Raised timber floor

The second layer is finished on the floor. We have to build up the thickness of the floor to be able to put in enough insulation to meet the building regulations.

So far we have used; 9 No. 200x200 beams.

36 No. 200x50 Joists with herringbone bridging on outer ring and two sets of solid bridging to halfway point and center.

6 rows of 100x50 secondary joists at 1.2m spacings.

Double ring of 100x50 timbers with solid bridging to carry the straw bale wall.

At least one more layer to come before fixing the Oriented strand board (OSB) walking surface.

Floor structure with the sheets of OSB waiting in the center

At this stage we have used in the floor about 320 pieces of timber and 1000 nails. All of the 100x50 timbers we got from a building site rubbish pile in Joensuu, thanks Ari!

Second layer of 100x50's done and some of the OSB fitted

 Progress update.

Another layer of  100x50 timbers fitted at 540mm spacings.
Some of the OSB floor base fitted.
The frame you see is for supporting a tarpaulin rain cover so we can work on the timber frame in all weather. When working in a more hand built slower way it is more important to be able to keep the progress continuous and not need to be waiting for a good weather window.

Floor fitted and the rain came down!

A friend who is an experienced builder came to help for a couple of days and we did some work on the floor and put up the frame for the rain cover. He also pointed out some possible problems in how I intended to fit the OSB all the way to the outside of the walls, there would have been a cold bridge, and no allowance for expansion contraction which could lead to warping of the boards. So now the OSB sheets are finished to the inside of the wall with a 15mm expansion gap. Thanks for all the help Ossi.

Building the floor and damage control

Crumpled roof sheets of scaffold pancake

So after removing the snow and taking away the scaffolding pancake we are now building the floor.
 The logs we had sawn to planks on the mobile saw mill last year have mold spores growing on them, we did not cover the stack in time and there was too much moisture. I have been told to scrape of the spores and leave the timbers in the sun and stack them in a dry place to stop the fungus doing any more damage.
 

Our moldy wood

For the beams already in the floor we removed the spores but I noticed on the parts not getting any sun it looks like it has started to grow again. So to hopefully stop this I have scorched all the timber using a propane blow torch.

Scorched timbers with herring bone bridging to stabilize floor joists.

Collapse of scaffold

On the 27th December we got a phone call from our neighbor saying he was passing our building site on a snowmobile and noticed something missing.

 

 The scaffolding which we had spent 3 months building and putting a roof on had collapsed. We were in shock, it was like hearing someone has suddenly died, denial, realization and some sadness later and it sinks in, then seeing it flattened as a final confirmation of the reality. 

From this time on it was referred to as the pancake.

 

This is how it all looked a couple of weeks earlier, before the roof sheets were finished and a clear plastic wall was fitted to keep the snow out.

THANK YOU

to everyone who was helping us this year. 

It has been great to have all that help, we would not have managed without it. 

During the year 2017 we had 34 different helpers (including friends coming for a day or two). The helpers came from Finland (9), Belgium (1), England (6), Scotland (1), Germany (7), Italy (1), France (3), Singapore (1), South Korea (1), New Zealand (2) and USA (2).

All together we have had over 1400 hours of help. Thank you all!

Also thank you friends, family, neighbors and strangers who have supported us this year. Great! 

Our family of snowmen wish

Happy New Year to all!

How to get 22 rafters up

One more job towards getting the roof on the scaffolding has been completed. It's the first time I actually feel that we will get this roof done before the winter really kicks in! It has taken a very long time since we started the scaffolding and the roof and we have lost our joy of working at the site because of it but now we have some joy back because it looks like we can do it after all. The rafters have been waiting on the ground ready for more than a month. And now they are all up and in place. 

This is what we needed:

- A babysitter for three days to have the kids out of the way

- One person (me) on the ground handling the rafters: making them ready to go up, lifting them up the length of myself and then going to the other end of the rope to pull. I have started to remember all kind of useful things from my sailing days.

- A good knot (that I won't name because I'm not sure of the name... Or the knot...)

- A pulley

- One person (Mick) on top helping pulling the rafter up, directing it to place and then nailing it into place, untying the knot, moving the pulley and throwing the rope down to the next rafter.

Job done!

During all of this there came snow, rain, hail and sleet from the sky. It has been between -10c° up to +1c°. Mick has these days a harness on because the planks are pure ice. He also found useful to have anti-slip's on his boots.

The snow

It came before we had the roof of the scaffolding on. But thats ok, it is gone already! So we had snow for a week. We didnt do much (work related) during that time but now that the snow is gone we will really go at it for this coming week and try to get as much as possible done before it snows again.

The King post trusses are up (the large A shape on the top). That we had done before the snow came. We prepared the trusses on the floor by making the joints and drilling the holes for the screws. So basically we put them together and then took them apart. Then we lifted the logs one by one up with a winch and Mick put the trusses back together again on the top. Then we lifted each king post truss up to the right position with ropes and winches and four persons. There goes a ridge beam on top of the trusses and there will come another one of them next week.  

Views from above

 North

On the left: logs waiting to go up for the roof of the scaffolding. 

On the right: kids having a snack. And roof tins waiting.

In the middle: the very end of our road. We don't intend it to come to our house once the house is ready

Middle behind: under rusty roof tins posts and beams for the house (to be used next after the scaffolding and temporary roof is ready)

West

The top of the scaffolding, about 6.1 meters above the ground.

On this we will now start building the roof of the scaffolding for us to be able to work longer into autumn and eventually we can build the roof of the house under the roof of the scaffolding.

A big benefit of Mick being a rock climber is that he is able to walk and work up here! He might be the only one who can...

The top of the scaffolding from below

Mick put the boards every 60cm (2 feet) for him to feel safe to walk and work up there