greenspree.ca at The Sietch

It’s been a while since we updated with some photos so here we go. Later this week we’ll upload some photos of the M&E rough-in’s so far and some more interior work that has been done. Winter, the holidays, a new job, and finding out we are expecting has caused a bit of a slow down in work on the Shire Home, but we hope to get back on track soon!

Before rough backfilling could begin around the house conduit had to be laid to run the underground power into the house. Because of the overhang and supporting post footings this had to be dug by hand. A 20 foot trench three feet deep doesn’t sound that bad till you have to dig it yourself

Here the dozer is spreading out loads of fill over our septic field. Instead of hauling in loads of fill from elsewhere we got it from my wife’s sister’s lot next door where they were wanting to dig a pond! It saved us money on fill and they got the pond they wanted for free!

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Time for an update on the house! “Step Five – Stucco” has been started but put on hold! We got caught by the cold and snowy weather and the fact that we were relying on hoses run from my sister-in-laws house for water to make the stucco and only managed to get two walls covered with the discovery coat. We tarped the exterior as well as we could and are going to concentrate on interior work for the time being.

Speaking of interior work, here is what we have gotten done since the last update on stucco. We bought and installed a second hand wood stove (yay heat!). The stove is a Lakewood “Unicorn” model that was produced in New Brunswick. It’s called the “unicorn” model because the cast iron doors on the front of it have unicorns cast into it. It’s a catalytic stove and there is next to no info on it on the web. We are learning it’s quirks and are grateful for the amount of heat it gives of and the blower that came with it that circulates the heat nicely.

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About Blackle – Energy Saving Search

In a simple yet ingenious way, Blackle saves energy by using a black screen, requiring less monitor power! Little steps!

It shows real leadership and a key understanding of how the planet is to be saved in providing this service. It’s up to all of us to make informed choices in how we consume (or don’t consume) and how we choose to live. I think I’ll look into making both my websites darker…

Having gone through bale building and seeing the problem areas involved with straw (admittedly some being self imposed) I have been thinking about developing a new green building technique that embodies all the positives of straw bales and none or few of it’s weaknesses. At the same time I wanted it to be simple enough cost effective enough to be built by any moderately handy family. My criteria for this new technique are:

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So living in the country with dial up and spending all you free time working on a house leaves little time for editing, resizing and uploading photos to your blog. I haven’t been updating the site with photos nearly enough and most likely they will all come in big waves like this! We are not as close to be done on the exterior as I would like but we are looking to get a stove in ASAP and some insulated tarps and get the stucco done. Here’s a pictorial of what we have been up to:

Laine unloading the first load of straw. (September 22)

Dad and Laine unloading straw.

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The straw bales have gone in! Well most of them anyways. We had a great three days of weather and productive hard work this long weekend and almost all the bales are installed! As suspected the bales that needed to be cut and small areas requiring custom bales of stuffed flakes were the most tim consuming taking up the lion’s share of the time. We learned a lot and gained insight into how we could make the process easier if we do this again in the future!Tying the bales wasn’t nearly as difficult as I had thought it might have been. I’ll post some photos of how we tied knots later when i have more time. Also, chainsaws and bales are made for each other! I was sculpting bales with notches and grooves with my chainsaw with little deformation of the bales integrity. It’s all in knowing where to tie new strings and how to handle the cut bales.

Throughout this week we will be trying to get one wall ready for plaster and then continue the process around the building. So windows, trims, flashings, etc.. are next then spraying on the clay slip, hopefully all this weekend. We are going to have to look at getting temporary heat as this process has started way later than we wouild have liked. It may mean more tarps and perhaps temporary wall framing outside the building. I don’t like the thought of having to do it but reality is a harsh teacher!

Hopefully we’ll get as much help this weekend as we did last weekend! See you there!

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!

The Sietch Blog » The “What I Did This Summer” Giveaway Contest

The Naib over at The Sietch is giving awaysome amazing books and a $25 top prize for letting people know what you did to save the world this summer!

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