Minor Monumental Day

Most of this was meant for posting last week, but couldn't get online at our wi-fi point.

Minor monumental week!

This week we have the base of all the interior walls (except for 1m/yd we use for the wheelbarrow) started! It really makes the house start taking shape even more. I'm feeling better and better about the cob we are using. Feel its a pretty good mixture, and the walls, by design, are thicker just to be on the safe side. I think could have made them several inches thinner and still be fine, but it doesn't hurt anything, just means a little more mixing and more thermal mass in the house. Had a couple windy days this week, so we only worked a half day Wednesday. It's so exposed at the house site, a constant wind makes it cold and uncomfortable, as well as hard to keep the tarps down when mixing.

The Gutter

We poured the foundation trench as a rectangle, and since then added the bathroom above the building. That left a major wall inside the house. It doesn't need protection from the rain, but I was a little concerned about damp that the cement might draw. Our solution was to pour sidewalls to the cement foundation and then put +/-3cm of gravel in between. Feel that should be fine, be a solid base for the wall and be a vapor barrier of sorts.

Little hard to make out, but the yellow subsoil starts
where the soil is under cut.

Using Topsoil

One of my cobbing books says not to use topsoil, the other says they do! Our situation is so that we basically must use topsoil unless we want to dig up a lot of topsoil to get to the subsoil. The topsoil is around 2 feet/50cm deep. It then changes to a yellowish subsoil that is nice for making cob, but it is only a foot/25cm thick. Then it becomes nearly solid clay! I bought a pick a couple weeks ago, and it makes breaking that up much easier than before when we used just shovels. It was very windy Wednesday, so instead of cobbing, we worked in the “mine” and Lerato broke up a weeks worth or more of clay in 2 hours time. The rest of us worked at loosening soil and Notsi hauled it in the wheelbarrow to the site. I think it's a local thing as well, the topsoil here is mostly sand with 15% or so clay. It is darker than the subsoil, but out in the fields, where it hasn't rained for almost 2 months now, the ground is very hard. Can't dig with a round-nose shovel, afraid of breaking my “American” shovel. (Shovels here are shorter, haven't seen one long like a regular shovel in the States.) Whereas in Florida I wouldn't think of using topsoil, here, I think it is fine.

The Saw

Something that slipped by in the storeroom was the trimming. On the house, I've made sure to keep up with it. It is actually the oddest thing about building. I just take a saw, go along the edge of the wall, and cut off the excess sticking out. This usually happens because our cob doesn't hold it's shape perfectly and starts bulging out when it's still wet. Not really a problem, I just cut it true (haven't used it that much, but will carry a level with me to make walls straight up and down, especially on outer walls.) It's kind of a fun job, and afterwards I scoop up the trimmings and put it on a tarp to be remixed and put back on the wall again.

Fellow blogger

Shiloh has started blogging, just like Pappa! You can check out his blog, africathroughachildseyes.blogspot.com

Last Friday's photo.  Doorways just becoming visible.

Here's latest photo.  Bathroom wall is nearest, the one built
over the trench.

17 July

Rasusu went back to school, so we were back to 3 of us working: myself, Lerato and Notsi. We brought up the kitchen wall, bathroom wall, and then finished the base for the center wall. Wednesday we put down a nice thick layer on the walls, moving along!

Corné and I were looking at the inside of the stemwall today. The cement work isn't pretty. So, we are thinking of cobbing a thin layer over the inside of all the stemwall. That way, we can plaster the wall from floor to ceiling, and it should look nice. Going to try a test batch next week. Would have liked nice interior stone work, but we aren't that skilled, and trying to make it presentable would have taken even longer. Work on the stemwall took about two and a half months as it was! Honestly, it was the part of building that I liked least.