Day 68 - starting the first floor

In order to help us build the first floor structure, we first used some of the timber to construct a temporary platform a bit more than half way up the ground floor walls.

These type of things take time, but when we finally started to put in the joists, this elevated platform made it much easier and safer to work.

The main part of the floor structure consist of full length joists that run from the long perimeter walls and cantilever over the interior structural walls and beams that run over the cellar walls. The joists from the front and the joists from the back will be spliced together to distribute the loading and tie the building together. Full height blocking was used over these central walls, and additional blocking will be put in later when we are not so rushed.

Even though we started late on this miserable day, we were able to get a substantial portion of the back joists in place, and took advantage of Eoin (from Wales) helping out for the day to get all of the full length joists up onto the structure.

Day 66 - cross bracing and beams

It was a cold, windy and rainy day but we spent the day making sure that the walls were plumb, putting in cross bracing to keep them that way and finishing putting the top plate into position.

We were also able to put the 4 beams into position. These two beams over the main space of Bruce and Morag's house are composed of 3 lengths of 225x44mm (9"x2") which will be drilled and bolted together. A similar beam runs over the back of Pat's workshop. these three beams continue the load bearing over the long cellar walls.

A longer beam was put in place over the Octagonal space in Pat and Wendy's house. Because the span is so big in this area, this beam is composed of 4 lengths of 225x44mm timber which will be bolted together. this was a heavy beam but the two of us (with the support of Aaron) were able to lift it into position by constructing ladder of supports up each of the posts for the beam to rest on.

This beam will also be braced at each end to further reduce the span to the 4m that our engineer recommended, so we left a notch out of the bottom of the beam so that the brace could be inserted later. Pat has a few lengths of ash poles which will be used as bracing 'in the round'.

Day 65 - finishing the framing and covering

We didn't spend a lot of time on site today, but while Pat continued to cover the gaps in the plastic sheeting on the floor, Bruce, Eoin, Morag and Leontien worked to continue to nail the framing together and to the floor slab and adding cross bracing to the external walls. We also cut out the pieces for the beams and started to assemble them.

The first sections of the top plate were nailed in place to tie all of the wall sections together and to strengthen the structure.

Day 37 - ground floor structure almost finished

Day 31 - setting the beams

We finished drilling the holes through the ends of the beams and through the bearing plate.

Once drilled, we removed the beams from the footings then painted the bearing plates on the top of the posts and the cellar with a preservative (one of the few places we will be using a harmful chemicals) and cut damp-proof course for each bearing. The bearing plate and sheet of plastic were then attached to the underside of the beam with the threaded rod and welded washer. Once all of the beams were ready, we filled the hollow concrete blocks with concrete, placed the beam back in position and tapped the threadded rod and washer down into the wet concrete. This is the easy way to make sure that the bolt is in the right place for the beam. Once the concrete is set, we will bolt the beam to the post.

Thankfully, Dave volunteered to help us out at the right time - some of the beams were heavy - and we usually get visitors dropping by in the evening, and some of them bring beer!

One of the perks of working late!

Day 30 - out of the ground and into wood

A great day, working dawn until dusk, in beautiful dry weather, and finally finished with concrete and working with wood! We spent the morning cutting wood for the perimeter beams.

A machine was brought in to back-fill the excavations around the cellar and the perimeter pears. We also emptied the remaining water from the base of the cellars and cleared out all of the silt, rubble and concrete that had fallen in. It is great to finally have a clean flat site and finished cellar thta will hopefully dry out over the next few days

We assembled the wood for the centre of the perimeter beams, finally giving a sence of the shape and expanse of the buildings.


The perimeter beams will consist of 4 pieces of 225x44 lumber (9 by 2's as they call them in Ireland) but we only fixed the central 2 pieces, nailed them together temporarily, cut notches to counter sink the bolts and drilled the vertical fomles with a hand auger. It was a real joy to work with hand tools on the site everyone else had gone home, watching the sun set.