Mud-wall recycling experiment

Oh whats that? A palm sized hole in the kitchen wall!



We aim to use mostly natural building materials, both to be sustainable and also to save cost. So from last weekend works efforts there remains a pile of mud wall, ready mixed:



I put a few shovel ful into a bucket and added water. it took a little experimenting to get the right relation of water vs mud straw mixture. The key point is that the small shovel should remain standing on its own when stabbed into the mix. At first I had too much water - the thing kept standing but when applied the mixture just ran away. Add more mud.





This is the wall from the outside after completing the inside patch. Before slamming on the mud mix, I placed two bamboo sticks and chicken wire in the middle.



This is how it looks from the inside:



It worked so well that I took on huge gaps above the windows in the south wall. Again placed some chicken wire and then scooped on th mud-mix. Wasps, hornets and spiders - fare well!





Nice work:

Naked kitchen

Tackling the kitchen required some of the same skills and techniques used on the other rooms to remove the ceiling. Because it was relatively low, I had no problem getting it out.



However, in this room walls were wood paneled and covered with disgusting layers of cooking fat, oil and grease. There was no other way, they had to go too. Because the kitchen had a very low ceiling, we want to put it down onto ground level, and just finish the floor with concrete, like the entrance area. So I also had to remove the (ugly) wooden flooring.

The kitchen stripped (nearly) naked:



It appeared that the walls to the outside were made up of the the thinnest possible material, then an empty space, then the paneling. Because the outside is riddled with many cracks and holes, those cavities provide excellent habitats for bees and wasps... definetly have to do something about them! An internal wall was made with a gypsum plate.

Removing the floor paneling revealed another fire place. A second layer of weight carrying boards was revealed. Below those, a collection of old beams and provided a fixing place. I couldn't move the sink on my own, so it has to go some other time. In the mean time I used the CHAINSAW, to reveal the ground just in front of it. Getting the floor boards up is quite a job because so many nails are used.

The previous owner left a surprise for me: Below the floor boards - a load of rubbish!


As I took this photo I already filled two garbage bags with the thrash. I found some evidence of small mamal habitation, but judging by tiny skelletons and absence of food, they are long gone.





There is still some rubbish to be cleared next time:

Follow Up Photos

This is just a follow up to last time's videos. It was not really easy to see the result of the hammering, so here two pictures. Before taking them, I spent some time cleaning up the dirt (three big rice sacks full), and making a start with the dust. Unfortunately its difficult to get rid of the dust, because its so light, and floats around the room. Maybe next time I will take a humidifyer with me and an air purifier with minus ion. Once they are clumped up together they will get heavy enough to stay on the ground and can then be hoovered up.

From the West side:


From the East side:


What remains to be done in this room, is to scrape off the coloured coating on the lower walls, remove some unnecessary wooden planks, clean all beams and remove as much dust as possible and finally add new walls in northern side (instead of the sliding doors).

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.

Garden Attack 2

I headed out to Ueda early morning by shinkansen, still nursing a slight hangover from a previous evening event. To clear my head and get the old body moving, I started off by addressing the field/garden of the house.

From my mothers previous experience I understood that the two short Kamas were not ideal, as there was a lot of weeds and grass to cut. So on the way over I popped into the nearby DIY shop to buy the extended version.



Progress was ok, although some stones lying hidden under the grass took their toll on the blade. Maybe try to get a motor operated one for the near future. Grass hoppers and several "kamagiri" or praying mantises frantically got out of the way as I hacked away.

It was a good workout for arms and abdomen, and I think its even better than Billy's Bootcamp!

Later that day, a contractor came to take a look at the roof, and see how much needs to be done. He also brought his experienced dad (looked like 100 years old), and they had fun surveying the place all around.

To finish the work I lit a fire and burned the mountains of grass and weeds. Last time I let some of the stuff dry first, but this time it was just too much. It got a bit smoky, but overall the field is in much better shape now.