Monday, July 21, 2014

Rammed Earth Shed 2014



We require a Sheep/Alpaca shelter for the winter,   Soooooo
Let's build one with Rammed Earth Walls  :)
Over top of this we will make a Hip Roof with an inside height of 6'
Nailing down the anchor plates

coming along nicely


Ok, lets make this happen!


Dampening the earth, no color in this just to see how it looks.

First shovel



     Adding a little lime for decoration       



Just about done


 First one Done!


This was my first time running the tamper (Kristin) as
seen near the bottom, good thing sheep don't give a sheep.

Lucky was here!!
 Time for Wall #2







 Caught the Boss working ;)




 Surprize!











Cool
 To Be Continued,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,



Another kind of Back Labor, time
 to start doing sit ups.
Experimenting with decorating 



Troweling the concrete cap




Third wall done.....






Added a layer of broken glass and a plastic toy

Need to work on our seams



Our most beautiful creation, Naree. Blade too!








  

Capping




We started playing with color on the two front walls



Testing colorant to the last walls, not sure about the red????

Our newest addition, Sheila the pot bellied pig.

Completed Shed.
  Took about 5 days.  The interior is very nice and cool on the hot days, perfect.. now we just need the animals to figure that out. 
here are a couple of links to the House walls being constructed

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Foundation Pour

After a long wait and some miscommunication the action finally arrived.  Damian (pump operator) from B and B Concrete came out before hand to check out the site, as did Chris.  Both tried to hide their reservations as best they could but we are getting pretty accustomed to people wondering what the %#$^  we are doing.  Turns out  neither had any experience with and 1' x 4' foundation and they were concerned about the integrity of the form work.  Once we started the pour it was clear our form work rocked and there was nothing to worry about.
My parents came out to help in case we needed it and boy were we lucky they did.  "Concrete waits for no man" was the quote of the day.  We worked our asses off and then to boot they had ~3m3 extra which we had to try to use.
Was a stellar day.  Foundation is just asking for walls!!!!




Pre pour jitters



That's me in the red coveralls :)




Back Up







Paul on the last of the pour


The Finishers



Ta Da!



Note:  Pencil Vibrator Operator not shown.