Last week, I began the somewhat tedious process of decking my roof with the help of Jeff, my most recent work exchanger. It’s pretty slow work, having to mark and cut and then nail every individual piece of board, of which there are over 200 now on the roof.
I am using scrap 1x black walnut lumber that I purchased from a local lumber ‘dealer’. (Perhaps a very apt title for this particular fellow…) It cost me $1 per board, and most of if was defective (for cabinet-making purposes) in some way, but with its length still largely usable. (Each piece of wood is at least six to eight feet long, I’d estimate.)
The roof line has taken shape now that the decking is getting nailed to the rafters. The roof is somewhat wavy and undulating, and I must say that I like it’s uneven, flow-y appearance.
Last week, I ordered the most expensive material for my entire cob house: the EPDM pond liner for my (soon-coming) living roof. EPDM is a synthetic, petroleum-based rubber product commonly used for living roofs, due to its strength and durability. Apparently, it can last 50 years exposed to the sun, and presumably longer buried under dirt.
I have not been thrilled by the prospect of purchasing this petro product for my house (it’s one of the few new, synthetic materials in the whole building); however, it has been challenging to find information on building a living roof using natural materials. Apparently, Norwegians have historically used birch bark as their impermeable membrane. Getting more information than just that has proved difficult, and still, I probably wouldn’t have been willing to experiment with my first house, considering just how important a good roof is. I want to do this right. Perhaps I’ll experiment with an all-natural living roof on a different building in the future. (If anyone out there has details on any books, etc. with information on traditional living roofs, let me know!)
Anyway, the 35’x35′ sheet of EPDM cost a whopping $622, at least $100 of which was the shipping cost. The thing weighs 380 pounds. I’m pretty daunted by the idea of somehow getting this whole thing unrolled over the roof… but I’m sure with enough hands, it won’t be so bad!
Last night, I wrote up a blog entry for Green Building Elements about building a reciprocal roof frame. I wrote a little bit about the concept of the design, the history, and my own experience building a reciprocal roof. I was inspired to write this due to an overall lack of information out there about the concept.
Recently, with the help of Traci, I finished raising the last of the secondary rafters for my reciprocal frame roof for a grand total of 28 poles.
They are affixed to the primary rafters with a big spike nail for now. Today, I finished bracing them with small two foot long pieces of roundwood. I slipped this roundwood underneath the rafters to help spread their weight more evenly through the cob. In addition to each rafter, this wood is pepper nailed, and the two are tied together with strong steel wire. It looks pretty messy (see below), but it will all get buried in the topmost layer of cob. Hopefully this is sufficient to keep everything steady and locked in place.
The weather has been grand lately, with only a small amount of rain the other night. Today was quite breezy and it truly felt like fall. Within another day or so, I’ll be able to begin decking the roof with my new work exchanger, Jeff.
P.S. More photos of the reciprocal roof raising, including a rundown of the process is coming soon… I promise.
This afternoon, I did an interview with Tom Tucker of Greenblogosphere.com to talk about building with cob. We talked about my experience building a cob house, the benefits and history of cob, why I chose cob over other materials, etc. We also talked a little bit about life here at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage.
It was really fun to have this talk, and hopefully this audio interview will shed some light on what it’s like to build with cob.
Ok, I’m still waiting on receiving some of the many photos that were taken during the reciprocal roof-raising the other day, so I’ll wait on the ultimate rundown of the details of that day and the frame itself.
Though I will say that things are now progressing again. I am using the original poles as secondary rafters, one between each main pair. That means I will have a total of 28 trees sitting on my cob walls! Yikes.
That makes me wonder how much wood goes into a traditional gable roof. Granted these are very small trees, and you would hardly get but a couple of 2x4s from each were they to be milled, but still…. 28 trees sounds like a heck of a lot wood. It’s weird to translate pole wood to milled lumber construction.
Also, I want to say I am now a big fan of black locust. It is an incredibly hard wood and very rot-resitant. It is something of a “weed tree” (farmers usually like to get rid of it), and it grows quickly and easily. The bark is very thick but incredibly easy to peel off, and because black locust oftentimes has few knots, the peeling is just that much easier, too. Black locust is solid. Also, it smells almost like green beans when you strip the bark.
Here is the only video footage that I had captured of the second reciprocal roof frame construction. This is the final step, after removing the support braces from the ‘charlie stick’ (or temporary post): knocking charlie out of its support position.
As you might be able to see, the roof did not drop at all, since the construction was very tight. We actually had to pry the last rafter into position, which pretty much guaranteed that the frame would not settle once the charlie stick was removed.
Here’s the video clip (be prepared to tilt your head!):
What an incredibly arduous past two days, but oh the excitement! Yesterday I made a mad dash to transport twelve new black locust poles for my roof to my building site, and then I spent the entire afternoon (and into the evening) stripping bark. My body was aching, to be sure.
This morning I finished stripping the last of the twelve poles. At 8:00 a.m., I began dis-assembling the original reciprocal roof frame with the help of Tony, Tamar, Mark, Apple, and Arrien. It was easy work – much easier than putting the thing together. We jammed the charlie stick (the support post) back under the first rafter, and worked backwards to slide each rafter out. It went quickly and smoothly.
Then we re-positioned Charlie and started lifting the newer (and much beefier!) black locust rafters into position, tying them together with wire at the top as we went along. They were a little slippery, and slid around a little bit once they were in position, but they couldn’t go too far with the wire at the top and some wire around the butts at the wall.
By the time we were ready for the last rafter, the inner ring of the frame was already tight, and we pried the last rafter in with a bit of leverage at the butt end. They slid right into place and the roof was done. We took out the charlie stick and the roof stayed put – it didn’t drop at all since the construction was already so tight.
(The reciprocal roof frame from afar [it looks like some sort of alien structure!])
Overall, it went great. The new rafters are much stronger than the old ones and I am very satisfied with the integrity of the structure.
I plan on writing at length about this process in the near future. In the meantime, enjoy these few pictures!
(Tony was brave enough to climb the frame for a little photo opportunity)
Tony Wrench of West Wales, famous for his hand-built, low impact roundhouse, has recently been deemed victorious over official planners wanting to demolish his home.
Natural builders often have a difficult time dealing with local bureaucracy and its restrictive (and short-sighted) building codes. There’s plenty good reason why Wrench didn’t bother to seek out official permission, which is made clear in this article.
Congrats, Wrench!
(Fun fact: Tony Wrench has been very kind enough to answer several of my reciprocal roof questions via email, and I totally appreciate the time he has taken with me. Check out his book, Building a Low-Impact Roundhouse for the only published information on reciprocal roofs!)
Last week, I managed to cut down a dozen more black locust poles for my reciprocal roof frame. I will switch out the current rafters for these newer, beefier ones, and the old ones will become secondary rafters. Recently, I have been working more slowly thanks to some killer rainfall lately – last week, we had nine inches dumped on us! This year is truly incredibly wet. (Figures that I decide to build a house out of dirt during the rainiest year on record, too…)
I transported the new trees to my property with the help of a few folks, and hopefully I’ll have enough energy to strip them all this afternoon to have them ready to hoist up tomorrow.
Here we go again!
About The Year of Mud
Hi there, I’m Ziggy. In 2008, I launched The Year of Mud while building my first natural home. This blog is a collection of personal stories and experiences building with clay, straw, and wood over the past 15+ years. A few of the things that get me fired up are natural plasters, timber framing, & Japanese architecture. Since 2012, we’ve been hosting Natural Building Workshops so you can learn essential skills to build your own natural home.
