Finally Started Stacking! Lots of Pics!!!

This is really nothing but a picture post, I have don't have anything to say other than I am so happy we are finally building a wall.

1/2" Strapping we will use to tie bond beam to foundation

Strapping tensioner tool

We made these T's to tie the interior walls into the bales

We made corner frames to keep everything straight and square

Another pick of temporary corner frames

First bales being installed

It didn't take long to get this far

This is how I am dividing bales when necessary

The first window buck is installed.

Notice the wall T's? We installed them into the wall with rebar.

That is all I uploaded today, I will try to post more pictures tomorrow.

Starting The Bucks

Wow, talk about a lot of rain. When it wasn't raining, it was Thanksgiving. Then it started raining again. I was starting to think we were being cursed, but the weatherman says no rain ahead for the next couple of weeks give or take the small 20% chance on two different days during that span. Fingers crossed!

Today we started making the door bucks and cut all the wood for the window bucks, we will fasten them together and finish the big window along with the double door tomorrow. You will see in the pictures below that we opted to make the bucks out of  2" x 12" boards because we felt that would be a much better/stronger option to keep the doors and windows squared up well. Our doors are all 8' tall and almost all of the windows are 6' tall.

This is the wood we purchased to make the bucks

First door buck 36"x 96"

Another view of the first door buck

Second door buck 36"x 96"

Cutting window bucks

5 window bucks cut, just need to be fastened and squared

Wood that is left to make the double door and 14' long window plus enough leftover to make some unrelated chairs :)

Remember baby Freedom born on election day, here are a couple of pictures of his super cuteness below.

Starting to eat haygrazer

Freedom is nursing smashed between his momma Lily and aunt Daisy

More pictures to come, hopefully tomorrow after we finish the rest of the bucks and other framing related stuff.

Rain delayed progress

So almost immediately after pouring the slab it rained, and rained, and rained for days. I know it is actually a good thing because it allows the concrete to cure slowly. A slow cure equals a stronger foundation.
After the rains stopped, a baby was born. Election day brought us a jersey bull calf that we named "Freedom".

It's hard to top that, so, yeah, I have nothing better to tell you, but I will go on.....

progress wasn't all lost, we shopped a lot for things that we needed to get started. I bought the strapping, tightener, and buckles that we will use to tie the bond beam to the foundation. The lumber that we will use to make the door and window bucks was also purchased. Some other items, including a bigger air compressor, huge tarp to cover the bales, nail gun (we lost the old one in the fire of 2015), and other items to hook up the air compressor etc. were picked up as well. We really have only a few more things to buy before we will have everything ready to build the shell.

Our trusses were delivered on Tuesday, I wasn't expecting them for another week and a half. Yesterday we went to look at the bales that we will use, it was about 45 minutes away, and today the bales were delivered, it was actually pretty amazing, I texted Daren in the morning and he was able to squeeze me in because he had just bailed yesterday for another customer who ended up canceling because their equipment was down. He had 424 and we wanted 400. Perfect! Below are pictures of trusses and bales.

The trusses have a 7:12 pitch

Daren the hay guy

400 wheat straw bales

 

 

The pallets we got from tractor supply today to set the bales on. They were free!

 

 

 

 I will try to update again soon. To tell you the truth, I am really proud of myself for getting this many posts in so far. Way to go me!

And a Foundation is Born!

Woke up at 6am this morning to get ready for the concrete trucks. I was so excited, it didn't even feel early.
Alex Castillo (ACC Builders) was already up at the gate waiting for his finishing guys when we drove up to open it up for the trucks. Two thumbs up for a great concrete/foundation installer. Below are the pictures from today's pour, everything went well with no hitches. Notice the rebar for the bales to sit on and the eye-bolts we will use to strap the bales to the foundation. 

Rough-in Plumbing Done!

I just remembered that I never posted pics on the rough-in plumbing, gas and electrical. Here are those pictures....

Waiting On Concrete

Not much has been going on since the last post. We are just waiting on concrete. There is only one concrete plant within 30 miles that will deliver to us so we are at their mercy. This Tuesday is our pour date, i will post about the concrete pour Tuesday evening if I don't get sidetracked.

We did unload the doors and windows today so I decided to post some pictures. I am still trying to decide what color I will stain them.

Foundation is getting started!

Today they started our foundation! I am very excited, it's been almost a year since we moved to our property and living in a RV has been okay, but not great. I am ready to move out now.

The foundation will look like this.....

The exterior beam looks like this.....

And the exterior wall will be 3 1/2" higher than the floor, like this....

I took a couple of pictures of the foundation boards they have erected below.

 That's it for today, I will update again when more stuff gets done.

Buying Doors, Windows, etc.

I don't have any pictures for this post, I am kicking myself for not taking pictures of the most awesome doors ever, but in time, everyone will see them. Anyway, we purchased our doors and windows at a place that has new and previously installed stuff. Our doors are all new, but thanks to Trevor, we got them at used prices.

The windows are restocks, that really don't all match, but they won't be in the same rooms and look close enough that the savings was well worth it.

Now let me tell you about the interior doors, they are solid knotty alder, 8' tall and absolutely beautiful. Our house was supposed to be 9' tall, but now, because of these doors, we are going up to 10' ceilings. Our front door is an eight foot tall full glass knotty alder also. I can't wait to see these installed.

We also did some shopping at HD for our plumbing and electrical rough in. That's just the boring stuff in my opinion. It will be nice when that foundation is finished and we can get to stacking, oh wait, it needs to be started first.

Other things I have done are....
I worked on acquiring our straw bales, I think I found 48" x 18" x 16" bales for $3 each, I am waiting on a shipping quote. I also moved stuff around on my plan again, I really need to stop changing things now, once we start the foundation, everything needs to stay put. Almost forgot, I purchased our flexible gas line from Amazon because Home Depot doesn't carry it.

I will post more updates as we get going. Thanks for reading. 

If you need doors and windows in the Austin area, I highly recommend a visit to http://www.dooroutlet.biz/

Starting The Straw Bale House

I would like to point out right off the bat that I am not, nor claim to be a writer, this blog is just a diary of our build so that people can either learn from our mistakes or from our genius ideas.

This is the house plan I designed, it only took me 3 years and about eight other plans I designed to finally decide on this one. It is a simple house design for our first straw bale construction and has everything we need. The exterior foot print is 32' X 52', the interior square footage is about 1380.

Alrighty, we are finally starting the foundation!
Of course we have been working long hours before this day, like getting our house plan done and pricing everything out, but today was the first day we spent our money. Today we bought the rebar and fill dirt for our foundation.

 

It was actually a lot of back and forth deciding on what kind of structure we wanted to build, first straw bale, then earth bag, back to straw bale, then the complete block system, a freaking manufactured home because I am so sick of this RV, now back to straw bale. I am so glad I didn't take the easy way out, manufactured homes are just not energy efficient enough to eventually go completely solar, but that adventure will be for a whole new blog I imagine. 

I will try to keep up with this blog, but like I said before, I am not a writer and on top of that, I have a fairly short attention span. Let's all cross our fingers that I stay on track and see this through.