Day 70 - plastic wrapped again

We finished putting in the floor joists into the main section of the house, leaving only the area around the octagon and a lot of the blocking to be done later.


We then put up two temporary frames along the length of the houses and stretched a large sheet of polytunnel plastic over the top of the houses.

This is a fair amount of work and a considerable expense, but it will help to keep the structure dry and more importantly the insulated ground floor slab. The plastic will stay for the few weeks that it will take to build the remainder of the wall frames, and then we will take it off during a spell of dry(ish) weather, put up the next set of frames and if necessary put it up again.

Once the houses were covered, we pulled up the plastic that had been covering the ground floor slab for the past week to find that over 80% of the surface had got wet. We don't think that much or any of the water soaked into the insulation below, though it would have if we hadn't done anything.
The black builders plastic that we pulled from the floor was reused to cover the walls that the clear plastic sheet didn't reach.

It doesn't look great, but the wooden structure and floor will dry out and remain dry for the next few weeks allowing us to continue to work on the blocking and framing out of the wind and rain.
Neither of us like using so much plastic, but at least with the polytunnel plastic, it will be reused for many years in the gardens and allotments!

Day 69 - more floor joists

We continued with the floor joists today in good weather, though the floor remained wet. We were able to finish a lot of the non standard areas of the joists including around the stairs, and the projecting pieces at Morag and Bruce's end of the build.

Top of Pat and Wendy's stairs.
Completed joists and header at the north end of the houses. showing the cantilevered area to the right which will support a projecting window/desk.

Opening for the straight stair in Bruce and Morag's house, as seen from the back door.

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 67 - finishing the ground floor structure

We had a fair amount of rain overnight, and we have found that our strategy for keeping water off of the wood floor slab is not working. We lifted the plastic in a few places and found some water sitting on the surface of the OSB board. At the moment it does not seem to be doing any damage, but it will eventually leak down into the hemp/lime insulation. We can't wait until the rest of the frames are up and the roof on before doing something, so we have decided to finish putting in the first floor joists and structure and then to cover the entire frame with a big sheet of polytunnel plastic.
We spent the day finishing putting the top plate into position and preparing for the joists.

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 64 - part 3 - covering up

While a few of us continued to work on securing the framing that had been temporarily nailed together, Pat and the rest of the crew that continued to help out set to work laying heavy builders' plastic on the floor in anticipation of rain. Having pulled up the one large sheet of plastic earlier in the day, we needed to make sure that the wooden floor slab did not get too wet. The solution we came up with was to create shallow pans or tanks in each of the spaces of the houses, from which the excess water would drain away through the door openings. Though not an ideal or perfect solution it is the best option we have, as it will allow us to continue to work, while protecting the floor.

Once again we have been blessed with he weather! About an hour after the main sections of the floor were covered with plastic it rained!