Last Week In Mansfield

Hooray! The final week of our job in Mansfield is upon us (I know I said the same thing last week but these jobs inevitably blow out by a few days. The seven niches in the job, which have to be charged as extras, took a minimum of three hours each, which adds up to a bit over two days labour for one person, and the first four weeks of rendering we had to cart water to the site, which took 45 mins per day for one person, about 12 hours all up – so it all adds up!

 

Because of the fairly high quality of the work done on our current job, and the unique finish we get with lime renders, the builder in control of the job has asked us to quote some rendering of brickwork on his own house and small extension in the township of Mansfield.

I’ve often rendered internal walls in strawbale houses where the owner or designer has specified walls in brick to provide thermal mass, and it’s nice to know that the finish on the brickwork can be done to match the render on the inside of the strawbale walls. Of course, after rendering, the walls can then be painted, lime washed, wall papered, whatever you like!

The finished render on Stephen and Fiona’s job looks pretty classy, and we’re very proud of it. We’ll post lots more photos’ of the job after the clean up is done, and as soon as the whole job is complete, with furniture, cabinets and kids!

 

Until next time,

Hooroo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mansfield June 6

 

 

 

Well, it’s the final week of our job at Mansfield, and I must say I’m looking forward to spending some time at home. We’ve been working away for about 5months now, and I’ve got to admit, it’s getting a wee bit tedious. Our youngest daughter, who’ll be turning one in July, took her first steps a few weeks ago, and I wasn’t there to see it.

Anyway, that’s enough of my tale of woe, let’s talk about building!

Over the past month or so, we’ve had a rash of enquiries about building in strawbale from the Yarra Valley, many of them from people who are looking for a competent designer who knows a bit about strawbale. The only job I’ve worked on even remotely near the Yarra Valley was at Kinglake West, about 5 or 6 years ago, and I can’t even remember the client’s name, let alone who designed it.

If any folk out there are in the process of building or planning a Strawbale home and have been satisfied with the job of their architect, designer or draftsperson, I would seriously appreciate it if they could drop me a line and let me know some details!

Similarly, If you’re a designer who is strawbale savvy, or even if you’re just interested in giving strawbale a whirl and would like to know more, drop me a line, as I’m interested in building up a database of names and contact details to pass on to interested parties.

Of course, this doesn’t only apply to the Yarra Valley, but anywhere in Victoria, New South Wales or South Australia, which is pretty much the limit, area wise, that I can cover without my traveling costs becoming prohibitive.

Any input from interested parties would be most welcome!

We’re also compiling a list of strawbale friendly tradespeople, and though this is a long and arduous process, soon we’ll be able to pass on details of builders, plumbers, electricians etc who are competent and keen in dealing with ‘alternative materials’ in general, but strawbale in particular.

Ok. We’ve got a lot of enquiries to answer via email so it’s bye for now!

 

Here’s a couple of photos taken during the week to give you an idea of where we are at.

Photo 1: North facing - Big double doors to the kids bedrooms for passive solar heat gain. Note how lovely and straight the corners are!!

 

 

Photo 2: The same doorway and the two next to it, from outside, looking at the north facing wall. Note that with only 2 and a half weeks to go until the shortest day of the year, almost all of the doorway is in full sun, giving the greatest solar passive heat gain.

Mansfield Update June 1st

On our current job in Mansfield, Fiona has requested seven niches be put into the strawbale walls. These look great if they’re done pretty neatly, but can look pretty rugged if you don’t pay close attention.

Fiona has two totally different looks in mind – one is the classic look for a niche in a strawbale wall, about 350mm – 400mm high, arched top, flat back and a little sill on the front, projecting about 50mm or so from the surface of the wall, while the others are square, again with a flat back, and no projecting sill – a much more modern look.

 

 

The first photograph here shows the first of the arched niches after it’s been cut out of the wall and first coated. I’ve always cut them out of the straw wall, after compression, with a 100mm angle grinder, but it can also be done with a chainsaw.

ALWAYS TAKE EXTREME CARE – it doesn’t matter how long it takes to perform this part of the job as long as you’re in one piece when it’s finished. It’s dangerously easy to hit a piece of baling twine inside the wall, causing the grinder or saw to get very out of control very quickly. If possible, cut through the twine, grab it with a pair of pliers and pull the whole length out of the wall – it won’t make a bit of difference to the wall, as it’s all compressed by the wire and gripples. Generally, the baling twine is positioned 100-130 mm from the surface of the bale, so cut your way into the bale for 100mm or so, and then poke around with your fingers or a knife until you find it. It’ll make a quite distinctive ‘pop’ when you cut it, and then it can be pulled out from around the bale. Don’t forget that each string will have a corresponding one on the bale above or below it. Depending on the position of the niches in the wall, you’ll also have to be aware of where the trench-mesh reinforcing is, as hitting the mesh with a chainsaw will ruin the chain in seconds. If the mesh is in the wall where the niche needs to be, make sure the wall surrounding the niche has a good heavy first coat of render on it, then cut through the mesh with a small angle-grinder. If the straw inside the niche does happen to catch fire, just pat it out with a rag and keep going, the render on the wall surrounding it will prevent the flames spreading up the wall. Contrary to popular belief, it’s almost impossible to burn a strawbale wall once it’s been rendered – even if it’s only first coated.

After cutting out the basic shape of the niche, it’s then coated with render in the usual way, taking care to ‘evolve’ the shape of the niche required as you go. The final shaping and finishing are done with a plasterer’s small tool and a damp sponge.

Our second photograph shows a finished niche in an east-facing wall, which looks somewhat gritty due to the flatness of the light; however, it will finish up smooth with a good coat of lime wash or lime paint.  

Until next week,

Hooroo,

Mark

Mansfield Update May 25th

 

Here is a photo as promised from last week’s blog entry that gives people an idea of the volume of sand that would be required for the job. This is our second load of sand and should just see out the job of roughly 300 sq metres.

 

 

Hello again,

Top coat has started on our current job at Mansfield, and it looks fantastic. At this point I’d like to say that Mansfield has turned out to be one of the friendliest and welcoming towns I’ve ever worked in, although I’ve got to admit that the vast majority of smallish country towns we’ve worked in have been full of really lovely people. It truly is a pleasure to travel around our beautiful state and meet so many fantastic people.

Many people believe that strawbale is rough and rustic by its very nature, but that’s not necessarily the case. Unfortunately, some of the people that look at our jobs think that super flat and neat is the only way we render strawbale but we’re quite happy to do ‘rustic’ if that’s what our client wants – it’s our job to give our client what they want, not what we think the building should look like.

Our current clients, Stephen and Fiona, were a classic potential strawbale couple – Fiona wanted a strawbale house come hell or high water, because of it’s ecologically friendly nature, but Stephen was pretty hesitant, because the only finished buildings he’d seen looked pretty rough, poorly finished, and didn’t mesh well with the other components of the project. As soon as Stephen saw the finished product at our previous job at Barwite, he was visibly relieved and very pleased that he’d followed his ‘green’ sensibilities and opted for strawbale. Not only had he followed his instincts and opted for the green alternative, but he suddenly realized he could have a pretty slick, professional looking job into the bargain.

Similarly we had a couple last week who drove up to Mansfield from the Upper Yarra Valley, one of whom was a dedicated strawbale convert, and the other was pretty sceptical. By the time they’d had a good look around and asked all the relevant questions, they were both well on their way to starting their dream strawbale home. Good luck to them!

The top coat on the job is being done fairly neat and accurate, not only because the owners like the look but also because it suits the look of the building.

One of the principal motivating factors in doing “the strawbale thing” is giving our clients exactly what they want, and seeing the ‘light bulb moment’ when they see their dream coming together, better than even they could have imagined. That’s job satisfaction!

Until next week,

Hooroo

 

 

Mansfield Update May 20

Hi Everyone.

Our second truckload of plasterer’s sand arrived this morning, meaning that we’ve already used 20 cubic metres of sand, and we’re well over half-way through the second coat of render. The sand that we use for our render is sold by a Bendigo firm called Epsom Sand and Soil, and has been sold for years to hard plasterers and renderers. It’s a fairly ‘lean’ sand, meaning that it doesn’t have a great deal of ‘fat’ or clay in it. This means that it can be put on the wall fairly thick, and doesn’t shrink and crack. If we were to use a ‘fatty’ sand like brickies sand, each layer of render would have to be applied quite thin, to avoid excessive cracking.

If you’re planning on rendering your strawbale home yourself, find your nearest solid plasterer, and ask them where their sand comes from. In all likelihood, this will be ideal sand for thick rendering of strawbale walls. It costs about $1400 to get a truck and trailer full of sand, which is a touch over 20 cubic metres, to Mansfield, but it’s worth every cent to know that we have the right sand for the job. We have the added complication of needing the sand to behave in such a way that it’s ‘pumpable’ in a pressure vessel type render pump, but if a strawbale builder is rendering their house by hand, then a good quality local sand can probably be sourced to do a perfectly adequate job. Keeping an eye on the shrinkage of the render is one of the main keys to doing a top quality job.

Unfortunately we don’t have the photo that was to accompany this blog which was to show you the approximate size of a load of sand and how far that would get you but perhaps that one can wait until next week. Life is very busy…..

See you next week, Mark

 

 

The Blog

Hi all, the blog will be updated by tomorrow night (Tuesday), we are waiting on some photos, please come back and check us out then,

Many thanks,

Mark and Cathy

Mansfield Update - May 11th

Happy Mothers Day to all the Mums out there.

This week we’re a couple of days or so behind schedule because of a few mechanical hassles with the render pump, but hope to make up the lost time over the next few weeks. The first coat of render is on and the house is basically waterproof, which means we can sleep soundly at night, even if its pissing rain, which it should be doing in the North-East at this time of year.

Except for a few nervous hours when the straw was still exposed, we’ve been extraordinarily lucky with the weather, even having some days in the very high teens or low twenties during this last week. All of this great weather is a huge advantage to us as drying time is critical at this time of the year. no matter where you are in Victoria.

Whereas the builder on our previous job had only allowed us a total of 35mm for the render, making it pretty tricky to ensure an adequate thickness of covering, the builder on this current job has allowed us a full 50mm, which over the whole of the job of nearly 300 square metres, means an extra 11/2 cubic metres of render (that’s a lot of mud!). The ideal thickness on a strawbale job is 45mm, as a 50mm render thickness not only means an extra metre and a half of mud, but this has to mostly be applied in the second coat. There’s only a limited amount of mud that raw straw will hold on the first coat, and if the top coat is too thick it will be prone to excessive cracking, therefore, the second coat is the only place to apply the extra 5mm of render. If the weather does turn particularly wet and cold, we may be struggling to get enough dry second-coat to start the top coat on. The building is situated on a gentle, North facing slope, with good air flow and plenty of sun, meaning it should dry out pretty easily.

Well until next week,

Don’t hesitate to email us with any questions or queries and we will answer as soon as possible,

Hooroo, Mark 

Mansfield Update May 5th

Welcome to the blog for this week.

I thought I’d briefly mention the electrical work on this house as Fiona and Stephen run an industrial and commercial electrical business, they’ve come up with some great ideas in the electrical department for their new home. As can be seen from this weeks photo, short sections of 90mm PVC pipe have been placed inside the straw and frame construction that forms the window heads. These are happily just the right size to fit a little low wattage light fitting into, (the kind that normally fit “flush” into the plaster ceiling) and will provide a lovely highlight to the curves of the openings.

Stephen has screwed the top of the pipe to a timber noggin between the trusses so that the bottom of the pipe is exactly level (and square) with the render of the window head, providing a neat looking finish. These should look fantastic, and we’ll post photos on the website as soon as we can!

Another interesting innovation is a switch placed in the kitchen so that the power circuit running televisions, computers, sound systems etc can be switched off all in one go, thereby saving about 10% of the running costs of all the appliances. Great idea hey? Saves running around every night to turn everything off.

Stephen and Fiona are dedicated to the cause of saving this world for their kids, and are definitely leading the way in lots of areas. Good on ‘em!

The first coat of render has been pumped on, and the second coat is underway. By the end of this week, weather permitting, we’ll be starting the top coat, and we’re on the homeward stretch.

Talk to you then.

 

 

Mansfield Update

Welcome to the update of the Mansfield job.

Regular readers will forgive me, I hope, for not writing the blog last week, but we have had two pretty sick little ones and a lot of travelling to do. Many thanks are due at this point to my endlessly hard-working wife Cathy, without whom this whole venture would be made much harder. The stacking on our current job in Mansfield is complete, and the rendering started on Wednesday.

 

 

 As you can see from the photograph we’ve added, the chippy’s have all the timber work in the walls ready for fixing to for the cabinet-makers. The photo shows the kitchen/dining area - the top of the horizontal length of pine is set at 900mm from the floor, which gives a point to screw to through the back of the cabinets near the top, and the bottom render stop, where normally the skirting boards would fix to, gives a fixing point  for the bottom of the cabinet. This 45mm timber has been placed flat against the surface of the straw, meaning that the front surface of the timber will be exposed for the cabinet-maker to see clearly, but will be hidden once the cabinet carcasses are in place.

To the right of the kitchen window, you can see an upside down ‘T’ of timber, which has been put in place to fix the rangehood and its flue to. Because we don’t know the exact dimensions of the rangehood, we decided to cut a groove into the surface of the straw for the timber to sit inside, and so hide the timber beneath the full 45mm thickness of the render. Steven, the owner, has taken video footage and measurements of all the timber in the walls so that he can refer to it later to find the exact locations for fixing to (especially the pine noggins put in at 2.1 metres for picture hanging which are all through the living areas and bedrooms). These will all have sheets of aviary-mesh wire stapled over them to anchor them firmly into the render, but any that will carry a significant amount of weight have fencing wire looped around them, through the walls and around an offcut of trench mesh. This is then tightened with gripples, which pulls the whole arrangement tight to the straw wall.

As you can probably gather a lot of thought and effort is put into providing adequate fixing points for all the trades who follow us in the building process. It’s kind of inevitable that something will have been forgotten, so we’ll describe fixing to the wall through finished render at a later date.

Until next week,

Hooroo, Mark.

Hi Everyone

Hi to all of you who read Mark’s blog. Just a quick apology on Mark’s behalf that he has not updated the blog over the last two weeks, things have been really hectic and we have had two pretty sick children, but he will be back on deck by the end of this coming weekend.

We hope you have a relaxing, safe long weekend.

Regards, Cathy and Mark