Road costing advise or opinions!

[SamWalton]

Dirthog, I think the term ''shale'' is a loose discription that varies greatly from region to region.Chances are what I call shale and you call shale are not the same and not the same in Oklahoma either. Short of a water truck how would you compact material thats too dry?

Sincerely, Dirt

I am sure the mix has dirt or clay mixed. It will get better after it drys out and gets driven on.

 

[SamWalton]

We cleared the home site and removed the high spots to get ready for footings. I worked on drainage ditches to divert the water from the road. I will get a few more loads of stone but with the fines this time. I think we may have this wrapped up with the additional loads of stone. We will now focus on the earth shelter home construction next.

 

[woodlandfarms]

Wow, you are going to do an earth shelter home? I was playing with designs for those 25 years ago in high school architecture. Everyone thought I was crazy. Glad to see them still being builts and please post tons of pix.

 

[Flatheadyoungin]

tell us more about your house plans.......i've looked at them but can't convince the wife.......heck, i'd build what looks like a cellar as a facade and then live completely under ground (little taxes)

my wife's uncle has a home that is underground, except for the roof and the front wall of the house.......he easily heats it with one buner on the ventless 3 burner wall heater......and cooling is about as easy.....

cleaning the gutter out is pretty easy too

 

[SamWalton]

We are excited about our new home and will enjoy the build. The sam TERA97B.pdf file is my Microstation CAD file with measurements to assist in laying out and squaring up our footings.

 

[Flatheadyoungin]

That looks good......I've been trying to learn how to create a 3D model of what we want with sketchup.......

thanks for sharing.....

are you going to have soil on two side.......what about on top......

 

[SamWalton]

We are going to berm over the roof and east and west sides, leaving part of the south side for passive solar and the north side to over look the valley below.

 

[gordyy]

nice plan looks good

 

[mjncad]

Sam:

What version of Microstation are you using? The last time I used Microstation was in the early 90's and it was version 3.3 for DOS. I sure hope Bentley has made it easier to use since then. I've used AutoCAD since R9 through 2009, and Auto-Trol prior to that for ten years. Auto-Trol got out of the CADD business after Autodesk made a better product for less.

One bathroom for four bedrooms seems pretty spartan; though I did notice a guest bath in the laundry room. I gather no one in your family has a tiny bladder like my wife does.

I like the open Great Room/Dining Room/Kitchen as it makes a house feel more spacious.

Also, without dragging out the calculator, how many square feet is your house going to be?

Post pictures as we all love to see houses being constructed.

 

[SamWalton]

Sam:

What version of Microstation are you using? The last time I used Microstation was in the early 90's and it was version 3.3 for DOS. I sure hope Bentley has made it easier to use since then. I've used AutoCAD since R9 through 2009, and Auto-Trol prior to that for ten years. Auto-Trol got out of the CADD business after Autodesk made a better product for less.

One bathroom for four bedrooms seems pretty spartan; though I did notice a guest bath in the laundry room. I gather no one in your family has a tiny bladder like my wife does.

I like the open Great Room/Dining Room/Kitchen as it makes a house feel more spacious.

Also, without dragging out the calculator, how many square feet is your house going to be?

Post pictures as we all love to see houses being constructed.

I use Microstation V8 XM Edition for work and Terra-Dome also uses it. I prefer AutoCad but the Army Corp of Engineers went with Bently. We are all on one level and we feel two bath rooms will serve us fine. Our home will be 4172 SF including the garage area and the living space alone will be 3002 SF.