Our Owner-Builder Steel-Frame Kit-Home in Progress
Wednesday 2 October 2024
Thursday 26 September 2024
Winter was approaching and we wanted to create a smaller space so that it was easier to be warm in winter. We had discovered by living in the caravan that a small space is actually surprisingly easy to keep warm. Just by our body heat alone, along with jumpers and blankets, we had been comfortable in near zero temperatures. The caravan is under the trees though, and the trees act like a mice warm blanket over the land, so at night the temperatures stay much warmer in comparison to the cleared area around the house. When there are no trees then the warmth of the day just rises up into the sky and it gets much colder much faster. Around the caravan there is never a frost, but down in the clearing we have had quite a few frosts each winter.
We cleared the area where the house is due to bushfire regulations. If it is clear at least 33m around each side of the house, we achieved Bushfire Attack Level 29, which is basically medium level. So while we have safety from bushfire, we also have much colder winter nights. We don't have any form of heating in the house, so the best plan was to just try and create the smallest space to take advantage of our body heat. First step was putting up a ceiling in the first bedroom, as it received winter sun and had all the walls insulated and clad with plywood.
Monday 26 August 2024
Solar System
Every screw hole needed to be filled, and they looked like this before filling. They had to be cleaned up of all the splinters around them before filling, so I used a stanley knife or a sander to get them neat and tidy. Also the ones that weren't quite deep enough had to be screwed in a bit further, so I pulled out the drill for that.
Sunday 11 August 2024
We had some spare metal ceiling battens so Josh had a go at cutting them to size, screwing them to the framing and and then attaching the plywood. The below image is the back side of the wall.
This wasn't really ideal as there was too much flex in the plywood joins. There was some further experimentation with wooden battens but nothing was really working. We really didn't know how much support the plywood would need, and could only learn from testing various ideas.
There is almost no information online about using plywood as a wall material. Everyone assumes that all buildings are a) timber framing and b) gyprock sheeting. We didn't want gyprock or cement board as it just gets holes in it too easily. I think it's a stupid building material and I don't know why it is so popular. Maybe it is to keep the handymen in a job as they are constantly fixing it when it breaks. Also we didn't want the hassle of doing all the plastering over the top. Such a waste of time, money and energy when you can just screw up a plywood sheet and then paint it. You need special tools to install gyp, and it costs more money in the long run.
Eventually the decision was made to cut every single piece of plywood to size to fit the wall framing. The plywood just had too much bend in it and needed a lot of support. This meant that there was a lot of skinny bits of plywood offcuts. Some of these would be wide enough to be used somewhere else but not all of them. This might mean that the calculations of how much plywood was needed will be off. Oh well.
Below is the bedroom wall with 4 sheets across. There is still a gap across the top that needs filling too.
Next was the living room wall.
Below is the second bedroom, with both the walls on the left and the back having insulation placed inside them.
And below is the two walls on the outside of the bathroom.
Then December rolled around, and the living room walls continued.
In the background of this photo below taken in January of 2023 (of a special visit from an old friend) you can see the kitchen wall done on the left and the living room wall finished to the right.
Next update will be documenting 2023 February, when the solar installation is upgraded.
Tuesday 6 August 2024
Ok let's time travel back to 2022... In September we finally had our delivery of insulation and plywood for internal wall cladding.
*not itchy
Anyway it was a good day in all, and great to finally have the materials we needed to continue on with finishing the internals of our house. Here's the total of the costs, not including the screws which will be needed to attach to plywood to the walls.
Wednesday 27 March 2024
Filling Gaps
2022 August
As part of the building requirements for our house, we had to meet bushfire standards. We fulfilled most of these simply by having metal cladding on the outside of the house, but another rule to meet Bushfire Attack Level (BAL) 29 was that there is not allowed to be any gaps smaller than 2mm. This is so that in the event of a bushfire, embers blown by the wind won't be able to get into the house and start a fire. It's a great rule! Many houses burn down because of accumulated dried leaves which are lit by flying embers, so it's best to keep them all out as much as possible.
We have had to be very inventive as there are very few products available to fill some of the trickier gaps, such as the gap under every single wave of the corrugated iron. This is where the roofing sheets are screwed to the battens. This is a very difficult area to access as you cannot get to it from the outside due to the gutter being in the way. From the inside it's also very difficult to get to as the roof finishes around 400mm from the edge of the house. The best solution we came up with was using roofing silicone to fill all those pesky holes. It was tricky to convince this somewhat runny product to stay upright enough to fill these gaps, but I figured out a few techniques to get it done. So I climbed up the ladder with the caulking gun loaded, stuck my arms into the gaps and did the best I could.
It was a very time consuming job, and my hands got tired from squeezing the caulking gun at an awkward angle so I could only do a section at a time. The gap was so narrow that my elbow would get stuck if I didn't have it bent exactly the right way to be able to pull it out again! I had to remind my claustrophobia not to panic, especially while balanced on a ladder lol.
I tested out all the different types of silicone and found that the clear one was the best. Something about the white one made it a completely different texture. Hopefully these will last quite a while, as they are meant to be UV resistant. This will also keep leaves, dust and rain from going inside our eaves, not to mention any birds or insects which might want to make nests in there.
Unfortunately the gaps above the windows could not be accessed from inside, and could not be siliconed from outside, so I had to come up with another solution.
We purchased aluminium flashing from Bunnings, and I placed a sheet of Colorbond on it and drew a line with a permanent marker. Then I cut out this line with a pair of tin snips.
This aluminium flashing is very easy to work with, basically like alfoil but thicker. It wasn't the most perfect fit when I shoved it in, as I literally could not see what I was doing but oh well, better than nothing.
Also this month was our council building inspection for the frames of the house. This was our first inspection since the holes for the footings. Our council inspector is very nice, and helpfully pointed out a couple of things that we should do, but overall was very happy with our work. What a relief after all the effort we've put in to do things right!
One problem we had to fix was that the copper pipes for the plumbing was directly touching our metal floor supports and metal cladding The plumber was so used to working with houses which have wooden support beams and cladding that he didn't realise that the two metals touching together would create a reaction that leads to corrosion. In fact the corrosion had already started happening in one place! It was an easy enough fix, I just got an old bicycle tube and chopped it into pieces, unscrewed each screw enough to fit it under, and shoved the rubber in and then screwed the screw back in.
It meant another day of grubbing around under the house, and sore muscles in very strange places. It's funny how used we get to gravity being a certain way up!
The building inspector also wanted some more screws WITH A WASHER (apparently makes all the difference) in the edges of the walls where it met the floor, and near doorways, so that was another easy fix.
He also said that the internal framing needed one more bracket for support as per the plans, so Josh bought something suitable from Bunnings and screwed it up.
Next month - figuring out how to attach the ends of the ceiling battens, and delivery of the insulation and plywood internal cladding.