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My Fathers HouseThe 50th Anniversary
by Dave DeLaurant
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The DeLaurants moved west from Nebraska in 1947, insearch of a milder climate to aid moms recovery from
tuberculosis. For the exodus, dad built a 20 aluminum
house trailer, the modern equivalent of a covered
wagon. Mom, dad and Kermit lived inside this hot,
crowded can for their first three years in Fresno,
California.
Housing was scarce in the years
following WWII. Affordable housingmeant small and uncomfortable. The
DeLaurants moved from their trailer
into this tiny rental house, where dad
began planning a real home.
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Laurice DeLaurant had some definite ideas about his familys future home. First and most
important, the materials chosen had to be cheap. Clich or not, dirt was the cheapest substanceavailable.
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The pamphlet reproduced above was kept with some of dad's early construction sketches. He may
already have heard about soil cement, but I'm pretty sure that the design of his house came
information he found right here. He once mentioned that he had originally considered compressing
(ramming) this material into forms, but experimentation showed that it had sufficient strength
when poured (puddled) and allowed to set like concrete.
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After locating and purchasing a suitable lot for $500, a
detailed layout was worked up. Wall thickness conforms
to the soil-cement pamphlet, which recommends 12"
thickness for 8' height. As his drawing shows, the longestrunning walls are buttressed with intersecting walls to
stay within the recommended 30:1 ratio of length to
thickness. Note the chimney and extra kitchen window
in the early elevation at left.
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There wasnt much room in the construction
budget for machinery. Dad cobbled together
the mixer shown below using a circa-1900 gas
engine, which was later restored and put on
exhibit at a local automotive machine shop.
The formula for dads mud was
approximately nine parts clean soil to one
part Portland Cement. Kermit says dad
also added a coffee can of quicklime to the
mix. The soil had to be free of leaves androots, which meant he had to dig deep.
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Thick walls require a lot of dirt, which eventually resulted in a big hole in the ground. Making a
virtue of necessity, dad straightened and plastered the walls, put a roof over it and made it into a
storage cellar.
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Every building needs a solid foundation. The
footing for the load-bearing walls was made ofconventional reinforced concrete for maximum
strength. The concrete slab floor was poured
after the walls went up. This view nicely
illustrates the layout of the load-bearing walls
The soil-cement walls were raised in multiple courses approximately
6" high. The single set of forms was reused for each course.
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Dad used hundreds of US Army surplus tent stakes to brace his
forms. As you can see at left, the soil-cement courses were
reinforced with fence wire, salvaged brake-rods -- whatever
structural steel dad could come by cheaply.
As the courses of soil-cement rose, dad placed short lengths of
iron pipe in the mud; these formed tubular voids that served as
conduit for electrical wiring.
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Mom demonstrates how the mud was worked
into the forms. The work of lifting wet dirt was
much too strenuous for mom or pre-teen
Kermit, but both contributed to the project
however they could. Mom got a job with a
major hardware store, which allowed dad topurchase materials at a discount. When money
was especially tight, mom and dad sometimes
borrowed from Kermits newspaper route
earnings.
As the walls rose, the openings for
windows were roughly framed.
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The walls kept gradually rising,
6 at a time. Keep in mind that
each wet layer was poured into
place using ramps and an old
wheel-barrow dads strengthand stamina at that time was
damn near heroic! And he was
doing this on evenings and
weekends while working full-time
at a local rug mill!
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The walls were finally completed in 1952. Windows and doorways had a reinforced concrete lintels,
and the last course was a 'bond-beam' of conventional reinforced concrete. Dad finished framing and
sheathing the roof just as Eisenhower was elected for his first term. Years later he found the beercan that he toasted our new president with in the attic. Next came the composite shingle roof and the
exterior plaster and paint.
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Making things secure and weather-tight was vitalsince occupation was many months in the future.
This view shows the sheathing before painting, and
boarded openings. Note that the electricty is
already installed. The interior of the house served
as an enclosed shop where dad could both work
and safely store things between jobs.
The twelve-pane living
room window disguises
the fact that, except for
the bathroom window,
every glass pane in the
house is the same size.
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As with the interior floors, the front porch
slab was poured long after the walls went
up.
Here dad stands beside the two exterior doors. The back door
was purchased unframed, while the front was made by dad using
leftover pine sheathing and plywood. The large windows in both
doors were necessary for to provide additional indoor light.
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Dad adapted the ancient Roman hypocaust concept by using a system of iron pipe embedded in the
floor slab to serve as both concrete reinforcement and as a means to circulate hot water to heat the
house. A second water heater was used exclusively for this purpose.
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The big day came in November, 1954 when the DeLaurants finally
moved into their new home. Some of the interior rooms would not
be finished for many more months, but our family had written itslast rent check. And since construction was stretched over such a
long period, mom and dad were able to pay for things as they went
along not only were they now rent-free, but also debt-free!
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Dad never stopped making improvements and, insome cases experiments. Case in point: in the 1980s
he had a brief fling with the idea of backyard
hydroponic gardening. He put together this
greenhouse from salvaged materials and set up
surplus drums as a gravity irrigation system.
Unfortunately there were serious problems withmaintaining pH that dampened his enthusiasm, and
the greenhouse was left to slowly rot away.
In 2002 mom had a gardening crew remove several
dead trees and dads numerous junk piles, including
the decaying skeleton of the greenhouse. The workers
were surprised to find a rather large opossum living
inside. Five steel drums completely filled with used
motor oil, which he talked about recycling but never
did, required careful and rather expensive disposal.
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Another of dads household projects was an improved trash incinerator, constructed from firebrick
and a salvaged 50-gallon drum (he loved surplus steel drums!). The design worked so well that dad
looked into filing a patent, which was the purpose of these drawings. A friend did some research and
discovered that the basic concept was already covered by existing patents. Backyard trash burning
came to an end in the mid-1960s, due to air quality problems in the San Joaquin Valley.
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In the 1970s, dad pursued the moreenvironmentally-friendly practice of solar water
heating. Dads system used a parabolic trough
reflector to heat a blackened iron pipe, through
which water circulated to a storage tank by
convection. The whole system was constructed
from salvage for under $25, had no movingparts, and except for occasional resurfacing with
aluminum foil, required zero maintenance. It
was still in operation as late as 2001.
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In 2004 the house that Laurice DeLaurant built stood as solidly as in November 1954. Mom had a
new clay tile roof installed in 2003 -- this compliments the Spanish 'mission' look of dads original
design.
Dad couldnt have fully anticipated every consequence of his design decisions. He built for the long
term, but wasnt afraid to make daring choices -- some worked, some resulted in problems later.
Since he liked fixing things, such problems may not have been entirely unwelcome.
He made a special place for his family, and I will lay odds that it will still be here in 2054 -- which ismore than I can say for myself.
Thanks old man!