In this segment, we formed the south wall for gunite. The video, details and pictures can be found below.
The Video
Details
Order of the layers
We had formed previous shotcrete walls with steel studs and lath and steel studs with XPS insulation. We liked the idea of combining the insulation in the form because it saved us the step of attaching it, however, the steel studs caused “void shadows” in the shotcrete and water could travel thru those voids, etc.
For this south wall, we decided to use the steel studs to form the XPS, but we would put the shotcrete outside the insulation, on the opposite side from the steel studs. We could then use just a single layer of XPS and then backfill between the Studs later to increase our R value.
If this were a load bearing wall that needed to incorporate rebar in the shotcrete, we may have come up with a different idea.
Curved Bucks
To make the curved bucks, I used CAD software to figure out the size and angles of the little wood blocks, making sure that the longest side was something easily measurable on a straight edge. In this case, I used a 5 inch length (4.999 is close enough to 5) and an angle. I setup the miter saw with a stop block so I wouldn’t have to measure each one. Then I would just need to flip the wood board for each cut so the blocks came out with the right trapezoid shape to assemble into the circle.
Gallery
A picture is often the best way to tell a story, so here are a bunch of them.
Here David is a little annoyed because he is digging out the footings while Michael (on the right side) is having fun welding in the rebar for the last vault.
Yes, I know a screen capture is a better way to get these sorts of images, but my work computer has all sorts of “security” features that make it easier if I just take a quick photo of my screen. In this case, it was just to have some reference in my pocket while I was out there.
The elevation view of the front of the house…
Since we would soon need to put in the door buck for the front door, we really had to nail down the choice of which size door we planned on installing. We decided to go with this cheap and standard front door instead of the larger entry with sidelites that we had originally planned.
I had bought a new compound miter saw, but I bought a cheap “performax” one from Menards. It was impossible to align. I couldn’t even get the two sides of the fence to align with eachother. I ended up taking it back and getting a Dewalt, which I was very happy with.
I welded on these little brackets to attach the steel studs to the steel Ibeams
I had told the boys not to touch the bucks if they could help it, so Michael usually ran thru jumping like this.
We took a mini vacation with friends during this part of the build…
For the blocks we were cutting, I would often get a screen shot like this to remind myself of the angles and dimensions.
In this case, I had made sure that the longest dimension was a nice and easy 5 inches.
Putting that ring together…
We used glue and then screwed the blocks together
I liked the look of the end grain…
David getting some extra screws into the circle window buck.
I thought this pic of the boys helping to lift the window buck into place was pretty cute…
Windows bucks in, but still lots of work to go
Setting up the last curved wood ledge…
Brody doing some final adjustments as he attached the steel studs to the underside of the curved wood ledge.
Michael likes doing this thumbs up pose for the timelapse when he walks by
The XPS formwork is pretty much done here
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There is always maintenance to do. In this case, the new Kubota I bought needed a hydraulic line replaced. I took this pic so I could remember what fittings I would need.
Part of life includes stopping to sharpen your blades. That lawn mower had a rough life on that construction site. The three blades on the left are the ones I took off it and the new blade is on the right… Ouch, I have never seen such wrecked blades, so I took a pic and then had a conversation with the boys about riding the mower over rocks.
This post is all about erecting the steel arches and rebar for the radial roof vaults. This process took us a few weeks to get done and really looked great. I’ll put details and a lot of pictures down below, but first, the time lapse videos…
The Video(s)
Yes, I had to break this one into two videos.
Here is the first 6 vaults going in…
And here are the remaining 4 and a final walk thru.
The Gallery
A picture is worth a thousand words, so lets talk about things in the context of a gallery…
We passed the inspection without any trouble.
Another exterior view
After chisteling out the concrete for the hole, I also cut that piece of rebar and then cleaned it up nicely.
I had forgotten to leave a whole for an 8 inch duct to get thru this concrete wall. So I had to drill one out.
The kitchen vault before starting on the dining room.
This is the fresh stucco on the outside of my office window.
While I worked on Steel, Sherri worked on Stucco…
We welded each steel arch to rebar pegs (#5) drilled into the concrete ribs.
Pic of the first 3 vaults in
A sunset view from the bedroom roof
View from the bedrooms
This room as 3 vaults and covers 90 degrees of the circle (the fish eye lens flattens it out). Eventually, we will have our TV in here, etc.
This room was easy to work in because of the nice floor.
David in the playroom
I needed all the vaults to be the same height, so I used a laser to set the height of the scaffold when it was out in the uneven dirt. Then we set the steel arches a fixed distance above the scaffold deck using a car jack to make the final adjustments.
Here I am just trying out one of the steel arches to see how it “fits” and how it looks
In this shot you can see rebar arches lined up and ready to go while Sherri continues to work on stucco.
While I was focused on the steel arches, Sherri looked after stucco work.
Michael helping me work on one of the vaults.
The kids treated the place like a jungle gym
While working on the living room vaults, I looked down and noticed that the steel columns had filled with rain water. So I drilled holes to let it all out.
It sprayed for quite a while.
Close up on the bedroom dormer stucco
It was nice having a skid steer to move heavy things around.
In this case, we got a delivery of 2 tons of rebar and i could just move it to where I wanted it.
I bought a much smaller tractor to replace the skid steer and it couldn’t even lift one of these bundles.
Working under the vaults felt a little surreal at times
A closer view
IN this view, you can see my form material experiment
We knew that we would eventually need to attach formwork below the rebar, but I wasn’t sure how well my options would hold up to the environment…
I ended up using just the un-urethaned brown board, more on that in an upcoming video.
We celebrated the 4th from the roof with some friends…
We bought a Kubota to replace the skidsteer. It has only 1/3rd of the power, but it won’t tear up the ground.
Here Sherri is putting the rebar chairs up in the guest room ceiling.
The top of the guest vault. This one already has the lath, etc. and is ready to shoot.
Not sure why I don’t have any video footage of the guest room being done. Maybe it will turn up later or maybe it is lost forever.
Shot from the kitchen looking toward the dining room and living room
In the kitchen taking a pick of the dining room. The kitchen island will go under that concrete rib
In the dining room looking toward the living room
Standing in the living room looking toward the kitchen…
Backing up with the camera
Just another shot
The living room, dining room and kitchen are all open concept
This post has two videos (because I had too much footage) and a lot of good pics in the gallery.
The videos
The first video is about applying the scratch coat. This actually took most of the time because we spent a lot of time trying to make everything nice and smooth over the rough shotcrete and lath walls. After getting the wall the right shape, we would use a special tool to “scratch” the stucco so that the next layer would have nice ridges to grip on to. Here is that video.
The second video is for the brown coat. This is a smoother coat that we applied over the scratch coat. It was easier because most of the work to get the right shape was done with the previous layer, but it did have the challenge of getting a nice smooth finish, which was particularly tricky because we were not out there for enough hours at a time… Here is the video to explain.
The lessons learned
We really learned a lot of useful stuff while doing this project and it certainly can’t fit into the videos, but I’ll try to put some of it here….
I’ll come back and fill this in later (promises promises)
The Gallery
This is the part most of you wanted to see anyway… I try to tell a story with the captions.
Because the videos focus on the inside work, it is easy to forget that it was winter outside…
This will eventually be the guest room, but for now it has no roof and is essentially outside.
Here we are outside the north side, looking back toward the south thru the playroom apse door.
This is the north side of the house
This is actually the center of the house, but without a roof yet, it looks a lot like outside.
Here I am using the water sprayer to apply the scratch coat stucco.
We would mix our dry ingredients (sand, hydrated lime and portland) on a tarp.
In some spots we had to pack a lot of stucco in to fill the gaps between two layers of lath.
Some times the place got a bit messy…
We did a lot of mixing…
The skylights would freeze, but only in the section above the dirt level. Once we insulate them, this problem should go away.
Sherri playing with the dog while I mix
Sherri definitely did her fair share of stucco work
We took lots of pics like this before the stucco went up so we could remember where the electrical conduit and other hidden things were… Just in case.
Fresh scratch coat on the walls of the master bedroom.
Sherri checking out the camera. They often leave me these little shots to find when I am editing.
Mud dauber wasps had started building on our walls. We had to put a stop to that.
The entrances to the mud dauber wasp nests.
Lots of pics like this from the GoPro. Hard to decide which ones to throw away.
Working together
Working away in the hall and bedroom
Family time
The bedrooms were warm and humid, even though it was well below freezing outside in the middle of winter. We had no heat, but did occasionally wet the walls down with hot water.
This is a rough corner. Clearly the stucco was hard tooled with no interest in making a nice fillet. I would need to fill this with stucco instead.
The first step is to attach a board, then we pack it with stucco or mortar.
Here it is after packing with stucco…
Then we scratch it so it can hold the next layer better.
Then we can strip off the wood and stucco that section also.
Here it is after scratch coat in the fill section.
Looking toward a long evening of hard stucco work
At the end of every evening, we would need to head outside and wash out the tools.
The master bedroom with scratch coat.
The back end of the master bedroom, really the master bath, with scratch coat.
Another angle on the master bathroom scratch coat.
After we ran out of sand (those huge piles), we started buying pre-mixed stucco for $6 a bag. This was a pic of the delivery from Menards.
Another one of Sherri being silly for the camera when I am not around.
We got pretty good at ceilings during this project. Just a little slower than walls.
We tried the hard rubber float on this wall when it was still too soft and it pulled off some bits of the brown coat (so you could see the scratch coat). But I kind of liked it, so I put the date in and left it like that.
The OSB formed sections were pretty nice already with lots of good texture, so I just skipped the scratch step and applied the brown coat directly. It also went over the steel studs without a problem.
A birds eye view of the hall ceiling with fresh stucco on it.
The stucco in the foreground has been sponged. The stucco in the background is just troweled on.
Sherri Showing off her sponge finish (on the right side)
This is Davids bedroom, so we made sure he got some stucco time in.
On the floor, we mix one bag of portland, 1/3rd bag of hydrated lime and 25 gallons of sand. In the wheel barrow we add water and 1 qt of thinset to make it sticky.
Here you can see brown coat over scratch coat
Occationally, stucco falls down. This is how our faces look when it happens.
One of the bedrooms after the stucco cures and turns mostly white.
Master Bedroom with browncoat stucco patches. Each patch is one evening’s work.
Sherri also stuccoed the office, but I didn’t record any of it on video, so it didn’t make the timelapse movie.
