Electrifying News

The biggest news of the week is that we finally have real power from the hydro company!! No more generator - no more running off Deirdres alternative set-up and most imporantly, we can run water now by simply opening the spigot. We are drawing nearer to civilization. The electricians wired the garage completely, so once we install some bulbs and rearrange things in there, we have usable space. Additionally, in the house, we have a couple of real working outlets. Woohoo!! Bill Fisher also connected our generator and panel, so in the event of a power failure, we can continue to operate. FULL STEAM AHEAD!

Meanwhile

While the window openings were being shaped, Justin was working feverishly (as he always does) to stuff any and all interior holes that were visible. With a bucket of loose straw fastened to his belt, and frequent refills of same, around the building he goes, seeking stuffing and sealing any openings in the walls.

While he was doing that, Andre was busy greeting the many visitors to the site. Our youngest son Rob and his girlfriend Celine got rained out of their maritime holiday by "Hurricane Bill", so as they had a little extra time, they visited and pitched their tent for a night before returning to Toronto. The electricians returned; the building inspector performed our insulation inspection, which we passed; several neighbors stopped by; the project manager stopped by with drywall contractors and site-visitors; the concrete guys returned to execute a fix to the garage slab; and friends drove out to visit. And it's only Wednesday!!

While all of this was going on, I got a start cutting the window sills. We used a router to cut a dado on the underside of the sill, a circular saw with a guide to rip-cut the full depth of it's blade to meet the dado, a second circular saw to cut to length and shape and finally a jig-saw for the rounded corners and to compete the saw cuts. Each sill was done one at a time, start to finish.

I am not posting any pictures of the operation itself, as I sustained enough grief over my router "ensemble". But I will show you the weapons of choice and some of the sills.

The Windows Get Some Attention

Deirdre started her magic by shaping the window openings on the inside. They are rounded and this is achieved with artisitic flare and much patience. Deirdre uses "Tenax" plastic mesh which she fastens to the window bucks, stuffs with straw and pins into place with large wire clips. I hope we haven't divulged any trade secrets here.

Let the Detailing Begin

So the drill with the bales was that they were placed between the wall trusses, the strings were cut, they expanded slightly, and we stuffed the spaces between the bales and trusses. Any spaces on the corners of the bales were filled with corkscrewed handfuls of straw. Fold the longer straw over, twist the loose ends, place in a wall void and twist into place. The plaster crew does not want to have to deal with much loose straw.

Once the holes were roughly filled, then Justin and Andre spent the day making certain the walls were relatively straight. This was achieved by one being inside, one being outside, and each with a "persuader" - (the large mallets) beating the walls straight. It's amazing what a difference that step makes. Everything is brought to attention and the walls looks wonderful.

Did you know?

It seems that we have a regular following of blog readers, which is great as it sure saves us sending out several emails with pictures attached. But someone suggested that I make the pictures larger so I just wanted to let you know that the photos are "clickable" and will enlarge when you cursor over and click the mouse.
As to why there are no comments allowed on the blog, it's because we don't have time to answer them!!

Waiting for the Bales

Monday of Week 7 was the last bale delivery. We had pretty well placed all of the bales we had on site in the walls, so were happy when Alvin arrived with the last 50 we needed. I busied myself while waiting with a creative endeavour and fashioned some light-tubes, but more of those later.

In three days, we had placed almost 300 bales. The few remaining will be used for detailing. Here Deirdre is pitching bales out of the trailer. Again, Andre and the guys loaded them up the ramp, Justin fired them in the doorway and I stacked them, but not for long as they were quickly used up.

Week Seven Comes and Goes

After a crazy weekend where we packed the town garage contents into a rented vehicle and trucked it down the highway to our new abode, we feel only slightly further ahead. The garage has not been wired yet and there is a gap between the sill plate and the floor slab that needs to be dealt with. Once that is done, we can call for the framing inspection. So that means that we can't place anything against the walls. Our original intention was to have the garage built in the first couple of weeks of our build, so that building materials and tools could be secured there and any work on ancillary items could happen in there. Now we have a new garage - piled high in the middle with a random assortment of boxes, tools and various garage minutia.
This is a public thanks to Doug who assisted with the garage relocation, and Doris who helped me to pack the last of the kitchen while the gents were busy with the bigger items. Andre wishes it to be known that this is the last time he is relocating my tools!!! No pics as it wasn't pretty!

Recycling

So far our waste pile is not that massive. We have tried to use up every little off-cut we can. We have been bagging the loose straw and it will go as mulch to a gardener, the bits of roof-steel will be used on little out-buildings or sheds and the non-plywood stuff will be used as kindling for wood-stoves owners or our planned camp-fire nights.
We do plan a trip next week to 'da dump to 'da dump to 'da dump dump dump with wierdly shaped plywood bits, and miscellaneous scraps from the plumber and electrician. As we aren't "residents" there yet, we have no garbage bag tags, but can visit the dump as special "guests" and pay per load. They will even credit us $1.00 per bag for our recycle bottles and cans, but the real money is in our beer cans, of which we have a few.

Visitors

We have had a few now that the best part of the project is in full swing, but the best visits are from the neighbors. It means we haven't ticked them off too badly with all the noise etc. that typically comes with a construction site. Both sets of neighbors from either side now have commented that this certainly doesn't sound like a construction site. Too much laughter!! And that's a good thing.

I guess the difference with our job is that our builder is passionate about what she does. So is Justin. And with us on the site, working along side, it's easy to move forward rather quickly as we resolve and problem solve issues as we go. So far there have been few. I guess that leaves time for joking and laughing.

The Garage Gets a Lid

Our steel for the garage arrived and it was the right color!! A happy cheerful red. Figure we will be looking down at it everyday, it should bring a smile to our faces.

As our property is zoned rural, we felt it should have a country look to it. This building is based on a building we saw that was a horse barn. We thought more drive-shed than horses, but either way - we are liking it so far.

The windows were a find at the Habitat For Humanity "Restore". The intention is that we side the building with board and batten and build some suitable window frames. But first we gotta' have a place to live. This is the weekend however that the garage contents from town get moved into the country garage. Never a dull moment.

The Meticulous Electrician

We can't say enough about the electrical work on this job. Everything was so well executed and thought out. Bill even thought of things we had not, for which we are truly appreciative.

This house is about "less", so we aren't lighting up the heavens. We are not planning an elaborate christmas light display, runway size yard lights or a hot-tub, so our needs are very basic. It might be a different story in the garage :-)

The only slightly different thing about our straw bale electrical is everything goes up through the bale cap and into the area between the outer ring-beam and the inner one which form a natural channel or raceway. All wiring is then fed back to the panel in the utility room. The other thing is that R2000 boxes are used on the exterior walls within the bales and in the ceilings. These are plastic units which come with foam gaskets attached, so everything is sealed. They are set proud of the framing members, so that once we plaster, everything is flush. The bales are notched around the boxes.

We have to show off the panels. These are the house and generator panel boxes and their requisite wiring. Neat eh!!

Under Cover

The bales shouldn't get wet. All along their route, they have been protected from rain, so the last thing we want is for them to get soaked. Typically, tarps are strung and the entire building is covered, but that really kills any ventilation and light, so we have devised a compromise. The overhang will protect the top bales, and the bottom bales are covered with lumber tarps that we scored from the lumber yard. At the end of each day, we cover up and will eventually tarp over everything, but for now this works.

Gentle Persuasion

If anyone reading this is wanting to work out some frustration, have we a method for you. The only good thing about these mallets is that they are pine, so lighter than others made of elm or ash. The hammer is just for scale.
This is the fun part. Bashing bales into place and compressing them. At one point this week, I ran to get my camera, as even the plumber was bashing bales...it's just that much fun!!

Hard At It

Andre and Deirdre are re-tieing, Justin is installing, I'm stuffing and Deirdre is shaping a bale. At the end of the day, we are physically spent. When we started this, I had this idea that each evening, I would take a few moments to diarize the days events. Yeah right! We have a beverage, eat something and fall into bed, exhausted, dirty and totally happy. We might be officially nutty.

The Tool of Choice

A grinder with a chain-saw blade disk is the easiest method for shaping the bales around the outlet boxes etc. The other tool that can be used is an electric chain saw, which is ok for outside, but it spits oil and that's not so desirable on what will be our finished floors. The hammer claw can also remove excess straw from the bale.

Throw away those levels and squares!!

It has been an interesting transition from the carpentry to the bale work. Where we once were anal about level, plumb and square, we now are free-wheeling. Tool belts are hung-up and only a tape measure assures we have the bale that will nicely fit its opening. Bale walls are fluid and organic. The plastering crew will assure that most of the highs and lows are taken care of, but right now it's all about getting the bales in. That work doesn't take too long. After the first day, we had the north side of the house baled. The second day we moved around to the south and east facades and at the end of this week, we've mostly depleted our supply of bales and have about 80 more bales to install. A call for more bales is in order.

Bale Week

After much waiting for the day to arrive, we are finally at the point where our bales can start to go up. More detailing in preparation for it though, so we spray foamed all of the perforations left by the electrician and other trades in the bales caps. One of the advantages to building your own house is that you can spend the time to get it right. So we have also spent time applying 6 mil poly to the interior ring beam and attaching it to the neighboring walls with tuck tape.

The electrician has completed his rough-in and the plumber returned to install the pressure tank for the water, so now we can control the flow rather than just full blast off the generator being connected directly to the well pump. The HRV installer completed venting the HRV and bathroom fans through the back gable of the house. We have been very careful about not having any services running in or through the bales, so aside from the back hose-bib and one exterior plug, everything else goes up and out. Hydro called, and we are only about 5 working days from having power. But back to the bales!!!

The bale work is the one that attracts the most interest, so we have had visitors to our little site this week. It is also another stage which has a lot of impact, both visually and spatially. Up to now, we have been working in the tree tops. A roof, but no walls meant just a borrowed view from the surrounding woods. The bales change all that.

And it's fun work!! But man, is it hard-work. I don't have the upper body strength needed to foist the bales once they are beyond four bales high, so I busy myself with the other stuff, but the guys are lifting and pounding and jumping and kicking bales into place. The other stuff is finding the right size bale for the opening, attempting to re-tie any that need to be cut or trimmed, and shaping some around interior outlets or framing. Some of the openings for bales are behind walls or between rooms and need some assistance to fit. But once in, the strings are cut, the bales goes "poof" and then we stuff in around the sides and on the bottom and top corners.

So Much Accomplished This Past Week

There are so many things that were done that I could be blogging forever, so to summarize, here are some of the other things that we knocked off this week.
- foundation metal lathe installed in prep for parging
- ground for electrical system buried
- supports for window sills installed
- valley rafters installed
- typar installed on all interior trusses which will be parged
- restoration work begun on septic bed erosion area
- interior 2x8 ring beam started

Now it really feels like we are building a straw house

This morning our bales arrived. At 9:00 am, I heard a tractor coming down the road and sure enough, it was Alvin and our bales. When he turned in our driveway, a couple of cars going by slowed down to have a good look.

His hay wagon was neatly loaded with 200 of our 300 bales. In no time, we had them stacked in the house. Alvin would pitch them off the wagon, Andre would load them into the foyer, and Deirdre and I would stack them inside. After we had a few, Deirdre stayed on the stack and packed the bales I delivered to her. My farming relatives would be so proud!!

Too bad Justin missed the day as it was his day off, but if it's any consolation, Alvin did not bring the bale elevator as he had no-one to help him load it at his end.

These are the most wonderful bales. They smell so good. And as Alvin picked up the last one which was a light little bale, he said to Andre "There it is - now why couldn't I have found that one first? It would have saved a lot of work!"

Garage Blip

Well, we have had our first real mess-up. The roofing steel that was ordered by the supplier was ordered the wrong color. Well no color actually. On the day the steel was to be delivered we got the news that it was all wrong. Not wanting to lose a week, we visited the supplier to see if the steel that was received would have been a suitable substitution. It was not. The steel that arrived looked like a mirror, it was so shiny. The worry was that the framers might not be available when the correct steel arrives, the overhead garage door would not be able to installed without a roof, nor would the electrical panel.

But the framers returned and installed the building wrap and strapping on the roof, which gives us weather protection until the steel can go up, which will hopefully be next week.

And eventually, when we have some spare time, Andre and I plan to install board and batten siding on the garage, so while it will have a beautiful steel roof in short order and at least the steel will be a nice compliment to the house wrap on the garage, this is what it will look like for some-time.

The Framing Push

The last of the interior walls has been installed. In these pics, Justin and Andre are ensuring the last wall is plumb and I am installing blocking in the foyer. A couple of more crooked walls (what we lovingly refer to our cathedral walls as) have been built to finish the interior framing.

We Passed

Here it is!! We passed! The building inspector came, he saw, he went and we won't need to see him again until the insulation inspection. We had him fooled with our hand framed roof on the porch, in that he thought they were trusses. Had we not pointed them out to him, he wouldn't have known. But news to us was that we can't build a truss without having it engineered, so it's either a letter from the engineer saying they are sufficient, or collar ties. We will simply install those and it's all good.

We Can See, We Can See

Installation of the windows took no time at all. They all required a little doctoring, whereby we cut off a piece of moulding from the bottom inside of each to allow for our massive window sills. Deirdre, Justin and Andre looked after the installations and I followed hammering them all in place. It was easy, as the window frames we made were perfectly square. The windows sit upon shims and are fastened with the nailing flange on the front which will be covered by the plaster. All of our windows were installed in less than a day.

We know it looks strange having a house with windows but no walls, but they are coming.

Country Livin'

It hasn't taken us very long to adapt to the quiet. OK, it's noisy during the day with hammers and power tools, but our neighborhood is so quiet it's crazy. Rush hour consists mainly of joggers, cyclists, and dog-walkers. The nights, now that the rain has subsided, are star-filled. One night this week, we just stood at the end of the driveway looking up at the Milky-Way and numerous falling stars. And when we weren't looking up, the yard was filled with fire-flies. Well those and mosquitoes!! We are being eaten alive. The neighbor tells us that they have never seen a year as bad as this for those ravenous pests, so we are hoping that is attributable to all of the rain we have been receiving.

And as we lay in bed at night, rather than hearing the noise from the freeway traffic, horns tooting, sirens at all hours and jet-airplanes above, we only hear owls hooting, coyotes yipping, loons from the nearby lake, frogs, and the distant train whistle. Bliss.

Well, mostly bliss. It's a little noisy when the raccoon visits to see if there is anything on the table outside or our garbage cans worth his while. We have a metal sink and cabinets outside of the trailer, and he has checked it out a few times. A raccoon, in a metal cabinet, knocking over small propane cylinders, in the dark of the night, is a bit alarming. But I wouldn't trade it for anything.

We say we are looking forward to the day when we actually have power and running water, but there is something so peaceful about candle-light each evening. It really is a tonic for the soul.

Interior Rough-Ins

Again, there were so many people in this little building this week, we were practically tripping over each other. These are the guys that show up and saw apart the walls that you have so lovingly installed. We had the plumbers here finishing up their fit-ups, the company that is installing the Heat Recovery Ventilator was here - ("Burns Right" owned by Bruce Burns) and Bill Fisher and his electrical apprentice also arrived to do their preliminary work. We say preliminary, but by the end of the second day, the entire house was wired and the panels for both the generator and the household circuits were in-place.

Bill Fisher is the electrician we had contacted early on in this process to inquire if he would do the work. We had heard only good things about him, and he had worked on straw-bale houses previously. Additionally, he was interested in alternative energy systems, which were things we were considering early on in the process. But he would never give us an estimate, only an hourly rate. We are here to tell anybody who will listen that your money will be well spent using Bill. Our electrical panels and the board they are installed on are so neat, they look like they belong in a hygenic laboratory environment.

On our project, there is a real spirit of cooperation. In one of the above pictures, Deirdre is building a small box for the plumbers to install the pressure tank on. Andre and I installed the plywood wall for the plumbing and floor heating controls to be installed against and Justin worked with the electrician on the day his apprentice was absent, by climbing through the trusses with the requisite wires.

So far, everyone has showed up to do the work when they said they would and we habitually walk around with smiles on our faces.

Skirt Roof Completed

Deirdre and Justin were back at the skirt roof on the front of the house this week wanting to complete that before the framing inspection. Once done, this is Justin demonstrating just how securely these things are fastened to the building.

Week Five Begins - Let the Hurricanes Come

This is the week that the framing inspection is scheduled for, so a last minute push was on to get all the little details looked after. One of those, was the hurricane ties. This building has more ties or straps than is typical. Deirdre had been working to get her system "engineered" and one of the specs called for ties that would withstand 1 kilo-newton forces. These are on the building to guard against the roof being peeled off due to "up-lift" which a building with larger overhangs is more susceptible to, and below to more securely fasten the supports to the sill plate. I feel good knowing they are on the building. So in addition to the hurricane ties or straps that are standard with the truss application, we have steel strapping on the top and the bottom of the support structures. The last ones we installed were fastened to the bottom of the support posts and the sill-plate and were difficult to get at as we had diagonal bracing all over the building. That bracing will remain until the bales are in and the plaster is in place.

In this last photo, you can see the damage that was done to some of the trees at the edge of the building lot. These were scraped by the excavator. We will trim off the dead branches and generally tidy things up when we have a moment. You can also note the size and treatment of our sill-plates. They are the width of a bale and lined with 1 1/2" foam which will keep the bales off the concrete floor.