This could also be titled Creative Homesteading DYI 101. I am seeking suggestions, the more the merrier, and nothing is 'too whacked'. Sometimes the zany ideas have a touch of merit in them.
There are rules to this blog, mainly One: I don't want to hear "you can't do that", "that's foolish", "it won't work", "it's too much work". Comments that crush the exploration of all options are unwanted and undercut my 'sussing out' (zen?) possibilities.
Don't do that, and thanks in advance! :)
Situation: Ground heave. I've been aware of this since we moved in here, and I'm wondering if there's ways to minimize it. Depending on the season, the linoleum or tile lies flat or bulges across the floors. This starts breaking before too long then. Doors also warp some depending on the season. Presumed cause is the ground freezing / thawing, i.e. foundation.
One suggestion would potentially help the floors, but I'm not sure if it's adequate or ideal: using the floating, snap-together floor material. I'm not sure it would fully accept the seasonal fluctuations.
Installing heat two feet down around the perimeter might be useful, but does seem extreme, even to me. :)
I do have a shovel, and I'm not afraid to use it. (Fits under Exercise Plan.)
I also think it'd be a bit extreme to run a moat around the house with circulating, heated water year-round (okay, ideally solar-powered). "A friend of the Goldfish" - that'd be me? ... let's try to think of other alternatives! Anyway, one can imagine if that system failed and the consequences thereof, hmm?
How does one create and conduct heat, anyway? How does a cigarette lighter in a car work (except mine, which doesn't)? What does friction have to do with heat, and why did the swirling sand of the Dust Bowl generate electrical charges? (Take a crack at any of them if you have ideas.)
How does composting create heat? (Seems another extreme idea to pass on, but maybe something side-ways will creep into thought.)
If running water doesn't freeze as well as still... then motion? - Okay, so I can see my own small train circling and circling until I got dizzy, warming up the tracks.
Yes, those were all extremes! What about piping circulating through a hot water heater in a narrow barrier between "god-awful cold" and "what I want warm?" Solar thoughts, anyone, or creative use of old tires? Or hydraulics, which I only have a vague concept of?
It's okay... I learned something unusual (a couple things, actually) within the past few days. Talking with one lady, they'd 'added on' to a trailer, including a small basement and room -- next to it! Since I watched my dad dig out a basement under the old farmhouse, bucket by bucket throughout a winter, I've occasionally considered doing the same here.
It's usually a short trip back to sanity, in that it's nasty under this place. Tight, framing, concrete, drains and about enough room for an oiled human snake to slither through. Practical considerations also include fuel lines and stuff I totally don't want to tamper with!
The concept of "putting the basement BY the house" shocked my temporal lobes with the beauty of it. :) Half-breeding this, a storage area 'cut down and long' by one wall would add that air-break between killer-cold and me. And... if I put this under the side where the stairs are, it wouldn't have to be an obvious permit issue, especially if it's banked with dirt and bloomin' plants.
That's a concept I grew up with. My dad believed it of 'government interference' with his property, and I believed it as to Dad: What they don't know won't hurt them, and no sense in telling them. "If you don't ask, they can't say 'no'."
Same time, I could use a tornado shelter here, so that's darn near viable!
Now - I'll let my brain and the Universe chaw on that for awhile. If I trip over a stack of unwanted concrete blocks or anything in my travels, I'll fetch them home in case they have a place in the future.
Wisdom: things are only impossible until they become possible. I try not to limit the universe.
Before you blow off this message, it's not like I'm trying to build the Great Pyramid. And one of my favorite sayings: Professionals built the Titanic, amateurs built the Ark. -- and the Three Little Pigs houses... If the three pigs had got together, they'd have had a brick structure with straw insulation and wood finish inside - nice! :)
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What I have to tell you is something that you don't want to hear but wasn't on your list: you don't want to do this. While your suppositions for a cure are very creative and inspiring, they would be at best temporary but in the end futile and probably expensive. Your only real solution is to get your footings below our frost line, which is usually around five to six feet. To do this you need to support the structure with beams and then dig down to your footing depth, pour your footings and then build load bearing walls up to your sill plates. When people have to go through all of this trouble they usually go ahead and put in a full basement. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteOur humble little shanty is one of many cabins that were put up along our river for about a mile back in the good old sixties. Those of us lucky enough to be in the middle third had ours put up on a berm of sugar sand, and suffer little if any heaving problems. Those on the other ends, however, were put up on the predominate local clay (which is also the predominate component of our gravel roads, which makes for interesting springtime driving). They all suffer from heaving difficulties every freeze/thaw cycle, with the exception of a fellow up on the hill end who a few years ago had too much money but now has a basement and level floors that stay that way. Sorry.
:) Jim, I think my 'sane' friends will be glad to see your comment! I will just quietly remind everyone that conventional thinking hasn't fully explored unconventional answers. (Rich, if you read this, again - 'learning from the same book' tends to create the same beliefs.)
ReplyDeleteI'm just gathering thoughts, regardless of if anything viable comes out of it, and appreciate Jim's comments - I learned from this, too.
I am a 'mad' person, same as Ben Franklin flying a kite was 'mad'. One can imagine what his friends, family and neighbors thought!
Interesting tidbit, one Native described to me how previous generations set up winter housing; they'd dig down, fill the area with stone and build the fire pit in the center, then cover the surrounding area with sand. This created radiant heat to survive the winter.
I've never proved this concept and surrounding the house with fire isn't an option. But stones are...
Question: why has no one created a house jack system (hydraulic?) with computerized level readings that can adjust within a given range? Considering our ability now to use infrared beams - seen those new 'red-line light' levels advertised for construction? - this doesn't seem as fantastic now as it would 10 years ago.
And from Jim's post, I'd think there'd be a market for it. :)
Flipping things upside-down, if it freezes 'six feet down' (which I'm aware of, having dug out the pipe from the well to the house at seven-plus feet) then - mounding six feet up seems an alternative to digging, too. Shovels don't only 'dig down', and a compromise would split this difference.
'Hot air' also is plentiful around here... :)
I don't expect a 0% heave, but minimizing it would benefit the house. Heating underneath it was also suggested -- this is a 35+ double-wide, on concrete block, but the block itself is exposed. I don't know if heating the underneath would help with the heave or not; possibly this is part of the solution, but I haven't researched this.
Same time, one side dug / mounded of minimal size would provide that desired tornado shelter, even if a person had to 'sit low' awhile. The weather seems to be getting wilder, and to date, I've trusted the Universe to know we don't have a safe place to go. We're in a micro-climate here and they tend to hit around the area, but I don't 'trust tornadoes'. We're really inadequate on any kind of shelter.
Combining these variables is possible; doing a root-cellar isn't illogical, either. And... I have a cement mixer? :)
Actually, supporting a building on continually adjusting jacks has been done with great success and expense - but the jacks have to go down to bedrock.
ReplyDeleteHeating underneath will give you very comfortable barefoot floors, but since heat has the annoying tendency to rise, it won't much affect the ground beneath more than a foot or so. For proof of this just come over to my crawlspace where I have to run a milkhouse heater to keep my shower drain and kitchen pipes from freezing. Dig down about a foot and you hit frost.
Converting to an earth sheltered approach is a very workable solution; however, arrangements must be made for waterproofing any soil contact area and for horizontal thrust loads against walls as well as working around windows and providing for code egress and ventilation.