Stone House Construction.

[Greg Mitchell]

G'Day Gents,Anyone out there built/building a stone house, wanting to share experiences?I have one wall panel to complete after this wall is done. Hope to be roofing and moving in by next summer. Main roof has a 35 degree pitch on front, celestial widow runs length of building and rear section of roof is curved comming down from celestial widow at the back. Double lay zinculume laid on the horizontal plane, Insulated. Will complete the last two bedrooms when we move in. (parapet wall and skillion roof).Half the walls are double faced, thr rest single faced with internal rendered walls. All GPO conduits laid in slab and run up walls. Light swithches and fittings in walls run up to tops of walls.Top plate is 5mm X 75mm gal plate. Bolts laid in wall to hold top plate and brackets can be welded in place to carry/fix trusses, joist ect.Most walls are 330mm, some are 440mm. I have placed 8mm deform bar as a grid pattern through walls in the event of earthquake tremors, (we are located in the most active zone) and soil type is 'H' which causes 72mm of movement in the clay between wet and dry periods. The footings are 700mm X 800mm with Y 12 four bar top and bottom of trench.Slab is 100mm with F92 mesh tided to footings with 12mm deform bar and foundation walls are of stone which are also tied to footings.I estimate 120 ton of diorite stone used so far and have calculated approx 200 ton for whole project. All hand picked from surrounding areas and laid by myself.Mortar is 4 to 1 and conc blend is a 6 to 1 ratio.Started 5 years ago collecting rock, have been laying up stone for nearly four years on and off.I've heard there are a couple of members building, hope to hear from you guys.Image Insert: 81.88

[Greg Mitchell]

Some more detail,Image Insert: 80.67 KBThe second picture on the first post shows the wall to the right side under construction, I'll attach a pic of where it's at now. Same pic looking at the slab area this will have the skillion roof and last big wall 'L' shaped is the parapet wall which I will build after moving in.The last panel to complete before roofing, same pic back left hand corner of slab. This wall is double faced and will contain ten corner sections (lots of bloody corner stones required).Many of the walls extend out past the house proper and carry the 35 degree rake to complement the roof angle.I am a big fan of Frank Lloyd Wright, Great American architect who had a love for building with stone and I have tried to stay in keeping with old style stone laying and will be pouring my own concrete window sills.Door and window jambs and sills are Pinus Palustras ?? Common name Pitch Pine, pulled from the Beaconsfield Gold Mine after being submerged in water at the bottom of a shaft for 65 years. They have a similar quality to Satinay off of Fraser Island which was used in the construction of the Suez Canal. Particularly resistant to submersal in water. The beams are actually 100 years old. 9" X 9" beams are placed to carry trusses across front of house and thru middle. Most of the beams were slabbed off using a lucas bush mill to give me 45mm to 65mm thick 9" wide timbers for all the jambs and sills ect. Image Insert: 77.19 KB Cheers ,Mitchwww.thebutterfly.info

[Greg Mitchell]

More pics from today.Image Insert: 82.38

[asra]

Greg no one should get upset with those pics and interesting story. It looks great. I remember when you first came to see me in Ballarat. I think you had some early pics or sketches or something. Unless I am mistaken it sure has come a long way since then!!!!You should be very proud of that achievment. I envy you.Aussie Paul. []www.firebirdgyros.com

[Greg Mitchell]

Thanks for your kind words Paul. That's right when we first met foundation walls and slab had been poured and only one, maybe two panels completed.A couple more pics here, showing a double face wall lay up. Steel insitu and I use wall ties to connect/tie both faces together (in the abscence of good tie stones that cover from face to face), then core fill with conc blend mix. The pics show how a double face wall runs back into the building, wherein it becomes a single face stone with rendered wall opposite. Also shows a door jamb layup with bolts that tie into wall holding door jambs. These jambs were originally to be removed and numbered and set aside till end of construction. But 100 year old timber with the occassional dressing of linseed oil negated this tagging and bagging process.The basic shell you see there now carries the main roof. The wall being worked on at present will infact be an exterior wall, till such time as I add the end two rooms.We did the footings ourselves, Elise and I tied all the steel. We did the infill panels our selves after I had laid the foundation walls and lay in the electrical conduits at the same time as tying in the steel for the slab pour. It is a double story, with master bedroom internal deck looks down into the living areas. Lots of windows (double glazzed). Thought to have a 2" foam insulation between both faces of walls but the temps here in Northern Tassie on Bass Strait do not require same. Walls over 12" thick have their own insulative qualities anyway radiating heat trapped during the day through out the night. Walls of 330mm plus in temperate climates seem to give the best of both worlds keeping cool to the touch inside during summer and as stated radiating internal trapped heat at night. Heat Sink. Trombe??This will do from me now.Cheers.MitchImage Insert: 73.94

[Greg Mitchell]

Couple more pics to finish with.If anyone is starting a project like this and would like to discuss you can email me at rocksfly@dodo.com.auMost Councils/engineers and architect are not overly keen to get involved with such projects. This amuses me somewhat as many of the old tried and tested methods a far superior to many modern construction techniques. Also if you're doing it yourself you can save big $$$$$Footings, foundation walls and slab pour factoring in steel, machine time and material cost around $14,000. Spent about $3,000 so far on walls, probably run out to $5,000 for all walls. I told council we would build it for $40,000, they would accept nothing less than $90,000 on the council documents.House sits on 3/4 acre facing East toward the Tamar River, looking across to George Town, we fly out at Cranbourne other side of the Ranges on the East side of river.Image Insert: 80.45

[NiqueNaque]

Greg,Very nice.How are you tying the roof together? A 35 degree pitch is a steep one and means that the rafters will want to spread at the bottom pretty heavily. If it is a trussed roof no problem, otherwise you may be in for some fun.Cheers,Nick.

[Greg Mitchell]

G'Day Nick,Attached is Front Elevation and detail on truss. Top plate previously mentioned is carried through from walls across all window and door lintels which are made up of the 9" X 9" beam material. The top plate sectioins are welded together to create a continuos one piece top plate which ties everything together.Trusses X 4 create the main roof area as seen from the front elevation, not withstanding the separate second story Master Bedroom/Parents retreat. Trusses span the walls from east to west and incorporate the celestial window detail. There is a small skillion roof that runs off the back curved section of roof to attaching to a parapet wall. Regardes,Mitch.Image Insert: 62.51

[NiqueNaque]

Greg,Out of curiosity are you left handed? If so your hand writing gives it away.How did you get the stones to match the pattern on the drawing? Amazing!It is a nice design and an enviable project. I don't think you'll have any problems with the trusses other than getting them up (Jeff H-S may be able to help you with some viagra). The rolled roofing may give you some fun with saw toothing when you put it down. I suggest when you have a truss assembled on the ground that you take a template off it with plywood and send that to the guy rolling the roof sheet, it worked well for my bull nosed roof.You could instead of cutting the radiused profile on the curved section of your truss make it up the same as my friend Jeff did with his boat bow. You get strips of timber cut thin enough that they will easily bend around the radius that you want, then make up a profile to clamp them to, then you laminate them together with epoxy glue and filler, it would then be continuous and thus very strong and very beautiful, it will cost you in terms of the glue and the number of clamps you need, but you can sure use them to make gyros. I don't like the idea of not having the rafter ends butted up together in the curved sections if you are going to leave it as it is, if the rafters go over the end of the struts (like a wagon wheel) they will bear better than otherwise, even if it is only a tin roof.How are you going to secure the capstones on the steep section of the wall shown to right of bottom drawing? They tend to get disloged unless you can tie them down with wire or lugs deep into the mortar, either that or they just have to be bloody heavy. I think what tends to happen is the mortar cracks and then the capstones can be moved, mostly because of the different temperature expansion coefficients for the materials.Looks good.Cheers,Nick.

[Ken Watson]

Nice stone work. I'll put a photo of mine on when I work out how to post a photo. Ken

[Greg Mitchell]

Hi Nick,Not left handed, just get lazy on the slant sometimes.The zincalume sheets are laid on the horizontal plane for the curved section. Note detail on truss drawing. Inside sheets fixed first, then a pine batten is shallow saw cut at close intervals and fixed to the zincalume sheets to create the cavity for the insulation batts, then the outer sheets are fixed on starting at the bottom and working up to celestial window. This negates the use of rolled sheets. Trusses are spaced at 1800mm.The front of the roof with 35 degree pitch are laid conventionally. Internal Pine 'VJ' boards with pink batt insulation. So half of the roof internally is timber lined, the curved section of roof will be zincalume inside and out. Bit different. Three years ago we were quoted $3,025 to have the four trusses made up and fish plated. There is about $850 worth of timber in the four, so we decided to make our own. I'll be making the gussets out of 6061-T6 and have them gold anodised.Cap Stones will be concrete poured in various moulds as will the window sills, (one mould with a divider/shutter for correct length) and galvanised lugs set insitu. These help to hold caps in place along with their substantial bulk. Walls are 330mm min width, so caps will over hang walls by 20-30mm each side and be in the order of 100mm thick. Need to decide on final dimensions when time comes to construct.The two ground floor rooms on the left of house originally had all glass with doors in the middle. We deleted the doors and drew in the walls, I then penciled in the stone so we could see the difference. We wanted more stone, so this is how it will end up.Pics show North elevation so you can compare to stone pics and second floor detail showing staircase and upstairs deck looking down into living area.Hi Ken,Looking forward to seeing your pics. Are you still building or finished?Mitch. Image Insert: 59.9

[NiqueNaque]

Very tricky, you'll be saving some rolling costs then.With your horizontal sheets be mindful of the flashings that you use at each end, I'm most probably wrong but the sheets don't seem to overhang the walls. I suggest that you have both an under and over flashing with some profile infill blocking, especially at the top where they flatten out, this may help to prevent the ingress of wind driven rain. The under flashing in this event should have an upstand and a return flange to stop water coming in. The roof sheet ends must be sealed so there is no way wind can penetrate the ends or you will have problems.Hope this helps,Nick.

[birdy]

Bloo*y ell Mitch,wouldn't a swag under a tree be easer??Beautyfull work mate,wish I had as much pride/drive to do sumth'n like that.Ignorance is bliss............but only till you realise you were.

[asra]

Greg i second what birdy said, when i had my bobcat in Townsville a few years back done a clean up for a bloke that built one much the same, and it turned out bloody beaut, coloured the inside mortar different then acid washed it all down, and the different colours of the rocks came out and it looked spot on, i can tell that yours will be something that you will/are proud of,top stuff..Mark

[Greg Mitchell]

Thanks Birdy/Mark,Swagging it would have been easier for sure. Started out being a rectangular box, then I figured this will be my last major work in stone, so upgraded the project. Give me a pile of rock to work through and I'm happy as a pig in sh*t. See you guys at Cooma. Thanks for your input Nick.Mitch.www.thebutterfly.info