May

A beautiful picture illustrating all the hard work and love given to our house.

Nicky & Robyn have now re-stained all the weatherboards and re-oiled all the window frames








The S wall just wasn't drying; compliments of the very autuminal weather. With hard frosts approaching (and their ability of 'blowing' wet plaster apart) we came up with the idea of using an industrial diseal heater using tarps as a 'tunnel'. The drying has now started but is ongoing as i type!







The nerve centre!

We at last found a cast iron in very good condition and Nicky has transformed it into the centre piece of our bathroom!

The final Plaster push!

After last weekend's amazing effort from everybody with the initial bodycoat application, the walls still required the 'final' bodycoat; to be the last coat until next year when the thinner lime coats will be applied (thus allowing for any movement in the plaster to show up).

This coat would be a similar composition but with finer aggregate; thus a finer finish. Greg, Nicky & Robyn mixed and plastered all week but the long S wall was still waiting. Again 8 wonderful people turned up on Sat and worked all day to help us finish that huge job. I am so humbled and full of gratitude that so many people, who are now friends, have given us their time.

Intersting the colour change due to drying. Initial colour is a lovely rich colour but dries pale.

Will probably try to repliacte the initial colour with the final lime wash next year








The S wall taken on a cloudy day; same plaster!

Hessian patches below sills to prevent cracking

Exterior clay plastering Weekend

Having been 'house Dad' for the last 3 weeks, due to a sore back, all credit must be given to Nicky and Greg for pushing forward with the exterior clay plastering against all odds. However with the two types of clay arriving in the nick of time; all the surrounding window insulation stuffing (that seemed to take weeks!) completed; plaster mix experiments analysed and straw wall hole stuffing eventually finished. The last, but no means small, task prior to the main plastering was to achieve a 'level playing field'. This involved making up heaps of clay-straw mix (found to be best produced in a cement mixer) and building out any low areas to the level of the main wall. Mainly around windows and the stuffed holes (where only the deeper recesses are stuffed with dry straw).


We pretty much followed the tried and tested formula of 'slip' coat then 'body' coat. The former, with a feel of thick cream, is sprayed on and then hand rubbed in. This provides the binding between the straw and the more structural body coat. This being an aggregate & fibre rich clay plaster, usually applied in 2 goes, totalling 40mm approx.



The body coat is put on by hand and is where all the fun can be had! It is a very forgiving plaster, like using straw bales as opposed to brick, and so most people find it a very satisfying experience. Thank you so much to everybody who turned up.

Closing in!

So what happens above the straw bale buck 'n' beam walls; more straw! But this time with an infill system. Due to the sloping roof angle and that a buck/beam system requires a constant level all the way round, we had a this angling section to insulate. The idea was to build a stud wall between the box beam and the top plate (under the rafters) and then insulate with wool batts. But we had so many bales left over we thought, why not use them!

The result looked very 'wealden' house design to us; Here's a link to a wonderful example:-
http://www.picturesofengland.com/England/Kent/Sevenoaks/Ightham_Mote/pictures/1095104





Here's how the idea progresses; On the outside, building wrap is secured around the stud wall and and then polyproplene 'CAVIBATS' are nailed on ready for the weatherboards .

On the inside polyester insulation (i will cover choices of insulation in a later post) is placed in the hard to reach areas. The remaining spaaces between the studs will be infilled with customised bales.


Once all the stud walls are completed, the weatherboards are nailed on. Above these, on the rafters, are nailed the soffit boards. Thus the finished effect in the photo. And sadly we bade goodbye to Craig; a year to the day. What a body of work he has left us with; just fantastic!






Windows! Greg has been busy creating them from timber i rescued from the three 19th century houses i partly took down. As with the rest of this house, this has not been a straight forward journey. Initially Greg and i spent hours searching through the container for some straighht unknotted studs (not an easy job!) for the jambs. We then needed to find even better quality timber for the sashes. This rather long winded process required various timber sizes to be cut out of some large Canadian Oregon beams i had brought up from 'Demolition World' in Invercargill. This involved pulling out all metal hardware (plus double checking with a metal detector), carting them upto the timber mill to be cut down to size, bringing them back and then Greg taking them to our dear friend Finn's fabulous workshop for the real work to begin. After many weeks the wonderful finished articles started arriving at the house.

Once the windows were installed Nicky has so patiently oiled and stained them all; twice! They look lovely.

And here's one for the family!

bale raising weekend

So the bale raising weekend arrived; a rather fabled and integral part of building a SB house in my mind (as every book/article about SB homes seems to mention one). Where do i start. It was a wonderful, empowering, surprising weekend of work, fun, friends and food. Everyone had a lovely time and we got a our strawbale walls too!

Basically our SB wall system is a buck/beam system; whereby the bucks (ladder type structures each side of the window/door frames) provide start and finish points for the bales. The top box beam (another ladder type structure)runs around the house above the bales. Within the buck/beam idea there are a number of techniques and the one we used (purely through Craig & I thinking it through as opposed to an obvious choice) was leaving the bucks 'tall' and running them through the box beam. This is supported just above the required height of the wall and the bales built up to it (i won't cover details regarding bale raising as they're in every book and best done rather than described). In our case this was 2.4m.

Once this height was reached the box beam was cranked down; acheived through running pallet strapping as a loop under the sill plate, up the wall and over the box beam. Once tightened this effectively pulls the box beam down towards the sill plate, thus compressing the bales and making the wall really secure.


The following 4 photos illustrate a important few bale techniques:-

Fitting bales between bucks around a corner. Bloody hard to do well as corners love bulging out in all directions; as this one continued to do despite everyones' best attempts. (Nicky & Greg eventually tamed it just prior to the plastering!)







Filling in gaps! Making and fitting custom sized bales; when there just isn't enough room for a 350 x 450mm bale! The one technique not sown is chainsawing bales down their length.

Lastly stuffing small holes with twisted bundles of straw.




The following 3 photos show walls raised but not compressed; hence the largish gaps and wonkyness. The third shows the debris from chainsawing!















The last 3 show the end results of everyones hard work; plus plenty of unused bales (for infilling the upper wall section; yet to be done)

Christmas fun & games with the bales

I came back after three weeks. During that 1st returned weeks the weather was fine; so i did all those really important dry weather jobs (not!); oiling the clay floor, clearing bird droppings off the P&B's, tightening all the nuts of the P&B system, clearing up the section and putting alot of the base for the clay floor down.




I then realised (a couple of days prior to christmas) that we had loads to prepare for the straw bale wall raising destined for the 8th of Jan. Thus the classic Wanaka xmas weather started (pouring rain!) and continued fairly consistently until the 9th Jan (and i mean real UK style rain!). A comic, Grand Designs style saga ensued with 2 weeks of bale soakings, people soakings, multiple handling of bales trying to keep the dry ones dry (50% perhaps) and then sort the wet ones into saveable (again 50% perhaps) and thenthe unsaveable composters.


I had heard about recompressing slack bales; (which all Kiwi bales are, construction-wise) and so we built a very basic, but highly effective, bale crusher. Thus Nicky & i spent Xmas and NY period in teh pouring rain compressing bales. The children were so patient and loved playing in the ever increasing flooded area too. Once we had compressed 150 bales (av 25/day with child interruptions) we then made small bales out of the partly wet ones for corners etc.


A friend came to help with the sill plate preparations (i thought it would take 1/2 day; it took 2 1/2), which involved filling the gap inbetween the wooden plates with polystyrene, putting the pallet strapping under the plates (more on that in the next post), preping the strapping and tightening the sill plate bolts.

To cut the rest of the story short i finished the preparations for the bale raising at 8.00 on Friday evening.

No photos of teh chaos as whenever i wanted one it was either pouring or the camera battery was flat or teh memory card full!

December

The first 3 weeks of December saw me being house Dad and Nicky on site. She loved being there and i so enjoyed being Ella & Lewis. However Nicky hasn't found time to write the blog so i will. Unfortunately as i wasn't there i can't really say much other than Craig completed the folly and Nicky did heaps of linseed oiling, moving around, staining and then restacking of the weatherboards. She also filled in all the soon-to-be inaccessible gaps in teh folly framing with insulation and put polythene on the floor (in preparation for the next stages)

November

Bucks and box beam in place ready for the bales. Basically the bucks provide a space for the window jams and the beam is cranked down on top of the bale wall to provide structural integrity. Our technique of having the beam in situ first is a little unusual (the Australian method as opposed to the Amercian apparently; Craig and i just figured it out ourselves!) as usually the required height of the bucks are estimated first and then packers used to fill a gap if required. This is really a very brief and some what poor description but any strawbale book/site details it so well that i just slacked off here! Sorry!

Pergola poles. The roughest looking landscaping ones turned out fantastic; and finished my shoulder off in the process!. Thus here's ends my involvement presently and Nicky has leapt into my shoes very enthusiastically along with..........



Enter Olly and Rich; the two responsible for the fresh burst of energy on site. I think i mixed concrete and lifted hardwood poles as enthusiastically as them once! But seriously, i've been battling with a shoulder injury for several weeks so have decided that i needed some time out. Nicky's been waiting for an opportunity to become involved; and is so far really enjoying it. She's been busy mixing (and colouring) concrete for the internal wall and (guess what!) staining weaterboards. I, on the other hand, am completly exhausted by the children!

Re-enter the 'folly' into the budget. Looks great but has already taken a heap of time and will take some more yet! Stage one; paper and battens. We are using cavibats (http://www.cavibat.co.nz/) to avoid treated timber ones. WE couldn't afford 'Proclima' paper (http://www.proclima.co.nz/)(although it appears fantastic) so used Tekton instead. There'll be plenty more aout the folly so i'll stop here. Also i'm Dad presently so haven't a clue about what's going on anyway!


A couple of interesting issues here. Basically we had planned for a masonry or earth wall here for passive solar gain. Then changed the room dimensions and thought we'd save time/money by having a framed wall instead.

However we have always loved the idea of a masonry heater (http://www.amazon.com/Book-Masonry-Stoves-Rediscovering-Warming/dp/1890132098 (inspirational book)). A friend attended a course last year at a friends strawbale house in Alexandra by one of the foremost heater builders in the States (http://mainewoodheat.com/). Unsure as to whether we would require or even afford one we just made up the foundation (bottom left in pic). A corner of framed walls is over it but has be built so that it can be altered around the heater if and when. A bit of futureproofing i guess. So we then realised that we should have more thermal mass afterall in the room. Out comes the sabresaw (first time as yet!), a bit of cutting, boxing, and mixing et viola, a mass wall within a framed wall that will be hidden behind a thin layer of plaster.

Oct - Nov - Porch & Odds & Sods

q


A few weeks of shorter projects for Craig & me; but still exciting as they all seem to produce significant steps along the path to.............? This image is being, and will continue to be, repeated alot for a while yet. Linseed oiling and staining boards of various kinds





The childrens' area has become a makeshift work for thicknessing the recycled Canadian Douglas fir beams for the mezzanine floor








The front most mezzanine beam inserted with another post; i think it looks great. The bucks to be positioned either side of window/door openings within the SB wall are already made and being stored on the sub-floor.






The 'camp kitchen' set up. Ella ,in particular, loves eating and camping on site.








The porch will be worth every cent and i think vital for an 'outdoors' family. The big window will have a bench under it for propagating seeds etc and the N window provides a lovely sunny spot in the mornings to have a quiet coffee whilst enjoying the view of the sun rising over Grandview Peak.