The renovation will be finished by Christmas

Everyone wants to know when we think we will finish the renovation. We just don't have any idea as there are a number of factors at play, our standard answer is now Christmas...although we aren't sure which Christmas.

However we are working hard over the Easter break (who said break!) and we are up to some of the very tricky bits to hemp. Mainly above the highlight windows and then onto areas such as below. I hope to have another blog entry next week with some more progress shots, fingers crossed.

An old photo from a few months ago, however I wanted to show
the area above the windows and high up towards the roofline
that still needs to be hemped.

Grant preparing the timber to place above the sliding door near the
kitchen and bifold door near the dining space.

The angled timber will be placed on the boards to help support the
hemp and anchor it to the wall where it doesn't envelop the frame. 

Note how the timber has been cut to provide a hemp anchor.

Sam working hard today.

The set up of our scaffolding, tamping and hemping tools ready to go.

The parapet

Hemping around the parapet, near the link to the old part of the house.

That's me looking rather fetching if I say so myself, particularly like the
sombrero and knee pad combination.

Grant amongst the rafters hemping above the highlight window, not
the easiest of tasks, Sam also got to do some of this tricky stuff. Don't
worry Alan, we have left some for you! I, on the other hand was a bit
too scared to climb up to the very top of the scaffolding.

Brewery progress!

Well we have had a busy month, Grant took a week off during March. Grant's dad was also able to come over to help for a number of days, I hope you are enjoying retirement Alan!! The plan was to get the hemp walls built around the brewery/workshop...who am I kidding, it's a brewery! The first couple of metres worked very well. Grant and Alan set up the formwork so the entire perimeter could be completed in one go. It's much easier than doing a wall at a time and having to grade out at the end of the formwork. Sometimes we have been so keen to get the pan mixer going, but really it is much better to have more formwork set-up before starting. Of course, more formwork equals more cost, but we have managed to pick up some used concreting formwork and kept the costs in check.

Section of the brewery

Julian and some of the other builders putting battens along the ceiling
in preparation for the MgO board

A bit of the step that runs from the link to the renovation. When the concrete
was poured the plastic made this large crease.
Nick has ground it back and will grout the last bit before it is polished.

Battens in place, we just need to make room and order the MgO board.

Hemping around these pillars has not been easy so we are hoping our
novel method of adding fast wheels to help the hemp adhere to the
pillar works. Time will tell.

Julian and Paul adding the battens

Nick discussing the door jamb with Grant!

Beer and building make for a happy pair. We reused the beer wort
container (we have been buying wort as we are too busy building to
brew a full mash)

Grant managed to make a large scoop out of the container. This is to
help us get to the tricky parts of the wall, such as when the wall
meets ceiling.

Progress for February

Once again we have only managed to work on the house over the weekend and the odd day here and there. We now have hemp surrounding the entire renovation up to to at least 2.4m - it is a milestone. We are getting close to the stage of using the hempcrete as ceiling insulation. We will be lining the ceiling with MgO boards (a board that looks like plasterboard but is breathable) then dumping a mix of lime, hemp and water (no sand this time). This will then join up with our hemp walls so that our ceiling and walls will be completely cocooned.

looking towards the front of the house

this area above the highlight windows was particularly tricky to hemp
with big beams and a small gap between the formwork and roof. It could be worse.
There would be less gap with a skillion roof.

you can see where the hemp has been finished to, right where the black
bituminous paint is, the hemping will continue all the way along

The west side of the link, the hemp is finished within the old part of the
house, in fact the hempcrete is filled right up against the old back door.

We do have 3 tonnes of lime in one of the sheds but as you can
see we are down to 4 pallets of lime still sitting on the extension floor.

this was our lime

Looking into the window from the north, eventually there will be some
decking here.

Filling holes and Fast wheels

Matilda has been filling these conduits with hempcrete left over from the end of the day.

She hands them to me and I insert them into the holes and use a piece of bamboo to push the hempcrete into the wall. It is a job that needs to be done yet we are able to complete it in a relaxed way, when we have both the time and the leftover hempcrete.

The fast wheels are used to provide something more substantial for the hempcrete to hold on to when we have only 50mm deep hempcrete. We are experimenting with this and some of the wheels have had some OSB added to make it easier to pack hempcrete behind the fast wheel.

Pushing in the hempcrete using the bamboo.

the completed western wall with holes filled

This is a filled in hole,  I have tried to make it either flush or a little
under so that it will be easier for the renderer to achieve a flat surface

We have added a little piece of OSB when we screw in the fast wheels to give it some depth.
Hopefully by doing this we will give the hempcrete something firmer to hold on to when there
is only 50mm of hempcrete.

The fast wheels get covered up with the hempcrete. Note we have also
painted the nail with bituminous paint.

Hempcreting is easy, formwork takes time

Grant has taken a week off work to get more hempcreting done, Alan, his dad has been coming over every day and they have made great progress. We realised that we needed to move some pallets of lime (3 tonnes) into the tin shed as this will be used as part of retrofitting the rear of our house. It will give us some space within the renovation to access the ceiling more easily when we start insulating it with a hemp and lime mix. We will be using MgO boards for the ceiling and then adding 100mm of hemp and lime as insulation.

There has been some frustration when the mixer is not turning. You have a real sense of satisfaction every time you tamp down hempcrete. The fact is formwork takes longer to set up than the hemping.  We didn't design the renovation with careful attention to how the formwork would work...but hey this is all new to us and lessons are learnt. Grant is getting pretty good at making formwork and he ended up buying some plywood seconds so that formwork set up can be created ahead of the hemping.

I cleared out this shed so that Grant, Fynn and Alan could move 3 tonnes
of lime into it, giving us space to put up scaffolding inside and outside. 

Our western wall is now complete, any further work on this will be
when we fill the top of the trusses and add the ceiling insulation

This is a large window and sliding door opening that is nearly
completely filled with hempcrete

The southern wall in the living area is now complete. There are still
some holes from the conduit that I need to fill.

The west side of the link has now been filled up to 1.2m.

6 weeks into the hempcreting - a few progress shots

6 weeks in and things seem to be going pretty well. We are having visitors tomorrow, Neil and Sandy, fellow hempcreters we met before we began building. We are looking forward to catching up with them and to be honest it will be another great opportunity to pick their brains. You may notice the rather strange shadow image below. Well lime dust stiffens the hair somewhat, you want a pineapple look, with lime dust you too can achieve that look!!

This is my new method for avoiding whacking my head on the rafters.
My hair is my alert system. Got to say I look ridiculous but it works
very well. The risk is you have a visitor come over..yes it happened and
it was a little embarrassing, particularly when it is my friend Cazz bringing
over a friend, in this case Scott from the Bright Brewery, he seemed
to take it in his stride.

My brother Paul protecting both his head and shoulders with this
rather swanky sombrero

The southern wall from the inside

This is a photo looking over the western wall to the roof of our
kitchen, the scaffolding is at its highest point here

I was up that high, yikes! That is the highest point in the build.

This is the western wall, we removed a window from here as an
economic measure, I think it is better as the western sun can be
blisteringly hot. We have been using a pulley to hoist the hempcrete
up high. The pulley system works well.

It's quite scary up there

The southern wall from the outside, I think it looks terrific.