Restoration of old Log buildings.

Restoration of old log buildings is beautiful work. The feeling that you get when repairing and old building is one of joy and relief that you are helping to save a wonderful structure. It is almost like you can hear the building thanking you when working with it. Below is a link to a quick slide show of one such building that we helped to save a few years ago. It was a 100 year old church that was listing and as you can see in the slide show the logs were severely damaged. We had to lift the building using 10 ton jacks and replace the logs all the way around and under most of the windows, replace the paneling and driplists. We also had to take up the floor and restore the under-structure as it was very badly damaged. There are a lot of simple logic rules to follow when living in a log building and they were completely ignored for 20-30 years in this building.
Such things as keeping the ventilation holes between the granite foundation open during the warm summer months so the subfloor can breathe. Then closing them when the freezing temperatures arrive so to have better insulation. In Finland the old saying is that you close these holes when the lakes freeze and open them when the lakes thaw again.
Also during repairs in the 1960-70's they put plastic around some logs which was just crazy and even worse poured concrete in around other to fill in old stove foundations. Needles to say this just destroyed the logs.
They also built a modern altar around the beautiful old carved altar which we uncovered when under the floor.

Have a look and see for yourself. Just click on the following link.

http://terrafirma.fi/services/restoration.html

If you have any restoration projects that you would like to share please forward them with a little description of the work and I can post them here for you..

Happy Christmas to All

Happy Christmas and a really great New Year to everyone checking this blog.
May you have a very Natural holiday.

Thank you and warm regards

Paul Lynch/Manager
The Natural Building Company Oy
+358 44 2509663

paul@naturalbuilding.fi
http://thenaturalbuildingblog.blogspot.com/
www.naturalbuilding.fi

Ecological roofing.

What is Ecological roofing?
Well for me it using a roofing material that does not need to be changed for a long long time and that even after its life span will be recycleable or will easily fit back in to nature. Such materials are:

Clay tiles should last about 50-60 years and will easily find there way back into the earth after their life span.
Zinc This must be pure Zinc and is a fabulous metal to use for roofs. It will not rust and will never need to be painted, but can be after it has oxidized. Should last over 100 years or more and is easily melted down and reused again after its lifespan.
Copper again is a beautiful roofing material which will never rust. It turns a beautiful moss green color after a while and is easy to melt down after use and even has a great resale value as scrap material. It is however more expensive to buy than Zinc.
Natural turf or grass roofs, are beautiful and great to install. Only draw back is their weight. Plan a good roof structure if you intent to use one.
Straw or reed are to me the most beautiful and obviously very environmentally friendly. Unfortunately in a lot of countries now they ask you to put gypsum board as the ceiling material under these roofs to act as a fire detterent, which defeats the purpose of having such a wonderful roof in the first place.
Wooden roofs are beautiful, easy to make and install. The may need to be coated with tar or some oils such as cooked linseed to protect them. Are obviously easy to repair or replace and are environmentally friendly if the wood is local.

Can you think of any more??

Repair work on Straw bale buildings.

The stained wall

I went to see a customer of mine last month who, for the first time since building his Straw Bale house by the sea in Helsinki 14 years ago has had a leak. This happened in his kitchen, just over the door and left a kind of brown damp stain on the lime plaster finish. These stains were also appearing around his windows on other parts of the house. So after investigating and trying to find the cause for the leak, and discussing the problem with him we came to the conclusion that it was because he had changed the roof tiles about 2 years ago and the new tiles where not put on with great care.

Just over the door

Icicles outside the doors

Close up

Snow melting into the roof

Not good

Let me explain a little more!

The type of tiles he originally he had were clay tiles called Wienerberger which are from Estonia. These are an excellent robust quality clay tile and are normally of very high quality, but my customer was unlucky that he had gotten a bad batch when he first built the house. They lasted for about 6-7 years before decaying on his roof as the where burned to quickly when first made. He then contacted the manufacturer who replaced them under the warranty. Now here is where the problem seems to have started! When the building was first built it was built by a very good team of Straw bale builders who new what to do when covering and tiling the roof, therefore there were no leakage problems in the first years of the houses life. Within one year of the tiles being changed there came a leak, because the roofers were not accustomed to working on a Straw bale house and did not take into consideration that an open gap would cause so much damage. So after checking the roof I noticed that in the spot over where the leak was there were big gaps between the tiles and battens, where melting snow was just flowing in and thus making its way into the bales.

Gap between tile and battens. Needs to be closed!

In the other parts of the house, around the windows, it was not so much the roofers fault as the natures. This house is surrounded by beautiful tall old pine trees which tend to lose there pines straight down onto the roof, therefore blocking up all the little channels and rain pipes which normally leave the rain water and melting snow water away from the window areas. These were totally blocked and needed to be cleaned regularly.

Window details with their channels and pines everywhere

Solutions:
We will solve these problems by repairing the damaged wooden battens under the tiles, replacing the metal cladding between the joining of two roofs with a more efficient model which covers the holes up and by putting copper cladding over the area where these holes are. Also by keeping the roof and around the windows cleaned regularly. We will then re-coat the stained walls inside with white wash and wait until the spring to see does the brown discoloring come back, in which case we will then open this area up from the inside and check the conditions of the bales and repair them, and add new plaster.

Have you had any problems on your Straw bale home that needed repair. Why not comment on what you had to do or send me some info. on how you did it and I can post it here. Its good for all Straw balers out there to know and learn about what to do if there is a problem..

Working against the weathers..

This is a post that I thought about while putting up our little love shack here in Finland and while working at the same time on rebuilding an old experimental Straw bale house that had very little work done to it after it was first built 15 years ago.

Building before we took it down.

15 years without any plaster

Was beginning to fall

After we were finished

So we thought to try and experiment with this idea and thought the "Love shack" would be the perfect building to work on as it is small and will not be used for living in, and did not need planning permission.

My question was, how far into the Autumn can we build in Finland and where is the cut off point?
Not everyone obviously would have this problem, depending on where you live, but here in the Nordics and parts of Eastern Europe we certainly do.
There are so many different weather conditions to consider such as the autumn rains, the winter snow and freezing, and the spring where you have up to 1.5m of melting snow, on top of the spring rains, and the moisture and damp that comes with this.

Love shack

First we covered it with Tarps.

Now with felt roof and tarps around the walls

From this one question comes many different questions, such as
1. How to store the bales?
2. What are the best ways of covering the bales when in the walls?
3. Can we plaster in the colder weathers?
4. How will the bales react through the freezing cold weather here without plaster?
5. Are the walls without plaster on them, strong enough to take the weight of serious amounts of snow?

I will try to answer these questions one by one.
1. How to store the bales?
We had the bales delivered at the end of September at the same time as they were delivered to the rebuilding project. My thoughts on this were that it was logistically smarter and I had the plan to start building within 2 weeks. I first put the bales on pallets and covered them lightly with tarps as we had a forecast of a lot of dry sunny weather. As soon as I realized that I was not going to get to the project that soon because I got held up with the other rebuilding project, then I covered them more thoroughly, with bigger heavier tarps and metal sheeting on top as a roof. This I thought was good enough as in the following weeks it rained and even snowed lightly and the temperature dropped a lot. It took me almost 1 month to get to the building and when we finally did we discovered that some of the tarps had stuck to the bales due to the freezing and luckily only 2 out of the 20 bales were damaged and could not be used.
So, I learnt never order the bales until you are sure you are building unless you have a proper place to store them. That storage should have a good enough roof over the bales with ample overhang and the bales should be well off the ground. Make sure that the site is well prepared. Disgard any bales that have become seriously water damaged.
2. What are the best ways of covering the bales when in the walls?
When we finally got the walls raised I knew the rains were coming so we covered them with tarps and I prayed they would not get too damaged. It rained a lot over the next few days and when we saw a break come in the weather we got our chance to put a roof on. Then we built out the tops of the wall plate by 10cm and let our tarps hang from there down so there is now an air gap between the Tarps and the Bales.
3. Can we plaster in the colder weathers?
Interesting question. I have seen it done but don't think it wise as the plaster has cracked a lot. Temperatures here in Finland can drop easily below -30 degrees and back up again to zero again in the space of 2 days. Not good for clay. It would be interesting to hear some more comments on this one??
4. How will the bales react through the freezing cold weather without plaster?
This I have found to be ok as the weather here is so dry in the winter and this has helped the bales to dry out properly after the rains.
5. Are the walls without plaster on them, strong enough to take the weight of serious amounts of snow?
Well, we have already had 60-70cm of snow fall in December and this has compressed the bales a little more but they are standing strong. I have had to clean this snow off the roof already as we know we can expect at least the same amount again over the coming months. I do not think this a problem for the bales to hold but would have liked to have plastered them for fire protection reasons and also because of the damp spring that I know will come, which means the bales will need to be aired and dried by the sun in the summer before plastering.
In conclusion:
Here in Finland I now feel that our window for building is from Spring when the snow has melted until the end of September and I would always recommend to plaster your walls at least with the first coat straight away after erecting them, whatever the climate in your country is. It will be interesting with this experiment how the Straw will react during the Spring months when we have damper weather. If the building that we rebuilt in the first pictures on this blog are anything to go by after lasting 15 years with no plaster on them, then I think they will be fine. Remember that this was an experiment. You should always plan and prepare you buildings very well and make sure you give yourself ample time to get everything finished. Don't take any unnecessary risks that would cause your building future damage.


I would love to hear other stories on peoples experiences with the conditions in their countries, and problems they have had due to the weather...