Sunday, June 26, 2011

Death to the North Wall and roof

On June 20th I got the opportunity to drive out to the property for a couple hours to check things out and show the land to a gentleman visiting my brother from England.


As we pulled up to the property, disappointment quickly set in.



It seems like the wind got ahold of my pre-fabricated northern-most roof section and took one wall with it due to the banding straps that were attached near the bottom of the wall. The banding straps on the west apparently broke under the stress rather than taking the wall with it.

The solution I believe that we will be trying, money permitting, is to restack the failed walls (hopefully without having to tear down the rest of the structure) and rebuild the roof in place, but this time pour 6 pylons and chain the roof directly to a positive anchor in the ground rather than the strawbale wall.

Luckily we didn't loose all of the lumber from the north roof section as it landed a dozen yards or so away and held its ground.





I stacked a half dozen bails on top of the roof on the west side just before we left a couple months ago thinking that a few hundred pounds of straw would do a pretty good job at holding the roof on in addition to the banding straps. I was very supprised to see that not a single bale (around 50-65 pounds per bale) remained on the roof section still in place. I have definitely underestimated the power of the wind.


It was a neat experience having Chris from England out for a few days. It was fun seeing the things that were new and impressive to him that I don't even give a second thought to like dirt roads, roads that stretch straight for as long as the eye can reasonably see, open space for hundreds of miles, being able to carry a pocket knife and/or other means of self defense.


Taylie realllly wants to go home with him so she can "marry him and live forever and ever in a castle." She's already got the accent down pretty well from this clip she finds hilarious http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM.


Taylie really enjoyed his company and even made him a drawing to put in his journal so that he would "Always remember her", I hope he didn't mind coming a few thousand miles to be adored to death by my 4 year old.

6 comments:

  1. oh man. i'm sorry! i can only imagine your disappointment. the wind really is a butt kicker out there, but i too am surprised at its ability to do what it did.

    may your refocused efforts inspire you to the ultimate solution!!!!

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  2. Bummer, hate to say but it's better that it happened now and not much later. At least you learn something and the damage is minimal. Wish we could be out there to help ya get it back up!

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  3. Thanks for the support! It was a huge bummer to see when we pulled up, but looking back I don't think it will be a huge deal, I should be able to get it fixed in a weekend.Thanks for the support!

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  4. I know how frustrating that is. I try to warn people about the wind, but it's hard not to sound like I am exagerating. I saw a cow get blown away the other day.

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  5. My advice going forward would be to consider using tires and earth to build. They're much more stout, you will have something heavy and sturdy to attach a roof too, and you will get a thermal mass to help retain warmth in the winter and coolness in the summer. Take a gander at earthships and combinations of earthships. www.earthship.org

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  6. Zach,
    I can not check facebook from work, and we do not have internet at home right now. So, send me an email. I have been trying to get a hold of you for some time now. Send it to golds_borough@yahoo.com, I will send you my number via email. Take care.

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