Going Up.

Alright guys. I've been avoiding posting. So much has happened at Michelle's... (This entry was written while listening to NPR's "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me" and talking to my mother on the phone. Therefore, it might have a few mistakes/redundancies in it. I might go back and edit later. It just took way too long to write and I am glad that it is done.)

For kicks, here's what Michelle's looked like when you guys last heard from me:
Actually, it wasn't this built up. The stemwall was not complete at the time of my last post. Sunday, (the day that we were supposed to meet with a guy named Jeff to get some timberframing help but he didn't show,) we finished the stemwall.

Here's a now picture:
It has grown. Here's how:
These are the U-brackets that we attached to the concrete piers. We attached the whole in the bottom to the screw on the J-bolt that was sunk into the pier. The two holes on each side of the bracket would later be attached to a log.

The original plan was to lift the logs using a nifty tripod device.
The plan was to lift the log about halfway up using strength and a miniature tripod and then continue lifting the log into place on the pier with the big tripod.
This plan was unsuccessful. We did not have the manpower. So, we got machine-power.
Harol, the neighbor with the bobcat and cute dogs, came to help. Jessa's husband, Nathan, also came.
We used a safety chain on all our logs, which did not keep the raising process from being exceptionally nerve-wracking. Especially since Nathan had to crawl on top of the bobcat to move the chain around.
After we got the logs vertical, we used 2x4s for extra support.
Some of the logs had been notched out the previous week. The notches had to be lined up with the U-bracket so that the log would fit. There are also holes on the bottom of the logs that had to be lined up with the J-bolt.
Sometimes getting the logs to line up took a little "convincing."
Once the logs were in place, we screwed the two bottom screws in, then stood back and (judging primarily by sight) made sure the logs were straight. Then put our braces in and then a few more screws.
3 logs up. ^_^ The fourth log was difficult to get up. We didn't want to run over the stemwall and we couldn't really get to the pier from the outside because of fence nearby.
(I just like this picture.) We started at the pole from the outside, and once it was fairly vertical, it tipped. The chain held the log as it went from vertical to horizontal, knocking and breaking one of the braces on the first log. There were some screams and gasps, but everything was fine and the first log stayed standing.
We ended up putting up the fourth log from the inside.

The building, up. Hoorah!
The next day, we had to put up our sideboards. We hadn't picked up our scaffolding yet, so we winged it. Scarily. A shaky 10x2 is not a comfortable thing to stand on. Phil did, though, for the majority of the day. The 10x2 sideboards needed a place to rest, so Phil carved notches. He started just using a chisel, but soon picked up his chainsaw. I helped some, although found that I am slightly afraid of heights when on such rickity scaffolding.
It took us a full day to get these five 10x2s up, but the next day went by much faster. I believe in learning curves. (This is a favorite picture, if only because Phil and Jessa's butts are up in the air. Lovely.)
The supports have made for some awkward hammering so far, but we're leaving them up as long as we can.

The next step was putting up the floor joists for the loft. Although the loft covers two thirds of the building, we were only prepared to put up one section of joists. The second section will come when we put the curved cob wall in- the joists will be built into the cob.

The joists weren't a huge issue, as long as we measured our notches correctly. I did get to use a chainsaw for the first time in my life. Wonderful stuff.

Today, we were going to build stairs. Phil was looking at the plans and realized that, according the the plans, the stairs were only a few feet below the sideboards, meaning that people were going to have to duck quite a bit. This was not good. We decided to move the stairs a couple feet towards the curved wall, so there's less of a landing. When we move the stairs as far as we can and allow 6 feet under the sideboard to walk under, we still needed some steep stairs. 9 1/2 inch rise and 9 inch run.
Phil marked the stairs out, using a textbook from a construction short-term class. (I get a personal kick out of doing stuff that nobody on our team has done before, like stair building. That way, we're all on the same level. Learning together. Kinda.)

When Phil started cutting, the lumber REALLY started cracking. He decided that we need more lumber to act as a backing. We are going to pick that up tomorrow.

So, with no stairs to build, we were searching for something to do. The next step in our progress is going to be getting a roof up. Phil thought that maybe we could go ahead and trim the tops of the posts, since they were all a little long. Thus:
He put out a 10x2 to stand on, but it was a little too uncomfortable. We decided to wait until we got a temporary floor down on our joists (tomorrow, most likely) so we can use ladders and scaffolding and such. It would be safer and easier. And we got to leave the site early today because there was nothing else we could really do.

And, just because this picture did not fit into my narrative anywhere:
Adam and Nibbles, Harol's dog. Harol has another dog named Red who is super affectionate and rides around with Harol in his mule.

Picture bomb!

Jessa updated the HomeGrown HideAways website, adding to the blog and photo album, as well as switching a couple dates of workshops and lowering the workshop costs. Since my camera battery charger is still MIA, I stole some of her pictures. I'm going to do a quick recap of the time since my battery died...

We marked out the floor plan with marking paint directly on the foundation. We've had so many changes in the design- seeing it layed out on the ground helped a lot!

Phil and John (on the left) were the primary designers. You'll see in the photo above that we (Jeff and I, on the right) were filling bags before the design and forms were finished. I wrote about doing a lot of digging and screening in the last couple of weeks.

This is the screener (and Phil.) In the beginning, I scooped from the piles of dirt along the site directly onto the screen. The large rocks that were filtered out fell to the bottom of the screen and into a wheelbarrow (not pictured.) After a while, it was easier to shovel the dirt/clay into a bucket and pour that onto the screen. Someone would be on the other side filling bags with the finer clay/dirt mixture.

The first bags being layed were probably the most exciting, so far. There were six bags that we tamped and signed- Jessa, Phil, John, Adam, Jeff and I all got our own bags. (That's me in the picture, with Jeff and Adam's lower half.)

Our forms get a lot of questions from people who come to visit the site. Mostly, "Isn't that a small doorway?" The thing to understand about forms is that the earthbags will be stacked around them completely. Once the forms are surrounded and the arch is covered, the wood will be removed. The doorway that is in the middle of the (very large) wood arch is simply so that we can get from room to room when the walls get tall.


Each row gets two rings of bags. Each layer alternates (meaning that, in the above picture, the interior bags are vertical-ish while the exterior are horizontal-ish; for the next row, the interior will be horizontal and the top vertical.) The altering helps with structure- think bricks. In between each row of bags, we lay barbed wire. This is my favorite job on site, so far. In order to make the barbed wire stick, we have to individually poke each barb into the bags, alternating which side of the barb goes in.

We have had a lot of people helping to make the job go faster. (The picture above was taken at our end-of-day gathering.)


We haven't been at Michelle's much over the last couple of weeks, but there was one day that Phil, Jessa, Nathan and I snuck out there to get the foundation trench ready for gravel to be poured in it. This involved making cement bases for our timberframe logs.

We had to cut cardboard tubes down to size, using lines and levels and such to make sure that they were all at the same level (since the ground has a 5 inch slope from one side of the building to the other, this was very important.)

Nathan and I mixed cement. Those are 80 pound bags, so Nathan did the lifting. I held the mixer to make sure that it didn't tip. Tough job.

(I have terrible posture, I realize.) Nathan would tip the wheelbarrow up, Jessa or Phil would hold up a funnel to help guide the cement that I hoed out. Then someone would use the trowel to smooth out the top. We later stuck some J-bolts in the cement (and then got rained and hailed on and got covered in mud and dirt.)

(Today we were at John's. It was his birthday, so we had 3:00 rootbeer floats with the neighbors. Our fifth layer is done and our sixth layer is started, although, at the end of the day, we just filled bags. The electrical conduit was being placed between the fifth and sixth layer and it needs to be inspected tomorrow before we can continue placing bags. Jessa and I will be at Michelle's tomorrow and back at John's on Wednesday. Adam and Jeff are going to Florida, for different reasons, and Phil is in North Carolina on vacation with his family, so it will just be Jessa and I. Filling bags is somewhat time consuming, so Jessa suggested spending the later part of the afternoon filling bags- so we will have a stock ready for us Wednesday.)

Oh, and to clarify (because I was asked), "tamping" is compressing the contents of the bag (either using a large, flat bottomed chunk of cement ore a store-bought metal square with a broomstick-like handle) until the contents are very hard and bricklike. It requires a lot of repetitive lifting and thrusting downwards, but it works. Keeps the building solid.

Building Forms

We're starting work late today, so I have time to update.

The last two days have been exhausting. Good, but exhausting. This is why there have not been updates.

This is the first workshop week scheduled for the summer. Unfortunately, nobody signed up for the first workshop, very possibly because of the late start on advertising. So, it's been Jessa, Phil, John, Adam and I.

Monday was a form-building day. (My camera battery is dead, so I don't have pictures, but hopefully Phil will send me some of his and I can post a few.) We built arches for the doorway- these are half-cylinders- they are a foot and a half thick so that they go the entire width of the wall. We constructed tall, thin blocks to hold the arches up for the doorways. We also built door frames. (The arches are for doorless doorways. The door frames are for actual doors.) These pieces will be set at the beginning of construction and bags will be placed around them. Once they are covered, the arches and blocks holding them up will be taken out and the earthbag will stay arched. (The door frames will stay in the walls and doors will be screwed onto them.) Most of this stuff was built from (or at least supported by) salvaged pallets. We worked in the sun and were very thankful for our breaks.

Yesterday, John and Adam weren't with us (at least, not for the majority of the time.) Jessa and I continued to work on forms while Phil worked on leveling the gravel foundation (which had finished being placed Monday night.) After lunch, I helped Phil level and tamp the foundation. Lots of shoveling gravel. The floorplan changed a little because of fun whims, but nothing too extreme. It wasn't near as hot outside. The lack of people made progress seem much slower than Monday's. I hammered my thumb pretty hard- it is still colorful underneath the nail and a little painful to put too much pressure on.

Today, Adam and John will be with us on site, as well as Jeff, who drove up from Florida last night. We will be placing (and signing and taking pictures of) the first earthbag. Exciting stuff.

Floor Plans

Phil drew up floor plans for John's house last week. I'm posting them so that you all can get an idea of what we're doing:





The first one is a side view/dissection of the building. You can see the individual layers of earthbag here, as well as the roof. The second picture is the view from above, to show you the room layout. The large circle will be the general living area and the three smaller rooms will be the wetroom (the door leading out of the north side goes to a composting toilet outside,) the kitchen and the bedroom. The room at the very bottom on the drawing (south) is the main entrance. The living area has two layers of earthbags for more insulation and thermal mass. One layer will be sawdust based.