Day 48 - floor slab finished, varnished and covered

We finished all of the remaining small pieces of the flooring, and now the structural slab is complete.

We decided to varnish the surface of the OSB board in order to protect it in case some water came through the plastic. Also, there is a good chance that we will move in to the houses before they are finished, before the final hardwood flooring is in place, and the varnished OSB board will be a better floor in the interim.




We covered the entire floor slab surface with two sheets of silage cover, reusing the old one and adding a new one on top.


We hope that this plastic will last until the roof is in place and plan to place the wall panels directly on top of the plastic. So we secured the edges with batons and covered the surface with pallets and sheets of wood to prevent the plastic from billowing up too much in the wind.

Day 47 - almost finished the floor slab

We almost finished the ground floor slab today.

All that is left are a few small pieces to finish around the octagon.

Holes were cut in the boards to allow for all of the waste water pipes, the heating system pipes, and the water supply pipes. What we ended up with is a wooden version of the concrete slabs with pipes sticking out of them, which a lot of the other houses have.

Day 46 - continuing with the floor

We finished more than half of the floor sheeting, and the weather continues to work in our favor.

Opening left in the floor for access to the cellars.

The floor was designed so that all of the edges of the OSB board are supported by either joists or blocking, to which the board is glued and screwed.

Day 45 - starting to put in the floor

Before the OSB boards (more eco version of the dreaded chip board) can be screwed and glued to the joists, the top surface had to be scrubbed with a wire brush, primarily to remove the lime, but it helps to roughen the wood so that the glue can form a stronger bond.



Aoife and Leontien wait patiently.

The new wood slab sitting on the perimeter piers - this one at the dividing line between the two houses. By gluing and screwing the top surface to the timber joist and beams, the entire surface will act as one ridged slab structure, capable of transfering all of the wind loads from the walls through to the central cellar. The surface of the board on the underside of the slab is not structurally necessary, but helps to form a solid insulated slab that is ventilated underneath.

We fixed about 25% of the floor today

Day 36 - more ground floor

Day 35 - putting the floor in position

In preparation for putting the floor panels into position, we cleared up the ground that will remain under the house. We know that we will end up crawling under the houses in the future, so a bit of extra work now when it is easy and possible, will save a lot of sore backs and knees in the future.

While the soil was still loose from the excavation for the district heating and water pipes, we hand dug the trench for the electrical and communication services.

These services will only go to the inside of the front wall of the houses.

Apart from the one beam that goes under the octagon, all of the supports for the floor are in place.

THe 13 panels that will make up the back half of the house - assembled upside down.


The first 5 sections in place, tied into the beam at the back of the houses, and cantilevered over the cellar wall. other panels will extend from the front of the houses to meet in the middle.

The space under the floor is quite amazing, and very unique in Ireland.

Day 33 - more floor panels

Today was a beautiful day - almost too hot to work. As soon as we started working with wood a few days ago the weather became very dry, and is set to continue until late next week. We feel blessed!

It was a much more productive day, despite the fact that we were both having to leave the site by mid afternoon, and Bruce had to sort out and give a presentation to the members meeting after lunch. We also stopped to speak to 3 separate large tours that passed through the site as part of the Cloughjordan energy fair.


We did manage to finish the basic construction of 7 floor panels - the two of us eventually developed a very efficient process, and it felt as though we would have finished all of the panels if we had an uninterrupted run for the full day.


We ended up finishing early - by our standards, but made sure that the floor pannels were well covered to protect from dew and rain.

The base of the 2 houses is starting to take shape.

Day 32 - starting the floor

Today was not a very productive or satisfying day - in contrast to the significant amount of work we accomplished yesterday.

We started first thing in the morning by lifting off the beams to check the concrete in the perimeter piers, and ended having to add some more concrete to secure the bolts as the mix yesterday was too dry to properly fill in around the threaded rod.

We cut most of the plywood (or more accurately OSB/chip board) for the underside of the floor joists - part of the structural box that will make up the ground floor plane. We are using more concrete than we had wanted to, but it was a choice between more plywood or more concrete.

Pat had to leave at mid day, leaving Bruce to start building the panels for the ground floor. This was definitely a case where 2 people would have been 5 time faster than one.

We will build 27 panels for the ground floor, each consisting of 2 sheets of ply screwed to a frame typically consisting of 2 joists which are notched on one end to sit on a bearing piece that wil be bolted to the perimeter beam, as well as blocking. These panels will be constructed upside down to make it easier to screw the ply to the joists and will be flipped over and slotted into place with one end fixed to the beam and the other end cantilevered over the bearing walls of the cellar. One set of panels will extend from the front of the house, and another from the back, and then joined in the middle, and additional blocking added. A slightly complicated process but it allows us to secure the plywood to the entire underside of the house, without crawling underneath and messing around with the bearing walls.