Blog 39: Cladding and Reveals
A quick update to share some more building advances after a run of recent pizza oven and owner building lifestyle posts..
This update showcases the work that has been done to plaster in the beautiful reveals around our doors and windows and also the work that has been done on the non-strawbale walls of the house, to wrap, cavity batten and clad with cement board ahead of our final exterior coats of plaster…
This blog post is also an opportunity to introduce two co-creators, Martin and Everett who have been lending a helping hand in recent months.
Martin is a traveler from Europe who loves straw bale building and plastering, and has been helping out from time to time with our on-going plastering efforts - he is sharing his plastering experience and is enjoying learning new techniques from our resident plaster master Pat.
Everett has a tiny house and strawbale building background and recently joined the RM Strawbale team to complete his building apprenticeship, a win all round and he has landed running, so directly helping get us moved in as soon as possible.
Martin
Everett
Let’s start with Pat and Martin forming the clay plaster reveals with all the lovely curves, inside and outside, that are part and parcel of a strawbale-earth building.
And at the same time, the cavity battens and exterior cladding were also going up, this time with pictures featuring Pat, Nils and Everett.
The addition of our wing walls to the front of the house and closing it in with the exterior cladding has transformed the look of the house, in fact we will compare our original 3D design render and the clad house as built in the last two photo’s.
But first a little more on these wing walls you see in the photos, they are a mix of form and function; they break up the front of the house, providing some degree of privacy (or a least the feel of separation) and they also help us to manage unwanted solar gain on the north facing glazing from the morning sun (east) and most importantly evening sun (west) in the summer months without significantly effecting our views or reducing desirable solar gain in the winter months.
With the Pro-clima wrap on the front of the house we had become the blue house on the hill.. and this was soon followed by the light green RAB board cladding and another major change of look and feel.
