Glennon Sea-Can Home Web Site

Septic

For our septic system, we had a little larger tank installed along with 5 lines X 100' long. Be careful not to undersize as this increases the frequency of servicing. Installing extra clean-outs (every 75'), allowed us to install our temporary living accommodations and to service our holiday trailer without transporting it elsewhere. The tank is insulated with 2" of styrofoam insulation on the top and sides of the tank as the total depth is only 3' to the top of the tank.

Solar

Our solar panel system is housed in the temporary power-house along with the well and pressure tank. The system consists of: 16 solar panels, 24 - 6V deep cycle batteriesconnected in series/parallel to equal 48 volts, 2 inverters - 1 of which stays in search mode until there is a high voltage draw on system. Outside the power-house is our back-up generator. The generator starts when the voltage drops to 48 volts and runs for approximately 2 hours and charges at 200 amps. When the main construction is complete, the contents of the power-house will be relocated to the main building. The solar panel will be installed along the outside edge of the roof deck.

September 2009

Wet weather hindered our progress for the first part of September. We installed batter-boards to mark out our building site. The entire excavation was 70 feet X 75 feet X 9 feet deep, with a ramp into the hole on the east side for easy access. The work took our subcontractor 1.5 days to dig. The subcontractor had a backhoe to dig and a loader to move the dirt to another location out of the way for later use. With the weather further hampering our progress, the formwork could not be done until October.

October 2009

With the weather cooperating, we began placing the formwork for the footings in early October. We installed 2 layers of 15mm rebar, 8" on center to make sure that we had a solid base for the building. We needed a pumper truck to move the concrete to where we needed it. We used 85 meters of 30 mpa concrete. During the pour, we placed our welding plates into the pad to match up with the corners of the sea-cans so that they could be welded into place.

With the concrete in place, the weather turned on us again. As the snow melted, we had a messy job of trying to move the water out and get our weeping tile and sump is place. Once the weeping tile was placed completely around the footings we covered the weeping tile with washed rock and filled around the sump to just below the rim. An access panel to the sump would be cut into the floor of a sea-can after it is placed.

A crane was used to place the first 6 cans onto the footings of level 1, making sure that the cans were exactly in place over the welding plates. We also placed and welded steel shims under the sides of the sea-cans where openings would be cut out.

The opening in the center of the sea-cans will house a heat tank that will provide our main heating to the house through in-floor coils.

We have sent out requests for quotes on the hot water heating and storage system, which will supply us with our main heating via in-floor heating. We will also have a wood high efficiency wood burning stove on the top three levels.

Total sea-cans to date is 6.

November 2009

November was a good month, weather-wise. In the opening on the east side, we drilled and set rebar vertically into the concrete to prepare for the styrofoam / concrete wall to be erected there. This is required as our garage opening will be directly above this wall and we also need to install a mandoor in this area on Level 2.

2" X 2" strapping was installed on every second rib of the seacans as a nailing base for the insulation. As Level 1 will be underground, we are only insulating the exterior. The Silverboard insulation we are using has an R27 value. You can find more information on the insulation under our Products tab. The Silverboard was then installed to the strapping. This was also used in the heat-sink area in the middle of the sea-cans.

The sea-cans were grounded on all 4 corners of the building.

Over top of the Silverboard, we installed a dimple membrane to allow any excess water to drain into the weeping tile. We then did a partial backfill of the East side and half of the North and South sides, then compacted.

Cranes were back on the scene to install 5 more sea-cans. 3 were placed on Level 2 directly above Level 1 cans. Then we needed 2 cranes (1 with a man-basket) to erect the two towers on the west side of the building. The north tower will be a stairwell the south tower will be for the elevator and chase.

A temporary power panel was constructed to supply the building during construction.

Total sea-cans to date is 11.

December 2009

December was a month with a considerable amount of welding to be done. The corners of the sea-cans had to be welded together to make sure that they stayed square, beams had to be placed and welded along each side of the cans before the adjacent can could be placed and welded next to it.

The main electrical panel was mounted on Level 1. From the electrical panel we were able to begin wiring for the lighting, receptacles and switches for the bottom level.

The 3 (three) remaining sea-cans to complete Level 2 were placed in mid December, along with 3 (three) cans for the third level. It will be a few months before we can place more as we have quite a few beams to fabricate and weld to the structure to maintain it's stability.

The construction of the stairway between Level 1 and Level 2 began in the North tower.

Total shipping containers to date is 17.