Best laid plans . . .

It took us longer to do the first Trombe wall than we anticipated (isn't that always the case?) and the weather turned cold sooner than expected - after all it is winter! But one wall is done!

Here you see the first days work. The first two courses are 1 1/3 adobe blocks wide and are made from semi-stabalized blocks. It took us a couple of hours to do these two courses as there was a lot of cutting involved. Thank goodness for the circular saw we got ourselves for Christmas! With a masonry blade we were able to cut the bricks in about 1/4 of the time it was taking us before.

Here we are at the end of day two. I was able to get about three courses done and the window buck for the lower glass made. A single pane of glass will go in the "window" area below. The adobe bricks will be painted black. The sun will heat the adobes behind the glass, warming them up so that they will radiate warmth into the house once the sun goes down.

Day three and the Trombe wall is done!

A regular double pane window will be framed into the wall above the Trombe wall.

This is the wall from the inside. The top of the wall will create a wonderful place to start seeds in the winter.

It has now been a week and a half since we completed the first Trombe wall and all of a sudden we seem to be having more winter-like weather (thanks to that silly groundhog back east!) I have been itching to get out and put up the second wall but it's been too cold or there's been weather moving through so all I've been able to do is look at what we've done so far. It's probably going to be another week before we get a longer stretch of good weather but winter IS moving toward spring so warmer weather IS just around the bend!

Stay tuned . . .