Rammed Earth Home Jaspers Brush NSW – design and construct.  The design brief was simple enough.  Rammed Earth, small, barn like two bedrooms, able to blend with existing rural buildings, beautiful with use of natural materials. One request of the client was more difficult to comply with. This rural retreat had to be comfortable all year though also on arrival any time of year.  With a heavyweight thermally massive building in this temperate climate this is possible for 75% of the year passively through simple operation of natural ventilation with basic good passive solar design.  The building does the work of automatically providing adaptive comfort conditions if managed.  The building balances both temperature and humidity naturally ventilated.  Earth buildings in this climate generally require winter heating.  With good orientation and design and roof insulation and energy efficient windows heating energy can be minimised however there will normally be a heating shortfall.  Winter heating in the countryside can be provided with wood and that works well with thermal mass balancing what can be uncomfortable overheating in lightweight well insulated well sealed buildings.  So sustainable and carbon neutral heating isn’t a challenge what is the challenge is immediate comfort in a building which may not have been heated for a week between visits or longer.  Without a clever design the client would arrive in winter and the home would take perhaps a day to become warm and due to fabric energy storage due to thermal mass the home would stay comfortable for a day or so after heating ceased.  The design had to achieve more. In the end the design was successful in achieving that aim through addition of a conservatory that could be closed off or open the  main living areas.  The design also meant that during summer months the conservatory is opened to outside through louvre windows so in effect the conservatory transformed into an open verandah that could also be open or closed to the main living areas.

Formed Cob walls, Kangaroo Valley NSW – Assist Self Builder.  This was an exciting building to be part of.  I was able to advise the owner during design and install fully engineered and approved rubble French drain footings and set up the cobbing including recommending and trialling formed cob – cob placed into temporary forms – for my first time.  Mechanically mixed and delivered to the forms and walked onto the walls within the forms it was the fastest and easiest earth wall I had ever built.

Mudbrick home and shipping container studio, Tomerong NSW.  We were engaged as builder after plans were finalised with council so we had Development Approval and Construction Certificate to work with.  The two storey loadbearing mudbrick home was average sized though reasonably complex in design and construction.  The two storey shipping container studio was an interesting exercise and reasonably economical for the size of the building.  We managed the complete project from site clearing, reuse of some hardwood logs and excavation and construction of the buildings to internal roads to provision of poured onsite concrete water storage tanks, worm farm composting waste water treatment including underground electrical mains, stormwater and onsite water supply.

 Insurance repair to circa 1929 Pisé homestead Mulwala, NSW.  Pisé  or traditional rammed earth without cement was relatively common especially in rural areas from around late 1800s to post WW II.  This homestead was built between 1900 and 1929.  It is a magnificent example of Pisé construction and is heritage listed.  The design, scale and construction is grand and unique in some ways.  The established gardens and landscaping are lovely also.

The building sustained damage during a wind storm when a large poplar tree fell onto the large open entertainment portico.  The impact destroyed a large section of the roof and the very top of the pisé wall was cracked slightly by the impact though the wall halted the fall of the tree so that there was no internal damage.

We have been employed in quite a number of restoration and repair projects over the years including some historically significant buildings.  A relatively small number, maybe nine,  have been for insurance companies.  Some were thought to be major repairs, two were considered complete write offs though all were relatively straight forward and repairable.

This particular repair was very minor though engineers wanted to demolish it and replace a section with fired brick or concrete blocks and then disguise it as pisé.  Surprisingly, it has taken almost four years to resolve what to do and how.  Please consult us earlier to save both time and money.

It will take us less than a couple of weeks work to repair the damage to the Pisé wall.  Half of that time is involved in travelling.

The repair involved three steps.  First drilling vertical holes into the top of the earth walls at 300 centres to a depth below the height of the crack and grouting reinforcing rods to return structural integrity.  Removed cracked render and any weakened earth substrate.  Bind the surface and repair with earth sourced from the site.  Re-render material the patches with the same and disguise as best as possible.  It is a simple repair for an experienced team.