Strawbale House

We now have a slab with rods sticking our where the bales will go.  Next week (from 9/11/09) we are going to start putting the frame up with the assistance of a  local carpenter, Johan.

Timbercrete blocks (for wet areas and feature walls) have arrived and need a little longer to dry out before being laid. Timbercrete is waste timber shavings mixed with cement to create building blocks. You can saw them and you can nail into them! To get the full details of these amazing blocks check out www.timbercrete.com.au . Why didn’t we do the whole house with them?- price!

Timber should arrive this week from Cypress supplies in Caboolture. It seems we were lucky to get the cypress pine that we did get second hand – it is very rare and not that much cheaper than new. This cypress is farmed sustainably and grows in Queensland. Roofing iron arrived today from North Coast Demolitions. It is new roofing iron, just left overs and job lot returns. Mark and I spent last Saturday morning sorting out which bits we wanted. Local transport guy, Rick was able to deliver it all today.

Stay tuned, it’s only getting more exciting!

Up until now I have left publishing on the blog to Mark, and I am sure you will agree that he has done an awesome job. I have had a nagging question/quandary regarding alternatives to PVC and Mark suggested I put it up on the blog to see what suggestions people may have. Poly vinyl chloride (PVC) is a very useful substance but virtually unrecyclable, despite its labelling, (please correct me if I’m wrong) and its manufacture is a health hazard for the environment as well as the people who have to work with it. For more info on this see www.bluevinyl.org , it’s a real eye-opener!

So naturally I started looking at alternatives. ABS plastic which is recyclable and as easy to work with as PVC, does not have all the required fittings here in Australia. It is used mainly in the US. HDPE is recyclable but triple the cost of PVC and adds 60% to the labour cost as it is harder to install. It is also not approved for use where it is exposed to sunlight. For the rainwater collection we’re using zinc-allum/colorbond so that is not an issue. It’s just the waste water. Should any of you have a suggestion or solution that is cost-effective, I’d love to hear. Thanks.

Rosalba standing in the kitchen

We have got our plans approved and we have now started building.

We have found a great concreter and block layer (Mike Pascoe from Witta) that is doing the foundations work for us. Once Mike set out where the concrete pad will go we realised that the one retaining block wall we have would have been 2 meters tall. So we decided to dig into the hill by about one meter. This will mean a bit more earthworks but on the positive side, that concrete pad will be on a very strong foundation of bed rock.

Maniac with a chainsaw

While all of the foundations are done, I have been busy cutting down some trees that we have now found would be too close to the house. One of them was a large spotted gum of which we have kept the straighter and larger branches to use as hand rails on the veranda and the steps.

We have also kept the staight part of the trunk in the hope that we’ll find someone with a portable sawmill who would make step treads out of it.