Day 53 - starting the wall frames

Now that the floor slab is finished, we are moving on to the next phase of the build - this time indoors. We will be building sections of the house walls in a farm shed about 2km from the house site.

Most of the wood for the walls has been stored out here for the past month, 4.8m lengths of 100x44mm (4"x2") on the left, 150x44mm (6"x2") on the right and a few 225x44mm (9"x2" or 10"x2' depending on who you are talking to) to the far right.

We also brought in a load of wood that Pat had milled a few years ago. A lot of this was in 1" boards and in a larger selection of sizes. Most of this wood is cypress, which will last a long time outside, and will be used for the window surrounds and frames.

We also brought in a lot of tools and equipment, set up a bench for cutting timber with a chop saw, and built a flat platform, with a secure 90 degree edge as a jig for constructing the wall frames.

This is our first frame - the section of wall at the north end of the west facing walls of the house, containing the main window into Bruce and Morag's kitchen. these frames will be framed out of 150x44 studs, lintels and top/base plates.

The panels were constructed with the inside of the wall facing up to allow for cross bracing and support pieces at the top and bottom of the windows to be added. Many of the panels have permanent cross bracing of 100x44. We will not be using sheeting on the outside or inside of the house, which normally provides the lateral racking strength. In our case, this cross bracing of the panels (and some between panels that we will be adding on site) will provide all of this structural stability. It also makes each panel rigid during transport and assembly.


In order to speed up the construction, and to make sure that we build each panel correctly, Bruce produced a drawing showing all of the key dimensions and a cut list for each frame.