The TLAR method of window placement

You know you're never going to get an actual tip about a building method on this blog, don't you?

TLAR is inspired by how my Grandfather made dresses for his daughters.  Legend has it (and everything about him is legend - eg he met his bride singing Tristan to her Isolde) that he would hold a piece of fabric up in front of a passing daughter, pin, pleat and mutter, then send her off to have a bath and get ready.  When she emerged, she slipped into a new frock and he went back to inventing air compressor patents, writing literary reviews or similar.

We need some windows in the east wall, we like passive solar and 3D design is hard.  But mud shed can't be any harder than clothing a teenager, right?

So we held windows up against the east wall at about equinox, which is when we want the sun to come in the windows each year.  When somebody said That Looks About Right (TLAR) we put a pencil mark on the frame.

Horizontal? Nyeh.

2nd vertical window? Yeah TLAR.

And one on this side, yes.

Those windows will need shading in Summer.  So around solstice we'll see how much shade they get from the roof and decide if we need to add some. We'll leave some decent supporting framework embedded in the mud in case we decide to make some awnings, but maybe it will be canvas blinds.  TJ fancies permanent shutters that open to the side, because they would offer top bushfire protection as well as conforming to some aesthetic standard I hadn't realised he held.

Sharp eyed readers will notice all the windows are behind the diagonal strapping that holds the frame rigid.  Once we had the window locations marked, we cut and re-attached the strapping.

Sadly, I didn't get an "after" photo before we started burying the new strapping in mud.  You know, this is the one thing the building inspector would worry about and I forgot to goddamn photograph it.  I kind of like the building inspector, though.  He came out to inspect the frame, and tested it by grabbing bits of it and giving them a good shake. Very TLAR.

Also, what about those windows, ey?  Five bucks at the Daylesford Tip, the pair of them. See-through and everything.  Bargain.

The TLAR method of window placement took us about half an hour.  Yes, we have done more since then.  I'm just slack with the blog, and the computer is in a cold room.  I'm going to catch up by doing a few more posts in the next couple of days, then after that we won't be about to build for at least three weeks.

Nom nom nom

Nom nom nom

So, yeah, mice are eating the mud shed.  Not all of it, just picking the seeds out of the chaff in the render, leaving little divots.

It's quite cute actually. They prise the seeds out individually, climb up to the window ledge, husk them and eat them.  Dear sweet little soon-to-be-ex mice.

I really should rethink that plan to make the top coat of render out of gingerbread.

Sour-dough render cracking

Meanwhile, the render has dried well.  It has cracked about as much as I was expecting.  I think I could have reduced the cracking if I'd been here when it was drying, to do another few passes with the the float when it was about the texture of plasticine and starting to crack.  But really the cracks aren't a problem.  The render is adhering well, and the next coat will fill the cracks and look prettier.

Today's rock work

We only had half a day to build, because we went shopping for a few supplies at the Wesley Hill Market near Castlemaine.  It's the most beautiful local market, with organic food stores and genuine crafts and a laid-back arty greenie vibe. Every ten metres you see someone you know, and stop and chat - typically friendly country people.

I have a few friends who sneak in at dawn to avoid seeing anyone, because once the sun is up and the coffee tent is pumping it takes three hours to buy a beetroot.

But we did get the big East Wall rock footing mortared into place. I find cement mixtures challenging, and rocks are heavy, so I don't enjoy this job.  But I enjoy having finished it, and the rocks are quite beautiful. They have all come from around the house, but not from natural areas.  I think the bloke who built the house dug them out of the ground when the house site was levelled.

Freshly mortared rock jigsaw

It's the easter break, so we have two more days to play in the mud, and glorious Autumn weather.  Crisp mornings and warm days.

No mud this week

Parsley the house-wallaby inspects the newly minted footings, back in the day.

Sadly, mudding has been put on hold for a week while non-muddy business is attended to in Melbs.

Luckily we have our friend and his family holidaying at our place in Clydie.  Before he left, I begged E to send me a photo of cracks as they form in the drying mud render, so I wouldn't miss out entirely on the experience of watching mud dry.

Oh, come on.  You're worse.  You're READING about missing out on watching mud dry.

Just like chocolate icing, only mud

South wall, first bit o render

It all worked out, those three tubs of fermenting mud.  It worked!  When I arrived the tubs of mud had risen like bread dough, and were bubbling with air.

The mud turned into render that spread onto the wall like trowelling chocolate icing onto a cake.

It wasn't even smelly.  Just a slight sweet-sour smell, that the butterflies really liked.

Butterflies like sour-dough render - also, that's an expansion joint on the left.  Fancy. (Edited to add - relax, they're not stuck, just resting and maybe having a sip of fluid. Dozens of butterflies came and went all day.)

I'm not sure the week of fermenting added any actual magic.  I think clay generally benefits from a good soak. But it went on the wall easily, stuck well, and it was a generally pleasant task that I was able to do on my own in one morning when I was at the property by bicycle.

I've made a big deal about the render in these blog posts, but it's a big deal in my head.  I've planned this and worried about it, read about it, and taken the responsibility to do it. The building will fail if it doesn't work.  So it was a relief to see that it was working. 


Where I really got excited was at this point, where the mud wall meets the rock footing, because working with irregular rock shapes was a big decision I made that I worried would backfire.  But it was good. It was easy.

Beautiful rocks

And this point:

This stuff defies gravity

This is the first I knew that I'd be able to render the top of the circle window, without the render glopping off onto the ground under its own weight.  It was really quite a moment.

South wall, nearly completed

I ran out of render mix just before the whole wall was completed.  But it looks good, yes?

I've got so used to looking at the fuzzy shaggy light earth walls with the drying wheat grass growing out of it, I'd almost forgotten that the building will have these smooth walls.

I'm not sold on the brown colour - it will dry to a lighter dusty brown.  Next year the whole building will get a thin coat of fine render, which we can colour with oxides, and maybe a coat of mud paint ('alise').

Sour-dough render, anyone?

Mud to photographer in 3, 2, 1 ...

This is Render Recipe 2.  A thick clay slurry mixed with chaff, but the secret ingredient is a scoop-full of water that's been mixed with compost and strained, as a "starter", because I want this render to ferment, like sour-dough bread.  I've left it for a week to bubble.

The idea is to try to duplicate the magic of adding cow poo to one's render mix, without the bother of dealing with actual cows and the people who own them.

I really should just go meet the people who own the nearby dairy, but I want to do rendering when I'm there on my own on a bike, and it's just too hard to carry freshly squeezed cow poo by bike.

Mmmmmm

The mix is a bit wetter than I'd usually use for render, but I figured the clay will thicken up over the week, because it usually does - though I'm not sure what impact fermenting will have - maybe that will release liquid? The render also has a higher clay-to-chaff ratio than I'd usually use, so I expect it to crack as it dries.  But if it is workable and has good weather resistance, I don't mind a bit of cracking in the first coat.

I'm a bit worried about the smell.  I've always been very careful never to leave organic matter mixed in wet clay, because it will go off and become foul.  It's a bit weird doing it on purpose.

TJ's verandah is all but finished.  Cool, eh?  It looks like it's always been there.  All it needs is a down-pipe on the guttering and a tank.

Verandah on west wall

That photo also shows some form-work for the top bit of west wall we did last weekend.

TJ has put up the fascia-less guttering on the east wall.  Once the down-pipe goes in I'll be able to start the rock and mud work.

So, I'm off tomorrow by bike to face the stinky render mix.  Wish me luck.

Window Win, Render Fail

BEFORE ...

... AFTER! FEATURING HIGH TECH WINDOW SURROUNDS SHAPING TOOL

In order to distract you from the fact that I haven't taken photos of the verandah we've been working on for two weekends*, I present classic before and after shots, beloved cliche of home renovation shows.

I've also been experimenting with mud render. 

I've made mud render before, but I can't get one of the ingredients in the old recipe - fresh cow manure.

My friend Ric has selfishly stopped raising Murray Grey cattle. Following his beasts around at dawn scooping up fresh cow pats before they harden was one of the best things about the Very Small Shed project.  Then when I added the cow poo to the render mix (at about 1 scoop of poo for say 8 scoops of mud, but who's counting) it worked some strange magic. The render stuck to the wall, it was easy to work with and it dried to a lovely waterproof finish. 

Once you recover from the ick factor, fresh cow manure is pleasant to work with and the very mild composty smell goes away when it dries. 

Ric used to say that Murray Grey were very special creatures.  He said their poo was probably a very superior product.  But that didn't stop him retiring.  Selfish octogenarian.

I figure cow manure is basically very finely chopped grass fibre, plus some enzymes.  I can't replace the enzymes, but I thought paper pulp might be a good source of fine fibres.

Soaked paper pulp in cement mixer

I munched up shredded paper in the cement mixer, then added the paper pulp and some chaff (straw chopped up small) to a mud slurry, plus some psyllium husk (you know, the soluble fibre people eat because they don't eat vegetables) and some linseed oil (for waterproofing).

Render recipe number one test patch fail

It didn't even come close to working.  I could hardly make it stick to the wall.  Back to the drawing board.

There's a dairy down the road.  I'm a bit shy of new people, but I'm thinking of summoning up the nerve to go introduce myself and ask them for some poo.

* By "we" I mean TJ.  I was busy making chile jam. These six jars took me pretty well the only free hours I had that weekend.  At the end, I was looking at those jars thinking they're really pretty, but I could have made a lot of wall in that time.  Which was probably the point of it. 

Chile Jam Wall Building Procrastination Project

West wall thought-bubbles

OK, brace yourself because there some drainage coming on.

This is some drainage. It took a long time to dig. The ground was hard and rocky.  Moving on.

Drainage.  Try not to hyperventillate.

We've learned that we can only do a few hours of actual wall building each weekend, especially if there is non-wall work to be done.  Everything else takes ages.

 But we had a bit of a crack at the west wall.  We started on the easy centre section, but there are challenges above, below and on either side, which I'm sort of looking forward to, but only because I am insanely over-confident that the mud will show me how to solve the problems.

I don't know yet how to build the corner between the south and west walls.  You can't reach it from the inside.  On the outside, we could nail up some formwork easily enough, but we wouldn't be able to reach inside much more than a hand's depth. I've left lots of bamboo sticking out of each wall into the corner to tie the walls together, which is good, unless you are reaching in from above, in which case it's just an obstacle.  I'm actually thinking of doing it freehand - just slapping the mud on the outside and hoping it stays there until it dries, then smoothing it out with render later.

West wall thought-bubbles

How am I going to bury the cables for the solar power system?  I made this impressive wiring diagram,and planned all the components, and now I just don't trust it.  Who am I to build a power system so confidently I'm burying the wires?  But the thing is, the battery will sit right next to this section of wall, so I have to make a decision and go with it, otherwise I'll end up looking at a finished wall with a cable in one hand and a drill in the other.

We have started to build the verandah on the west wall, starting with the footings.  TJ dug out three neat square holes, and created some heavy duty formwork, then I mixed some concrete, which was a new experience.  We poured it together, sinking the little metal stirrups to exactly the right height using string lines set up at exactly the height of the wall footings. We tried to get them to within 1mm of the right spot.  I don't know how builders do it - it's difficult.

Verandah footings - see, above the word "word"?

I thought I'd be making walls as fast as I can to take advantage of the milder season, and try to get the building enclosed before winter. But starting the winter garden and preserving autumn produce happen in the same limited weekend time, so we're just going to accept a more sedate building pace.

42 bottles of sunshine