24 November 2009 - All It Takes To Get Tanked

We finished the floor about a week ago, and are getting ready to start the polishing. We’ll use Lord wax mixed with kerosene, and a rag, and go at it for some days straight. But for now, here’s the end of our getting here story.

Laying down the two inches of mortar in the great room. All under the watchful eye of the site level.

One of the administrative offices off the great room. Finished a day earlier, and now luxuriously underwater.

David adding cement to make the mixture drier.

Finishing the concrete on the steps into the main patio.

And putting the colored layer on.

Frosting the big room.

The last bit.

Japolo wasn't satisfied with a few spots in the middle section of the room, so he got wet cement bags

and made his way to them, to correct them.

And then backtracked all the way,

covering his tracks to the door.

The finished room.

The room underwater the next day.

If you look closely, you can see three rooms under the water that covered them for a week.

The shovels and pick axes didn’t spend the week getting rusty.

Here's a series of photos of their work on the area where we will place the six twenty four thousand liter tanks that will store our harvested rain water. It took about two weeks of very hard work. The black cotton soil is more like rock than dirt.

The digging was done with pick axes and mattocks, then the hard chunks were thrown out one-by-one.

Lunch time one day.

The result is a cavity about sixteen feet wide and four feet deep, a dog leg right par three.

The first tank showed up today. 11.5 feet in diameter and about nine feet tall.

It weighs about 1500 pounds.

We needed to get it into place in the big dig without wrecking it or us.

We hooked a couple of very strong straps and some rope to the Bedford and rolled it down in a controlled fashion.

It was a pretty straightforward deal.

But we needed to get it upright and in place. After a lot of head scratching, we decided we needed two big hooks could attach to our straps and the lip of the tank without damaging it.

We used heavy rebar, Y-12, and various parts of the truck

as fulcums for bending the stubborn stuff,

until we wound up with two of these.

The first attempt we used a single strap, unsuccessfully.

imgp4241.Round two, we used both hooks and sent the straps around both sides of the tank and joined them to a single strand which was attached to a big hook on the front bumper of the Bedford.

Round two, we used both hooks and sent the straps around both sides of the tank and joined them to a single strand which was attached to a big hook on the front bumper of the Bedford.

All we managed to do was spin the tank around

and put it really out of place. I was worried about damaging the tank, smashing one or two of the guys, and thinking about the other five tanks we had to place here. We fumbled around for a half hour or so, until one of our efforts paid off,

and we had an upright tank, an uninjured crew

and a placement that needed just a little persuausion.

and a placement that needed just a little persuasion.

Got a couple other things to tell you, but it’s late.

Happy Thanksgiving if we don’t talk before Thursday,

David

Comments(12)

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Peggy says
November 23, 2009 at 9:31 pm

David — Previously I have used some of your situations as examples to show that Math is needed in everyday life. (As if your life is “everyday”!) And now every Physics teacher can use today’s story to show why their science lessons have relevance.

The floor is looking so great, and the work of the men is incredible.
Peggy
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Karen & Rod says
November 24, 2009 at 3:20 pm

Hello Brother David –

It’s true and amazing work you folks have accomplished. We miss you and hope you too have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Looking forwrd to Christmas in Stockton!

Our Love, Rod & Karen
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Pat says
November 24, 2009 at 4:58 pm

An English Prof turned “construction wizard”! Your metamorphis is paralled by the magnificent work you’ve accomplished halfway around the world in Kenya! I trust your Thanksgiving will be filled with peace!! Enjoy the day with your family of close friends in Kenya and rest before the final leg [3 weeks] of this trip’s work! Everyone is looking forward to your safe return! Happy Thanksgiving my dear Friend! Have a blessed day! Patric
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david says
November 24, 2009 at 9:10 pm

Hi Peggy,

I was just thinking yesterday how I would be lost without math in my current situation, and I was marveling at how easily it comes too me in need. I have remembered (simple) formulae, and such stuff that must have been tucked away in some unassailable pocket of my generally very assailable noggin. It’s like busting out and speaking Latin, which I also studied, when unexpectedly bumping into Cicero at Nakumat.

I’ll send you the next installment soon.

Love,

David
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david says
November 24, 2009 at 9:15 pm

Hi Pat,

Brit and I are off to Joel and Mary Ann’s for Thanksgiving dinner. They both send their love as do Trevor and Jane. It’s just another Thursday here, so work will carry on as usual.

I’ve never thought of myself as a construction lizard…oh, wizard…even less so, but we’re hangin’ in there, in large part thanks to your construction flow chart, the “magnificent CFC!”

Love to all,

David
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Michael Carlbom says
November 26, 2009 at 9:23 am

David ! Can’t wait for you to get back to the States. The back part of my house is sinking fast. Need foundation work. All kidding aside , work well done as usual. Have a nice Thanksgiving and hope to see you when you get back.
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david says
November 26, 2009 at 11:35 am

Hi Rod and Karen,

I hope I’m not missing out on one of your famous smoked turkeys today. I am, in any case, missing both of you. I hope you and Bob and Patti and Joe are convening the southern contingent today around the table. Christmas in Stockton sounds very very good. I can’t wait.

Love to you both,

David
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david says
November 26, 2009 at 11:40 am

Hold on Michael! I’ve got our crack foundation anti-sinking team on the way, picks and shovels in hand. We’ll be there before you know it, shoring up your sagging thoughts.

Billy, Tom, you and I. For sure. Xochimilco.

Thanksgiving love,

David
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Marjie Butler says
November 26, 2009 at 8:32 pm

(I’m a Shamrock wife)
The floors are beautiful. Amazing how things can be accomplished. I am interested in the process and why the water at the end to create the finished product? Wow, loved the dig too! My husband, Ray and I are thinking of you and the school there and hoping you have much success this trip.
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david says
November 26, 2009 at 10:25 pm

Hi Marjie,

Concrete or mortar has to be cured with water, so it doesn’t dry out too quickly and crack, and this floor finish needs a lot of it, so we just submerge it for a week or so. Thanks to you and Ray for the kind thoughts and good wishes.

David
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Ed Richardson says
November 30, 2009 at 1:37 pm

Dave,

What a job of moving the tank in place, let alone upright! You guys are something else, strong, persistent and outrageous!

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving.

Ed
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david says
December 4, 2009 at 10:03 pm

Hi Ed,

Great to hear from you. Yes, we had a very nice Thanksgiving with good friends here, missing only our loved ones at home.

The tanks, and the six others just like it, are big bulls to wrassle around, but we’re nothing if not stubborn. And in the face of limited options, self reliance has a reoccurring nativity.

Love to you and Dottie. see you at Christmas, I hope.

David

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24 November 2009 – All It Takes To Get Tanked

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24 November 2009 – All It Takes To Get Tanked