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.

The Walls - Day 3

More adobes in the mud today.  We had to hold progress to the 5th coarse so the electrician could run the wires through the walls to the outlets for the exterior walls.  Never-the-less, one gets the definite impression that a home is rising up.

Among all the hubbub, Lorraine is still working her magic on the floors.  Looking east, the utility room, 2nd bathroom, and hall floors are all bricked in.  Here she is working on the two back bedrooms.

The Walls - Day 2

The beautiful adobe walls are starting to show their character. The first coarse is made up of cement stabilized adobes, according to the Santa Fe County Adobe building code, but each coarse thereafter is made of natural adobes, i.e., dirt. Each block is melted to the next with a slather of mud. When dry all of the adobe walls are like one solid slab of earth. If the owner, that's me, had delivered the window and door bucks (4"x10" rough cut timbers) in time we would see them installed as the walls grow. However, the timber is coming in three days so, until then, we will build around their absence.

Poor Lorraine, the floor lady, after enjoying the piece and quiet of our home site all to herself for a week, now must work around the adobe crew of 9. Now only the very early morning hours and late evenings are hers alone.  But she is very thankful the adobe crew put down plastic sheets to protect her beautiful brick floor.  The light colored brick shown is the brick she has crafted this morning, not exposed to the overnight rain.