WE NEED A NOAH EVENT!

Howdy Y'all!

This past week has been principally focused on the exterior of the house. We went another week with little to no progress inside other than a couple of things, but we have reached another milestone outside.

The Concrete Guys returned this week to start forming the Motor Court area, and part of the driveway leading up to the arches. This required about 10 loads of roadbed rock to raise the level to that of the garage entrances, and thankfully, we got a small amount of drizzle last week that helped settle and compact the dirt. This entire concrete pour will be a challenge since it is about 19,000 sq ft of exposed aggregate extending about 1000 feet to the street entrance.

Forming the outer driveway area in front of the Motor Court.

Setting the grade.

Digging the beams. (Heh-heh, couldn't resist.)

Digging the second of four beams, and grading the base.

Beginning the forming of the front walkway.

Our major milestone this week is the final installation of the water collection system around the house, and the downspouts that will feed the system. From past blog posts, you'll remember that we a.) have no city water system connection, and b.) chose not to dig a well on the property. So, at this point, we are totally reliant on Mother Nature and her rainfall largesse. Enter the water collection system, capturing rainfall from the roof and transporting it to the tank 300 feet away.

Trenching for the collection pipes.

Bingo! Collection pipes!

6" main collection line

The collection system starts with 4" downspouts connecting at various points into 5" collection pipes, which all terminate into one long 6" collection pipe that terminates at the tank. At the tank, the 6" standpipe rises and terminates into the tank.

Standpipe that feeds the tank.

The particular system we chose has two "first-flush" tanks that work on an interesting principal - as the standpipe begins to fill with water, water is diverted into the first-flush tank, and when that is full, pushes into the second-flush tank. The principal behind "first-flush" is that any pollen, dirt, small leaves, etc. that might come off of the roof at the start of a rainfall, and isn't caught by the gutter screens, is diverted into the two tanks, thus "flushing" the first 60-70 gallons of water into the diverter tanks. Once the first-flush tanks are full, the water bypasses them and goes straight into the main tank, where the secondary and tertiary filtration systems take over in the tank. We expect that the tank filter screens will capture any silt down to the size of a grain of salt. We'll see.

After that, the water that is pumped back to the house goes through two addition filtration systems (10 and 5 micron), and a fairly robust UV system. Our neighbors and we have been told that our water collection systems actually produce cleaner particulate systems (less stuff) than city water, and without all of the chemicals.

Test assembly to measure the correct height for the first-flush systems.

Setting up the pad for the pump station and to-house pipe system.

Finalizing all of the 19 downspouts around the house.

Finally! Ready to collect rainwater! (Where's the rain?)

We're finally done with the water system!! Now we need everyone, (yes, You!) to go outside and do the absolute very best rain dance you can possibly conjure up. We want Noah to be proud of the deluge that you are dancing for. Don't hesitate a moment, 'cause we need pool water, now! (Thank you in advance for your fine effort.) We, here, will sacrifice a couple of bottles of good wine to the Rain Gods in the hope that the skies will open for us shortly.

That's all for now. See y'all later!

- Jan and John -