Raising the Roof!

 

So, Ron the carpenter and Drew the new apprentice take the old RBA off before they build the new RBA. Ron’s disgruntled with the way the walls sag outward when there’s no weight on the top AND the fact that the bathhouse isn’t perfectly round. As a matter of fact, it varies by at least a foot (from the foundation on up! Oops.) Life is imperfect. We’ll deal with it.

 

So, Ron wants those walls pulled in straight, starting at the lowest level possible, so the three of us come up with a solution for moving immovable bales without a lot of ‘persuading’ or even sweat or bother.

 

 

First, you need a come-along, two lengths of rebar, a piece of wood with a hole in the middle, a nail and a washer.

Bend the thicker rebar into a curve on each end of the rebar. You’ll use this for hooking to immovable objects.

Bend the longer rebar into a curve at one end and drill a hole through the other end (or use your baling needle!) You’ll drive this through the bale that needs shifting.

 

Put the wood on, then the washer. Place the nail so the head holds it all together and tighten it against the bale.

 

Attach the come-along and ratchet. If the bale just springs back when the come-along is released, claw out some straw from the joint at each end of that bale and try it again. It should stay just where you put it.

 

Meanwhile, Ron kerfs some new 2x4’s in preparation for making….

 

An ‘almost’ circle. This is the hardest part where they have to join the two ends to each other and have it fit snugly. They manage it, and flip it over…

 

Voila! The RBA is almost done! Each plywood arc is supported by a span of interior 2 by 4 at each arc edge and in the middle. When the other side is attached, the arcs will be staggered over the first ones, so each arc end on one side is directly over the middle of the arc on the opposing side.

 

We build ramps to slide the ring up to the top of the bales. Ron did it with one finger and his other hand tied behind his back.

Okay, so it took all three of us and a little encouraging shouting to get it up this far. We’ll resort to lengths of board to extend my reach, put Ron on the blue ladder and Drew inside on the scaffolding pulling across as Ron and I push up.

 

Is Ron having second and third thoughts about the feasibility of this?

I know I’m amused! It looks like someone’s crop circle is slipping…

 

It finally goes up. I know I have a picture of it somewhere, but for the life of me, can’t find it. I’ll probably find an old roll in a year or two and there it’ll be.

 

 

So, we give it up and go swimming with the neighbors. From left to right, here’s Whitney, Janice Joplin (the dog), Adam, Lee and Drew.

 

 

And the bathhouse with a roof on! The black stripes are a roof sealant, in case it rains before we can get it sealed up. At least the inside will stay dry!

 

 

I’ve chinked the wall spaces with a mixture of mud and straw. It turns out that our mud is mostly silt, not clay and that’s a bummer. Still, the patches turn out hard as rock, and I figure it’ll get sealed behind some clay-rich earthplaster, so some silt in this limited use is okay. Maybe it’s psychological, but the chinking makes me feel like the building is just that much more solid.

…and polka-dotted.

 

Having fully embraced my fear of heights, I wasn’t sure how I was going to work out tarring the roof – until Lee mentioned that he wasn’t scared of heights and used to be a bit of a daredevil! Hooray for Lee!

 

I made him rope himself to the bathhouse, but he’s really not scared of heights. He was bouncing all over that roof.

 

…and hanging half off the edge, teasing me.

No Lee, I don’t want to come up and check out the amazing view from up there.

Yes, I’m sure it’s perfectly lovely.

 

 

Anyway, he did a terrific job of tarring and papering the roof.

While he was up on high, I fed him supplies, and worked on building a secure door for the storage area underneath the bathhouse.

 

This is the raw opening. Just a depression in the ground for a threshold and straw and concrete side walls.

So, I built my first concrete threshold. I’m proud to note that it is dead-on level from one wall to the other and slopes down gently from the center flat space over which the door will stand. See the white bit there in the upper left? That’s a plastic bag I stuffed in a piece of 4” pipe. Someday, we’ll slide a graywater pipe through that from the shower and hand-washing sink. (Remember, we have a composting toilet. No excess water there!) I put extra peagravel on the floor in the storage area, so any mud that’s tracked in during the winter wet season will just dry out, and filter down between the stones leaving a clean stone surface again.

Brilliant.

 

Voila! A heavy-duty door of 2x8 old, recycled lumber on plywood with 2x4’s backing it all up… in addition to sturdy gate hinges mounted into concrete and a sturdy hasp. It’s reinforced at the sides and top with lumber so that the position you see here is the farthest it will go, even if you wham it really hard. It can’t be lifted off of its hinges because of the lack of top clearance, so it’s a pretty well-made door. Did I mention that I made it myself? …and got it almost right the very first time out? I love it when things work out.

 

In the meantime, there was a very heavy fog which caused the roof to delaminate somewhat as it wasn’t quite dry. We’re hoping it will re-laminate (being less than 24 hours old, in some areas.) Next, I need to choose a final roofing product, secure the window and door bucks and set in the windows/door and plastering! I’m hoping to get it all done this coming weekend.

Do I dream too big?