Takin' ideas for the Bahamian Crizzle

Jack here.

Yo:
Feel free to email me some ideas y'all. I got some great ones from Jean, Michele, Curtis, Shannon, Madeline, Phyllis, David, and a few from a few other folks. We're going to work 'em in there the best we can, and in the meantime, keep 'em coming.

I've been busy designing stuff, a solar water heater, reusable concrete forms, and basically methodology and tools to get from a-z. Some of this is just to plan ahead, some of it needs to be understood/known now so that we can proceed and know what materials we'll be using so we know what tools to bring, etc. As I get further into the nuts and bolts of design, I've come up with the following:

Regular windows with wooden borders, in the even of a hurricane, precut plywood squares can be screwed to 'em.
Probably going to go with concrete walls, though I have been investigating block walls and wood walls (screwed and glued) as well. Though all three would be hurricane wind-proof if constructed right (triangulating corners, screws not nails, glue at all contact points, heavy sheathing, bolting wood structure to rafters as well as foundation, etc.) I'm checking into import taxes, shipping charges, how many blocks would be needed (2631), how many 80 pound bags of concrete needed (2928), how many linear feet of 2x6 needed (I forget), and after all that, I'm thinking at this point that it should be made of poured concrete, with rebar inside.

The design I have so far is a ten foot high first basement (30x40), and a fifteen foot high second floor of the same size. Well, maybe the main floor will extend ten or twenty feet further to allow for a patio walkout on the main floor. The roof will be flat, built from wooden trusses with a rubberoid coating painted white to accomodate the hot tub on the roof. The basement will be split down the middle by a main I-beam on posts to allow for 2x10 joists between the basement and first floor, and the roof will be made from trusses, 24" thick, 16" on center, that I'll make on site. The plumbing and electrical will be run through the walls before they're poured. The main floor would have no interior walls, except maybe a bathroom/shower. Thus the huge trusses on the roof- to have the strength for 40 pounds per square foot without interior supporting walls. Just one huge room with a kitchen on one end, a patio on the other end, basically wider than it is longer, to take advangage of the predominant north winds through the many windows to the north, and to blow through to the many windows and doorwalls facing south to the view of the water.

The big epiphany I had for today was this: when we make the concrete forms, if I coat them in something sticky like tar and lay them flat, I can sprinkle leaves on them, and then when the concrete is poured there will be leaf imprints all over them. That would be pretty cool in itself, but I was thinking that I could paint the leaves green and then roll the wall white, and if I do it lightly, then we would end up with green leaves all over a white wall.

The other one was that we put a gutter all around the house, we can have it feed a cistern that slowly drains into a perforated tube that runs through a garden for permanent irrigation with little ongoing work.

I've been pricing labor, rebar, and concrete down there, and minimum concrete trip charges, etc., so I can know how much of it we need to form at a time. I've also been getting ahold of utility companies so that we can have the utilities on soon after we get there.

I think we'll be getting a satellite for internet. We'll also have city water, propane we buy by the tank, electric stove, washing machine, clothesline for a dryer, a septic field for sewer, a bar on the roof, 4 garage bays in the basement to hold a fishing boat, weight room, music room, whatever, plus storage.

Things we have include a lot of tools, a fishing boat to fish with, the outboard for our fishing boat, cement mixer, welders, chainsaws, etc.

Things we need include: a boat with a deep vee design (longer is better for waves) for running between islands, scaffolding 20 feet high, 2 way radios, pruners, a bicycle, a ladder, a mop, an electric fence for the dogs, seeds for fruit trees and vegetables you want us to plant so they'll be ready when you get there, and who knows what else. If you have some scaffolding laying around, or if you see a hot deal on one of those items, let us know.