Home Improvements

[Edwin]

Cellar Roof

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This picture shows the roof of my cellar. I have numerous pictures of the open hole when I was still digging for the cellar. This picture shows the roof extending about 5 feet out from the house. The Cellar is 8 feet wide, 12 feet long, and about 14 feet deep! Presently we do not have an easy way to get in and out of it, and that is a drawback, but eventually I will have that solved. We built the roof so that it can be removed, but it is very heavy, so I don't take it off only in extreem situations, like when I had to carry buckets of water off the floor up the ladder to dump. Without taking the roof off I have to crawl under the house for maybe 30 feet, and then climb down a ladder into the cellar. I am thinking about cutting a hole in the kitchen floor then putting a trap door in to go right straight down into the cellar with a ladder. I am also thinking about digging a walk way from the other side of our house down to the cellar, having a ramp or stairway, and then breaking a hole in the wall, afterwhich I will frame a door in. But for now our water system is well protected and that was my aim. We also have the potential of storing things that you would put in a cellar, which would be nicer if it had easier access, but eventually that may happen. The cellar was the end of a 3 year project, and I am happy to have it where it is, even though everything is not completed.

You can also see the block wall I put up late last fall, or early winter! I didn't plan to do that, but it was an after thought. I built a temporary concrete block structure to protect our water system from freezing in the early fall. It worked well until it got really cold and the wind blew, then everything froze up, but there was no damage to any of the equipment. That gave me the idea about building a block wall all the way around the house to keep the cold freezing winds out from underneath our house. I put garbage contract liners overlapped between the blocks and the house to block any air movement. It worked really well, because this is the first winter that we have not had our water traps freeze under the toilets and shower. Also our water lines/pipes did not freeze, so it turned out to be a good plan. I think those blocks look nice, and they keep our house warmer!

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This is the before picture showing the old metal roofing for our house skirting! At this time all the digging was finished, but no cellar construction work had been done. You can see my pallets of concrete blocks ready to be used for cellar construction. The pressure tank and the pump are still sitting beside the house, and at this time the weather was still hot, so I didn't have the temporary shelter built over the water system at that time! You can see the concrete mixer all ready to be move into the hole to be used for mixing concrete for the footing/foundation. You can also see the boards and rebar on top of the concrete blocks ready to be used. I am so happy that this project is all completed!

[Edwin]

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You can see more of the block wall that I put around our house. I hauled them up the hill, 30 blocks at a time in our Van. The Van was okay to haul that weight, but I drove very carefully! I replaced some very light weight, cheap metal roofing that was on there for skirting. These blocks look a lot nicer than the metal, and they are more weather tight.

[Edwin]

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In this picture you can see a little of the front, the corner, and the North end of our house. This is where I first started laying the blocks. I didn't mortor them in, but just laid them one on top of the other, and that way I can get underneath our house anywhere I want to. I took the blocks away from one small section of this North end, and put them back several times because I have a little lumber stored under there, and I needed some of it for the cellar construction. These blocks and the plastic work well enough that I don't need insulation behind them. I wanted something that I could use and avoid having to deal with insulation so I could gain access anywhere without taking out insulation and putting it back. This works perfectly!

[Edwin]

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This is the East side of our house, and the inside of Scooby's yard. I think he likes that wall. I brought him inside the house while I laid the blocks in his yard because I didn't want him running under the house because of the hole going down into the cellar, and that would be too far for him to fall, about 14 feet! You can also see the exhaust pipe for your wood burning pellet stove, as well as the landing outside our glass sliding doors, made out of pallets, Scooby's house, and our internet satellite dish at the corner of our house. I think I am going to be redoing this yard before long to put a better fence around it!

[Edwin]

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Here is another angle of the East side of our house with the block wall! Scooby is in this picture, and he loves to have his picture taken. It makes him feel important!

[Edwin]

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Here is a closer look at some of the block wall. It also shows another picture of Scooby and his house. Scooby really likes his house, and for the last couple of winters I have kept a bulb in it to help keep him warm. I"m not sure he needs it, but it makes me feel better anyway!

[Edwin]

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This picture shows the South end of our house from Scooby's yard. The garbage containers hold goat manure. I was trying to grow some walnut trees, but we are at 2800 feet with very cold winters and hard winds blowing and out of a lot of trees I tried starting, not one of them survived. I do have a razberry bush and a prune tree that is growing!

[Edwin]

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This is looking more straight on to the South side of our house. The very small window on the right is my bathroom window. I use pallets to walk on, then the steps going into the house, and that way it keeps the house cleaner with less stuff getting tracked in. I sweep every time it snows, so I keep these pallets and the steps clean all the time, and that way no compact snow and ice builds up. When it is slick Carol throws a little rock salt on the steps, and that keeps them from being dangerously slick so that someone might fall down and hurt themselves, and we don't want that to happen to us or anyone else! You see the few concrete blocks I have left over. Winter set in so that I could not haul any more blocks up the hill. I didn't have enought remaining to build steps going into the house from Scooby's yard, but other than that I had just about enough concrete blocks. You can see our little make shift banti chicken house. I had a light bulb in it to keep them warm also. Two chickens and a rooster, and they lay a couple of eggs every other day on the average.

[Edwin]

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This is a closer view of the South end of our house. You can see a closer view of our steps and the block wall. Just below the window on the left is a pull out clothes' line. I have a post set, and you pull the lines out to the post and hook them on, then hang the clothes. That works very well when the weather permits. Sometimes it is raining, snowing, the wind blowing too hard, or it is too cold to hang the clothes out, but when they can be hung out that works very well!