Cedar Ridge Farm

First smoke–building the chimney part 2

2011-10-24T21:35:00.001-06:00

After getting started on the chimney nearly a month ago, I continued to work on it as the weather permitted and as I had time. The first day on my own, I was able to install the thimble where the stove pipe will connect on the inside, and I was able to continue above it a few courses. The next day required cutting a hole in the roof and extending the chimney above the house.

I was able to take the chimney high enough above the roof that day so that I could flash around it, just in case it decided to rain. For flashing, I used aluminum flashing material that I already had. I put a piece across the front, pieces up each side, and a piece across the back of the chimney. Also, when laying the bricks, I etched the mortar for step flashing on the sides and for the flashing on the back. Based upon a recommendation, I used polyurethane caulk to seal the edges of the flashing and underneath it.

As the chimney continued to build high, it became necessary to set up scaffolding in order to keep it going. I nailed some 2x8s together, leveled up this framework on the roof in front of the chimney, tied it to the portion of the chimney already constructed so that it couldn’t slip out of place, and set up a section of scaffolding on top. This worked out very well. I was able to build the chimney nine feet above the roof with this one section of scaffolding.

I debated making the chimney only 7 feet above the roof, but finally decided on going the full 9 feet. I figured it would be easier to add the extra section of liner and bricks now than it would be to do it later on if it became necessary.

Finally, on October 11, I finished the chimney. It is 20 feet tall, extending from first floor level in the house (it stands on its own foundation). On that day, I laid 14 courses of brick and capped it with mortar around the last few inches of the clay liner. I took down the scaffolding, finished the little bit of flashing that I hadn’t completed (some step flashing on the east side), added a little more polyurethane caulk, and took some photos.

At the end of last week, Dad and Danny helped me get the wood stove I’ve had in the garage for the last several years (it’s one we heated our current home with for a couple of winters after we first moved here) into my truck and on the porch of the new house. Today, Ramiah cleaned the stove. So, this afternoon, I took it in the house and connected it to the chimney.

With the stove hooked up, I decided to build a small fire to inaugurate the chimney. So, this evening, we had first smoke in the new chimney. It was exciting!

Building the chimney (part 1)

2011-09-21T19:36:00.001-06:00

Yesterday, a good friend came over to help me begin building the chimney for the house. Previously, I poured a footer and built a block foundation for it, but I hadn’t started on the actual chimney yet. Although I’ve read a little about how to lay brick, I wasn’t quite sure about tackling the project by myself. So, I asked David if he would help since he has laid brick on many different jobs in the past. He was glad to assist.

David showed me the basic technique, which for this job is not too difficult. I’ve laid a few concrete blocks with mortar in the past, and this brick work was easier, as far as I’m concerned. The biggest concern is keeping things level and plumb as it goes up. We used levels to check things on each course. My biggest concern is going straight up to the hole I have cut in the ceiling through which the chimney is supposed to go. We seem to be on line for that.

We put a clean out access door near the floor. I’m not sure how the door I bought for this purpose was intended to be attached, but we figured out how to get the job done.

The thimble for the stove pipe coming from the stove will be just above the narrow window which is on the wall that will be behind the stove. By the time we finished yesterday, we were at that level which is about seven feet off of the floor, having set the flue liner with the hole for the thimble.

I’ll finish the chimney during the next couple of weeks, depending on the weather. It’s been kind of wet here for a few days which isn’t good for laying brick outside. I’ll need to push it through the roof next, so I will be working on the outside. It’ll be interesting laying the bricks as the chimney goes through the ceiling and roof area, but I’ll manage.

I’m happy with how it’s looking. I bought these bricks mainly because the brick place was selling them at clearance price, trying to sell their remaining stock. I ended up buying them for less than 15 cents apiece (less than half price). However, seeing them as they become a chimney, I like how they look really well. It’s going to be a nice looking chimney.

More slip straw

2011-09-21T19:15:00.001-06:00

As I’m able, I continue to work on the house. There are many different projects to keep me busy, of course. As things come together, even though there is a lot yet to do, I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We will get it done and be able to move in sometime.

On the first day this week, three families came over to help pack straw in some of the interior walls. We really appreciate their willingness to help. We all enjoy spending time together.

There are still several walls to be packed before they’re all done, but we made some good progress. We packed the wall behind the stairs, the wall on the kitchen side of the pantry, part of one wall in the hallway, and half of another wall in Robert’s room.

One of the most time consuming aspects of slip straw is moving the forms, but there’s no way around that. It’s actually a fairly simple process, and it makes a nice product.

Ceilings

2011-09-03T15:34:00.001-06:00

As I took lumber that’s been stacked in the barn for the last five years to have it milled into flooring and began to see how much (or little) I actually had, I began to think about one of my plans. I’ve been planning on putting up a wood ceiling in the kitchen, mudroom, laundry room, and Robert’s room (the room that was going to be the sewing room/study but which we redesigned to be a guest room – Robert is a friend for whom it is currently intended). But, as I saw my supply of wood diminish, and knowing that I have need for more dry boards for base board, moldings, cabinets, doors, etc., I felt a need to explore other options.

I finally decided to put up drywall ceilings in these areas. I will paint them with the same clay paint that I will make for the other walls. It should make these areas brighter than they would’ve been otherwise, and it preserves my other wood pile near the garage for some of the other needs I anticipate.

So, earlier this week, I brought home enough drywall for the ceilings that needed done. I also bought some moisture resistant green board drywall and insulation for completing the root cellar.

I spent time this week putting up ceilings and was able to get them all up by yesterday afternoon. I also had time to begin taping and mudding seams in the kitchen before it was time to quit yesterday. As I like to have it happen, the only waste from the sheets of drywall I bought were small pieces and one piece about 3 feet by 4 feet.

Getting muddy again: plaster and slip straw

2011-09-03T15:17:00.001-06:00

There are many different projects to work on in the house. I have the luxury of focusing on just one thing or working on several at any particular time. Sometimes, diversity is nice. It’s also nice to get a particular project or focus completed.

When I got the bags of clay for the finish plaster moved into the house, I mixed up a small batch to put on a wall in order to see how it will look. Because it is powdered clay, it feels very different from the material we’ve been working with that we dug out of the ground. It’s fluffy. I mixed the small batch in a bucket and applied it with a trowel on the living room wall which I had previously plastered (the slip straw wall).

I screened the sand through a window screen to remove the larger grains/small rocks. I mixed it at roughly two parts sand to one part clay. When wet, the plaster is gray in color. As it started to dry, I buffed it with a plastic lid cut out of a yogurt container. This helps to push the grains of sand into the plaster and make it smoother.

It turned out well. Once it dried, it was no longer gray but, rather, white, like it was supposed to be. It was a thin layer of plaster, and I didn’t get it all applied as evenly as I would like. There are areas with a different texture because I wet the trowel to try to help spread it a little more in places. These areas have a different feel and look than the other areas. That’s okay. This was a test patch to learn from. I’m thinking I’ll make an alis (a clay paint) to go over all of the walls when done. The alis will have wheat/flour paste as one of the ingredients to help give it a non-dusting texture. It doesn’t dust badly without it, but you can rub of clay if you try.

Last week, I felt like playing in the mud some more. So, I mixed and applied three batches of plaster to the bales on the front wall of the house, from where I left off on the wall that will be behind the wood stove to the corner of the living room. This coat uses a high clay content plaster and has to be worked into the bales. It’s applied by hand and actually feels good. It was neat to work the plaster around the curves near and above the windows and begin to see the look of plastered straw bale walls in the house.

You can see the plastering job in these photos. When they were taken, the plaster wasn’t completely dry yet. That’s why there are dark areas. I’m looking forward to applying the second coat which will begin to smooth out the walls and fill in the depressions and irregularities that are evident with the first coat. One of the things I did before I started to plaster was to nail a 1x2.5 inch board at the base of the wall. The plaster will come out flush with the board near the floor. Then, once the finished floor is installed, I will have a surface to nail base board to.

Earlier this week, the boys and I packed some slip straw in the girls room which is upstairs on the east end of the house. Earlier this summer, we had packed most of the walls in this room, but there were a few places that we didn’t get done and hadn’t finished yet. One of the things I’ve learned about slip straw is that the thicker the clay slip mixture, the stronger the wall. Previously, we’ve used some slip that would’ve made better walls if it had been thicker (more clay in it). They are all okay, I think, but the areas we packed using more clay in the slip are more dense and tight. I think I ought to do a video on slip straw…

We packed the closet walls which are on either side of the window on the north side of the room. I’ve imagined this window having a dormer-like feel because of how the walls will be, and it does. The closets also seem quite nice. They’re about 3.5 feet wide, and each upstairs bedroom will have two.

While I was working on another project later in the week, Ramiah decided to pack some on the storage room wall on the east side upstairs above the living room. He mixed the slip and straw, put the forms on, packed, and moved the forms all on his own. I think he did a great job and am very proud of him.

Material accumulation

2011-09-03T14:50:00.001-06:00

One of the things I’ve been doing recently is accumulating material for tasks to be completed on the house. Earlier this spring, I hauled some boards to a friend for him to plane them and tongue-and-groove them. These boards will become the finished floor in the house. A couple of weeks ago I took the rest of the boards to him and picked up the first half which he had gotten done. They’re now stacked inside the house awaiting the time when we’ll be ready to put them down. I’m sure I’ll have to move them a time or two as dictated by other jobs in the house before we actually begin installing the floor.

The flooring is oak and beech. The beech has a lot of character, including some spalting, in it. The oak overall is nice. The second set of boards to be done appeared to be of better quality than the first set. I also purchased about 300 square feet of maple flooring from a family that had some left over when they had new floor installed in their house. You can see the stacks of flooring in the photo to the left. The oak is in the living room and the other is in the kitchen/dining area.

Another item now residing inside the house is 20 bags of number 6 tile kaolin clay to be used for the finished plaster on the interior walls. You can see some of the bags stacked near the flooring in the kitchen/dining area in the photo above. I wasn’t sure how much I would actually need, so I ordered 2,000 pounds of it. I figured it was better to have too much than too little. I ordered the clay from Kentucky Mudworks which is located in Lexington. They have a special deal for in-state shipping. I met the truck in town to get the pallet loaded with the 20 50 pound bags of clay.

Several weeks ago I also bought bricks, mortar, and clay liner for building the chimney. I have yet to construct the chimney, though. The brick and flue liner are still on the trailer which is parked near the house. The bags of mortar are stored on the porch where they will not get wet.

I also have paint for painting the house. I needed to get some for painting the fascia boards before gutters are installed. So, I purchased enough to paint the whole house when we can.

(Examples of the flooring: beech in left photo, oak in right.)

Tanks for the water: part two

2011-09-03T11:42:00.001-06:00

Although the cisterns are not collecting rain water, they are mostly ready to do so. We don’t have gutters on the house, yet – I’m waiting on the installers. Based on the bid I received for seamless gutters, it’s actually cheaper for me to let them install them than to buy and put up gutters myself. So, as soon as they schedule their crew to come do the job, we’ll have the house guttered. In the photo, you can see that I painted the fascia. This is the color that the whole house will be painted eventually.

I’ll detail later the construction of roof washers and screen filter that I’ll construct. The roof washers will divert the first several gallons of water coming off of the roof whenever it rains. The intention is to let the first bit of rain wash dirt and debris off of the roof so that it won’t end up in the cistern. The water will run through a screen before entering the cistern in order to keep leaves and things that get past the roof washers from being in the harvested water. The water should be clean enough for general household use, bathing, washing dishes, and laundry. All cooking and drinking water will be run through a ceramic filter first.

After we had the three tanks set in place, I rented a drill with a 3” concrete bore bit. With my dad’s help, I drilled a hole about two and half inches off of the bottom of each tank. The septic tanks are only set up with inlets and outlets near the top of the end walls. With the holes lower, I was able to connect the tanks to one another so that they will fill and empty as one tank rather than three individual tanks.

The three inch hole was a little over 1/2 inch larger than the exterior diameter of 2 inch PVC. So, I used some 1/4 inch Plexiglas and silicone caulk to seal these outlets. I used an 8 inch piece of 2 inch PVC (actually electrical conduit, but it’s the same thing as used for water, only a different color) threaded on both ends. The threaded fittings on each end tightened against the Plexiglas and sealed the holes around the pipe.

When I plumbed the tanks together, I put in ball valves on each tank so that I can isolate each tank separately for cleaning whenever deemed necessary in the future. I also plumbed in a drain line. I put all of these valves next to one another so that I will be able to access them easily. The tanks are in the hillside in front of the house, and there will be dirt completely covering them. On the down hill side, I will terrace the slope with beds for flowers or whatever so that it won’t be too steep. In one of the terraces I will have an access to the valves, about 36” deep inside a plastic barrel I cut the ends out of for this purpose.

I took the two inch line from the tank outlets and ran it into the crawl space of the house. I also teed off of it for a 3/4 inch line which I also ran into the house. The 3/4 inch line will supply the water to the pressure pump and the 2 inch line will be for installing a pitcher pump in the house and to provide the opportunity for additional pitcher pumps later on if necessary.

Since I was concerned that if we received a heavy rain during which water might flow into the cisterns faster than the 2 inch line connecting them together could keep up with (leading the first tank to reach full and need to overflow before the other two tanks), I connected the tanks together with 4 inch pipes at the level of the inlets on the side near the house. This ties the tanks together at that level and then serves as the overflow which will be run to the pond.

I used my loader tractor to push dirt around and onto the cisterns once I had them plumbed together. I still have to manually move some of the dirt since I don’t want to take the tractor on top of the tanks. In order to get them covered properly, I’m going to need some more dirt, which I have on the east side of the house. I’ll have to relocate a few things that are in the way before I can begin to move that dirt in order to finalize the landscaping around the cistern and generally in front of the house.

After more research, I decided not to put a coating on the inside of the tanks. It could potentially lead to more problems than plain concrete would. I cleaned the interior walls as well as I could, and I think they’re ready for water.

Tanks for the water

2011-08-05T11:11:00.001-06:00

A couple of years ago, I started constructing a ferro-cement tank for water storage in the shed/garage near our current home. I planned the tank to hold about 5,000 gallons, collecting water off of the roof of the building. The idea was to run a water line down the hill to the new house from this cistern. The drop in elevation between the cistern and the house would provide about 25 pounds of water pressure. We also wanted to have a cistern for collecting water off of the roof of the new house at some point.

The ferro-cement tank is only partially constructed, and time to devote to its construction hasn’t been readily available. In order to facilitate an earlier move into the new house, we decided to go ahead and put in a cistern near it. I considered options for water storage, including buying a poly tank (or more than one), building a ferro-cement tank, etc. We finally decided that buying some concrete septic tanks would not be much more expensive than building a ferr0-cement tank and about half the price of a poly tank or any other commonly available water storage tank. It also would involve a lot less time than building a cistern.

I hired a guy to dig into the hill in front of the house to create a place to set three 1,500 gallon septic tanks. We decided on three of them in order to have enough capacity to survive without rain for two to three months. July and August have been fairly dry months since we’ve lived here. So, it seemed like a good idea to plan for enough water storage capacity to not run out during dry months.

This week, after getting the insulation taken care of, I leveled out the bottom of the excavation site in order to get it ready for the tanks. I hauled in 6 tons of rock to put in the bottom for the tanks to sit on. The intention is for them to have a solid base that won’t settle and cause any of them to crack and end up leaking.

After getting the site prepared on the fourth day of the week, I called to schedule delivery of the tanks yesterday morning. We got all three tanks set in place yesterday (and then baled the second cutting of hay).

The plan now is to drill a 2” hole near the bottom of each tank in order to plumb them all together with shut-off valves for each tank. Also, the water line from the tanks into the house will come from this location. I’ll use one of the existing outlets for an overflow when the tanks are full. I’ll also construct some type of filtration system for the incoming water, which will be harvested off of the roof.

One other task I’d like to complete with the tanks is to coat the inside of them to ensure they won’t leak (they aren’t supposed to, anyway) and to prevent the water from taking on the smell and taste of concrete. I’ll be completing these tasks along with many others during the next couple of weeks.

“Well, it’s about time!” An update…

2011-08-03T20:43:00.001-06:00

It seems like it’s been a long time since I’ve posted to my blog. Probably, because it has been a long time – over 2 months. I’ve not been doing nothing, just not blogging.

I’ve had a lot of different things vying for my time, as is usual for the summer months. Last year I put off a lot of things and worked on the house full time, but I’ve not been able to do that this year. So, I’ve not gotten as much done as I would like.

In this post I’ll try to provide an update on some of the things I have done since the last time I posted (was it really in May?).

We haven’t gotten any more interior walls packed with slip straw. I’d say we have about 65% of them left to do. All of the downstairs windows, except the bathroom windows, are bull-nosed now. I have to build the window sills/seats for the kitchen windows and the laundry room windows (and the bathroom windows). Then, the five upstairs windows need to be bull-nosed and the window sills installed. I was able to round the bale edges around the front door and on one side of the back door.

After purchasing materials to build a masonry chimney, I poured a footer for it. Then, I used concrete blocks to bring the base up to the level of the floor where I’ll be building the chimney. A friend will come over to help me with laying the brick for this project. He’s working on a job that will keep him busy for another week or two, which is fine because I haven’t gotten to the point of being ready to build the chimney yet anyway.

I did begin to plaster the wall behind the location of the chimney. I figured it would be easier to get the plastering done before the chimney is there in the way. I’ve only got the first coat on art of the wall so far. I attached some drywall at the top of the bales along this wall (the front wall) to close up a gap between the top course of bales and the beam running across the top of the wall. There was no way to effectively stuff it with straw. I’ll plaster over the drywall pieces later. So, they will disappear.

Once I got my hands in the mud, I had to plaster more than just this section of wall. So, I put the first coat of plaster on the slip straw wall in the living room. This wall is between the living room and the master bedroom. After I get the finish coat clay (which I ordered today), I’ll try a batch on this wall to see if it will be enough to finish it, or if I need to put another thin layer on the first coat before the finish coat.

Last week I went ahead and made arrangements for getting two more important jobs done. One of those is installing the cistern, and the other one is having the insulation blown in. I hired a local individual to come dig out the area where we are going to set three 1,500 gallon septic tanks for our cistern. I’ll plumb them together as one tank, and we’ll harvest rain water off of the roof to fill them. I also hope to develop a spring later on for filling the cistern. It didn’t take too long to dig into the hill in front of the house where the tanks will be set. I’ll post more on this process later.

Originally, for the insulation above the cathedral ceiling in the house, a friend of mine was going to bring his machine and dense pack cellulose. I took longer than expected in getting things ready for the insulation, and in the meantime he sold his machine. So, I hired an insulation contractor to insulate my roof. They blew in fiberglass in the space I constructed. They also insulated the kitchen, mud room, laundry room, and guest room (used to be sewing/study) roofs. It actually didn’t cost much more than I expected to pay for having my friend do the job.

In preparation for the insulation, I had a few tasks to complete. I blocked in along the front outside wall where there were some gaps into the insulation space. I also blocked in some gaps on the back. I cut the chimney opening in the ceiling and framed it in (I figured it would be easier to do that now than after the insulation was blown in). I also stuffed straw above the kitchen and laundry room windows which I hadn’t done previously. I also stuffed straw above the top course of bales to bring the walls up to the ceiling level.

On the day scheduled for the job, yesterday, I removed some metal from the back of the house and cut holes in the sheeting to allow access for blowing in the insulation. It worked great. After they were done, I closed the holes back up and put the metal back on.

Inside, they stapled netting on the ceiling across the rafters and blew the insulation inside that. The R-values are 39 for the main ceiling and 28 for the other areas. I think they will effectively be a little higher than that.

There are a lot of things yet to be done before we will move in. One thing I’ve learned through building this house is that my plans and timetables don’t always work out as I imagine they will. I’m okay with that.

Slip straw in more interior walls

2011-05-26T14:40:00.001-06:00

We had some friends over on the first day of the week for a straw stuffing party. The previous week I bought two sheets of 3/4” plywood for another two sets of forms. I also mixed up about 60 gallons of clay slip in preparation.

We started on the wall between the living room and master bedroom next to the two sections the boys and I did earlier. We also worked on the wall beneath the stairway, the other interior wall in the master bedroom, and a couple of bathroom walls. By the end of the day, we’d completed most of the walls that we’d started.

On the next day, the boys and I were able to finish all of the walls that we’d started during the work party. Then on Tuesday afternoon, our whole family worked on one wall upstairs. Then, yesterday afternoon, we worked on another wall upstairs. We ought to be able to complete the rest of the walls in that bedroom and storage area (on the east end of the house) in another afternoon’s worth of work. I’ll share photos of our progress upstairs later.

Window sills and curving bale corners

2011-05-05T19:42:00.001-06:00

I’ve considered different options for the window sills in the house. One of the earlier ideas was to set stones in concrete – done right, this makes a very nice window sill/seat. Later, I decided to make them with wood, and I’ve been pondering upon how to build them.

On the first day of this week, I planed some poplar boards with the intention of using them for the window sills. Dad and I tried out the tongue and groove router bits I recently purchased on a couple of the boards. My idea was to put in a framework using 2x2s that the poplar boards would be nailed in to. As we routed out a couple tongues and grooves, I continued thinking about my method. As a result, I changed my plan for what to do.

I decided to use some 3/4” plywood as a sort of sub-sill and install finished boards later, probably using the same material as what I will use on the floor in the house. The plywood will give me a solid foundation to nail the finish boards to, and it actually will install more easily than the previous method I had in mind.

Wanting to try it out, I decided to start in the master bedroom. The first task was to shape the corners of the bales on the sides and above the window. I used my electric chain saw to knock off the corner of the bales on both sides and to cut 3/4” out of the top of the bales below the window (to set the plywood at the right height).

Once I had the sides curved and the bales above shaped (I describe the basic process below), I cut plywood to install for the sill. I attached it below the window to some thin strips of wood I nailed to the framing below the window, setting the top of the plywood even with the top of the 2x4 at the bottom of the window. The finished boards will will butt up against the window on top of the 2x4 framing the bottom of the window opening. I also set some 2x2s flush with the exterior surface of the bales below the sill to provide extra support. It turned out well. The photo of the window also shows one end of the opening for the sliding glass door which I also shaped.

Today, I worked on the living room windows. Looking into the corner, you can see how they looked before I started. Although we tried to stack them straight, he ends of the bales were uneven. It’s quite easy to remove straw from the ends of the bales in order to make them more even.

The first step in shaping the bales around the windows was to cut the corners off. My electric chainsaw worked well for this. I found that it wasn’t necessary to try to round the corners.

The next step was to cut a length of poultry netting/chicken wire to fit the height of the window. I stapled one edge into the 2x4 framing on the side of the window. Then, I stuffed straw into the gaps between bales and added straw where the bale ends needed built out a bit. The chicken wire serves to hold the straw against the bales and to form the desired curve.

I pulled the chicken wire around the curve and anchored it to the bale wall with a short stick behind one of the hard wood sapling pins in the wall. I worked from bottom to top, pulling the wire tight, anchoring it, stuffing straw where needed, pulling the wire tight, adding another anchor, etc. When I reached the top, the corner was rounded, and the wire was tight.

The final step was to staple the wire securely to the pin in the wall. With it stapled, I removed the anchor sticks and was ready for the other side.

When we stacked the bales, we laid a 2x6 across the window opening and secured it to the framework above so it wouldn’t sag. Then, the next course of bales was added on top of the 2x6. I needed to not only curve this edge above the windows, but I also needed to provide a surface for the plaster to adhere to later.

Again, I knocked the corner of the bales off with the chainsaw and then attached chicken wire to the top 2x4 of the window framing. I put loose straw on the wire and stuffed it into some voids. Then, I pulled it up tight to the bales above the window, pounding it into the curve in order to shape it how I wanted it. A 2x4 of the bale shelf is exposed one bale course above the window, and I stapled the wire to this. I completed this process in sections across the window.

With both of the double sets of windows in the living room shaped, it was time to install the plywood for the window sill. While I was cutting off the corners earlier, I also cut the height of the bales below the window a little. The first step in doing that was to cut the strings of the bales (to keep the strings from getting tangled in the saw). Since the bales were already securely in the wall, they weren’t going to go anywhere or fall apart with their strings cut.

I nailed a strip under the windows to attach that edge to and then laid the pieces of plywood I cut in place. With them nailed under the window, I attached some vertical pieces flush with the bale surface under the plywood. I used some pieces of oak that was close to 2”x2” which I had.

The plywood extends past the inside plane of the bales because I want the plaster to come up under it rather than in front of it. The plaster will actually help provide additional support for the sill. It should be solid since it’s attached front and back and rests on top of the straw bales.

Light clay straw infill, a.k.a. slip straw

2011-04-24T20:13:00.001-06:00

The plan for our interior walls is to pack them with straw coated with clay slip which will then be plastered. This method is referred to as light clay straw infill or as slip straw.

The process involves mixing clay slip which is a clay-water solution about the consistency of heavy cream. The clay slip is then used to coat loose straw, kind of like putting salad dressing on salad. The straw doesn’t need to be soaked, just coated with the clay slip.

Packing the clay-straw mix into the walls involves the use of moveable forms. I have some 1/2 inch plywood cut into 24” by 48” pieces. Two of these are screwed onto opposite sides of the wall, creating a cavity into which the clay-straw can be packed. The clay-straw is put between the forms and then tamped firm. We use some 1”x1” boards for tamping.

Once the cavity has been packed to the top of the plywood forms, two more forms are added above the first ones. The new cavity is then packed full of the clay-straw mix in the same way. When it is packed full, the first two forms are removed and placed on the wall above the second set of forms. The process of packing and piggy-backing forms continues until you reach the top of the wall.

The boys and I tried out this method late last summer on one wall in the house, and I was impressed with how well it worked. I learned about the technique by reading about it and watching a couple of videos on YouTube. Using slip straw will allow me to plaster the interior walls like the exterior straw bale walls. It will provide some sound insulation between rooms, and it means I don’t have to use drywall. That, and it is inexpensive, using straw left over from building the exterior walls and clay I dug out of the ground.

Today, the boys and I decided to pack a wall, if we could. We were able to infill two cavities between studs on one wall which is 9.5 feet high.

The photo on the right shows our progress at lunch time. We had finished filling nearly to the top of the wall and had removed the lower forms. Because there wasn’t enough space above, we couldn’t just piggy-back the lower forms above the others. I actually removed all the forms, secured ones near the top of the wall, and then put the others directly below these. Adding the forms below helped to assure that we didn’t push any of the material out of the wall when tamping it firm.

You might notice that there are boards attached to the plywood. I bought 1/2” plywood for the forms, but it is really not thick and rigid enough – it will bow out some when the clay-straw is tamped in firmly. I screwed some 1”x2” boards to them to provide more rigidity. Thicker forms would also work, of course.

One of the challenges is what to do when you reach the top of the wall. The top plate of the wall and the ceiling are in the way for feeding in more clay-straw mix and are in the way for tamping it into place between the forms. The solution that we tried out today was to put a form on one side all the way to the top of the wall while leaving the one on the other side several inches lower. Then, into the space we packed some heavy clay-straw mix – basically a cob. This mix sticks together better in this application and will stay in place better than the light clay straw mix. This solution seemed to work well, as long as there’s no problem with it drying properly.

We learned some lessons from today’s activity. One is to put the straw in to be packed in small quantities rather than a lot at a time. The smaller amount will be more evenly packed within the wall. Larger amounts tend to not get packed all the way and leave voids in the wall. The voids on the surface of the wall are the only ones that are visible, and they will be filled with plaster later on. So, it’s probably not that big of a deal, but it is nice to get the material packed in firmly, though.

Another lesson is to pay particular attention when starting to fill between a new set of forms. For some reason it is at this point that the most visible voids and loose packing seems to occur. It might be that we would start with too much straw, but I’m not sure. I just know that we need to take a little extra time and pay a bit more attention to the filling and packing at this point in the process.

A third lesson is to be careful around electrical wires in the wall. I ran the wires for the outlets in this wall about 12” from the floor. The straw has to be packed on either side of the wire, but it’s quite easy to hit it with the tamping stick. It might have been better to have routed the wire along the bottom of the wall to eliminate this minor hassle. I thought that it would be less of an issue than it was today and that it would also help to hold the clay-straw in the wall.

We are happy with what we accomplished today. It will take it a few days to dry. As long as the weather is not too cold or too humid, it ought to dry well. We’ll be keeping an eye on it.

A bit of wiring

2011-04-05T06:10:00.001-06:00

With the interior walls framed, it was time to get started on the electrical wiring in the house. I’ve done some wiring at different times in a few different houses over the years, although I’ve not wired a whole house. Still, like most things, it’s not that complicated if you understand the concept.

A few weeks ago, I made a wiring diagram which shows the location of outlets, switches, and light fixtures. One of the considerations is how to route the wires. In many places, they have to go through or around the timber frame. In other places, like for many light fixtures, there is no space within the ceiling to run the wires. I haven’t tackled the light fixtures yet, but I have a plan for concealing those wires by running them along a floor joist and covering them with some wood trim.

The starting point for wiring was to install electrical boxes. Armed with my wiring diagram, I mounted boxes in their locations within the interior walls – this was easy since these are conventionally framed walls. The straw bale walls, on the other hand, require a different method.

I cut a 2x2 into 9 inch long lengths and tapered one end to a point. After attaching a standard electrical box to the 2x2 stake I made using a couple of drywall screws, I was able to drive it into the wall. I thought I would need to notch out a space for the box to recess it into the wall a little, but it works out that it’s not necessary – it can be driven into the wall far enough without a notch carved into the straw.

In order to run wires between the outlet boxes in the straw bale walls, I use a 1x1 to push the wire 4 to 6 inches into the wall. Between outlets, the wires are running between the first and second courses of bales. For switches, I am still able to push the wires into the straw bales even though they aren’t necessarily between courses.

Once I have the wire ends into the electrical boxes (I leave plenty of wire to work with when putting in switches and outlets later – I’ve worked on homes where the electrician left hardly any wire in the box, and it wasn’t fun), I push the box into the wall leaving about an inch exposed past the surface of the bales so that the outlets and switches should end up flush with the wall surface when the plastering is completed.

I was able to get a fair bit of the wiring completed last week. I wasn’t installing the outlets and switches yet, just putting in boxes and running wires. I have a few more wires to put in the walls. I was also running wires back to the location for the circuit breaker box for the different circuits we’ll have in the house.

Since our electrical system will be solar powered, not grid-tied, I’m not overly concerned with code stipulations about location and number of outlets (although, in most areas, we’re meeting or exceeding code). The wiring will be safe and functional. The wires are properly sized for the loads on each circuit. Actually, with our current system, we are only running an 1,100 watt inverter which is about 10 amps of power (it can surge to about 20 amps). So, other than the convenience of having different sections of the house on different circuits and possibly upgrading at some later date, there is actually little reason for multiple circuits.

Interior wall framing is finished

2011-03-28T19:30:00.001-06:00

Yesterday and today I worked on framing the last walls that needed done inside the house. These included the interior wall on one upstairs bedroom, the walls for both storage rooms, and framing for the upstairs closets and the linen closet.

I bought several 2x10s a couple of weeks ago and a few 2x4s. My guy didn’t have many 2x4s. I figured that if I ripped a 2x4 out of a 2x10 the board left over along with an unripped 2x10 would make 15” shelves in the pantry. It works out that way, too. No, I haven’t built pantry shelves, but after ripping out the first 2x4 I measured the leftover and an uncut 2x10.

My only problem is that I didn’t buy enough 2x10s. I needed more 2x4s than I thought. So, I’ll have to get some more to have enough for all of the pantry shelves.

Yesterday, I framed the interior wall for the west upstairs bedroom. It didn’t take too long, and I didn’t have too much problem fitting it in place.

I was also able to frame the wall for the storage room in the east upstairs bedroom. I actually did it in two pieces, leaving the door way in the middle. As sometimes happens, I had to take it out after putting it in to move it. I don’t always see exactly how things need to be done to get it right the first time, but I do try.

Today, I put in the wall for the other storage room which is in the other bedroom. This one went faster since I’d already figured out what to do on the other one.

After getting this wall in place, I began on the upstairs closets. We’re going to use curtains rather than doors on them. So, the design is just to run a wall out straight from the window. This sets the window on the north side of each bedroom back a little, kind of like a dormer. It makes for two nice closets in each upstairs bedroom, too. The closet walls are only as high as the beam above the front of them. This leaves a ventilation space between the top of the closet wall and the ceiling.

The last walls to frame today were for the linen closet which is downstairs near the main bathroom. It is about 14 inches deep – it’s located at the end of the bathtub and is accessible from the hallway at the bottom of the stairs. There’s also a cabinet framed into the wall above the closet. When the children came down this afternoon, they had to climb into the upper cabinet.

After finishing all the framing, I swept all the floors in the house (except the laundry room). My next task is to get the rest of the electrical boxes installed and run some wires.

How to build stairs (to the root cellar)

2011-02-09T19:21:00.001-06:00

Although I haven’t gotten any more 2x4s yet, I had just enough left to frame the root cellar walls. I’d set some treated 2x4s aside for this purpose, otherwise I’m sure I would’ve used them elsewhere in the house.

Before framing the cellar walls, I cut the stringers for the stairs into the root cellar. I thought it might be helpful to someone if I shared the process I used for building the stairs. This is the same method I used for the main stairs in the house (photo at the right).

The first thing to do is to figure out the total rise and run for the stairs. For the root cellar, the distance from the concrete floor to the floor above (the first floor of the house in this case) is 90 inches. The root cellar is 96 inches across, but there was extra space above the inner wall of the root cellar, about 12” long and 9 inches to the sill board on the block wall. I wanted to use this for a step, thereby shortening the total length of the stairs. With the total rise and run, I could figure the specific measurement for each step.

The main stairs I built have a 7-1/4” rise and 11” run, which make very comfortable stairs. I knew that I couldn’t build the root cellar stairs to the dimensions. I did not want steps that are too steep – I’ll be using them to haul vegetables/food in and out of the root cellar. I’ve been on some too steep, too narrow, feel-like-you’re-gonna-fall steps before, and I knew I didn’t want that.

I figured if I made the steps have a rise of nine inches, meaning there would be a step up of nine inches for each step, that would come out even (9” x 10 = 90”). In order to figure the run for each step, I computed the total length of the stairs for three different lengths: 9”, 10”, and 11”. With the extra space for a step outside of the root cellar at the top and having a small platform for the bottom step instead of going all the way to the floor, I decided on a 10 inch run for each step. That would be enough space for a foot to comfortably fit.

It was easy to figure the total number of steps I would have to cut into the stringers. The first step would be outside of the root cellar. So the second step would be the first one on the stringers and would be 18 inches below the first floor level, and the stringer would have eight steps (of the ten steps needed, the first one was outside the cellar and the last one was the cellar floor).

The only other consideration was the thickness of the treads and risers. I was using 2x material which is 1.5” thick. That means for the bottom step, I had to subtract 1.5 inches for the rise to be 9 inches when the tread was put on. And, since I was going to use the cellar wall for the riser on the top step against the wall, I would need to cut it 1.5 inches shorter than the others.

With my figures, I began to lay out the steps. I used a framing square (a handy tool) on which I clearly marked with pencil the 9” and 10” lines on both sides along the outside edges. By positioning the square on the 2x12 which was to become the stringer with the 9” and 10” marks on the edge, I used a pencil to mark the first step. After the first step, I moved the square so that the 9” mark was at the point where the 10” mark had been which moved the 10” mark further down the edge of the board. I drew the shape and then continued for the rest of the steps.

Once the lines were all drawn using the square, I measured the height for the bottom step and the length for the top step (you can keep the height and lengths of the steps straight with the measurements you’ve now transferred to the board – 9 inches and 10 inches). With everything marked, I could begin cutting.

I used my circular saw to cut along the lines, watching carefully so that I didn’t cut beyond the corner – a round blade will only cut all the way to the corner on the top side. So, once I cut all of them with the circular saw, I finished the cuts with a hand saw. If there was any unevenness left in the cuts, I cleaned it up with a chisel.

Now, I had my first stringer. I could mark the second one the same way, but I opted to use the first one as the template for the second one. I laid it on top, keeping the edges aligned, and marked the treads onto the other 2x12. Then, I cut it the same way as the first one.

The only other materials necessary for the steps were the treads and risers. I had a 2x10 which I cut into 30” lengths for the risers (30” is the width I’d previously decided on for the stairs when framing the floor above the root cellar). They were about 1/4” too wide, so I ripped off the extra on the table saw. For the treads, I used 30” lengths of 2x12s. I did not rip their 11.25” width, leaving 1.25” to hang over on each step.

Before I put the stairs in, I built two short walls to go on either side of the stairs in the root cellar. I nailed them together in the house and then lowered them down into the root cellar. I convinced them into position (they fit snugly) and secured them with nails into the floor joists at the top and concrete screws into the floor and wall of the root cellar.

With the walls in place, I situated the stringers and nailed them to the wall studs. Then, it was a matter of nailing on the risers and the treads. I had to figure out and build the top step on its own (no riser) and extend the bottom step for a short platform.

The length of the walls provides for 30 inch openings at either side of the steps at the bottom. The right section of the root cellar will be the larger of the two rooms. We haven’t decided exactly how we will store things, but given time we will. If the smaller room on the left can be kept a little warmer, it would be a nice place for storing sweet potatoes, onions, garlic, winter squash – the things that like it a little bit warmer and not too damp.

I need more 2x4s

2011-02-04T17:26:00.001-06:00

I’ve worked on the house the last couple of days, but I didn’t take my camera with me to take any pictures. I don’t like posting without photos for some reason.

All of the downstairs walls are now framed with the exception of the framing for a linen closet at the bottom of the stairs. The last two walls I framed were for the pantry and the main bathroom.

One of the intentions for the downstairs is for it to be wheel chair accessible. All of the exterior doors are 36” doors and the interior doors downstairs except for the pantry and master bathroom will be 36” doors, too. The master bathroom is really too small to be accessible, anyway. The main bathroom will have enough floor space inside to make it accessible. We don’t want the door to swing out into the hallway (opening inside limits the usable floor space). So, our solution is to make a double door.

I think I’ll make the interior doors for the house. Something simple, yet nice. That will allow me to make whatever will work best in the specific places. Some doorways, like for the closets, will not have doors. They will have curtains, instead.

With the downstairs walls framed, I put a 4x6 floor joist in place for the extra upstairs landing space. This joist will be visible from inside the main bathroom. So, I wanted it to be the same as the other visible floor joists.

Then, I framed a wall upstairs. I started with the wall at the top of the stairs first. Somehow, when I measure for a wall, plan it out, cut the pieces, and put it all together, the wall tends to end up being 1/4” too tall. This wall took some persuading to get it under the beam connecting the rafters. But, it’s in there, and it won’t be coming out.

This morning I framed the small section of wall on the other side of the post from the other upstairs wall. This went easily and quickly. I figured the angles, measured for the bottom plate, cut it, and put it in. Then I was able to mark the other two 2x4s for length, cut them, and put them in. For the individual studs, I measured the needed length, cut them, and put them in one at a time. I figured it would be easier than building the wall on the floor and trying to set it in place because of the angles involved.

There are still several upstairs walls to be framed and two walls in the root cellar, but I’ve pretty much exhausted my 2x4 supply. There has been very little waste from the ones I’ve used, but I only have a few left, not enough to finish the walls. So, I'll be getting some more soon, hopefully early next week, so I can finish the wall framing. I have wiring to get started on. So, if I don’t get 2x4s right way, there is still something I can do.

More stairs and wall framing

2011-02-01T18:08:00.001-06:00

On Sunday I cleaned all of the loose straw and bales of straw out of the house. There was quite a pile of loose straw in the living room. It’ll be used in the interior walls later, but for now I wanted it out of the way. I moved it onto the porch and then tossed it into my hay baler which I brought over from the barn. I figured it would be easier to move and store it if it was baled. There were about 15 bales worth of straw in the pile.

With the straw all moved to the barn, I spent Monday sweeping the floors. I started upstairs with a leaf blower. That made quite a cloud of dust! After I’d blown everything to the downstairs, I set the ladder up and opened the cupola windows. I already had several windows open on the first floor. As soon as I opened the windows in the cupola, dust began flowing upward and out. I was encouraged that the cupola will help with ventilation in the house. This is the first time I’ve had opportunity to test it so far.

Today, I wanted to finish the stairs. There were still three steps to build to take the staircase all of the way to the second floor. I started by putting 2x8s down for the subfloor on the stair landing after cutting rabbets along the edges. These boards will be the ceiling in the master bedroom closet also.

Cutting out the stringers for the last steps was simple enough. Once I had them cut out, I had to figure out how to attach them at the second floor level. One side only required putting a board against an already framed wall to put the stringer in the right position. I had to frame a short wall on the other side.

It was necessary to frame the third wall for the master bathroom. This wall is also one of the walls for the main bathroom. I left out two studs so that I will be able to put in the tub/shower unit when I’m ready for it. It won’t fit through the framed door opening. Once the tub is in place, it will be easy enough to insert the two wall studs in their proper places.

The final task for today was to frame and put into place the wall against the stairs. This wall will support an extra three feet wide section of second floor landing and serves as one of the walls for the main bathroom. It was simple to frame and fairly easy to put into place.

I swept up some dust created by todays activities and took a few photos before calling it a day. It’s still exciting to see the progress each day I work on the house.

Stairs

2011-01-28T18:13:00.001-06:00

Anne and I spent some time in the house this morning before I milked the cows. She wanted to see what I got done yesterday. Her appreciation of my work is a wonderful thing. She loves the house and is excited about the progress. The children are also excited, and we’re all looking forward to living in it.

Today’s task was stair-building. I started by laying out the steps on a 14 foot 2x12. The main tool for laying out stairs is a framing square. I put one leg on the edge of the 2x12 at 7.25” and the other leg at 11” and then drew lines along the edge of the square. I repeated this eleven times. Then, it was time to cut out the triangles, creating a stringer for the stairway. I cut with my circular saw up to the point the two lines met and finished the cuts with a hand saw. I used the first stringer to mark the second one and then cut it out the same way.

I attached the top of the stringers to the landing at the top and to the floor at the bottom end. The stairs are to be 36 inches wide from the post at the bottom to the wall that will be on the other side of them. However, there will be a wall below the stairs on the living room side, and this wall is at the midpoint of the post. So, the stairs are actually 41.5 inches wide up to the landing. The 5.5 inches extra on the living room side isn’t really usable except for being a place to put a railing, but it leaves a full 36 inches of usable stair width.

By lunch time, I had the stringers up and secured and put on the risers. Because the rise of the stairs is 7.25 inches, a standard 2x8 was a perfect width for the risers (a 2x8 is 1.5” x 7.25”).

After lunch I worked for a couple of more hours and was able to cut and install the treads. I used 2x12s. I did have to rip about 1/4 of an inch off of each of them so that they would be the right width. One of the treads had to be notched to fit around the post at the bottom of the stairs. I cut the lines with my circular saw, finishing them with a hand saw.

I went ahead and installed seven 2x4s under the edge of the living room side of the stairs to frame the wall that is to be there. These help to support the stairs just as the wall on the other side between the stairs and the bathroom will do.

With the walls I framed yesterday and the stairs today, it’s easier to visualize some of the spaces in the house. One of these is the closet in the master bedroom. It will be quite nice, nicer than we previously imagined. The photo on the right looks into the closet area. There will be a hanging rod on the right side and a shorter one straight back beneath the stairs.

It’s nice to be able to get back to work on the house and see it coming together as it is.

Some interior walls framed

2011-01-27T20:57:00.001-06:00

Last week I sketched out a wiring plan for our house on a copy of the floor plan I printed out. We aren’t concerned about inspections since our electricity will be completely off-grid, powered by our solar electric system. Not that inspections are a horrible thing, mind you, it’s just that I don’t feel the need to conform to unnecessary regulation and interference. I’ll be doing the wiring myself and will assure that it’s safe, of course.

With the wiring plan laid out, I calculated the number of electrical boxes, outlets, and switches we’ll need and purchased those late in the week. Early this week, I bought some 2x4s for framing interior walls. I also bought some 2x12s for building stairs.

I refigured my stair design and began laying it out on the floor in the house. In order to optimally use the space in the house, we’ve planned the closet in the master bedroom to be underneath the stairs. The stairs will rise 12 steps to a landing where they will turn to the left and continue up four more steps to the second floor. The main part of the closet is to be under the landing. It’s high enough that I won’t bump my head.

With my plans refigured and physically sketched out on the floor, I started framing some interior walls. The first wall I tackled is the one between the master bedroom and the living room. With a couple of hours before chore time yesterday afternoon, I designed the wall, drew it out on paper, figured the lengths of 2x4 I needed, cut the 2x4s to the specified lengths, and nailed it all together.

Having gotten the 2x4s from the local salvage guy, they were in various lengths. I had three 20 footers, several 16 footers, 14 footers, 12 footers, 10 footers, and some 8 footers. With a list of the specific lengths I needed for the wall, I was able to figure out the best way to use the material for the least amount of waste. I don’t like wasting material.

Once the wall was assembled on the floor, I stood it up into place. The top of this particular wall had to fit between two of the 4x6 floor joists which necessitated putting the top of the wall in place first. Once I had the top close to where it needed to be, I was able to drive the bottom into place. After getting it plumb, I nailed the wall into place.

This morning, I started on the other interior wall of the master bedroom. Anne and I discussed the location of the doors for the closet and the bathroom which are to be on this wall. Once we had these finalized, I could layout the wall and put it together. Perhaps the most challenging thing about this wall was the two angle braces of the timber frame that it had to fit against, although it really wasn’t a problem.

This afternoon I framed a couple of short walls for the closet. These walls are necessary to support the landing for the stairs. I also framed the stair landing and put it in place. This will make it possible to begin framing the stairs soon. There are a few other walls in the stair area that also need to be framed. They’ll create the other bathroom, enclose the space under the stairs, and support some additional floor upstairs at the top of the stairs.

I mentioned in a previous post that I intended to cut a door in the pantry floor to allow access to the crawl space from inside the house. Since I wanted to put a brace under a couple of floor joists in the area under the bathrooms (the floor wasn’t quite level in this area because of variation in the 4x6 floor joists in the timber frame), I decided it was a good time to cut the access. The alternative would’ve involved getting muddy to go through the other access door in the block wall.

I’m quite pleased with the door I cut in the floor. I think it will work quite well. There is enough space between the floor joists for accessing the crawl space easily. I’ll make a couple of steps down into the crawl space later on.

I worked on the house a little today

2010-12-24T14:43:00.001-06:00

It’s been a while since I posted. At least one person let me know that he’s experienced withdrawal symptoms because of the lack of updates!

We spent Thanksgiving in North Carolina with family. It was a good visit. Once we got back home, I focused some time on getting my classes taken care of. I teach a Social Foundations of Education course online for a university. I’m redesigning my class for the Spring semester which requires some time and attention. I also had to finish up this semester’s class.

The result has been that I’ve not spent time working on the house. There are, of course, plenty of things to work on, I’ve just focused my time and efforts elsewhere.

This morning I decided that I would see about putting up an interior wall, though. It felt good to actually get back to work on the house.

I laid out the location for one wall of the pantry and took measurements. Malchiah helped me get materials ready and put the wall together. It went smoothly. We built the wall on the floor and then raised it into place.

The pantry will be 64 inches wide inside with shelves at least 15 inches deep around three sides. There will be several rows of shelves, exactly how many I don’t know yet. We ought to have plenty of room for storing all of our canned goods and some other food supplies.

I also want to put a trap door in the floor to allow access to the crawl space from inside the house. The crawl space might be a good place to store vegetables that like cool (but not cold) and dry conditions.

After I get some more 2x4s, I’ll build the other wall of the pantry and other interior walls. I also have stairs to construct, window sills to install, electrical, and plumbing installation, etc. As I said, there plenty to do. I’ll endeavor to keep you updated on my efforts.

Quick update

2010-11-21T13:39:00.001-06:00

Having gotten the siding on the house, I was able to spend time in the woods last week. Rifle season was open here from last weekend through this one. We love venison. So, I wasn’t working on the house; I was out trying to harvest some meat for the family.

My dad and Danny also hunt here. We got three deer last Sunday and none since. We processed the meat – canning and freezing. We would like more, but we’re thankful for what we were blessed with. I’ll spend some more time out during our week of muzzleloader season in December.

Anne and the children and I are going to spend Thanksgiving with family in North Carolina. So, it’ll be December before I get back to work on the house. I have a lot I want to get done this winter. So, I’ll need to stay busy with it.

I’ll post more once I get back to work on the house.

Two new videos of the construction process

2010-11-13T13:29:00.001-06:00

I’ve put together two new videos. Actually, they’re slide shows of photos taken during the construction of our house. Part One starts with the raw timbers in February 2005 and concludes in February 2010. A lot was accomplished during that time even though it wasn’t as much as I had hoped for.

Part Two shows the progress we’ve made this summer and fall. I couldn’t be happier with what we’ve gotten accomplished just since late May.

I wanted to put these photos together in this way to see a synopsis of my work. I’ve been focused on each day and each task. So, it’s nice to sort of step back and see what we’ve been working on come together.

Here they are. Enjoy and, please, leave a comment (I love hearing from ya’ll)!

Part One:

Part Two:

The siding is complete

2010-11-12T20:11:00.001-06:00

With the blessing of good weather this week, we were able to get the siding all installed. We first completed the walls around the mudroom, laundry room, and sewing room and then began on the walls on the porch on the west side of the house. The process went very smoothly, and we were able to finish Thursday afternoon.

The siding has several different colors, but we’ll be painting it next summer when the weather warms up. There were about 7 different colors in all. I think some of the material was leftover from other projects that was returned to the building supply company. I bought it from a local guy who bought it in auction from the supplier. So, I got a really good deal on it.

I still have to caulk around the windows and corners, but other than that the house is closed in now. It’s been my goal to have it closed in before Thanksgiving. It’s really quite exciting to meet that goal. I feel very blessed.

The 2nd floor siding is complete

2010-11-07T19:13:00.001-06:00

We were able to finish the siding on the upstairs walls by lunch time today. We were careful throughout the installation process to waste as little material as possible. When I bought it, I quickly calculated that there was enough on this one pallet to do the upstairs walls, but there wasn’t going to be much extra. Apart from scraps of around 12 inches or less, we had four 4-foot sections left over. There were also about two full pieces that were not usable because they were de-laminated.

I think it turned out fine. I’ll clean it sometime later, and I plan on painting it some time. For the time being, it will be fine since it is pre-painted. My plans to paint it are based on the fact that there isn’t enough of one color to do the whole house, and I don’t really want five different colors as a permanent thing.

After we finished the siding, Dad and Danny swept the porch roof off, and we took down the scaffolding and plastic. Since it was all tidied up, it was a good opportunity to take a few photos.

Beginning the siding

2010-11-05T18:06:00.001-06:00

Before too long, we ought to be able to get the plastic off of the house.

I spent some time on Tuesday fixing the small window that goes above the wood stove. It had a crack in one pane which had allowed some moisture to get between the panes and leave some water deposits. I wasn’t able to purchase I piece of glass locally large enough to replace the one pane, but I had some window glass that was of sufficient size if I could cut it. So, I read about cutting glass and watched a few videos online.

Thankfully, I had more than one piece of glass to work with. I practiced on one and then attempted to cut the real thing. The first one turned out acceptable, although there were a few rough edges. So, I cut another one that turned out a little better. When fixing the window, I ended up using both of the ones that I cut since I couldn’t clean the one remaining pane in the window.

Anyway, it took me most of the morning to get the window repaired and put in the wall.

After finishing the window, I started putting on the flashing where the upstairs walls meet the porch roof. I previously bought a couple rolls of 24” aluminum flashing for this purpose. One of the rolls was long enough to reach from one corner to the other across the back of the house. The other roll was long enough for both ends except for about 5 feet. I had to use some other flashing material there.

On Wednesday, it rained all day. It was just a light, drizzly kind of rain. I put up the tarp on the back of the house upstairs because when the water dripped off of the upper roof, it was splattering on the wall. Since there was no wind with the rain, the other upstairs walls didn’t get wet.

Yesterday, I finished the flashing on one side and started installing the siding. I attached the first piece by myself and then realized that I would need some help to do the rest of them. Twelve foot pieces of Hardiplank siding are somewhat unwieldy. Thankfully, my dad was available to help me in the afternoon.

We worked on the west wall and were able to get the siding to above the window. There was a fair bit of cutting involved to match the roof line and to fit around the window. Also, since I hadn’t initially planned on using this type of siding, I didn’t have the vertical stringers optimally spaced for installing it. That means that there is a little more waste at times in order to make sure that the ends are on one of the stringers so they can be nailed securely.

This morning, even though it was chilly and spit a little bit of rain at times, we were able to get the east wall up to the same height as the west wall. After lunch, we worked on the back wall. We didn’t finish it, but we got a good start and should be able to finish it and the other two walls on Sunday.

When I bought the siding, one bundle, enough to do the upstairs based upon my hasty calculations, was a 6 inch exposure while the rest was a 7 inch exposure. I figured that this would work well. If I don’t have enough to finish all of the upstairs walls with the 6 inch, I can finish it off with some of the 7 inch near the top. We didn’t continue above the windows on the either end to ensure we had enough to get the siding up most or all of the way on the back.

Upstairs plaster and windows

2010-11-01T19:09:00.001-06:00

We had a few friends make it yesterday to help with the second coat of plaster. The objective for the day, which we achieved, was to finish the second story walls. We had six people applying plaster and two more mixing and delivering the plaster to the other workers. Everything went very smoothly, and I am very pleased. I can’t express how grateful I am to all of the wonderful people who have given of their labor to help out on our house project.

There is only one small section on the front kitchen wall that still needs the second coat of plaster, maybe four square feet. I should be able to apply that tomorrow.

After we finished the plastering yesterday, I recruited some help to move the sliding glass door from the barn to the house. It’s been stored in the barn for the last three years. It’s an eight foot wide door, and it’s quite heavy. So, it was really nice to have some help moving it. I’m not sure that Dad, Danny, and I could have moved it successfully by ourselves.

This morning after I went into town to run a few errands, Dad and I set it in place in the house. It’s on the east side of the house leading from what will be the master bedroom onto the porch. Thankfully, the door fit in the framed opening with little difficulty. We spent a little time cleaning it after installing it.

After lunch, Danny helped us move the remaining five windows from the barn, clean them, and install them upstairs. Cleaning the nearly five years of accumulated dirt off of the windows took longer than it did to carry them up ladders and install them.

So, we now have all of the windows and doors put in except for the small windows that will be above the wood cook stove – I have to cut and put in a new piece of glass. Hopefully, I can do that tomorrow. We also will swap out the kitchen windows with new casement windows when they arrive, which should be by this coming weekend.

We should be able to start installing siding this week. It looks like we’re on schedule to have the house closed in by the end of next week. That’s my goal, anyway.

More second coat of plaster & more windows

2010-10-30T10:32:00.001-06:00

We had some rain early this week. I thought that might slow down work on the house, but we were able to still get things done.

Dad and I worked on the second coat of plaster on the walls under the porch roof – the south, east, and north walls. In two days’ work, we were able to get all the way around except for two small sections above the back door which I’ll finish later. We ran out of plaster at the end of the day, otherwise these sections would be completed, too.

Working on the second coat on the exterior, I’ve learned a few things which will help when the time comes to plaster the interior. On the inside, I want a nice, fairly smooth and even wall surface. One of the things that I’ve learned is to be sure to prep the wall adequately, filling in voids and generally making the surface to be plastered as smooth and straight as possible.

On the outside there are places in the first coat of plaster which are higher and lower than other sections. The low spots need extra plaster to fill them and the high spots require a greater thickness of plaster over the wall to achieve a smooth, flat surface. On the exterior, since it will have siding, it’s not important to completely smooth out the wall. So, we’ve not endeavored to achieve the same sort of surface which I desire for the inside.

Another lesson I’ve learned is to make sure the plaster mix only has the amount of clay that is needed. An excessive amount of clay in the plaster causes it to crack while it dries since clay shrinks as it dries. It is amazing how hard the plaster gets when it dries even when it is mixed with only 28% to 30% clay content.

Since we pretty much finished the second coat of plaster downstairs, we went ahead and installed some windows and doors yesterday. We put in the front door, the back door, the living room windows, the master bedroom window, and the two bathroom windows. These went in very well, the biggest time consuming part being cleaning the almost five years of accumulated dust and dirt off of large windows.

We were going to install the small windows that will go above the wood stove, but it has one pane of glass that is cracked which allowed some dirt to get between the panes. We’ve taken the window apart, and I will install a new pane of glass and clean the inside surface of the other pane. Then, I’ll be able to put this window in.

We also didn’t install the large sliding glass door that goes in Anne’s and my bedroom. We’ll do that later. There’s no rush.

We ought to be able to plaster the exterior upstairs walls early this coming week. I’m expecting a few people to come over tomorrow to help with the second coat. Once we have it completed, I’ll install the upstairs windows, at which time they will all be in. Then, there are a few small tasks to complete before starting on the siding.

Windows, the first ones installed

2010-10-23T08:28:00.001-06:00

Every step of the process is exciting as we watch the house come together. I’ve devoted a lot of time so far this year working on the house, and there are a lot of hours of work yet to come. It’s a long, arduous process, but we are getting there little by little.

Yesterday, we had another milestone on the project as we began installing windows and doors. Previously this week, we put the second coat of plaster on about 100 feet of wall. This brought us to the point of being able to put in some windows and doors in preparation for siding these walls.

It was a little over four and half years ago that I purchased 15 large casement windows off of Ebay and traveled to Flushing, Michigan, to pick them up. They’ve been stored in the barn since then. Dad and I brought five of them to the house yesterday to clean off the accumulated dust and dirt and to begin setting them into the openings for them on the house.

I am very pleased with the quality of these windows. They are well made, opening, closing, and locking very nicely. They are also beautiful. They lend a certain elegance to the house, I think. Anne is also pleased with them.

As casement windows, they crank open. There are two 27” windows on each unit. When opened, unlike double-hung windows which only open half (at the most) of the window, these windows open the entire area, providing great ventilation. We are going to really appreciate them.

We also put in the kitchen windows, but I’m going to take them back out. They just are not of a good enough quality. Additionally, since they are double-hung, it will be difficult to open and close them, because it will require reaching over 24” of counter and 18” of window sill. Not an easy thing to do. So, I’m going to get some casement windows for the kitchen, too. Hopefully, I will be able to find some whose quality will be acceptable. The others will be saved for a later building project.

The windows certainly change the look of the house.

We also installed two doors. On Thursday, I purchased two more exterior doors which I needed. I got them from the local guy who had just gotten a trailer load of doors and windows, among which were the two 15-light 36” exterior doors I wanted. We put in one of these yesterday and another full-light door I purchased previously.

One of the doors presented a challenge because it was 1/2 inch taller than standard, meaning the opening I framed was not high enough. We were able to make some modifications which allowed the door to fit in the opening.

We’re all excited and look forward to continued progress on the house.

Beginning the second exterior coat of plaster

2010-10-21T06:27:00.001-06:00

The plaster that was applied on the day of the mud party is drying nicely. It looks like the upstairs walls will be dry by this weekend while the walls under the porch roof will take a few days longer. They don’t get the same air and sunlight, of course.

Danny and I started applying the second coat on Tuesday to some of the walls which we’d previously plastered with the first coat. The walls from the sewing room/study around the laundry room and mudroom all the way to the kitchen had a dry first coat of plaster. It was easiest to start on the porch area on the west side of the house.

Even though we didn’t get an early start and took some extra time in the middle of the day for a couple of errands, we were able to complete all of the wall area on this side of the porch and begin on the other side of the kitchen.

One of the reasons that I selected this wall to start with is because it is protected by the porch roof. I wasn’t sure about the mix ratios for the plaster, and we still needed to figure out how to best apply it. If there are cracks in the plaster here or application problems, they are less likely to cause any problems than if they were elsewhere.

Yesterday, Dad and Jon joined Danny and I in plastering around the rest of the walls that had dry first coat plaster. We were able to get the second coat on all of these areas except for three very small areas on the kitchen walls (there wasn’t enough in the last batch of plaster). I’ll complete these today or tomorrow.

I ended up mixing five gallons of clay with ten gallons of sand, a quart of wheat paste, a gallon of chopped straw, and about four gallons of water (we chopped the straw with a mulching lawn mower). The application procedure involved wetting the surface of the previous coat of plaster (we used a garden sprayer), smearing plaster on the wall by hand, getting plenty in the corners, edges, and deep spots, and then using a trowel to smooth it out and add more plaster as needed.

The ideal is to have a flat, even surface. However, we didn’t pursue that ideal. The operating goal we had was to get a good coat of plaster over the first coat, smoothing out the depressions and ridges as best we could. We didn’t worry about a smooth, flat surface as much as increasing the overall thickness of the plaster on the wall, filling voids/depressions, generally smoothing out undulations in the wall, and sealing up cracks on the first coat. The resulting surface still has undulations, less than what was there before, though. Since it will be covered with siding, it’s not necessary for it to be perfectly smooth and flat.

As the plaster dries, I will be able to observe the number and types of cracks that appear in the surface. They aren’t critical at this point, and I may or may not do something to seal them, depending on their location and size. The siding’s job is to provide a layer of protection for the plaster and bales, keeping rain and other moisture off. If it does it’s job as expected, some small cracks in the exterior wall surface will not be an issue.

I’ll see how the plaster dries today and tomorrow. My thought for Friday is to put windows in on the walls that have the second coat of plaster. The windows which have been stored in the barn for some time will need to be cleaned first. With windows in and the second coat of plaster, the bales ought to be protected well enough from all by a driving rain. I may cover them with plastic anyway until I get a chance to put the siding on. I’ll definitely cover the upstairs walls with plastic before the weekend (maybe we’ll get rain).

The first coat of plaster is complete

2010-10-18T19:24:00.001-06:00

Yesterday we had a very successful work party. The goal was to get the rest of the first coat of plaster on the exterior of the bale walls. In order to help us reach that goal, several friends showed up to get their hands dirty. We had 41 people here, counting the children and adults. There were between 13 and 17 individuals working on the plaster during the day.

It was an enjoyable and profitable time. The volunteers worked diligently throughout the day. We did stop for lunch which was quite a feast. One individual commented that it was worth coming just for the lunch!

I told everyone that people actually pay hundreds of dollar to participate in a plaster workshop similar to what we were doing. I didn’t want to host a workshop, though. I wanted friends, not strangers, helping on the house.

We got a lot done. The plasterers kept me busy at the mixer mixing batch after batch just to keep up with them. By the end of the day, almost all of the wall surfaces were plastered. There were only a few small sections at the top of the wall upstairs that still needed some plaster. I was very pleased.

This morning, I went over all of the surfaces that were plastered yesterday, checking for soft spots that needed pressed into the bales or places that needed more mud. Overall, the job done was excellent! There were very few places that needed my attention.

I then mixed up a batch of plaster to finish the sections that were not completed. There were a few places on the front wall of the kitchen that were not finished a week ago. I didn’t intend for that to be done yesterday. So, I finished it today. Then, I went upstairs on the porch roof and finished the small sections near the roof line.

So now, the entire first coat is complete. The plaster is drying nicely. The weather has been very good for drying. Although we could use some rain, for the sake of getting the outside plastering done in order to close up the house before cold weather, the weather couldn’t be better.

Here are some photos of the newly completed walls:

I intend to start in earnest on the second coat of the straw bales tomorrow. I will have to play with the mixture to find the right sand-clay ratio and proper wetness so that it will trowel on smoothly.

Video of the upstairs with the bales stacked

2010-10-15T12:44:00.001-06:00

I took some video yesterday showing the bale walls in the house, primarily upstairs since that is what we’ve most recently finished.

Upstairs bale walls

2010-10-12T18:00:00.001-06:00

Today, I didn’t work much on the house. I put some plastic up to protect the bales that were exposed. Just as I was finishing, it began to sprinkle. It didn’t amount to much, but it was good to get them covered. Tomorrow, I hope we can get all of the walls pinned. The idea is to have them ready to be plastered during the mud party on Sunday.

I took a few photos of what we accomplished yesterday so that I could share them. It’s really neat to see the house with the walls stacked.

The stairs will come up near where the ladder is in the next photo. There is a small landing at the top of the stairs between the two upstairs bedrooms. We’re planning a cozy, little reading area by the window on the landing.

Looking across to the west bedroom, there will be a wall between the two posts making a storage area under the eaves. There will also be a wall on the near side of the room where the ladder is leaning.

Looking toward the east bedroom, you can see that the windows on the back of the house are set quite low. They are one bale height above the floor which will make them really cozy with the built in window seat. There will be closets on either side of the back window in each bedroom, making the window feel more like a dormer.

The west window in the west bedroom. All of the large windows in the house, like this one, will have wood sills making comfortable window seats. You can imagine how nice it would be to sit in the window with a good book on a sunny winter day.

Straw bale observations

2010-10-11T19:10:00.001-06:00

We stacked the walls upstairs today. Sorry, no photos, because I was busy working. I ought to be able to post some tomorrow, though.

Yesterday, Dad and I brought 136 bales from the barn to the house. When I stopped to think about it, I realized that those bales have been stored in the middle of my barn for over four years. I bought them in the summer of 2006 in anticipation of needing them by August that year (I was overly optimistic, in case you didn’t know).

I’d forgotten what these bales were really like. The man I bought them from grew rye just for straw. He cut it when it had good straw but before it had any grain. I’d forgotten, but he told me that when they baled it, they raked it into large windrows so that it would make large, heavy bales. They are indeed large and heavy, very dense.

One of the things you read about selecting bales for a straw bale home is to be sure to get tight bales. I will tell you that this is good advice. The bales I bought this year are not as tightly and densely baled as the ones I bought four years ago, and it does make a difference in handling them and stacking them into the wall. The tighter, denser bales, although heavier, are easier to work with. You can move them, shove them, kick them, beat them, and generally force them into the spaces where you want them.

For our house, it was really good that we used these tighter bales upstairs. The first course had to be stomped into a tight space between the porch roof and the beams of the timber frame. the top courses had to be coaxed into some hard to get to spaces. These bales held onto their shape and went into some tough places.

The other bales are fine, less you think they aren’t. I just wanted to share my observation about the tightness of the bales. The tighter and denser they are, the better they are for building with.

One other observation from digging into the pile of four year old bales is that they were in great shape. There were several on the top layer that were no good because they’d gotten water onto them (there are a few spots where the roof sometimes leaks a little). I also had a tarp over the top of the pile for the first year or two which held in some moisture that got under the bales – this caused some to mold on top.

However, inside the pile, the bales were tight and in good shape. I figure if these bales can survive in a pile in the barn with the humidity we experience here, they will fair well as walls encased in clay.

On another subject, preparation for the mud party on the 17th is going well. We have several families planning on attending.

More progress and a work party (ya’ll come)

2010-10-07T06:51:00.001-06:00

We are keeping at it and making progress!

I decided to invite friends and acquaintances over for a work party on October 17, 2010. If you’re interested, let me know.

The plan for the work party day is to get as much mud on the bales as possible. In preparation, I’m planning on getting all the bales stacked, pinned, and ready for plastering before October 17.

Yesterday, we stacked the rest of the bales downstairs (well, except for one above a door). There weren’t a great number of bales because of the many window openings, but it required a bit of retying which takes time. Also, the last course downstairs must be wedged in between the previous course and the bale plate which requires a little effort and some persuasion with the large mallet.

While Dad and I stacked bales, Danny and Jon plastered the kitchen walls. They did have some help from my younguns for a while. They weren’t able to finish the front wall, but they got a good start.

I’ll be sorting out good bales from those stored in the barn for the upstairs walls. So far we’ve used about 280 of the 300 bales I bought for the downstairs walls. I’m not sure how many bales the upstairs will take, but I guess about 150.

So, we have a lot to get done this next week. Today and tomorrow, Dad, Danny, and I are going to cut the winter’s supply of firewood. I’ll get back to the house at the beginning of next week.

More plastering

2010-10-04T20:59:00.001-06:00

After taking last week off from work on the house, I got back into it yesterday and today. On the agenda was more mud work.

A week and a half ago, my boys and I examined a possible source for clay on our property. The sample we collected looked promising, but I wasn’t convinced that it was what we needed or wanted. It certainly wasn’t as sticky and nice as what we’ve been working with. Then, we checked out another source that seemed more promising.

I spent a little time on Sunday morning excavating a bit of this soil which I deposited near the house. I was anxious to see how it would do. So, I screened a little and mixed up a batch of plaster. I put it on a small section of one of the kitchen bale walls. I’ll test it after it’s fully dried. It’s a different color than what I’ve been working with and seemed to have less clay content. We’ll see.

After applying the test patch, I screened some wet clay I had in a bucket. Before taking off last week, I put some of the dirt we discarded after screening into a bucket and added water to let it rehydrate. A lot of this material was little balls of clay that didn’t break up to go through the screen. Since it was well-hydrated, I worked it through the screen into the wheel barrow.

I mixed it with some sand and chopped straw and some wheat paste to make a small batch of plaster. I mixed it with a greater proportion of sand than the previous plasters and thicker. My intention was to apply the second coat on part of an already plastered wall. I wanted to try out the mix and see how it went on. I put it under the mudroom window, troweling it smooth. It went on nicely and looks good as it is drying.

Today, I started by pinning the wall along the eating area on the west side of the house. Danny and Jon joined me after I had started and worked with me. Danny filled voids while Jon helped with the pinning. We were able to apply two batches of plaster to the wall before lunch. After lunch, we screened some more dirt and did some more plastering. By the time we quit, there were only a couple small areas left without plaster.

Another bale wall and a video

2010-09-23T16:13:00.001-06:00

On Tuesday, I added some more bales to the kitchen walls and pinned two of the kitchen walls. I had to make some custom bales to fit at the top of the wall along the roof line.

On Wednesday, I decided to stack the wall between the mudroom and the kitchen. I needed to put the bales up above the mudroom doorway and the kitchen doorway, and I needed the rest of the wall constructed before I could do that.

The boys helped me put some plastic on the outside of the upstairs on the west side. This is so that rain cannot blow in from above and soak the bales in the downstairs wall.

As I was getting started stacking, Anne came down to the house to be my helper. Since there was a lot of retying on this section of wall, there wasn’t a whole lot she could do in its construction. So, she worked filling voids on the two kitchen walls that were already pinned (the voids stuff easier once the wall is pinned into place). The boys also helped filling voids with loose straw. Anne did help me put a few bales in the wall I was constructing.

Over the doors and the window, I was going to use chicken wire to suspend the bales. Over the two doors, there was going to be a bit of a problem attaching the wire, though. I decided to not use the wire, instead opting for a board to support the bales.

I used extra porch floor boards (rough cut beech) cut long enough so that they extend beyond the openings on each side a foot or two at least. Above the doors, these boards should be sufficiently able to hold the weight of the one bale. The window opening is wider. So, even though only one course of bales is being supported, I will brace the board in the middle to the frame work which is above (the shelf upon which the upstairs bales will sit). The boards are set back from the inside edge of the wall enough that I will be able to round the edge a little before plastering. The boards will not be visible – they will be plastered over.

I was happy with the wall. The top course of bales needed to be persuaded in order to fit it under the bale shelf. This is good. It helps keep the wall tight. If a bale is hard to get into place, a piece of cardboard put under it helps it to slide over the lower bale more easily. I’ve also found that the large mallet (persuader) I built for putting the timber frame together works well for knocking bales into place.

A friend lent me an interior scaffold. This is a great thing! It really helped when beating the top course bales into the wall. He’s also lending me two sets of exterior scaffolding which will be invaluable.

I video taped a brief tour of the house showing a few of the things we’ve done recently. I’ve shared photos of all this, but sometimes it’s nice to see it in a video.

More plaster & more bales

2010-09-20T19:54:00.001-06:00

Last week, we stacked the first fifty feet of straw bale wall and started the first coat of plaster. Dad and I finished the first coat of plaster on the west side by the end of the week. Today, Jon and I plastered the north side.

Our plaster recipe is five gallons of clay dirt which has been screened through 1/2” and then 1/4” hardware cloth, five gallons of sand, two gallons of chopped straw, one quart of homemade wheat paste, and about 3 gallons of water. We mix it in my electric concrete mixer. It mixes into the consistency of a chocolate mousse.

The plaster is spread on the bales by hand. We are really working it into the bales, making sure it is well keyed in. The goal at this point is a thin covering of plaster that will adhere well while revealing the topography of the bales. It takes a bit of time to work it in this way, but I want to be sure it is a good base for the next coat, one that will not come off.

We finished the first coat on the north wall by lunch time. So, after lunch we started stacking some more bales. Our approach is to build the walls in sections. Most of the walls will have to be protected from the elements until they are well plastered. So, I don’t want them all erected at once.

Our second bale wall section begins at the door from the kitchen to the summer kitchen and ends at the front door. I debated about whether or not to dip the bales in clay slip this time. It adds an additional couple of steps and slows down the stacking of the bales. We found little advantage to our dipping efforts the last time.

The idea with dipping is to have a coating of clay on the bales for the discovery coat to adhere to. We didn’t end up with that much clay on the bales, at least not enough to help with the plastering except in one or two spots. Also, trimming the face of the bales with a weedeater string trimmer makes a nicer surface for plastering than not trimming then, but it also knocks off a fair bit of the clay from the slip.

So, I decided that we will just continue working the first coat of plaster well into the bales and not worry about dipping them in clay slip. We’ll spend the extra time required in plastering rather than spend extra time in mixing clay slip and dipping bales before stacking them.

Stacking the bales around the kitchen and to the front door meant that we built a section of wall against the timber frame in one area. There is a window opening framed in this section for a 1 foot tall by 4 feet wide window on the wall behind the wood stove. This gave me an opportunity to experience hanging bales above a window. My idea was to round the bottom inside edge of the bale and then hang it above the window with chicken wire (poultry netting). The concept worked, as you can see in the photo to the right. There are still a couple bales to be added to the wall on either side. I’ll have several more windows above which to hang bales as we progress.

I’ll pin the bales tomorrow, trim their faces, and fill voids, if all goes well. I’d like to start plastering the outside of this wall section on Wednesday.

Plaster: the beginning

2010-09-16T06:48:00.001-06:00

Yesterday’s work went very well. Dad, Jon, and I began by tying external pins to the rest of the straw bale wall. With three people, this job went a lot faster than the previous day. Again, pinning the walls really strengthened them by locking the bales together as a single unit rather than individual pieces stacked up.

After finishing the job of pinning, we stuffed voids with loose straw. There were places between bales where you could pretty much reach through the wall. This is is caused by the shape of the bales on the end – they aren’t quite square. You can stuff loose straw in until you get near the edge where it just won’t stay. We mixed up some heavy clay-straw and put in some of the resulting depressions, though.

Rather than continue filling all of the depressions in the wall this way, we decided to go ahead and mix up some plaster. In The Natural Plaster Book Cedar Rose Guelberth and Dan Chiras refer to the first coat of plaster on the bales as the discovery coat. It reveals the topography of the bales, showing the depressions and high places. It’s a thin layer of plaster, about 1/8” to 1/4” thick.

We screened some of the clay dirt I had stockpiled for the plaster using the 1/2” and 1/4” hardware cloth screens I had previously made. In the concrete mixer, we mixed together 5 gallons of clay with 3 gallons of sand. Then we added water to achieve a nice consistency (not too wet, not too dry – we figured it out as we went along). The final ingredient was one gallon of chopped straw. We wanted the plaster for the discovery coat to be fairly wet/loose and clay-rich.

Once we had a batch of plaster mixed up, we took it over to the wall and started applying it to the straw bales. I had already trimmed the loose straws with a small electric weed eater/trimmer a few minutes before. Trimming the bales this way leaves a nice surface for the plaster to be pushed into so that it can adhere well.

We applied the plaster by hand, working it into the ends of the straw on the bales. The intention is for this coat to meld with the straw on the outside edge of the bale so that the plaster will be keyed in very well. Even though the first coat is thin, it is pushed an inch or more into the surface of the bale, intimately bonding it with the ends of the straw.

Clay and straw are an ancient building material. Each one benefits the other. The straw helps hold the clay together, providing tensile strength. The clay protects the straw from the damaging effects of water as it absorbs and releases moisture and seals the straw away from the weather. The clay is absorbed by and fills the voids within the straw fibers themselves as the two meld together into a single entity.

We mixed up several batches and worked our way along the wall. We plastered about 20 feet of wall in three hours or so. Later, we’ll apply a second coat which will be thicker and will fill in voids and smooth out the surface. I will probably fill some of the deeper voids before we apply the actual second coat. I’m only planning on two good coats of plaster on the exterior before the siding is put on. The plaster will seal in and protect the bales from the weather, and the siding will be an additional layer of protection in order to keep water off of and out of the bale walls.

Pinning the bale wall

2010-09-14T19:47:00.001-06:00

This morning the boys and I cut down several large saplings, mostly Mimosa which grows like a weed around here. We trimmed off any small branches and brought them to the house. Their purpose was to help strengthen the straw bale walls.

If you’ve read or watched anything about straw bale building, you may be aware that one of the accepted practices is to drive rebar through the bales in order to tie them together. In some places the code for a straw bale home requires rebar. After stacking the bales yesterday, it was clear that there is a good reason for some means of tying the bales together and increasing their rigidity.

I didn’t want to use rebar, and it isn’t the only way to achieve the desired end. I’ve read about another method and opted to use it. It involves pinning the bales with external pins, Mimosa sprouts in my case. Since I already have a frame work of 2x4s on the outside of the bales, I only need the sprouts/saplings on the inside of the walls.

To pin the walls this way, I put some fence staples into the edge of a 2x4 on the outside of the wall. Using my bale needle, I then pushed a loop of baling twine through to the inside of the wall leaving the two tail ends on the outside near the staple. I pushed these pieces through in four places on the 2x4 from top to bottom.

I inserted one of the Mimosa sprouts which had been cut to length to extend from the top to the bottom of the bale wall through the loops. Then, from the outside of the wall, I pulled the loops tight and tied the strings to the staples. My tying process involved cinching the strings tight enough to embed the sprouts into the face of the bales.

Tying the Mimosa sprouts tightly to the external framework really stiffened the wall. It imparts a lot of rigidity to the wall by connecting the bales together and holding them immobile against the outside of the wall. I was quite pleased. With Ramiah’s help, I was able to pin the walls in the sewing room/study.

Once we had pinned this section, the boys and I stuffed straw into the voids we could find between bales, both on the inside and outside. For the outside few inches, we used straw that had been dipped in clay slip. We used dry straw inside the middle of the wall since it would have a hard time drying there if it was wetted with the clay slip.

We’ll continue pinning bales and filling voids tomorrow. I was a bit too optimistic about plastering tomorrow, I think.

Here are some photos of the plastic sheeting I put up to protect the walls. I nailed a 24 foot long 2x8 at the bottom of each piece. This should keep the sheeting from blowing away if the wind picks up. It also allows it to be pulled back, making room to work on the wall under the plastic, and to be held in close to the house when it’s not necessary to work under it.

The first straw bale walls

2010-09-13T20:16:00.001-06:00

The work for today involved finishing the upstairs subfloor (aka the downstairs ceiling), getting things ready to stack some straw bales in a wall, and actually stacking some bales.

While Dad and Jon worked on the floor/ceiling, I hung some 6 mil plastic from the rafters outside the mudroom, laundry room, and sewing room/study. The plastic is there to keep any possible rain off of the straw bale walls until they’re plastered and/or sided. I also screened some clay dirt and built a trough to hold clay slip for dipping edges of bales in.

The floor was finished by lunch time, so after lunch we mixed up some clay slip. Clay slip is a very fluid water-clay mixture, basically the thickness of heavy cream. I put water and screened dirt in the concrete mixer and let it mix for a few minutes. It doesn’t take long for clay particles to be suspended in the water.

We put a little of the slip in the trough I made so we could dip the inside and outside edges of the straw bales in it. Dipping the edges of the bales in the slip gets some clay into the outer couple of inches of the bales, providing a little protection from the weather, but most importantly it helps the first coat of plaster to adhere better to the bales than it otherwise would. At least, that’s what I read and decided to try. One method of applying the slip to the bales is to spray it on with a drywall texture gun after the walls are erected. Dipping them eliminates the need for spraying and is probably less messy.

With the slip and trough ready, we put the first bale in the corner of the sewing room/study. We continued on from there until we had stacked the entire wall from the doorway onto the back porch all the way to the doorway out of the mudroom, a little over 50 feet of wall.

Some of the bales weren’t baled as tightly as I would’ve liked, but we worked with what we have. I think they’ll do alright. Once they’re tied to the framework of the house, a job I intend to get done tomorrow, they’ll be secure. I’ll also fill a few voids in order to get the outside ready for plaster. If I can do that, we’ll start plastering this section on Wednesday.

There were several custom bales that had to be made. My bale needle worked well for retying bales. With it it is simple to push string through at the desired distance from the end, bring it around, and tie a new bale. The standard bales range in length from 36” (a few are an inch or two shorter, but not many) to about 40”. We selected lengths that fit well, and made our own lengths when needed. There were quite a few reties necessary. Retying takes the most time of any task in the process.

Second floor subfloor

2010-09-08T20:06:00.001-06:00

We’ve spent several days preparing boards for the upstairs subfloor which is also the ceiling for the first floor. Previously, I bought some cull lumber for this purpose. I stickered the boards after culling out the ones that weren’t usable for the house. That was a few years ago (I can’t remember if it was three or four).

Jon and I ran a few of them through the planer several weeks ago when we had a lull in other construction tasks. Dad and I started planing the rest of the boards last week. We had to run each board through the planer three times, taking off about 3/32” each pass. A few boards were thicker and had to be run through more times. The final thickness was 15/16” with at least one side on each board smooth enough for the ceiling.

The next step in the process was cutting the boards to length. The original lengths were from 8 to 12 feet long. We cut them to 48”, 54”, and 67” lengths. Then, each board could be edged on the table saw before finally have a rabbet cut on each edge so there would be a lap joint when nailed into place.

We determined the necessary lengths of the boards based upon the spacing between the floor joists, wanting the boards to span across at least three joists. For most of them, that is 48”. It’s easier to edge shorter boards on the table saw than longer ones. Also, I’ve left the boards at various widths. So, when they are installed, a row is put across which spans at least three floor joists, and then another row is put on.

While Jon and dad began installing the boards we prepared by Monday of this week, I finished cutting the rabbet joints in the remaining boards which had already been cut to length and edged. When I finished, I took them down to the house and checked on their progress. They were doing fine. So, while they worked on the floor, I put flashing on the front corners of the porch roof and installed the ridge cap.

The floor butts up against the cathedral ceiling at the front of the house. Dad cut the edge of the board at 55 degrees to match the angle of the cathedral ceiling. The angle matched, but the boards didn’t line up perfectly because the existing ceiling is not perfect level across its face. That’s okay. I’ll cover this joint with some molding later on.

By the end of the day, we had the floor/ceiling on one side, the landing that will be at the top of the stairs, and the first section on the other side installed. We’ll continue putting the rest in on Friday. Tomorrow, I have to process a few more boards which are already planed (the ones Jon and I planed a few weeks ago). We need some more to finish the job. If I get those ready, we ought to be able to get the rest of the east side done in a few hours on Friday. Then, we might stack a few bales in one section.

Light clay straw wall infill: trying it out

2010-09-02T15:41:00.001-06:00

The other day I reread some of the information I have on using a mud plaster on straw bale walls. Since we’re getting close to erecting walls and plastering them, I thought it was a good idea to refresh my memory a bit. I also searched for information online and watched a few videos on the topic.

A couple of the videos I watched showed using a light clay straw mixture for infilling walls. The method uses slip forms between which straw that has been mixed with a clay slip (clay suspended in water to a heavy cream thickness) that is light and not too wet. This light clay straw mix is packed into the wall between the forms.

Here’s a video detailing the method:

After the light clay straw mix is packed into the form, the forms can be removed and the material is allowed to dry. Once it’s dry, it can be plastered over just like the straw bale walls.

I want to plaster the interior walls of the house like the straw bale walls. I’ve thought of plastering over drywall, but I like this light clay straw method better. It has a couple of advantages over drywall: it’s cheaper (since I have straw already) and it provides some insulation qualities. I’m primarily interested in sound insulation for the interior walls.

So, yesterday afternoon, the boys and I gave this method a try. We screened a little clay dirt and then put it in the concrete mixer with some water to make a clay slip. It made beautiful slip! We spread some loose straw on an old tarp and mixed it with some of the clay slip. It’s like mixing salad dressing into a salad. The goal is to coat all of the straw without getting it too wet.

I screwed some pieces of 3/8” thick plywood onto an interior wall we framed on Monday, and the boys and I started packing the light clay straw into the wall. We packed a section of wall four feet wide by almost four feet high (my form boards are 2’ x 4’ pieces). After we finished packing, I removed the forms to reveal this result:

I think it looks great! We’ll probably finish this wall sometime soon, but I’ll wait on the others until after I’ve run the electrical wires and installed outlet/switch boxes.

The main lesson learned from this experience is to pack the mix a bit more than I did yesterday. the section at the bottom was actually packed better than the top two feet. There are a few voids in the wall in places, but we’ll fill these with a cob mix later (cob is a heavy clay straw mix) before plastering the wall. When we near the top of the wall, the challenge will be in packing the mix in. We’ll try packing it from one side with only one form in place. Alternatively, we’ll use a cob mix for the last six inches or so of wall at the top.

Bale needle

2010-09-01T06:01:00.001-06:00

One of the tasks required for building with straw bales is re-tying the bales to shorter lengths. A tool to facilitate this job is a bale needle. I could buy a set of plans for making one from strawbale.com, but I decided to make my own based upon the photos I found of a bale needle online.

I bought a three foot long 7/16” diameter smooth metal rod from the local hardware store. Using a cutting blade on a bench grinder, two different files, and a bench top belt sander, I cut notches near the end of the rod and ground the end to a point. I then welded a piece of round stock on the opposite end for a handle.

The notches in the rod hold the baling twine as it is pushed or pulled through the bale. There are two notches available for pushing two strings through and one notch for pulling string through.

We tried it out last evening on a bale, and it worked fine. Here’s a video by Andrew Morrison about how to re-tie straw bales to shorter lengths:

Straw in the house (and a couple of other things)

2010-08-31T15:35:00.001-06:00

We finished unloading and stacking the straw in the house around 7:00 last evening. It was after 8:00 by the time I had my chores done which involves milking two cows. I didn’t take any photos yesterday, but I did take some this morning.

The straw was baled this summer after the wheat was harvested. I bought them from Tyler who lives near Bowling Green, Kentucky. He’s a very nice individual. He kept the bales in his barn until I was ready for them here since I didn’t have any place to keep them dry until the house was far enough along to put them in the middle of it. The photo to the right shows how the house looked when I made the deal to purchase the straw from Tyler two months ago. As you can see, there wasn’t anywhere to stack and store bales securely out of the weather.

I bought 300 straw bales four years ago (has it really been that long?) which I stored in the barn. I’m still going to use some of them, but several haven’t survived because of various factors. The cows ate as many as they could get a hold of (they had to really stretch and reach, but they did it anyway). Some were used for animal bedding. Some got wet from a couple small roof leaks. So, I needed some fresh, new bales.

To the left you can see what 300 bales stacked inside the house looks like. It makes it look a lot like a barn! It took about 40 minutes to unload the trailer. The trailer Tyler hauled them on (he delivered them) was a 30 foot monster. I thought we would shuttle the bales about 100 at a time down the hill to the house with my truck and trailer. But, he was willing to drive it down. It should be mentioned that it is a gravel driveway on a fairly steep hill. The photo to the right is of our driveway going down the hill which was taken last April. It’s hard to appreciate in this picture just how steep it is.

After the weight of the trailer and bales pushed the truck a bit on the gravel at the top, we chained my 4x4 truck to the back of the trailer to provide some extra braking power and made it the rest of the way down just fine. He was then able to drive near the house and back the trailer up to the porch from which point we unloaded and stacked the bales in the house.

Tyler had to wait until he finished work yesterday before he could deliver the bales. He had about an hour to drive, and it was a quarter till 6:00 when he got here. So, during the preceding hours, Dad, Jon, and I worked on the house. We framed interior walls for the mudroom, laundry room, and sewing room/study. In two places these walls butt up against the straw bale wall. I also wanted the ones against the timber frame there to help provide structural support for the straw bales going upstairs as in this section there is not a bale wall below them as there is in the other sections.

We also cut an installed some 2x4 blocking along the inside edge of the porch between the vertical stringers. We held the porch floor boards out the thickness of a 2x4 so that we could come back and insert this blocking. It helps to seal up along the bottom of the wall framed by the vertical strings. The starter strip for the siding will nail into this blocking.

Last week, Dad and I planed a few more boards for the upstairs subfloor. These are boards that I bought as cull lumber from a local sawmill and which have been stickered to dry the last two years. We didn’t get the job done because the motor in the planer was having some problems. It’s currently at a shop to be repaired. Once I get it back, we’ll finish planing the boards and then edge them so we can install them in the house. That’s the last major task before stacking bales for the walls.

After finishing our tasks at the house and before the straw bales arrived, I worked on making a bale needle. This will be used to push strings through straw bales in order to retie them to shorter lengths as necessary. It will also be used to push/pull strings through the walls to tie them to framing members. I only need to weld on a handle and do a little polishing, and it should be good to go. I’ll share a photo after it’s finished.

As you can see in the photo above, we finished installing the window and door bucks in the house last week. We also added additional vertical stringers as necessary. It’s quite exciting to be almost ready to put up the walls!

The straw bales are here!

2010-08-30T19:06:00.001-06:00

It’s been a long but productive day. My dad, Jon, and I framed some interior walls defining the mudroom, laundry/utility room, and sewing room/study. We put blocking in around the edge of the porch between the vertical stringers. There were a couple other things that we also accomplished today, but the biggest thing was unloading 300 straw bales and stacking them in the house.

I don’t have photos yet – I’ll endeavor to post some tomorrow showing what we got done. We’re almost ready to start stacking bales in the walls.

Thanks to Tyler for delivering the bales and helping unload them.

Video of the house

2010-08-26T19:48:00.001-06:00

I shot a short video showing the house today:

First floor subfloor

2010-08-17T07:54:00.001-06:00

Last week I ordered 48 sheets of Advantech sheeting for the first floor subfloor. I’ve tried to get a good deal on material for the subfloor, but the guy I’ve been buying lumber from hasn’t had any Advantech for a while. He offered to get what I needed from his supplier at his cost which ended up being about $2.50 per sheet less than what I would pay elsewhere.

I picked up the material on Sunday so that Jon, Dad, and I would be able to start putting down the subfloor on the main level of the house yesterday. I spent a couple of hours getting things ready Sunday afternoon, moving things out of the house and smoothing out the ground under the house – I needed to put plastic in the crawl space.

So, on Monday morning, we began by caulking gaps along the sill plate and boxing on the foundation walls, a job that was partially done last week. When we ran out of caulk (we were most of the way around, and I bought more caulk at lunch time so we could finish the job), we started putting plastic on the ground in the crawl space. I bought some 6 mil black plastic on Sunday for this purpose.

The plastic comes in a 20 foot width. So, we rolled out enough to go from the front to the back of the crawlspace with a little to curve up onto the wall. We had to cut it to get it around the piers the timber frame sits on. We securely taped it around each pier. It took two widths to cover the main part under the house. We taped the seam together in the middle where the two pieces met.

After putting plastic down under the kitchen and under the mudroom, we began hanging radiant barrier insulation along the crawl space walls. This is a reflective material with bubble wrap in the middle. The idea is to hang it from the top of the crawl space wall so that it hangs down and curves out onto the plastic. This material’s insulation value is not diminished if it gets wet (I don’t want it to get wet, of course) unlike fiberglass insulation. It should help to keep the crawl space temperature moderated and allow us to capitalize on the thermal mass of the earth below the house. If we insulated under the floor, this wouldn’t be possible.

I learned of this method of insulating a crawl space from an insulation contractor in the St. Louis area on a forum a few years ago when researching what to do for our house. He claimed that his experience is that the temperature in the crawl space is maintained within 10 degrees of the temperature inside the house.

Once we insulated the areas that were already caulked, we began putting down Advantech sheets for the subfloor. We had to cut around timber frame posts and modify lengths because I hadn’t laid out the floor joists in the frame as I should have. However, the process when quite well. By the end of the day, we had finished the floor in the timber frame and also the kitchen area.

We’ll put the floor down over the root cellar and in the mudroom area on Wednesday. We also have to put floor down on the straw bale wall toe-up all the way around. There’s also one section of porch floor in what will be the summer kitchen that needs to be put down. We should be able to finish all that on Wednesday and start putting in window and door bucks, too.

Porch floor

2010-08-11T19:10:00.001-06:00

With the porch roof put on (only two ridge caps left to complete), it was time to start laying the porch floor. With my dad’s help, I started putting boards down on Monday.

In the spring of 2009, a friend let me cut down some beech trees on his property and have the logs. Dad and I dragged the logs out of the woods and staged them for milling last fall. Finally, a friend of mine brought his Woodmizer sawmill over to saw the logs for me early this summer. We brought them home and stickered (stacked with sticks between the layers so that air can get all around the boards) them near the house, waiting for the time when they would become our porch floor.

We hauled several over near the cut-off saw, and Dad began squaring one end. The design of the porch is for the floor to run from the house out. This allows the boards to be laid down without concern for their overall length, as long as they are long enough to allow some overhang at the edge of the porch. Once the boards are screwed down, I snap a line and cut them off to the right length with my circular saw. Then, they are all the same length.

After dad squared one end, I would put a board in place and then screw it down with deck screws. This takes a fair bit of time. We were able to complete almost 30 feet of floor along the front of the house on Monday. Yesterday, I finished up the last four feet and cut the excess off the edge leaving a nice overhang. It looks quite nice.

Today, Jon came over to work. He, Dad, and I worked on the porch floor on the back of the house. When I cut the trees and bucked them into saw logs, I was planning for the porch to be 9 feet wide. It turns out that it is actually 9.5 feet wide. So, some of the boards are almost but not quite long enough. So, we had to get creative.

On the back, we cut short lengths and screwed them near the house. Then, we ran longer lengths out from that. This made good use of our material with little waste, and it will work fine for the floor.

We completed the back porch floor and started on the east side of the house before quitting for the day. On Friday, we’ll continue where we left off.

Porch roof

2010-08-10T20:29:00.001-06:00

Last week I was able to work during the first half of the week. The job at hand was the porch roof, continuing to install the sheets of metal.

For the front of the house, I cut three inches off of the metal so that the amount extending past the fascia board would be correct. I wasn’t able to extend the metal as far under the house roof as I expected. So, the full 11 feet I ordered was too long. They were quite easy to cut using a metal cutting blade in the circular saw. We cut 7 sheets at a time (I needed 14).

When I ordered the metal, I planned on using some of the 10 foot sheets I already had for the corners, expecting the color to be similar (I ordered “rainbow”). However, of the 50 sheets I ordered, 48 were galvanized and two were black. I used the galvanized metal on the sides, the front, and all four corners. Using it on the corners meant that I didn’t have enough to extend across the back.

So, I used some of the metal roofing sheets I already had. The only problem was that they are only 10 feet long, not eleven. This left a gap of about a foot at the top near the house. Although I planned to cut pieces and put them over this gap, I didn’t get that completed until today.

Before I began the roof, it occurred to me that I hadn’t planned for condensation issues over the areas the roof covers which are part of the house, like the kitchen, mudroom, utility room, and sewing room/study. I asked about doing so at the metal supply place, and they suggested using radiant barrier insulation under the metal. It turns out that this is a common method used by builders in the area. So, that’s what I did.

Three sheets

2010-07-30T19:05:00.001-06:00

The weather today was much nicer than the preceding days. It was cooler (mid-80s), and the humidity was lower. There were several times I just had to stand still and enjoy how refreshing the breeze felt.

Dad and Danny helped this morning. Dad and I nailed on purlins while Danny cut the individual boards to length and handed them up to us. We were able to finish the east side, get all of the purlins on the back, and start the west side before lunch.

After lunch, Danny had some other work to attend to. So, Dad and I worked on finishing the purlins on the west side. We got them all nailed on without any problems.

Then, we laid out three sheets of metal on the front to figure out how they fit under the existing roof metal. We’re able to slide them up under alright, but we’ll need to cut off about 3 inches from the sheets on the front in order to make sure that the amount the metal overhangs is not too much. The metal can’t be slid up under the other metal far enough because of the rafters on the house (they butt up against these). I don’t need or want 4 inches of metal overhanging the edge. The goal is 1.5 inches, an appropriate amount for the gutters that I will eventually install around the porch.

After figuring out the front, we moved the sheets of metal to the east side to see how they lined up. They were fine. So, since we had them up there already, I went ahead and screwed them to the purlins. If we have no problems, it won’t be too difficult to get the rest of the roofing metal installed early next week.

Purlins and fascia board

2010-07-30T05:33:00.001-06:00

Although I haven’t posted in a few days, I’ve continued working on the house. Jon hasn’t been able to come over to work since last week, but my dad helped me three days. I’ll be getting more done today.

Dad and I finished the porch on the west side of the house, putting up the two posts and the 4x6 headers. We also got all of the porch rafters up, including the corner over the root cellar and the corner that over what will be the summer kitchen. It’ll just be porch initially. Later, I’ll close it in for the summer kitchen (might only screen it – we haven’t decided yet).

On Tuesday of this week, I brought home some cement board siding. I have some more to bring home. I’d hoped to get it yesterday, but I had to change two tires on the trailer (one did not make it home intact on Tuesday). The tires are ready to go now, and I’ve unloaded all of the siding from the trailer.

On Wednesday, Dad and I started installing purlins for the porch roof on the front of the house. After we got going on that, we decided to put up fascia board all the way around. I had some 1x6s that worked great for this. We were able to put up all of the fascia board and get the purlins completed on the front and partially done on the east side.

The plan for today is to continue installing purlins so that we can start getting the metal roof on.

Window bucks and other things

2010-07-25T19:01:00.001-06:00

It was hot again today. That seems to be the way it is around here this summer.

After doing some garden work this morning, I did some work on the house. My first task was to put a pipe under the footer on the west side of the house. When I was doing the foundation work previously, I forgot to provide for bringing in a water line. I left an outlet hole for sewer, but that’s higher on the wall than I wanted to bring a water line in, which would make it more susceptible to freezing.

So, I dug down and under the footer in one place and fed through a section of 1.5” black pipe. I should be able to tie in to this later on when bring the water line down the hill.

The next task I undertook was installing corner braces on the northeast corner post of the porch. I could have nailed some 2x4s on at 45 degree angles, but I wanted something a little better than that. I used a 2x4 I milled out of cedar a while back for the brace, and I set it into the post and header on the corner. It took a little while to cut and chisel the pockets for the braces, but I’m pretty happy with the result.

When I finished with the braces, it was time to eat lunch. Because of the heat, I felt tired and worn out. I rested for a little while, and then decided to get back to work. Thankfully, I could work in the shade.

I cut 2x4s and constructed five window bucks. I put these in for the windows in the living room and Anne’s and my bedroom. I made sure they were square and plumb and securely attached them to the vertical stringers. After putting them in, I added some short stringers underneath to which siding will be attached later.

Speaking of siding, I’ve decided to use cement board siding on the house. The guy I’ve been buying lumber from got a trailer load of it and has offered me a pretty good deal on enough for the house. It will cost a bit more than the shingle siding, but it will go on a whole lot quicker with less work.

Porch rafters

2010-07-22T19:24:00.001-06:00

After three days of working on the house this week, the porch on the front, east side, and back of the house is now ready for the purlins. Yesterday, Danny and I installed the rest of the header beams that were still needed and worked on some of the rafters.

Before Danny came down the hill to help, I put up a header board across the front of the house to attach the porch rafters to. Originally, I thought I was going to attach the rafters on the front to the girts on the front of the timber frame. Previously, we put up the vertical stringers across the front, attaching them to a 2x4 we nailed to the house rafters. In order to attach the porch rafters to the timber frame, I would have to notch each one to fit over the 2x4 at the top of the vertical stringers.

It occurred to me that I could put a header up on the vertical stringers, notching it around the rafters under the metal roof. This actually worked well and was quite easy to do. Once it was up, the rafters, which could be cut to the same length as the rest of them around the house, were fairly easy to put up.

We used the porch rafters to assure that the porch posts were plumb toward the house. We plumbed them the other direction when attaching the headers on Monday.

After we finished the rafters on the front of the house, we cut the remaining headers to go on top of the posts along the back and the northeast corner. After putting these up, I laid out the location for the rafters along the back and the east side. We then attached the rafters that were nearest the posts in order to tie them to the house and to make sure they were plumb in that direction.

This morning, I had two posts to plumb and tie to the house with rafters. Once I had those two up, my dad came down to help me. Jon wasn’t able to make it, and Danny had another job to work on.

Before starting on the rafters, I cut several rafters to length out of some of the 2x6s I bought on Sunday. Dad and I worked on getting all the rafters up between the ones already attached near the posts. Once we had all of these done, we started on the rafters at the northeast corner of the porch.

The corners will have a hip roof. I’d previously set aside 2x6s of sufficient length for each corner. I’m doubling the rafters on the corners since they have a greater span and will be carrying more of the roof load than the other rafters.

We figured out the angles we needed and began by putting the first two 2x6s in place. Each of the rafters we’ve installed for the porch has had to be notched to fit onto the header. I’ve found that it’s easier to use a chisel and hammer for this than it is to use a saw. We would put each rafter into place, mark the outside edge of the header on the bottom of it, take it down, and then cut the notch.

For the corner rafters, the notch is cut at an angle. It wasn’t too hard to chisel it so that it fit tightly while the rafters met up at the corner on the house side. We left these 2x6s long to be cut later after we had the rafters that but into this main one installed.

We measured, cut, and put up the other corner rafters one at a time, notching them as we went. Once they were all up, we snapped a chalk line to mark where they needed to be cut off for the proper overhang. It didn’t take long to cut them.

After lunch we worked on the southeast corner rafters. We were able to finish this corner before we quit this evening. We also moved supplies to be ready to get the corner above the root cellar done next.

So, the porch rafters along the front, east side, and back of the house are all up. It’s looking good!

Floor plan/layout of our house

2010-07-20T19:28:00.001-06:00

Danny and I worked on the house again today, installing more rafters and header beams on top of the porch posts. I’ll include a few photos of today’s work in a post after tomorrow’s work.

A couple of people have asked about the floorplan of our house. It has changed since I last posted a layout on February 8, 2009. I’ve been negligent in not posting a current floor plan. So, I’m rectifying that situation now.

The layout for the first floor that we’re working with now (after some adjustment over the last few months) looks like this (click image for a larger view):

If you compare the current plan with the previous floor plan, you will notice a few changes. The main thing is the kitchen which has been moved forward outside of the timber frame area. To the left of the kitchen is the summer kitchen on the southwest corner of the porch area. We also changed the bathrooms to put them next to one another, and we moved the pantry to the northwest corner of the timber frame area. This allowed us to put windows in both bathrooms. On the northwest corner of the house is located the mudroom, utility room, and the sewing room/study.

The porch, which we are working on now, extends around the house with the dotted line in the layout denoting the edge. The porch is 9 feet wide.

The upstairs in the house is in the timber frame area. It’s layout is like this (click image for a larger view):

The center section is open to the first floor. The stairs come up in a U shape at the back of the house where there is a landing. The two bedrooms upstairs are on the east and west end of the house. There is some storage space accessed from these rooms under the eaves at the front of the house. We’ve really not changed anything upstairs – there’s only so much that can be done.

The porch posts are vertical

2010-07-19T21:17:00.001-06:00

Well, all except two of them.

In April of last year, dad and I milled the posts for our porch (post 1 & post 2). Since then, they’ve been stacked in the timber frame waiting to be used. Today, it was finally time to begin installing them.

The process was fairly simple, but did take a bit of time. The first task was to square one end of each post and then cut them to length. Squaring an end involves cutting it on four sides with the circular saw and finishing the cut with a handsaw (about 3/4” in the center).

The posts are all set over concrete piers and tie into the beams used to frame the porch deck. Being cedar, they aren’t too heavy even though they are full 6x6s. We set them up to vertical and toe nailed them into the deck framing while holding them mostly plumb. Then, I drilled holes to embed two 7” lag screws into the bottom of each post, coming up at an angle through the 6x8 beam upon which each partially sits.

As we set the posts, we also began to put up the 4x6 header on top. These small beams butt to one another on top of the posts. Since the 4x6s vary in height, I’m cutting them to 5 inches to provide a consistent height for the rafters which will sit on the header.

By the end of the day, we had all but two posts set and the header installed across the front and most of the east side. It shouldn’t take too long to set the last two posts and finish the header. I may put up some rafters on the front tomorrow.

Another week’s worth of work is done

2010-07-16T18:13:00.001-06:00

It feels good to get things done on the house. We are on schedule for being ready for the straw bales by the end of July. If our progress is good next week, I’ll call the guy I’m buying them to arrange for delivery sometime during the last week of July (which isn’t far away).

This morning we continued putting up vertical stringers on the west side of the utility room and mudroom. We got the north side of this section done on Wednesday. Having done the other wall of stringers, this wall went quickly. Once we had rafters up, we were able to frame the end walls with the vertical stringers.

I was glad to see that the length of the north wall above the root cellar and the west wall above the root cellar (and past it) were the same. I actually find this remarkable because the rooms here are the result of different sections of foundation built at different times coming together. I feel blessed.

At lunch time, it was beginning to rain a little bit. The rain didn’t continue, though. So, we were able to continue work in the afternoon.

We framed the kitchen with the vertical stringers for these bale walls. There is a door on the west wall that will lead into the summer kitchen. There is a six foot wide by 36” tall window on the south wall that will be above the sink. There is a 36” by 36” window on the east wall. We’ll be building the bucks for the doors and windows later. When they’re installed, things will look different.

We put up all of the rafters above the sewing room/study, utility room, mudroom, and kitchen. I’m planning on buying some more 2x6s from the local guy who I’ve bought other lumber from. I bought two exterior doors from him yesterday. One will be the front door and the other will exit from the sewing room/study onto the back porch.

I also picked up the roofing metal I ordered for the porch. I have some 10’ pieces of metal, but they wouldn’t allow for enough overhang. So, I ordered 11’ pieces of ‘rainbow’ metal. Out of the 50 pieces I received, two are black and 48 are galvanized.

Next week, we should be able to get the porch posts up and the header that goes between the posts put on. Then, we’ll put on the porch rafters and, hopefully, the purlins so we can put on the roofing metal.

More vertical stringers

2010-07-14T19:46:00.001-06:00

Jon and I started in on the west side of the house today. After moving the materials and tools we needed, ripping a few more 2x8s into 2x4s, and laying out the positions for the stringers, they installed quite well. So, the majority of the stringers are in around the timber frame. The ones that remain are shorter ones that will be below and above the window/door bucks.

After finishing the west side stringers, we took a little time to do some figuring on the pitch for the porch roof (also the pitch for the roof over the kitchen, summer kitchen, mudroom, utility room, and sewing room/study area). I don’t want the outside wall of these rooms and the outside of the porch too low. We set up a board so we could visualize the pitch and take some accurate measurements.

With this figuring done, we moved our efforts to the wall on the outside edge above the root cellar, walls for the sewing room/study and utility room. There will be one large window in each of these rooms.

We put up a header on the vertical stringers for attaching rafters to the house. We then nailed 2x4s cut to the right height along the back wall, leaving openings for the window bucks. It is exactly 24 feet from one corner of this wall to the other. So, we were able to use one 2x4 (cut from a 24’ 2x8) as the header at the top of the wall. This provides the plate for the 2x6 rafters to sit on.

After getting the corners of the wall plumb, we nailed on the header. Then, we plumbed each of the verticals and nailed them on. Next, we put on some rafters in order to tie the wall into the house.

We’ll continue where we left off on Friday. Hopefully, we finish the west wall on this part of the house and put up the vertical stringers on the front of the kitchen. Maybe we’ll even get other stuff done.

Vertical stringers

2010-07-13T09:00:00.001-06:00

Since we are going to have a wood shingle siding on the outside of our house rather than just plastered straw bales, there is a need to have some sort of framing to hang the siding on. We were able to get started on some of this framing yesterday. Jon wasn’t able to make it, but Danny was glad to help.

The vertical stringers to which horizontal stringers will be attached (upon which the siding will hang) are 2x4s set 18 inches outside of the timber frame. These 2x4s extend from the floor level to the rafters. Previously, I bought some 20 foot long 2x8s from a local guy with the intention of ripping them into 2x4s for framing purposes. These 2x8 boards were a good deal and make it possible for the vertical stringers to be one piece the whole distance.

We began the day by affixing a 2x4 to the rafters on the back of the house across the whole length. We snapped a chalk line to facilitate putting the board 18” outside the timber frame. Then, I climbed a ladder holding one end of the board while Danny lifted it with a 16 foot 2x4 nailed to the opposite end. He held up his end while I nailed the other end in place and then worked my way down the board nailing it to the rafters. Because of the length of the 2x4s we had, we only needed two to extend across the back of the house.

Next, I laid out the location of the windows on the back of the house, marking their location on the 2x4 bale toe-up on the floor. Later, we will build window bucks using 2x4s that will hang on the vertical stringers where the windows go. Upstairs windows are designed to be above downstairs windows, simplifying their framing.

Most of our windows require a 56” by 54” rough opening. So, we set the vertical stringers on the sides of the windows 59” apart, leaving 3” for the extra width of the window bucks that will be attached later.

After completing the back of the house, we moved our materials and tools to the front of the house to install the vertical stringers there. At this point, my left leg slipped through the 2xs on the bale toe-up causing some bruising in my thigh muscles. I was able to keep working the rest of the day, but by evening, the pain was intense. It’s much better today, though.

After lunch, Danny and I cut boards and put the stringers up on the front of the house. It went surprisingly quickly, probably because we didn’t have to climb any tall ladders (we were working with 9’ 2x4s rather than 17 foot ones). We had to set them for front door and two large windows for the living room.

Since it didn’t take long to complete the front stringers, we moved to the east side of the house. On this side there are two more large windows on the end of the living room, an 8’ sliding glass door off of Anne’s and my bedroom, and a large window upstairs (these will all become more clearly visible when we make and install the window/door bucks). The tallest stringer was in the middle and is nearly 20 feet long.

For each of the stringers on the end of the house, we attached short sections of 2x4 to the roof sheeting to which the top of the stringers could be attached. I have one that I set out a bit too far (supposed to be 18”) which I will correct later. We were able to get all of them put in place before it was time to quit yesterday. We got more done than expected.

The stringers are nailed into the toe-up at the floor level, the 2nd story bale plate, and the 2x4s at rafter level. They aren’t required to provide structural support since there will be straw bales between them and the timber frame which will be able to support themselves. The straw bales will also help support the windows. Although the stringers will hold the window/door bucks in place, the bales will provide most of the support for them, too. The stringers, straw bales, and timber frame will also all be securely tied together when we install the bales.

Jon is planning on being here Wednesday. We’ll continue installing the stringers on the west side of the house. We may build and put in some window/door bucks. We might also begin putting up some stringers around the kitchen and above the root cellar.

Bale plate and toe-up

2010-07-08T13:18:00.001-06:00

It was quite hot on Wednesday, but we were able to work in the shade most of the day. With a breeze blowing, the 99 degree weather was bearable.

We accomplished a fair bit. First, we completed installing the short 2x6 joists from the timber frame out to the box board. This provides support for the floor under the straw bales. It didn’t take long to get this boards nailed in.

The next task was to build a plate to extend out from the frame near second story height. This plate will hold the vertical stringers for hanging the siding out from the bale wall. It will also provide a sort of floor for the second floor bales to be installed upon.

We build the plate with 2x4s and made it 18 inches wide, the width of straw bales. We put it together in sections on the porch, using sheets of Advantech for a floor to work on. It wasn’t hard to lift it into place and shoot a few nails into the timber frame beam on the back of the house to hold the plate in place.

We only needed to install a plate on the back and both sides. The porch rafters will butt up with the beam across the front of the house.

We measured the height for the plate so that it will not be too difficult to stack bales underneath of it on the first floor. It ended up being at a height for seven courses of straw bales. This matched up quite close for the bottom of the beam on the back of the house, but on the sides it didn’t. We had to install it below the beam. This is fine as it will be supported by vertical 2x4s which will be nailed into it on the outside face extending from porch floor level to rafters.

There are two sections of wall where the design calls for straw bales upstairs with no straw bales directly below downstairs. This is because of running the straw bale wall around the exterior of the rooms above the root cellar and the crawl space under the mudroom on the northwest corner of the house.

For the section of wall on the north side, I will frame some built-in book shelves to help support the plate and upstairs straw bales since this is in the location of a study/sewing room area. The other wall above the mudroom/utility room will have a wall extending out near the middle of the plate which will provide support. I will also add some diagonal braces from the plate to the beam on the timber frame between which bales will be inserted for the first upstairs course. The plate will also be connected to the rafters via vertical 2x4 strapping. I will detail these elements as we complete them.

After installing he plate, we began putting 2x4s down flat to provide a toe-up for the bales. The idea is to keep them above floor level in case there is ever a water leak or spill inside the house. Having the bales up an extra inch or two will help keep water from infiltrating the bale wall.

We put one board even with the outside edge of the timber frame, one 18” out from the frame, and one centered between the other two. We were able to put down about half of the total amount required. Later, we will put subfloor material on top of this toe-up when we put the rest of the subfloor down on the first floor.

We’re planning on working on the house again tomorrow, unless it rains. the task at hand is to finish the toe up for the bale wall and begin installing vertical strapping from the porch to the rafters.

Finishing the floor framing

2010-07-05T20:25:00.001-06:00

The floor is almost all framed. We lack installing the short sections of 2x6 along the back that will support the straw bale wall.

Last week, we only worked on the house Monday, getting all of the 2x6 floor joists installed on the porch and the first three 4x6 joists as well.

Anne and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary on Wednesday. She and I took off Wednesday and Thursday for some time out together – the children stayed with my parents.

On Friday, I mowed hay, and we baled what I had previously mowed on Tuesday afternoon. So, there wasn’t time to get back to work on the house as I had hoped.

We got at it this morning and put in a full day. We completed putting in the rest of the 4x6 floor joists on the porch. Then, we installed the floor joists for the kitchen, the west side porch, and the mudroom. The next thing was to put in the short 2x6 joists that frame the floor upon which the straw bale walls will be placed. This process went well, but the day was done before we could get the section on the back of the house done. We’ll complete that on Wednesday.

I have to figure out how to proceed from this point. There are several tasks to be completed before we can begin stacking straw bales, including building the framework to hold the windows and exterior siding, framing the summer kitchen, putting up the porch posts, roofing the porch, installing the first floor subfloor, and screwing on the porch floor.

Three years ago I bought 300 bales of straw for the house which have been stored in the barn since then. I should’ve waited. Several of them have not faired well for a variety of reasons. I also wanted some better straw. Last week I made a deal to purchase 300 more bales of good wheat straw. The guy I’m buying them from will deliver then when I’m ready for them. We’re working to be ready by the end of July.

Another day’s work

2010-06-25T20:00:00.001-06:00

After Jon arrived this morning, we continued building the deck for the porch. The task involved cutting 6x8 beams to the proper length, setting them in place, and ensuring they were level. I’m using 4x6s along the outer perimeter of the porch. The 6x8s butt up against the back side of the 4x6s on top of the block piers. They rest on the foundation wall on the house side and attach to the 2x8 box boards. Later, we’ll run 2x6s and 4x6s as floor joists between the 6x8 beams.

We built the frame across the front of the house and along the east side. That leaves only the porch on the back which extends from the corner to the root cellar.

I probably didn’t have to use 6x8s and 4x6s for the porch floor frame. One of my desires is that the porch be solid without flex in the floor. I also didn’t want to spend a lot of money. I bought the 4x6s from a sawmill previously and I had a few 6x8 beams left over from building the timber frame. I figured I would mill some more as needed. A friend gave me several beech trees out of which a friend milled 1x8s and 1x6s to use for the porch floor. There were enough logs to mill 14 6x8 beams also. So, the 6x8s were basically free.

If I had to buy dimensional lumber from a building supply place, the porch would have been designed a lot smaller. I want a nice, large porch. It will be an important part of our living space.

More floor framing

2010-06-25T16:42:00.001-06:00

(This post was written yesterday, but Blogger/Picassa were having problems and prevented me from posting it last evening.)

Although the weather has been hot and humid, we keep working. And, we’re making progress.

On Wednesday, Jon had to leave early because he was needed at home. I had to run an errand into town which took longer than it was supposed to. After I returned, my dad offered to help me work on the house. We worked a little before lunch and then another couple of hours after lunch and accomplished a fair bit.

We continued framing the floor on the west side of the house, working out from the root cellar. I had to figure how to go about it since I only had enough 2x8s to use as floor joists for one section. There are three sections from framing for the floor above the root cellar toward the front of the house: the mudroom, porch, and the summer kitchen.

I decided to use the 2x8s for the floor joists of the summer kitchen (that’s what was left of the 2x dimensional lumber I bought at the beginning of the week). They were mostly 10’ long boards, and the span is approximately 9 feet. So, these worked well. They wouldn’t work in the mudroom section since the span there is 11 feet.

We started by putting beams from the mudroom foundation wall to the piers on this end of the house (two piers). Because of how the floor will be framed, I chose to use 6x8 beams between the piers. We ran a 6x8 beams from the first pier back to the foundation wall in order to ensure that the two longer beams I had would be long enough.

I designed the piers to be about 2 inches higher in elevation than the foundation wall. There is some variation to be handled with wood shims. However, when we laid the first beam from the corner of the mudroom foundation wall to the first pier, the level showed that it was level. The next beam between the two piers was low at the corner. Then, the 4x6 from the kitchen foundation to the pier showed the pier being high. This was confusing.

We checked things with a line level, but it just wasn’t accurate enough to determine how level the beams were. So, I used a straight cedar 2x4 I had with the four foot level on top. With this setup we were able to determine that the first pier was 1.75 inches higher than the foundation wall – more like it was supposed to be. So, I notched the bottoms of the beams, and amazingly, they came out level (the crown in the first beam accounts for most of the discrepancy that exists).

We worked the beams out to level before hanging floor joists for the summer kitchen. These went fairly quickly. They hung on the 2x10 box on the kitchen foundation wall on the inside and nailed into the 6x8 on the outside.

After framing this section, we hung two 6x8 beams from the house out to the outside edge. We’ll hang 2x6 floor joists out from these beams to the 2x10 on the edge of the floor above the root cellar, to the box on the mudroom foundation wall, and to the 6x8 at the edge of the summer kitchen floor framing (four sections of 2x6 floor joists all together). These 2x6 floor joists will only span 5.5 to 6 feet. So, they ought to be strong enough.

At this point, it was 5:00pm and we were at a good stopping point. Jon will probably be here to work tomorrow. We’ll continue with more floor framing then.

Boxing in along foundation wall and some floor framing

2010-06-22T07:38:00.001-06:00

On Sunday, I bought some lumber from a local guy. He buys semi loads of building material returns and then uses it for his own construction projects and to sell. He had some 2x8, 2x10, and 2x12 boards ranging in length from 10’ to 22’, most being 16’, that I paid $5 per board for. I bought 40 boards, most of it being 2x10s.

Yesterday, Jon and I ripped the 2x10s down to 8 inches in width and used them to box in around the house on top of the foundation wall. We needed to rip them since I had designed the height of the foundation wall and sill plate to be 8” below the floor level of the timber frame, matching the depth of the beams I used. The porch floor framing will butt up against this boxing on the outside, and we’ll use 2x6s on the inside between the box and the wall to frame the floor for under the straw bales.

We also began framing the floor above the root cellar yesterday. We used 2x10s ripped down to 8” from the timber frame to the outside root cellar wall. The straw bale wall will run along the outside edge above the root cellar. I left an opening for the stairs to the root cellar. We’ll have a sewing room/study above one part of the root cellar and part of the utility room above the other end.

Based upon the number of 2x lumber that I have left, I believe I will frame the floor for the kitchen and mudroom similar to the framing I’m planning for the porch. I’ll post about that as it happens.

Ready to begin the next phase of construction

2010-06-18T20:30:00.001-06:00

It’s been hot and sweaty weather here for the last couple of weeks, and the forecast is that it will stay the same through next week. Still, there’s work to be done. So, I accept sweat as a way of life.

We’ve made some good progress this week. Except for a few small places on the walls where I want to apply a second coat of surface bonding cement, the foundation work is done. We finished installing the sill plate all the way around today.

It took longer to bolt the sill plate on than I expected. There was a fair bit of time spent milling the boards, of course. I guess if I just went to the building supply store and bought lumber for the job, it would be quicker. It would also cost more and wouldn’t be ‘custom’ like what we have now.

After we finished bolting on the last sill board, we laid a few 4x6s on the porch piers at the front of the house. These will go all the way around the porch eventually with 6x8 beams coming out from the foundation wall to the piers which will support the floor joists for the porch.

We’ll be framing the deck of the porch next week. I don’t know how quickly this phase of the project will take. I usually underestimate the amount of time it takes to do each part. You’d think I’d learn by now, but I’m still an optimist in terms of how much I can actually accomplish in any given day.

Sill plates

2010-06-16T19:18:00.001-06:00

On Monday, Jon and I coated the kitchen crawl space wall with surface bonding cement. We also coated the small section inside the root cellar that I didn’t take care of last summer. I also finished stuccoing the piers for the porch at the back of the house. We had these jobs finished by lunchtime. So after lunch, we started milling boards for the sill plates. That didn’t go so well because my Husqvarna 3120xp chainsaw (the powerhead for the sawmill) wasn’t running properly. After milling one log, we completed a couple of other jobs unrelated to the house.

This morning, we returned to milling. I checked out the saw yesterday in preparation, cleaning the air filter, fuel filter, and muffler. It ran better, but still doesn’t have the power it should. I believe the fuel filter is the culprit. I’ll be ordering a new one.

After we had several of the boards milled, we hauled them to the house to begin bolting them to the foundation and to see what we still needed to mill. There are four different thicknesses which we’re milling. All of the sill plates are cedar.

We put down aluminum flashing on top of the block wall and then bolt the cedar board on top of that. We were able to complete the sill plates around the root cellar and on the west side of the house. We put flashing across the front before we had to quit today. We’ll work on it again Friday.

Nearing the end of foundation work

2010-06-13T06:07:00.000-06:00

The foundation has taken a lot of work and time. I didn’t realize how much before I started on the root cellar and crawl space walls. We’re nearing the end of this phase of the construction, though.

With the footers poured for the kitchen crawl space wall and the porch piers, we were able to get blocks laid last week. The kitchen wall was dry stacked. We should be able to coat it with surface bonding cement this week. There has been a delay in obtaining a few bags of SBC because the local place no longer keeps it in stock. Dry stacking does seem to go fairly quickly, and it’s easy to do, including surfacing the walls.

I mortared the blocks for the porch piers. I was going to dry stack them, too, but I wanted to try mortaring them. They turned out pretty well, I think. We took time to make sure the outer edges were in line and that the piers were level and plumb.

On Friday we added some thinner blocks to the top of the piers (which were constructed with 12” x 16” blocks) to bring them to the proper height all the way around. The solid blocks in 2”, 2.5”, and 4” are 8”x16”. So, we scored and broke them to 12” to fit on the outside edges of the 12” blocks. Then, we mortared them in place.

I want the piers to match the foundation walls, but I didn’t want to pay for surface bonding cement (Quickwall costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $23 per bag). So, I bought some mortar/stucco mix to coat them with. We started stuccoing them on Friday.

The stucco mix works a little differently than surface bonding cement. I think the SBC is easier to apply. But, after a couple of piers, Jon and I were beginning to get the hang of it. We have only a few more to do on one side and the back of the house. These are the shortest piers. So, they shouldn’t take too long to finish on Monday.

We also added a few more j-bolts to anchor the sill plate to the foundation wall. We ought to be able to mill the plates to the right thicknesses this week and get them put on. Then, we’ll progress to framing the porch.

We’re looking forward to beginning a new phase in the construction.

Footers and piers

2010-06-02T07:05:00.001-06:00

With the return of warmer and drier weather, I’m able to get back to working on the house. There are a lot of different projects vying for my attention, but the urge to get this house done so that we can move in by next summer is upon me. I really want it finished. It is within reach.

I have worked on a related project during the last few weeks: a cistern to catch rain water. The cistern is located in the shed section of the garage which is near our current home which is at the top of the hill. We’ll harvest rain water off of the garage roof. I’ll run a 1.5 inch water line down to the house which is 50 to 60 feet lower in elevation. This should provide at least some of our water pressure. Later, I will build a cistern to harvest rain water off of the house, too. We will not hook up to city water.

We also will not hook up to the grid for electricity. We are currently using a solar electric system that I put together and installed. When we move into the new house, I’ll re-install the system for it.

We also decided to not put in a septic system. We’ll use sawdust toilets and compost it. You can read about this system in the Humanure Handbook. It’s simple and effective. It turns a waste into a resource.

Sometime at the end of last year, we changed one part of our house design. The kitchen extend out from the frame into part of what would have been the porch near the corner of the house. It will extend out 9 feet and be 12 feet wide. This will make it a non-traffic area and allow there to be a door off of the main kitchen into what will be the summer kitchen.

In order to affect this change in the design, I have to build a block wall to enclose the crawlspace under the kitchen. The space under summer kitchen will not be enclosed with block. The summer kitchen will actually be an enclosed portion of the porch on the corner toward the barn. I will probably use some cement board to enclose underneath it later on.

Last week, I started digging for the footer for the kitchen crawlspace wall and for the footers that will be under the piers that will support the porch. Actually, I had help. My good friend Jon is working with me two days a week this summer, and he helped with the digging. Having Jon working with me keeps me more focused and on task because I want to be sure and have plenty to keep him busy on the days that he’s here.

We finished excavating with shovels for all the footers last Monday. On Wednesday when he came over, I was ready with 100 80-pound bags of concrete mix that I bought on Tuesday. It probably wouldn’t have cost any more to have the local concrete company send a truck out, but with the landscaping changes I made last summer/fall, there really wasn’t any way that the truck could have gotten close enough to pour the footer.

I do have an electric powered concrete mixer that I bought several weeks ago in anticipation of the material that will need mixed. It’s one that Lowes offered, and it’s worked quite well the times we’ve used it. On Wednesday, we set it up near the house (powered by my generator since I had the temporary power disconnected) and began mixing. Two bags fit in it quite well. It took 54 bags to complete the footer for the kitchen.

For the porch pier footers, we moved the mixer so that it set right over each hole. We mixed three bags at a time which is all that would fit in the mixer. It had no problem mixing that amount of material, and the generator never complained. After mixing, we dumped the concrete directly in the hole and moved to the next one.

Everything went very smoothly, and we finished all of the concrete work by the end of the day. We had two bags left over which will be used elsewhere later on.

This week Jon wasn’t able to be here on Monday. So, I worked on my own. On Friday I had purchased some 12” concrete blocks for the porch piers. They didn’t have any surface bonding cement in stock – I’ll need that for surfacing the kitchen crawlspace wall.

I put strings up to make sure that I would have everything lined up properly. Then, I set out the blocks for the kitchen wall in preparation of mortaring the first course onto the footer. After that, I mortared each block, making sure it was level.

Once I finished the first course for the kitchen, I measured for the porch piers to make sure they would be properly situated on their footers. While doing this I discovered something interesting in a very good way: the distance from the corner of the porch to the block wall for the kitchen was the same distance as from the rear corner of the porch to the root cellar wall – 33.5 feet. I was kind of amazed because the way it’s put together, there was no reliable way to ensure that it would be so.

I was able to get all of the first blocks for the porch piers mortared into place and level yesterday. Today, after returning a piece of equipment to a friend, I started stacking blocks. I started with one corner of the porch. After stacking the blocks, I decided that I would mortar the blocks together. I was going to dry stack them. I’ll stucco the piers later so they will match the rest of the foundation walls.

By the time I quit this afternoon/evening, I had all of the piers across the front of the house mortared. These are the ones with the most blocks. It shouldn’t take too long to mortar the blocks for the other piers tomorrow. Jon should be here tomorrow, and I’ll have him start dry-stacking the blocks for the kitchen.

I hope that the work can go fast and furious from here on. That should make it possible to keep the blog updated much more regularly.

Interesting video of a reused timber frame

2010-02-07T19:49:00.001-06:00

I found this video at FineHomebuilding.com and thought it was worth sharing. It’s a beautiful old frame that they dismantled, moved, and reconstructed into a home. There are a couple follow up videos also available (you can find them via the link above).

Video Length: 7:01 Produced by: Matt Berger

Winter 2010 update – back to work soon

2010-02-07T16:31:00.001-06:00

I guess it’s about time that I update my blog. I’ve been devoting time to my other blog which focuses on some of the things we’re doing on our homestead. Also, there’s not been much happening on the house, so I’ve had little to write about here. That will change now.

Late last summer I hired a pond dug near the house. I wrote a series of posts about that project which you can read here. The pond project was related to the house project since it’s near the house, and we will enjoy year-round views of it from the house.

Constructing the pond provided opportunity and material to do a little landscaping in front of the house. The slope there was steeper than I wanted it to be, and I’ve wanted to put some fill there to make it slope more gradually toward the garden. I borrowed my friend Mike’s backhoe to complete some of the excavation on the pond and moved a lot of dirt in front of the house.

I used my 1979 F250 with a dump bed to transport dirt from the pond excavation to the site in front of the house. I spread the dirt with a blade on the back of my tractor. There was enough dirt to taper out the slope nicely toward the garden. I sowed some fescue seed on it afterwards last fall. The grass sprouted and got off to a good start.

Following are a few photos taken during the dirt moving process and photos taken at the time I seeded the grass.

Since then, I’ve done very little work on house. I did get some beech logs drug out of a friend’s woods and staged to have them milled. The milling of them has been postponed because of the weather. It’s a bit wet and muddy over there right now. Previously when we were going to mill them, it stayed below freezing for two weeks which resulted in frozen logs. Another friend is going to bring his Woodmizer over to mill them, and he was concerned about how cold it was that day and how hard the frozen logs would be on his blades. So, we’re still trying to reschedule. The lumber from the logs will be used mainly for the porch floor.

We changed another aspect of our floorplan. We’re going to extend space out on what would have been the porch on the front west side of the house. This ‘bump out’ will be 12 feet wide and 9 feet deep (extending out from and between the corner and first post). This will make kitchen space. In fact, most of the kitchen will be in this space and the dining area will move over to where the kitchen was going to be before. We’ll also be enclosing a summer kitchen off this space on the corner of the porch.

So, I have to dig for and pour footers for the block walls I’m going to put under the kitchen. It will only be out as far as the porch around the rest of the house. That’s a project for this spring once it dries up and warms up a bit.

Below are a few recent photos of the house, the pond, and the landscaped front slope. I hope to have some more posts soon. We’re almost to spring when I can get back to work on the house.

Grading around the perimeter

2009-07-28T13:59:00.001-06:00

Yesterday I was able to finishing plastering the surface bonding cement on the blocks around the house. So, this morning I began grading the dirt around the house. My objectives were to push at least some of the dirt up to the walls and to level off the top of the hill in front of the house.

Last spring when I dug the cellar, I piled the extra dirt from the excavation in front of the house in order to extend the level of the ground outwards. Eventually, I will have the hill extended further out so that it will slope more gradually toward the garden. For now, I needed to level it off a bit in preparation for building the porch.

Using a grader blade with my tractor, I was able to pull dirt from the middle of the pile in front of the house toward either end and up to the block wall. I pushed the piles of dirt from excavating for the footers on the east side of the house toward the wall and toward the front of the house. In the back, I moved dirt toward the wall and around to the east side of the house. There’s still a bit that needs moved with a shovel, but it’s mostly graded. I wasn’t able to get the tractor and blade on the west side of the house. So, I’ll be moving the dirt on that side with a shovel later.

With the dirt graded around the house, I’ll measure and set some stakes and string for framing the porch. I have to pour footers that go under the porch posts, and I need them to be correctly placed.

More work on the crawlspace wall

2009-07-26T09:18:00.001-06:00

I didn’t realize it has been over a month since I posted an update. I wish I had completed a lot more work on the house since the last post than I actually have. It’s summer time which is busy with many different projects. I’ve endeavored to work at least one day a week on the house. Other projects have included finishing up classes (with lots of papers to be graded), garden work, and making hay among other things.

The boys and I were able to get all of the blocks around the perimeter set in place. This process really didn’t take too long, but the frequent rains we’ve had make it a muddy job at times. I prefer not to slop in the mud and track it all over. So, I tend to put off some of the house work when it’s muddy around the house (which seems to be quite often this summer). Usually, we’re dry around here at this time of year. The weather this summer is quite different than the usual.

The biggest job involved in laying the blocks around the house was hauling them to the house from where I had them unloaded when they were delivered. They aren’t far away, thankfully, just out of the way. I hauled six or seven at a time in the wheel barrow, and the boys worked together to haul two at a time on a hand truck.

Last Friday, we worked on things again, the first time since earlier in the previous week. I had purchased several bags of concrete mix and some j-bolt concrete anchors. I mixed concrete in the wheel barrow, filled voids two courses down from the top every eight feet along the walls, and set the anchors. On both sides of the crawl space access door, I filled the voids all the way to the footer. There were also a couple of gaps in the wall that I filled with concrete – I don’t want any access points for mice and other vermin. I need to buy another dozen j-bolts to set between the ones already in place. These will be used to bolt a cedar sill to the wall. I’ll be harvesting the trees and milling the sill beams soon.

After lunch Friday, the boys and I started coating the back wall with surface bonding cement. We’re going to coat the entire external surface of the block wall all the way around the house. I don’t know that we will coat the inside surface. I’m thinking that it won’t be necessary. Later if I decide it is, it won’t be too difficult to trowel a coating on it. We coated all the back wall and started on the east wall before quitting. In the right photo below, you can see the east wall. Also, laying on top of the wall are two hawks I quickly made for holding the material while troweling. The hole in the wall which is visible was left for running a sewer line out from under the house if the septic tank needs to be set on the east side of the house (I prefer it on the west side).

After laying the blocks, I ended up with five different levels on the wall, including the root cellar wall. A little more planning on my part would’ve eliminated most of these. However, I decided that it won’t matter, and it won’t. I’m custom cutting the beams for the sills. So, they’ll set the top of the wall at the right height for framing the porch around the house. The surface bonding cement will cover the seams between wall sections and tie them together. Besides, those under the porch aren’t going to be easily seen.

We had rain yesterday and last night. So, it’s a mucky mess around the house today. There’s more rain in the forecast for the next few days. I hope to be able to finish the coating of the walls this week, but I probably will only work on it if the mud isn’t too bad, meaning it needs to dry out a bit first.

The block-work continues

2009-06-22T16:57:00.001-06:00

It’s been hot and humid the last few days. Yesterday’s temperature was somewhere around 93 degrees, or so I was told. I don’t have a thermometer with which to measure the temperature. I do know that it was hot while I worked – I was drenched with sweat. But, that’s to be expected, and it’s not a problem.

Yesterday morning, I finished mortaring the rest of the blocks for first course of the crawlspace wall. There was about 80% of the back wall to be completed, and it went pretty well.

After finishing the mortaring, I started laying blocks on the front. After about 50 blocks, it was lunch time and time for a dry shirt. After lunch, I continued laying block along the front of the house. It wasn’t long until my shirt was soaked again. I hauled six blocks at a time in the wheel barrow to the corner of the house and set those before getting another load. Meanwhile, my boys hauled two blocks at a time (working together) to stack them on the east side of the house. That way they’ll be ready when I start laying the blocks on that side and the back of the house.

About ten feet from the west end of the front wall, I set an access door in the wall. I bought a 32” x 32” door on Friday. These doors are designed to be installed in a mortared wall in which the heights and widths are figured in multiples of eight inches. When dry stacking concrete blocks, you aren’t working with multiples of eight. The blocks are 7-5/8” tall and 15-5/8” long. So, my 32” x 32” door wouldn’t fit perfectly in a two block wide by four block high space.

It wasn’t a problem though. Because I am laying the blocks on each of the four levels independent of the other levels, it wasn’t a problem to bring the front wall from the east side to the door and then start the next section from the door to the west end. Height wise I wasn’t concerned, because I planned on using the sill for the top of it.

I mortared two four inch high solid concrete blocks onto the first course of blocks where I wanted to put the access door. Using a masonry blade in my circular saw, I cut into the ends of two blocks for the bottom plate of the door frame. It’s made to be mortared between courses which wasn’t going to work for me anyway. Once I set it up four inches on the solid blocks, it also put the bottom plate in the middle of the next course of blocks. It fits nicely in the cuts on the blocks, and they help hold it securely.

The top of the door frame is two inches below the top of the block wall. Once I place the sill on top of the wall, I’ll attach a two inch piece to it above the frame. I’ll also come back and caulk the seams around the frame from the inside to make it tight and secure. I don’t want air gaps around it.

The wall along the front came out acceptably well. It looks good with it there. It’s really nice to see progress on the house, but it sure is a lot of work. I’ve got to get the other walls blocked and then coat all of them. I’ll probably soak a few more shirts before I’m done.

Blocking in the crawl space

2009-06-18T12:21:00.001-06:00

We’ve had plenty of rain so far this year. The garden has not suffered from dryness. In between rain showers and storms and all the other work there is to be done around here, I have continued to work on the house. I laid out blocks on the footer last week, figuring where the crawlspace walls need to be in relation the house frame.

Earlier this week, after some rain and before some other rain, I started mortaring the first course of blocks on the west side of the house for the wall that will be under the mudroom. The first step in the process was to remove some of the accumulated mud that had been deposited around the blocks by the rain. Then, I lifted out the block that was to be mortared into place, and placed some mortar where the block had been.

After distributing the mortar where the bottom edge of the block would set on it, I placed the block back into position. The main purpose for the mortar is to get the first course of blocks level. So, after placing the block on the mortar, I used a piece of wood to get it into place and then checked its placement with a level. I endeavored to make sure that each block was level side-to-side and along the line with the other blocks.

It takes a while to mortar the first course of blocks into place. I was able to complete the ones on the level that will be beneath the mudroom. It then rained off and on during the next couple of days, and I managed to work on some other things that needed done.

I was able to return to the project yesterday afternoon after spending the morning working on my class (I teach a class online for a university). I started by mortaring the blocks along the next level of the footer on the west side of the house. This is a shorter run than the previous level, and it went fairly quickly.

After getting these blocks mortared into level, I began laying blocks. One thing about dry stack concrete block construction is that the block-laying goes quickly. I had to haul the blocks from where I had the block company put them a few weeks ago which is maybe 20 yards away and down hill from the house. I moved six at a time using a wheel barrow. That seemed to work better than using a hand truck.

I began laying blocks for the walls under the mudroom since that mortar was fully set up and cured. After completing laying those, I went ahead and laid the ones on the section I had just mortared. I figured that the mortar wasn’t going to settle or move with the weight of the blocks anyway.

Because of the way I designed and poured the footer, there are four levels for the blocks around the house. I did not worry about making the steps for each level perfect with the other levels so that the blocks could be laid seamlessly all the way around the house. Each level can be constructed as a separate wall. Any gaps that may exist between levels will be filled with concrete. Then, the whole thing will be coated with surface bonding cement. I will cut cedars for the sill on top of the wall, so any variation in height will be accounted for in the dimensions to which I cut them. This simplified the figuring and block laying for me.

I saw a block wall a couple days ago for which the footer appeared to have been poured on an angle matching the slope of the house site. The blocks appeared to have been cut along the bottom so that the top would be level. I didn’t want to do that much cutting. I think my method will work all right.

In anticipation of plumbing that I’ll do later, I cut a hole in one block before laying it. This hole will allow me to run the sewer pipe to the septic tank through the wall. I am not completely sure where the septic tank will go at this point. So, I’ll cut another hole on the opposite side of the house, too, just in case I need to place it on that side. I knew I didn’t want to cut a hole later.

As can be seen in the photo to the left, I didn’t lay out the end wall on the cellar exactly right. It doesn’t line up straight with the crawlspace wall I just laid. I can’t change it, of course, and it really won’t create much problem. I expect that it won’t be very noticeable later anyway.

A thunder storm rolled through just after I started writing this post. I was planning on working on the front crawlspace wall this afternoon. It may be too muddy now. I’ll see in a little while.

Perimeter footer

2009-06-02T09:19:00.001-06:00

With enough rain-free weather, I was able to complete the forms for the perimeter footer on Tuesday of last week. There are four levels for the footer because of the slope of the house site. I didn’t want to excavate the trench for the footer the same depth all the way around the house.

On Wednesday morning, I called the local ready mix concrete company to order four yards of concrete. They were able to bring it out right away. It didn’t take long to pour the concrete. Dad and I screeded it which also didn’t take long. The footer is 14 inches wide, 8 inches thick, and has two 5/8” rebar pieces in the middle.

About an hour after we finished, a small rain storm came through. It didn’t dump much rain, but what rain that did fall fell hard. The concrete hadn’t had enough time to set up hard enough not to be affected by the rain. The main effect was that some of the cement and sand on the surface was washed away, leaving the courser aggregate exposed and loose on top. This occurred most dramatically to the footer at the front of the house because the runoff from the roof on that side hit directly on the outside quarter of the footer. You can see in the photo to the right the effect it had. It won’t really matter, though. The first course of blocks will be set onto the footer with mortar, and, once the walls are finished, the footer will be covered with dirt, never to be seen again.

I will begin laying the blocks this week as time allows. There are a lot of other jobs to be done around our homestead and we’ll be having some visitors for part of the week and next weekend (one of Anne’s sisters and her family).

Looking ahead to the order of construction, once the blocks are laid, it will be time to start framing the porch. I’ll have to pour footers for under the porch posts, lay blocks for the piers, and frame the porch deck. At that point I will put down the first floor subfloor, including under where the straw bales will go. I will need to lay down some porch floor boards, whether or not I complete that floor now or later, also. Then, there’s more to be done so that the porch roof can be put on. And, there’s a whole lot more work after that. I’ll keep plugging away, and it’ll get done.

Perimeter wall footer forms started

2009-05-20T19:56:00.001-06:00

I set out this morning to get the concrete forms for the footer that will support the perimeter block wall completed today. The first task was to get the bottom of the trench leveled off at the right depth. Because the house is on a slope, I’m not putting all of the footers on the same level. In fact, there will be four different levels. The front of the house is about 2 feet higher above the ground than the back of the house.

Using a shovel, a grub hoe, and a grape hoe (the latter two are wonderful tools I bought from easydigging.com), I removed some dirt from the bottom of the trench where needed and added some in other places where needed. I had my boys tamp the loose dirt firmly into place. By lunch time I had made it all the way around the house.

After lunch, I started putting wooden forms in place. I drove stakes I cut into the bottom of the trench, measuring from the string I had previously strung to get the tops of them to the proper level. Then, I screwed some 2x3s onto the stakes, making sure they were level and the proper distance below the string. The string gives me the final height for the block wall.

I was able to get the forms in the back of the house and along one side mostly completed. Along the side, I had to step down almost 8 inches in two places because of the slope. Malchiah joined me after I had started working, and I put him to work tamping dirt on the outside of the forms.

Across the front of the house, there will be six courses of blocks. There are footer levels for five courses and four courses on the side while there will be only three courses on the back. I’m trying to make all of the different levels match up so that blocks could be laid continuously around the house. However, I may treat each level separately, laying blocks for each one independent of the others. They will all be surface bonded later and won’t be visible. As far as structural integrity, there should be no problem considering their purpose.

We’ll continue work tomorrow and Friday. It’ll be next week before we have the concrete delivered for the footers.