree.

The stucco must have at least 72 hours of cure time without temperatures dropping below freezing, so we are nearing the date when we can safely start work.  We cannot finish the rainwater harvesting system until the stucco is complete, which means we cannot re-spread the topsoil or plant the prairie.  This will defer planting at least a couple of months. 

The blower door test results are back, and though not as spectacular as originally anticipated during the testing, they are more than adequate.  As a reminder of what a blower door test does, a fabric frame with an exhaust fan is firmly fitted in a doorway and turned on.  A computer measures the air pressure differential between the inside and the outside.  The air pressure differential can be quantified as a numerical volume of air leaks in the building. 

The building code requirement is to have less leaks in the home (around windows, door, etc.) than would provide for three air changes per hour (ACH).  Passive House design only allows 0.6 ACH.  Design and construction detail is essential to get the leakage rates down to this level.  We tested out at 0.44 ACH under a fan pressure of 50 PA (Pascals - a unit of measure for air pressure).  This includes the open ductwork associated with the fresh air supply and exhaust, the range exhaust, and the three exhaust fans in the bath and laundry areas.  The effective leakage rate without the air pressure differential is 0.02 air changes per hour.  This equates to 8.9 square inches of hole in the side of the house, or an area of about 3" x 3".  Our last home, which was 100 years old had a hole over 900 square inches based on the blower door test.  We consider this an improvement.

The advantage of such a tightly constructed home is that you control the heat losses and gains though your mechanical system.  The disadvantage is that you are required to provide fresh air to sustain life and health in the building by mechanical means.  This requires that the heat recovery ventilation system (HRV) operates on a 24/7 basis.  There is not a great deal of energy consumed by this equipment, just a small fan motor, but the reliance on energy to sustain life in the building is disconcerting.  In the summer months we can just open the windows and turn off the equipment. 

When the HRV is not operating, air quality noticeably suffers within a few hours.  The air is stale and stagnant, and you begin to feel as if you are struggling to get enough oxygen.  You may have experienced this at one time or another in a classroom or confined public space. 

The last element will be the installation of the Photovoltaic (solar) panels.  Our preferred vendor, UniSolar, just declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy.  They are still constructing equipment to fabricate the next generation of solar cells which is 50% more efficient than what they are currently producing.  They expect to go into production this spring, and this should help get them out of trouble.  Cost per watt is what makes any solar manufacturer competetive, and the new technology promises to vault them into the lead.  We need to stay with a thin film solar cell because the other panels require structural reinforcing of the roof.  There are other thin film manufacturers out there if need be, so we are keeping our options open as they work through this bankruptcy.  UniSolar is based in Michigan and developed the thin film technology.  

I am not expecting to post any more blog postings for another month or so until there is more activity on the site, though I do have some thoughts on writing about the lessons we learned, what worked, and what we would do differently.  We still have a fair amount of organizing to do after the move, and a lot of small unfinished projects.  The devil is in the details.  Stay tuned.