Final Color Coat

The southern exposure.

Looking at the west and north walls.

 The exterior finish of our new adobe home is all complete.  The stucco protecting the natural adobes is on.  The flagstone atop all the parapets and buttresses is installed and sealed.  The windows and wood trim is all primed and painted.  The roof is complete with seamless cutters and drains (rain collection barrels will be added later).  Of course flagstone porches and the final grading will be completed once all the construction inside is completed.  We can't wait to move in.

North side showing the "air lock" entry.

Insulation

 R-49 insulation has been blown into the attic. Miller's Insulation arrived at 9am and by noon they were gone. Over 16 inches of fiberglass insulation blown in.




We are now ready for winter. Speaking of winter, the low temperature yesterday was 24°F. But inside the adobe the temperatue of the trombe walls was 70-74° and the room temperatures were in the 60's - with no heater. This passive solar thing realy works

Scratch Coat of Stucco

Saturday morning the process began.

Sunday morning it looked like this.

The first coat of stucco, the scratch coat, has been applied.  In an instant, one day really, it looks like a real home.  After a few days of curing the second, brown coat will be applied.  Finally, after some more curing the color coat will complete the stucco process.  That will finish the outside work.

Stucco Ready!

South elevation, looking North.

Window trim detail.

The stucco contractor has installed the felt paper, chicken wire, and metal lath to all the areas that will be stuccoed.  It took almost three days but they did a beautiful job.  All the small detail on the south side slowed the process.

The state inspector has given the job his approval so all is ready to start applying the stucco tomorrow.   All the surfaces shown in black will be stucco.  It is a three step process: the scratch coat (heaviest), the brown coat, and the color coat.  In our case we have chosen to use an acrylic color coat to prevent or minimize cracks.

North elevation, looking South.

Since the trim has all been painted, once the color coat is applied the outside of the adobe is all complete.

Windows, Doors, and Roof!





Yeilding Adobe w/window, doors, and roof.

  We finally have the home "weathered in." Now we don't have to worry about rain and the damage it can do to our adobes. The roof is a solid sheet of white 60 mil Dow TPO roofing system. Under the TPO on top of the roof decking is 1/2 inch foil lined foam insulation. That is in addition to the R-49 blown-in insulation in the roof cavity.





Territorial Trim



The windows are getting their "territorial trim" that represents the style preferred by the residents during the late 1800's when many were new arrivals down the Santa Fe Trail.



The "trombe walls", the walls under glass that will help heat the rooms during sunny winter days, are being sealed and tinted a darker color, before the glass in installed, to increase the heat they generate. 





Tinted Trombe Wall



  The light colored square at the bottom of the trombe wall is the color sample of the stucco we are using on the outside walls.  We tried to match the color of the soil on our land.  The stucco will cover the parapets and chimney as well as the outside walls so there will not be so much white showing as it looks in the photo.



Dressing the walls.



Before

Adobe walls can look a little ugly when they are first layed up.  However, with a little mud and a lot of care they soon look beautiful.  We have decided to keep our inside walls exosed.





After



The fireplace also looks a little rough to begin with.  But it will be the only use of stucco inside the house.

Thermal Mass

As the walls are dressed or touched up and the roof is framed, it is time to recall why we chose an adobe home in the first place. On a day when the crew were working on dressing the inside walls and framing the roof at 4 pm the ambient temperature was 88° F (see inset).

Temperature on outside of wall.

Temperature on inside of wall.

The house currently has no windows or doors and no insulation in the ceiling.  After sitting in the sun all day I took the temperature of the outside of an adobe wall in direct sun light.  It was 115° F as you can see in the following image.

Directly on the inside of that wall, in the living room, the adobe wall measured just 75° F.  Remember there are no windows or doors and no insulation.  That is the magic of thermal mass.  The walls cool down over night (when the temperature dropped to 52° F) and then hold that coolness during the day.

Inside north wall.

Brick floors.

On a wall on the north side of the room, away from the sunny south wall, the adobe wall temperature is still lower, 67.8° F!  And the brick floors a comfortable 69° F.

Ceiling Beams

Today most of the ceiling beams went up.  These are 6" x 10" white fir some as long as 24'.  Later adobes will be laid up between them. These beefy and beautiful beasts are really going to add a dramatic look to all the rooms.  It's hard to believe that all 20 were lifted into place in one day.  Of course there are a lot of small ones still to be installed and all of them have to be secured with steel straps to the bond beams.  Then the parapets and decking can be added.  The windows are in the on-site storage unit so as soon as we get the roof on we can install the doors and windows and make her weatherproof.

Bond Beams and Door Bucks.

Leonardo inserting a log screw.

Himself working on bond beam.

Bond beams, 6" x 10" wood beams that run on top of all the adobe walls, are attached using 15" log screws.  The log screws are employed every 3-4 feet to make sure the walls are secure and give the ceiling beams something to rest on.   Here, Leonardo is inserting one of the log screws.  Below, even himself gets into the fun.

John files the door opening.

One of the great attributes of an adobe wall is if it is a little out of shape or an opening is not wide enough just get out the adobe file pictured here and shave a little off.  Here, with the door opening a little narrow at the top, John rubs a little off.  The door bucks are 2" x 8" rough cut fir timber that frames the door opening and will eventually hold the pre-hung doors.  It is all starting to feel like a real home now.

Wall Covering

West wall with insulation.

The 2" rigid insulation, already protecting the foundation and sub-floor, is now going up on the adobe walls.  This will add R-10 insulation to the 14" adobe walls.  The insulation will go all the way from 24" below ground to the top of the parapets.  I love these walls!

Burrowing Owl Habitat Added

Source: "Use of Artificial Burrows
by Burrowing Owls, Dept of Engergy"

Source: U.S. Dept of Energy,
Sept, 2005

While the Tierra  Laja crew were working on the bond beam, we took advantage of the hole left where they mined our dirt for more adobe blocks and installed a Burrowing Owl Habitat.  The design came from an article written about a project in the Richland, WA area where over 22 similar Owl homes were installed with great success.  The Burrowing Owl has a habit of taking over abandoned gopher holes so if you can provide something that resembles a gopher hole they tend to move in.  It was very simple.  At the bottom of the 4' hole we set a 5-gallon bucket upside down with a 4" hole cut in it.  In this hole we attached one end of a 12' perforated flexible 4" drain pipe.  The other end of the drain pipe was angled up to the surface with 90° turn about half way.  Hopefully, a family of owls will move in before too long.

Walls - Day 14

The adobe walls are up to the height were the bond beams are to be installed.  The bond beam is a 6" x 10" beam that is attached to the top of the adobe wall to add stability.  It can be made of either wood or concrete.  In our case, we chose wood.  Our bond beam will consist of a lamination of 3 rough cut 2"x10" fir beams.  These will top all walls, windows and door openings, tying everything together.  On top of the bond beam will be the 6"x10" ceiling beams.

Walls - Day 12

The adobe walls are almost complete.  Heavy 4"x10" window and door bucks (frames) dominate the south wall. The passive solar windows, doors, and trombe walls (glass faced adobe walls that absorb the sun's energy during cold sunny winter days) will be installed in these massive frames.

Nichos are in, buttresses are in place to add outside support on long walls, and the fireplace continues to grow.  The nichos are made on 14" walls by turning the 10" x 14" adobe lengthwise leaving a 4" depression.  This adds bit of flair to an otherwise blank wall, and provides an area to display interesting objects.

The buttresses are required by the New Mexico adobe building code to provide external support to walls that run 26 feet or more without other reinforcement such as being linked to an internal adobe wall.

An artistic touch has been added to the upper body of the fireplace as Ever takes it on up to the ceiling.  Here again the steps and ledge provide some additional interest and allow for more decorative objects.  Of course the fireplace body will be stucco, unlike the rest of the adobe walls on the inside.

The Walls - Day 9

Four more coarses and the 6" x 10" bond beams will be run on the top coarse to secure the integrity of the walls.  The adobe crew are now busy installing the door and window bucks and adding the decorative niches in the walls.

Simultaneously, we are choosing the color of the color coat of stucco to match the color of the soil on our land.  Rio Bravo it is!

Let the fires begin!

Fireplace here?

Friday we had a fireplace foundation and a blank space in the northeast corner of our living room. Today we have a fireplace.  Over the weekend Joe Tibbets of  Southwest Solar Adobe held a Rumford Fireplace Workshop and our adobe home was the host site. This was a hands-on, working class.  Our fireplace was the class project and everyone worked really hard.

Deborah gives a hand.

The class consisted of masonry contractors, builders, adobe professionals, and owner/builders. It was great to see how the women were so eager to jump in with their trowels, get their hands dirty, and lay bricks.  As the fire box began to grow and was capped by the unique throat sculpture, the class  left our signatures on it for posterity.  But three professionals from Soledad Canyon Earth Builders, guided by our instructor Jim Buckley , were at the heart of the creative design and construction effort.  They built the arch forms, pieced together the brick trim (fashioned after a similar fireplace spotted by Sassy in Santa Fe), and dressed up the masonry.  Thank you Jim Buckley and Soledad Canyon!!!  

Artists at work.

Signed throat.

The unique thing about the Rumford Fireplace (named after Count Rumford who wrote about them in the 18th Century) is that they are tall and shallow (ours is only 12" deep), and engineered with a sophisticated streamlined throat to eliminate unwanted turbulence and exhaust smoke without loss of heat.  No grate is used in a Rumford, the fire is built in teepee fashion against the back wall of the firebox.  The fire burns hot and clean, minimizing the buildup of creosol in the chimney.  Ultimately, stucco will encase the body of the fireplace, leaving the brick arch outline the firebox.  A matching brick ledge above will give us a place to hang Christmas stockings.  So, fun was had by all and we have a beautiful, super efficient fireplace to warm our living room during those cold winter nights in our Land of Enchantment.

JR, Himself, Antonio & Raul

Jim on top of things.

Our new Rumford!

The Walls - Day 4 & 5

Once the Tierra Laja crew get rolling the walls grow quickly. Doug, the owner of Dunn Rite Electric, is working right along with them, gouging out the wiring runs and chopping out space for the outlet and switch boxes as the walls go up.  With the fireplace workshop coming up they want to get as much done as possible so the walls would be ready to lock into fireplace that will be build.  Here they continue to lay adobe even as a storm approaches.  You can see the tent ready for the workshop over the weekend.