Grabbed 100 expansion joint ties as specified by the engineers from Bianco for $118.80
United Fastners for some extra bolts as we are losing a few to thread damage from grit and so on $35.40
Total project spend is now at $292,687.11
House only is now $78,734.61
Cost per square metre is now $273.38
It’s actually been some time since we spent any money on the build. We’ve finally depleted our white cement stores so I had to grab another pallet this week, and our OB insurance cover needed extending.
Bianco for 80 bags of white cement – $674.08
Allrisk Pty Ltd for OB insurance – $473
Total project spend is now at $292,532.91
House only is now $78,580.41
Cost per square metre is now $272.85
In terms of the volume of mud we need to mix we are 10% through the process of building the walls. This coming week I hope to have the base layer completed around the perimeter of the slab. This is the process that is really holding things up.
Pic 1 below shows the fourth layer of blocks set up and ready to pour on one of the window columns. Pic 2 shows the master bedroom corner which has been set up back to the recess in the slab, and that is where the thinner blocks then take over and wrap around the wet area. Pic 3 is a shot from sou’west of the slab.
Pic 1 below is another shot from the rise behind the house. Pic 2 is my interpretation of the engineers spec for the expansion joints. This corner is the internal mud wall that creates the thermal mass behind the fireplace and acts as the entry way to the house.
All our expansion joints were specified as for standard double brick, meaning there is a gap that literally passes straight through the wall and only has a strip of foam keeping weather, vermin and bugs out of the house. My method is to encase a double thickness of this foam (2 strips of 100mm x 10mm) on the longer of the 2 angled faces and use a 20mm x 50mm hard foam strip down the middle of those 2 strips. When the next block is set to pour I will use 2 10mm x 50mm inserts to allow for the conventional 50mm sealing foam to be added later. The next block would then be poured straight against this, providing the expansion joint as required and hopefully excluding weather, vermin and bugs when this method is used on the external walls. If you’re confused, me too. Pics to come and the thousands of words they convey should clear the mud on that explanation.
Pic 3 is one of those “godsend” finds and is a 4’x2′ garden cart that we use to transport all sorts of stuff from one end of the slab to the other. 40 metres from the staging area by the cars to the far end of the slab doesn’t sound like a long distance until you start traipsing back and forth half a dozen times to carry what this cart can in one trip. Once everything is in place the cart becomes our mud barrow when we use a couple of 60 litre tubs to pour the mix into. With a skid in place, this will make it easy to transfer the tub of mud to the mortar lift (below) to lift up to the higher layers.
And finally, the mortar lift. I’ve designed and welded together a lot of projects and gadgets over the years and this one is the first to scare me no end. What it is is a 600mm square base with a 500mm square cradle to hold the mortar sitting internal of this. It has been made to lift to 2700mm maximum. The winch is a standard boat winch with a 500kg rated capacity. The winch is offset to allow the cradle to rise and fall the full height of the mast. Atop the mast is a 100mm pulley spinning on a 5/8″ high tensile bolt as the axle. The mast has 10mm strips welded internally to stop the weight of the full cradle from tearing larger holes in the 2mm steel of the mast over time. To move the lift we simply use a sack trolley when needed. For safety reasons I will be checking the welds weekly as part of the maintenance routine we have in place for all the other machinery on site.
After nada for so long we can actually brag about making some progress with the house build. This first layer as I have said in previous posts is a drawn out process which is slowing things down for now. First pic below shows the “front” of the house from the master bedroom end. Currently the highest we have poured is three courses, the full height of these walls is nine courses.
Second pic is the moulds set and ready to pour for the second course of the kitchen area of the house. I have been assisted by my father-in-law for much of the work so far and thanks again Roger, your help is truly appreciated. Third pic is meant to show just how much water I am pouring into the previous bricks to stop the void cracking problem we had encountered with the power room.
As a carry over from the third pic above, the first pic below demonstrates just how the moisture from the new layer is drawn into the previous blocks as seen in the middle group of blocks. Second pic below is old truck and new bus. The Pajero lives on as storage for now and is quite handy to stash things between trips back to town. Last pic shows the kitchen wall area before the moulds were reset. Again you can see just how much moisture the previous layer of blocks is capable of absorbing in the grouping closest to lens.
So far the results we are achieving are pleasing. I’m looking forward to completing the lower level of blocks around the perimeter of the house, from there the pace of the build will increase. We are seeing days in the mid 20’s already which is a bonus with the moulds now coming off after 24 hours. On the downside as things warm up and materials dry out I am already using 5 litres more water per batch compared to last week and having to mix the soil and water for longer to activate the clay. Put simply I now have to keep a very keen eye on the mixes to make sure they look right in texture and mositure to keep our end result consistent.
Amazingly, after weeks of frustration due to weather and everything else life could throw in the way we are finally getting on with pouring the walls to the house. These blocks are 50% larger than the blocks poured for the power room and are presenting logistical issues on mixing and handling that much at one time. We are mixing 40 litres of soil, 50 litres of sand, 10 litres of cement and up to 20 litres of water to get each mix to a consistent standard. That translates to 70-80 litres of mud ready to pour once it’s been churning in the mixer for 15-20 minutes each load.
Pic 1 below shows the set of 3 blocks that separate the windows between bedrooms. Pic 2 is the detail of how the threaded rods are being positioned. Those rods are holding the large redgum blocks as seen in the lower block in pic 3. Pic 4 is the second layer completed on one of these window bays. At the base of all layers is a 20mm thick strip of redgum, sealed with linseed oil and anti mould that will be used to fix skirtings to once we are at the final fit out stage.
All of the fixings are M10 nuts and bolts and the 1/2″ square to hex drive converter (that is the simple name the hardware people have for these gadgets) means any drill can be used to quickly spin bolts in and out. I set the torque on the drills to about half of the maximum so there is plenty of play with getting stubborn bolts back out if needed. Pic 1 below show the gadget in use. Pic 2 is the lovely scenery I’m looking over while working, and the view from all living areas of the house. Pic 3 was an attempt at perspective.
Setting up for this base layer is cumbersome and very time consuming, but since the moulds will literally fall into place for the subsequent layers we are happy to take this stage slow and get it right. Setting up for this stage consists of lots of measuring, remeasuring, coffee, remeasure then just a quick measure and check once more to make sure it is right.
The Pajero had started developing some worrying oil leaks so is being retired to the farm to be used as a paddock basher once we are living up there. Mechanically it still operates as it should, it just has a crack or hole somewhere at the back of the head/block causing it to drop oil like a typical Holden.
I’ve replaced it with a 2007 Ford Ranger dual cab with a tray back rather than a tub. Over the last 2 weeks we have been working on adding all the bits and pieces needed to make it the workhorse we want and need. So far we’ve added a pair of cavernous toolboxes, central locking/immobiliser, turbo timer and dual batteries for remote power via an inverter.
Using Anderson plugs the secondary battery can be swaped out for a third, fourth and so on to allow batteries to be recharged during the trips to and fro. The inverter is used to charge batteries for the cordless menagerie of tools we have. On site the dual battery switching solenoid protects the starter battery from discharge by disconnecting it from the secondary battery which runs the inverter. While we’re travelling the secondary battery is automatically charged once the main battery is topped up.
First pic is the new truck, second shows battery in position with dual Anderson plugs, third shows the power take off for the light and cigarette lighter in pic 4. I fixed the battery in place using some angle aluminium pop riveted to the base of the toolbox, topped with a sheet of ply to isolate the battery from the tool box itself. The tie down is a strap hinge with most of the loop around the pin of the strap cut away so it can be angled under and drop down to secure it, then fixed down with a standard battery tie down at the other end.
Not much has been happening, so not much to report in terms of costs.
Senturion provided us with steel to make the extra forwork – $227.50
Dry Creek Builders Yard for formply seconds – $120
Total project spend is now at $291,385.83
House only is now $77,433.33
Cost per square metre is now $268.87
A run of wet weekends has spoiled our dirt parties over the past few weeks. On the 2 occasions we could have done some work we have been suffering through colds and sniffles our boy keeps bringing home from kinder gym or playgroup. Such is life.
Still we did get up there this weekend and spent a full day organising all the bits and pieces so the next fine break we get we can spend building the actual house. Our neighbour has electrically fenced off our woodlot and the house area and has his cattle happily grazing in the paddock in pic1. We went for a bit of a wander as well to have a look at how our tree plantings have progressed since around this time last year. Some of these trees have grown more than a metre since we planted them and you can see Elise standing amongst them and indicating actual height in pic 2 & pic 3.
The trommel was assembled as in the first pic below and tested for workability and it performed flawlessly. The width of the cage is just smaller than our builders barrow so all that needs to be done is throw dirt in, empty barrow and occasionally empty the barrow of rocks on the other end. I reckon we’re seeing far less rock come out the other end compared to the shaker sift where half the lumps were just compacted dirt and not rock at all. You’ll notice I welded up a quick support stand to keep some of the pressure off of the axle end of the barrel. Second pic is all the formwork on the slab ready to go.
All bolted together the working end of my newest toy looks like thumb 1. By this time I had decided a secondary panel inside the drum to keep things working away was not necessary, and instead I split a length of 100x100x2mm steel to make two large pieces of angle. I used these to both joint the drum ends and the screen together as well as provide agitation in the drum as the material tumbles around. Thumb 2 shows where all the rock eventually tumbles out of the drum. Last pic shows how I attach most materials that are welded end on. Tacked into position first and then a piece of angle iron on at least 2 sides is fully welded to provide extra rigidity.
Since belts stretch and need constant tensioning I added in a simple system to achieve this as seen in the next thumb. To tension the belt all that needs to be done is the 100mm bolt is screwed further into the assembly, pushing the entire engine up. The opposite end is bolted through 2 pieces of angle to act as the pivot point. Last thumb shows how the angle of the drum can be adjusted should it need to be set up on sloping ground, a few cranks on the turnbuckle can raise or lower it quickly and easily.
The earth sift I made works as it was intended. BUT…. it is time consuming and it does take a toll on the body having to bang the sieve screen to get dirt to fall through it. At this time of the year the clays in the soil are also activated and you end up with a “sloppy” rock wobbling around on top of the screen.
Trommels are an industrial machine that are basically a perforated rotating drum on a slight angle. The material to be sifted is dumped in the higher end, the drum rotates with anything smaller than the screen passing through it as it tumbles with the larger particles passing through the lower end and into a spoil pile (or as in mining into a crusher).
So here is the simple outline of how I made a trommel to make my job of sifting soil for the walls easier.
First job was to secure a cement mixer, a quick tour through eBay and their localised subsidiary Gumtree found a suitable cement mixer for sale for $180. I used this as a base since a trommel needs a slow and controlled spin and a cement mixer already has the gearing in place to achieve this. Important note is that mixer had a bowl that was bolted to the gearing. The first thumb below is the mixer I bought. Second thumbs shows bolts cracked and the bowl removed to expose the gearing.
I picked up an ex food 44 gallon drum for $15 and an elcheapo 5.5HP honda knock off engine for $177 from Paramount Browns. The drum I sat in a square frame on casters and used the momentum of the grinder to cut a 100mm lip into the lid and then separate the drum into hoops, roughly a third of the drum per section as in the third thumb.
Also in the third thumb is the most difficult part by far – getting the 25mm galvanised wire sheet ($42 from Senturion Steel) to roll. That took several ratchet straps and a lot of swearing to roll it back on itself. I’ll leave that strapped up until the frame of the drum is complete and then I will unleash it and trim the excess.
Last thumb in this group shows the new axle for the trommel, it’s a very large 1&1/8 x 10 inch high tensile bolt which also happened to be very expensive at $38.
First thumb in this group shows how the gearing works in the mixer. Second thumb shows the axle and gearing in place. The bolt was welded to a 5mm plate with a hole drilled into each corner of it. The most thinking of the job involved working out how to centre the axle in the base of the drum.
I did this by subtracting the diameter of the gear ring from the diameter of the drum, halved the result then used a ruler to mark that measurement in as many places as possible around the rim of the drum. From there I positioned the gearing ring and marked the bolt holes. Once the holes were drilled I scratched a line between opposing sides and that gave me the centre of the drum. Since there are six holes and the bolt head is hexagonal, simply lining up the “corners” of the bolt head with the scratched lines centred the axle assembly perfectly. Holes were drilled, bolts welded to the plate and internally the bolts were secured using a small piece of angle to spread some of the load as shown in thumb 3.
All up this gadget will come in under $500 and since the mixer bowl will be able to be restored I’ll be able to sell it once the project is finished as either a mixer, a trommel or both.