This stage of the build was always going to be the most rewarding as it closes the building envelope and makes it feel like something you could sleep in and pass a rainy day away in comfort. The cob making process is laborious unless you use a carbon fuelled engine to mix with but that was not an option either financially or practically so labour it was and on warm sunny days it proved hard work. First a layer of cob was laid around the entire stem wall then the cord-wood bricks were added making the process a little quicker. Then more of the same each day. Then on the…

Well it’s now time to cover the roof, first we have a felt which is seen from the inside. Then we have insulation to add, in this case its the last three years wool sheared from our own sheep. Then over the centre we put a disc of plywood so the soil won’t put pressure directly between the spars of  the secondary reciprocal frame. Then more wool and an old duvet cover over the tops of the rafters to avoid any direct pressure against the water-proof cover. A few extra dumpy bags cut up to fill in a few gaps still open. Then the water-proof cover. Chris bond with the…

Now with the main frame up and solid its time to cover the roof, we are installing living roof of soil and Sedum plants. The space between the main rafters is much too big to span with any kind of sheet material alone so we have to install lath to carry the weight of the soil. The plan had been to cut this from our property we have plenty of hazel and willow fit for the job but the neighbour has just cleared an area in his forest only meters away from our house so it seemed an opportunity too good to pass up to use the off-cuts from his…

The roof is a reciprocal frame “A reciprocal frame is a class of self-supporting structure made of three or more beams and which requires no center support to create roofs, bridges or similar structures” this is a complex structure to set up and each one ends up looking a little different and all the more beautiful for it. The individuality especially working with round timber means each one is a learning curve and this one only being my second reciprocal frame build meant a degree of re-learning and frustration both for me and the students some took it in their stride and other much less positively. This stage of the…

Week two the foundation is down the stem wall is up. Now its time to start the woodwork and build the H frames which will connect together to make the frame to carry the reciprocating roof structure. While I’m a great fan of Tony Wrench and his efforts to enable people to learn simple ways to give themselves shelter, I wanted to make the frame more complex both for aesthetic reasons and to give a greater level of skill to the students. This proved both a success and a failure, the success was the look and feel of the finished frame, the failure was some students found the challenge of…

We are towards the end of week one with the foundation dug out and laid down with no cement in sight. Now is the time to build the stem wall that will take the timber and cob away from the rising damp and rain splash  preserving the less durable material for longer in to the future and making the build more sustainable. The old wall used to be a barn bordering the road in our village and now belongs to an English neighbour who can’t afford to renovate the building. I offered to demolish the walls in exchange for the stone, fair exchange is no robbery and this is in…

All buildings start with foundations and its no different with natural building as we are building a cobwood cabin for the first build of four cabins, we will need a good amount of subsoil so although a trench filled with rubble makes an excellent tried and tested foundation we are digging a large hole 50cm in diameter larger than the footprint of the actual building. This will give us the turf stripped off first as the final layer of roofing material the sub-soil moved to the gardens to improve soil depth and a good amount of sub-soil to use to make cob. Here is the pile of turf striped from…

Fiona and I have now collected 25 cubic meters of Chestnut posts ready for our summer Natural Building Course below you can see the pile after we have filled the trailer for the second time, a pink line half way down this stack marks what we have paid for. The larger posts will be used to form a timber henge to support the reciprocating roof, many of the smaller ones will be used for fencing to extend our cell grazing program for our livestock. The collection took 3 days of hard physical work. We loaded the wood by hand at one end and then unloaded it again on our camp…

The latest tools have arrived for the summer building course, some more firmer chisels, framing slicks and scotch eye augers. Some of these tools are to provide for the increased number of students now booked on the course, we have been fully booked but due to a couple of people filling in the booking for and then pulling out for one reason or another we still have one place open on the full course and five places left on the July straw bale building course. Two more MHG firmer chisels a one inch and a one and half inch to go with the  two inch chisel purchased earlier. A set…