Day 18 – Saturday 28th August

Continued to cover the earth tubes with more sand by moving the excess from the right of the L. But while compacting the fill a LARGE section of the back wall collapsed (It had not collapsed at all before even while digging out). It took hours to remove by hand.

We finished the day with all the sand distributed around ready for the heat pump pipes.

Day 1 – Sunday 29th August

Installing pipes for Heat pump.

Started the installation of the heat-pump pipes by labeling them 1-6 for future connections. Then bundled them up for the first 4.5m (to connect to the house) and attached them to the righthand earth tube. Started to lay them out in the trench and the rain came again!! Oh well we can watch the Grand Prix guilt free…

Day 16 – Thursday 26th August

Rained all day! But we did buy a submersible pump for the rainwater tank.

Day 17 – Friday 27th August

The rain yesterday caused a few small wall collapses and eroded some casms in the walls.

So after a little clean up we continued to place the last tubes. All tubes were inserted by luchtime.

We have decided to cover the joints in the corner with a piece of plastic as the rain water soak-away will be directly above these pipes and we don’t want water getting in. By the end of day we had covered all the pipes and compacted.

Day 15 – Wednesday 25th August

Another day in the pit. We thought we would be able to finish installing the tubes today. But soon after we started digging out the remaining sand a LARGE section of the pit wall collapsed.

This set us back a bit… Using the Kanga Kid (KK) we moved the collapsed material to the right of the trench and compacted it into a mound.

We could now continue to put tubes in… We actually managed only 2 tubes today before the rain came again.

Day 13 – Monday 23rd August

Short days work today, started late after Shaun had an appointment and finished early because it rained!

But we got the first section completed by leveling the sand over the area and compacting. The mini loader does manage to drive over the compacted sand but cuts it up a bit when turning

Day 14 – Tuesday 24th August

Full days work today. Completed 7 tubes! We had to clear more sand than expected as a large part of the wall fell in.
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Where the tubes bend we mitered the joint and covered it with geo-textile.

Continued this for the next 6 tubes, so finished 7 tubes completely.

Progress in installing the actual earth tubes in the bottom of the pit.

Day 11 – Saturday 21st August

Installed 5 earth tubes today, this involved moving large amount of sand as the hole is not quite deep enough and has a few ‘hills’.

Day 12 – Sunday 22nd August

Buried the last 6 tubes in the first section of the pit. Once again the walls slumped in a bit when compacting near them, this time they tried to bury me! Luckily it was only knee deep, I pulled myself out and caught up with the compactor which was merrily carrying on…

With the hole finally dug out, we have been sorting out the bits and pieces that will be placed down, down into the pit! Not much visible work is happening especially our video camera cannot see right into the hole! So you will have to imagine us hard at work 2.5m (8feet) down!

Day 7 – Tuesday 17th August

The delivery of the extra 10 tubes we needed and the wooden battens for constructing the framework to hold up the earth tubes and keep them steady while we fill in the hole around them. We also ordered another 10 bags of cement just in case we need to bed or lock in anything down. Today’s work was shortened as we had to go shopping (we have to eat something)!!!
We did some investigations in the bottom of the hole to see how much work is needed in moving the sand around to lay the earth tubes down. We checked the depth and laid two concrete blocks to get a feel for a particular method to achieve a satisfactory results!

Day 8 – Wednesday 18th August

We had visitors around so it was another late start. We cut 4 tubes into 12 pieces and clamped them together. These are the vertical tubes for transferring the air up out of the ground and into the house. We also mounted a wooden framework at the garage end ready for the vertical 3m (10feet) tubes.
The 120 crates arrived from Jewsons today – these crates called AquaCell are designed to allow large amount of water (usually rain) to be collected and leached out of the sides.

Day 9 – Thursday 19th August

The hired tiny little earth mover machine arrived today and used our mini digger to lift it into the hole! It got stuck in the soft sand!

So we got on with cutting 6 earth tubes in half and mounting them vertically on the support framework – these tubes transfer the incoming air from the Garage down into the cool earth!

Then did the other end where the 12 tubes done yesterday were situated near the point of the house. At both ends we placed the concrete blocks underneath to support them.