Tuesday, December 14, 2010

In with the glass!



-
Adam

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Plumbing - making gaskets

What do you do when the shower taps don't include the little rubber gaskets to fit the to the pipes? Break out the razor blades and the old car innertube! Custom fit every time.

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Adam

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Fix for the double rolling door frame



-
Adam

Papyrus Ceiling Installation

In the final rush to get things done before we move in in two days, the ceiling is going up in the master bedroom.

-
Adam

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Trouble with the frame for the double roller door.

The frame for the large double roller door went up yesterday, but as the masons started to brick in the gap between the top and the roof, the section of free-span frame started to sag a little. It was only 1.5 cm over the whole distance of 450cm but it effected the angle of the tracks for the roller-doors. So we propped up the frame with branches until it was level, and now this morning, Joseph and I are working on some braces to connect the frame to the rafters, to help with the load of the bricks.

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Adam

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Power Shower

We have a 3 phase instant hot water system for the house installed, but are waiting for the 3 phase lines to be brought up through our village. While we wait we want to be able to have hot showers, so we found this little shower head that heats the water as it passes through. We remain a little skeptical but, with a dedicated circuit breaker, our french-speaking electrician assures us that the 'electric douche' will be perfectly safe.

-
Adam

All four door frames are up!

With the countdown to move-in at only 5 days, we finally have all four door frames up in the living area. The masons are cementing and bricking them in at a furious rate.

-
Adam

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Alcove for the flashlights...

This little alcove that is being built into the column that holds the light switches for the living area and porches. It is just inside the front door and so it the first place that you would realise that the power is out... Again. Thus the perfect place to put a flashlight.

-
Adam

Rolling door - minor setback

We had a minor setback when mounting the frame for the rolling door at the entrance of the house. This morning, after the cement had set over night we ran a test with the door. I turns out that the middle column had been set 2cm off center and the door rubbed. An easy fix but good thing we checked before the frame was bricked in place!

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Adam

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Putting up the frame for the single rolling glass door

Today the masons are installing the frame for the single large glass door that is the entrance for the house. In the second photo you can see the door that will hang in the frame being worked on in the background.

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Adam

Monday, November 29, 2010

Papyrus Mats for Lining the Roof

Here we are testing the el-cheapo roof rack to the limits again. This time in an effort to buy enough papyrus mats to line the roof of the house.

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Adam

Friday, November 26, 2010

Screen-Frame for the Big Porch goes up!

Today we started installing the metal frame that will support the insect-proof netting for the big porch.

-
Adam

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Fixed frame for the glass door on the small entry porch

Joseph is attaching a piece of heavy duty angle to act as rail for the wheels of the door to run along. The small porch has only one large glass door as opposed to the double set on the large porch, so we are testing everything out on this one before adding the complexity of the extra door.

-
Adam

Basic Kitchen Layout takes shape

With the arrival of the last major appliance - our fridge - the kitchen starts to hint at its final shape. The basic layout is a large central prep/breakfast table bordered by an L-shaped counter running under the window and along the wall to the fridge. A semi-open storage wall will extend out from the wall beside the fridge, partly shelding the space from the dining area, without cutting it off completely. The storage-wall will contain all the cutlery, crockery glassware and serving items, all of which will be accessable from both sides of the wall to allow quick access for both loading clean dishes from the kitchen and setting the table from the dinning area.

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Adam

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Buying the fridge in 4 dollar bills

LG makes a range of fridges designed espcially to deal with bad power, making them a great choice for us. So here I am paying for it in 2000 franc bills...

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Adam

Monday, November 15, 2010

A closer look at the basin

Here is a better photo of the basin for the Guest Bathroom.

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Adam

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Heavy Metal

The SHS tube finally arrived in Kab but the drive home with it on the roof rack, tore the mounts lose. No damage done, but a timely reminder to get a 'real' roof rack welded up to replace the limp alloy and plastic one.

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Adam

Saturday, November 13, 2010

My time out corner

For when the little frustrations of home-building get to much or just a little quiet time for solving a problem, the view over the valley is lovely and relaxing.

-
Adam

The Septic Tank

The septic tank is finally in place! One step closer to that seat of luxury - the flushing toilet. (dual flush to save water of course)

This tank is the first stage of the 'brown water' treatment, where the waste from the toilets breaks down and relatively clean water is then drained off into and adjacent 40 foot deep leach pit.

Our 'grey water' from basins, shower and bath, will go through a separate system of gravel and sand drains that will be used to water the roots of plants and veggies in the back yard. The idea being that by filtering the grey water and avoiding applying it directly to the plants we reduce any possibility of contamination.

The kitchen waste water will be going through its own separate sand filter and probably won't be applied to crops to further reduce contamination worries.
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Adam

Small Bathroom Basin

Here is the sink for the Guest Bathroom. It was inspired by the hand washing stands found in some of the little restaurants and bars around here. The bowl is made from a antique copper basin we picked up on a trip to Italy which has been modified to accept a drain in the bottom. The long stemmed faucet has a short-throw tap that turns on and off with a quarter turn of the handle, to felicitate the rapid on-off-on-off cycle of the water conscious user. These are mounted onto a stand made by one of our neighborhood carpenters, Bosco, who did a particularly nice job on the joinery.

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Adam

Friday, May 14, 2010

Rendering the Walls

 

 

The finished surface of the rammed earth was too rough and dusty for the interior of the house so we decided to render them in a light sand-cement mix that is commonly used here to finish and protect the mudbrick houses in the area.

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First a key-layer of gravel with bit of earth for binding is applied to the walls. this layer acts as an intermediary between the rammed earth and the sand-cement render: the earth in the mix is able to stick to the walls, while the gravel and texture allow the render to hold on.

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All the gaps between the walls and the roof were filled in with stones and earth-gravel mix. this keeps out any unwanted guests (bugs and bats mostly) and helps to further solidify the connection between our wooden bond beams and the walls.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Raising the Roof

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With the walls in the living area at full height, it was time to raise the roof beams. All the timbers were eucalyptus trees sourced from a sustainably managed plantation on the ridge up behind the house, The trees were simply trimmed of branches and pealed of their bark before being put in place. The most challenging part of the process was raising the large tree that would become the ridge-beam over the living area.

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After the ridge-beam was in place the rafters and battens went up fairly quickly.  Any timbers that pas over or run along the top of the walls are tied down with metal rods that were imbedded into the walls as they were rammed. The tie-downs act to stop the roof from lifting during strong winds and tie the walls together using the timbers as a kind of bond-beam.

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Tin on and looking like a house! The plan is to line the tin roofing with mats woven from papyrus to insulate from radiant heat from the sun and noise from the rain.

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Thursday, May 6, 2010

Construction – Lintel Detail for Bathroom Windows

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Unlike most of the window openings, that extend up to the top of the walls, the bathroom windows puncture one of the big end-walls, with the triangle of wall extending up above them. We had considered a self supporting arch, but the soil was not forming cleanly and the amount of solid timber required to make the arch-form would have been significantly more than the timber we used for the lintels. In the end we used 40mm thick hardwood 3 times longer than the width of window opening, to spread the load of the wall above out away from the window. The masons set the lintels into the course below, ensuring they were level with a firm footing on both sides, and then we continued ramming the next course.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Construction – The Walls Reach Full Height

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Here you can see the walls are getting rammed and trimmed into their final height.exact height was debated heavily by the masons, as the general consensus was that for a building as wide and long as ours the roof had to be much higher and much steeper in pitch.  There was a bit of confusion on my part as to what was driving this because it was already taller and steeper than the surrounding houses. But then i realized that the because of the openness and width, the house looks more like a church or a school that a village house, so it wasn’t a functional issue, but more of a ‘just doesn’t look right’. In an effort to stop the house looking too imposing, the roof stayed as designed.

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Filling the forms got more challenging as the walls got higher!

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The ladies keep up a steady stream of well mixed soil and heckle!

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Here one of the masons trims the top of the wall with a machete, following the string-lines laid out by the Master-Mason. The metal rods protruding from the top of the wall are for fastening down the logs the will be used to bond the walls together and form the basis of the roof frame. Each of the metal rods extends at least 2 formwork-layers into the wall (about 1.2m) and is anchored by crossed of hardwood buried in the wall.