REverberations

I'm writing this - finally - from a train at Macarthur which heads into the CBD - where I start a new job today. It's a little strange, given I will be based at Central where I first started working with the RTA way back in 2001.
It's also quite odd to be able to avoid the mess which is the poor array of trains available from our way into Parramatta. For the last two weeks there were none - for some reason the standard of track on the South line is so poor that every year it is shut down for two extra weeks in the school holidays. Not so convenient for those of us who don't go to school. I view those two weeks as a nice farewell present from CityRail.
So, instead of getting so sick on the replacement buses I need to take a day off (this happened last week to a work colleague) I drove the whole way every day. I hate peak hour traffic, even more when I'm part of the problem.
When the trains are at "full strength", this just means two trains in the morning to choose from, and three in the afternoon. Not exactly a full service that most people are used to.

So from today, I'm back at my old haunt Menangle, getting the diesel train two stops to Macarthur, then changing for an electric all the way to the city - these run every 10 minutes or so, all day! What a novelty. This one just went past a station without stopping - wow almost an 'express'!
The new job is not a dramatic change. I was actually approached by two separate sections of Transport for New South Wales within a week to come and work for them. I've selected one and accepted the offer. My role sounds like a challenge - I'll update when I know more.
It was more than a little difficult to decide to leave the RTA (or Roads and Maritime Services as it's now known) where I have been working in one role or another for eleven years, but the time felt right. I've been getting offers here and there from recruiters so if the current role doesn't work out it seems the market is good enough to take on another role out there somewhere. But I'm determined to give this role my full efforts first - there's the potential to save taxpayers millions, which has always been my goal in public service. Time will tell, but looking back on my work with RTA I can see my and I team actually achieved this.

While the builders cracked on putting up our outdoor entertaining area:



The interior living wing was the last area to have the bales covered with the gorgeous clay:




I even found time to go for a walk:

Poor Dougal wasn't coping with the amount of grass in the field we had made for him, so we decided to give him some competition in woolly form.

Our neighbour has sheep, and also had a mate who had too many, so a deal was struck and the ute arrived one Sunday morning:



For the first couple of days the sheep stuck well together, and Dougal as far away from them as possible:



Now however they are on much better terms. They share the somewhat sheltered spots under the tree in weather like we are having at the moment. Plus Dougal now has yet another friend too...

The fifth day kicked off with the exterior render spraying continuing all the way around the straw walls. Being a Monday, the builders were back on-site to keep the overall build process rolling:



By the end of the day, the sun set over our beautiful exterior walls, lime rendered, scratched, and ready to dry out for a few weeks before their next coat:



The whole weekend I spent much of my time doing the conduit for electrical and data connections in the walls. I couldn't start this until the bales were in, but it did have to be done before the render went on, making for a fairly tight timeframe for me to learn what to do, make the obligatory beginner's mistakes, and then get it right before Frank and the team turned up to blast it all with the render gun, never to be accessible again.

We want to mount a TV on the end of the living room wall, so to handle this we needed to put a big plywood board on to the wall to take the weight. It used eight double-bale needles to push wires through the bales, and then was tied off on the other side. I then affixed lots of conduit for future power and data connections, and boxes to expose the outlets. The final result before rendering bore more than a passing resemblance to a sea creature:



The internal rendering then started in earnest. This mix was different from the exterior lime render - instead it was a clay render. We really liked the fact that clay from about fifteen meters down our hill had been tested and passed as suitable to use in the render mix. So that was literally shoveled in to the render machine along with some water and sand, then sprayed on the walls:



Once everyone left early to watch some horses run around in a circle at the local pub, Phoebe wanted to help out with the scratching:



At the end of the workshop we had all the walls up, all the exterior first coat of render done, and about half of the interior. A fantastic result which we thank everyone involved for. We learned plenty, and really hope all others did too.

We awoke early on day four and noted that hot air balloons were rising up from where we used to live in Picton - along Fairleys Road:



After this I needed to drive to the hardware shop, and had the most amazing drive down Old Razorback Road in and out of the mist, and rounding corners to find myself underneath these balloons.

The morning was spent finishing the top bales, which was quite a slow process requiring the efforts of all on site:



The corner of the house between the two wings needed special treatment - the original frame left us requiring a V-shaped bale, which after few attempts we concluded wasn't really going to happen. So, carpenter Balin stepped in and created a frame which worked like the upright LVLs (we had run out of the actual LVLs). Once this was in, the far simpler task of two smaller bales one either side of this frame remained:



I spent most of my time on the site installing all the conduit and services into the walls. This had to be done once the bales were in but before the render went on. Given both of these were to happen in the one workshop, I didn't have too much time to learn the craft and then get it right before it was all rendered over, never to be seen again. Here we are working on an exterior light box:



Once the bales were all finished to roof level, the final task was amusingly to give them all a haircut with hedge trimmers. This meant that the house had a very clean look:



We were now all ready to start the rendering process. A mix of lime, sand and water was mixed for the exterior:



Then our chief chef for the workshop Liz was given the honour of spray the first render onto our home:



This first spray coat was used on each section of the house, getting the lime render deep into the bales. Afterwards, our team of ever-helpful volunteers smoothed out the render, using more traditional plastering skills:

The sun rose over the site, heralding beautiful baling weather:



Guard dog Alina had done a great job of protecting our site overnight:



My first task for the day was to take a wander and some pictures of the state of the bales - the fantastic work by all had certainly paid off:



From 8am onwards the house was once again a hive of activity, finalising the bales in anticipation of the first coat of render the following day:



Sunset over the site was worth staying around for:

On the second day there was more work to be done on the walls:



The system being used to put them up is visible and partially explained here:



Bales were 'persuaded' into place, and carried all over the place as required:



Our living wing began to take shape:



Phoebe and William even assisted:

From the 27th of October through to the 3rd of November, our house was transformed from a timber frame with a roof into something looking far more like a home, with the addition of walls of straw and then the first coat of render inside and out.

I'll let the pictures (and their descriptions if you click on them to view in Flickr) do most of the talking, with more time for words later. The full set can be viewed over here.

A huge and heartfelt thanks to everyone who turned out to assist us, whether it was for one day or six. We simply wouldn't have made the progress we collectively did without you all there to help. Liz and I certainly learned a lot, and we really hope you did too. We made new friends, and hope you did too. We moved closer to the house of our dreams, and hope you may have done in some way too.

It began simply:



Then bales were made into half-bales as the pace quickened:



And at the end of the first day we had what were starting to look like walls:



The builders had to get used to the idea of so many volunteers on site:

These pictures don't need much commentary - basically the builders used pre-made roof frame sections to put our one upstairs room together. It's called a "loft" on the plans, and as of yet has no designated purpose other than to grab the best views we can manage from our site up high on the hill.

We're getting plumbing put in to the walls in case we want a bathroom up there next to a master bedroom for example, but that won't happen on day one.

First the walls were passed up and laid flat in place ready to be raised:


Then one by one the went up:



Nail guns did the job of holding everything in place:



And eventually the "loft" was largely in place next to the bedroom roof trusses:



Of course once they had left for the day I just had to get up there and have a look around:

We've just reached a landmark - a progress payment for the builder for completing the frame. As such I thought I'd better get the blog up to date!


Mick the builder elected to use a combination of methods for the frame - the "normal" parts of the house were produced by a framing company using a computer-driven system. This is cheap and efficient. However the strawbale parts of the frame use much larger LVL framing timbers, which are significantly beyond the capabilities of the framing company. So those parts and some of the trickier joins were all done by hand. But, I'm getting ahead of myself.
It all started simply enough - a few hand-raised LVL timbers forming the end wall of our ensuite (the diagonal one is just a temporary brace).

But amazingly after the end of only the second day it looked like this, with the thicker walls as above around the exterior but the computer-produced frames for the interior walls:



Here you can see the frame sitting on the boomerang-shaped slab (view from kitchen down bedroom wing):



It didn't take long for the kids to start wandering around our first defined spaces, searching for bedrooms to call their own:



Here's a close-up of the exterior bathroom wall clearly showing where the strawbales will fit snugly inside the timbers:



At the end of the first week it was all starting to look very house-like:



We certainly can't wait to live there and get views like this each day:



It wasn't much longer and the bedroom wing's "normal" roof trusses arrived and were rapidly piled on - these will be inside the attic and not visible when the house is completed:



The one part of the house that isn't a "boomerang" shape is the one upstairs loft/rumpus room. This sits across the middle of the boomerang half way between the angles of the other wings. This makes for some interesting joins which the builder had to work out as he went:

After only a week we are able to stand upstairs in our new house! The downstairs frame has gone up rapidly - our builder basically called in his carpenter mates from around the state and has wasted no time in assembling the frame and modifying it to suit as required. We picked up a couple of small changes required, and it's utterly brilliant to be able to have these modifications made an hour or two later.

Roof trusses were delivered yesterday for the bedroom wing where they will be hidden, and we are almost at the point of deciding on what the exposed trusses will be over the cathedral-roofed living wing. The builder will assemble these himself as we the clients are being picky and want these to be features of the space.

We have spent the last couple of weekends getting an internal fence up to contain the first furry creature to find its way to our land - we'll take delivery of a Shetland pony this weekend. He is from the house next door to our last one in Picton - his current owners offered him to us as they want to get some cows in their paddock instead. We formed quite a bond with him while living there as we fed him most days over the fence, and hope he settles in well.

So we have a 2600m2 field set aside for him to munch on. Given the crazy rate of our grass growth he'll likely need some friends such as sheep to ensure he doesn't over-eat and meet the same fate as his mother unfortunately did. All in good time. Learning to fence has been great fun and it is very satisfying to see the progress. We've also finished getting our cables into the trenches and now just need to complete the back-filling so that he doesn't fall in.

As Phoebe keeps saying "we have our own little farm now", which is truly heart-warming - it's just the lifestyle we hoped to be providing for our kids. William keeps trying to escape the shed and go for a wander outside by himself too. Once he is past the eat-everything phase we might even let him.

The first couple of trees are in, and we're planning the layout of the rest of the land for more as time permits.

We have now finalised details for a four-day strawbale wall raising working bee in our our house in Razorback, near Picton, NSW, approximately 80 kilometres southwest of Sydney CBD. It will be facilitated by Frank Thomas from Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow, Strawbale Construction.
Please join us from Thursday the 27th to Sunday the 30th of October 2011. Times: 08:00am to 05:00pm

The project: A 4 bedroom strawbale family home measuring approx. 225 square metres plus Rumpus in loft. The house is made up of two distinct wings, a bedroom wing and an open plan living/dining/kitchen wing. Main features of the project (will) include: Passive solar design, double glazed FSC timber windows, A&A worm farm septic system, grid connected solar electricity, in-ground rain water tanks for entire water supply. Selection & purchase of the land, planning of the house, and restoration of the land (5 acres) all incorporate Permaculture principles.

The working bee: This working bee is free of charge for participants, morning & afternoon tea and light lunches will be provided. In exchange for your labour you will be able to gain hands-on experience raising the strawbale walls for this project, making custom sized bales & installing and fixing compressing plate. The slab, frame, roof and bottom plate system will be completed prior to the working bee – ready to commence stacking of bales.

Rendering will possibly commence on the last day of the working bee, or on Monday the 31st of October, if you are interested in learning some basic rendering skills you are welcome to stay on and help us with this, please let us know about any possible extra days you like/would be able to stay when you register.

What to bring for work: Please bring closed (work) shoes, gloves, long sleeve shirts, long trousers, some warm clothes for chilly mornings & evenings, a hat, sunscreen, insect repellent and a water bottle.

Camping on site is possible. BYO tent, sleeping gear, torch, other necessary camping gear and breakfast and dinner. Basic toilet & shower and BBQ facilities are available.
Please register with us via email, phone or some commenting here. We will advise of directions to site, advise of local accommodation options and any other necessary details at that stage.

Please book as soon as possible as places are limited.

We hope you can join us for this exciting event! Thanks again for your interest,

Tim and Liz.

Hi all, especially the newcomers from Frank and Ingrid's strawbale mailing list - thanks for dropping by!

This build blog hasn't had quite the updates I've wanted to give it - we've been busy building instead!

However I've just done a huge upload of photos - drop over to Flickr to look at our photos with comments there.

I'm aiming to get some better written updates with details of what we've done and why up here shortly.

Please brace for a slightly bumpy ride as I migrate my sites on to a linode. It's been fine thus far however there will no doubt be obscure things which don't work for a while.

Edit: I think that's all done. Please let me know if you see anything more broken than usual.

After an amazing amount of stress, physical labour, coordination and time, we are now as of a week ago somewhat settled living on our property! We've built a bathroom and kitchen and backed a caravan in to the bigger of our two sheds, and this is now home.

Between Liz and I (with assistance from our ever-helpful parents), we have have run conduit for power, cabled all the data, built and installed kitchen cabinets and sink, waterproofed the bathroom, and coordinated the many sub-contractors who've made the place somewhat livable. That was difficult enough, but add in moving home (we have too much stuff!!) and two challenging little people and it's been in retrospect the busiest two-week period of our lives.

We now have the satisfaction of no more rent to pay, and many more smaller tasks we can complete at a somewhat more sedate pace over the next few weeks, months and years.

Phew.