A mountain to cross before the slab is poured

We're looking at a mountain to cross over before we even get the slab poured. The Terra-Dome guys are gone, and there's so much to do.
This is a short list (for the immediate future) of things to get done on the house. Bear in mind that some things can be done in parallel (if we have enough people to do them). So far, it's just the wife and I, and so this is going to take time.

• Clean up the job site. There is an enormous amount of debris, trash, nails, form pegs and wedges, rebar tie-wire, tools, etc. strewn all over the job site and surrounding area. I can't even mow until some of the grass is inspected for pieces of rebar, tools, etc.
• Utilities to the house
  This involves:
1. trench for the water line (avoiding the well, the slab by the shed (where the pressure tank and other well water pluming is), as well as the water and power lines to the garden shed.
2. trench for electrical line (avoiding the phone line to the quonsit, and an irrigation line to the pasture).
3. trench for a propane line
4. finish the trench to the waste water treatment system (the storage container sits in the path of this today, and I'll have to pay extra to get the Mini-Mobile company to drive out and move the container).
5. At some point in time, I need to repair the water line to the garden shed. I damaged it when putting in the french drain at the northeast of the house. I worked so hard to avoid that line, and still managed to damage it.
6. Phone line to the house (even if we don't immediately hook up phone service, we still need to provide for a way of getting the line into the house when that time comes. Otherwise, the guy that the phone company sends out to do the installation, will want to run his phone cable on the outside of our house, stapled in some fashion to the exterior surface, and then he'll drill into a wall to get the wire into the house, and then he'll want to staple it along an interior wall to get it to a phone. I'd prefer to provide a conduit that he can get it into the house from, and then I will have conduit to each of the phones in the house. That way, no staples and no hassles later.
7. I want to provide a fresh air intake for our wood stoves. It'll just be a small pvc pipe that will bring in outside air so that when the stoves burn oxygen, they'll have their own air supply. A tight house must provide oxygen to anything with a flame or else we'll have to open a window in the middle of winter (which defeats the purpose of the stove). We'll provide an air supply for our kitchen stove too.


• gravel distributed below slab level in preparation for sub-slab utilities
  sub-slab utility installation




• I'll likely bring in a plumber first, because that work needs a specific slope (for flow) and it's easier to make electrical conduit go around a waste water pipe, than it is to get a waste water pipe to go around something else. (the bad part in having the plumbing roughed in first, is that the workers that follow usually need babysitting, because they don't care about anything but their own work, and will totally trash anything done before them, giving no mind to the fact that they're ruining other work. For the cost, I'll need to babysit to protect work as it gets done). I'm hoping that while the plumber is doing his work, that I can be working on some of the waterproofing tasks (so we can have two things going on at the same time).


• 
  We'll get an electrician to install the main breaker box and bring in electricity from the pole, but once that's done, Rachel & I will run all the electrical circuits throughout the house, as we have done in the current house. Of course, all of the sub-slab electrical stuff will need to be done first.


• The central vacuum lines and electrical circuit will be installed sub-slab.


• The propane lines will be brought in (maybe by the plumber) and roughed-in.


• I'll be installing security wire lines to all of the windows and doors, so this will need to be set up below slab as well.


• We'll be setting up all phone, computer networking, stereo and television lines sub-slab. The network lines will include lines for surveillance cameras (probably ip-cams). (We might not install all of these things up front, but if the conduit is in place, then it's easier to add later)


• 
  The television cable is a little tougher for me to know what to plan for, so I'll just have to size well for future cable. With the transition to high definition, I'm not sure what cable to run for video (I'm most familiar with coax, which is definitely old technology).


• Waterproofing the exterior:


• 
  All of the areas that will be buried must be waterproofed first.


• Waterproofing involves more than just slapping petroleum products on surfaces. Whenever possible, the ideal thing is to create paths for moisture to flow, so that it will flow away from the house. The best waterproofing system is one that doesn't get wet (or that doesn't stay wet very long). Water is an unstoppable force, so if you don't create the paths for the water to flow, then it will find its own path and that's rarely a good thing.


• Jerry recommends using some hydraulic cement at the bottom of the inner surface of the parapets, where they meet with the tops of the overhangs. He indicates that rounding this corner out will cause water to flow away from the base of the parapets, rather than possibly collecting in tiny cracks there. This recommendation seems like a good idea to me, so I plan on doing this. It's a bit of additional engineering (as with most waterproofing).


• Before any of the waterproofing material, we need to wash the loose grit off the roof. We've already been up there sweeping some initial stuff off, but there's much more to do. After sweeping, I'm hoping to hose it down (with some pressure) and then once dry again, I want to take the shop-vac up there and see if I can pull up the dust with that. Waterproofing material sticks best to a surface that is clean; not covered with grit, dust, etc.


• The current plan is to use the Ecoline-T (it's a thicker substance) on all of the steel "straps) that go through the concrete walls (these straps are used inside the forms, to tie the exterior to the interior so that the forms don't buckle from the pressure of freshly poured concrete).


• The Ecoline-T will be used in the "valleys" between dome modules
  Any bubble holes in the exterior concrete will be filled with Ecoline-T.


• Ecoline-R will be spread over the roof and the exterior walls (the ones that will be buried), including the back sides of the retaining walls. It'll be rolled on with a paint roller (with a good nappy roller). We'll likely do a couple of coats of this messy stuff.
  I should point out that there's an Ecoline-S material that can be sprayed on. The thing is, it would take special equipment, which I don't have and don't want to buy. For someone that is willing to do that, the Ecoline-S might be a better choice than the Ecoline-R, but I'd check to make sure the thickness is the same (or better).


• Paraseal (it's a membrane) will be rolled out and cover the valleys between domes, as well as the overhangs and up the sides of the parapets (all this area will eventually be buried).


• The next step will likely be to protect the waterproofing with 2 one-inch layers (with overlapping seams) of extruded polystyrene (rigid foam insulation), although Royce Hamer in Canada (Drayton, Ontario) suggests to me that I should be using a sprayed foam insulation (which will have no seams) instead. I'm going to get more information on this, but I'm going to have to figure out it rather quickly to get this work done before winter. The insulation not only insulates, but it also provides protection of the waterproofing layer from pebbles and other somewhat sharp objects.


• French drain flexible pipe (like http://www.flex-drain.com/) will be run in the valleys and along the overhangs to provide space for water to leave the roof. I plan to make sure that there is a bit of grade beneath the pipe to insure that there'll be a way for the water to flow away. A "sock" (filter fabric) will cover the drain pipe to assure that dirt will be kept out of the pipe but water will be allowed in.


• I've toyed with the idea of a sump pump at the southwest corner overhang, just to help any water that collects there to be pushed to an area of the overhangs that it can flow off the roof. I'll likely put in some casing so that it'll be there in the event that I want to inspect from the surface to see if water is collecting there later, and I will always be able to install a sump pump there if the casing is already in place.


• We'll put in a couple of feet of dirt (probably cheap fill dirt above the insulation and french drain pipe. I'll use the dirt to create flow paths for water to flow away from areas most vulnerable (valleys between the domes, and the overhangs).


• Once the two feet of dirt is in, we'll employ a PAHS (passive annual heat storage) ( http://www.primedesign.us/self_heating_houses/pahs_article_1.html ) "umbrella" system , which will add a membrane (possibly a pond liner or four) to make water flow off the roof, as well as another inch of insulation to allow for heat storage (or cool storage) in the two feet of dirt. We'll protect the umbrella layer with synthetic fiber carpet. We'll get this for free as it's going to be buried, so there's no need for brand new carpet. We'll get throw-away carpet that would end up in a land fill. It'll just be on our roof protecting the umbrella layer from rodents.


• Above the umbrella will be one foot of top soil, which will then be planted with grass. (Rachel wants an herb garden on the roof, but I don't know if we'll have that off the front or if it'll come later. We might just have grass at first to get a root system that will keep the top soil from erosion problems. I'm hoping we can get a grass with a great root system, but that doesn't grow very high very fast, so that we don't have to mow it so often. I'll be picky about what we allow to grow on the roof, because I want to protect the umbrella layer and the waterproofing. There'll be no "woody" plants allowed on the roof.


• Did I mention that the PAHS umbrella system actually extends out into the berm? Before we can put dirt on the roof, we're going to have to berm up the north and east sides of the house. This will require the service of a bulldozer, as well hauling in more dirt (we don't have nearly enough).


• Luckily, the Terra-Dome guys already insulated the overhangs and parapets.


• We will need to put sheet insulation (2 inches) on the front (non-buried) walls of the house. There's a glue made for this insulation.


• There's a lot of work to do on the roof, but once it's done, I'll never have to deal with it again. Tornados wont tear it off. Hail wont damage it. The sun wont wear it out.

Bear in mind that I haven't even written anything about getting the slab poured, or putting in doors and windows to close the house in. There's so much to do with the waterproofing and utilities, and I see no reason to even write about anything further until these are done. Building a house takes lots of labor; lots of time; lots of patience; lots of determination; lots of engineering; ... and lots of money.

Oh, and somewhere in all this, Rachel & I still have to keep the current house up, keep up the garden, go to work Monday through Friday, keep the place reasonably mown, and somehow work in a life. This is gonna be tough.