Making of the Round-House
Why round, you might ask? Well, why not round, I might ask back! A round house has distinct advantages in terms of thermal insulation, and structural stability. Given that the winters here are cold, and I want to keep the house comfortably warm using only the power my microhydro plant can deliver, I need excellent insulation. That alone is reason enough to make the house round.
Here the building site has been staked out, with the height of the stakes marking the horizontal plane.
This machine dug the platform in about 10 hours. The earth was deposited 40 meters away, behind that tree that's behind the machine, where it does not cause trouble.
The trenches for the foundations are 110cm deep. This rather large depth was thought necessary, because the ground is very soft. The wall foundations will be 50cm wide, and the pillars will rest on square pads varying in size according to the load on each pillar.
After installing the moulds (with round shape and all) around the steel, it was back to concrete pouring.
The concrete was mixed on site, because the place is too far away from a city to bring in ready-mixed concrete. The mixer got a brand new gasoline engine, because its existing electric motor did not run with our 2kW generators, and my water turbine is still not online!
The seventeen thousand bricks have arrived!
The bricks walls are standing, now the concrete pillars have to be filled.
This form was made from plywood supported on thick pine beams, which were mounted on wooden pillars, much cheaper then renting steel structures. The same wood parts will be re-used for the concrete ceiling.
It took two days to do this job, but after working into the night and then starting early the next day, the concrete should still set as one piece. The low temperature helps in this, as it slows down the setting. In this photo, the job is almost done!
The finishing touches. Later on, a finishing layer of fine concrete will be added over this coarse and rough structural layer.
So, slowly, three brick layers at a time, all around, the house is growing, and it resisted the next two storms...
And a view out of the other living room window, onto a roble tree in autumn colors.
Finally poured concrete after a tiring day.
The eight main beams will be joined at the midpoint. For this purpose, a steel star was needed.
The area under the roof will not be used, at least for now.
All main beams are in place, and the flag is flying, fulfilling an old tradition for newly built houses! In this way, the vertical tube of my steel star got its first use.
The roof structure is being filled out with the secondary beams. Note the wet walls. While most photos were made in good weather, most of the work progressed during rain, storm, icing, and at temperatures around the freezing point. It's mid winter.
When the roof was fully covered, metal straps were installed along the joints. These might help with waterproofing when there is high wind, but the main reason for them is some degree of lightning protection.
Omega-shaped profiles were installed in vertical orientation, at 60cm distance between them. They were bolted to J-bolts embedded in the mortar of the brick walls, and their tops were bolted to a support angle attached to the roof.
The window and door cutouts got fibercement planks screwed onto metal angle stock as a finish. The roof overhang was also finished with this material.
Source: Ludens Cl
