Topping Out

Today we topped out on the main roof of Speckled Wood, quite an occasion.We still have some work to go on the link and the verandah to be completely finished, but that should all get completed tommorow.

The last of the cleft shingles went on this morning.

And then it was on to the ridge. We are using what Chris tells me he has decided should be called a pie crust closure on the ridge. We were trying to avoid using any materials other than sweet chestnut, but we needed something a bit more close fitting than our hand cleaved shingles, so some were machined out of chestnut from the woodland you can see in the background of some of these pictures.

The idea is that these sawn shingles run horizontally along the top of the ridge with a slight vertical overlap so that they shed the water without allowing any in. We have also run a small strip of waterproof membrane under them just in case. I realise that description might not make much sense, but hope the pictures give an idea of how it works.

The pie crust ridge worked its way across the building throughout the day with everyone on the team taking a turn. Towards the end of the afternoon Sam nailed the last one on.

We’d had a target of four weeks to finish the roof, and frankly after week one it was looking pretty unlikely. But with lots of hard work from Chris, Sam, the Black Down team, Justin and his crew, our many fantastic volunteers and all those who came along to help out it has all fallen into place. I couldn’t be more chuffed, the roof is a thing of absolute beauty, reptilian in texture it wraps the building and keeps the elements at bay.

There are still a few more shingles to nail onto the verandah roof, but I suspect they will be a pleasure.

The straw bales are here

The straw bales for our walls started to arrive on site this week. We don’t have any National Trust arable land on this estate, but we managed to get our straw from the farm next door, so it hasn’t come far.

Straw bales have fantastic insulation properties, and if used in the right way, make an economical and very environmentally freindly walling material. They also go up satisfyingly quickly.

Fisrt of all a bale ladder was built all the way around our new oak floor at the outside edge of the building. You should also be able to see how the lovely new floorboards have been protected with a corrugated black plastic cover, just to make sure they aren’t damaged during the rest of the build.

The bale ladder is made of Black Down pine, it keeps the bales off the floor, each of the gaps in the ladder was filled with sheepswool insulation, and then the bales go on top.

A metal bale spike is attached to each “rung” of the ladder to secure the first course of bales.

After that it is a bit like massive lego as the layers of bales are built up. Each bale is held in place with two wooden bale spikes which are hammered through it into the bales below, this keeps the whole wall really sturdy and solid.

The bale spikes are made out of coppiced sweet chestnut, we have been lucky to have the help of another working holiday this week, amongst lots of other jobs the volunteers were working up in one of our coppices cutting the spikes for us.

On the outside of the building the bales will either be lime rendered (if they are protected beneath a verandah) or have a cladding of oak boards. Where the oak boards are going a frame of studwork is being built. You can see it in the picture below, you can also see where the floor is starting to be created for the link building which will connect Speckled Wood to Hunter Basecamp. This link building is where our biomass boiler will be going (quite excited about that!).

On the other walls where the render will go a chicken wire mesh has been constructed against the straw, this will help hold the render in place, it did look like some sort of strange fight club cage when it was being built, but none of it will be visible in the finished structure.

Everyone here has been working really hard again this week, and the results are plain on site, the build is motoring forward at the moment, its been fascinating seeing so many different parts of the structure coming together, I’ve been interested in straw bale use in construction for a long time, and have really enjoyed seeing ours starting to go into place.

Scaffolding

Or lack of it, we started the day like this:

By lunchtime the scaffolding had all come down:

I know the scaffolding wasn’t hiding much of the structure, but for some reason with it out of the way the whole thing looks so much more elegant. You get a feel of the wood, and the time and effort that has gone into creating the frame.

The interior space suddely looks really big again, in the finished structure half of the building will be open from floor to eaves, today for the first time I got an image of what this will be like.

The verandah frame was put on its padstones yesterday as well. The next verandah frame is now on the framing bed being put together. Soon all of the frames will be finished and then you will be able to see the footprint of the whole building.

The next couple of weeks will be a really good time to come and see the structure if you are nearby, as its at a really pretty stage. Fairly soon protective tarpaulins will be going up to keep our straw bale’s dry. But until then you will be able to see the whole frame looking fantastic.

The wall plate and newel…

The shape of the new building has been starting to emerge over the past few weeks as more of the timbers that form it have been added to the structure. When the body of the roof went on you started to get a feel for some of the finished dimensions, both internal and external.

Work has been continuing on the roof this week, but a couple of pretty interesting pieces of the structure have also been put into place as well.

The second set of wall plates have gone on, these hold the rafters as they go over the top of the straw bale walls. Now they are in you can see the gaps within which the bale walls will fit. Getting them into place with the roof and scaffolding in the way is a bit like threading the needle on a large scale. A gap in the scaffolding has a roller attached to it and then the telehandler is brought in to move the timber.

You should be able to see that it has already had the mortices cut in it so that it will slot straight onto the tenons that had been cut on top of the outer jowels.

Once the end was resting on the roller a bit of nifty reversing and driving is required to get the timber to roll over it up onto the scaffold into position.

Another timber that has been added to the structure this week is the newel post for the stairs. The stair treads will rediate out from this post as they wind around and up to the first floor, you can imagine resting a hand on it as you go upstairs. Its nice seeing some of the timbers going in that that will see the most of the people who will be living here.

It was lifted into the building mechanically but then raised into place using a block and tackle. The bottom of it rests on a padstone, and the top is attached to the rafters.

On a totally seperate note, if you followed my method for making elderflower champagne, now would be a good time to let a bit of pressure out of the bottles, I know from bitter experience just how messy a job it is cleaning up spills from exploded elderflower bottles and am hoping to save people some of the same trouble!

Sheep shearing

This week the sheep that graze the speckled wood orchard got their annual haircut.

Unfortunately my shearing skills leave rather a lot to be desired. I get the wool off, but they look a bit like they have been through a mincer and my time per animal is so bad I wont even mention it here.

So, Susie the shearer came to visit, and I am sure the girls were gratefull to be dealt with by her rather than having to put up with me.

Even so the one that is waiting to be shorn in the picture above has a decidedly suspicious look on her face. She is the oldest of the sheep and has seen it all before, she still didn’t seem too grateful though.

The fleeces will go to my freind Polly to be spun. I am told Jacob’s produce good quality wool for spinning, with the added bonus that you get both light and dark colours off one animal.

Its incredible how different they look after their haircut, they look about half the size. You might not believe it now, but it was a really sunny day and you can’t help wondering how it would have felt to be wearing that thick a wooly jumper and then taking it off, must be quite a relief.

The new building will be insulated using sheeps wool. Unfortunately my tiny flock only produced 8 fleeces, so the insulation will have to be bought in. Its been nice to see it being used more for insulating buildings in recent years though, it always seems a shame that at the moment many people still struggle to find a market for their fleeces. Wool production used to be such an important industry in this country, it shaped many of our best loved landscapes, maybe it is something that will become more important again in the future.

Withyfield Cottage

Last weekend I went over to Partridge Green for an open day to see a house that Ben Law and his team have recently finished building. It’s called Withyfield Cottage and was built as a self catering holiday let at Merrion Farm. I thought I could get some ideas about internal finishes, but it was also a chance to be a bit nosey and see how the build had turned out, I last saw it on a rainy cold day in January.

The roof and studwork had just been finished and the straw bale walls were starting to go in.

Six months later and the building is all finished and ready to let.

Some of the materials used at Withyfield are different to the ones we are using here at Swan Barn Farm, but the principle of using locally sourced sustainably produced wood is the same and it was really interesting to have a look around. The shingle roof in particular looks great, very different to the finish we will get on ours though, Withyfield’s is made of sawn western red ceder, ours will be made of sweet chestnut cleaved by hand.

The verandah looked like a lovely space to sit in the evening, and there were some nice touches on display in the way the wood had been jointed and finished.

Inside the cruck arches fly up through the open spaces to support the roof and floors.

Thanks very much to the owners for letting me have a look around. It was interesting to see how the building had turned out and made me start to think about how we are going to finish the inside of Speckled Wood.

Up go the rafters

Work on the roof of the speckled wood building has started, and today the first of the rafters went up.

They span the gap between the ridge pole and wall plates, on them will sit a membrane, then counter battens, battens and finally the shingles which people have been working so hard in the woods to make for us. Seeing the first shingle going on is going to be quite something, hundreds of hours of dedicated work by many teams of volunteers has gone in to making them.

The rafters were sawn out earlier in the spring here at Swan Barn Farm using Douglas Fir which we had felled just up the road.

They were cut out of some pretty hefty 5 metre long pieces of timber, fortunately our sawmill has a hydraulic handling system built into it which makes moving the timber into position much more easy. Above you can see Catherine cutting out 14 inch wide boards which were later cut in half to make 7×2 inch rafters.

Joining roundwood to sawn timber is quite a skill, the ridge pole and wall plate are made out of pretty long tree trunks, and so taper along their length. Getting the rafters to sit level so that the roof will be square takes some very careful jointing work.

Small notches are cut to the right depth to ensure they all sit at the right level. I’ve always thought that with any practicle work you can tell when someone is very good at it, they always manage to make it look easy, even when you know it isn’t. The guys on the framing team seem to have been doing a lot of that lately.

Its a bit difficult to tell from the picture above because of all the scaffolding, but the gable end frame has been erected as well, this is the one thats going to have glazing let into its roundwood poles. I reckon its going to look pretty smart.

An evening at the Haslemere Hall

If you are local to Haslemere you might like to know about an event our Local Supporters group (http://www.haslemere.com/localnationaltrust/) are kindly hosting for the project at the Haslemere Hall in Bridge Street (http://www.haslemerehall.co.uk/about-haslemere-hall/).

Its on friday 28th January at 7.30pm and admission will be free, allthough there will be opportunities for people to make a donation to the project if they feel able. I think there may even be a glass of wine for people afterwards as well. The idea is to present the project to local people and to try and explain a little about what we are trying to achieve. I hope it will also be an opportunity to introduce Swan Barn Farm to some people who may not know much about the place or the easy access there is to it from the High Street.

Ben Law will be there to speak about his buildings and his designs for the project at Swan Barn Farm. I will be there to explain a little of the background to the project as well as how it links some of the beautiful countryside surrounding the town. There will be an opportunity for people to ask questions afterwards.

We have been lucky to have lots of local support especially with the planning application, I hope some of you who got involved can make it along to find out a bit more about what we are up too.