building a wall

work has progressed slowly which i actually benefit from because i've been able to be part of every step along the way

but the wall raising date was set months ago, july 19th

so we were determined to at least have a wall ready to be raised for the publicity event

with the floor decking only 3/4 of the way done, we started framing the north wall. work progressed smoothly and quickly and by the end of the day we had framed and sheathed the north wall in oriented strand board!

decking not quite finished

framing studs laid out

finished wall - ready to have window and door openings cut out

looks like we're back on schedule!

i'll be missing out on the wall raising event but i'll be back next friday to see what is to be done next!


last week when i showed up, half of the decking for the foundation had been laid and things looked like they were moving smoothly, but our lead had us pull up all of the decking instead of putting on the finishing pieces. pulling out work moves much faster than the actual work so once we were back to the basic foundation, work moved much slower in reinstalling the decking. we used 1 1/4" tongue and groove oriented strand board with a thick glue and 8 penny nails, or maybe they were 16 penny nails. we only laid maybe six 4' x 8' boards in the day. some extra work was needed to make some of the boards make the more than 96" stretch on a few beams, yes the foundation is that bad with pockets limiting our adjustment capabilities.


to build the walls we used 2" x 6" studs every 16" and then used king and trimmer stud pairs for framing the windows and door. the trimmers support the headers and then the cripples support the window sills. The base and top of the wall were made of 2" x 6", using three to span the length, so six all together. Then the top of the wall was covered in another 2" x 6", i wasn't part of this process so i'm not all too sure about it's name, dimensions, or purpose. I helped make our corner a "california corner" for energy efficiency so that there would be no uninsulated gaps, but there wasn't enough space to use a 2" x 6" or barely a 2" x 4" so i suggested just slipping a 2" by 6" next to (parallel) to the end stud, and Shelly (the lead) liked my idea. we covered the stud wall with oriented strand board again, this time with a cut dimension of 100 1/2" x 48". the length was determined by the height of the studs (96" - 1/2") plus the thickness of the base and top plates (4" - 1/2" - 1/2" = 3") plus the extra top plate (2" - 1/2" = 1 1/2") plus the thickness of our sill plate (1 1/2") on the foundation and the floor decking (1 1/4") plus 1/2" of overhang. and then we used 8 penny nails to put it together. i think i covered it all but i might be missing some details.

it's been hot

and i've been thinking . . .

how have civilizations stayed cool before the air conditioner or fans for that matter?
(all i have are fans - you leave all the windows open all night to let the cool breeze in and before 10 am you close all the windows and shades to keep cool and then when the cool evening breeze starts, you open all the windows and get the fans blowing the cool air in)

well, i remember hearing about ancient arab cooling chimneys, keeping interiors cool in 120 degree F summers. and this is what i found out:
these tall chimney like structures are called wind catchers or wind towers and the basic principle is that they capture the prevailing breeze above the house and since cool air is denser than warm, it subsequently falls in the chimney which is then ventilated to the house. this kept interiors cool, paired with thick walls enhancing the trombe wall effect.

there are many variations of the design, one being a solar chimney, that fit a specific microclimate's needs
i got really excited about incorporating wind towers

and then i found this project - man oh man, someone beat me to it, not just with the wind tower but the whole layout and concept - oh well . . . but the 99k house is really cool and hopefully it's being built

and then i was thinking well, how come you don't harness the convective energy with localized windmills? i surely will

hey! someone's thought of that already too and i thought this ancient technology had fallen off the grid, almost

solar updraft tower

it's just nice to know that there is a movement out there, no matter how small it is now, i know it will be obvious in the near future