The forms are in. Great care has been taken to orient the home in the direction we have chosen for the morning sun. That is the clearest time of day for this site. While studying the land we found that the afternoon has cloud cover and we need to make full use of the morning sun.

The yardage for the footers is a grand total of 34 yards. As you can see from the photos the thickness and the width is not a typical footer. The footers are thirty-six inches wide and in many places two feet thick where they step for grade allowance. There are three levels of footer. The solar pit for the water treatment section, the greenhouse section for ground planting, and the home footprint. Each has an important function.

The footers are allowed to cure for three weeks and the wall forms start to take position for the solar pit. This must be constructed first to permit the house forms to have a forming basis to build from.

The original building method was going to be 12" heavy block walls. The cores of the block would then be filled with slurry and end up with a solid wall of concrete filled block. The fact that Joe uses solid poured walls and forms has really been a plus. The strength gained from the solid pour and the re-bard added when forming has been a structurally positive move.

After the solar pit was formed the concrete was poured and some of the forms moved to the house wall construction. The solar pit is part of the foundation wall for the home and necessary to follow the method of wall construction at the rear of the pit. There is an inner wall in the pit and a wall for the home separated by solid insulation and reflective low E thermal barrier. The pit wall is 8" thick and the house wall is 10" thick. The total wall system measures 20" thick with the insulations.

Once this portion was finished we realized that the original mason was probably frightened of the magnitude of the job and didn't have the expertise to accomplish the work. Joe came through and now we are off and building.