Dave Lotte

Getting hammered with snow.

Going to need a bigger yardstick.

One final push, and the all the sand has been compacted ! 

7 hour stretch, and with all the heaters going ( on and off ) managed to get the house up to a comfortable 70 Degrees.
Had to untie 15 of my sand bags to fill in some spots.
Went outside and it turns out it is -13  (  8 F. ) !

Bit of a rest, and onto the nexy step !  Plumbing trenches !

Gotta say .... hats off to my engineer !

Currently,  8 inches of topsoil,  (  44 ton ) plus 13 inches of snow on the roof - add to that it rained for 30 minutes yesterday, followed by more heavy, wet snow.

Went into the house and looked up, thinking :

Are those beams bending ?
They LOOK like they are bending... ??
They are not bending are they

Added a string line to 2 of the beams that LOOK like they are bending from the floor.  
Nope.
I'm going to believe the string line.   Thank You.

Hats off to my engineer , money well spent.

EDIT - They are wooden beams, and i was told they will flex and bend with loading, when the snow melts they will straighten back out again.  If we ever get to that point

One more task off the list.  

Extending the sump pump pits up to the top of the proposed concrete floor.  Was going to use steel barrels, but worried they would rust out over time.

Before i can finish leveling the sand floor,  this needs to be done.

Expose and clean up the exsisting sump pump barrel.
Cut top out of exsisting barrel.
Find "level" 4 inches above footing. ( minimum depth of concrete floor )
Cut new barrel top - to fit - up to "level" and verify it is indeed 4 inches above footing.
Weight down the new barrel with 200 pounds of sandbags to keep it from shifting.

Repeat procedure for the back porch sump pit,  ready to continue.

Can't please everyone ....

Had an interesting conversation with someone who believes this house is poorly designed, and leaking heat - because there are ice dams on each front corner and at the sides of the house. ( pictured )...  a sure sign that a " normal" house is leaking heat / poorly insulated.

Until i explained, that 2 months ago we had a 6 inch snowfall, followed by a warm sunny day - which caused the snow on the roof to melt and soak into the warm topsoil.
Then, the following night the temperature dropped below freezing again.

Here is the interesting part...

Heat / cold  travels through a mass at about an inch per hour.  So the temperature dropped to -5 overnight - WHILE THE DIRT WAS STILL WARM AND DRAINING - once the cold penetrated all the way through the 8 inch thick topsoil, ( 6 - 8 hours later )  it slowly stopped draining, and everything froze solid. Hence the ice dams. ( Drawing )
2 months ago i snapped the ice off on the front corner, and it has been like that ever since.

I am keeping 1,500 sqft at around 7.2 C.  Or  ( 45 F ) with a dehumidifier and 2 ceiling fans , overnight temps -8 to - 10 C. ( 13 - 16 F )
Ya, this is not a very efficient house .... 😂😂

On the plus side, once the house is backfilled and buried too the same 8 inch minimum depth all around, the water will be able to drain down the wall, and away,  with plenty of time before freezing.

Gotta love physics.

For those just joining in, this is where the temp sensors are ....

The " how low can it go " experiment has come to a quick end.

-22 last night, went in and noticed the frost and ice are moving into the house through the windows.
Time to crank up some heat,  just enough to keep the ice out anyways, don't want to ruin my windows !

Ran my kerosene heaters for 40 minutes - from 43 F. up to 63 F.
Plugged in the small ceramic heater - same as last year.  50 % settings - plus the dehumidifier.
Gained 2 degrees, now to try to gain a few more ...

Plugged the larger gaps in the front door with damp paper towel and will have to keep monitoring the temps and frost.

Jay Angler wrote: if you can believe the internet ....

Yup.  R 1 per inch of light fluffy snow.  Eskimo igloos use the same principles.  Made of nothing but snow blocks -  keep your cloths on, and warm enough to sleep in.

Update on the " how cold will it go "

You know its cold out when the Fahrenheit temps go into the negative !
Dropped to -20 ( -4 F ) last night.  No heat, just 2 ceiling fans running.  House dropped 1.2 degrees F overnight - just shy of 24 hours.

After touching base with the engineer - verifying it is safe to compact the sand with 100 tons overhead ( sand and snow ) - time to go onto the next step.

I can see my floor !!

72 sand bags tied and stacked.

Now i can finish plate compacting that corner, then go over the entire floor with the compactor one last time, making sure it is within 1/4 inch of level - before installing the utilities.  Water, hydro and sewer.

Its coming along !