East Bathroom

I like before and after pictures. The picture on the top is of the east bathroom before we started working on it. The picture on the bottom is how it looks today. We still have to put a cover on the front of the jet tub, but that is minor compared to all the other things we had to do to it.

Electronics cabinet

One man's ceiling is another man's floor. There is a ceiling above the utility area and the east bathroom. This created a loft. The loft was originally just going to be for storage, but as we started building it, it became clear that this was a nice loft, too nice for just storage. Here you can see the cabinet and desk my husband has built in the loft for his electronics .

Cabinets in the utility area

The utility area is on the other side of the wall of the kitchen. This picture shows the cabinets my husband built for the area. This gives us more storage and more work space. There is a pass through into the kitchen, which is VERY handy! On the left side of the cabinet, you can see the utility sink and beyond that is the washer. The counter tops and he back splashes in both the utility area and the kitchen are made of ceramic tiles.

Completed kitchen cabinets

This picture shows the finished kitchen cabinets! We still want to paint the upper walls and build an island that will match the cabinets ( the one in the picture is temporary).

More kitchen cabinetes

This picture shows more of the cabinets in process. I was so excited to have cabinets, I would start filling them up before the doors were on them. I was tired of living out of boxes and that way I could get rid of some boxes which gave us more room to move around.

Kitchen cabinetes

Finally, in the spring of 2007, my husband started building the kitchen cabinets! The upper picture is of the upper corner cabinet that has a cabinet on each side. The bottom picture is of the parts of the lazy Susan he built that went inside the cabinet.

The guest room

After getting all the books out of this room, we were able to frame a closet ( not shown), drywall, tape, mud, and prime the walls. Then we set up the dresser, bed and night stands.

Sitting area

During the winter of 2006-2007 we worked on many projects inside the dome. It is hard to put these in chronological order because we were working on numerous projects at the same time. This is a picture of the sitting area we created. It will eventually become my husband's office. In order to start drywalling the second bedroom, we needed to start organizing the numerous boxes of books we had stashed there. We organized a bunch of our bookshelves as a room divider which allowed us to create this sitting area and allowed me to start organizing our books. This had many benefits. One, we ended up with a sitting area. Two, we could start using our reference books again. Three, we could start drywalling the second bedroom.

Front entrance

When you first enter the dome, you end up in an air lock. The picture on the top shows the bench, coat rack and shelves that are inside the airlock. There is a similar setup on the other side of the airlock. Then there is a set of garden doors that lead into the dome. The picture on the bottom shows the garden doors from inside the dome. The airlock serves two purposes. In the winter, it allows people to enter the dome without letting the cold winter air into the dome directly. The second purpose is to allow people to enter and remove their coats and boots before entering the main part of the dome. This also works well in summer when you want to remove muddy boots before entering the dome.

Bathroom vanity

This picture shows the completed vanity. Since this picture was taken, we have put doors on the closet and a towel rack. We will be putting a tile backsplash on the wall and paint.

Built in linen closet

We wanted to use as many nooks and crannies as possible. In this picture, you wee the beginnings of a linen closet that was built into the curve of the dome wall.

Starting cabinetes

Since my husband wanted to make all the cabinets for the house, that had to wait until he was done with the thermal shutters. This picture shows the beginnings of the vanity for the west bathroom.

Starting the first bathroom

Now, some of this may be out of chronological order, but sometime around the time we got electricity, we put the corner shower and toilet in the west bathroom.

Some of the finished shutters

This is a picture of one of the south windows with a complete set of thermal shutters. The bottom shutters are closed at night to keep the warmth in and the cold out - AND IT REALLY WORKS!!! Custom shutters were made for each of the seven doors and windows. Since this picture was taken, we have painted all the shutters white and my husband created special hinges so the upper shutters could be opened and closed.

Building the thermal shutters

Once we had all the outside preparations for winter finished, we needed to turn our attention to the inside of the dome. The one thing we really needed for winter was to build the thermal shutters so we would reduce the amount of heat we lost through the windows. Our thermal shutters have two inches of foam insulation, to reduce convective losses, and a layer of air foil (aluminized bubble wrap), to reduce radiative losses. This combination gives the windows a combined R value of 20. This picture is of the construction of one of the half round shutters. Also, in the background, you ca see that we were insulating under the window sill. That would eventually be covered with wood and painted. You will see pictures of this later.

An unexpected bonus

Now this may look like an ordinary 60 gallon electric hot water tank, and it is. And it was the last thing we expected to have in our new house because it would use too much electricity. However, we discovered that there were times when we produced more electricity than we needed to fill the batteries and run the house. We could just let the extra electricity dissipate, but instead my husband added an extra circuit to the AC panel and connected the hot water tank pictured here into the circuit through a relay added to the AC panel. When the solar controller detects that the batteries are full, it turns on the relay, diverting the extra electricity to the hot water tank and we get FREE HOT WATER!!! Now, this does not happen all the time, so then we use the instant ON hot water heater, but this electric hot water tank saves us from using a lot of propane. As I mentioned above, one 100 pound tank of propane usually lasts us 4-5 months! There are even days when we produce so much electricity, more than we need to fill the batteries AND heat the hot water tank, then we turn on electric space heaters if it is winter. We are starting to think of more creative ways to use our extra electricity. As we develop them, I will write about them in this blog.

Wood splitter

In the fall of 2006, our neighbor introduced us to a lady who has several quarter sections of land not too far from us. Her property has a lot of old spruce trees on it that died when we had a drought several years ago. She had a logging company come and take out the large trees on one quarter section, but when they logged the property, they left the branches, and the smaller trees they had to cut, in large piles. This quarter section is her pasture, so the cows don't mind, but she hates to see the wood go to waste. So, for the past two falls, we made several trips to her property with our trailer and chain saw, filled the trailer with wood and brought it home. The wood needs to be cut and split, so my husband purchased a blade for cutting wood and a stickler for splitting wood. He then built the wood splitter pictured here. This is still a work in process. He wants to redesign the wood cutting portion of it. It has a small hydraulic motor that runs off the hydraulics of the tractor.

Instand On water heater

We decided to buy an instant On water heater instead of using a hot water tank. That way, you only use propane when you need the hot water. It was hard to find one of these water heaters that run on propane, but we eventually found one.

Propane tank

We are COMPLETELY off the grid. We do not have natural gas coming to the house, but we needed something for cooking and for heating hot water, so we purchased the 100 pound propane tank pictured here. One tank of propane lasts us 4-5 months. Our stove runs off of propane and we have an instant ON hot water heater that runs on propane. When the tank is empty, my husband puts it on the trailer and takes it to town to get it refilled.

Utility sink and washer

One of the first areas we worked on after we got electricity, was the laundry. Up until now, the washer was sitting by the back door and when I wanted to do a load of wash we hooked up a drain pipe that went out the back door, we had a garden hose coming in from the well, and we started a generator to run the well pump and the washing machine. The may seem like a lot of work, but to us, it was better than running to a laundromat in town. We had all the plumbing and electricity in place, but we still had to drywall, tape, mud and paint. It felt good to at least start putting things in place. The utility sink was the first sink we installed so it was used to wash up, and wash dishes, as well as other chores. We still want to do a tile back splash around the utility sink, but that is for a later time right now.

Redigging the water pipes

In the summer of 2005, before Canadian Dome Industries started building the ring beam, my husband dug trenches, six feet deep from our two wells to the center of the dome. Then he laid water pipes in the trenches and covered them back up. he dug them six feet deep because that is what our neighbor in town, who used to live on a farm, said was the proper depth to prevent the pipes from freezing in the winter. However, during the year, we had two of our current neighbors visit the construction site and they both said that six feet was not deep enough, they had to be at least eight feet deep! So, as if we did not have enough to do before winter set in, my husband used his CAD digger, dug up the pipes, dug the trenches deeper and laid the pipes back down. However, this time we installed pitless adapters on both of the wells.

The Solar Panels

The picture on the bottom is is how the 10 185 W solar panels looked when they were mounted on the frame. The upper picture shows the back of the panels so you can see how they are connected to each other.

Preparations for the Solar Panels

Our original plan was to add solar panels sometime in the future, but my husband was concerned that we might not have enough electricity for the winter with just the wind generator, so we decided to purchase some solar panels in the fall of 2006. Looking back at my 2006 calender, we only ran the gas generator two times in 2006 to fill the batteries. Once in October and once in December. Anyway, we ordered 8 solar panels from Sunfind Solar Products, but ended up with 10 panels because there was a deal on a model that was going out of production. The picture to the right shows the wooden and aluminum frame my husband built to hold the 10 solar panels.

Wood Stove

Sometime in October, when it really started to get cold outside, we hooked up our wood burning stove, pictured here. The chimney was in place, but we needed to move it in place and hook up the chimney on the inside. First we made a little alcove with cinder blocks that would surround the stove. This serves two purposes. The first is that it protects everything from the hot stove and second it acts as a thermal mass. That means it soaks up the heat and radiates it back later when the fire is out. Surprisingly, this wood stove is enough to heat the dome, even on really cold days!

Freezer doghouse

We have two freezers, and we wanted to keep them outside, especially in the winter. That way we would take advantage of the Canadian winters and not have to use as much electricity keeping the food in the freezers frozen. My husband built this doghouse for the freezers. Believe me, this works well!

Wood shed

By now it was fall and we still had a lot to do outside before winter set in. Since we were going to heat the dome with a wood burning stove, my husband wanted to build a wood shed for the wood. The front of the shed faces south. It is made of mostly scrap wood.

Choosing a telephone system.

When it came to choosing a telephone system, we basically had three choices. We could go with a regular land line, a cell phone or Voice over IP (VoIP). I started calling Telus in May to find out what it would take to get service to our new house. The said they would have to send a rep out. They gave us a date the rep would be there and said we had to be at the site from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. We spent the whole day waiting for the rep to show up, but no one ever did. When I called Telus to complain, they gave me some excuse and set another date. This happened 3-4 times before a rep finally showed up in August or Sept. He said it would cost about $1, 000 to get the phone line to the house and that they might not be able to do it before freeze up. That meant we would have to wait until spring to get a Telus land line! The second option was to go with a cell phone, but I do not like the fact that you are locked into a contract for a certain time period and I do not like being exposed to the radio frequencies all the time. So, I started investigating Voice over IP. My neighbor said that they had their VoIP phone with Vonage. After doing some investigation, we decided to go with Vonage. We contacted them and in a very short time, we received the the Vonage device pictured in this picture in the mail. All we had to do was to plug the Vonage device into our router and plug our phone into the device. Bingo! we had a phone!! It was that easy. Now, granted VOIP has its drawbacks, but for the most part it works for us. No more long distance charges! North America is my local calling area. And it only costs about $20 per month.