Today was a shortened day with no pictures because while we were there, the guy running the bulldozer and moving around the giant piles of dirt blew a hydraulic line when he hit a piece of lead (?!). We were talking to the neighbor, who had stopped by to say hello, and we heard this giant POOOOM and turned around to see stalled bulldozer with smoke and steam billowing out of it. The driver got out slowly and crankily and went off to radio his team to get a replacement. We had to leave before things got going again. Hopefully they did eventually get going again…

We also met with our builder at the site and he brought over a device that shows you the orientation of the sun at various times of the year based on your latitude and location. He mounted the device on a tripod and put it right abuot where the sliding glass doors to the porch will be and then inserted a paper insert for our area. On top of that, he placed a glass globe. If you look at the glass globe you can see a reflection of the trees in a 360’ view and, by following those reflections across times and seasons, you can see what trees might potentially occlude sunlight which is essential for generating the solar heat load needed for passive solar heat.

Using this device we figured about 6-7 more clumps of trees to the south need to go to make sure that we get ample solar gain in the dead of winter. We were glad he brought it because, even though the trees are maples and cherries, we would rather have all of these trees taken down now rather than worry about it later.

When we left today, the bulldozer operator was working on the bulldozer and there were tons and tons of earth left to move. We’ll be back tomorrow though and hopefully we have some good news.

Related to that, we should be getting a final contract Friday or Monday from the builder and his project manager. Once we sort that out, we will really be in full speed mode. They will need to order doors, cabinets, and especially windows as soon as possible and the clock is ticking.