With great pleasure, I am handing this blog over to Whistlewood volunteers. If you would like to contribute, you can write your own piece as Chris has or send me notes using the contact page or via Whistlewood.
By Chris Gregson – 13th August to 17th August.
This week the builders have continued to put the laths onto the main roof structure and have been putting the fascia boards onto the ends of the veranda roof rafters.
Unfortunately, because of the weather, we’ve had to keep the Roundhouse under its protective tarpaulins but you can just see the fascia boards peeking out around the edge of the veranda.
Meanwhile I’ve been concentrating on the internal walls, in particular the ‘library’ wall. This wall, immediately on your left-hand side as you walk in, will have a set of bookshelves on it, however you can’t fix (potentially) heavy shelves directly to a straw wall! What you need is something to fix to, in our case strips of OSB board fixed to the straw using our old friend the hazel spike driven horizontally into the centre of the bales.
Once the clay plaster has been applied these boards will be covered over and out of sight.
I have also been installing the ‘first fix’ electrical cables throughout the Roundhouse to provide lighting. The ‘first fix’ is basically any electrical bits and pieces that need to be in place before the roof is boarded out and the walls are plastered.
The Roundhouse is to have a 12v system powered by solar panels on the roof with the energy stored in batteries. All of the lights will be LED’s which will provide sufficient light without too greater drain on the batteries. The lights are arranged in 3 layers, 4 high-level pendants, 4 mid-level pendants and 16 low-level spots switched in pairs of 8. This should be ample for the varying types of activities the Roundhouse is built to facilitate.
The original schedule had us finishing the Roundhouse in 16 weeks, an ambitious target which has, unfortunately slipped. Dales have now re-scheduled the finish to be towards the beginning of October. In plenty of time for the Roundhouse’s first wedding.
Chris Gregson
Michelle Spaul 