Howdy guys and gals, this is a project that i have been working on & off now for the past 3-4years, it involves a man, a dream, and some gut busting work, not to mention the unpaid hours sunk into this from the owner & others who can see his vision as a light at the end of a dark tunnel.........
SO whats the idea and whats the C.R.W.B.....
The vision is a multi level hotel/motel underground, the C.R.W.B is the old Central Red White and Blue mine that existed from the late 1800's and was re-mined during the depression years.
Some of you might have heard the urban legend floating around about a man that built a glass house on top of an old mine shaft years ago and that you could stand in his lounge room on top of a glass sheet and with a flick of a switch you could see a hundred feet down to 1st level....... well there aint no urban legend about it its the real deal.
The hotel/motel idea has been set aside temporarily for the time being while we tackled more pressing issues, like the rise in bad gasses coming up through the shaft from colapsing mine shafts in the vicinty from when the drought broke some years ago, having a 2 story house with the front being 90% glass on top of a 25-2900 foot deep shaft below it, the house acts as a draw point for other shafts in the area that have cracked or fallen in, therefore filling his sub levels with bad air, or well below 16% oxygen.
The plan...we needed to open up the old vent rise some 20meters away and start a cycle where as the bad air could have an easy acess to escape(by forcing good air down the main shafts) without making its way into the lower levels of his dwellings.
First we had to find it... a quick call to a mate with an excavator and we had soon located the vent (rise) that had been backfilled in the depression years, after a full day we managed to get as deep as we were going to get with excavator now it was time to to timber up and backfill,and work on a plan of how to bog/remove the waste to clear the rise.
The red line is just a guide to where the air rise is located
Digging kicked off with the excavator
Eventually got to the stage where the 3tn couldnt reach any deeper but we needed to push down an extra 1-1/2meters to fit in the timbering.So on the hand tools.
the top of the rise now
looking down the air shaft
So now we have to remove some 70cube of dirt to clear the rise so we can clear some of the bad air, the initial plan was to bog (dig) top down as if we were shrinking, but with added expences involved it was most likely well out of our reach, also with the dangers of working below a hoist and kibble, tight quarters, and poor air conditions once we started getting deeper the idea was tossed, so we decided to start removing the dirt from the bottom of the rise, now this can get trickey, and by that i mean "hang ups" this is when large rocks, old timbers, and anything else the old timers decided to throw in when the were backfilling, can get caught up at any level, therefore leading to a "hang up" and then you have to clear it somehow, this can be cleared by high pressure water blasting or a small explosive to shift the hang up....... fingers crossed this dosnt happen.
These first 2 pics are of the base of the air shaft at 1 level 100 feet down
Looking from the brow of the air rise back to the ladder way on the left is where a whims was used to lift dirt from intermediate level to 1 level the plan is to backfill an old stope there using the dirt from the air rise and try to keep throwing it down past 3 level (there is 100 plus feet between levels)
This old sign was last used in the 1930's for winch operator commands, notice the old timber work in the background
Looking down the ladderway from RL to 1 level, this timber work was done quite some time ago before the house was built, (not by myself), the guys that did this done a bang up job, the mian shaft consists of 3 shafts in 1
So there you have it, its a slow process, done the right and safe way this will be quite successful and hopefully solve the issue of bad air floating up into the owners house,there is so much to explore and some exciting visions from the owner to come to light at a later date, but for the time being the priorty is to clear this rise.
This is a pic from the top of the vent rise looking back to the house, the main shafts are directly centre of the house, i will keep you up to date as it progresses, with work and gold hunting in between its a slow process but we will get there eventually
.......................................................................
And you never know what we might find lying down in the depths of the mighty C.R.W.B
TO BE CONTINUED......
SO whats the idea and whats the C.R.W.B.....
The vision is a multi level hotel/motel underground, the C.R.W.B is the old Central Red White and Blue mine that existed from the late 1800's and was re-mined during the depression years.
Some of you might have heard the urban legend floating around about a man that built a glass house on top of an old mine shaft years ago and that you could stand in his lounge room on top of a glass sheet and with a flick of a switch you could see a hundred feet down to 1st level....... well there aint no urban legend about it its the real deal.
The hotel/motel idea has been set aside temporarily for the time being while we tackled more pressing issues, like the rise in bad gasses coming up through the shaft from colapsing mine shafts in the vicinty from when the drought broke some years ago, having a 2 story house with the front being 90% glass on top of a 25-2900 foot deep shaft below it, the house acts as a draw point for other shafts in the area that have cracked or fallen in, therefore filling his sub levels with bad air, or well below 16% oxygen.
The plan...we needed to open up the old vent rise some 20meters away and start a cycle where as the bad air could have an easy acess to escape(by forcing good air down the main shafts) without making its way into the lower levels of his dwellings.
First we had to find it... a quick call to a mate with an excavator and we had soon located the vent (rise) that had been backfilled in the depression years, after a full day we managed to get as deep as we were going to get with excavator now it was time to to timber up and backfill,and work on a plan of how to bog/remove the waste to clear the rise.
The red line is just a guide to where the air rise is located
Digging kicked off with the excavator
Eventually got to the stage where the 3tn couldnt reach any deeper but we needed to push down an extra 1-1/2meters to fit in the timbering.So on the hand tools.
the top of the rise now
looking down the air shaft
So now we have to remove some 70cube of dirt to clear the rise so we can clear some of the bad air, the initial plan was to bog (dig) top down as if we were shrinking, but with added expences involved it was most likely well out of our reach, also with the dangers of working below a hoist and kibble, tight quarters, and poor air conditions once we started getting deeper the idea was tossed, so we decided to start removing the dirt from the bottom of the rise, now this can get trickey, and by that i mean "hang ups" this is when large rocks, old timbers, and anything else the old timers decided to throw in when the were backfilling, can get caught up at any level, therefore leading to a "hang up" and then you have to clear it somehow, this can be cleared by high pressure water blasting or a small explosive to shift the hang up....... fingers crossed this dosnt happen.
These first 2 pics are of the base of the air shaft at 1 level 100 feet down
Looking from the brow of the air rise back to the ladder way on the left is where a whims was used to lift dirt from intermediate level to 1 level the plan is to backfill an old stope there using the dirt from the air rise and try to keep throwing it down past 3 level (there is 100 plus feet between levels)
This old sign was last used in the 1930's for winch operator commands, notice the old timber work in the background
Looking down the ladderway from RL to 1 level, this timber work was done quite some time ago before the house was built, (not by myself), the guys that did this done a bang up job, the mian shaft consists of 3 shafts in 1
So there you have it, its a slow process, done the right and safe way this will be quite successful and hopefully solve the issue of bad air floating up into the owners house,there is so much to explore and some exciting visions from the owner to come to light at a later date, but for the time being the priorty is to clear this rise.
This is a pic from the top of the vent rise looking back to the house, the main shafts are directly centre of the house, i will keep you up to date as it progresses, with work and gold hunting in between its a slow process but we will get there eventually
.......................................................................And you never know what we might find lying down in the depths of the mighty C.R.W.B
TO BE CONTINUED......
