The great wall

The next task which I started in the evening and continued the entire next day was to remove the dividing wall of the two main (living-) rooms under the thatched roof. We want to see the beams that hold together the house, and allow guests to look up and enjoy a sense space when staying in the house. Another point why this wall had to go, was the air circulation of the future heating system. We are now thinking of using a wooden stove, to provide warmth in winter. For hot air from that stove to reach both rooms we need to get convection circle going.

The way this wall is constructed is pretty simple, but yet clever:

The space between the beams is filled out with a thin bamboo latice, that is interweaved and tied together with straw rope. Some bigger splinters are under tension and thus hold the thing in place. Then both sides are covered with a mixture of soil and straw. The lower parts of the wall - reaching up to the ceiling that I removed previously - were also covered with some sort of ugly mineral finish.

To my surprise, these walls were incredibly tough, and you could not for example just kick them out. I guess particularly the bamboo is responsible for this kind of resitance.



This time I had better equipment: a helmet, a gasmask style of breathing mask, protective goggles, leather gloves, a 4 pound hammer, a scraper and a ladder. At the highest point the room is roughly 5 meters high, and it was actually quite fun to sit on the huge beam that goes through the house.

The technique was pretty simple: hammer off the earth from both sides to reveal the lattice. After that cut the straw ropes and pull out the fibers and sticks. With some improving technique I was able to knock out both sides at once. The lower panels were the most difficult as they had the mineral finish on top, and some of the bamboos were also nailed into some crossing boards. At the top I just hammered out the lower parts and sawed off the bigger bamboo sticks, then hammered on strategic bigger bamboos that held the whole triangular lattice up. Finally it own weight pulled it down.

I cleared out the dirt from the house, and maybe we can recycle it for fixing smaller wholes in other walls. Apparently they had already the right mixture of clay, sand and hay, so maybe just need to add water.

After this weekend's job I was truly knackered and aching all over, swinging that hammer and doing the garden are excellent exercises. Fortunately the hot spring is only 10 minutes walk away, to offer relaxation and soothing.