While me and my father in law have been working on the office. My wife and mother in law have been working on the trench.

They first started off by gluing the rest of the foam boards together.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1352555262



They also took some time to sort through the piles of dirt that we had from digging the trench. There were tons of rocks in there. So, they've been going through and picking the rocks to lay them out around the foam for drainage.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1352555262

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...-house-004.jpg

Well, the trench was pretty much finished up yesterday by my wife and mother in law. They did a great job getting it all together.

FYI to those who were wondering, the PEX tubing went into the foam really well. However, I did have the PEX strung out straight in my yard for probably a month before hand, so it was straightened pretty decent. It was also a freakishly warm ~65F day yesterday so the PEX wasn't quite as stiff.

The first thing they did was drag about 10ft of pex into the basement, and they laid the pex in the trench and ran it to the solar panel rack.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...-house-022.jpg



After that they laid the foam board under it, they put the tubing in the grooves, put some glue on it and put the top piece on and threw some rocks on top.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1352640142



Between the basement wall and all the foam board pieces, they shot great stuff between to seal and insulate.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1352640181

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1352640181



Then they just kept going...

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1352640269



This is the solar panel rack end. They just cut everything and angled it up to ground level.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1352640269

For the record, the black Pur Fill can be used under ground and also under water. I probably should have mentioned this earlier.

This is pretty impressive and inspiring.

Thanks, its been quite a bit of planning and work.

I just realized that I completely forgot something while we were running the plumbing... I forgot to run wires for sensors! Its not a huge deal, I'll just have to dig a small trench for them.

Dang!! That sounds like something I would do!!

Oh well, at least you've got some nice girls, to do the digging. ;)
(Those two are amazing)!!

Here are the final pics of the work done over the weekend. As you can see the trench is all done, and the rack has been worked on as well. We got the horizontal beams up and lopped off the tops of the 6x6 posts.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1352837739

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1352837739

Is the rack finished?
Unless I missed it, why did you deviate from your original design of 8 posts (two rows)?

I've never seen a ground rack that only had a single row like this, most always used two rows which I assume is just for extra strength.

Keep up the good work!

If the rack isn't finished yet, are you still planning on adding crossbracing?

The rack is mostly finished. I may add some cross bracing. I'm not 100% sure. I don't have any immediate plans to add a second row of posts. If I get the panels up and it seems like its moving around a ton I'll probably put some in come spring time.

use a bigger wire like 16g for the sensor due to the run, and use 4 conductors in a PVC conduit, just in case.....