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Foundation

Jul 12
Love0

How-To: Scribing Wood Post to Stone Foundation

By Timber Framing, Foundation, Carpentry

scribing wood to stone plinth

Several years ago, I learned how to scribe wood to stone and have been patiently waiting for the opportunity to implement this feature in my own building project. The premise is simple — copy the rough surface of a stone plinth to a wood post for a seamless fit. This gives the impression of a timber or wood post “growing” out of the stone foundation. It’s a beautiful look, used in old building foundations especially in the Japanese “ishibatate” style. 

The recent outdoor kitchen timber frame was the perfect chance to implement this technique. Here are the steps for scribing wood to a stone foundation.

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Dec 08
Love2

Slick Way to Anchor Wood Posts to Concrete

By Foundation, Timber Framing

Concrete Post Anchor

A common design question when working with wood posts and concrete (or stone) is: how do you anchor posts to the concrete? Honestly, if we’re talking about a large structure with a lot of weight, gravity does most of the work and you don’t need a specific connection. A concrete post anchor may be necessary in a variety of situations, however. Here is a particularly slick way to anchor wood posts to concrete using a very discrete piece of hardware.

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May 24
Love1

Why We’re Building an Earthbag Stemwall

By Foundation, Straw Bale Building, Earthbag Building
Earthbag Stemwall

The earthbag stemwall goes in at the off-grid straw bale cabin site

To be really honest here, foundations are the least exciting part of any natural building project for me.  Most of the fun stuff like timber framing, building with straw bales, applying clay plaster, or building with cob represents the “glory” of the natural building world. Foundations don’t have the same sex appeal, for lack of a better phrase. However, a good foundation is one of the most important parts of a home.

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Jul 12
Love0

All the current goings-on

By Foundation, Earthen Floor, Cob Bed and Bench

foundation-wide

Man, goings-on is a weird word. It just never looks or sounds exactly right. Anyway, there have been a number of these so-called goings-on lately. Here’s the lowdown on what’s been keeping me busy…

By now you know that the cob bed has been completely removed, but the wall has been replastered, and the floor redone as well. Just yesterday, I finished oiling the finish layer of the floor, so now it is curing. I can’t remember how long I waited last year for the oil to cure, but it must have been at least a week. Most of the past month of work on the house has been waiting – waiting for both layers of the floor to dry, for plaster to dry, for oil to cure. The actual work has been quite quick and simple. But we should finally be able to move back into the house very shortly.

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May 21
Love0

Building the First Course of the Urbanite Foundation [Kitchen]

By Wabi-sabi Kitchen, Foundation

urbanite-foundation01Last week, we set out to make some progress on stacking the urbanite foundation for our kitchen. There were a few things I learned from my own foundation, and a few things we wanted to do differently for this building. At first, we thought we’d want to dry stack the entire thing, but realized we would definitely benefit from some mortar, especially around the area where our giant posts will be sitting on the foundation.

I have not been super pleased with the clay/sand mortar I made for my own home, so I haven’t been pushing for a mud mortar. It wicks moisture big time and was a pretty big issue over winter and into the early spring — in those early days of spring, earthworms had managed to tunnel through the mortar into the house! (The mortar has since dried out. I think it was mostly wet from snow contact against the foundation over winter.)

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May 20
Love0

Collecting Urbanite for the Kitchen Foundation

By Wabi-sabi Kitchen, Foundation

urbanite-thisisurbaniteIn April, I went to gather urbanite for the kitchen foundation (which has finally been started as of last week!). Urbanite is, of course, reclaimed concrete from old roads and sidewalks.

I’ve collected and used urbanite for my home, but this time, walking in a giant yard brimming with the stuff, I got a decidedly post-industrial feeling about the whole thing. There was something sorta post-modern about the whole affair: scrambling over giant piles of rubble from dozens of demolition jobs, looking for the right size pieces of concrete to reuse in a completely different sort of building. I imagined that if I didn’t pick through this stuff, it would likely still be there the next year, and the next, and probably until well beyond my life or that of even our current capitalist, globalized society.

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May 15
Love0

Urbanite foundation (mostly) complete

By Foundation

The foundation is now mostly complete with the addition of a third course on the west side of the building. The past few days have been spent trying to piece together that topmost course with the remaining urbanite, and stuffing additional nooks with a clay/sand mortar. The construction of the foundation has gotten funkier over time since we used all the nice flat pieces at the start, and all that was left for the third course was the irregular stuff.

The mortar mix is kinda tricky to work with because of its high sand content (about 3:1); it’s very gritty and difficult to jam into tight spaces. I’m glad now that there are only a handful of cracks remaining. But it sure does feel great not using any nasty new cement mix!

mortar-claysand

On Monday, I hope to get a delivery of sand to begin cobbing the walls. Look out!

May 13
Love0

Continuing work on urbanite foundation

By Foundation

Progress on the cob house has been continuing at a good clip. The second course of the foundation has been laid out. We started to run out of larger pieces of urbanite, and fell back on medium and smaller pieces, which I thought to be less than ideal. Unfortunately, the majority of the urbanite I have collected is very irregularly shaped, so it’s trickier to work with than flat stuff. I think it will be fine, though.

We started to fill in the cracks between urbanite with more clay/sand mortar. Whenever there is rain in the forecast, I throw tarps over the entire foundation to prevent it from getting went. The mortar would probably just wash away if it got thoroughly soaked. But anyway, the purpose of the mortar is to prevent the passage of wind and rodents into the living space. Eventually, the interior face of the foundation will be cobbed over or plastered over to for extra protection.

Yesterday, my first work exchanger arrived. It will be fun to have new help around the work site.

On Friday, I hope to get sand delivered, because I expect cobbing will begin within another week… yeehaw!