Noun: the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.
“a fortunate stroke of serendipity”
synonyms:
(happy) chance, (happy) accident, fluke; luck, good luck, good fortune,fortuity, providence; happy coincidence”the consequence of serendipity is sometimes a brilliant discovery”
I first discovered the concept of earth sheltering serendipitously while looking for something else on the web. I don’t even recall what, but it was something unrelated. I ended up stumbling across Peter Vetsch. Maybe others will stumble across my site? Why do I care? I would eventually like to put a book together and traffic to this site may help a publisher agree that there is a market for it…
Anyway, speaking of unrelated tangents… My generator has been causing slowdowns lately by shutting down for no apparent reasn. Anyway, last weekend, I got tired of walking back and forth to restart it and decided the problem had to do with the RPM setting being too low. My generator doesn’t have a nice little screw to adjust the throttle, instead, I needed to loosen and reposition the whole throttle arm.
For one second, I ran the RPM up too high. I quickly shut it off to avoid damaging the engine, made the adjustments and got the RPM where I wanted it. The original problem was actually solved simply by topping up the oil because it was just low enough that as the oil went up into the engine it was tripping the low oil sensor to shut things down… But then I noticed that I wasn’t getting any power out of the plugs…
I didn’t have my multi-tester out at the property with me, so I ended up bringing the whole generator home… I worked it out and then decided to make a video to show how. More people search the web for info on fixing generators than looking for earth sheltered homes, maybe this will introduce some serendipity to their lives.
Brushless alternators use a capacitor to introduce a charge into the windings. This gets them excited so the alternator will produce electricity. When my engine RPM surged, it surged the alternator and the capacitor blew to protect all the electronics downstream…
If the alternator is working, it produces a ~5 volt difference (plus or minus a volt or 2) across the capacitor. So, I just had to check the AC Voltage with my multimeter. It turned out the voltage was OK. By process of elimination, I decided to order a new capacitor.
My original was covered with a layer of rust, so I couldn’t read the specifics. I checked the internet to find the right one for my generator, a 40µF, 370VAC generator capacitor. The genuine PorterCable part costs 60$. Now that I knew the specific properties, I was able to search based on that and found a Genteq knockoff that only cost 16$ with delivery. It claimed to be just as long lasting (60,000 hours), and like the much more expensive OEM product, it is also “self-extinguishing” so I won’t die in a terrifying fireball if it fails.
Its physical dimensions are a little different, but it fit. And more importantly, my generator works again.
Now my generator can do its job and give me electricity on my jobsite.
Yes, our waterproofing is invisible… Not just clear like I expected from the description on the bucket, but actually imperceptible. You can’t even feel it. So we were not that surprised when our building inspector questioned it.
We had used ProtéShield made by New Look International. Actually, we bought it from Home Depot. Our shotcrete walls are curved and not the smoothest in the world, so it was important that we use a waterproofing that we could spray on. ProtéShield claimed to be, “a water-based inorganic elastomeric polymer sealer designed to penetrate, waterproof, seal, and protect various porous surfaces.” The website said it was, “Recommended for sealing, waterproofing, winterizing and protecting most porous building materials such as concrete, pavers, concrete block, brick, precast concrete, plaster, drywall, GFRC, gypsum board, stone… [etc.]” The brochure listed, “Ideal Interior and Exterior Applications: ” including, “basements and other below grade spaces.””Foundation walls (above grade and below), bridges, sound and barrier and retaining walls, fencing, towers, buildings.” Their technical data sheet claimed ProtéShield would protect the concrete against, “ultra violet rays, ice, water, chlorinated water, salt water, rain, acid rain, salts and other chlorides, rust, mold, fungus, insects, chemicals, oil, fuel, stains, and excessive temperatures.” The cost was about $270 per 5 gallon bucket and I would need 2 buckets to get the basement walls done.
So, when my building inspector questioned it, I brought out the empty bucket and showed him what we had used. He said he had never heard of it and would need to see the official test results. No problem, I emailed him the technical data sheets (Sherri found them with her new smartphone). He gave us a partial approval on the waterproofing and said we could proceed with the back-fill at our own risk. He would check out the data sheet, but if it had not been properly tested, we would need to fix it (dig it up) before proceeding with any other steps. It was a tough decision, but I was sure it would pass and the excavators were due to arrive any moment to work on the back-filling. We went ahead with it.
A couple weeks later, my building inspector emailed me that the correct tests had not been done and we were not approved for backfill… I called New Look International and asked them about it. They said they had never been asked for that test before but insisted that they test their product and it would work for me as described. They called the building inspector to talk to him on my behalf.
Test and verify
The next day, the building inspector called and told me about this part of the building code…
R104.11.1 Tests. Whenever there is insufficient evidence of compliance with the provisions of this code, or evidence that a material or method does not conform to the requirements
of this code, or in order to substantiate claims for alternative materials or methods, the building official shall have the authority to require tests as evidence of compliance
to be made at no expense to the jurisdiction. Test methods shall be as specified in this code or by other recognized test standards. In the absence of recognized and accepted test methods, the building official shall approve the testing procedures. Tests shall be performed by an approved agency. Reports of such tests shall be retained by the building official for the period required for retention of public records.
He said that he would allow me to conduct a test of the waterproofing to establish if it was acceptable or not.
I designed two tests.
My first test was based on other damp proof tests I found on YouTube. These tests place the lower end of concrete samples in water and see if it is drawn up into the sample. I used pieces of shotcrete that had ended up stuck to my bracing. I waterproofed half the samples and made this video. I think it worked well in this test. (no music because testing is serious ;^)
Then the second test was against gravity… I made two concrete bowls from ready mix with fiber reinforcement. I waterproofed one and then filled both with water. The hope was that the one would hold the water without letting it soak in or drain thru. Clearly, the waterproofed bowl did much better than the other bowl, but, perhaps due to the small bubble holes on the surface that did not get properly filled with waterproofing, water did leak into the bowl (the water level dropped). Here is the second test video.
Conclusion
I sent both videos to my building inspector and he approved the “damp proofing” on the vertical basement walls. That was a big relief because it would have been expensive to dig it up and reapply. However, he didn’t feel comfortable calling it waterproofing for the horizontal roof of my earth sheltered building. I agreed to use a more visible waterproofing for that.
The step after backfilling around the basement was to dig a trench over 150 ft long and up to 15 ft deep from the house to the septic field location.
The video:
The story:
Again, I hired Roe Brothers Excavating. All the septic field bids had come in very close. Roe Brothers were not the cheapest, but I liked working with them and they had the right equipment (excavator vs backhoe). The trench didn’t count as part of the septic field bid, so I knew I would be billed by the hour. The right people on the right equipment can get things done more quickly and cheaply.
They started the process by finding the height difference from the excavation on one side (the back wall of the house had not yet been backfilled) to the septic field on the other. There was barely enough difference to cover the distance between the two points at the minimum slope (1%), and there was a lot of dirt between the two points. They laid out the shortest path and figured out how to dig it so the dirt would end up in the right place… Then they got started and I turned on the cameras. Excavation is hard on the land… I began moving all the nicer trees that were within the area designated for the septic field, including several that we had planted a few years before. I asked Dick Roe to spare the Oak tree on the one edge of the trench and the ash tree on the other… The ash tree didn’t make it.
We also found some turtle eggs (they just rolled down the side of the trench from somewhere), so we moved them to a safer location. Weeks later, we found at least one little snapping turtle, you can find that pic on our facebook page.
The trench got pretty close to my fathers pop up camper. I kept texting him scary photos just to make him nervous.
The process ended up taking several days and included a pluming inspection from the house to the first tank and then a septic inspection beyond that.
Complications included finding a 75 year old garbage dump at the south east corner of the septic field. The guys called me down and told me they would need to call the health department (they manage the septic field inspections) and report it right away. The idea was that it would go better for us if we reported it and adjusted the plan accordingly rather than have the inspector find the problem themselves and have us undo our work. The health inspector required some changes the design of the septic field, including digging out and refilling the trash heap. This increased my costs a little. We also had more than one weeks delay due to a shortage of septic tanks and after those were in, we had another weeks delay waiting for the 60 yards of gravel to be delivered. Fun details.
In the end, it looks like we will end up about 30% over budget for the septic system (trench, tanks and field), and it is not quite done yet (more than one month after starting the trench) because the excavators had to move on to other jobs while we waited for the final inspection. Based on digging in the gravel, I would guess the inspection is passed now and the excavators will be back soon to finish up.
Brushless alternators use a capacitor to introduce a charge into the windings. This gets them excited so the alternator will produce electricity. When my engine RPM surged, it surged the alternator and the capacitor blew to protect all the electronics downstream…
