Week of September 14th

Bottom Line Up Front

I took a week's vacation time the week of September 14th to work on the house. I had planned to get most of the clay plastering done (wishful thinking!). I had put the first coat of clay plaster on nearly all the walls, upstairs and downstairs. That took me a good eight days or so (maybe ten?). I hadn't quite finished with the first application of Loma (the base coat), but was getting tired of no color. The color can be added to the finishing coat only (which saves money; some of the pigments cost more that the clay). So I decided to put on the finishing color to the upstairs office. Imagine my surprise when I came back the next day and the clay was cracked and falling off the wall where I had applied the second coat. Long story short, the cement wasn't sealed properly and the clay wouldn't stick. All the clay had to be scraped off all the walls, the walls had to be sealed, and I had to start over. That's why it took me so long to write this iteration, it was just too depressing to write about. Now, for those of you who know how long-winded I can get, skip down to the pictures if you don't want to hear the details.

The outer envelope of the house is made of Faswall. Faswall looks like a big concrete block from a distance, but is actually made of 85% wood chips and 15% portland cement. The mixture is pressed into forms 2' long by 1' deep by 8" high, with two square holes, just like a concrete block. Here's how they look:

You can see that they have quite a rough surface. I wanted to use clay plaster on the inside of the exterior walls. There were a few reasons I wanted to do this: I didn't want to use conventional sheetrock because of the paper and glue; clay is a green, natural product; and clay helps keep humidity levels more even by absorbing humidity when it gets high. At first I thought I could use the clay directly on the walls, but after getting the Faswall blocks, I could see that wouldn't work. I would have had to use 10 times as much clay to seal the holes in the walls as I would to just cover a normal, flat wall. Compounding that wass that the contractor who put up the walls, RockSolid Concrete, did such an awful job at putting up the block that I didn't have anything close to a smooth wall to work with. Some of the blocks were missaligned by 1/4 to 1/2 inch to the blocks above and below. (Now in the contractor's defense, I have to say that the Faswall blocks are difficult to work with, and I was forced to buy "kits" which did not have the right combination of blocks I needed. But he still did a lousy job.) I had to put a browncoat of cement on the walls 1) as a cheap way to fill the holes and 2) to smooth out the wall surface so I could apply the clay. Clay plaster is not a cheap way to go, and is quite labor-intensive, and that's on a perfectly smooth surface.

I hired two guys to do the browncoat. Neither had any experience working with cement, and neither did I, so all in all, it wasn't a very good job. I should have hired a professional. I was trying to save money, but the browncoat ending up costing me way more in labor costs than if I had hired a high priced professional, and that extra cost was before disaster struck with the clay application.

First of all, the walls still aren't close to being flat. They look flat from a few feet away, but if you lay an edge up against the wall, you can see how "not flat" they are. Again, that's what I get for trying to cut costs and not using a professional. The other problem is that when Alegandro, one of the guys, found out I was going to put clay plaster over the cement, he kept telling me it wouldn't stick unless he raised up the rock in the cement. I knew that wasn't true, because I had already tried applying the clay onto a very smooth portion of the cement and it stuck just fine, and I had taken an all day class on clay application (twice, I'm a slow learner) and I knew the clay didn't need much to grab onto. Despite my assurances that he didn't need to do this, he raised up the rock in the cement with a sponge and the clay had a hell of a surface to grab onto. Way too much of a surface, it turned out, as the Loma is only applied the thickness of a credit card. The raised surface came right through the clay.

So I took a mason stone and scrubbed off the too-rough surface. This proved to be a rather arduous task (since I only have one hand I can use), so I hired Heidi next door to do a couple rooms. Since I know nothing about concrete, I didn't realize we were removing the seal by scraping off the surface. Then I had a hard time applying the clay, because even though I sprayed the cement wall with water before I applied the clay, the cement immediately sucked the water out of the clay and dried it out right away. The clay was very difficult to work with, because it dried out so fast, and I couldn't merge the edges. It wasn't until I applied the second coat, though, that the first coat started falling off the wall.

I immediately called American Clay in New Mexico to try to figure out what the problem was. They were extremely helpful and immediately diagnosed the problem. They recommended that I use a sealer over the concrete and explained what the sealer was and how I could identify that I had the right product. It took me a couple hours of calling around to find a dealer that had the sealer I thought was right (there's no national brand of this sealer, I guess--it's called something different depending on where you live). The guy from American Clay said it had to look and smell like Elmer's Glue. There was only one dealer in the Twin Cities that had something, and I bought a five gallon bucket. The first thing I did after I paid for it was open it up and take a whiff. Yep, Elmer's Glue.

By this time it was late Thursday afternoon, and I was having the rain catchment cistern put in on Friday. I tested out the bonding agent (TK Tribond), let it dry, and applied the clay. It stuck. Then I had to go back to the walls with a putty knife and strip off all the clay, brush the walls with a dry scrub brush to get the last bits of clay off, clean the walls of all dust with a brush, and roll on the Elmer's Glue. And start all over again. It's just not very satisfying to put clay on a wall that I already put clay on, and took clay off, and cleaned and dusted off, and rolled bonding agent on.

So that's the bad news. The good news is that I'm much faster applying the clay, that the sealer stops the cement from sucking all the water out of the clay, making the application easier, and after five full work days, I'm pretty much caught up to where I was before. But that five days doesn't count all the time and money (paying others) to get the clay off and re-do everything. The other good news is that before I scraped the clay off the walls, I cleaned up the floor, and then swept up the clay to re-use. That's one good thing about dried clay--you just add water and it becomes clay again (a good reason not to use it in the shower or kitchen).

Moving on to another subject: the Cistern

Because I'm having so much of my yard as garden, I wanted a rain catchment system. I did a lot of research on line and came up with zippo in terms of trying to find a local contractor to put it in for me. So I just went out and bought a 1,400 gallon cistern and figured Jeffrey and I could figure it out. My brother Cliff and his wife Rosa came over to do the digging. Cliff is a master with a Bobcat. At first, he didn't think he would be able to dig a deep enough hole with a Bobcat, but it turned out he was able to do it. Here's Cliff in the Bobcat with Rosa in the bucket, lifiting the cistern up.

He ended up dragging it over to where the hole was going.

Digging the hole. The dirt went to fill spaces around the house which still didn't have enough dirt.

Rosa and Alegandro in the pit digging out the last part by hand.

Getting ready to drop the cistern into the hole.

Here's a picture of Gene Marault, who wanted to learn about clay plastering, and helped cover a wall in the basement. This was before I knew about the seal problem.

This is a couple days later. Gene is applying the bonding agent.

More Progress, but Time is Running Out

So, the house is looking more like a real house. I'm not real thrilled about how it looks from the street, however. With such a huge roof and gable, there's too much empty space on the front. It's fine from the inside of the house; it's the outside that looks a little bleak. It will look better when the dumpster is gone and you can see the lower level windows, and when the door and extension between the upper and lower bay windows get painted dark green. Even though I didn't get the garden planted until mid-July, it has grown like crazy. I guess planting in pure compost really makes a difference. I think my dozens of butternut squash will ripen okay, and I can store them all fall and winter in the cold room, so I don't think I'll have to do a lot of freezing. If I do, though, at least I'll be able to do it in the new house. My mom's kitchen is smaller than most bathrooms. I've been canning corn and tomatoes from my brother's garden, and it takes twice as long because I have no counter space to work on at the old house. The tomato plants in my own garden have hundreds of tomatoes. The question is, will it stay warm enough for them to ripen? A few are starting to turn orange, so maybe there's hope.

The next four pictures are in reverse order. My first attempt at clay plastering. Shown below is the north wall of the lower level bedroom completed. The clay plastering is a nightmare compared to the class I took. In class, we applied the clay to wallboard. I'm applying it to a brown coat of cement over the Faswall bricks. The Faswall bricks are not uniform. Even if I had had a competent contractor to build the Faswall block walls (which I did not), the imperfections in the bricks would have still caused problems. I made a big mistake in hiring amateurs to apply the brown coat to the Faswall. First, because of their inexperience, it cost over 50% more to get it put on, since I paid by the hour instead of the job. So instead of saving money, I lost money. Then, the parge coat was very uneven and it's taking me forever to apply the clay so it's somewhat smooth. I'm spending twice as much money (at least) on clay, because I'm having to put it on way thicker that I would on wallboard. The thicker it goes on, the harder it is to smooth out evenly without leaving trowel marks. Then the other thing is that the cement base just sucks the water out of the clay. Instantly. So the clay dries immediately, and it's difficult to get adjoining sections to blend together smoothly. I've been spraying the heck out of the cement right before I apply the clay, but it still dries out immediately. The only good thing about the clay is my labor is free.

Starting my first clay plastering with a small section. You can see how I wet the wall down underneath.

Before plastering.

Wow, the front steps are finally in!

The south yard is a mess!!! Heidi and Devin next door were putting in my retaining wall, and Eberhard Construction was pouring concrete to fix and raise the window wells, and build the front door landing and stairs. The easiest thing would be to put a cement sidewalk down to the street, but want to use VAST pavers instead. VAST pavers look like regular brick, but they are made out of recycled tires. They are installed spaced apart, and are a permeable surface to decrease rainwater runoff.

Heidi and Devin next door are finishing the wall.

Wall is almost complete.

Close-up of the stucco wall pattern.

View of the house from the southeast.

Kitchen cabinets installed. Jeffrey had to assemble some matching ones to fill in the gaps and custom make holders for the wall ovens and the dishwasher.

My Chaska teaching buds, Lucy, Janelle, and Ann, came out to the house to see it and then we had a picnic.

Time is Running Out

My construction loan was initially for one year, which ended September 1st. I was able to get a three-month extension, but I can only get one of those. So December 1st is my drop dead date to get most everything completed. My construction loan turns into a mortgage at that point, and I can’t get any more money from the construction loan.

Jeffrey and I did an assessment of where we are at in terms of completion of what is left to do, and it wasn’t pretty. Although things have been progressing at a pretty good pace for the last couple months, we lost time while I was injured, and we never made up for time we lost last fall and winter with contractor problems. We’re both going to have to put in some serious time to finish up. I had hoped to move in by November 1st, but I doubt that will happen. There are only a few more things which MUST be completed to get a certificate of occupancy, and we’ll focus on those. The main one is completing the HVAC. White Bear Mechanical went bankrupt in June. The former owner promised to complete the job, but hasn’t come through, so we’re looking for a new contractor to finish the job. We must have one working bathroom, and that won’t be a problem. The sidewalk from the front door to the street has to be in. That’s one of my projects, with VAST permeable pavers.

Before my mom and I can move in, though, the main level must be totally completed. The lower level, where I’m going to live, doesn’t have to be 100%, but my mom’s area must be 100%. She couldn’t’ take the disruption of ongoing finishing work. Moving out of the house she’s lived in for 40 plus years will be disruption enough. So Jeffrey and I are focusing on the interior window framing, the interior doors (both Jeff’s), and the bathroom tiling (mine), as well as the clay plastering and painting (both mine). I’m taking a week off to work on the house next week, so we’ll see how the progress moves along.