The Final Frame

The last of the main frames of the building was lifted into place last week, that doesn’t mean we haven’t still got a long way to go, but it does mean we are moving properly onto the next phase.

It was the frame for the outer edge of the last of the verandahs. It was constructed on the framing bed at the back of the basecamp over the past week or so. It had to be shifted from there round to the opposite side of the building and stood up on its padstones, another job for the telehandler. It was a bit more tricky this time as there is scaffolding in place for the roof which needed to be driven around (you can just make out the edge of it to the left of the telehandler in the picture above).

Once it had been lifted up it was driven around to the front of the building. This is always a bit tense, the frame is designed to stand upright in the building, and when it is being moved the pressure is running the wrong way through the frame. The timbers are pretty hefty though and the jointing has been expertly done, so each frame has fealt solid on the move.

After sneaking it past the scaffolding the frame was spun round and raised upright.

Have just seen the face I was pulling from the cab of the telehandler, not exactly sure what that expression means, but hopefully I was concentrating.

It was then a question of driving the frame in and dropping it off on its padstones.

Last minute tweaking of position and lining up was done by Dylan with the comedy hammer.

The joists are now being put in for the verandah floor on this side of the building, when these are in place the full footprint of the build will have appeared on site. Dylan told me how he particularly likes the curved appearance of the final frame, he said it hugs the building. Using roundwood for the main structure of the building has been a real eye opener. The character of the wood leads the eye and gives a soft, natural feel. It makes the building sit well within the wooded landscape here at Swan Barn Farm and gives a built record of the management of the woods.

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!

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.

The joists are going in

Today the joists started to go in to the building, real progress, which I thought was pretty exciting, it marks the start of the frame becoming a house. The joists will support the floorboards, on which people who work in the woods will walk. Thats what I like about this project, the whole thing is so circular.

The joists are made of douglas fir. You may remember the trees we are making them out of being felled earlier in the year.

They came from a plantation not far from Lion Green in Haslemere. Thinning the trees in plantations is really important if any wildlife is to live in them, it also allows the remaining tree’s to grow to their full potential. If you find yourself walking in a plantation the most interesting place to look is usually where any small glades have been cut in it, thats where the wild flowers and birds will be found.

Once they were felled the tree’s were cut to length and brought back to Swan Barn Farm.

The five meter lengths were for rafters and the three and a half meter pieces were for joists. You may notice I have developed the unfortunate habit over the years of mixing metric and imperial measurements in a slightly odd way, its a habit I have noticed Ben also seems to have. For example our joists were cut at 8 x 2 inches by 3.5 metres long. I suppose it comes partly out of the mix of people you work with with in the woods but it also seems that imperial measurements are still used in most building projects, they are just given in multiples of 25 millimetres. It can be confusing sometimes, our sawmill for example has a ruler mounted on it which only shows inches and a computer which measures in millimeters. Best not to worry about it too much, it all seems to work out in the end.

Once they were back here at the farm the timbers then needed to go onto our sawmill in order to be turned into joists.

The timber is squared up to start with, we plan to use the offcuts from the outside of the log in our biomass boiler when it is installed. Then some 1 inch thick boards were taken off the outside to create a blank 8 inches wide. The 1 inch boards don’t go to waste, they were resawn into 4 x 1 inch planks, you will see where they are being used in a bit.

The 8 inch wide blank is then sawn into as many joists as you can get out of it. On the bigger logs we could take 2 inch boards from around the outside and then recut these into 8 x 2′s as well. Learning to see the timber within the wood and making a plan for how to cut it out is one of the key skills in sawmilling, one we are hopefully doing ok at.

This was one of the last pieces to be milled, in the background you can see the stack of sawn joist’s waiting to be taken up to the building.

Today some of the timbers off that stack found their way to the end of their journey.

Above you can see them running away from the camera. They are hung in the bays that are created by the main underfloor oak beams. Each joist has a piece of 4×1 inch douglas fir screwed onto its underside before it is put into place. This sticks out an inch either side of the joist and is there to hold up a layer of insulation.

We will be using sheeps wool for insulation. The sheep in the Speckled Wood orchard are due to be shorn soon, but there are only 7 due a haircut, clearly not enough to insulate a building. The sheeps wool insulation will have to be bought in, but if I’m lucky my friend might knit me a pair of socks from the fleeces of the sheep in the orchard.

Raising the Frames

Yesterday was the day of the frame raise for the new building, and what a day it was.

Everyone was up an about early, one of the first jobs for the day was to make a wreath, we wanted it to go up on the frames for good luck. I went out on to Black Down to find a pretty special tree I know. Its a Rowan, one of the largest on the hill, Rowans are thought by some to bring luck, which certainly couldn’t do any harm.

I took what we needed, said thank you, and left a small present in return.

We added in some hawthorn and wild rose flowers from the hedgerows here at Swan Barn Farm, and then it was hung on the first frame.

Ben led the raise, the Black Down Countryside team and Roundwood Timber Framing Company team gathered together for a safety breifing and a run through of the plan. Then something rather special happened. You may not believe me, but its true, and it set the theme for the day. Some time ago we decided to name the building Speckled Wood after the pretty little woodland butterfly. As we were waiting to start a Speckled Wood butterfly flew in and landed on a mallet, we could hardly believe it, in front of the whole frame raise team it then took off, flew into the site and landed on top of one of the frames before it took off once more and dissapeared. It was just that sort of day.

The ridge pole was brought in to the site and settled in the top of the first frame, and then the raise began.

There were four frames to raise, they were pulled up using a hand winch which was anchored to one of our tractors which we had parked at the end of the site.

The first frame reached up into the sky and dragged the ridge pole up with it.

We then used the telehandler to hold the ridge pole up and out of the way whilst the other frames were being winched into position.

We knew before we started that the first two frames were going to be pretty tricky, getting them in the right place before any of the rest of the structure is in place to brace things was really quite difficult. But the inevitable problems that came up were dealt with calmly and the raise proceeded as palnned. Quite a few people had shown up to watch from the field next door, which was really nice, if you came along I hope you enjoyed it.

As frame two came up there was a fair bit of manouvering of the ridge pole that had to be done to ensure it didnt push against the ridge and knock the first frame out of position. We had a cloudbirst of rain at this point as well, and everything was all rather tense. In the end though everything slotted in to place and it was on to frame three.

Things were gradually starting to get a bit easier, as the frames were braced together everything was becoming more stable, and the tension was starting to lift. Frame three was our target before stopping for lunch, which was sometime after 3 oclock !

Once this frame was in position we could finally remove the telhandler, which had been supporting the ridge pole all day. That meant the last frame came up without any noise from machinery, you could hear the birds singing in the woods as the frame was winched upright.

The last frame slotted into position and deep breaths were drawn all round. It looks pretty impressive now as you come down the lane to the farm, if you get chance to come and have a look its well worth it.

There is clearly a long way to go before it becomes a building, but yesterday was a very proud day. So many people have worked so hard to get us this far, I think the frame is a tribute to all of them.

By the time we were finished and tidied up it had been a  long day. Fortunately we had a batch of Swan Barn Farm cider chilling in the fridge. We fired up the bbq in front of the basecamp and settled in to toast the successes of the day.

As you can imagine we fealt in a pretty celebratory mood, and the party went on well in to the early hours.