Thursday, July 25, 2013

House Progress

The house is progressing well, though not as fast as we had hoped.  Our next child is due in 7 days, and the electrical work still has to be re-done.  Yep, re-done.  I put romex directly inside the strawbales, which is common practice, but my building inspector won't pass it unless a licensed electrician puts it in conduit or replaces it with armored (MC) cable.  Not too big of a deal, just a few thousand dollars more than we had planned on and it has set us behind by about two months.

When that is finished, we can finish stapling the 2"x2" welded wire mesh to the top and bottom nailers, then plaster the straw.  We're using natural hydraulic lime (NHL) from http://www.limeworks.us/ in three coats and it takes a while to apply, especially the first coat. 

The interior walls are standard 2x4 construction with sheetrock, and they are up with sheetrock on one side (until the electrical inspection passes). 

So, the hopes are to be finished with the first floor enough to move in by the end of September.  I'll post some pictures sometime soon.