And Now 2007

Cheerio 2006. Well at least we put a few bricks in place! In review, 2006 was definitely a bit of a struggle at first with collapsing earth walls, mud all over the place and a seemingly endless need to build retaining walls, closely followed by an almost disaster as one of the retaining walls was incorrectly built (pointing accusing finger at self!). However, once the footings were in and the platforms laid, a storming two or three months saw the walls magically rising up like a phoenix from the debris of the building site. Most enjoyable but a relatively easy part.

As we got higher, so it was time to find and dust down the old thinking cap (or was it a dunces cap?) and work out how the ceiling/floor was going to work. Anyway progress slowed but we also decided to work on the water front and solar electricity. We also had to spend the best part of October finishing off our rental house, again slowing progress. I guess we shouldn't be too hard on ourselves since the first floor structure was largely completed and we've started the roof structure for the west facing end of the building.

So. Will we be able to move in during 2007? Personally I'm not sure since we have our house in the village. This means we will only move over to the finca if there is a reasonable bathroom and the kitchen is usable and that seems a long way off. Once again, we will just have to see....

End of January 2007. With all the vigas in place over the salon/kitchen area, we bought some cheap ply boards to go on top so that I could walk around in relative safety whilst constructing the second floor walls. Getting some palets of blocks delivered on top of the boards was a real bonus. The alternative is for me to go to the builders yard, put 35 blocks in the back of Larry (the Landrover), drive back, unload 6 at a time into a wheelbarrow, put them up onto the top level of the scaffolding, climb up and put them up on the boards. Quite time consuming (and a little bit knackering - I've done around 400 like this!). 

We decide to have a go at constructing the roof space over the west wing (sounds grand but it is just a way of identifying which area we are talking about) rather than the guest bedroom end since that has complications. The roof construction is made up of chestnut poles for the supporting beams with chestnut planks laid over. A breathable membrane goes between the planks and 6cm of natural cork with batons fixed over the top of the cork. A hard corrugated roofing material is fixed down onto the batons to give a weather-proof structure and to enable traditional roof tiles to be laid in the valleys and ridges of the corrugations so that it looks like the real thing. For Andalucia, this is a lightweight roof since they normally pour a concrete roof structure that weighs a ton.  We are hoping that the 6cm of cork will be sufficient to insulate against the summer heat and the cold of winter. Here is a photo of the completed roof. Looks OK from a distance - the further the better!

Still having a problem with the solar panel set-up with the panels waking up earlier than they should on a cold day (similar to a bladder problem!). We need to install a couple of small panels solely to drive the panel tracking system then hopefully they will be OK although we won't know until next winter now.

Moving towards the end of March - must get this published. New project: construction of a ferrocement water storage tank. The norm for around here is either plastic/glass fibre 'yogurt' pot or a whacking great concrete construction that can double up as a plunge pool during summer. The water quality in both cases is not brilliant. However, a ferrocement tank is relatively lightweight (compared to concrete) and, in our case, have plenty of features to improve the quality of the water. But, as is always thus, if you're doing it different, you're doing it difficult so I expect an interesting project! More later - must get this published.....

Still not published so here is a couple of photos of the water tank. You can see the construction technique that uses plenty of rebar and chicken wire to make the form. Currently, I'm having huge doubts over whether the cement mix is going to hold onto the wire structure. It looks so flimsy. To get the first coat of cement on, one guy stands on the inside with a board held against the form whilst the other slaps on the mix from the outside pressing against the board. This is meant to make a 'holding' coat and then two more coats are applied to make the final structure. Hmmm. I'm not taking any bets on this working! We could have a unusual hen house....(Local builder Alfredo helping)

Oh ye of little faith. It worked and I've a photo to prove it.

The first holding coat went on easier than expected although we only did the wall part and not the roof. Applying the the other coats to the walls was easy enough but the roof proved to be a bit a of a nightmare. Just didn't get the structure right in the first place. Additionally, Alfredo - who was excellent at rendering, went awol for a couple of crucial days. Having now rendered a complex pot shape, including a (very) irregular ceiling, the house will be a doddle! The outside is wrapped in palet wrap to help slow down the curing process and make the render coat harder.

 

 

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