Rendering of second wall section has started

We've had a good start to the new year, and have managed to finish the strawbale work for the second wall section. Today we also started the rendering on the outside and finished about 50%. If the weather stays good tomorrow, we hope that the rest of the wall will be rendered with the first coat.

In our last entry we mentioned that we were a bit unsure how difficult it would be to finish the walls, considering the height of the wall and of our scaffold. Well, it actually went pretty well. It was a bit of work cutting the grooves in the side of the bales, especially doing it with a chain saw on top of the scaffold, but as each bale had to be cut differently, it was the best place to do the job. In respect of finishing the walls to the top, it is going much better this time than with the garage/workshop, due to the fact that the cement sheets were already in place before putting up the strawbale walls. It is highly recommended to do it in this order - trust us !!!

Putting on the chicken wire is also going much faster this time around. We cut our pegs - using the angle grinder - out of 3.15mm fencing wire, approximately 35 cm long, and then bend them into a U by inserting one end into a small copper pipe, and then bending the other end over. We can generally do 500 - 600 pegs in about 1.5 hours, and this saves us a lot of time compared to the stitching method we used for the garage/workshop. It might cost a little bit more this way, but we most certainly get that back in the time we save.

So, here are some updated pictures:

This is the laundry wall to the south. The side of the door way has already been rendered as we had a bit left in the wheelbarrow at the end of the day today. The wood that is inserted into the wall is there to hold future shelves or cabinets. The wood is 115mm x 35mm hardwood. We first cut a groove in the bales (after they were all up), then drilled 2 holes in the wood - about every 50 cm. Through the top hole, we put fencing wire through the bale wall and bent it tight on the outside of the wall. When placing the chicken wire over the bales, this was stapled to the wood and this should hold it in place. With three layers of render on top, it should be strong enough to hold some cabinets or shelves.

Also from the southern wall of the laundry. This shows how the ceiling joists now come out of the wall, after the bales were fitted around the lintel holding the joists up. Straw was then packed in the groove and is held in place by the chicken wire. We will render the first coat of the wall now, then install the plaster board in the ceiling, and finally render the walls with the second and third coat. This means that the part of the wall above the ceiling will only get one coat of render, which is sufficient to keep things or animals out of the wall.

This picture shows the hallway from the living area towards the laundry (at the end). Where the broom handle is on the right hand side, there is a window which is currently blocked with 3 bales, just to help hold the tarp on the outside in place (it is a bit windy today).

Also the hallway, just to show the ceiling joists. Same procedure will be used here as with the laundry.

This is the entry way - just a bit tidier now than in our last entry.

Finally, just a detailed picture of what we do at the bottom of the wall. As the strawbales are a bit wider than the besser blocks they rest on, the walls stick out a bit on either side. Since we are planning to put in wooden floors (eventually when we can afford it) we expect that we will need some skirting boards to cover up the edges. In order to be able to put these in place, we have put in some pine studs (70mm x 45mm) along the besser blocks. These are fixed to the besser blocs using nails and liquid nails (a type of glue). We will then render down to the top edge of the wood and make it as flush as possible with the wood. Skirting boards will then be fixed to the pine wood using screws - after the floor is installed.

The southern wall section, currently covered with tarps to protect the render from a bit of rain.

The south eastern wall with the exit from the laundry. The first coat is completed, and the next task is to finish the roof structure over the exit. In order to do this, we have to put up the third rafter (the one closes to the wall), then the battens. When this is done, we can then finalise the wall on the southern side all the way up to the rafters. We had to do it this way, as it was just a bit too hard to render the first coat on the inside of the third rafter (we had it installed originally, but took it down when we discovered that it was just a bit close to the wall).

So, weather permitting, we will finish the render tomorrow and then we can start on the third wall section which will basically cover the bathroom situated to the north east of the house. When that is done, we will do most of the northern wall, before finalising the wall work with the western wall. But that is still probably some weeks away.

Now the latest from Cremorne is that there is now a webcam available to check out the conditions on the beach. Just follow this link and you can see how the weather is at any time of the day (at least in daylight hours......)  http://www.coastview.com.au/site/cremorne/

And finally, we have also had some really good rain, and believe it or not, our tanks our now full. We actually had to pump water into our dam (the one that collects that water from our grey-water recycling system) in order not to have water overflowing from our tanks. So we now have about 45000 litres of water in our tanks, which is very nice indeed !!!

OK, we will leave it with that for now. Hopefully more next week.

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