Lime has arrived

Now,  to many people the arrival of 11,000kg of lime doesn't seem that thrilling, but for us it was very exciting. I had spent a long time gathering quotes just to get the lime transported from Sydney to Melbourne. I then had the problem of having the lime transferred from the transport depot to our house. Transport companies won't drop off pallets at houses, only businesses.

The pallets of lime have to be put on a smaller truck along with an all terrain forklift that can make it up our bluestone lane and into our backyard....so many issues...so much to think about. After trying companies all over Melbourne David suggested we try Paddy's Bricks down the road from us....who would have thought that the business within a stone's throw from home would be the most helpful!! Go figure.. All was looking sterling until Gemma from Paddy's told me that their forklift was 2.5m wide and 2.5m high....grrrr...Grant spent hours moving the bluestones AGAIN to clear a wide enough path. Another issue was the highest entrance on to our slab was 2.4m high.  I went looking to hire or borrow a pallet truck and ended up buying one, like I always say, you can never have too many pallet trucks!...It should be useful over the next couple of months and at least there is no rush to return it. If anyone is interested in buying a hand pallet truck in a few months time, let me know!

Grant and Dad moving the lime with our new/old pallet truck.  I believe
Dad wanted to be in the photo to prove he played a role in the build!
Good on you Dad.

Gemma from Paddy's was able to maneuvre the forklift through
difficult terrain

I had to go and visit the lime at Paddy's to prove that it had actually arrived

Melbourne Cup Weekend

We live close enough to where the Melbourne Cup is run that we could hear the race calls in the distance and had helicopters flying overhead during the day. Sadly we didn't get to go to the races to enjoy, instead we painted fascia boards! I spent most of my time holding the ladder for Grant as he painted. We really needed to get the fascia boards done prior to the plumber installing the guttering and roofing. The peppercorn tree was a bit annoying to work around at times but we were disinclined to cut too many limbs from it because it is a main design feature of our renovation.

Grant used some mortar to blend the Clinka and the insulation. This
will be covered by render in the future

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We will be laying the boards (picture below) in between the floor joists
and then filling them with hempcrete for insulation. This link connects
the old house and the new and will have floorboards.

Boards to lay between the floor joists

Matt helped us obtain a good price for the zincalume, it is always
a good idea to get help from friends and family!

Frame is nearly done

The house is beginning to take shape, frame is complete

A few frame measurement issues

It always pays to double check any measurements. We marked out the frame dimensions on the brewery slab; 100mm in from the edge just like the extension after we corrected for the larger slab. MB Pre-fab built the frame to the size we marked out. Except that the brewery slab was poured to the correct size, so should have been marked to 50mm. Now the frame will only half sit on the Clinkablocks. To top it off, the frames for the extension were changed from the drawing to sit on the slab rather than the blocks, and due to a miscommunication, the brewery frames were extended as well.

Solution: I had to cut the frames down by 250mm and Nick decided to glue "soldiers" around on the inside to support the frame. So the wall's will now be 50mm thicker, but the problem is solved.
 

Soldiers glued in place on the brewery blocks

The double stud bracing wall- This made the timber portal frame possible

The concrete step up into the extension with creases from the plastic sheet - nothing a demolition saw can't fix

Running the feed wires for the solar panel

Looking up into the box gutter

The frame is looking lovely

I know it would be cold and wet in winter and hot in Summer but there is something quite pretty about a frame without any hard walls, beautiful shadows. I'm glad the polished concrete was covered as we had rain early this week. That lovely earthy looking floor is in fact 'earth'. Nick and the rest of the team from Caedman Construction should be back on deck this Monday.

Preparing for Hempcrete

Look at the trusses, some were put up today. We had the weekend to do some painting before the trusses went up. Hempcrete is made up of hemp and lime. Lime and steel are not compatible. The lime will cause the steel to rust, even galvanised steel is not protected. What this means is we have to paint every nail plate, nail and every bolt with bituminous paint, that's a lot of painting. You can see below the black paint on the trusses.

Another thing we have to do to prepare for the hempcrete was to tilt all the noggins on the frame. We had to cut through one of the nails on each side so that they could be tilted at around 30°. If the noggins remained horizontal it would be difficult to infill hempcrete under the noggin, whereas when they are angled the hempcrete should fill more easily. There is quite a lot of preparation!

The noggins have been tilted and renailed

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Tilly helping to paint the nail plates

Frame walls starts to take shape

It's been a very exciting week at our place. By ordering pre-made walls, the speed of erection (Kelvin Cunnington reference) has been very quick indeed. All this was done on the same day as delivery.

Friday afternoon drinks, one of Grant's homebrews.

Truck with walls and trusses arrived this morning at 8

Taking up most of the road, we were given prior advance of the imminent arrival of this truck by a neighbour in another street, as the truck took a wrong turn. It was hard to believe that the whole frame of the house could fit on the truck. Mind you, as soon as I saw the truck I couldn't believe that the load was for only one house! It was huge. Thankfully we had the full team of 6 builders on site as it took nearly all day to bring the frame on site.

As the builders had to bring the frame through our lane to get on site, they
used a piano trolley with chunky tyres to manage the bluestone lanes.

View from the window of a neighbour's home

Portal Frame is up

Grant painted the hardwood with an oil based primer that will form part of the portal frame. Although the wood will be completely surrounded by hempcrete the reason for painting it was to reduce the risk that tannins would leech on to the concrete and stain it. Any steel surrounded by hempcrete has also been painted to avoid the steel being corroded by the lime. Nick our builder (Caedman Construction) recommended a double paint treatment to protect the steel, Dulux Weathermax and Durebild.

Builders have covered the concrete with some plastic to avoid any (...further) damage.

Nice to see the scaffolding being used. We bought this a number of
months ago and it has been stored under our house until now. We
figure it was better to buy it and then sell it later rather than rent one
as we will need scaffolding for an extended period.

The portal frame was put up today. After a number of weeks of very little happening it has been great to see action happening at the back of our property. I'm a little stunned by the size of the frame. More things are to come tomorrow as the wall frames and trusses are to be delivered.

The footings that will form part of the link between the old house and
the new space.

Cripes....it looks huge!