Location, Location, Location!

Location is a very important part of building a house, and probably one of the most important when building a sustainable house  Its also one where some important factors are often ignored. It is one of the cheapest ways to improve your house efficiency since where you place it can have a big impact on heating/cooling. I am going to discuss location with regard to building on a piece of land that is already purchased.

The factors that dictate where you build will change depending on your latitude and local climate. Some common location factors here in Victoria that are usually taken into consideration when building a house are:

1. the view - important to some people, I personally don't mind taking the time to walk to a place on the property to admire the view (on a good day we can see Western Port Bay and Wilsons Promontory National Park), it makes it more special.
2. access to the road - it can be cost prohibitive to build a good long track, but the benefit's are privacy and less disturbance from local traffic.
3. distance to services, ie. telephone and electricity - this can have a major impact on the cost of connecting to public services, running power/telephone a long distance increases the cost of earth works and the cost per meter of cable for power, and could require 3-phase connection depending on load and length of cable. For us this wasn't even a factor since we had decided long ago to run of our own power (solar and wind) and are successfully using mobile broadband and voip for phone.

The major factors that WE used when choosing a location to build our house on the property were

1. has good sun access in the winter (when it is needed, our winters are quite mild with some snow every couple of years) - this is important for passive heating, you do not need to face the front of the house north, just have the big windows facing north (with adequate eaves to shade out direct summer sun).
2. protection from strong winds - this can be negated by planting trees and building shelter around the house, but why do that when you can do the same with less cost by good placement. The last thing you want is to be blown away as you step out of the house. The other thing with an exposed house is that the wind will cool it down, a sheltered spot will naturally have less heat loss.
3. use of natural environment - for us the site has a hill to the east which shelters us from the wind. The other side benefit of having the hill next to the house it that it will be the perfect place to put a water tank on top of to supply the house (by gravity, avoiding the need for electric pressure pumps).

There are other factors that you need to be aware of are the local council building regulation that dictate setbacks from boundaries, creeks etc. This is important to know when buying a property as a spot that you think would be ideal to build on can be excluded by these laws, which usually are very strictly enforced (some for good reason). For us, we are located in an erosion overlay in rural Victoria. We have a creek starting in the middle of the property which has a setback of 100m and a 20m setback from the boundary which severely limits the spotsp where a house can be placed. We picked out several possible house sites at the time of purchase based on setbacks and flat spots that would minimise earth works (and hopefully house footings).

After buying the land we then spent the next few years assessing the different house sites based on weather conditions at different times of the year, during the extremes, summer and winter and the change in autumn where we get strong westerly winds. We noticed that when we got the extreme winds that one of the sites was sheltered (a big plus to that particular site). We were not keen on building near the road as privacy was a consideration but one thing that we noticed was that passing traffic on the dirt road during summer causes a large dust cloud that would cover anything near the road in a thick layer of dust (a big minus for any site near the road).

The extra benefit of the sheltered site is that the hill that shelters the site is ideal to put the solar panels and a water tank on top for gravity fed water. This eliminated the need to run a water pump whenever water is need in the house. Water will be pumped up using an electric transfer pump running straight off the 12V DC battery bank.

The other thing to watch for when choosing a location to build your house are pockets of low land which can trap cold air and frost during winter, the stability of the land. We are building in an erosion overlay and the surrounding area has visible signs of land slippage. This can increase the cost of house footings considerably and the last thing you want is for your new house to be split in half by moving foundations.

My personal 'favorite' biggest house location mistakes are facing a house's main windows west (closely followed by south). Which means you have the hot afternoon sun shining directly in, and the only way to avoid the sun is to block it. Also building on top of a hill where you are exposed to the elements. If you do want a nice view then the choice of property is very important because it's very hard to enjoy the view when the sun is streaming in through your nice big windows on a 40°C day or you get blown away by the wind every time you step outside you house in autumn.

Other important topics of location are with regard to location of windows and rooms in the house which will be discussed some time in the future.

To finish off here is a picture of our house and a description of its location.

As seen from the hill next to the house site

This picture was taken in the morning. You can see from the shadow that west is to the top of the photo (you can see the road which is one of our boundaries), north is to the right, south is left and the photo was taken with me standing on top of the hill to the east of the house.

The 'front' of the house is to the north, where we will locate the sun room for passive solar heating in the winter. The west side has the bathroom, toilet and a short hallway(storage area). The bathroom will have west facing windows but we will have a treed outside area to shade the windows in hot summer evenings(we are may make this outside area accessible from the bathroom). The hallway will have a narrow long window facing south west for light and a view of the paddocks to the south and west (this window will most likely be one that is tinted and has high IR blocking).

all the posts and main beams are up

We finally finished putting up all the posts and main beams recently.  It was a proud moment to get the last post and beam up.  A job, that before we started it seemed 'too hard', got done fairly easily and simply (we were lucky to get a bit of help from friends and family which is greatly appreciated!).  We didn't need to hire a crane or borrow a tractor to lift the timber, just a bit of ancient 'technology'! 

These posts were prepared a little differently to the the 'inner' posts.  Instead of having a bracket at the top of the posts, a slot big enough to fit the main beam was cut out of the top.  All the posts sat on top of the stirrups that were concreted into the ground.

Its nice to see most of the timber up in the air, where its supposed to be, rather than in a stack waiting to be prepared and put up.  Now we have the 'small' timber to deal with - the purlins and fascia boards, timber that we can carry by hand!!  What a novelty that will be!!!!  This timber doesn't need to have slots cut into it, more or less just cut to length and put up, so it should be a much quicker process. 

The frame is self supporting

Since the last post the tower we built to hold up the central collar (the metal bracket that holds all the beams as they meet in the middle) has been removed, and (thankfully) the frame is self supporting.  Obviously we expected it to do that, but there is a moment of concern once its done and you remove that support as to what it may do!

The frame is very solid now, like all the pieces are locking into place, and each piece of timber just makes it more solid again. 

The frame is truly beautiful to look at, we just don't get sick of it!  Or taking photos!

We are currently half way through putting up the 'outer' ring of posts and beams.  All the timber is cut up and ready to go.  Its nice to see the stack of timber dwindling, although I think there will be a degree of sadness (and celebration!) when its all done.  Its been a great learning curve, so many little tricks and tips we have learnt (the hard way) so far.  Plenty more to learn though!

sort of like a giant wheel....

With the help of Brad's brother Paul, we have gotten the 10 'inner main beams' up - which was the next step of the house frame.  These beams were about 4.5m long, and pretty heavy to move about.  It took about a day (although it was in 2 half days) to get them all up and it was a bit fiddly fititng them in once a few were up. 

Firstly we built a tower out of the standard house framing pine timber, and got the collar up on top of it (we used our trusty 'lifter').  Then it was just a matter of lifting each beam up with the lifter, and jiggling it till it got into the right spot so that the bolts would feed through the holes in the collar and the bracket.  Again, I say its a credit to Brad that it all fitted together so well.  There is alot of maths involved in building a round house!  And with timber like this you really do want to follow the rule 'measure twice, cut once' or in our case 'calculated twice, cut once'.

the centre of the roof - note that when the photo was taken, the 'tower' was still in place.

 

So the frame is really starting to take shape now, it looks fantastic, so photogenic against the amaing blue skies we are having.  Very proud, and very happy with it!

Since the photos were taken the central tower was partially removed, and the frame is self supporting.  The next stage will involve putting up the 'outer posts' and the connecting beams to the brackets seen in the above photo.

A frame rises up!

Over one and a bit days (we probably could have sqeezed it into one LONG day) we got the inner ring of posts and the connecting ring beams up, as part of the house frame.  I was determined to not see the year end without having anything up, so we went ahead, despite the forcast for a very hot day today (luckily we finished up by 10:30am!).

Despite the weight of the timbers, and the complexity of the angles involved this first stage went up quite easily.  We used a home made 'lifter' which was built of timber and used a boat winch (all rated to well above the weights in our timber).  This worked quite well, the hardest part about using it was dragging it around the house site (nothing Brad builds is lightweight!!!!). 

The bracket on the post, this connects the post to the ring beam and the main beams, and involves several angles.

first post going up! 

We put up the first post, and found that the slots needed to be cleaned out a little with our electric chainsaw, to get them to sit down far enough on the stirrup to feed the bolts through the pre-drilled holes. 

Cleaning out the slots for a better fit. 

 Most of the other posts were cleaned out before they went up, but a few had to be done whilst hanging there....  After bracing the first post, we put up the second, and then the ring beam that holds together the inner ring of posts. 

The first ring beam in place

the frame taking shape

 The ring beam is structurally one of the most important parts of the our house design, as it stops the weight of the roof from spreading out the posts and collapsing.  From then on it was just a process of putting up a post and then the connecting ring beam, around the circle.  10 posts and 10 ring beams all up.  We were lucky to have my mother down to entertain the kids and a couple of friends helped for the afternoon/evening with actual building.  Thanks so much!

the beauty of natural timbers

the last beam 'slips' into place

This stage was a bit of a test of the design and our accuracy with everything we have done so far.  If any calculations had been done incorrectly, it would not have gone together properly (if at all!).  The stirrups were concreted into the ground and we could not test the fit of the posts on the holes until we actually started to put them up (they were just too heavy to move around too much).  Its a credit to Brad that this part of the frame went together almost perfectly (we had to fiddle around with a few posts/beams to get the bolt through - but nothing serious).

Yep, we are excited!

So the first stage is done, next stage is to get the main beams from these posts to the central collar.  That stage will involve a tower, pullies, and a few other low tech gadgets!

the central collar

Preparing the posts

Since we got the timber a few weeks ago I have been trying to work out a) how to handle the timber and b) how to cut it up. The posts are unseasoned 200mm x 200mm (8" x 8") x 2.7m dense hardwood. As mentioned in an earlier post they weight around 150kg. The main beams are 300mm x 70mm x 4.8m.

The first challenge was to move them around and handle them. The came in packs, there were 2 packs of the posts and then the several packs of mixed beams, ring beam, purlin and fascia. We have started to sort the mixed packs out into their own stacks and in the process putting spacers between the timber so that air can get around the timber and help minimise uneven drying and warping. To move the bigger timber members we purchased a furniture trolley with big heavy duty wheels. Myself and Sharon are able to load the timber onto the trolley and between the two of us are able to move the timber to where we want.

The next step has been cutting the timber up to use. We are going to put up the center ring first and then the outer. So we started on cutting up the center posts. This requires cutting the bottom flat and the top on a ~7° angle and then a slot in the top and bottom that is 200mm deep and ~10mm wide. We tried a few different methods for cutting up the big timber

1) Chainsaw - this worked ok, it was the quickest cutting but the draw backs are you have to be careful that you are straight as it does cut quick. The chain tends to chip the timber at the cut and the last thing is that it covers the timber in chain oil.  It also requires maintenance, checking fuel/oil, sharpening and starting.  It uses fuel, is noisy and creates fumes.

2) Handsaw - this method is quite slow, but it is quite accurate as you can monitor the cutting as you go along (usually while giving your arm a rest). the cut is nice an clean with minimal chipping at the edges. I use a Spear and Jackson crosscut saw with 10ppi.

3) Circular saw - The biggest circular saw that you can get from a hardware store appear to have a cutting depth of 85mm, so drawback of this method is that you end up with a bit in the middle of the 200mm post that the saw can't reach. Also the post faces are not exactly perpendicular with each other and vary in size from 190mm to 205mm (so far these are the 2 extremes I have encountered).

The method I have ended up using is a mix of 2 and 3. so I circular saw as much as I can and then finish off with the handsaw.

Marking up the posts has been the most important thing, and as mentioned the posts are not square. The most important part of cutting up the posts is the height and that the slots at each end line up with each other, if they are at an angle to each other then the top bracket will not point to the center of the house which is a big problem. So to line up the slots properly I ended up choosing the face of the post which will face in toward the center of the house and then measure a constant 100mm (to the center of the slot) for all post no matter what the actual diameter was for each post. This will give me a constant distance from the center to the face.

To cut the slots we very carefully marked them up making sure that the top and bottom slots lined up. We did this by marking up the top and bottom together, the distance from the face was the same for the top and bottom and we used a tape measure from top to bottom when marking them. When both sides of the slot were marked we then joined up the side markings along the ends. To cut we used a circular saw. A cut was made on each edge of the ~10mm slot on both sides of the post, the big thing here was to make sure that the saw depth cut was inline with the end marking since each face of the post is not guaranteed to be 90° to the others. I did this by lining up the saw blade angle by eye with the slot end markings and then watching as the saw cut that it was staying true, if not I would account for the difference by slightly tilting the saw while cutting. The top of the slot was pre-drilled using a 10mm auger bit and the material left in the slot was hand sawn out using the crosscut saw (I will have to look around for a rip saw I think, since the crosscut while it worked took a while to get through).

The other issue we had was to drill a 'straight' hole through a 200mm chunk of wood. My drilling is not that accurate that I was confident of doing this for every hole (each post has 4 holes). The stirrups and the top brackets are all pre-drilled with 18mm holes. The bolts are M16 so there is a 2mm allowance for error. Since the timber is green this will allow for some shrinkage too. But because the steel is drilled we have to get the holes in the timber pretty accurate, a crooked hole would look bad but more importantly it will probably mean that the bolt won't fit through. To solve this problem we ended up marking the hole on both sides of the timber off the front face, this involved using a square on the face and measuring the opposite hole from the square, which should align the hole exactly perpendicular to the slot. We then drilled the hole about 3/4 from both sides. any slight variation on each of the holes was then 'adjusted' by re-drilling so that the two hole match up. We bought several sized augers and have found that they are brilliant for drilling nice straight holes through the timber, they literally pull the drill through the material.

We have now cutup the first 10 center posts and they are ready to put up, but before they can go up we need to cut up the ring beam timbers (240mm x 70mm) and get the top bracket made up. The top bracket joins the top of the center posts to the inner and outer main beams (these beams radiate out from the center) and the ring beams (they join all the center posts together).

Our timber has arrived

Yesterday the first truck load of our timber arrived from Bowerbird Timber.  Our house is of a post and beam construction, so instead of the typical pine framing stud walls that most houses are built of, this house will have 20 posts, and then beams between them.  As its a circular house, the posts are arranged in two circles and there will be a central collar where all the beams meet in the middle. 

The timber we bought is Coastal Grey Box and its a very durable and heavy timber.  The timber is quite large, the posts being 200mm x 200mm, and too heavy to lift (approximately 150kg each).

So the next challenge will be building some lifting gear to lift these posts, and the beams into position.  That and cutting all the slots into the timber (and doing it accurately!).