Oct. 2010: Septic system, part 1

The time was nigh for a long put off project. I had been trying to wrap my mind around this certain necessity since before I began building the house sculpture. During this October visit, three years into the project, I, with the help of my parents (yet to arrive) would build a code septic system. I had plans drawn up, but the building process was still foggy in my mind. As usual it was my intention to learn as I went along, one step at a time. I knew I would need a lot of gravel and sand so I called a local contractor, Steve Roche. He had brought me fill for my driveway the previous year and the locals spoke highly of him. Steve also turned out to be helpful whenever I had questions regarding the construction of the system as he had built a few of this type himself. This sort of design is called an enviroseptic system because of the special pipe used in the drainage field. Each length is 10 ft. long and 12 inches in diameter. Each piece is ribbed, perforated plastic wrapped in a filter cloth.

I also knew I would need a site leveler to know at what depth in the soil to place each row of the enviroseptic drainage pipe. Ted Pellerin, who had designed my system, offered to let me borrow one of his. It was an old fashioned sort, just fine for what I was up to.

With the leveling device I could determine how much from grade level to take off of the drainage field. I first made some 8ft. stakes to mark the four corners of the field. They needed to be tall in order to pass level of the fixed point at which the system would be built: a nail in a small fir tree nearby. Ted had picked this point and sited everything against it. By lining up the leveler with the nail, and aligning it to my stakes I could calculate how deep I needed to dig for the pipes to sit in their proper places: seems I still needed to take away another foot of dirt. More tractor time!

With the tractor's backhoe I lowered the grade level by about a foot. By that time Steve had delivered two loads of fill, one gravel and one sand. I used this material to build a berm on the lowest side of the drainage field. The lowest side would need to be built up more than the other three; about 30" from grade level. At this point I turned my attention to the location of the future septic tank. I needed to dig a large pit located between the house and the drainage field. The tank would need to sit at a depth relative to the waste pipe coming from the house. Set at a slight angle of 1/4" per foot, the pipe could enter the inlet flange at 54.5" from the bottom of the tank. The depth would change in accord with it's distance from the house. The plans called for a standard 1000 gallon tank which measures about 6ft. X 8ft. side to side and about 6ft. tall, (54.5" to the bottom of the inlet).

I had already measured and positioned the 4" waste pipe's angle starting where the main interior drain would be located under the house to where it would exit the side of the house. Knowing that height I was able to extrapolate the depth of the tank. I wanted to put the tank as far from the house as possible because it must by code be located at least 10ft. from any structure. My future plans for the house involve an addition to this side of the existing house. The location of the tank would therefore dictate how wide my addition could be. I thus began digging next to the drainage field. A big concern when digging in Maine is stone ledge. It's everywhere and makes digging to any great depth very difficult. In my case I needed to have a pit that was about 5ft. deep. With an excavator that isn't too difficult to achieve but with my little backhoe it's a little trickier. I had to dig around a bit and displace a lot of dirt and large stone before finding the spot where a level 6'X8' bed could be made.

It was at this point on a Thursday afternoon that some very welcome guests arrived. It was my parents all the way from Roseburg, OR to help with the completion of this mighty project.

September 2010

At the end of September, Sprocket and I arrived at the House Sculpture. It was still early afternoon so I had some daylight to accomplish something. The clearing for the septic still needed finishing before the inspector could come by and look at it, so I started up the tractor and got to work. I called him the next day; I think it was Tuesday. He said he could come by on Thursday evening, so I had a couple of days to turn my attention to the house and it's awkward kitchen. I have noted during several past visits the cramped feeling of the kitchen. Some part needed fixing or "adjustment". The culprit was within the camper section for sure, specifically the spot where the old RV refrigerator was located. I also had decided months before that the entryway was not right. The exterior door must be moved. Really, the whole kitchen needed to be pushed out and that meant more floor which meant more foundation.

Before I began working I did some thinking. I do lot's of standing around thinking. I wanted to picture how the upper floor would relate to the lower. The new section would be squared to the living room section with a second floor deck, I surmised, which will have an entrance from the second floor future master bedroom... and there might be some funky tower in there too. All that will sit upon a garage/ workshop area which will also serve as a seasonal dining room or a place for guests...or something like that...

First I figured out how a wall, square to the box of the house that was the living room, would meet the porch that extended off the kitchen. I then cleared and leveled two spots where two heavy "feet" would need to be located in order to support a load bearing wall that could eventually run flush with the living room. I made the feet with my usual method of placing two 8"X8"X16" cinder blocks together and filling them with concrete. The legs consisted of pressure treated 4"X4" blocks with treated 2"X6"s attached to form "I"s. I bridged them with a thick beam of rough-cut Hemlock. The span had to be rather long, about 8ft.. The floor's close proximity to the Pine tree that will eventually be at the center of the completed house made me want to tread lightly so as not to damage any roots.

When the stringers were in place and anchored to the deck it was time to put the sub floor down. But first I had to cut away another section of the camper (about 44") so that the floor could meet the camper's floor flush and attach securely. I first moved the old RV fridge and propane heater. I began cutting with the Saws-all and Kitty made herself scarce. She always knows when I'm about to make a racket. It's always a messy job removing bits of the camper. Shortly I had yet again cut away a section of my original "house" on this land. Now all that remained was a 6ft. section of what was once the camper's tiny bathroom.

With the removal of that section, the fen Sui immediately improved. Now, in my mind's eye I could see all the kitchen appliances, shelves and cabinets falling easily into their places. It was a stark contrast to my previous mental arrangement of a losing game of Tetris.

At this point in the day, late afternoon Thursday, my time was limited to close up the opening in the wall, but it was also time for the inspector to arrive. And he did just before 6pm.

As before, he had no concerns about my haphazard building style. He took a long look at the clearing I had made and at the plans Ted had drawn up for the septic system. He issued me a permit to continue with my plan, but expressed concerns about my narrow winding driveway. It may have to be widened to get a dump truck up there for the many loads of fill it will take to complete this septic project. But that is for another time, soon to come!

August 2010

My busy work schedule during the summer season rarely gives me an opportunity to get to Maine. Luckily, at the end of August we were graced with the visit of three lovely female tattoo artists from Philly. As much as I would enjoy their company as work mates, the time was ripe for me to excuse myself and take a trip to the woods. As a person who treasures his times of solitude, the hoards of tourists on the Cape can make me very uncomfortable over the period of summer months. That many people jammed into one space makes my skin crawl. I feel like I'm immersed in some kind of human ant colony. Provincetown and the outer cape takes on the inertia of the colony: continuous, mindless movement of doing and taking and consuming. More and more ants arrive all the time, filling the limited land mass and septic tanks to capacity, all with the same frantic goal of relaxation. They all do it together, all at the same time. It's what people do and that makes it okay. That's normal. normal scares me.

It is my ultimate goal to live in the house sculpture. It's location in the great North woods with it's "hearty" winters gives my wife pause.. but she's up to give living there a try, under expected conditions: there must be functional, modern plumbing. I would want nothing less for my lovely bride. The point is she's into it! All I have to do install a septic system, sewer pipe, drain pipe, vent pipe, water lines, fixtures and appliances. Easy. I suppose I must finish building the kitchen and bathroom too... All that may take awhile. I absolutely must spent a great amount of time in Maine this winter and finish this house!

Now this is more than just coaxing my girl into living with me in some shack in the wilderness. Having a house to live in on property I own (and will own outright in a few years) means something. It means that I will have created a home for a family that is solid and payed for. It will be a place for dogs and cats and kids to run amuck making adventures and a great many other things, thanks to the possibilities that a good chunk of property affords. The community around it is no economic power dome but it is a very friendly, self sufficient community. It is a good place for a kid to grow up and learn many useful skills. I might not make as much money up there as in other places like Cape Cod or New York but I won't need to. I would only have to make a fraction and could still support a small family. My expenses are already low as this place is concerned. Over the next few years they will only go down as the tractor and land is paid off. That leaves only food, utilities, insurance (blaugh) and of course taxes. Not much. If all goes well I maybe able to set aside a few bucks for the kids to go to college or mortuary school or whatever... but I suppose I am getting ahead of myself...

For the present I need to focus on this septic system. This alone is no small task and will likely be the most costly project connected to this entire undertaking. First thing I did

was call Ted Pellerin, the local soil tester. I needed him to look at my site, test the soil and stake out the location. I had arrived Thursday evening and was going to be there until I had to leave on Monday morning. Ted came by on Friday afternoon. He had been there before when I first bought the property and had tentative plans to build some kind of camp but my plans had since changed. He was surprised to see how much it had grown up over the last few years and was delighted to see what I had been up to. "It's a hippie house!" he exclaimed. He was really into the whole project and was hoping to do something similar to make retirement affordable. The next day he came by to show his wife. I was really happy to get such positive feedback from one of the locals.

After the site had been determined and test pits dug to determine drainage capacity, I was ready to start clearing the area. I sharpened the chains on my chainsaws and mixed a new batch of fuel. I felled several trees and cut them into firewood. I loaded the pieces into my truck and took to the porch on the other side of the house and stacked them into rows. After repeating this process a couple of times I was ready to do some work with the backhoe. After the tractor was warmed up and lubed I proceeded to rip out the stumps of the trees I had cut as well as those cut by Skip, the logger before I owned the land. Pulling stumps with a backhoe can go quickly if the stump is small or many years old but can be big projects as with big hardwoods like maple and oak. In any case removal involves digging around the stump and severing the roots until the hoe can pull it free. At that point I wrap the backhoe's arm around the stump like a bully putting a kid in a head lock and drag it to my big brush pile at the edge of the property where I drop it with all the other stumps.

Over the course of my three day stay I managed to clear the area of trees and stumps and cut and stack a fair amount of firewood for the upcoming winter. I had hoped to get some work done on the house, but alas it was not to be. I gathered up Sprocket my cat and headed back to the Cape.

Wedding Preparations, April 2010

My last visit in April did not yield any further progress on the house or the property but it did so on the family front. My mission was to gather supplies and prepare for my upcoming wedding on May 1 to my lovely girlfriend (now wife) Sarah. I arrived late that night on the last Sunday in April.

The first night I got drunk. I don't know why. It was my own personal bachelor party.

The next day I built the wedding arbor out of driftwood collected by my friend Kris. I tied the sticks into bundles that could be connected together to form an archway. I also wrapped rusty chains around the uppermost peak to hang down with a hook on which our ceremonial hand-fasting ribbons would be set after all was said and done. I then tied it up against the back porch of the house and arranged black metal tiki torches (purchased that morning in Belfast) around it as a sort of mock up of what the actual ceremony might look like. I wanted it to look as though castaways recently washed ashore had put together a wedding out of what was left over. I imagined how this event might look on the beach at sunset. The butterflies in my stomach began to flutter about for a moment, then they settled back down again to rest.

The next day my family arrived: Mom, Dad my brother Aaron from Bend, OR and my sister Allison from Portland, OR. It was the first time my brother and sister had seen the land so it was fun for me to show off my accomplishments. If we had had more time I would recruited them all to help me build a bridge or something..

The following day we all drove back to the Cape, picked up my Aunt Punkin (Diane to the layman) in Hyannis.

Time to have a wedding...

More interior work, Feb. 2010

I returned to Maine at the end of February. It was during a warming trend so I had no trouble driving up to the house without plowing. During the time of my stay the snow melted considerably thanks to a warm day of rain in the middle of the week.
Upon my arrival there were the usual chores to perform. I noticed that I was getting low on firewood. I still had enough to heat the place for at least a few more weeks but I felt that I needed to add to my reserve, especially since the weather was nice and sunny, ideal for outdoors work, and would likely not last. I felled some standing dead pine nearby the house and dragged them to the porch and cut them into usable pieces. Since the trees had been dead awhile I was able to burn the wood immediately rather than waiting months for it to season. Dead (and in some cases partially rotten) wood does not burn as hot or as reliably as well-seasoned hard wood but I figured I could use the recently cut stuff during the day and heat the house with the seasoned wood at night which will burn until the next morning with the stove dampened all the way down.
With that out of the way it was time to do something I had been putting off: call the local code enforcer. I needed him to come over to issue me a plumbing permit so that I could begin the rough interior plumbing. I was rather dreading this because to date no government official had laid eyes on my project. Maine (esp. the village of Monroe) has very little in the way of building laws. I see Maine politically as a Libertarian state. Compared with other states it's citizens are granted great freedoms concerning themselves and their own well-being. Their laws seem designed more to prevent anyone doing harm to others and the environment. This is one of the reasons that I love Maine so much. I'll get into my personal politics some other time but I am a big believer in personal liberty, so long as that freedom does not compromise another's.. So in building this monstrosity I could (theoretically) build it to implode on itself but if waste water was going to be exiting into the environment it could cause others harm so it would need to be regulated. Makes sense to me, but I was still afraid of what he might say about my unorthodox well and water system as well as the rest of my weird little house. But true to the spirit of Mainers, he looked over my project like he'd seen it all before (I think maybe he had) and issued me the permit for $30. So I was ready to plumb but that would have to come later, maybe next visit.
I had decided that this trip would be about creating storage space for much of the junk I have been accumulating over the past few years. In order to work on different parts of the house I constantly have to move the ever growing collection of old metal parts, automotive and otherwise fixtures fittings pipes valves anchors hangers books blankets lamps camping gear etc. etc.. So I decided that with some permanent storage like a closet under the stairs and a (maybe not so permanent bench in the living room) I could eliminate this game of musical shit I was always playing and open up the upstairs area enough to finish the walls and eventually the bedroom. I needed a sanctuary, complete with a door, carpeting and paint so that I could finally remove myself at the end of each dirty day from the ever present dust of construction.
So my first order of business was to build a closet. It was a little tricky deciding how to frame and situate it but at the end of day three I had a closet under the stairs with an interior light, shelves, hooks and a funny looking door I built myself. It also features built in bookshelves on it's exterior.

The next morning I built a bench that may later become some sort of entertainment unit... not entirely sure yet but for now it would be very useful for storage. Now it was time for another major cleanup that would take me the rest of the day and all of the following day to complete. That included reorganizing most of my building supplies and putting some outside or under the house.
For the last six months or so I had been sleeping on a mattress in one corner of the upstairs area along with all my "living" stuff but now it was time to move downstairs. I dragged the mattress down the stairs, opened up the sleeper sofa (donated by Jim Hutto) and threw the mattress on top of the open bed. It was the best way to save space and now it looks like I have a proper bed. After reorganizing or throwing out all the junk upstairs I was ready to get to work on building a real bedroom: a dust-free zone. Such a thing may also help entice my fiance', Sarah to visit more often.
I started off framing the walls that would enclose both the bedroom and the bathroom. Next I hung sheetrock and trimmed out the doors, skylight and windows. I left an opening in the wall where the stove pipe runs up through the roof. This will also be the location of the main waste vent for the toilet sink and shower. When that is all in place I will build an inset bookcase to finish off the walls in the bedroom. After a little more trim work around the ceiling and mudding the sheetrock I'll be ready to paint.
Unfortunately, at this stage, I was at the end of my visit so with a sad farewell I gathered up my cat Sprocket and departed with the hope to return soon..

First Year of Construction: October 2007

The building process began with the arrival of my parents in Oct. of '07. During their stay we were able to get a platform and a sub-floor constructed. It was also around this time that I found a tractor that I could afford. I really didn't expect the tractor to come along so soon. If I had known that I would have a tractor in a couple of weeks from the time I started building, I might have waited and used it to properly excavate a site to build upon. I suppose there are a lot of things I might have done different in hindsight. This "house" was originally meant to be something less house-like. Now into February of 2010 (2+ yrs. into construction) I'm not sure what I was thinking. I guess I planned for this place to be a bit of a practice run: a sort of shack that would go up quickly and simply. I just wanted an enclosed space to put a wood burning stove and some tools. The closest thing I've ever built to this was a fort when I was a kid.
This experience is very much the same as when I was a kid. I remember the same excitement and feelings of independence that the building process gave me. The biggest difference here, as an adult, is the access to better tools. As a kid I would plan and draw various fort designs. All my plans involved some kind of subterfuge like camouflage, building in a tree with a drawbridge or completely hidden underground. My greatest motivator was escape. Going to the Jehovah's Witnesses meetings was torture to me. Every other day of the week was another meeting where I was to have my mind boxed, over and over. I dreamed of escape from a young age but could never get beyond building or just imagining the refuge. Where to find food and clothing and other basic needs in the Oregon woods was beyond my elementary school level of confidence and intellect.
This is about a sanctuary. I am still trying to escape from something. Psychotherapy has illuminated escapism as a driving force in my life but hasn't eliminated it. Somehow I've learned to revel in it. I wonder what my therapist back in NYC would say about that... anyway, I feel like I am still running in anticipation of some kind of break down of society, an apocalypse. I need to build a place that is insulated from the economic world and as self sufficient as possible. I now have water and heat but energy and food are more difficult, expensive and time consuming to attain. I often wonder if this feeling of impending doom is brought on simply by observations of the fragility of the modern world's network of distribution and economics or if there is a deeper pathology brought on by the fatalistic view of Revelations that I was learning about before I could speak. Probably some combination of the two. Whatever the deepest motivators happen to be, this project gives me a feeling of purpose beyond all others to date. For now I'll just roll with it.
By the end of my October '07 visit, I had the lower floor of the house framed...

Jan. 2010 Interior progress

The winters in Maine always present extra challenges to my building (and living) situation. The mid-coast area of Maine is consistently 10 degrees colder than Cape Cod.. sometimes a little colder.. but those 10 degrees make a huge difference in the amount of snow and freezing conditions. Upon my arrival to the property I found about two and a half feet of snow had accumulated, so I parked my pickup on the paved road (Rt. 139) and walked in to where the house stood. It's only about 250 ft. from the road but trudging through snow that reaches past my knees is exhausting. When I reached the house I was completely winded. I first built a fire in the little stove and opened up the dampers all the way to really get it going strong and hot. On top of the stove I had left a large pot of water filled halfway, which of course by this time was a solid block of ice. As the fire got going, the water would melt and eventually become hot. I figured in an hour or so I could place the other frozen gallon jugs of water (that I had filled just before my last departure) into the pot to thaw them rapidly. I would need that water soon to prime the water pump. But that reminded me: when I drained the water from the system at the end of my last visit I forgot to drain the water from the pump housing. Oops. There are so many loose ends to tie up at the end of every visit that I inevitably miss one or two. This was a stupid thing to forget but not necessarily disastrous. I did drain the water from the rest of the system which probably left the housing only about three quarters of the way filled. with the taps open there was likely enough space for the ice to expand without cracking the case. The impeller would not move until all the ice was thawed but that was what the hot water would be good for. I hoped it was not damaged. (I found later that it was not). Nevertheless, at the time, I gave myself a good internal reproach. Who does something that stupid? Somebody in a hurry. That's who. An idiot. It's a good way to destroy a perfectly good pump and have no running water.. stupid.. I promised myself to return to that line of thought later. I switched on the ventilator fan behind the stove to direct warm air into the box containing the pump. That would help start the thawing process.
With no time to waste I made my way to the tractor. I would need to plow out the driveway to get my pickup off the road and up to the house. I pulled the tarp off the tractor: a beautiful 3203 John Deere with a front bucket that I can use as a snow plow. I turned the fuel valve ON, primed the glow plugs and START! The 32HP Diesel rattled to life. I love this machine. It's an incredible tool. I could not accomplish this project without it. As the engine was warming I gently praised the little tractor. I told it softly that it was a good tractor; a pretty tractor but very strong. I shifted into low and soon, after a few short back and forth movements I was able begin removing the snow from my path and eventually had enough clear space to get up the momentum to push the snow into piles. The snow was deep and I knew that I must be careful not to try and plow too much away at one time. However, being a man of very little brain, I got a running start and tried to push a great length of snow away in one sweep. "Gotta get this done!" I said,"I got shit to do and it's getting dark!" Ten feet into my long run the bucket was filled to capacity and dumping off the back under the front wheels. Another ten feet and the snow was up around the axles. Stuck! The wheels would only spin helplessly. Idiot! I'm an idiot. So I idled down the tractor and trudged off to get the snow shovel from the porch of the house. I dug around the wheels to remove all snow from the undercarriage leaving about a foot around each wheel clear. I started the engine, raised the bucket and I began moving the machine back and forth in low gear with the rear differential locked. Back and forth, adding a foot to each stride, I was able to back up far enough in order to lower the bucket. Back and forth, back and forth and then incrementally side to side and I had made a clearing big enough that I could begin again to clear the snow from the driveway.
Eventually I cleared a very narrow path to the road (about 6ft. wide) where my pickup was parked. It was just wide enough for the truck to pass, but I had to take a run at it in 4WD to make it to the top of the drive at the back of the house. Now I could finally off load some essentials like food and clothes into the (now much warmer) house. That was a good thing because at this point my ass was frozen. I would widen the drive the next morning.
It takes awhile to warm the house to a comfortable level: about 24 hours to be very cozy. This is because I not only must warm the air within, but that heat must penetrate the envelope of the walls and fill the airspace between the fibers of insulation to create a true barrier. It also didn't help that there was still a large section of the living room uninsulated. But that was soon to change with this January visit.


At more than two years into this project I have found that there is little point in planning what I will do before each upcoming visit. I never end up doing what I had planned. I take it day to day because to accomplish one thing there are usually many steps that need to be taken beforehand. When I am away from the project I have trouble visualizing all those factors.
The next morning after plowing the driveway again I decided that I must get better TV reception. Yeah, I have a little television. With a set of broken rabbit ear antennas it can pick up two stations depending on where in the room I was standing. I felt my TV viewing experience could be greatly improved with an aerial antenna. So I went to my local hardware store in Brooks and bought one. By the time I had it assembled and mounted to the roof, the first day of my visit was almost gone, but now I receive seven clear channels including FOX! Awesome! Now I could stay up to date with American Idol.


I spent the rest of the day cleaning and reorganizing to ready the living room for the task I had decided to embark upon the next day: finish wiring, insulating and sheet rocking the living room and trim out the windows. I also did some work to the mantel behind the stove, adding insulation, lights and a mirror from the trash. This process ended up taking the remaining four days of my trip.




This brings the insulating process to a fair level of completion. There is still a wall to insulate in the kitchen.. there's still a hell of a lot to do in the kitchen. At some point I really need to put more insulation under the floor, but for now the house's ability to hold heat within and repel the outside cold is vastly improved.
I am reminded of what it was like before the completed roof and walls were in place. I would sleep on an old couch pulled up next to the stove buried in blankets.. no electricity.. but I'll leave the telling of that yarn for another time.