Are we mad part 2....

I suspect I will continue with the 'are we mad' theme. When building the hempcrete wall it is important to protect it from direct sun for the first week or so and also from driving rain. Well that is all well and good until you have a very large and heavy tarp protecting your newly built wall and 100km/hr winds. As we watched the tarp bashing into the walls we were nearly in tears. It was too dangerous to remove the tarp because we could easily have been knocked off the ladder with a wind gust. Grant spent a near sleepness night wishing there was something he could do. Instead he dreamt of looking under the tarp and finding the entire wall had collapsed...thankfully it was just a dream.

The tarp has knocked bits of hemp from the wall but when you take into account the severity of the winds it held up remarkably well. Just the odd divet to patch up. We are now very unsure of the benefit of using a tarp at all, it seems to have caused more problems than it has fixed. Klara from the Australian Hemp Masonry Company has provided us with some suggestions on patching these spots so we will have a go at repairing the wall soon. The suggestion includes using 1:4 solution of bondcrete (lime binder) to water and use this to replace the water in a small mix.

We now have to prepare for rain, the slide is just an immediate measure to keep the water away from the wall until we buy some temporary downpipe.

Damage caused by the tarp bashing the walls

It's always satisfying to be able to use stuff lying around the house, in
this case it is a slide!

Not a perfect solution as it doesn't catch all the water from the box
gutter. I will try to improve this, heavy rains are expected this weekend.

I placed the water pump in here so that the water can be pumped away.