6 Months of Planning: We're Building Her HYPERADOBE BENCH

We have a perfect storm of things happening. We have perfect weather. Uhhuh. Eric's here. Eric. All the kids are here. It's cool outside. The dogs can be in the doodle pin. We're going to build a bench. Oh, you weren't supposed to say what we're building. It's too late. We're going to build something fun. But never stop smiling. Sun. We got a little jealous of Eric's bench after we built it in Canab and Ashley's been wanting to build one ever since. So, the area is prepped and ready to go. She's been planning this for a while. We have all the material 6 months. Just 6 months. [Music] We've got We got power. We've got mixers. We've got kids. We're ready to go. [Music] Okay, before we get started, here's what we're doing. We are making a gigantic bench. basically two of Eric's benches because we need a conversation area. So before we get started, we want to pull a line directly north and south. And those are going to be two entrances. Instead of like a big circle with one entrance, we're going to have two just so it's not crowded. And then our next step is we have this line pulled. We're going to see how wide Eric we're going to see how wide we want the opening to be. Two or three feet. Just enough to walk through and then we can start laying backs. How about water? It's been raining so much. We don't need water. It's rained. I mean, it is wet. You want to just try it without? It rained all day yesterday. not doing it this way next time. I just wasn't paying attention. Everything's fine. It'll get on the bucket either way. So, you might be wondering how we're assembling the bench, right? 18-in bags, which we've only used at Eric's place. Yeah, we haven't ever used 18 inch here on the homestead. So, we're going to do two, not layers, but two sections of 18 in put together side by side on each part of the bench. That way, you get like a really deep bench. And then, we're going to lay 12 in on the back half as a back rest and armrest. It's kind of confusing. You'll see what we mean later, but we got to start with 18 in and get our base layers done. What if I do things that I can't change? See, I'm never satisfied. People tell me love is fine, but I'm haunting with my eyes. Ever happy keeping it the same. Cuz I live for the chase. [Music] Guess I live for the change. running after things that I can't change. See, I'm never satisfied. People tell me love is but I'm haunting with my eyes. Never ever keeping it the same. Cuz I'm there for the chase. Okay. Is it starting to make sense now? See how we got two 18s right next to each other? Now I got to do the same thing on this side. And we'll keep building them up. And we don't know how high yet because we're going to do the sit test when we get there. But that's we still have a ways to go. So [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Hey, [Music] hey, hey. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Johnson wants me to tell you what we've done so far. We've laid four bags. So, we are staying with the um everything's based off of the center point obviously cuz we like to do that. It's directly north and south. Come see, you know, we're just going to keep going up until we do our sit test and we find a height that we like and then we put a back rest on it and it's going to be perfect. We can we even have room for a fire pit if we want to put a fire pit here. So, I'm very excited. We just need to keep going, right? Yep. Well, we lost some kids, though. Yeah. Nobody's out here. Just us. Well, a couple of them are in with the doodles. Yeah. Do you want to just try to do it with us? I mean, might as well. Yeah. If they come out, they come out. If they don't, well, hello. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Heat up here. [Music] We've built a lot of earthback structures here on our property and over the years the only way we had to power our mixers and our tools was with a gas generator. It was noisy and smelly. It was hard to move around. But thankfully over the last 5 years a lot of that has changed. Thanks to our sponsor Jackary, now we can do this a lot quieter, safer, and simpler. Today, we are taking a look at the Explorer 5000 Plus and the Home Power 3600 Plus to see which of these might be the right fit for you depending on the projects you've got going on on your homestead. Here are the two units side by side. And besides the obvious size difference, what you can't see is the weight difference. This thing isn't too bad. This one weighs twice as much. Thankfully, both have an extendable handle and rolling wheels so that they're easy to move around. Now, the 5000 Plus does have an additional set of casters on the front with locks, which is very handy. But listen, if you're going to like take one of these, put it in a car, go work on a job, I definitely go with this one. It's easier to pick up and get into your vehicle. These both have similar features, so we'll cover those first. Both of them have high quality LFP battery storage inside with a BMS, two 100 W USBC plugs, two 18 watt USBA plugs, and four 120 volt 20 amp outlets. Now, during our testing, we did find that these AC outlets are a little bit different. We're going to get to that in a second. Both allow for high-speed AC charging, UPS low latency switchover, zero drain technology, easy expansion, and low voltage PV inputs. Here's where they start to differ. The 3600 Plus has three and a half kilowatt hours of storage, a 3600 watt inverter that powers those four outlets, and a 120 volt 30 amp TT30 plug. You can chain two units together and run each one as a hot leg to get 240 volt power. Or you can add additional battery packs for up to 21 kwatt hours of storage. The 5000 Plus includes 5 kwatt hours of storage, a 7200 watt inverter, has a 10 amp cigarette lighter port on the front, and it has native 240 volt support built into each unit with the L1430R, 1450, and AC expansion ports. To really max out the system, you can add additional battery packs and chain two units together via the smart transfer switch for a whopping 14,400 W system with 60 kW hours of storage. Speaking of the smart transfer switch, only the 5000 Plus integrates seamlessly with a powerful UPS system and the Jackary app for cost-effective essential home backup solutions. And the 5000 Plus goes even further with its solar input options, allowing you to build your own high voltage arrays and connect with standard MC4 adapters. Now, we've done a lot of tests with these units. You've probably seen some of our other videos. And with the exception of one major tool, they've been able to handle everything that we've thrown at them. transfer pumps, grinders, saws, mixers, tool batteries, kitchen appliances, no problem. But so far, we've been unable to get our 90 amp century welder to work with the 3600 plus. I think it's the smaller inverter and the way that these AC plugs are tied together in their amperage and wattage maxes, it's just a little too much so that the welder stalls out and constantly is stopping and starting. So, if you don't need to weld, the 3600 plus is the perfect mix of power and portability. But if you need to do those big heavy duty jobs, definitely go with the 5000 plus. Right now, Jack is running their prime big deal days. If you've been looking to save a bunch of money on a solar generator, this is the time of year to do it. So, use the link in our description, go check it out, and let's get back to building this bench. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Music] All right, end of day one. I mean, technically you worked on it before, but this is like the first day of laying bags. Day one, two layers on all four sections of it. That's a lot of dirt. We went through almost nine tons of material for about 2 4 6 8 160 feet a bag. It's a lot. Yep. So, we're going to go up at least one or two more layers before we start the back rest. And that's what we're going to do tomorrow. [Music] [Music] All right, we're back out for day two of the HyperDubby bench. We're actually live streaming right now, which is fun and weird and kind of like Inception. And uh we're just gonna keep working on this today. Gonna go up another course or two and that should get us pretty close to sea height. So, let's get started. [Music] We can do anything that we want to do. Long as you got me. And I know I got you. We a team, no in between. And we can be anything that we want to be. Long as I got you. And you know you got me. We a team. [Music] Okay, we just did a big long live while we built all this. We did two sections here and then just one right here. So, we'll have to do this. But, it's time for lunch. We're going to take a break. We'll come back to it later. All right, kids. Well, we were going to do a live this afternoon and we just don't have it in us. We're too tired. So, we're going to do a little bit of bag lane. Pretty low key. Not a lot of even video. We're just going to hang out and lay some bag and uh see how far we get. Energy is low. Yes. [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Music] Okay, that's it for the day. Yeah, it's a lot of bags in two days. Yeah. Um, thank you, Eric. Uh, it's been a pleasure. Have Have I told you guys yet how much I love the bench for me? You're like, I just need to see another one become real. It's true. Me and my mom enjoy that bench frequently. Good. Uh Banjo enjoys the bench daily. Of course he does. I miss Banjo. Me, too. All right. Calling it another day. Yeah. [Music] We are back out at the bench and we're going to lay just a little bit more. Yeah. But we're not going to finish it. Do you know why we're not going to finish it? I do. Can I tell them? Yeah. We're going to be hosting a workshop to show you how to finish this bench and to get your hands on more Hyper Adobe. Yeah. November 1st and 2nd. It's going to be a weekend project. So, what we're going to do is we're going to finish building this back side and then we're going to leave this side for everybody else to build up and then we're going to plaster it. It's going to be a really fun weekend. Kind of like the planter workshop. Two days, breakfast and lunch each day. You can camp on site. And that's pretty much it. Like, it's it's up. It's ready to go. You can register. I'll put the link here. But in the meantime, we got to start laying bags. Let's go. [Music] [Music] [Music] One of the nice things about laying these bags is you only have to tamp the inside side. You don't have to worry about this side. Makes it way easier. I know all of you are like, "Hey, what are all those pieces of wood on the bench for?" Well, I'm here to tell you these are going to be cleat because we are going to be putting a back rest and an armrest on each side. So, we're going to be using 12in bags. For the bench, we used 18, two of them right next to each other. And this back rest and armrest is a 12-in bag. We're going to start here. There will be a cleat here, by the way. And we're going to wrap it around, make a really nice, beautiful curve. Go all the way around. And another curve for that armrest. So, before we get started, we need to make cleats. So, nails up through the plywood, nailed into the bag, staying along the outside edge here as much as we can. Then we can start laying back. I want to be happy. I want to be happy like you. You make it look easy, right? I want to be happy like you. I'll be happy. You make it look easy. Can you please do it? What is your plan? So, you may be wondering why we're not using the nail gun to go into the bag. Well, way way way way back when we first got the nail gun, we were trying to do it on the house. The bag's just too hard. The nails bend up and then it could mess up the nail gun. So, we have to do this part by hand, which is kind of a pain, but it means the bag's really hard, which is good. How are you supposed to lay the bag? Very carefully. [Music] Some of you might be wondering why so many cleats. It's a lot of cleats, right? I mean, technically HyperDubby bags do stick to each other and they shouldn't, you know, push off. But in this case, because it's a bench, because everyone is going to be sitting on the far bags and leaning against this, we just want to triple check and make sure that this bottom layer is stuck here really good. And then as we lay the layers up higher, we'll probably just put in a few cleats here and there. Um, but this base one, we want to make sure it's really good and stuck. Stuck. Stuck. Really good. And secure. That's it. Secure is a good one. You want me to do something? Yeah, I do. [Music] Hey, [Music] hey, hey. [Music] So this is real finicky. I think before we do another layer, we're going to try to build a little mini bucket system. I think a 2 and 1/2 gallon bucket. Two of them cut and taped the same way we do the 5gallon. I think it'll be really close. That's my theory. We'll see if it works. But this is this is definitely too fiddly. I think we're working too hard here. So, we want to try to make this a little easier. You came out of nowhere like a bullet train. You were so familiar, but you're not the same as all the other drifters who have lost their way. You remind me of a love that never changes. Now's the time. Now's the moment. Yeah, now I see. Turn my head around and make you smile back at me. Now's the time. Now's the moment. Yeah, now I see. tell you that there is nothing that's out of reach. We are the dreamers, the light keepers. We are one. This is our time. Bing approved. We are the dreamers, the lightepers. We are one. This is our time. This is our time. While you find your footsteps and I breathe again, there's a new connection that's as old as where love was all that mattered and you were young and free. I'm all to you as you are all to me. Now's the time. Now's the moment. Yeah, now I see. Turn my head around and make your smile back. Now's the time. Now's the moment. And now I see. tell you that there is nothing that's out of reach.