We carried on with the external render today, we had to take off a lot of the previous coats as the frost damage was quite bad and large parts had fallen off.

Day 302

While we await more clay to continue with the external rendering, we spent a day carrying on with the hemp and lime insulation to the eaves, above the straw bales.

Day 301 - first part of the internal scratch coat

We completed the internal scratch coat on the internal side of the straw bales in what will be the utility / plant room.  We will put studwork in front of this wall to fix all the plant back to shortly, so we want this to dry out quickly.

We have changed the mix of the clay render / plaster.  On the dry external plaster, when the clay was aggravated it 'dusted off' the wall.  This is undesirable, particularly on the internal walls, where we don't want a lot of plaster to end up on the floor everytime you touch the walls.  To try and avoid this we ave increased the quantity of clay in the mix.  The disadvantage of this is that will shrink more and may crack.

Day 300 - external rending resumed

We were back on the external rendering today.  We started on the south elevation, which was the last area we rendered before the freezing weather.  Since last year, some of the render had fallen off and a lot of it had lost its key from its backing and become very flaky and crumbly.  We had to strip back a lot of the old render before applying the new coat, which will hopefully escape the sub-zero temperatures this time!

We completed half of the south elevation today.

Day 299 - Internal clay slip complete

The new power mixer was at least twice as quick to mix the clay slip and ten times more comfortable!

As a result we finished all the clay slip!

Having applied all the external clay slip by hand (rather than with the render gun), we reckoned it was about twice as quick with the gun.  Working the clay into the straw by hand was also quite hard on the fingers.  Having said that the gun was quite heavy to use for long periods of time!

We also had a go at applying the scratch coat with the gun (a mix of clay slip, sand and fibre).  Externally we used chopped straw as the fibre, however we did not think this would go through the render gun.  So we used hemp shiv instead.  It did go through the gun, however it was not very quick and we concluded a reasonable plasterer could apply it faster by hand.

The new power mixer has arrived!

Day 298

4.5 holes complete, only 71.5 to go!

So we made a start on filling the gaps above the first floor bales, between the rafters with hemp and lime insulation.

So we didn't manage to get much clay slip sprayed upstairs - we just about made it to the stairs.

The old drill finally packed in today, it definitely looks like it has seen better days!  It struggled with this red paddle as well and we had to settle for the small blue one, which was slow to mix.

Day 297

This was our favourite, and the one we think we are going to go ahead with.  The sample has not had the final sealer / hardener on it yet.  The aggregate is recycled from the ceramics industry.

The Limecrete Company kindly bought us some samples of their polished lime screeds today to have a look at.  The aggregates vary and include some recycled materials and by-products of other industries, which together with the sand, produce very different effects.

We finished the slip coat on the rest of the ground floor walls today.

One lesson we learnt very quickly was to cover absolutely everything - nothing is safe from the clay!

Day 296 - the render gun

The render gun is very fast at applying the render to the wall, the manufacturer suggests it covers about 1sq m in 10 seconds.  Each hopper only lasts a matter of seconds (if the hopper were any bigger it would make it too heavy to hold for long periods of time).

The bottle neck we had was with the mixing.  A barrow of mix took a few minutes to empty onto the wall, but took 15-20 mins to produce from soaked clay.  We are hoping to improve on this - to date we have been using an old drill (1000W) with a paddle mixer on the end.  We have been limited by the size of paddle the drill is able to turn (before you can start to smell the motor burning!).  It is also awkward to hold for long periods of time and we have also managed to bend the paddle a few times, making the vibrations quite bad.  However, we have now ordered a dedicated paddle mixer which we hope will turn up at the beginning of next week.

At the end of the first day of rendering we completed the slip coat on 1/2 of the ground floor walls.

... and we're off!

The gun filled with clay slip (clay and water mix) ready to go...

... that inserts air in through the jets shown at the bottom, which forces the render out of the three holes opposite.

The gun consists of a small hopper, in which the render is scooped up with a handle at the bottom and one on the side.  An air compressor is attached to the hopper...

Day 295 - render gun arrives

The render gun arrives... all the way from Ty Mawr in Wales.  Unfortunately we were unable to hire one closer to home, however we understand Anglia Lime are about to start hiring them again.

Day 290 - internal straw stuffing

We have arranged to hire a render gun next weekend to spray on the slip coat on the inside of the straw bale walls.  In preparation we have stuffed all the holes / gaps between the bales with dry straw (in deep holes) and straw dipped in clay (in the shallow holes).  Next weekend should be interesting...!

Day 280 - cladding complete on west elevation

The complete cladding on west elevation.  It is almost beginning to look like a house!  Just the sliding doors needed to complete this elevation.

Close up view of the cladding, with random joints; mill finish aluminum flashing and brickwork (which needs cleaning!).

Day 277 - starting the vertical cedar cladding

We made a start on the main vertical cedar cladding on the west elevation yesterday.  Looking good!

Day 269

The sills have set well with no cracks.

Day 260

The limecrete sills have set well, with no cracks.  We will continue to protect them for about 2 weeks.  This is the small steel tubular heater (80W) we put inside each straw tunnel to lift the temperature a few degrees.

Day 259-casting limecrete sills

By now, we have learned better than to trust the weather so despite the milder temperatures forecast we are taking no chances!  The sills have been covered with hessian, with a straw bale tunnel built round them and a low wattage (80W) electric greenhouse heater in each one.  We plan to turn the heater on at night to give the temperature a boost to help them dry out faster.

The limecrete should be hard by tomorrow...

The cast limecrete sill.

We used ionic NHL5 lime mixed 1:3 [lime:sand], and kept the mix as dry as possible.

We finally got a break in the weather, and took the opportunity to cast the limecrete sills under the sliding doors in the pre-prepared formwork.

Day 250 - Scaffolding struck

The front elevation

The roof overhang on the west elevation.

The west elevation post scaffolding.

The frozen scaffolding ready to come down...

Day 248

We need to cast a limecrete sill under each of the sets of sliding doors, and the quicker we can get this done the sooner we can order the sliding doors.  The freezing weather has not been very helpful, as lime likes a minimum external temperature of 3degrees C.

To try and get round this we had an idea that we could build a straw bale tunnel over each of the sills and put an electric greenhouse heater in each one, with the aim of keeping the internal temperature above 3deg C.  We constructed one of the tunnels to see what sort of temperature we would be able to maintain within the tunnel, to see if the idea would work...

...we found that the temperature was on average about 4 degrees higher within the tunnel than the external air temperature (there were a few gaps between the bales we couldn't do much about).  This was simply not enough when the external air temperature is between -5 and -10, as it is at the moment!  So we will have to wait until there is a break in the weather before casting the sills.

Day 246 - the roof is finally complete!

... the last roof sheets were fitted!

The temperatures are still very low here but as the scaffolding is due to come down next week we were desperate to get the roof finished.  So we dragged up hot water and towels to thaw the ice on the roof and finally... 

Day 241 - clay disaster

Some of the larger cracks and what we think are salts brought to the surface by the cold weather.

If anyone has experience of clay render they can share with us, we would be very interested to listen...

More pictures of the frost damage to the render...

The temperature was forecast to drop to +2 degrees last night, however when we got up this morning it was -3 degrees.  Significantly colder than forecast!  This was not good news.  The render we applied yesterday had frozen already, and the clay in the pit had frozen once again.  One area of render had fallen off, pictured above, so not the best start to the day!  We took the difficult decision not to do anymore rendering today and are questioning whether we leave the rendering until next Spring.

Day 240 - the big rendering weekend!

The weather forecast for this weekend was a break from the extremely cold weather so we planned a big rendering weekend, and called all hands on deck to help!  However, on Saturday morning we did a thorough inspection of the render and discovered some frost damage had occurred, particularly on the north-east elevation which has fronted a lot of the cold weather we have had recently.  The frost appears to have frozen the water in the wet render and expanded it, and then once thawed the clay has stayed expanded leaving it aerated like an aero bar.  The render has also not really dried in places and in others has lost its key.  The good thing we discovered about the clay was that this process was reversable and it could be returned to its original state.

We carried out some remedial work and decided we had nothing to loose by trying to get as much of the remaining high level rendering done (on the north and south elevations) before the scaffolding is struck in about a weeks time.

Day 239

2/3 of the ridge sheets are now fitted. We are nearly there with the roof!  ( I appologise for the night shot!)

Day 238

Cladding battens set up on the east elevation.

The replacement ridge sheets have arrived and...

... they fit!

Day 237

Close up of the horizontal cladding around glazing on west elevation.

Horizontal cedar boarding on the west gable is complete and looks really good!

Many thanks to our carpenters, Steve Jarvis & Sons, who have done a fantastic job in very cold conditions (some mornings it was -6 degrees!).  They have also put up the whole timber frame, done all the metal roofing and fitted all the windows.  Their attention to detail is amazing and they have been very enjoyable to work with.  Many thanks to you all.

Day 235

Another weekend when it has been too cold to progressing the clay rendering so...

More cold weather jobs... putting a 15 degree angle on the top edge of the cladding battens...

Day 233 - First cedar boards fitted

The first boards...

First cedar boards fitted on west gable around the first floor glazing (above the sliding doors).  These are the only horizontal boards, the rest of the cladding will be vertical.

Day 232

Balustrading fitted on the west gable in front of opening glazing (you won't see the fixings once the cedar cladding is fitted) and cedar lining around sliding doors fitted today.

Day 231

Cladding battens fitted on the west gable.