Finally

Despite the warnings of thunder storms, today was perfectly cool and dry. Only as we were wrapping up did the clouds darken and spit out some rain. The timing could not have been more perfect.

We rammed our first wall. Finally. It was a fantastic experience. Progress seemed frustratingly slow but the pan mixer and giraffe worked better than expected. The ramming crew were exhausted and we rotated the whole crew after a while. Working at the bottom of the form where you are closed in and hot obviously saps energy but as soon as their heads poked above the forms where there is a lot of fresh air, the crew's output increased quite dramatically. It was great.

We were expecting the forms to come under significant amount of pressure and we did as much bracing as we felt reasonable. Nevertheless, we were very surprised by the amount the forms kicked out. In some places it was probably as much as 15mm which is more than we wanted and had planned for. As a result, our window endboard (or volume displacement box) was hanging from its top section that was securely clamped to the formwork. Where the wall sections had kicked out, the endboard was not in contact with anything except earth and shifted rather worryingly. I just hope that when we strip off the formwork that our window opening is square and wide enough for a window. Obviously, our next wall will have to have significantly more rigidity.

Based on our initial progress, I thought that we would end up ramming half a wall but in the end we managed to finish it completely and just in the nick of time. We wrapped up the wall in plastic to protect it from the rain and tomorrow, we will remove the forms to see what lies below. It will be dark in colour as it contains quite a bit of moisture but when it dries out, it will lighten and mature into a wonderful natural finish with designer coloured layers at various heights.



Below are some snippets of the activity: