We were so happy to finally finish the exterior of the domes and pass our structural inspection in late October because that meant we could cover the nails with waterproof house wrap on the vertical walls, Grace ice and water shield on the roofs, and install the skylights, windows, and doors.
This is eastern California, so we are lucky with dry weather for building most of the year. But we do get a few storms in the fall and winter and I was hoping to dry in both domes by October. Didn’t happen!
I don’t know if you noticed our progress has slowed, dear reader. Jon loves surveying with his friend, Jeff, so much that he decided to become a Professional Land Surveyor. The first step he took was to study for and pass the Land Surveyor in Training test. The Board for Professionals pro-rated his part time experience, so it would take over ten years to be allowed to take the Professional Land Surveyor exam with experience alone.
Thus, Jon decided to enroll in Geomatics with an emphasis in Surveying, an online ABET accredited program, which will greatly reduce the years of experience required to become a professional. He started in September with what I would consider a full load.
I returned to work as a transportation engineer at Caltrans. There are still some people who remember me and were sympathetic to our dome building ambitions, so they worked to help me reduce my time to 3 days a week. My part time was approved just this week, whew! And, of course, I have my pleasure horse to care for and ride along the trails here. So, you see, we took on some extradomeular activities.
Back to the porthole! We originally had one triangle skylight in the living room and one trapezoidal skylight in the kitchen in the Minnedome. There are many large windows in the vertical walls. After sheathing the dome exterior and building the interior walls and loft, we could see that the bathroom would benefit from a natural light source.
We bought the smallest hexagon skylight that Natural Spaces Domes makes. It came in a little box. What a little cutie! Not as cute as Ziggy in a little box, though!
We held the included cardboard template up to the panel. It was a long reach for me because the trench is open and ready for water and electric connections, et cetera. After Jon took this picture, we realized we were off by one panel. Typical, hahaha!
Jon cut the hole out in the correct panel and we had an adorkable porthole!
It will provide a great light source in the bathroom.
Up next: Skylight installation!