Deep Sh-t

There were so many good possible titles for this post we almost couldn't choose one.

Today we got our septic tank pumped. And found out that it probably won't last us another year, so we should try to get hooked up to the sewer before the end of winter. Maybe it will last until next summer. It's $7,000 just to get permission to hook up to the sewer, and it will take roughly $5,000 to pay someone to dig the trench, lay the line, and hook it up. So now it's a race against time to raise/save the money. FUN!

It's not like it's one of those things you can put off, either. I really like being able to flush my toilet.

So, let's start at the beginning of the septic saga.

The guy shows up with his truck. He and my spouse go around back and talk about where the tank is. The fella, being larger than we are, immediately finds it because he walks over it and it bends. Well, that was easy. Apparently neither of us who actually own the property have been big enough to feel the bending before. Well, that saves us some time and money trying to locate the thing. The guy tells my spouse that we need to put a sheet of plywood over it or something to keep someone larger than we are (read: my brother) from accidentally falling in.

Then, they open it up. Horrors. We've tried to protect the innocent, considering what you're looking at.

Turns out that our tank is probably an old Sears model from the 1950s, iron, about 500-600 gallons. It's been retrofitted, probably by the previous owner. Super. The guy tells us that if he was inspecting our property, and saw this setup, he would have never given it a pass. Good to know. Three years later.

(You can tell that this whole episode doesn't bother me at all. $12,000 or suffer toilet trauma like never before doesn't bug me at all.)

Anyway, the guy pumps it.

Nice and "clean." At this point in time he thinks that we could probably last on the system a couple more years.

Then he tests our leach field. Turns out it doesn't really leach. At all. For $500 cash (it usually costs $800-$1,000) he'll come out and try to make it drain better. No guarantees that it will work, of course. At this point, there's really not much more to do but seal the thing up.

After he leaves, my spouse calls the utility district. They confirm the prices, and then say that we can actually do all the work ourselves to save us that $5,000. But, we'll have to sign a waiver that we'll be liable and pay for any problems in the line "downstream" of us ourselves. I don't know about you, but that sounds like an awful lot of liability to me. So I'm not so comfortable with that, either, even though it saves us money. We could dig the trench ourselves, and have a contractor could lay the line and do the attachment. We'll have to price that out and see how it goes.

We should even be able to decommission it ourselves. That will involve getting an inspector over here, who will watch us get it pumped, break the bottom out with an iron tamping bar, and then fill it with sand. Then I might dance on top of it and light my money on fire, you know, just for fun.

At any rate, we need to do something. This isn't a problem that will just go away or solve itself. But we won't worry about it right now. My brother moves in with us this weekend. We'll just have to let him know to go easy on the tp.

Clay Play

Strap yourself in for a long post. When we don't post often, it means we're getting a lot done! At least that's what we tell ourselves. Sorry you haven't heard from us in a little while.

We finished the ceiling a couple of weeks ago, Solatubes and all. The Solatube dampers are in, and so we can let less light in, should we so choose.

As of right now, our walls are very close to being finished. We've nearly completed the application process of the clay, which has been fairly easy to work with, overall. We're liking the way it looks, and we think we'll be able to do a better job next time.

How it works is you put the sanded primer on, mix up the first coat (coarse grit, which is called Loma), trowel that on to the walls, let it dry, and then mix up and put on the second coat (which you can either do another Loma coat or use the fine grit, Porcelina). We used the Porcelina because we wanted a smooth finish. Then you do what's called burnishing, where you're basically compressing the clay to harden it, but also to smooth it out further and get the finer particles to the top.

We've put on our Loma coat and the Porcelina coat, and we've burnished two of the walls. It has taken a LOT longer than we thought it would, but working every night after work and on the weekends, we're nearly finished. What hasn't taken a lot longer than we thought it would, though?

Here's how our process went.

We put the Loma into the bucket, and using a drill we got off of craigslist for the express purpose of mixing stuff, added the water and tried to mix it.

Unfortunately, we couldn't get the water to distribute through the Loma powder well enough to actually USE the mixer. So, we started it off the old fashioned way:

Hand mixing worked out surprisingly well. Good thing I keep my fingernails super-short, or I would have been picking Loma out for weeks. Anyway, once we got all the Loma more or less wet, we were able to use the drill mixer without it smoking.

Then it was time to add the color. We chose Tucson Gold (yellow), and so we mixed up the pigment paste and added to the Loma. I was worried that the pigments wouldn't come out of our clothes, but they did. The clay has come out of our clothes each time (it's just dirt), and the pigment hasn't left any stains.

The thing about the pigment is that each batch is different, so you have to make a big enough batch so that you have some left over, because it's almost certain that you won't have the same color next time. (Gotta account for natural variation in color.) The Loma mixed up very nicely, in the end, about the consistency of pudding.

Then it was time to apply the Loma. All said and done, it took between eight and 10 hours to do the Loma coat.

And here's how the room looked with the Loma coat.

Then we mixed up the Porcelina. This time we followed the directions to the letter to try and avoid the problems we had with the Loma, but the hand mixing actually worked better. Oh well. In order to apply the Porcelina, we wetted down the layer of Loma on the walls with a spray bottle, and then applied the Porcelina right on top. The Porcelina was much smoother than the Loma, and was the same earthy yellow color (which incidentally matches our pendant lights perfectly).

And now we're burnishing!

We're very, very happy with the color and the way the room looks, and we're really excited to get the burnishing done, which will happen this week, and then begin the bookshelf and trim, which we'll do after moving my brother in next weekend.

Our permit runs out next month (gasp, gasp), and so we need to really get cracking. We also have to put on and paint siding, so we mocked up a couple of different widths. We ended up going with the width on the right (five inch exposure) because it's not a special order item. Now we just have to make our order and we'll install that soon. Whew!

Hopefully things will go more quickly once my brother moves in and we have an extra hand. We're feeling the clock ticking away the minutes, but at least we have our plan of action.

Sealing and Ceiling

We've been really hard at work the past week and a half working on covering up our drywall. Last weekend we primered the ceiling using American Pride primer and put our sanded primer on the walls in preparation for the clay. The American Pride primer is a very low-VOC paint, and while we could smell a paint-like odor, it wasn't very strong and it didn't have any negative effects on us at all. We tried to ventilate the space, but probably didn't try as hard as we might have. Anyway, I've gotten paint headaches from smaller, more well-ventilated areas in the past, so that was a good sign. It was easy to use and covered well. The sand was not quite so easy to use, but we managed. The sand didn't settle too badly into the bottom of the can, and we managed to cover all our walls, no problem.

This week we worked evenings to get the ceiling painted. For this we used Safecoat paint - a no-VOC paint, flat, white. (We were told a flat paint would go best with the sheen of unsealed clay.) The paint didn't have an odor at all, really - it was a milder substance than the primer, which was mild to begin with. I had heard some bad things about "eco-friendly" paint, but this stuff covered well, stuck well, and was really easy to use. Granted,we were putting white paint on white primer, but it still went much better than expected.

Applying Paint Primer to Ceiling

Applying Sand Primer to Walls

Finally, we popped back in our halogen cans, put the pendants back above the table, and got the final Solatube mostly installed. Except for the Solatube, the ceiling is done, and I think it looks great. That is going to be one bright, cheery room when we're done with it (which is why we decided to get dampers for the Solatubes - WOW, they bring in a lot of light!). We're really excited. My spouse isn't 100% happy with the way the two big seams in the ceiling drywall turned out, but I think that while they're noticable, they're not bad at all. *shrug*

Tonight or tomorrow we start putting on the clay. Hopefully it will turn out well! It was really easy to work with when we took the workshop last November. Labor-intensive, not skill-intensive. Well, I definitely have more labor in me than skill, so it should work out. Then we'll put up the trim (which we've picked out and put into a 3-D model), finish out the bookcase, and work on the siding. We have to have that installed and painted by the time we have our final inspection. So much to do, and our permit expiration date is approaching quickly.

We got all our paint and clay supplies at Ecohaus (which just opened up another store in Bellevue). If you live in Seattle/Portland, you probably know all about it, but if you live here and you don't, get yourself over there for some really great, non-toxic, sustainable house stuff.