Seal the Hatches!

Sealing the Hatches
One of the last construction items on my list is sealing the hatches to the trenches where I access our plumbing. I designed the DWV plumbing such that almost all of the clean outs come to just a few hatches so that everything is easy to clean out in the unlikely event I need to access these junction pipes but sealed away for easy sanitation. This minimizes the crevasses in the production rooms.

In the foreground you can see the open hatch down into the plumbing trench in iCutter. Through the doorway you can see the hall hatch in place in the background. The hatches are 1/4″ thick stainless steel tread plate for strength and so they’ll never corrode. Never’s a long time so this saves on maintenance.

All the floors are polyurea coated and slope to floor drains so we can just wash everything down easily and quickly. Easy sanitation is good sanitation. The hall floor actually slopes in two directions from the central hatch – the east to a drain at the front door and the west to a drain outside the kill floor. This will help to keep a separation of traffic dirt tending away from the iCutter which is raised about 1.5″ above the hall floor to give it a little extra sanitary protection.

We refer to these as our Oubliettes – secret places to stow away political prisoners should the need arise. Every mountain fortress or castle needs a few good oubliettes where one can forget one’s troubles.

I did not want to seal the hatches until everything related to plumbing, electric, communications, ventilation and such were totally complete. Now that the septic is connected, the source water is hooked up, the water test is passed and the system is all been run for hundreds of gallons as a whole I finally got to that big day of sealing the stainless steel tread plate hatch covers in place.

May I never have to access them again… But if I do, I know I can!

This is almost the last construction item on my list for the Butcher Shop. The very last construction detail is the Aqua which I have in progress and am about to install.

Last week I submitted the label sketches for preliminary review with the new Vermont Department of Agriculture logo and supporting documentation.

Right now am doing paper work for our HACCP/PR and SSOP plans.

Outdoors: 74°F/50°F Partially Sunny
Tiny Cottage: 68°F/64°F
Butcher Shop: 59°F/59°F in iCutter

Daily Spark: “It’s difficult to do that without a time machine and they will be outlawed in 2158.” -Retlaw Esov