I recently finished (well, almost finished) digging a curtain drain around my house to help deal with poor drainage problems. It’s a two foot deep trench, filled with gravel and drained to daylight. It wraps around the whole house and is centered under the eaves.
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It’s spring, and the building season has officially begun. I’ve been a bit consumed with thinking about building lately — between doing some work around the house, planning for the next building season for the cooperative kitchen, thinking about a new home design, and serving on Dancing Rabbit’s new Common House design committee (we are a group of five tasked with designing a new common house intended to serve a population of 150 people), I have plenty to think about in the building arena. Sometimes it’s exhausting.
But as soon as I am able to actually do work, and not just think about it, it feels a lot better.
I have some new insights into my winter moisture conundrum. I have a new theory, but I am trying to make complete sense of factors at play here. Currently, I think it is indeed a combination of condensation and drainage that are resulting in moisture entering the house.
Read ahead for an update.
Winter is the time for planning for the year ahead, and there’s a number of building-related projects in the works for 2010.
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The rubble trench for the kitchen has been completely dug and filled with gravel, thankfully in time before it’s gotten to be too cold.
As I just mentioned, the digging and filling of the rubble trench is now completed.
Here’s a shot of the completed trench, pre-gravel. This photo was taken facing north. Take note of the drainage trench in the northwest corner. All of the topsoil is piled along the fence line on the east side.
Instead of simply piling all of the clay that was dug up from the trench in a big pile, I amassed as many five gallon buckets as I could to shovel the clay directly into them. In addition to buying a bunch (secondhand), I borrowed over 40 from other Dancing Rabbit members, making for a total of over 80 buckets full of clay. When it’s time to start cobbing, the clay will have to be slaked (soaked in water). So, putting the clay directly into these buckets has at least eliminated one step. (This won’t be enough clay for the whole building, though, so I’ll have to cart some from elsewhere in the village.)
The trench is about 18″ deep all around, and 18″ wide. No one has ever dug a trench this shallow before, so it’s a bit of an experiment to see if it’s truly necessary to go any deeper in this particular region. (Hopefully not. Generally, the ground does not freeze very deep here, I think.)
With the help of many hands, moving the gravel into the trench was no problem. We started with about an inch or two at the bottom, then laid down a 4″ perforated drain tile. On top of that tile, we piled more gravel up to about 2″ short of the top of the trench, tamping it at least twice during the process.
Oftentimes, I describe the shape of my cob house design to resemble a scotch tape dispenser. Here’s a view looking south to demonstrate that.
Next comes finding some urbanite, and building the foundation. I have at least one or two leads, but no guarantees on any actual material yet. Several of my inquiries into piles of urbanite have proved unfruitful thus far. Keeping my fingers crossed.
The past few days, I have been working long hours to dig the foundation trench for my eventual cob house. Today, it is complete, and ready to be filled with gravel. I am pretty psyched about that. The digging took four days with the help of Jeff, who will be work exchanging with me for a few weeks. The trench is approximately 18″ deep, and 18″ wide. It wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. (That’s partly because I only dug 18″, not the 24″ or 32″ I was originally planning.)
As soon as I have a free minute, I will have to post some photos. Tomorrow, I will have the help of the first group of Dancing Rabbit visitors to fill in the trench with gravel. Very happy about that. Human power!
Over the weekend, I staked out my building site. I started by staking out the very center of the house, and then I positioned additional stakes to form the east-west and north-south axes. The house is oriented to take maximum advantage of solar gain. Using string, I was able to determine the slope of the site, which thankfully is not too-too dramatic. Then I drove a bunch of stakes in the ground at various other measured points as guides to create an outline of the shape of the house. I have pretty much committed the shape of the cob building to the ground at this point.
Last week was very rainy, but thankfully the past few days have been warm and dry. Since I am digging the foundation trench by hand, it is important to have very optimal soil conditions to dig. I started digging a drainage trench today (not part of the actual foundation trench, but a separate trench on the high side of the site to intercept rainwater), but the soil is still quite damp and difficult to move. The soil here has an incredibly high clay content which holds moisture for a long time. (All that clay is great for building, though!)
Unfortunately, it is supposed to rain again in another couple of days, so I won’t be able to get too far with the digging before I have to stop again. Tomorrow, I am having a huge dump truck full of gravel delivered to my site. Eventually, once the trench is completely dug (all two and a half feet of it), I will lay in 4″ drainpipe (or drain tile), fill it in with tamped gravel, and then begin work on my urbanite foundation.
It’s safe to say I’ve officially begun!
Hi there, I’m Ziggy. In 2008, I launched The Year of Mud while building my first natural home. This blog is a collection of personal stories and experiences building with clay, straw, and wood over the past 15+ years. A few of the things that get me fired up are natural plasters, timber framing, & Japanese architecture. Since 2012, we’ve been hosting Natural Building Workshops so you can learn essential skills to build your own natural home.
