Rendering and strawbales around the cabin

Another long stint without any updates - maybe we should aim for one every two weeks from now on, rather than every one week???

Since the last update we continued with rendering of the second coat on the main house. We managed to finish the eastern wall and most of the northern wall before something went wrong with Geir's back one morning. Not really sure what it was, but it took him about 3 days to get back up working again, so we had a bit of a delay.

The results so far on the main house looks like this:

Northern wall

Eastern wall

We could have continued doing the rendering, but as Easter was coming up and Jodie would have 5 full days off work, we decided that it would be best to use the time with both of us on the property to work on the little cabin before the winter is getting here. As such, when Geir was better he started building frames around all the windows and doors of the little cabin - to support the straw bale walls that would be constructed outside the wooden walls. We also decided to put in some more windows, one on the eastern wall in our bedroom, one on the eastern wall of the bathroom, and one on the western wall in the living room / kitchen. The first will be made out of one of the left over double glazed units we had from Norway, the second window we picked up from the tip shop for AUD 5 and the third is being made from 2 single glazed units that we also picked up in Norway. As such, all this window framing work also took a bit of time.

Having completed the wooden frames, it was then time to lay the besser blocks on top of aviary wire around the slap, and install steel bars that would penetrate the first coars of bales. This is similar to what we had done on both the garage and the main house previously.

Finally we also had to install the cement sheets under the eves before we could install the aviary wire on top of the walls, and then begin laying the bales. The following pictures will give you a bit of an idea what it involved:

Two happy helpers, Row and Derek. They are going to build a straw bale house near Kingston, Tasmania, and wanted to try out the baling work beforehand. They have already helped us with some of the second coat rendering on the main house and the first coat rendering inside the garage (see below).

Frames around the door to keep the straw bales in place

Home made window frame for the new bathroom window.

Home made window frame for the new bedroom window. The wall planks will be cut out and a the box will be lined with pine to fit in with the rest of the inside of the cabin.

Geir fixing bales to the walls. As this is a "retrofit" baling job, we fixed each bale to the wall by fixing baling twine to the timber wall with a fencing staple. The twine was then used to tie the bale to the wall, and chicken wire was later pegged to the bales, as well as tied with baling twine fixed to the wall.

Window frame after baling is completed. Again, this frame will be lined with pine to suit the inside of the cabin. Then the window will be moved to the outer edge of the frame. This will give us a window sill that is about 45 cm deep.

The gas hot water unit created a bit of a challenge. With the pipes going into the wall, we decided to build a box that houses the pipes. This box will be filled with ordinary insulation. The part of the wall with the unit will then be lined with wood, rather than being rendered. This gives us the flexibility to open it up relatively easily later on if there should be a problem.

Then back to the garage. As mentioned in our previous entry we were not completely happy with the third coat of render in the workshop. In order for us to be able to practice a bit more before starting on the house, we decided to do more rendering inside the garage. Row (pictured above) came out to help and the two walls were completed with the first coat of render in about 3.5 hours.

So, now we just have to do the second coat on both these walls, before we can practice a bit more for the third coat.

We'll finish this entry with another movie production:

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