Straw!

A big day, both in terms of significance and energy expended. I spent the morning clearing the shed of rubbish, the abandoned kitchen (we now brew up and eat in the house), insulation boards, plasterboard ( tricky one-man lift in the breeze) and owl-pellets, then left at lunchtime to guide the straw delivery to the plot from Morebattle. Oh - forgot - had a drop-off from Doves mid-morning of OSB for reveals and under-straw platform, and 4x2s for the remaining internal walls.
I'd reckoned on a good hour and a half to unload the first load of 300 bales. In the event we had them all off and stacked in about 50 minutes, with young Richard clambering to the top of the 8 tiers of bales on the trailer and chucking them down for his dad (Tommy) and me to stack. Bloody hard work - hot, dusty and itchy but very satisfying. They left to load up again, and I spent the next two hours removing all the firewood from the barn, covering the first 300 bales with tarpaulin and doing a bit on the roof - just laying a dozen slates and shifting the platform higher-still. Can almost reach the ridge now, and should be there tomorrow.
The second load of bales arrived just as I was finishing on the roof, and we repeated the unloading process. Anna arrived with the boys half-way through and mucked in while the boys did their best to trip us up. I'd reckoned on getting maybe 400 - 450 bales in our shed, with the overspill in the neighbour's barn, but in the event we squeezed about 580 into our shed. Seemed daft to stack the last 20 elsewhere, so we constructed a little platform immediately in front of the shed with breeze-blocks and sarking and piled them there instead. Paid Tommy £1500, and a crate of beer, which seemed to please him inordinately, then covered everything with a tarpaulin, fixed into the bales with fat 8" screws and weighed down at the bottom with blocks.
Absolutely knackered, but extremely happy to have secured the bales, harvested, cut, baled, transported, unloaded, stacked and covered without seeing a single drop of rain. Couldn't ask for better. All I need now is a few fine days in the next week ot two to get them into the walls.
Almost fell asleep cutting the grass at home, and DID fall asleep reading the boys' story!

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August 30th - Slating and a run

Work seems to be picking up again, and I had to knock off a couple of orders before I could head to the plot this morning. Neck, back and shoulders giving me terrible gyp, but not too bad once I got into the swing of it.
Retrieved the last of the roof brackets from the back pitch, which was a bit hairy from the ladder at full extension, and deployed it round the front. Moved the whole platform further up the roof and got cracking. Steady progress, although once again I was plagued by breaking slates (one of which took about 20 minutes to remove and replace, as it was several rows down from the top).
Called it a day at 5:30 and went for a run up Hownam Law - the prominent bump visible in lots of blog photos (see below).
Nice to see the house from the top of the hill. It's such a gorgeous view from up there that I'm glad we're not throwing up an ugly pebble-dash monstrosity to blight it.
Quote came in from Howdens for the kitchen, internal and external doors and stair parts. Kitchen, with solid oak doors, solid oak worktops and including hob and double oven was £4700-odd. Seemed quite reasonable, and I'm about to compare it like for like with Ikea.
Tom Wilkinson rang from Hawick in the evening to say the straw is now baled and will be delivered tomorrow, so the roof will have to wait a few days while I concentrate on getting the house ready for the bales, as I want to get them in while the air still has some warmth about it. We've already had a couple of morning mists, and the season is about to change.
Had an exchange of emails with Eco-build guru Nick Grant, the result of which is that I'm not going to render the straw before installing the membrane and cladding. Big relief, as it was going to be massively labour-intensive, time-consuming and pricey.

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August 29th - Groundhog Day

Another day slating on my own. After lots more fiddling and umpteen more broken slates I finally got clear of the two big rooflights, and should now make much better speed skyward. farmer Neil was buzzing about with his digger in the morning, levelling our field in readiness for sowing with grass-seed, so I collared him and asked him to shift the mound of earth from the east end of the building to let us make a start on the verandah. Keen to get Mal involved with that before he jumps ship, as I think the Aussie input will make all the difference.
I'm finding that I can carry fewer and fewer slates up the ladder at a time because of the aches and pains in my back, shoulders and right elbow. Not sure I'm cut out for all this manual toil!
Anna and the kids came in the afternoon, and Anna transferred the rockwool insulation from the shed into the snug to make space for the straw, which should arrive very soon. Must find some pallets...

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August 28th - Slating & child-minding

On my jack again today. Squeezed in a couple of hours of slating in the morning, then had to down tools and collect the wee men from school and take them home for lunch. Made it back to site around 2pm, by which time it was raining gently. Looked like it would pass over, so I worked inside for half an hour, running TV coax from the loft down to the snug, and telephone cable from the snug to the loft, from where I can distribute it around the first-floor when the pressure to be on the roof has eased. I should probably run networking cable to all rooms, as the house and all its functions will be controlled by robots within a few years, but I have neither the time nor the inclination. Don't tell Mal, but I had to remove one of his sheets of plasterboard from the ceiling to route the wiring, then put it back up with almost as many screws as he'd used originally.
Rain didn't last, and I spent the last few hours of the day slating and flashing to the top of one velux and setting up to crack on with the second one tomorrow. Broke about 3000 slates in the process. Must tell Doves about the bad batch and try to get them to replace them. No pictures again.
Not sure if the straw is going to happen at the weekend, although once Melvin's back on the job things might lurch forward again. Still quite a wee bit of preparation to do before the straw can go in the walls...

August 27th - Slating

All on my tod again today, with Mal away cladding in Foulden and Melvin reacclimatising having arrived back from Kenya yesterday. Borrowed some scaffold planks from Stevie Sudlow (SKS Joinery), which has enabled me to build a platform the full length of the scaffold.
Seemed like slow progress again, with lots of cutting and tinkering around the stepped fascia and then the velux units. Appear to have a bit of a dodgy batch of slates in the latest pallet, after two uniformly excellent pallets. Lots of "fool's gold" in them, and an annoyingly high number of rattly slates with fault-lines that fracture either when I'm cutting them, or, worse still, when they're in place.
Forgot the camera today. Also forgot cutlery, mug and milk, so lunch was a dry roll supplemented with chunks of cheese nibbled straight from the block, lubricated with water from the bottle!
Came over all cold and shivery late in the afternoon, and back was giving me gyp so I decide to knock off early. Hunted down a watch and discovered that it was almost half past six!
Should get past the velux tomorrow, after which things will speed up markedly. In danger of running out of slates if I can't get some delivered on Wednesday.
Need to turn my mind to the design of the verandah, and cadjole someone into shifting the earth so we can get it started. Also need to pull some more wires so Mal can close up the walls, but that can wait for a rainy day. In the meantime, while the sun is shining I'm making hay on the roof.
Talking of hay, dropped in at the Bells (next-door neighbours) and asked if I could store the straw in their barn for a week or so when it's delivered.
As there are no pictures today, I thought I'd let you see the traumatic effect that building a house can have on the hair (I've promised not to have mine cut until it's finished). The first pictures was taken during the foundation walls in June. The seconds was taken tonight...

August 26th - An appeal

Spent the morning bracing the scaffold, building another tower and lugging the planks up to form a platform. Another lovely day, but not as hot as the last couple. Discovered that slating around the stepped roofline at the front of the house was pretty tricky and time-consuming, with lots of cutting and a bit of lead flashing to work out. Our three boys and Buggy and Boo were on site, but disappeared for three hours up the hill with a picnic, arriving back muddy, bloody and shattered.

Mal spent the day inside, framing up the internal walls on the first floor. He's off the job for a week, fitting a kitchen in Edinburgh and cladding a house near Berwick.

I had a call from Tom Wilkinson in the evening. He's the contractor who'll be baling the straw later this week. Quoted £2 / bale, or £2.50 delivered.

And now the appeal. Building straw walls is traditionally tackled by a group of lusty, energetic volunteers - no honestly, it really is! A bit like an Amish barn-raising, but without the beards. I'm planning to get the straw into the walls during the first week of September starting on Saturday 1st. If anyone out there in blog-land feels like a day or two of wholesome manual toil in a gorgeous part of the country, maybe even learning a new skill or two I'd love to hear from you. Drop me an email at damon.rodwell@gmail.com or call me on 01573 440761.

Plenty of on-site camping space and a few local B&Bs if you want to make a holiday of it. Food, drink, banter and guaranteed fine weather will be provided.

Go on - bring a pal - it'll be a blast. No previous experience or building knowledge needed (although if you've ever used Lego, you'll be laughing!)

Cheers,

Damon

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August 24th - slating

Nicked into Border Slate for 4 more roof-brackets first thing, and then for what was supposed to be a brief visit to Magnet in Galashiels to look at kitchens. Managed to escape an hour and a half later, bamboozled by a Rhodesian saleswoman. A little the wiser, and at least they now have my stair spec to quote against.
Another scorching day on the roof. Kept my shirt on after yesterday's roasting, but I think my neck copped it a bit. Made much better progress with the additional platforms on the roof, and towards the end of the afternoon I finally made it to the ridge-line. Felt like I'd conquered an Alp!
Anna brought the kids, who played reasonably happily for most of the afternoon, chipping away at a large boulder with seams of amethyst running through it.
Mal back tomorrow for one day only...

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