Water well / vesikaivo

We had the digger come to our site again (the last time he came was last July when he cleared the site and put the 9 rocks in place for the foundation). Now we wanted a drinking water well and a percolation area to be done. 

We wanted to have the clean water well up hill to our house so that we could have running water with out using electricity. We had planned we would have a hand pump in the house that would start the water to flow and once it is flowing it would keep on coming because of it being up hill from the house. We looked for spots that would likely have water and we also had a diviner come to look for a spot. He found a place where he strongly felt there was water. 

The digger tried from there but it had too big rocks in the way. He also tried digging from another spot but that too had too big rocks. He then ended up digging down hill from the house, in a spot where we were sure there was water. And it did have. Now we have a well 3 meters deep. It is close to the house so maybe we will pump our water at the well and then carry it to the house or use some sort of electric pump to pump it into the house. 

 The well is south from our house, down hill and quite close by. This is an area we would have cleared anyway to let the sun from the south reach the house.

Mick is emptying the well from the dirty water that fills the well at first. He is using a pump that runs with petrol.

All the posts and beams in place!

On the 28th of June Mick and our two helpers Ben and Karel got all the posts and beams in place. It is an exciting point of this summer and one of the big achievements for Mick. 

 Now Mick can see where there needs to be done adjustments.

The job for the rest of the day and the next few days was to put re-inforcement under the floor boards where they meet the posts.

 It is possible quite easily to move the blue tarpaulin to cover or to un-cover the structure. This way things can be safe from the rain but it is possible to work easily when un-covered in good weather.

Placing a beam

When the first two posts are up a beam can be placed on them. After that after each post there goes a beam in place. In these pictures a second beam is lifted in place so it comes (on the right of the picture) onto the first beam and (on the left of the picture) onto the post.

First the beam is lifted on the high working platform. Off that there has been placed a plank to the post on the left of the picture, Mick is standing on that. The helper on the right, Ben is standing on a ladder and Karel, the helper behind Mick is standing on the working platform. 

The beam is lifted to lie on the other beam (and post under that) already in place.

After that it is lifted across to the other post.

This beam will need some fine shaping and adjusting. There is a small gap between the two beams. 

Placing a post

The posts need to be lifted in place the joint matching exactly. We are very lucky to have two strong helpers to do this. The right people at the right time! The posts and beams are lifted in place now for the first time. After this Mick will see exactly where there needs to be done some small changes like shaping and cutting.

 Getting ready to lift 

 Mick at the joint directing the beam, two helpers lifting: one at the end and one in the middle

 Both lifters in the middle, Mick directing

 Will it touch the roof structure of the rain cover? No, it fitted. 

Slotting/pushing the beam in place

Making the post and beam timber frame

 Test pieces for half lap joints

First I made many test pieces to try out the best way to make the half lap joint where the horizontal wall beams meet. There is 9 of these joints to make and I wanted to get it right. In the end the simplest one was used.

 Framing bed with beam clamped in place

On the level floor of the house a framing bed made of 3 strong planks is fixed as a template. The 2 long planks correspond to the vertical post positions and another matches the horizontal beam height. All the marking is done on the framing bed and then the cuts are made, first on the posts then the beam. Then the logs are placed back on the bed and checked and readjusted if necessary.

 Post scribed to fit curve of beam

On about half of the joints the top of the post is scribed to make a neat looking junction between the post and beam, it takes over an hour for each scribe, so they are only on the ones seen from the tupa (kitchen/living room)

 Tennons on bottom of wall posts

On the bottom of the posts a 4"x2"x6" long tennon is made, this fits into the mortice joint at the floor beam junctions, which were made last Summer.

 Posts and beam on the framing bed to mark for wind brace positions

The whole lot is then placed on the framing bed for the last time to be marked for the wind brace positions. A flat surface is created on the post and beam to receive the wind brace, these will hopefully work out to be exactly 45 degrees from the side of the post to the underneath of the beam, we will find out when the frame is standing.

"Jenkki saha" cutting the wind brace surfaces.

 

 

Karel the apprentice natural builder

So then after 6 weeks including going to Ireland for my brother Aidan's wedding all the posts and beams are ready and waiting to be put up.

All cleared up

For the end of May and beginning of June me and a helper have been clearing up the site. Because when me and Mick cleared the collapsed mess in the winter off the house base we just piled all the timber next to the house in big piles of roundwood, 2x4`s, 2x5`s, 1x5`s and so on. Most of them broken and all of them with nails or screws in them. Or both. Now we took out all the nails and screws, scraped the fungus off the most important boards and then stacked them in individual piles and covered the stack.

Here is the area where there was big piles of broken nail`y timber but now it looks so clean and empty to me. 

This is the biggest pile we made of all the boards neatly in stacks. And a cover on them. Most of the boards we are able to use again, it was the round wood that broke more and short peaces of them might not come in use. But I am very happy this job is done now and there is not a mess any more.

Re-bailing straw bales 21.5.

Last year was a really bad straw year and we were worried about not getting any but asking around did the job again. We found straw bales from a person in Joensuu who had thought to built a straw bale garage but then did not (for our luck). He had harvested them a few summers ago when it was a good straw year and they were kept well. We collected about 280 of them last autumn and 111 more this spring with a van and trailer and stored them in our shed. But they are way too loose for building a house so they needed to be re-baled. 

This May we loaded them all (in two goes) on the tractor trailer of my dads and drove to our neighbors who has a baler that does small square bales (not the big round ones that are much more common these days).

The re-baling was really fast and went very well. There was four of us doing it.

We brought 391 loose bales and re-baled them into 156 tight bales. So 2.5 loose bales into one tight bale. We need in total 360 tight bales for the house so we still need to pick up 500 loose ones and re-bale them. In good weather of course.

Tight bales with kids and their daddy. The tractor looks tiny... The bales are going back into our shed to wait.