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.