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The Project: A 2,163 square foot house utilizing dry stack concrete block construction with a central courtyard and based on the Spanish colonial-era missions in San Antonio. The Challenge: Can a forty-something married couple design and build an attractive, efficient and mostly paid-for house while remaining sane, solvent and married? With no actual prior construction experience? Hmmmmm - let's check in on our Contestants and see how they're doing... |
| We're ready to start the cement work for the roof. We have the Jim Hodson Memorial Mixmaster set up with a bag of Perlite on the right and a pallet of masonry cement on the left. Our recipe calls for an 8/1 mix of Perlite to cement, using the shovel here as a measuring cup. Easy on the water - mix it fairly dry for those of you playing along at home. |  |
| No, it's not cocaine, although plenty of this stuff has gone up my nose. This is a closeup of what we're using as an aggregate. Perlite is a type of shale which is baked in ovens to make it expand. The expansion creates air pockets and makes this stuff extremely lightweight and an excellent insulator. It also creates a *lot* of dust and an aftertaste after a day of working with it. |  |
| We start preparing the section of the roof we're going to use as a work platform. The 3/4" plywood you see is nailed to the joists and has four bolts coming through it for a small winch and boom I want to attach to the roof. The wire mesh will reinforce 2" of cement to make what is commonly called a ferrocment roof. Ferrocement, while rarely used in US construction, is very common in Mexico and parts of Asia. |  |
| Peeking over the parapet in the foreground, we add cement in (one bucket at a time) and use the float to smooth the surface over. Notice the rebar which has been added to reinforce the base for the hoist. |  |
| A few buckets later, it's time to set up a board to provide a solid edge to our work platform. In a perfect (and much better-financed) project, we'd have our work crew set up all of the joists and supports and do the roof in one continuous pour to avoid having what are called "cold seams" between concrete pours. That said, our one-man work crew and one dollar budget say "build what you can." We will be covering the entire roof with an elastomeric coating which should eliminate any possible leakage via the seams. |  |
| Want to see a rough floor plan?Want to be notified when we post new pictures? Just e-mail us! Want to see the rest of the story? Click on Gimme Shelter Home Page. |
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| Next week's installment: Hoist on a Joist Click HERE |
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