Whoops! I wasn’t thinking. The next expense is the concrete for the bond beam. We will either pour it ourselves (4-5 cubic yards) or have a truck come.
If we pour it ourselves, then we have the cost of the portland cement (about $13 per bag). Presumeably if we pour ourselves then we feel we have enough clean gravel/sand on site to do so (and enough friends with cement mixers!) Each yard of cement takes about 6 bags of portland cement. So we would need roughly 30 bags at $13 for $390. The question is whether we have good soil on site in sufficient quantity to undertake the pour.
If we decide to bring a truck in we have figured out that it would cost us in the neighbourhood of $800+. AND if we brought a truck in, could we unload cement on the far side of the building (the slope of the back wall is such that a truck would have to park way below the level of the bond beam). We would have to factor in gravity, or lack of it, in this case). Another factor in a decision to bring in a truck is to build the forms for the post pads in the house. Any extra concrete we’ve paid for needs a home…
Our next step in making this decision is to grab a pail of gravel from the best part of the pit and give it a wash to see what kind of organic material is in it.
Hi.
I am very interested in finding out about earthship construction and wonder if you mind people stopping by to see your project. If you have no objections, I’d like to drive up there (I’m in Kelowna) sometime around the middle or end of May.
Thanks so much.
Leslie
FWIW, a 50 kg (45kg?) bag of concrete in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia is going for about US$5. A 50 kg bag of sand is $0.80. Maybe it’s closer to China. I don’t know. Hopefully the insulation is cheaper. The lightest weight styrofoam insulation panels (1m x 2m) are $3.20 each. I’ll have to see how much the harder ones are. They’ll make it whatever hardness you want, so on the thermal wrap maybe I can get away with minimal hardness that I feel the thing will hold together underground, or like in the greenhouse sidewalls. I feel they can be kind of less hard.