A Tabor

One thing that everyone should remember about vapour barriers is that there are more things that are vapours than just water.

Your basement being dry as a bone isn't going to help you if it is flooded with hydrogen sulfide, Radon, or some other hazardous gas. H2N is especially nasty if allowed to pool because of how little it takes to kill and how quickly it can happen, and can kill half a dozen people in a basement. One example I've seen quoted in training material a few times was a couple who built a new house, finished it, then went on vacation for a month. During construction they associated the faint smell to just churning up the damp clay. But then then the house was finished and the basement sealed up to pool the gas slowly being squeezed up out of the earth. Couple came home, one of them went down into the basement and was overcome by the gas. The other probably heard a thud, went to look, and then rushed down to help...

Family friend drops by, finds the couple laying motionless at the bottom of the stairs, and rushes down to help. Someone else finds the three of them, calls 911, and promptly rushes down to help. First responder on the scene went down to 'help' before the fire department finally came in to carry out the bodies.


While it is highly unlikely to be an issue in most cases, the other uses of a properly installed vapour barrier are important to consider, and the issue should addressed in any regions where such risks are of higher probabilities.

3D printing is really only suitable for a handful of fields when you get into an actual 'production level' environment. The biggest problem with 3D printing is that it is horribly sloooooooooow. I spent some time working with a company who used 3D printers for prototyping and design testing. The printers were of similar value to their injection moulding machines, except in the time that it would take them to make one thing on 3D printing, they could roll about a thousand off their line. Same material costs, same labour costs, same equipment cost. The only difference was just how much faster it was to keep copying the same design once setup to do so.


I've been keeping a close eye on 3D printing because it is a field that interests me, but I'm very disappointed to see it constantly used to produce the same things we can already do, but at a fraction of the speed for ten times the price. And this is especially visible in the new craze of large scale printing for buildings. I have only seen one project that relied on a 3D printer that made sense, and that was because they used it to print domes and other complex shapes. Every other project I've seen would have been far better served with semi-prefab panel deployments.

Semi-prefab units are far superior in my view because they can be made and stored in a compact manner until needed, then quickly shipped to location and assembled by lower skilled labour. Modular designs means that a village can be rebuilt in a matter of hours if need be, and they can be built to last after they're deployed.

What are your thoughts on how it would work? What advantage would using the container be in this case?

A big part of what makes using containers in buildings is that you are brining a prefab weather tight unit on site. The more you move away from taking advantage of that weather tight structure then the closer you come to using the containers for artistic reasons rather than practical, and it can quickly start making more sense to simply use structural steel and building things from scratch instead. Containers can be annoying to move and work with on site, each being its own shipping trip in, needing heaving machinery to move them around and place accurately. Compare this to being able to have a single flat bed unloaded and two people carrying each piece as needed.

As far as moon phase impact on wood working you could try looking into data generated in modern saw mills. Given that most forestry operations aren't harvesting at a specific moon phase, but generally process in a first in- first out fashion, then you would expect to see an impact on figures in a consistent cyclic pattern over time.

If there isn't consistently a difference in tooling issues (Some really modern mills even record torque/pressure levels and such in their equipment) that cycles roughly in line with the moon phases then I think you would be hard pressed to uphold such a claim.

How about putting in cisterns to collect and hold the excess water (Where it will also evaporate far less than from an exposed pond) and use that to irrigate with? set it low enough that the wet areas can drain into it, but excess can then be allowed to flow into the drainage ditch (or spill over into an exposed pond/water feature, and then to the ditch.)

What kind of testing have you done so far?

What kind of source do you have access to that is going to fill the pond?

What kind of equipment do you have access to? If you own your own large excavator then the feasibility of a plan is going to be different than if you would be doing this all with a shovel and bucket.

(Also, double check local regulation on water harvesting and usage. Some areas don't bat an eye if you're not working directly in a water course, others are VERY restrictive if you do anything that impacts water feeding down stream.)

It could be an interesting rig to use if you can get one that is in decent shape. (I've yet to meet a military that is well known for going easy on their gear.) The biggest problem I see for most people is whether or not you can get one to your land for a reasonable price. I could see the freight costs on something like that and all of its accessories quickly adding up the to the value of an old used traditional tractor that you could have picked up more locally if you're rather out of the way from the liquidation yard.

My next question is how easily can you adapt it as a platform to other tools? Would you be stuck having to use purposed designed add-ons, or is it going to be easy to adapt the hard points and power points so you can pick up used farm equipment without a massive headache and huge machining costs?

And of course there is the question of spare parts, and whether or not there are many bits and pieces known for having issues, and how easy is it going to be to get them/refab them? Given its nature as a second line/front line piece of equipment I am going to bet that keeping one running isn't going to take a full fledged engineer, but it wouldn't be the first piece of military equipment I've come across with some horribly odd-ball part to cause headaches. (Anyone familiar with a 14 and 5/13th mm pin? Yeah...)

Final worry would be how it compared on fuel usage. I don't expect there to be a huge difference there between it and a common tractor.

You don't need a huge slope to do surface water management. Land can be too flat, but those cases usually result in rather obvious bogs and such. If you have enough of a slope that a small ditch gathers running water, then you have enough slope to control and direct flows. There is a rather wide range of 'happy medium' slope values that will give you enough slope that allows water to flow, but no so much as to flow too fast or make working it hard.

If you're a really eager beaver, then you could also build a motte and style your house as a little castle on top. They were common in something like the 12th century, so we really have few excuses to not be able to do them now.

REI: Recreational Equipment Inc

They're a sporting goods store co-op.

If you can spare the hundred something for a decent hand held woods unit then a GPS is a good investment for anyone who spends much time outdoors, but they should never replace a proper map and compass in my mind. You learn too many valuable skills with a good map and compass that are just glossed over when using a GPS.

I've gotten to poke my nose into a few projects that were similar in concept over the years. One of the most promising projects was intended as part of an overhaul for large scale farming and land management to address farming in regions prone to field erosion by creating a practical system of semi-automated 'mini-tractors' that would then work fixed width terraces. (The robots would allow a single 'driver' to oversee a dozen or more 'tractors' at a time which would then be able to effectively operate in narrow terrace bands that traditional tractors would be too wide to work in. The narrow terrace method being ideal for how easy it is to convert an existing hill side to without the need to move excessive volumes of material or requiring bank reinforcement.)


One thing that can greatly increase the flexibility and usefulness of an electric tractor system is the ability to quick-swap the batteries. Unlike the electric car a tractor can frequently benefit from the 'excessive' weight of the traditional deep cycle lead acid battery, but systems that aren't designed to quickly and easily pull the batteries from the unit and replace them with freshly charged ones are then stuck out of action while the cells are slowly recharged. If you design your batteries such that one person can pull up to a 'swap point' and quickly transfer the batteries then you have greatly increased the work cycle of the unit. While this does mean you have to pay that much more for your battery collection, it does have the added benefit of being able to treat them in a far more friendly manner to extend their life cycle before they need to be refurbished.

It is however much harder to design a system that works well for swapping. Electrical safety issues and all that, and handling swaps with potentially wet/muddy environments. This means you have to be very careful with your material selection choices and connector styles. A 'hands off' swap is ideal, but keep the system simple. Shorting out a battery because you're tired is not a fun way to end a hard work day.

And remember, your 'swap station' doesn't have to be a fixed location. It can just as easily be portable, such as a trailer you haul to the site and leave near the current work area, or a second 'tractor' dedicated to hauling cells between the charge station and work area.

Also, I wouldn't suggest planning to use water as dead weight for additional traction. Water is only a good option if you're working in conditions where you expect you might need to drop it for whatever reason, but otherwise I would suggest designing your bed to support easily adding additional battery racks for when you need more weight. They'll give you the extra mass along with the extra juice you need to haul them around and keep working.