Week Eight - of Scarf Joints and Sheep Wool

The barn is built on a slightly sloping site, north to south. One way of coping with this would be to have floor levels that step up as you move through the barn. The problem with doing that is you soon run out of headroom -  the trusses across the barn, are all at the same level.  So at the north end of the barn we’ll have to dig the floor into the slope. This means that the ground level at that end on the outside will be a bit higher than the floor level on the inside.

 

The north plinth wall of the barn has had to be ‘carefully taken down’ and rebuilt as a reinforced retaining wall made of high strength blocks and faced with reclaimed bricks.

Our engineer specified the use of  reinforcing bars in the foundation of the wall and stainless steel reinforcing mesh embedded in the mortar.

We're using something called Bricktor and had to ring round the country to find the right type and width. Eventually found a supplier in Somerset. And yes, you've guessed it - good thing I've got another arm and a leg stashed away.

Scarf Joints - The main trusses span the barn and hold the sides of the building together. Unfortunately they have completely rotted away at one end – the dreaded valley problem. There are 3 of them and they measure roughly 9 inch by 9 inch by 6 metres. We were surprised to discover that they're in fact softwood. Serious lumps of wood nonetheless.

Replace or repair? It seemed a shame to condemn such large timbers, which are otherwise in reasonable nick.

Our builder, joiner carpenter and jack of all the other trades, cut back each truss to sound wood and fashioned a new piece to fit.

To my mind the result is a fabulous piece of carpentry. Might get the electrician to install spotlights.

I’d never noticed before, but the slope of the roof sweeps up a bit at the bottom to throw the rainwater out from the wall. They call it a kick and, spookily, it’s achieved by attaching bits of timber called feet to  the bottom of each rafter.

Did I mention cripples? They’re the short rafters up the side of the valley. They’re called cripples because they’ve had their feet cut off. Charming eh?

I’ve just thought of a Modified Rule of thumb for telling the difference between cabinet making, joinery and carpentry. I’ll call it the  Splinter Test. What you do is run finger over it and see whether you get a splinter. (Perhaps that should be 'run your thumb over it', as this is a rule of thumb after all.) If you don’t get a splinter it’s cabinet. If you sometimes get a splinter it’s joinery. If you always get a splinter it’s carpentry. Cool huh? Can’t wait to try it out.

This week saw the construction of the manhole around around the borehole. 

At the beginning of the week a cement base was poured. A super duper brick surround was built at the end of the week.

The driveway from the road crosses a little bridge over a stream and swings left in front of the barn up to where the garage will be. The problem is, because they had to abandon the first borehole, the top of the well and the manhole cover are now smack in the middle of the drive, or at least, in the middle of what will be the drive. The advice is that it's not a problem - you just put a strong enough manhole cover on it. But I'm not happy with it. I don’t really want our water borehole to be in the middle of the driveway so we're looking at alternative routings, maybe putting the entrance south of the borehole and swinging the drive around it. Well well well.

Underpinning and concrete foundations north, south, east and west this week. 80% done and 80% still to do.

The utility room doorway with the frame held up on acrows. Note different levels inside and out. 

We're still agonising over the wall construction. Celotex just between the studs won't give us the U-value we need, and Celotex outside and between the studs will. The difficulty with that is that cutting and shaping the Celotex between the studs is very labour intensive. So we're looking at using Celotex outside and sheep wool between the studs. We reckon we've got the depth of stud to be able to fit in enough wool to achieve the level of insulation we want, while avoiding the extra labour cost. Sounds too good to be true. There is a down side of course. It means we'll be covering up most of studs leaving only the principle posts visible. And there's the issue of vapour control to think about.  Nothing's ever simple is it?

In an article in one of the housebuilding and renovating comics the writer says that he often got depressed over how long it was taking and how much it was costing. He went on to say that visits to the site usually lifted his spirits as he got back in touch with why he'd taken it on in the first place. We go to site pretty much every day, and I know exactly what he means. Here's a view from the scaffold which never ceases to amaze me. The fields, the trees, the church tower in the distance. Pretty as a picture.

And finally, a couple more frames for the time lapse movie