Off-grid post, 3.13.19, building ideas

As I wrote yesterday,  this was stuff off the top of my head.  Today, I committed it to paper.  Along with that, I made some alterations.

The rainwater collection pit could be above ground, saving me the need to excavate a lot of dirt.  I could pour my slab on the south side of the site, put cinder blocks around it, and build the floor above it.  Rainwater off the roof can be diverted into this tank.  The cinder block walls can serve two purposes, then.  As a water retention pond, and a wall.  The part above the tank would be the wall.

How high for the cinder block wall?  With only a small slab, it could be only a couple feet high, but with this idea, I could go higher.  But a couple feet on the south side is all I should want, because this will have a glass wall.  The glass wall allows sunshine in during the cold months.  A cover will prevent sun from heating up the place during the summer.

The north side of the solarium will have a higher wall.  The wall will face the trailer side, which is to be to the north.  A smaller slab will be on the trailer side, as mentioned earlier.

These ideas are now on paper.  That, and some calculations about how much materials I will need.

I didn't include wall materials.  If the cinder blocks aren't going all the way up, then the walls will have to be composed of something.  Perhaps metal.  Metal is more expensive than plywood, and costs have to be considered.  A cinder block all the way up could be cheaper, if I did it all with homemade concrete.   But what a bunch of freaking work.

An idea to get the sand occurred to me.  Once you break through the soil on top, the bottom layers get easier to use a shovel on.  At any rate, the augur bit chewed through that sand pretty well.  I could get the sand pretty easily.  As for gravel, that might have to be hauled in.  The less I use of that, the better.

Here's an idea:  Have a dump truck deliver about 20k pounds of gravel.  I'd still have to dig up 20k pounds of sand.  That doesn't make me feel confident.

This has to be considered a bit further.