Friday, April 9th 2004
Finally, things are starting to move. I had the feeling that everything was frozen for the last 2 months. My mood shifted between: "we'll never be ready" and "the town will refuse to let us build". Fortunately, the weather was helping me pull through and kept the positive on top. The sun has always been a source of energy for me... I'm a little bit like a PV system!
At Don Stephens' suggestion, I investigated the idea of building with tire-bales instead of rammed earth tires. There are a few advantages to that: it saves time and labor and uses about 15 times as many tires. Recyc-Quebec, who are responsible for the emptying of all the tire dumps, sound interested and provided me with the dimensions of the bales. Our walls will be 5 feet thick! A thermal mass that will keep us comfortable year-round.
After scrutinizing the rules for wastewater disposal and some serious thinking, we concluded that the best system in our case is an outhouse and a small septic tank and absorption well for the gray water. If one day the rules change, we will get a compost toilet and channel our gray water into the greenhouse, which won't be built this summer anyway.
We also spoke to a log house builder and confirmed that our roof will be very safe. He'll also be able to provide us with a few logs if we need them. This afternoon, the weather is perfect for logging, we'll finish clearing my brother’s lot. Yes, he did buy the best view on the property and is working real hard to be able to build this summer also! He got his official address yesterday on the "chemin des Escargots", our road has it's official name. The town will put the sign up real soon.
The big decisions are made and enough of the details also to allow us to draw up the plan and elevations. Note the differences with the original plan in October. We liked the curved walls very much but with the bales it's no longer possible. The look inside will still be quite "organic" since the walls will be coated with earth plaster as originally planned. It gives a warm and quiet finish with a feeling of calm. As soon as the ground unfreezes, we'll do some tests to see if we can find soil that has a high enough clay content for that purpose.
There are still many decisions to make. Will we make our own windows as per Michael Reynolds’ plans? First we'll check prices with a couple of 4 seasons greenhouse makers to compare costs. There's also the green roof "sandwich" that isn't finalized. I contacted Michel Bergeron, an expert in alternative construction, to get a consultation on that and to look at the overall project.
Finally, after all that agony, we met with the town-planner yesterday and we should hear back from him in a week or two. He has a few things pertaining to the municipal by-laws to verify, one of them being the minimum height of the structure. After that, we'll know where and how we have to adapt our plan to satisfy the requirements for the permit. Anyway, the attitude was friendly and positive, all we can do now is pray a little on this Easter week-end...

:-)