Blog 21: Pre-wrap building inspection

We had another critical milestone before we could start closing in the frames and filling in the walls with straw, the pre-wrap building inspection. 

Craig from Hastings District Council came out last Friday afternoon and Pat guided him through.  Not a simple job for a Friday afternoon as its not a “standard” build to the minimum code house, so a lot of information for him to take in. 

Pat has done a great job with our build, and we have been conservative in the decisions we made along the way - the house is well beyond code where it matters.  The inspection went very well, and we have sign-off so we are now officially on the countdown to straw going into the walls… 

So far this week I have been working on insulating with wool and then closing in the plywood base of the box beam that is on top of the straw walls and also doing the final go round for our steel bracing and hold-downs.  I also discovered that holding a nail gun over your head all day and shooting upwards is very tiring, so broke it up with other tasks to give my arms and shoulders a rest.

One of those other tasks, after a quick lesson from Pat, is creating and installing the moisture meters - a simple way of setting up a base line for conductivity inside the finished walls.  These will be re-checked in the years ahead to monitor for any significant changes inside the plastered walls.

Appreciating all the help to get to this point from so many people, as the sun dips towards the Ruahine mountain range in the west here I hope this post finds you happy and well wherever you are in the world.