Big day 2

It was a long day afterall! By this evening the central support pole was removed, the poles were fish mouthed to the roof plate and the excess timber in the center was trimmed. It is amazing the difference already. I'm now trying to source some locally grown reed to thatch with.












If anyone needs advice on how this is done, feel free to get in touch although there are a lot of sites out there with good information.

Big day

Timber

Well, in the end the timber was sourced from less than a mile away. A lovely guy one minute down the road and into a lane let al clear some of his woodland free of charge. He has 20 acres planted up and wanted some poplars thinned out so on Saturday, Al, himself and our two eldest boys spent the day chain sawing.

Once the logs were brought home they debarked them although we got a shock the following day when they had turned bright pink! We are 'hoping' that as they dry, the colour will disappear.

Roof plate

Waiting for wood

Staying dry

Still waiting for the forestry services to come up with the trees for the roof. Meanwhile the damp proof membrane and a layer of straw has been laid with gravel on top. We plan to have an adobe floor eventually.

The anchor!

Bale walls

Today hub got a good run at it and we now stand four bales high. The sun shone and bar light rain tomorrow, the forecast is good until Monday at least. He called it a night around 10pm when a friend called by to drop the boys off which was great as he was able to give him a hand to tarp it up for the night. Hopefully the forestry commission will have some lumber for us soon! They are going to be doing some felling in village 3 miles away - can't get more local than that!

Moving forward!

This evening the straw finally arrived. A lovely guy from down the road knew of someone selling bales locally which was great. I'm keen to source local materials as much as possible for the build and hopefully the roof timber will come from the village (3 miles away) via the forestry commission.

Tomorrow gives heavy rain so hubby is going to work in town and then take Thursday off to start building the walls. He, along with ds1 made up one of the window frames today and hope to put the other one together tomorrow evening.

Window construction

An inspiring site

We recently came across Simon Dale's website when looking for details on reciprocal roofs. This stunning family home cost only £3000 to build! More photos and the story behind the build can be found at www.simondale.net/house

It is truly the most beautiful house that I have ever seen!

Studio update

Well, the straw bales didn't arrive as planned They were scooped by someone earlier that day and I looked out the window to see my walls heading down the road in a trailer. The remainder are rotting and mice have gnawed through the baling twine - so, we don't know what to do. I don't fancy waiting until harvest for more so we may have to bring some over from England which isn't ideal in both terms of cost and location. The only other option is my first choice - cob. Husband isn't keen.

I will blog some more once we resolve the issue :)

For now, we are looking to change our flush toilet over to a composting one thus avoiding having to dig a new soakaway. The existing septic tank is over 50 years old and is leaking which is pretty gross. The more we've researched composting loos, the more it makes total sense. Most countries have been doing this for thousands of years yet we, who flush our excrement into the ocean, consider them backward!

I've found this site - one of many but this particular one shows you how to go about building your own loo. There is heaps of good stuff on it so go take a look. If it's fine tomorrow we will start work on the bins and storage system for the garden.

Stem wall

This extension of the foundation is necessary to prevent the straw bales from becoming damp. Each bag is packed with a damp clay rubble mixture, tamped and layed into position then marked by a string line pulled tight and levelled.

Many hours of back breaking work!

Any of the books hubby is using for reference recommend using barbed wire between the bags to stabilise them, mainly for earthquake tremors. As this is not a large dwelling and we're not in an earthquake zone and are on a tight budget (the brief was free or recycled products), he made large foot long staples from fencing wire that was left on this property when we moved here, and drove them into the bag below as shown.

Which brings us to March 20th. A doorway has been put into place and tomorrow another farmer is delivering a couple of straw bales to try for size so it's getting exciting! Will post some more soon.

I decided to start up this blog to chronicle our attempt at eco building and hope that it may be of some help or interest to some. Although our dream was to sell the family home and self build using straw bale, the recession has dictated otherwise. The next best thing was to experiment with a studio in the back garden.

The initial brief to husband was simple. Cob walls and a living roof, however the builder has altered the plan (as he's entitled to) and aims to construct a round building with load bearing straw bale walls and a reciprocal roof with thatching. Watch this space as it continues to evolve!

The progress so far ...

January 2009
Husband and eldest son mark out and dig foundations

February

Once dug down to solid ground, a layer of gravel is laid, followed by a drainage pipe which runs to a ditch and finally filled in with more gravel.

Ds3 is a super help!

The next layer consists of free clay from a farm down the road which will be placed into coal sacks. These items were obtained in exchange for Landrover repairs - just the way it should be!