Muddy Hands

Mud floor begins

It's been nearly a month now since we did the tests for our earthen floor. We tested three mixes and based on the shrinking and cracks we noticed, we decided on a mix between A & B (the two closest ones in the picture below).

Ready to start mixing and pouring the first earthen layer of the floor, we built two mixing pits. For each pit we formed a square pen out of four straw bales and draped a large tarp over them.

The mix for the floor is 6 parts clay, 10 parts sand, 9 parts gravel, and some straw mixed in at the end. 

The first step is adding the soaked clay.

Then the sand is added and we stomp on the mixture until all the clay chunks are broken up and completely incorporated with the sand.

 

Once this is done it's time to add the gravel. Axel helps get some gravel for the floor here.

Then it's stomped on some more. For this part it's best to wear shoes you don't mind getting muddy or expect a good, with some "ouches," foot massage.

Above is Holden, part of a family of WWOOFers we've been hosting this May. They were a big help stomping the floor mixes. Axel also got in on the floor mixing. Another reason we love natural building - kids can help!

We started mixing and laying the floor May 6th. We started under the stairway/in the closet. By 10:30 am on May 7th we made it into the bathroom/hall area.

An hour later, with four adults mixing the cob floor, the floor was expanding.

And here it is just two days later.

Here is the floor on May 15th. You can see how we use wooden boards to keep each pour contained and level. 

 

We then remove the board and fill in it.

Everyone seems to really enjoy mixing the floor and seeing it expand. It's nice to end the day with muddy feet...

... muddy hands...

... and smiles.

Preparing for the earthen floor pour

Early last August we laid the first layer of the earthen floor, a 6 inch layer of drainage rubble. Last winter we did our best to protect it from debris that could clog it. We laid tarps on top where we could.

You can see from the picture below that not all areas were covered and the wind from winter's storms blew a significant amount of debris onto the floor.

Here is Jim on November 11, 2011 using a leaf blower to clear the fallen pine needles and leaves from the floor. 

And here is Jeanine on January 10, 2012 hand-picking debris from the rubble inside the house. 

Sally also helped clearing loose straw and pine needles one handful at a time. This is just another way we've discovered that natural building can be quite tedious at times (but worth it we think!).

Just the fact that nature is sprouting under our floor as we build it makes us feel good about the health of our future home.

There was also a bit more rubble rock to lay to make the first floor layer level. Below is Jeanine and Sally, two lovely WWOOFers who were with us in January, shoveling rocks to level out the floor.

Jim checked the level throughout the floor and got it pretty much near perfect. With the debris cleared and the drainage rock level, we were ready to pour the first earthen layer of our earthen floor!

Video: Straw Bale Wall Systems

Michael G. Smith, master natural builder and teacher, explains straw bale construction techniques at the 2011 Cob & Natural Building workshop here in Petrolia, CA.

Video: Mixing Slip Straw

In this short video, Michael G. Smith and Ryan M. demonstrate how to mix slip straw, or light straw clay, at the 2011 Cob and Natural Building workshop here in Petrolia.

Video: Why Slip Straw?

I've finally converted the videos from the Cob & Natural Building workshop last summer and they are almost all up at You Tube. I'll release them on the blog in the coming days. This first is Michael G. Smith discussing slip straw, or light straw clay, construction. 

 

Earthen floor tests

As we're gearing up for the building season, our earthen floor tests are one of the most visible sign of new efforts. All of the ground level floors in the house will be earthen. We may overlay brick or tile in a couple rooms. Our plan is to pour two sub-floor layers and a third final layer. We'll pour the first of the three layers this May (if all goes as planned) so we needed to start our tests in April to find the best mix. 

The main ingredients are clay, sand, and gravel. We got the gravel from a local gravel pit.

Then we set up a quarter inch screen to filter out the sand and small rocks.

Next we prepared the clay. This is the clay remaining from our harvest last summer. You can see the effects of winter and spring. It's sprouting new life.

We soaked the clay in trash cans to make it easier to work with.

Here's the soaked clay.

Next we gathered sand that remains from our large sand pile last summer. It also shows the effects of time and weather.

We built three 3' x 3' wooden boxes to pour the tests in. We also built a roof to cover the tests from any rain that is still to come this season.

Here's the final floor test structure.

We are trying 3 combinations:

A. 20% clay, 40% sand, and 40% gravel + straw

B. 28% clay, 40% sand, and 32% gravel + straw

C. 16% clay, 48% sand, and 36% gravel + straw

We'll keep you posted with how these mixes turn out. We hope they'll be dry in 3-4 weeks, but it all depends on the weather.

Cob & Natural Building Workshop 2012

We are thrilled to be hosting a Cob & Natural Building workshop for the second year in a row with Michael G. Smith.

Michael G. Smith (far left) leads a group demo at the 2011 Cob & Natural Building workshop in Petrolia)

This June 24-30, learn to build your own energy-efficient home from inexpensive, healthy natural materials. In this hands-on workshop, we will continue building a family home from cob (sculpted earth) and slipstraw or light straw clay. We will also experiment with other natural wall systems including cordwood, as well as clay plasters and earthen floors. Daily lectures will cover materials selection and testing, passive solar principles, and other aspects of designing and building a hybrid natural house. Slide presentations and videos place these techniques in context of the global tradition of natural building. The spectacular site is on the banks of the Mattole River, just 3 miles from the beach and the Lost Coast trailhead.

Michael G Smith has eighteen years of experience in a wide range of Natural Building techniques, as well as ecological site design, sustainable materials harvesting, and passive solar design. He has helped design and build nearly 50 small homes and other structures using cob, straw bale, slipstraw, wattle-and-daub, timber framing, earthbags, cordwood masonry, stone, living roofs, adobe floors, natural plasters and finishes, and alternative foundations. He helped found the Cob Cottage Company in 1993and the Natural Builders Colloquium in 1994. Since then he has taught over 100 hands-on Natural Building workshops in the US and abroad. He is the author-or co-author of four books, including The Art of Natural Building and The Hand-Sculpted House.

Course Fee & Registration: Cost of course is $650 per person, including on-site camping and all meals. 10% discount for full payment by May 24 and for families and friends registering together. Class size is limited to 20 students, so enroll early.

To view photos from the 2011 workshop visit: Nick Gabinet's photos or our blog post. 

Rain gods, have mercy

Back in October I posted some photos of our preparations for the rainy season (October-April/May in our part of the country). Our camera broke being dropped from a ladder in the middle of this and so it has taken me a while to get more photos and give you the latest update.

Here's the house in early October 2011 all tarped up for winter.

We capped the posts with 5-gallon buckets...

... and attempted to protect where the exposed posts meet the walls by duct taping tarps around the posts and creating an angle for water to flow away from the walls. This has worked to some extent but in the few storms we have had, water inevitably drips down to post to these wall seams. 

The worst water damage so far was on the interior of the straw bale wall. You can see the moisture here from October 19, 2011 after our first storm of the season.

A closer look reveals mold.

We get heavy winds here and we have lost some tarps and had some in need of serious attention. Since those photos were taken we've probably spent the equivalent of three full days of work securing and replacing tarps during and after each rain. 

The house seems to be holding up. The rains have been few enough that that the walls that have gotten wet have gotten to dry out in between. It was terrifying to see the moist walls and mold after the first rain, but then we realized that to some extent we had to relinquish control to nature and assess the situation when the rainy season is over. We're continuing to monitor the situation, prioritizing a roof for 2012, and asking the rain gods to have mercy on us.

Kids and natural building

One of the many things I love about natural building is that it is accessible to a wide range of ages and abilities - especially kids. Our 1 year old, Ayla, and 3 year old, Axel, were frequently present on the job site (I say "were" because we are in rainy season mode now and haven't done much construction lately). The images of children around and participating in building a home are inspiring and I want to share a few.

Axel got his introduction to cob at a workshop we attended with Patrick of Cobworks in 2009.

Here is Liam, the youngest official attendee of the Cob & Natural Building workshop
we hosted in August, stuffing the slip straw wall with his grandfather...

                    

...and applying plaster to the straw bale wall.

Axel helps hose down the clay pile. This was a near daily task this past summer to keep the clay moist and easier to work with. It was a useful and fun way for Axel to help while we worked. Ayla enjoyed watching her brother, tinkering about,...

 

...or sleeping while we worked. (Another benefit of building with cob - its quiet!).

Here's Ryan with baby Vasalisa on board, stomping cob.

Drew and Amanda, our neighbors, helped stomp cob with their newborn in the pouch.

Seeing kids be part of building a house is a very sweet thing indeed. Having our own kids help build the house they will one day live in... priceless.

Hosting a natural building workshop

It's been over three months since hosting a week-long intensive Cob & Natural Building workshop with Michael G. Smith. I think we are nearly recovered. Hosting a workshop like this is a big commitment, and a lot of work. For anyone who may be contemplating hosting such a workshop, or curious about why we did and what it entailed, this is for you. Ever since we attended a cob workshop in May 2009, we knew we wanted to host one. Our reasons for hosting a workshop were to make our house building an educational experience for others and to make a big push on the cob walls of our house. After going through it, we realize that probably the biggest reason to host this workshop should have been having Michael involved. Michael has been with us through the design phase and there to consult with us as various questions and situations arise. Michael is also a phenomenol natural building instructor. We were blown away by how he kept the weeklong course varied, interesting, and energetic till the end.

There were slightly over 20 people that attended, including about 7 locals and 5 work traders that had been staying with us for a while. We had people come from as far and wide as Rhode Island, Texas, North Carolina, and Alaska.

The most obvious reason to host a workshop, from an outside perspective, is that we made a big push to raise the walls of our cob and straw bale house--we got a lot done that week with all the extra feet and hands.

An unexpected bonus was the participation from locals and the community. We had a number of locals take the workshop, come to Michael's slideshow at the Community Center, and host us for a local home tour. It was awesome to see our fellow community members excited and inspired by Michael and the workshop.

For food we hired our neighbor to cater. It was essential for us to not have to worry about this aspect of the workshop. Nieves and Sierra, our neighbors and cooks, served up hearty and healthy vegetarian meals for lunch and dinner. 

Breakfast was a self-serve assortment of yogurt, granola, eggs, etc. We had a nice space to eat under a big top tent and meals were a great time for socializing and getting to know each other.

 

At the end of the week, Michael asked a couple participants to volunteer to organize a house-warming celebration. This was perhaps the biggest highlight of the week for us. The work space was cleaned up, seating arranged, and friends, neighbors, and workshop attendees gathered to put some good energy into the rising building.

People shared their gifts - whether this be creating a fire from only natural materials (this ceremony was my favorite part - thanks so much Ryan!), 

 

singing songs, playing instruments, and dancing.

We had an amazing group of people there to help build the walls of our house, and then warm them up with fire, friendship, and good wishes.

It was a lot of work to get ready for the workshop and to host so many people, but it's something we're committed to. For us, it makes our house bigger than us. It's now a vehicle for learning and inspiring others. We can't express how grateful we are to everyone who came and gave their energy to this project.

We hope to do it again next year. Look for more details here at at http://www.sustainabilityschool.us. (p.s. If you're thinking of hosting a workshop and want more of the nitty-gritty details, leave a comment here and we can talk more.)

(Photos by me and Nick Gabinet. Thanks Nick!)