Crossing the threshold..

Above is an image of the north side of the home we are constructing. You can see the carport to the right and the entry to the left. I took a step back to take a look at the work we have done so far this week. The shifting planes of the building have emerged and 2 of our 4 rammed earth walls are complete. The front entry has been framed and is up. It was only a month and a half ago that this was just a plot of dirt. I thought I'd throw in an old picture to see how far we've come. Pretty wild.

Entry [below]

I just can't get over the beauty of rammed earth and how amazing it will be to walk into this room.

 Our second completed rammed earth wall [above]

It's been a pretty exciting week! Rooms are beginning to form in DDBC house 6. We now have multiple shaded spaces for us to escape the beating sun..unless we are on the roof of course. We now have all our joists up in the kitchen and family room and the sheathing for the roof above it is being put in now. Rammed earth is progressing and we are a little over 60% done with our rammed earth walls!  

Framers and Rammed Earthers working side by side!  :) In this image above you can see the formwork for the rammed earth wall in one of the bedrooms and to the left of it is the living room and kitchen.

Joists above the kitchen.

All hands on deck! Here is the east wall of the living room.

Alan putting in the sheathing above the living room.

The Big Reveal

Our tallest rammed earth wall is completed and we took the formwork off this Friday to see our gorgeous wall. At this point, formwork for all four rammed earth walls are up and the framing effort is still progressing to the roof. Take a look a the images below to see the work!

 Taking off formwork!

Before...

After!!

The darker areas are parts of the wall that are still moist. They dried up pretty quick once the formwork was off and our Tucson sun beat down on it.

Progress

It's pretty amazing that we are only a little over a month into building and a home is being formed. We are just about finished with our tallest rammed earth wall and have begun taking the formwork off of it. In framing, the waterproofing material is being wrapped around the house and even more walls have gone vertical. 

Now this is scaffolding and yes, we are assembly lining 45 lb. buckets up 12 feet. We are getting buff!

In framing news...

Our first joists are up! It's really exciting to see the house begin to look like a house. The joists over the carport and the sheathing for the roofing has been nailed in. The anticipation of seeing more of these pieces come together is growing with the progress of this house. 

Connecting studs to the treated base board using steel ties

Kenny nailing a joist into a hanger

Joist's over the Carport

Kenny and Jay hammering in the sheathing

First photos of the Rammed Earth

SLOWLY taking off the formwork. Taking it off too fast could cause the outer layer, which is still curing, to come off is some areas.

The anticipation was intense! We were so excited to see the new wall!

The first glimpse! (This side faces out)

Beauty.

Pictures of our rammed earth wall coming soon!

Rammed Earth...

IS REAL PHYSICAL LABOR! Sometimes doing rammed earth feels like all you've done is move dirt from one place to the next and then pounded it. First we take 28 sq. ft of earth which for us is 14 wheel barrels and pile that onto our mixing surface. Then we manually mix in a bag of cement. Then we Rototil it which mechanically mixes it. Then we wet it. Then we mix. Then we wet it. Then we mix...THEN we put our mixture into buckets. And then we put the buckets of our mixture into the formwork THEN we tamp it! And we do this over and over and over. But let me tell you. On Monday we took off our first formwork, and it was SO worth it. The wall is absolutely GORGEOUS. This house is going to be so beautiful.

Here you can see the rammed earthers and the framers working side by side!

Buckets o' earth+cement

 Brandon on the pneumatic tamper



Brandon and I tamping

Adam and Alan get 8' up into the cramped formwork!

 Allison laying out a new wall to be framed

 We get reallllly dirty..

Estefania on the hand tamper

Justin, Jerrod, Ayman, and Bil working on framing

The first wall is UP!

Yesterday was a day of cause and effect. I hammered my finger and it HURT and we put a wall up and it FELT GOOOD!! Here is a glimpse at our day in the rain!

Laying out the wall studs

Getting the formwork up and ready for the rammed earth

Getting those stakes into the ground to make sure the kickers for the formwork don't move and INCH.

WALL IS UP!

There it is :)

and here we are!