JUNE 11th
Putting wires under the floor joists to hold the half bales that will go under the floor boards. Not a lot of fun lying half under the joists banging up staples to hold the wire. Just at the moment I'm not having a great time with this Strawdio. Its a nitty gritty hard graft part of the process with too many decisions and too many unknowns. BUT, everyone who comes says it looks great and wonderful which is encouraging. Doug and Joss pop in. Joss (the small one) says "cool" quite a lot.
JUNE 4TH
Looping hessian into roof joists and then pushing bales sawn in half into the joist cavity wiht Stewart and Beccy. Hot as hell on the roof and not completely sure about the way it looks inside - all baggy hanging down of irregular bales shapes. Can I live with it ? Will it do the job. On the up side its a great insulation and good acoustic surface (irregular, abosrbant).And inexpensive.On the down side its a bit dusty (straw particles escape the hessian), and I hadn't reckoned on the bales protruding so far down. Should have used 2 X 10 joists instead of 3 X 8. That would have contained the entire bale. Then there's the fire risk. Lots to ponder after an exhaustng day of chainsawing bales and incredible heat.
May 30th
We finish off the joists and start pushing half bales between the joists for heat and sound insulation. Cutting the bales is a bit of a challenge and we're still working on it - may go back to chainsawing which is quick but a bit messy. For now we have the wonderful two saw trick invented by Mark. You get two saws and rivet them together (with a flattened nail ) so that two people can saw at once. One on top of the scaffolding (top dog) and one underneath (bottom dog). Works pretty good. I bought a roll of Hessian off eBay for £30 and rolled that out across the joists. When you push the bales down the hessian "self feeds" both to support the bale and stop it dropping bits inside. Looks quite good inside - an interesting finish.
Mark and his joined saws.
hanging out on the roof
May 28th
A bunch of Strawbaley guys came to help put the rest of these 8 X 3 joist up. All a bit fiddly since we needed to cut wedges to slip under the joists where the met the wall plate. To cut these I bought a Table Saw off eBay for £40. It wasn't as easy, even with the saw to cut the wedges but I had a lot of help from Mark Urch - famous Mini expert and Nailsea Handyman. And JB, a windsurfing travelling Carpenter from Hawaii. And Ray and Kev. Thank ye all, we got so much done in one day - despite the occasional disagreement. And shouting, even.
May 16th
Filling the gap between the wall plate beams with sand for sound proofing. Well it seemed like a good idea.
May 15th
Wall plates - huge lengths of 4 X 6 set on OSB board. I'm building the place like a fortress because I want a deep turf roof on the top with long grass and guinea pigs. To take the weight of deep turf (with snow loading as everyone keeps on telling me) the whole thing will have to be bullet proof. I figure I'd rather go too big than too small - once its up I'd hate to see the roof sag and wish I'd spent the xtra £100. We also needed to box in the north and south ends where there is a one bale step between the front wall (6 bales high) and back wall (7 bales high). and today we laid the first joist in -lovely. Did I mention the scaffolding. A must have that cost around £300. Worth every penny.
Monday May 2nd - Volunteers Weekend
The weather this weekend has been amazing. After weeks of rain and cold the sun shone every day and we managed both to get the windows in and the walls up - much further than all my highest expectations. No big problems, though, as always, lots of adjustment and figuring as we went along. A 7' bale high wall wobbles and re-adjusts itself like jelly until the weight of the roof is on. Despite regular stakings with hazel rods it kept on moving out of true which was a bit unnerving. We gave it some hazel rod supports in the end and they will stay there until the roof is on. I'm hoping it will then settle down gracefully into the right vertical shape - and no bulges ! None of the Volunteers had done any baling before and they learnt really quickly. By the end of the weekend they were happily sewing up new bales ("making babies" as they called it) and fitting bespoke edges round windows. The window boxes, incidentally are made from 2 X 3 spruce columns encased in OSB board. The whole thing is nailed (not screwed) together. The enclosures are stuffed with straw for insulation. The window in the middle pic below cost me £3 at the dump. Great weekend,a smart bunch of positive people, full of inventiveness and perceptive questions - I felt incredibly lucky to have such solid support.
