greenspree.ca at The Sietch

In my last post about the house I mentioned that the bales would be arriving on the 18th or so, this alas did not happen. Our farmer had a trip he had to take for two weeks and on the 17th the flax was still not ready to cut. So we weighed our alternatives and started calling around to see if we could get another source. We did, and got three wagon loads of straw ables delivered over the last two weeks.

Last night we finally installed a few test bales to see how well our notching system would work. It needs to be fine tuned but everything is looking OK! We also tested out our home made “schutz gun” clay slip sprayer. It’s basically an undercoating spray gun used upside down with a large gravity fed hopper instead og the siphon feed it’s meant to employ. It cost $27 from Canadian Tire and it works great!

The other step forward we made was with the foundation insulation parging. We used three pails of Parge Plus over the rigid foam covering the foundation edges as cement parging will not adhere well to foam. What a nightmare! The product is thick and hard to work and sets up extremely fast! By the third bucket we had the hang of it but it was tough, slogging work!

And so we are making the last preparatory steps this week to go full out over the long (Thanksgiving) weekend installing the straw bales! I am hoping as many old friends and new ones stop by to help out or even just watch, leave a comment if you need directions, and i hope our house inspires people do make greener choices in the way they build their house!

It seems the straw bales will be cut by the middle of next week as long as the weather cooperates! If the long range forecast is correct we’ll be getting our bales before Wednesday!

That means we’ll be starting ssome bale installation on Wednesday with the main bale raising and stucco party happening on the weekend of the 22nd and 23rd.

All are welcome to come out and help or just watch and learn, or just hang out! There very well could be snacks, you definately should bring your own chairs, beverages, and work clothes/gloves if you want to get hands on.

Check out these links for what a bale raising entails:

http://stonehousestrawhouse.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html

http://heatkit.com/html/strawagb.htm

http://www.mhc.com/Maine/

http://www.firstraven.com/sstowell/House/house.html

http://www.everdale.org/index.php?module=Everdale&type=user&func=displayMenu&menuId=20

The event is not structured, there are no set hours, we will be working essentially first thing in the morning until the light fails every day for the entire weekend (and the week before and after for that matter!) No need to call before hand (we won’t have a phone on us at the site anyways) just show up!

Last week I was on vacation and we started framing work on the house. We started Saturday morning (Sept 1) with this:

And ended last night (Sept 9) with this:

The framing of the house was planned so that a 18-19 inch straw bale stacked vertically will fit snugly between the studs spaced at 19.2″ centers. We also lined up all structural elements from the trusses to the studs and floor beams for a direct transmission of forces through to the ground.

The second floor was made of 4×8 spruce beams spaced at 19.2″ c/c and topped with 2×6 T&G v-joint spruce with the v-joint pointed down to become the ceiling of the first floor with exposed beams and the flat side up to be the finish floor of the second floor. All boards were toenailed and then set through the tougue so there are no exposed fasteners.

We have the roof up and sheathed, and only have the gable end walls on the second floor left to frame. With a week or two left before the straw is baled we are busy busy busy!

For a full pictoral of the foundation and framing process please visit here: http://greenspree.ca/?p=584

It’s been a long time since I’ve updated the status of our house project, one of the reasons being that we have been very busy!

As of Tuesday, we have our septic system and well installed, temporary power installed and foundation formed/poured c/w air circulation ducts and coloured hardener.

Some communication and weather issues have left us about a week or two behind, but we are hoping that won’t affect the straw bale raising date. The weekend I was to start forming the slab on grade, I went paintballing with my wife’s younger brother and severely sprained my ankle. The ER doctors the next day suspected a torn ligement or ruptured tendon and it was nearly a full two weeks before I could walk again or spend any time on my feet.

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Last night my wife and I spent three hours trimming the interlocking teeth of the ICF’s that will make up the perimeter form of our slab on grade. This task was supposed to have been completed on the weekend along with a major chuck of the slab forwaork itself however fate has decided to throw us another curve ball!

Saturday afternoon the family was together for a gam of paintball at a local field for my brother-in-law’s birthday and within the first 5 minutes of the first match I twisted my ankle in some mud bad enough to tear a ligament or two! Ouch. It left me immobilized that day and medicating with some beer at my father-in-law’s cottage. I had hoped that the sprain would feel better enough for me to get some work done on Sunday, alas it only felt worse. So after feebly attempting to do some work on the site, I relented into letting my wife take me to the ER. 4 hours later (wait times are an issue here!) I had clean x-rays and advice to take it easy, walk on it a little every day to strengthen the ligaments, and that it should be better in a couple weeks.

So I am suddenly behoven to ask friends and family for more help than I wanted to burden them with. Last nights chore of trimming the ICF’s was an easy chore with very little walking and no heavy lifting on a level smooth floor, it still left my ankle swollen and throbing by the end of the night and me exhausted!

We are still hoping to pour some concrete within a week or so, I’ll be posting photos when we get some more progress done.

Some photos of the pad, new power poles and layout of the septic field.  This weekend the formwork will begun and (hopefully) finished, with underslab plumbing, temporary power and concrete pouring happening next week!

This view is from the Shire Lane, the private road off of which our lot is located. The Shire Lane itself is on a quiet country dirt road called the Peters Road and surrounded by farm and woodlots. You can see our driveway branch off to the left and then head west as the Shire Lane curves right. In the foreground is our new puppy Rosie and in the mid ground my in-laws dog Caleb!

This view of our building pad is from the small parking area at the end of our driveway, in the background (south southwest) you can see the high tension power lines that skirt our property. They are a bit obtrusive but not too overwhelming and certainly carry a lot less power than most high tension lines entering big cities.

This view looking back at the house lot from the other side and pointing east northeast towards the neighbouring horse field. In the background you can see our little 12′x14′ deck we made last year before our wedding. you can clearly see the stakes and building lines that are set up on the pad.

This view looks back almost 180 degrees from the first shot and shows our new power pole on the left close to the trees. The power lines will enter underground from this point to minimize the amount of visible wires on the site. It also shows our view to the east where the sun rises over the spruce woods on the other side of the Peters Road and the acre and a half horse field between our lot and it.

This final shot of the house site is taken from the deck mentioned before. The hedgerow to the north of the building site will protect the house from cold north winds in the winter time. To the left of this photo, not visible is our 20′x20′ vegetable garden which is just starting to take off. We have had fresh salads which buttercrunch lettuce, radishes, spinach and lambs quarters all week long and can’t keep ahead of the lettuce!

This is where our septic field will be at the crest of a gully on the south east corner of our hectare lot. This is stitched from three photos so the perspective is a little off, but you can see where the high tension power line tower pointed out in the previous photo is. 2 feet of premium fill will be placed between the stakes to provide adeqaute filtration as we are sitting on a shelf of brick clay on our site.

Our strawbale home is moving forward! We ended up getting our mortgage approved through our broker without going through CMHC but had already started shopping elsewhere by then. We went to a bank and got a better deal and lower downpayment requirement and are going in today to sign the paperwork. We knew we were approved last week so went ahead and started the construction process rolling.

Monday the driveway and more importantly house pad were place and compacted on our lot! This seems to be a good time to go over the foundation construction to be used on our home.

We are going to install a Frost Protected Shallow Foundation (or FPSF) as both the base and finish floor of our home. The site was prepped by removing the top cover of topsoil down to the substrate level of indegenous undisturbed layer of brick clay. Then a layer of shale or crushed sandstone was installed level with the existing highpoint of the land and compacted with a vibratory roller. This is where we are at now, the next step will be to form a foundation, using the FPSF Guide developed by NAHB Research Center, Inc. and using Canadian AFI values found in US Army Corps Of Engineers AFI maps.

Our foundation will also be 8″ thick at the main section for two reasons, as a thermal heat sink, and to allow us to run 5″ round duct work in the slab which will be connected to a high level return plenum at the top of the second floor for redistributing rising heat from the wood stove and passive solar radiation.

I will add some photos and detail sketches on the weekend to this post, stay tuned!

Time for another update, I wish I could say it was good news.  We were hoping to have at least started on the driveway and house pad by the end of June but it’s looking unlikely now.  We bought out developement permit the end of last week and got all the info to our mortgage broker.

Last Friday I got a call from her where she suggested we go through CMHC, even though we have a 25% downpayment and can go with a standard mortgage, because the rates would be comparable and dealing with CMHC would somehow be easier.  It wasn’t.  Early this week she called back with some questions from CMHC on the strawbale construction and asked if we had experience in building with strawbales.  I replied no, but it being infill only it shouldn’t be an issue.  She said ok, and said she would talk to the CMHC.  The next day she sent us an a-mail stating we would need a structural engineer to review and stamp the drawings and be present at each of the draw inspections.

I was, and still am, quite confused at this request as our building structure is being built with conventional stick framing that exceeds the NBC requirements.  It seemed an arbritrary requirement and suggested that the CMHC representative didn’t have enough info on what we were doing to make informed recommendations.  The fact that they did anyways, and one that adds considerable costs and delays to the start of our project seems irresponsible and unprofessional to me and I said so in a reply to our broker.

She had said when sending me notification of the requirement that she would talk to her head office about handling the mortgage without CMHC and see if they would waive the requirement for an engineer.  So we wait now for a response from her company and a response from CMHC to my subsequent e-mail regarding our structural exceedence of the NBC.  Laine and I wanted our home to be an example of alternative building and owner built technology, that bale homes are affordable, buildable and legitimate.  Seems we’ll be fighting a battle for future bale builders with CMHC and our mortgage broker, I hope we can set a precedent and that it does get used in the future!

If however we fight and fail, we haven’t decided what the next step will be.  There is the option of going to completely conventional construction, maybe with a little more insulation,  but that option doesn’t appeal to us that much.  We could put off building another year and look for funding from other sources, another option we don’t relish.  We are really hoping we don’t have to exercise either of those options or any others, maybe another funding source would be possible this year, or maybe our letter to CMHC will change their minds, in any case, we’ll keep you posted!

When deciding to go with a chest fridge for our future strawbale home one thing that came up was comfort and convenience. Having to reach down to the bottom of a chest freezer for items on a daily basis seemed a bit of a chore and having sliding tray on top so access to the bottom is unimpeded presents efficiency problems.

My first theoretical solution was to create a couple of racks of baskets attached to slim counter weights on some sort of frame inside the freezer and raise each rack up to access items under the top rack. Sketching of said system revealed a lot of fabrication, moving parts and complexities that would greatly increase the likelihood procrastination in it’s developement!

My second thought was to create the racks centered on a hollow steel pipe pillarwith a second capped sleeve over top and a gas charged lift arm from a hatchback or something to assist in lifting and locking the rack in place. This seemed perfectly simple and easily constructed and I excitedly ventured to my local u-pull autosalvage yard to get some prototype lift arms. This revealed an interesting fact, lift arms on car hatches, trunks, engine bonnets and rear doors all seem to fall within the 10-12″ extension range no matter the size or weight of the door. My plans called for at least an extension of 24″ to be truly effective and this sent me dejectedly back to the drawing boards after briefly toying with the idea o fusing two arms staged to provide 20-24″. When I really looked at that option critically it seemed like far too complicated.

So this brings me to option 3, not worrying about it till we try out the fridge as is with stardar baskets. Unless someone can point me in the right direction, I have too many other critical decisions and steps on the house this summer to give it much more thought right now. So leave a coment or send me an e-mail if you have any ideas!