SITE PREPARATION.. WHAT WILL TURN OUT TO BE A VERY DIFFICULT PART OF THIS PROJECT

 Before starting the site preparation, I did a temporary assembly ( at my home ) of the base ring to verify the diameter

 One of the reasons for building this dome, is to replace a small (ugly) wooden greenhouse that was built by a friend of the caretaker.. so I want to locate this dome (which I hope will be very nice looking) to be visible from our main deck, but not ruin the distant view.

All the property is on sloping ground.. so the site preparation has to be planned carefully. This is where I had the help of two local workers  ( Chano and Jose) who where already doing some repairs on other parts of the grove. (see photos).   

 Also my 4x4 Honda and trailer were a great aid (with me driving), from moving the excavated dirt, and bringing in the blocks and gravel. Fortunately my caretaker had a pickup I could borrow for trips to pick up the cinder-blocks and gravel from a great supplier of rocks, bldg mat'ls, etc. (South West Boulder & Stone), 3 miles away in the town of Rainbow.

LUCKILY, even with all the careful planning, I re-measured the space and discovered

it was too small.

So now how the hell do you pull out those re-bars that are 2 to 3 feet into the hard earth ??


Using a method suggested by the people at the tool rental place, I had a small steel piece formed at

one of the local welding shops.. slipped it over the re-bar and lifted the bars using the scissor jack from my VW   (see photo).

Finally, after a few hours of enlarging the space, we installed the first layer of the cinder-blocks to check the diameter, then re-installed the protective plastic barrier.

I decided to use, for the planned base, 3 staggered rows of 6x8x16 cinder blocks.. laying flat with the 6 inch height.. therefore building a 18" high base.. I didn't use cement, but we drilled down thru every other block and drove re-bar deep into the ground below to make the whole base stable.

I tried to create a moisture barrier on the high side of the slope using the plastic cardboard

held in place with re-bars

After completing the base, we assembled the base struts to verify the base was the proper size, and attached the base struts to the base with plastic clamps.
Upon realizing there would be alot of airflow through the cinder blocks into the interior, I bought a roll of galvanized metal and covered the complete interior, and the exposed exterior of the blocks.
Also, decided on placement of door opening for entrance at interior floor level, and cut blocks to provide the opening.
At this point, my son Michael and I were so excited at the progress, we couldn't resist assembling the first row of struts (which we had cut and identified that morning). Notice the containers of cut and identified struts.

This was now Saturday afternoon and we could have done more, but we had promised to wait till Sunday morning for Daniel (another son) and his two sons, Matt & Brian. to complete the dome assembly.


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