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Time to update this page! Sad times in Stockolm with a terrorist attack on Friday. The positive thing is that most of the society is coming together more closely than before.

As usual during the winter things tend to slow down. Maybe it’s the lack of daylight that drains energy. This was the third winter building and it has started to take it’s toll. It’s been tough going all winter.

An opportunity to work abroad turned up so I spent one month in Singapore, one more coming up shortly. Nice to see a new part of the world and get a break from building.

So what has happened since the last update then. Two days of wireing has completed the upper floor and the lower is about half finished. Still switches and sockets to go as well as switch box, main incoming wires, sub boxes etc.

The ceiling has been clad with vapor membrane and then insulated with lose, blown insulation. Made from old newspapers it is blown directly from the lorry. Outer walls wil be done when the electrics are done.

Now we are finally adding the ceiling paneling.

Outside we have started with the frames for the external insulation which will be blown as well.

The wood burning, water jacket stove has been installed and the chimney tested. Nice to get some heat. It’s an interesting stove from Aquaflam, Vario Barma, where the water jacket can be replaced so it works like a normal wood burning stove. Good since it will take a long time until the all the water heating can be installed.

One of the pumps for the recycling system broke down and had to be replaced. Running fine again now and provides the looping final stage of the recycling system as well as a stream in the greenhouse.

Planted the first three grapes which we ordered from vinplantan.se. Some fun eating grapes varieties. It will take a few years for them to give grapes but they have already started sprouting. Strawberry plants from last year are sprouting.

Still waiting for final delivery from Palmatin, they seem to have problem delivering…

Left to do before it’s possible to move in: finalize the electrics, balcony/pergola, external insulaton and facade, bathroom, heatpump, kitchen, ceiling, floorboards. Money is a bit of an issue…

Some pictures below!

After a hard weekend of infiltration bed building the first bed is operational!

Ca 20 m³ of sand(0-8) mixed with peat on top of the EPDM rubber and drainage pipes. 15 cm below the surface are 4 pipes that spreads the water which then infiltrates to the bottom and is collected by the drainage pipes. Took some time and sweat to get it in, thanks everyone that helped!

Anders Solvarm (ecorelief) who has designed the system, connected pipes left and right the recycling room (as well as shoveling a lot of sand).

Currently water is only circulating in the first bed, but enough to try to plant some things. The water is pumped up again from one of the tanks once the water has reached a certain level. Not any nutrients yet since there is no waste water to clean. Some regular soil added for nutrients and micro organisms. GO! cucumbers, tomatoes, paprika, basil, strawberries!

Automatic watering is nice 🙂

Took the long way back from the neighbours after coffee. Starting to look nice.

Long time, no update!

We’re on the verge of summer now, finally more light and lighter evenings. All migrant birds are almost back, still waiting for the swifts and swallows around here. Trees are going green.

Work has been ongoing on many fronts, house, growing beds, recycling house, etc. Late February we finally go delivery nr 3 from Palmatin. This time with doors, windows, roof, floor boards, terrace boards. The driver only spoke Russian but it worked out fine anyway.

Two of the windows unwrapped. Sturdy, triple glazed windows from Estonia. Really heavy as well but with some ingenuity and manpower we got them into the house the following week.

Blue front door 🙂

To get doors and windows up to the second floor I built an elevator. The heaviest glass doors weighed over 150 kg so it was a bit nervous to hoist them with the winch and thin wire.

Contraption to prevent to window from falling out when we lifted it into place.

First window in place! They look really nice. Great space on the windowsill.

BBQ break. Worked fine to light the BBQ in the greenhouse, as long as the top windows are open. A bit smoky otherwise..

One day I found this baby hare in the house. Probably placed there by the mother during the day. It stayed perfectly still as instructed, I wish our kids would listen as good. The next day it had moved to some other place.

A lot of super heavy OSB boards were delivered.for the roof. Good thing we had the winch to lift it all up.

One of the heaviest glass doors in place on the first floor terrace. The terrace floor boards will be at the same level as the door eventually. We have started mounting the vertical insulation beams as well, they will hold 200 mm insulation and then the facade boards.

Great, big door! The floor inside is a bit lower, we’ll need a step once the real floor is in place.

Time to get water! The drilling jig was really fast and reached 90 m in a few hours.

Unfortunately no water was found during drilling…

A fracking specialist was brought in to sort out the well. He lowered a pipe with a cuff which sealed off the hole at 21 m. After that he filled the hole below the cuff with water and applied pressure. Starting pressure was 130 bar which quickly went down to 80 bars, i.e. the bedrock cracked below the cuff. Water! After letting out the water from the fracking we started getting water from the rock. Eventually it has been estimated to 1400 liters/hour which is quite a lot. Good. At first it was milky white from the pulverized rock. Now it has cleared out nicely after pumping for some hours.

Another area we want to get going is the infiltration/growing beds so we can start growing something. After all, it is a greenhouse. First up is 45 m x 6,1 m EPDM rubber membrane and fiber cloth to protect it.

Starting on the first bed, step one, clean up! I have lined the bed with insulation boards we had lying around after the foundation work. Might keep the beds slightly warmer = longer season.

Laying some tubes for the incoming water in the recycling system. The three black PEM tubes will feed each of the three beds with water. The grey pipe will feed back the filtered water from the bottom of the bed to the recycling house, then it’s pumped up through the next PEM tube to the next bed.

Protective cloth in place of the gravel with the rubber on top. The gravel has a slight lean to it so water will collect at one end. The rubber will be spread out to catch all water after being filtered. Drainage pipes connected to the grey pipe in the previous pic will lay on top of the rubber at the bottom of the bed and collect the water.

To be able to install the water recycling system, tanks, pumps etc. as well as the control system and tanks for the well, we need to get cracking on the recycling house. Finishing up the LECA walls by pouring a reinforced concrete beam at the top. The wall became slightly too high so we had to cut out ca 5 cm of the top U-shaped blocks. Then also saw down into the block to create new U-blocks. Much work.

On the western wall there is no wall crest to place the roof beams on, instead they have to rest on this 2×9. Linda is cleaning out the holes for threaded rods.

Finally time to open the package with the beams. They have been there since last summer, a bit nervous if they had survived. But they still looked like new! A few small places where the wood had blackened by water.

First one in place. At 6 m long it weighs a few kg.

Threaded rods in place. Secured with chemical anchor which gets good grip in the LECA and concrete after cleaning the holes.

The 2x9s supported by vertical 2x4s to give even more strengths. More screws were added after this pic.

Linda fastening the third joist.

Everyone gets a go! Lova trying the compressed air tools. The bolt pistol made it a lot easier and faster to get all the screws in place, just wished I had a bigger compressor, it had a hard time keeping up.

Good thing Tomas had time to help, 13 beams x 80 kg each was a bit much to move around the greenhouse and lift up.

Starting to look like a roof! Photo from the first floor terrace.

All beams up on the roof, just some more screws to secure them. 60+ huge wooden screws still to go, each beam used 12 screws. Now it should survive a hurricane.

We have also had time to start laying some floorboards on the first floor. Solid pine boards at 28 mm. Looks really nice.

Skis still out… Might be time to put them away for the summer. Temperatures are starting to become a bit high in the greenhouse now, but OK when the big doors are open and the breeze comes in.

Planned activities going forward is getting the water working. Anders Solvarm (http://www.ecorelief.se) is working on getting the needed hardware for the recycling system so we can get that going too. Hopefully the recycling house will be watertight after this weekend, will be nice to have come that far. Material (gravel, sand, peat, coal etc) for the beds needs to be ordered.

We are still waiting for material from Palmatin, a bit slow to get responses from them, especially from their stair manufacturer. Still to go is stairs, balconies, facade boards, ceiling boards, more floor and terrace boards.

A short update from the site. Sun! The greenhouse is starting to work, just below zero outside, 7+ halfway up where the thermometer is, a lot warmer up at the top. Nice… Can I stay here?

Winter… dark and cold, long time since last update. Now we are on our second winter of construction. I’ve had several long colds with bad cough that stopped a lot of work during November and December. Now in January I have finally been able to get things going again. Sadly I missed warmer weather during December when it was easier/possible to build with LECA blocks and mortar.

We’ve had several weeks with temperatures below -10, hard to work with many layers of clothes. Last week has been warmer so I have been able to work with the LECA blocks below the greenhouse walls. The snow we had for some weeks has melted now. Currently very windy.

It’s obvious that I don’t have as much energy now as during the summer. Everything seems very daunting currently, too many things to do. Trying to focus on one task at the time, any progress is good progress. If anyone want’s the help out and learn a bit about the nature house concept at the same time, let me know! 🙂

Some pictures!

The snow made it possible to do some skiiing. Just enough snow, some gravel sticking up which provides surprise falls.

Snow vs greenhouse for the first time. Two more windows has broken, four in total. Not sure why but it could be stress on the glass when the support under the walls are not complete.

Quite cozy inside with the snow on the roof. Just 1-2 degrees warmer inside since there are still big openings under the greenhouse. The snow has slowly been sliding down the roof. When the warm weather hit it melted quite fast.

The frame of the house is mostly complete now, only balconys and pergola missing. They are still to be delivered from Estonia. Two more loads to go. Doors, windows, floors, roof material etc. Storms in December stopped delivery over the Baltic sea before Christmas. Now they have some problems with sick managers at the factory. Aiming for next delivery in february of windows, doors and roof materials.

New views from up on the roof. That is one of the cooles things about the house I think, all the different views from all the storeys. The joists are cut with an angle so any water drains of. Good space on the roof, the glass is ca 1 m above the roof at the edges, so most of the roof is standing height.

Currently trying to finish the mortaring where the east growing/water cleaning beds will be, it would be nice to be able to start growing this spring but there is lots of work before that. All LECA blocks to finish in this part, fix any bad morar joints, seal the leca block with cement mixture. After that level the ground, cover with rubber sheat, collection pipes, gravel, spreader pipes, more gravel. Also drill for water, get power to the water pump. Actually I should finish the whole tech house below.

Here I’m building a permanent opening to be able to access pipe connections. Three large pipes are below the surface and acts as culverts to the tech house below. In those large pipes I’ll run other pipes later. Sewer pipe is already in, later I’ll put electricity, water, heating etc in there. The LECA blocks will also act as divider between the two planned growing beds on this side of the house. The wood OSB boards were temporary and will be removed.

GO!

Time flies! It’s already November 20.

Winter is close, below 0 today and dark outside at 4 in the afternoon. We’re trying to finish things that can’t be done in the winter. Mortar does not like freezing temperatures. Finished the leca blocks for the smaller ”water” house at least. It will house water techie stuff and part of the water recycling system. More blocks are needed below the green house walls, we’ll see how the weather stays. It’s possible to mix the mortar with anti freeze and warm water but it’s difficult and expensive.

On the house we are almost finished with the logs, it’s been more difficult the higher we get. Now there is only one log still to put in place. Great to start seeing the finished shape of the house. Currently working on the roof joists as well.

Sad days in the world, terror and hate everywhere, Paris burning. So many people on the run. Sweden is apparently running out of space to house refugees now, some have to sleep outside or in tents. Up to 2000 ppl has been arriving per day, the rest of the EU (some exceptions exists) is mostly fighting about keeping the refugees out. Is the european idea failing? Society is becoming more polarized.

Anyway, onwards to the pictures.

The last log, ready for lifting. Lifting straps attached at each end to balance it.

Hoisted to the roof, finally!

Hamering a dowel, a bit difficult high up on the ladder.

View to the pasture outside. First broken window, probably due to preassure on the side of the window from the frame. Another one has broken next to it as well now. Monitoring the situation, can’t replace them yet anyway.

More dowels, difficult, one-hander high up on the ladder. Open space to the bottom floor. The 5 meter timber wall is quite impressive.

Some corner details.

Drilling holes for electrical wires before assembling the logs.

The kids are decorating some of the rooms.

Some outside views.

Never ending leca blocks.

View from the pasture.

Our neighbour have gotten their house a few weeks ago. Prefab, so it already looks finished, Linda is envious.

Autumn has arrived, time for an update. Crisp autumn days have replaced the summer, some frost has even turned up. Nice and warm in the greenhouse, today over 25 degrees.

The roof of the garage is almost finished, now we need the panelling to continue.

We’ve done some colour tests for the panelling on the house and garage, with unconclusive results. More tests needed but we’ll probably use an oil based stain.

Log walls continue to grow slowly, we’re up to level 29 in some places, 34 is the final layer. Not so many logs left!

Staircase and opening to downstairs.Lova’s room on the second floor. I’ve put some boards across the windows to increase safety a bit.Living room on the second floor and Saga’s room. The door to the bathroom to the left.The second floor terrace.View to the downstairs living room from the top of the stairs.I’ve continued with the LECA between the greenhouse concrete fundaments.Finally a tour around the house from the outside.New grass covers up the clay mess left by the excavator.LECA from the outside.I have to continue the recycling house made of LECA before winter arrives, it was hard work with mortar in January/February like a did this year 🙂 Frost protection, hot water etc. The walls will be almost as high as to the bottom of the greenhouse doors.View from the north. The last five logs still laying outside under the tarpulin, need to get them in soon.

Some quick pictures of the status so far. Working on the second floor now and made some good progress today. At some places there are less than 8 logs to go. A few more logs in the garage then we get to open the last pack of logs.

Another excellent day to havet the greenhouse, it has been pouring down today but we are unaffected by the rain.

Got the garage doors installed too, nice to be able to lock. One did get slightly damaged in the heavy winds during the week, will have to replace some screws the got bent. Oiled the doors with linseed oil from ekologiska byggvaruhuset, nice stuff.