Rammed Earth Walls Revealed

The form work came off the 2 completed rammed earth walls yesterday and I must say they look pretty good. The third, biggest wall still to go; however no ramming happening today because it's just too hot (39 degrees c).

Floors! walls!

After the slab pour, nothing happened for about a week (except curing, apparently). Then the polished concrete guys came and did the first polish on the slab- everywhere except the wet areas (will be tiled), and the kids bedrooms, (will have carpet). Even with the preliminary grind it looks great, and the concrete guys did a great job in pouring a nice flat slab.
And today, they started the rammed earth walls. The process involves mixing some quarry rubble with concrete, then tipping it into the form work and compacting it with a kind of mini jack hammer thing. The wall is made on site, and in the purest form you can use earth from the construction site, however without an unlimited budget and unlimited time it's actually not practicable, and we have used earth from Stonyfell for our walls.

There will only be 3 rammed earth walls in the house- the rest of the walls will be a light weight construction product. The walls are positioned so they (hopefully) use their thermal inertia to greatest advantage.... I just hope the house performs as we think it should after all the planning.

And now for this post's product shot- the basin mixers. The shower mixers will also be the same. We had a mild panic when the GFC hit and the dollar fell that prices of imported house stuff would sky rocket (and it has, even though the dollar hasn't stayed low), so we bought these last December. . This is the Kludi Bozz basin mixer. Luckily after 12 months I still think it's sexy. Just as well I haven't changed my mind- it's too late to return them!

There's a slab.... and it's not beer

So after Monday's dissapointment, everything proceeded on Tuesday. Hooray! More base was laid for the tanks on Monday, and the reinforcing was jiggered up the right way, so when the concreting boys arrived on Tuesday it actually happened.

Instead of the boom pump a line pump was used. Whilst it reached the site no worries, the problem with it (and the reason a boom pump was used in the first attempt) was that heavy metal pipes lie over the steel reinforcing, and when the pump is on the heavy pipes jerk back and forth repeatedly. That wouldn't usually matter unless you have heating cables attached to your reinforcing, as we have, and during Tuesday's pour the heating cable was almost severed in two places. Problematic, but fixable. Luckily we had Steve from Classic Underfloor heating (he's a good guy, thought I'd give him a plug) there to trouble shoot.

Twelve trucks of concrete later and they were finished.... you can really start to see the formation of a house. Thrown into the bargain the first of our two 110,000litre pioneer water tanks was installed. They are colourbond steel on the outside and a black plasticky (this is the techinical term) liner on the inside. The advantage of this combo is that you can have a much larger tank than a regular poly or galvo tank but much more economical than a concrete tank. The second monster tank was installed on Thursday. The other great thing about the pioneer tanks is that the collect their own water off their roof, and today it's raining, so we are already collecting rainwater! I've earmarked today's rain for my bath on October 29th, 2010.

And so on to this post's feature interior product... the DeLonghi 90cm free standing dual fuel cooker. It has some fancy lining and telescopic rails, so I'm less likely to inflict myself with 3rd degree forearm burns when cooking pizza.

A Little Disappointing

A big day planned for last Monday. After a prolonged hot spell with temperatures up to 43 degrees c, followed by rain, finally the weather gods smiled ready for the slab to be poured on Monday. The waterproofing under the reinforcing was in a bit of a state; the tape had come off in the sun and the plastic was flopping about in the breeze, and the trenches had puddles of water in them from the rain.
However, on Monday everyone was poised for action. The slab was being poured and the rain water tanks wereto be installed. A boom pump had been booked for the pour to protect the underfloor heating cable. However the slope of the site and the general topography prevented the pump from being positioned close enough to allow the concrete to be poured. Consequently lots of swearing workmen.
Our engineer identified that the steel ligatures (I have no idea what these actually are, so forgive me if this is incorrect and doesn't make sense) had been installed the wrong way around and needed to be replaced. Consequently some more swearing workmen, with a few arguments as well.
The tank people came to install the first tank, but deemed that the base for the tank to go on was inadequately level and required more dolomite base to allow it to be leveled. Consequently lots of swearing workmen, and a swearing husband.
Apparently everyone stood around and swore for a couple of hours and then gave up and left.
So a lot of swearing and no work actually done on Monday. I'm just glad I wasn't actually there.
Don't worry, everything went ahead on Tuesday... pictures to follow shortly.
I almost forgot- a picture. This is the multiline Rekta, which will be hanging over our kitchen bench.

Thirsty Visitor

Not building related- but nonetheless worthy.

Holly (the dog) sniffed this one out in our front yard this afternoon.

Looking for a drink I suspect, given the heat in Adelaide at the moment...

Progress

This week the reinforcing for the slab has been laid, and the other bits- some termite protection, plastic sheeting, and the cabling for the slab heating. (in an ideal world we would be putting hydronic heating pipes in, but finding an efficacious and affordable way to heat the water was problematic, the best solution being geothermal but at $50K it was slightly beyond our reach).




I must apologise to the earth for the amount of embodied energy in our slab- there is an awful lot of steel in there. However, when armageddon comes and your houses all fall down, you can come and live with us because our house will still be standing.

The non build photo for this post is of a rammed earth wall, (Tim's suggestion), which will be featuring on the southern wall and some internal walls of the house. The walls are built insitu, which poses a slight logistical problem for our flooring. The floor of the house will be polished concrete, and therefore the slab needs to have an as close to perfect as possible finish on it. However to do the rammed earth they need to drive a bobcat around on the slab, which is at odds with having a perfect surface underneath!

The pour for the slab was due to be this week, and then planned for Monday, and has now been postponed. For any of you non-Adelaidians out there, it has been rather hot here with days in the high 30s, rather unseasonable. It is going to stay stinking hot for quite a few days yet, too hot for pouring concrete. Which comes back to the concrete floors- the hotter it is when the concrete is poured the higher the likelihood of cracking in the slab, which is problematic when the slab is visible.

So we are now waiting for the weather to change to allow the concrete to be poured....hopefully soon, I sure am sick of the heat.

Progress being made

Quite a lot of action recently. The trenches have been dug for the foundations, the piers have been dug and poured and all of the plumbing and electrical work which needs to be done prior to the slab being poured is well under way.

One minor hiccup this week when the electrical trenching and cabling was layed through an area which will be excavated in the future for landscaping....whoops. It has now been re-layed though an area where it can rest permanently in peace.

Tim has been kept terribly busy with meetings with builders, plumbers, electricians, engineers. Sometimes he manages to make it to work.

I have decided that there are plenty of building site photos, so with each post I will be including an image of one of the fittings we will be including in the house interior. Feel free to post derogatory comments about my interior decorating!






We are starting this post with the toilet; the Duravit starck 3. This toilet will be used in the en suite and main bathroom; a different model will be used in the separate WC. I could blind you with exciting technical toilet details (who ever knew the toilet world could be so complex), but it's just a toilet- and the lid doesn't slam shut. In case you were wondering, it doesn't have an aerial, I think the black thing is a join in the wall.

Excavation, devastation or creation?

This week the site for the pad for the house footings has been dug/filled etc. Basically a big digger made a big flat space where once there was hillside. The transformation of our piece of bush is amazing and total.




Mount Lofty in the background behind the guestroom:


The master bedroom:




Hugo has his work cut out moving the excess sand....

20 tonne digger vs mother nature

Well we have site works. An earth moving contractor has come and dug an area for the tanks, the garage and built us a whopping, great-big-enough-for-a-CFS-truck-to-turn-around driveway. No major wildlife dramas this time, just one very annoyed koala who just wanted to sleep but was continually interrupted by the large noisy machine. Great toddler fodder, we met some of the neighbours who dropped in to check out what was happening on the corner.

We gotta lot a mulch....

Well the trees are down now, and there is a big empty space! Apologies to the little birds who lost their home tree, hopefully you will like your relocated nest and didn't find the toddler examination too stressful.

The cleared space is covered with stumps and logs and stuff. The trees and shrubs were all mulched onsite and so now there are many piles on mulch in varying sizes dotted around the place..... I would say about 10 trailer loads at least, enough to meet our mulching requirements for quite a while!

Poised for action?

It's only taken 16 months of designing and planning to get to this stage.... but we thinks something is about to happen. The pens are poised to grant the final planning permission, the builder is poised to start and today the trees begin to fall. It will be a couple of days work to remove the 50-odd trees and shrubs which currently stand where our house will (eventually) be. We have included some before photos, stay posted for the after ones!