More Rendering and Eaves Lining Gets Easier

During the week Brett, from Shoalhaven Cement Rendering, finished rendering more of the walls, so that there is now only one wall left to render, the upper north wall of the main pavilion.

Walls freshly rendered

Last wall on the back pavilion finished

Rendering finished on the eastern side of the house

Front door wall rendered

The threat of rain gave the days work a sense of urgency. Luck was on our side and the rain held off until the eaves lining had been installed on the front pavilion. Careful measuring and more accurate cutting, as well as our previous experience, made it much easier to put up the Colorbond corrugated eaves lining sheets.

Electric snips at work

Eaves lining seen from the front of the house

Eaves lining seen from the south

Along the back of the front pavilion the two roofs at different pitches meet at the gutter, but reach the back wall at different heights. So, the eaves lining was done in two sheets, one for each pitch and we will come up with some sort of flashing to close the gap. The alternative of adjusting the timber so that the Colorbond sheets lined up seemed like too much work as it would have had a flow on effect at the corners.  

North view of the front pavilion

Eaves lining at pitch change

The internal fit out continued with curtains being added as wardrobe doors.

A rainy Sunday was spent cleaning the internal windows and doing a second coat of Livos Ardvos wood oil on the timber reveals on the windows and on the door frames.

Pictures will be posted soon.

Decking Begins

Seven months ago I put in the bearers and joists for the three decks around the house and now, finally, with the help of my friend Martin we have started to lay the decking. Starting on the tricky curved deck first. The decking is locally milled Ironbark from DIY Timbers at Bomaderry. It is a reddish hardwood and I hope it will last a long time.

With longevity in mind we covered the joists with "Protect a  Deck" black plastic stripping to protect the tops of the treated pine joists.  We also made a last minute decision to add a fascia on the outside of the joists. A decision I am pleased we made as it finishes the deck nicely and helped the layout of that section to be completed using whole decking boards.

Joist protection and fascia in place

The radius of the curve meant that some thought had to go into how the last few boards were going to be supported and this required the addition of some extra blocking on the outer edge of some of the joists.

Edge adjusted to be able to support curved deck

The next tricky job was to work out how to space the boards so that they finished nicely against the edge of the deck and against the house. We ended up laying out the boards to see how they would fit. We used some plastic 3.2mm wedges left over from the window installation to space out the boards. The spacing looked good and fitted the required layout.

Boards laid out to determine spacing

The sliding doors were stepped down and set into the slab, this meant that we had to cut a board down to fit around the walls. With care we were able to finish a whole board against the sliding door. The slab also had a few dags of concrete that had to be removed with an angle grinder so that the board closes to the house sat flat against the lip of the slab and the joists.

Decking cut in to fit to sliding doors.

Many of the decking boards were bowed and needed to be persuaded into position with a sash clamp or crowbar wedged into the ground or pried apart with a chisel, and sometimes they the boards just needed a bit of brute force to push them straight. It was a time consuming job as many boards needed straightening along their length for each set of screws to be put in. The decking is held down with 50mm stainless steel square head screws. The screws were bought on e-bay from Fasteners Galore and came with a "Smart Bit" a drill bit with an integrated countersink, a big time saver, as with the hardwood the screws definitely needed to be countersunk.

Sash clamp and chisels used to straighten decking boards

We oiled the edges and underside of the deck with Intergrain Natural Decking oil as we laid them, as these sections will be inaccessible later and i am keen to make this deck last as long as possible. The top of  the deck will be oiled when completed. Work continued until and a little after dark, but we wanted to finish the long section of the deck and were pleased we did.

Deck completed about 6pm

 We left the decking boards long ready to cut off along the curve when the rest of the deck is made.

Deck in the light of day

Beautiful deck to step out onto

After a day's work decking time was taken off building to walk to The Castle in the Budawangs, west of Milton. A steep and challenging hike was worth it for the adventure and the amazing views.

Panorama from the top

View to Pigeon House Mountain

 

Corrugated Eaves Lining and Light Earth Building

During a few weeks off building what does an owner builder do but help someone else build. Some friend hosted a workshop to build their strawbale extension. The extension also used some internal cob walls and external light earth walls. Here I want to comment on the light earth walls as I was considering building the Culburra house from light earth before deciding to build with hemp. The light earth was enjoyable to build with, but for my project I am glad we used hemp. Light earth is made of straw coated in a light slurry of clay, it is packed into a form work and later rendered after the form work was removed. The builder on my friends job had made his own straw cannon to mix the clay and straw mix. This was a great invention, but I prefer the more uniform result of mixing hemp in a pan mixer, the light earth mix we were working with was quite variable. I was told this was not a problem, but as a more precise hemp mixer this troubled me. I could see the benefit of the light earth was that the materials were cheaper than the hemp and lime mix, but it was also a much more labour intensive job. The mixing was more labour intensive and the packing and tamping required much more physical effort and was more time consuming than laying hemp. Because when we were building we had a labour force of two, or three or four if we were lucky, it was more cost effective to use a less labour intensive building. The light earth seemed to go up quickly, but the workshop had a workforce if about 25 on site, plenty of hand to attend to those labour intensive jobs. As a first time owner builder I have also felt reassured that the hemp sets by way of a chemical reaction and I did not have to worry about the walls rotting before they dried out or of potential moisture problems. Hence my preference to use hemp for my particular project.

Light earth walls

Meanwhile back on site, Len and Ben the plumbers were busy at work installing the down pipes, hooking up the remainder if the roofs to the water tank ( for some time only one of three roofs was plumbed to the tank) and installing the storm water overflow pit, as we have no access to stormwater disposal. The water tank is connected to the toilets and washing machine and is also for outdoor watering. The water from three separate roofs runs into the tank, so that the pipers did not go overhead two of the downpipes are charged pipes, meaning that they are full of water up to the level of the tank. The need for charged pipes meant that we had no option but to use PVC. However a lick of paint in Windspray to match the eaves and tank will hopefully take away the plastic look.

Tank plumbed in

I chose to line the eaves with corrugated Colorbond, as reason for this was for ease of maintenance as there is no need to paint Colorbond, and for the look, as with the skillion roofs the underside of the eaves are much more visible than usual. I chose the standard corrugated profile over mini orb, as with the large eaves mini orb would look too busy, plus the standard corrugated sheets are less expensive and more rigid making them easier to put up.

I chose to run the corrugations parallel to each of the walls and miter the corners. The corrugated sheets were wider than the 600mm eaves and I bought some electric sheers to cut down the sheets and also cut the 45 degree angles at the corners. I was so worried that I would cut the metal the wrong way, because I had to think of the eaves lining above you rather than lying on the ground, that it cut the first angle the right way but on the wrong end of the sheet. As I was fitting the corro sheet into the slot in the metal fascia there was only one way the metal could go.

After that disaster the installation of the first sheet did not go particularly well either. I started on the low side of the eaves, thinking it would be easier, but due to the sloped roof the corro had to be pushed in towards the wall then up before being curved slightly to fit it into the slot in the fascia. The corro got stuck too low on part of the wall and when pushing it up pulled off a part if the render. Hopefully thus will be covered by the angle strip that will be put on later or I can just patch it a little.

Eaves lining in Colorbond Windspray

The next sheet was easier as we worked out the need, on the lower side of the roof, to push the corro up and hard against the hemp wall before trying to push it into the fascia. Cutting the metal, holding it above your head and screwing it in at the same time made for some sore arms. To cheer up after a day of mixed success I put up two more of the Japanese rain chains that take the water from the awnings. It was amazing to see how beautiful a functional object could be, and the shadows they cast were an unexpected surprise.

Japanese rain chain to take water from awning gutter

The following day work resumed on the eaves lining. Putting the corro up on the sloped sides of the house required a bit of scaffolding and a different technique. Once in the right place with the mitred corners matching up we put one screw in to hold the sheet, then one person held the other end while the second person fitted it into the fascia slot. On the high side of the roof the manoeuvring if the sheet was slightly different again, but with the fascia supporting one side of the sheet it was amazing that such large sheets of corro could be held up by two screws, more roofing screws being put in place once it no longer had to be held up. Putting up the eaves lining is really a three person job that we have managed to do with two. We now just have to keep going and put up the lining on the other two roofs and the awnings.

Looking up at the eaves

Nicely mitered corners

Working our way around the house

The good thing about the eaves lining us that you don't really notice it whereas you did when the timber was visible. The eaves lining is starting to give the house a real finished look.

Colorbond Window Sills

The upper windows were taped up ready for rendering, the window header was patched up and ready to go when it became apparent how silly and difficult it would be to render the small patch of hemp between the window and the upturn of the roof flashing. In fact on all other windows the wall forming the sill slopes away from the window, but the wall forming the sill under the upper windows was made flat as it was too difficult to slope the sills when the walls were being made.

Upper windows ready for rendering

Tiny section of hemp between window and roof flashing

The solution was to get out the angle grinder and cut away the hemp wall so that it sloped down from the window to the top of the roof flashing. I then carefully measured the angle, which was slightly different for each window, and ordered some Colorbond angles from Kiteleys Roofing to be made up in the same colour as the roof to slot in under the bottom of the window then go over the roof flashing. The result was a very neat finish and it saved hours of fiddly rendering. I am also very confident that it will not leak.

Hemp wall cut off with an angle grinder

Installed flashing blends seamlessly with roof

Although the outside of the house had been left untended for about a year without any problems it seems that now some birds had decided to try and make a nest in the wall. Luckily they started on a weaker spot where a spacer hole had been filled and the spacer had been over one of the timber studs, which meant the birds were stopped by the stud and did not get all the way through the wall. It just showed us we needed to hurry up with the rendering.

Bird holes in hemp walls

Brett, our renderer was caught up with other jobs, but put in a weekend of work to try and get the walls finished. Significant progress was made with render going on around three of the five upper windows.

Front pavilion completely rendered

Render around upper windows on back pavilion done

 New techniques were also tried out. The hemp making up the window header above the long kitchen window was loose and crumbly, possibly because there was a very thick lintel behind the hemp, which was therefore separated into two parts rather than being able to key in each if the sides together. Screws with plastic washers had been used to try to help the wall stay together but thus did not assist with the crumbly window header. The solution was to mix up a slurry of sand and cement and flick it on the window header, using a special tool for the purpose. The cement helped hold the wall together enough to stop it crumbling, but only covered such a small area it would not affect the breathability of the walls. Once the cement slurry had set it was much easier to patch the gaps ready for rendering. The texture created will also help provide a key for the render to adhere to.

Cement slurry flicked on window header

Holes patched ready for render

The weekend of rendering meant that we only have three walls and the front door area left and the rendering of the whole house will be done. An exciting prospect.

East wall of back pavilion

House looks finished from the back

Render finished on the western side of the house