CopyAnt Blog

01 May 2009

Where did the last 8 months go?

It was only when I checked my website today that I realised my blog was so out of date that it was throwing up an error on my website. How bad is that!

The house is now inhabited - we moved in on the 25th November when it was still unplastered and surrounded by blue tarpaulins. Over the next three months Nat and I plastered the whole house - not a lightweight job by any stretch of the imagination. I totally understand why the quote came in at $26000 for the plastering - it's worth every cent but we did it ourselves.

Since then we've gradually been painting and working on the interior which is the fun bit as we slowly see the dream appearing out of the plaster dust and grime.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - there is nothing as satisfying as building your own home..... nor as stressful!

02 July 2008

The Enchanted Bog - part 1

Once upon a time there was an exhausted Queen. She had two lovely but somewhat cheeky sometimes princess daughters. The King was often away in foreign lands doing kingly things like rearranging forests and other plants and motivating disheartened garden centre troops.

What the Queen wanted more than anything in the world (apart from a fortnight in Rarotonga at a resort with a kids club and teenage activities to keep the princesses out of her hair) was a new castle from which she could reign with peace and a bit of love too. She spent years and years, wishing and dreaming, doodling nothing but floorplans and colour schemes. Then finally the Wizard whose name was Bill DinginSpectre, waved his magic wand pen over the doodles and with a flourish of sparkles and a quick hot chocolate, there appeared two handsome knights who were jolly good with a power tool.

The Queen wept for joy and the little princesses yawned and asked what the big deal was. But up in the sky above the land of Tara, lived a wicked troll by the name of Cumul O'Nimbus. He didn't like the idea of the the Queen and her cheeky princesses having a happy life. He wasn't really a bad sort, just had a less than happy childhood which had left him with a big chip on his shoulder and a tendency to stormy outbursts.

Over the next few months the good knights whose names were Sir Dave the Castle Builder and Sir Robbie the Lovely Labourer, toiled through scorching sun (come to think of it the Queen couldn't remember very much of that) and pouring rain and into the nights. Block by block the castle rose out of the ground. The Queen was delighted with the progress and laid on a feast for Sir Dave the Castle Builder and Sir Robbie the Lovely Labourer and their beautiful families.

Cumul O'Nimbus was getting mighty tired of all this nicey nicey family sweetness and decided it was time to get involved (and not in a good way either).

He knew that Sir Dave and Sir Robbie, being good guys, would be impressed by pretty colours. So he threw together a magic spell and conjured up a beautiful rainbow. You have to remember that the best creative work comes from tortured souls.

He cast the rainbow across the land of Tara with it's end coming down just next to the under construction castle. Now everyone thinks that you find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And if we're honest the Queen's budget was a little tight, so Sir Dave and Sir Robbie were very impressed by the rainbow and thought that if they could find the pot of gold, they could share it with the Queen and build an even bigger castle.

So they raced over to the end of the rainbow and what do you think they found?

Well, I'll take guesses on this one....... let me give you a hint...... the pot of gold thing.... well it's a crock of ****.

Answers on a posting please.

20 June 2008

Maison Levante

Oh, it's all just so exciting now. Every day our walls get higher.

Dave the Builder and Lovely Robbie the Labourer are putting in the hours and the progress is tremendous. It's worth noting that in Mangawhai finding a builder on site on a Friday afternoon is unheard of..... except if they're working on this house. Last Friday I went up to the site at 5pm and there they were. OK they were having a beer but they were still on site while all other builders in town were golfing or fishing. So good on you guys!

Anyway, the Timbercrete blocks are going up well. Dave the Builder is reasonably happy although there are some size variations that are creating some minor problems (up to 5mm difference from one end to the other on some blocks). Whether this is because we agreed to take seconds because we'll be plastering isn't clear but it has slowed things just a bit.

The first course of the Timbercrete walls - June 11th

Over half way there with the Timbercrete - June 19th

The curved wall dividing our lounge from the bathroom area - The Timbercrete product does curves which are 1 metre radius. This turns out to be a little larger than we expected so we've had to chop off a small part of the curve. Not a major problem though.

As a total aside, we have a french girl coming to stay as a student exchange. So we've all been learning to speak French. I know her objective is to speak English but I know my brain hurts when I have to speak French for more than a couple of hours so I thought is was only fair that we learnt a bit of French in order to give her a break from time to time. Hence the French title.

09 June 2008

Going down and going up

Oh the last three weeks have been so exciting. It's been all action on the little half acre 'up the Tara' (which is what the locals call the area we're building in I've just discovered).

Firstly Dave the Builder, being terribly keen to get on with it, decided to forget about Harrie the Digger and do it himself with a hired digger. I'm not sure if it saved any money at all, but it did ensure things got moving. So down and down we dug to make those all important footings. For the uninitiated, these are the deep holes that get filled with concrete that basically plug the house into the ground.... so yes they're very important.

By the end of the digging down and a week of rain, it was starting to look at little like some sort of world war 1 trenches recreation. Deep holes in the mud filled with sweaty looking water and despondent, exhausted looking chaps huddling under the unusual shelter we have there. It didn't help that Robbie got bitten by the dog next door, which gave an added authencity to the misery of the scene.

Then the weather improved and they built the boxing for the concrete. At this point I started to get a feel for what level our floor might actually end up and what the views might be from standing in our french doors. After that comes the metal (for some reason here in New Zealand we call this rough gravel metal.....) and the steel work. The steel work gave rise to a fabulous case of what I've termed "Builders' Art". This sign greeted me last week sometime and such was my joy to see the progress that I found myself appreciating the artistic merit.

After we passed our first inspection with flying colours (perhaps due to the art), the concrete pour was booked.

At this point, the importance of using a qualified and intelligent builder became really apparent. We'd ordered some Bowmac B75 brackets from Mitre 10 (with Nat's staff discount). After much head scratching and umming and ahhing Dave and I worked out that Mitre 10 had substituted the Bowmac brand for another brand of bracket which was a different length. You might think this wouldn't be a problem. However, these brackets are planted into the concrete and then attached to the posts that hold the house up. Essentially they attach the top part of the house to the concrete pad that, as mentioned before, is plugged into the ground..... So you can see that having ones that are too short, puts the house on a bit of a wobble. So big thanks to Dave for spotting this before we used the short ones and ended up with a big problem.

The concrete floor was poured last Friday without a hitch. Geoff Bell, the local concrete placer did a lovely job. He even indulged my unusual requests. I had a vision of having leaf imprints at discreet points on the floor. The idea is that when you open the curtains you find a little leaf print in the floor - or just tucked behind a door.... little surprises as you explore the house.

I'd collected leaves from around the place. It being late Autumn round here, I also soaked them for about 5 days to take the brittleness out of them. Because we couldn't be on site at the exact moment when the concrete was right to pour them, I entrusted them to Geoff to place. And rather than scorn me and my hippy ideas, he grinned enthusiastically (which I'll admit he does quite a bit) and talked about putting fossils into the slab.

Anyway, you can see the effect here. They're a little hidden under the boxing up for the upstand that the straw bales will sit on, but you get the idea.

Today, Dave and Robbie, created the concrete upstands that the straw bales sit on. These are important so that the bales are higher than the rest of the floor - just in case there's a flood inside the building.
I found this stage really illuminating as I can now really start to get a feel of how the spaces inside the building are going to work. I have to admit that before the concrete slab went down I was starting to worry that perhaps we'd designed it too small. Dave the Builder reassured me that this was a common feeling. In fact let's give it a name.... how about "Post-design inadequacy syndrome" or PDIS for short.

Anyway, I can confirm that getting your concrete laid is a great cure for PDIS. I'm now much more comfortable with the size of my house.

I've mentioned a few of the characters involved in the project. So here'a a few photos to go with them....

Robbie the lovely labourer - who appears to be a little camera shy.... or is he just working too hard to look up and smile.

Dave the Builder - much more comfortable with a smile for the camera (do you see what I mean about the mud though!)

Hubby Nat - proudly sporting his Mitre 10 shirt.

Our lovely concrete pad, from which will grow our dream home.

More soon!

Labels: concrete, straw bale building

18 May 2008

Good to go (at long last)

Yes, we finally have our Building Consent!

I dragged a seriously sick (with tonsilitus) Nat along to a meeting with the Building Inspector and we went through all my straw bale and lime plaster research and the changes to our plans. At the end of the meeting, the very chilled out Derek Free said "Well, you've answered my questions and provided the information I was looking for. I expect to issue Consent early next week."

I can honestly say I nearly peed myself with excitement. Poor Nat then got dragged off to cafe Utopia so I could have a celebratory hot chocolate and he a bowl of hot soup. In the end I did allow him to climb back onto the sofa and moan in peace.

A week later I received the Building Consent paperwork. In the last three days I've been busy....

Met with the builder - he's starting on Tuesday (along with the forecast rain)
Ordered the extra timber from MacDirect (for those weatherboards upstairs)
Met with wild man Geoff Bell who places concrete around here. He's very tolerant of my urge to place leaves on the concrete in places for texture....

We were up at the land today pottering about happily, trimming the grass around the trees and unearthing paving slabs that have sunk into the weeds and grass. There was a real feeling of being on our way.

Interestingly since we got our Consent my clicking, pins and needles neck has eased right off. So despite dire warnings of carpal tunnel and possible arthritis, all that was happening was a big stress load.

I'll try to take lots of pictures, now that we're finally at long last, good to go!

Yay.....

Labels: d

06 May 2008

Peer reviews over-rated

We got our peer review done on our straw bale house design by architect Graeme North. And with the greatest respect in the world, I think it proved that he doesn't know much about straw bale houses.

He talked about having to compress the bales which every other source states as only being necessary when you are building a load bearing straw bale house. Of course ours is a timber frame with the bales only being used as infill. So no need to compress.

We've had to concede the top storey in straw bale because the Council had serious concerns about maintenance issues with a lime plaster over bales on a top storey. The leaky building crisis in NZ has had major repurcussions for Building Inspectors it seems. They've gone all jumpy about everything that could possibly leak in the next 15 years. They've all been told they'll be liable for it so they won't sign off anything that seems in the remotest bit unusual. And because straw bale is not covered by the building code we're stuck in the middle.

So I've had to produce a research portfolio with case studies, any research I can find and examples of building codes that do cover straw bale.

I have to thank Reinhold Huber and Lynne Hindle, Daniel Tohill and Jude Bishop and Hermann Otto and Penny Kempton who have all opened their straw bale homes to me to help me prove that straw bale does stand the test of time.

Daniel Tohill and Jude Bishops House, Kaiwaka

What I've learned is that there may very well be ideal methods recommended by experts but other methods seem to work too. Hermann and Penny's spacious and beautiful house has a standard concrete plaster and has stood strong on an exposed coastal ridge for 10 years with only one crack so far. Reinhold has used straw bale walls around a sauna in a sheltered and sometimes damp area, again with no problems at all over 10 years. Daniel had a window in a straw bale wall with no flashing at all, fully exposed to the westerlies and when he came to take it out there was no rot in the wall.

Hermann Otto and Penny Kempton's house, Ngunguru

I'm not suggesting that these should become recommended practises but it does show that there can't be any hard and fast rules just things that may work better than others.

One thing that does seem to be universal is the recommendation that you use Keim paints which are available from Equus in New Zealand. Apparently they're used on ancient castles and their silicate components protect walls in a sort of fish scale manner - the water runs off the walls but the walls are still fully permeable.

Anyway, we've had our plans redone with the weatherboard exterior on the upper storey and I'm just about ready to resubmit all of this to Council.

We'll just have to wait and see if it makes a difference.

08 April 2008

The latest trend in building consent processing

I bet you didn't think of Building Consent processing as a field with trends and fashions. I certainly didn't. But now I stand corrected.....

Apparently the latest trend (and everyone's doing it) is Peer Review. This edgy little number involves combining perfectly sound plans devised by experienced architects and qualified engineers, with the glamourous accent provided by another architect or engineers glance over. This intensely modern pattern is being used only in the high couture world of alternative building.

So the already edgy just got edgier. And as the humble project manager I now have to go through the process of finding someone suitably qualified to provide this second signature flourish.

I'm not sure what the point of paying a qualified architect and engineer just under $10k was. It seems it's not enough for the Council. Oh well, more money to be spent and more time to be wasted before we can proceed.

Am I sounding frustrated.... perhaps a little.

In particular what Kaipara want is to have someone confirm that the plans are OK with regards to the following parts:

"particular attention to weathertightness, structure, and a maintenance program for the lime plaster"

The structure part was surely dealt with in the engineer's "Producer Statement" which confirms that if it falls down, he's responsible.
The weathertightness part is covered by the fact that we've gone with the simplest design and the widest of eaves and veranda (to keep the rain off as much as possible) and using a lime plaster that breathes.
The maintenance programme for the lime plaster - simple really, keep an eye on it and fix any cracks as they appear. Also lime plaster is self-healing (ie when it gets damp it swells and rebinds itself) so in a way, that's not really an issue. Here's a great list of hints for plastering. (Thanks to Andrew Morrison and Strawbale.com)

Anyway, I'd better go and find this Peer to do the review, otherwise we're all just going to sit here going nowhere.....