Steel Posts are up

We've had some more activity on the build.  The steel stumps have been cut to size and the larger posts have been added over the top of them.

Some of these posts will go right up to the roof and form part of the structure

But you wont see them in the house as they will be covered by straw, or by building.  You can also see that the angles for the joists have been added, so you can get an idea of the floor height

This is the joist height for the pool table area.

We also spent Sunday at Colin and Chris's place in Wolfdeene.  Colin is the engineer for the build and he and Chris have been involved in the straw building community for a while.  We wanted to talk to them both about what's next as far as the big jobs are - and that is the render.  We have plenty of clay to use for the render, but after seeing how good their place came up in the Lime external we are now thinking maybe we might have an external lime render - we will have to make our minds up quick as you need to make the lime up early and let it cure.

So once we have finished the nails (one pile to go)  we need to start sifting, and seiving the clay down to a workable consistency with the sand.... this job is going to be fun!!!

And we are out of the ground

... lets all breathe out shall we??
it has been a long time coming - but we are out!  Concrete was ordered for Thursday and the boys worked big hours to get all the trench mesh in and tied - but they did it!

We needed a boom pump to get over all the footings with a minimum of drama, so they arrived around 11 and set up - concrete started at 12 - and they worked until late in the evening to get it finished.

It is a relief to not be as reliant on the weather - I no longer scour the skies for rainclouds - nor am I the biggest user of the BOM site any more, but the weather interruption definitely came at a cost - we under budgeted the concrete by a third due to the footings having to be redug - and dug deeper. But we are steadfastly looking ahead - do yuorself no favours by doing the what if's.. there'll be time for recollection and beers later... hopefully on a nice deck looking out at the dam!!
So hopefully we will get a kick on now - next each post will be cut to size and the brackets for the bearers and joists will be added to the posts.  Hopefully next blog you'll see the steel posts that go over these in the photos up and get an idea of the size and height of the place.