Scale & Colour

I needed a scale. I probably could have done without a scale, but after I decided it was important that I needed one, it became urgent. It's a bit like deciding you want a cigarette when you don't need one nor have any, then becoming fixated by the idea and having to travel miles to find one. I've done that also and I've discovered that if you buy cigarettes singly i.e. not the whole pack, they're referred to a 'loose straws'. It's a fairly good description of the irrelevant urge that becomes relevant - a loose straw. Well the scale was a loose straw if ever there was one. But this became a very loose straw. It wasn't just any scale that would do, it had to be one of those old cast iron ones, with hanging weights that you would expect to see in the back of a hardware store around 50 years ago.

I found the exact scale I was after but it was missing the weights. The local scale company had a reconditioned similar unit for R1650, but the the scale I had found was only R300. However the weights alone were over R650 and including the service costs made buying the reconditioned scale less. This made it clear that it was more important to find the weights than the scale. So I went in search of weights and fortunately found the whole package for R500 but it looked bad. It was a functioning unit that had been used by a local scrap dealer to weigh scrap. It was the scale that started the business and there was a sentimental attachment that required me to pay a premium, not that I paid much anyway.

Well a rusty old scale imposed itself upon the solitary rule of iPod's and Mxit in my daughters' holiday and they were hauled off to sand, polish and paint metal, something they had not even seen in the movies. It was quite impressive and the transformation was stunning. The transformation of the scale that is. I learnt quite a bit about scales as we stripped it beginning with the fact it's not made out of cast iron. But it's still cool, rugged and interactive. The putting on and taking off of weights is a therapy of sorts and far more satisfying than jumping on a bathroom scale that just spits a number back at you. So impersonal.

The scale was put to immediate work. The paint was barely dry before it was bearing down the load of a wheelbarrow of soil which weighs in at a comfortable 73kg excluding the wheelbarrow itself. This number is fairly crucial since all measurements will stem from this number including the amount of roadstone, lime and oxide (colour) that will be added to the mix. For two weeks I had been carrying around several bags of red and black oxide in my car during my hunt for the scale. They were a nagging reminder to build the final test wall and explains why the paint had not dried on the scale before we put it to use. I had planned on mixing the powdered oxide into the wall to add a bit of character to the look of the house. Like everything in this project, it is 100% experimental and we had absolutely no idea of the outcome. Again we did a lime mix but we did not have the roadstone so we expected slightly different properties to our earlier wall. Our test form is also taking a bit of a battering since we have not been treating it very well so our intention was to appreciate the look and not necessarily the quality. During the mixing, the added oxide certainly changed the colour of the mix. When damp everything takes on a different colour but there was no mistaking the change in colour. We added 1kg of oxide for every wheelbarrow of soil so it's just over 1.3% by weight. I am planning to include two colour seams into the walls of the house, one around sill level and the other around lintel height. The lower one could be an earthy red and the upper one could be a charcoal grey. This would give me a bit of flexibility with colour matching of windows and shutters and would break up the single colour monotony of a poorly planned wall. The result was quite surprising. The light is poor as it is in shadow so the picture does not do it justice. Also, the colour is still not right as the wall is still damp and the dark tones will brighten up quite a bit. It is not a zebra. But with a little bit of imagination it is quite inspiring and the best accident is this: we randomly mixed a seam of black and red (the top one) and we worked out how to break up the perfectly straight lines of the rammed earth lifts. We want it to look accidental and not perfect and by roughly and unevenly layering colours (without raking) breaks up the straight lines and makes it look more natural.

Now I just need to get some technical advice on the effect of oxide in lime and if it's negligible, then we can happily confirm that this is our final test wall. It's well positioned to face the rising sun and hopefully will greet it for many years to come. And I'm sure the sun will be pleased with such a greeting every time it comes to Africa.

Allover Mzansi

Allover Mzansi is a small enterprise that I’ve been trying to help get off the ground. With corporate social investment seed capital and two young men and three young women who have shown promise at a locally based NGO that focuses on orphans (amongst other things) we set up a ‘construction’ business.

Initially the idea was to build the house out of compressed earth blocks made by a Hydraform machine. This is an earth block making machine that uses hydraulic pressure to make an interlocking block that can be stacked without the use of mortar. This seemed the best idea at the time and the intention was to use the local soil and convert this into interlocking blocks - and to get this enterprise to make the blocks. However after a bit of research including a visit to a couple of sites using this method, we decided against it. It worked well in straight lines and the corners seemed messy. It was effectively a rammed earth type product without the inherent beauty of rammed earth and this convinced us to pursue the rammed earth option. From an Allover Mzansi viewpoint, a Hydraform interlocking block would be something completely new and their potential market tends to stick with what they know and the concern was that it would not sell. However this almost signalled the end of their enterprise.

Around that time, another idea came to fruition and this was to make grass paving blocks from Terracrete. These are open concrete paving blocks that interlock and the purpose is to reduce rainwater runoff (as it seeps into the spaces) and allows grass to grow over the areas that don’t get much traffic whilst providing a solid road surface. I had ordered a vibrating table and some moulds and the focus then shifted to getting Allover Mzansi to make these. The theory was simple: for every paving block made, one rand would go to the labour cost and two rand would go to the company. This works if the labour rate is R70 per day and each employee makes 70 blocks per day. So for a crew of three, they would have to make 210 blocks per day. This would appear reasonable as the labour rate is more than the average labourer earns and a production rate of 70 blocks per labourer is easily achievable. With an order of 20,000 blocks from this project, the company would accrue a further R40k which would double their capital. In addition, at the end of the project the company would inherit all the equipment which is a great start to any budding enterprise.

However, as a group of budding entrepreneurs they have an extremely basic sense of commerce. Their main aspiration is to get wheels. Wheels are status, independence and a way to strut your stuff, however wheels somehow have an uncanny ability to empty your bank account fairly rapidly especially when they collide with something solid. And my insistence that this will be the death of the business seems to have silenced this idea for a while.

Allover Mzansi means all over the south or more specifically all over South Africa. The idea is quite grand and even admirable but when they chose the name, they had never mixed a bag of cement let alone laboured one day to taste the sweat of what was to come. Starting at the bottom, learning as you go seemed sensible (nodding heads), but the bottom few rungs of learning never seemed too many steps away from being CEO with wheels (shaking of head).

Well sweat the men have – a little. The women have also sweated. Two out of the three have had babies, one of them having gone AWOL. The men in the meantime have made quite a few blocks but not quite according to plan. Work seems to start when they arrive on a Monday – which could be midday. They live on site to save on the transport costs, so Tuesday through Friday the bed gets cool around eight in the morning. On Friday, work stops at midday so pay can be collected. Also the labour rate was increased to cover transport (which they don’t have) and of course the production rate is around 120 blocks per day for a crew of three. Several mentoring sessions have been had to explain why the funds in the company’s bank account are not accruing according to plan and why they urgently need to up their game. It doesn’t help that whenever they have a mentoring session, everyone gets paid a full day’s wage for a couple of hour’s worth of input. The fact that it is their future at stake seems to escape them. Even overseas volunteers with business degrees and psychology degrees have been giving support and mentoring. The latest input from a volunteer was to help develop a business plan that will kick off post this project. It is very hard not to take charge and make their choices for them, despite this being tempting. This will not work and it is important that their choices are their own. However, there is a glimmer of hope.

The laying of paving began last week after the road surface had been graded and compacted. We had done a test section some time ago, but in the meantime we had been gathering blocks to pave the steep downhill section. It’s important that the Allover team learn a wide range of skills so they were included in the crew to lay the blocks. Work started at seven in the morning and ended at four in the afternoon. Each day they laid around sixty metres of paving and this included covering the paving with soil, creating drainage ditches and generally tidying up as you go. Monday, the Allover team arrived late and were warned. Friday they left early to collect pay. The discussion that followed was frank and to the point. It did not help their case that the rest of the crew was still labouring away. And yesterday, Monday, block making began in earnest and 215 blocks were made. Possibly, just possibly they will make their weekly target which may mean that Friday’s nodding head wasn’t just a nervous twitch.

Heavy drip drip...

We're waiting for the council to approve the plans. Drip, drip... It's just the fire department whose signature we are waiting for and then we're ready to start moving. In the meantime I've had a few surprises. The structure of the house will be able to withstand a nuclear explosion based on the design of the foundations. Apparently the local soil is quite unstable so the foundations need to be quite substantial and this is compounded by the weight of the rammed earth walls. They're heavy. In fact everything's heavy and my cost estimates are at risk of a significant upward revision.

In the meantime I have been trying to get quotes on solar panels, batteries and inverters. This is some exercise. The costs vary dramatically and the power output is not very good. But this deserves a separate post to deal with the various issues - cost being probably the biggest.

Also, I have been circulating the window schedule to various window manufacturers and this also deserves a separate post but it's not going to get one. This house is definitely going to be very light as in light and not weight. The north facing windows are over 3m in height. They're big (and probably heavy also). Since this is meant to be a very low energy house, I have approached some local double glazing suppliers and the cost is something to behold - $52,000! There is a cheaper one at $37,500. But how's this - the Chinese can supply the same windows (European standard) for less than $10,000. Now that is a moral dilemma of note! Does one forget the ethics of supporting local and cash in on globalisation while it exists, especially at that discount! In the meantime I am waiting on a local craftsman to give me a price on wooden windows that will be made from recycled or sustainably harvested wood. My guess is that these will be priced around the local double glazed price.

The equipment to process the soil is also coming along. The biggest issue has been how to lift the soil up over the forms. I purchased a 6m long conveyor and thought that it would make this light work. However soil does not willingly travel up a gradient greater than 22.5 degrees and I would need to significantly lengthen the conveyor to make it work. At six metres, it is so heavy that it takes 6 men to move and that includes Midnight - seen standing here in the photo. Midnight is one of the crew who probably gets his name from staying up well past midnight for a few days after pay day. It has something to do with the copious amounts of Klipdrift (brandy) that he consumes until he's destitute once again. The other day we were in town and it seemed that everyone knew Midnight and fresh greetings occurred every few paces. It was then that someone from a passing bus shouted "Forklift" and Midnight duly greeted him. Forklift? I thought it had something to do with his legendary 'midnight' status with the girls. Not so... he has the strength of a forklift apparently and nicknames such as this are quite common. And he is built from the waist up. I can't comment on the other half but even with Midnight weighing in, the conveyor is heavy.

So now we are embarking on another way to lift the soil. It's all down to the ingenuity of Deon. Deon is a gentle cyclops with one arm instead of one eye. He must be over six foot five inches in height and is softly spoken with more strength in his one arm than I have in my entire body. He smokes and this is a problem for me. How do you greet a one-armed man with a cigarette in the only hand that you can shake? And it's not that he's going to put it in his mouth as you just don't greet someone with a cigarette in your mouth either. So now we just wave at each other. Maybe he thinks I'm a gay Prius driver thanks to Jeff Dunham and just strikes up a smoke to avoid the handshake. Whatever he thinks, he has come up with a nifty winched bucket system that overcomes my conveyor problem. It is attached directly to the pan mixer so avoids multiple handling of the mixed soil and offers a simple and effective mechanism of lifting and loading the soil into the form. There's one problem in that I haven't seen it work just yet as we've only just finalised how to lift the hoist itself. And it's something else that is really heavy. At least the sieve works and the gearing is now correct, which is fantastic notwithstanding the fact it weighs a ton.