you don't want to do it like that, do it like this

Good advice is hard to come by and we do have a minor technical problem which needs a bit of brain work. Putting in the foundations is not going to involve levelling four corners and triangulating between the rest of them as on a conventional rectangular build as we have two dodecahedra with twelve sides and 30° between each face and a linking corridor - the only bit with 90° corners. Yes, I know we have brought it on ourselves. The blockwork on each 30° has to be within 10mm across a diameter of 12 metres and 9 metres respectively for the two pods for the sole plate of the SIPS kit. I was thinking of trimming the 140mm blocks off at the required angles for butting alternating courses - the other being overlapped and using a template pivoted off the centre point to get it really accurate and then building opposite facets (which are parallel) first for alignment and working back off them. Now this is what I wake up thinking about at 3.a.m., or 4 a.m. or whenever.... Our founds are going to be 140mm block for the frames to sit on with another course outside for the stone walls - and where the depth of fill is over a certain amount to bolster the wall, though this bit is not a problem in terms of building. Today Lindsay suggested making up a standard formwork and concreting all the 30° corners filling in the runs with blocks. It sounds good and quite possibly more buildable in practice. We'd need to put in steel bar - again fairly easy. We are mixing everything in 1/10th cube lots and cannot get ready mix on site so small batches for each corner has its merits - prob. need about 5 courses high block equivalent....Does it make sense ?

another cat rescue

We do have a cat of our own on Gigha. Our mooring is laid just off the Boathouse but for the winter she has been laid up in a very sheltered bay at Gallochoile just round the corner. Unfortunately the small harbour at Port an Duin below Ardailly is too small to get the boat in. We got the boat at Granton in Edinburgh and sailed her through the Forth and Clyde Canal to Bowling on the Clyde. This was a bit of a squeeze as the boat is only 15cm narrower than the lock gates and we got stuck a few times as the lock gates didn't open fully in a couple of places. The whole story will be told elsewhere. We still hope to get away for a few short cruises this year between feverish bits of building. Jura and Islay are just a few hours sail from Gigha as is Crinan and Oban.

This last May Lachlan and myself sailed the boat round the Mull of KIntyre from Campbeltown overnight to Gigha.

slate

My favourite slate is very, very special. It comes from only one quarry in the Lake District at Elterwater. Geologically it is a water lain tuff with slump and turbidity structures from the Borrowdale Volcanic Series which makes it incredibly beautiful but that may be too much information. Similar slates can be seen on the track up the Old Man of Coniston from the Coppermines side. I love it because it tells an ancient story of huge volcanic eruptions some 400 or so million years ago and the ash settling quietly into the surrounding seas. Our flooring slate is riven Brazilian slate for economic reasons - we simply could not afford to buy these British slates as they are around eight times the price. I also sculpt in this unforgiving stuff but for the house we'll be using it for small features in floors and walls. Our Brazilian slate floor tiles are from Mrs Stone Store at Burton - definitely recommended as a supplier (on price, quality and friendly and helpful service). The Brazilian flooring slate is of two types :- multi-coloured and dark grey. we have over 140 sq.m. It will be part of our heating system as it will absorb heat and transfer it to the radiator underfoot in our concrete floor. This thermal mass is crucial to evening out the temperatures from the massive passive solar gain we expect. (Check out Sue Roaf's Ecohouse 2 for the theory). We have also managed to get seventy seven 2.4 x 1.2m 100mm PI foam boards as part of a Jewson's offer some 50% cheaper than list price and even £5 a board better than the Ebay offers. These are to insulate under the concrete slab. We are not having any central heating system other than that great yellow orb. Down the plot last week just before the equinox working late on our first turf roofed shed and the sun is already setting over the Islay hills and directly into our sunspace. We will have about eight months of sunsets in the arc between SW and NW out over the Sound of Jura, not just a quality of light but also a source of warmth.

dunno how that'll stay up either

The snapshot shows the gallery in the 12m diameter roundhouse. We have had a long debate as to how we are going to get it to stand up and meet Building Regs. I've just sourced the hardwoods for the stairs and balustrade and the three structural posts shown in the drawing. We'll use ash and have waney edged beams fixed to the posts on knuckles to support the floor joists for the gallery over the open plan.

The joists will cantilever out and follow the curves in the drawing. we are going to fit curved lighting around the front edges using low energy fluorescent striplights behind diffusers and with stained glass panels in front. We'll make these ourselves. Henri Macaulay runs the Gigha Gallery and works in glass herself as well as running courses at the gallery.

We get hardwoods from any of the Scottish hardwood dealers but our main timber supplier is highly recommended - Archie McConnel has a sawmill at Penpont in Dumfries and Galloway (where Andy Goldsworthy lives). Archie understands that we are very keen on the Scottish style of finishing wood that TIm Stead and Paul Hodgkiss follow and is finding wood for us that fits their respective approaches. We are using mostly ash, elm and yew but the stairs will have mahogany treads from recycled timbers with ash stringers. We'll do all the finish woodwork ourselves - I have a full workshop. We are pretty committed to using our own interests in arts and crafts to finish the house. It's also the only way we can afford what we want by doing it ourselves.

wouldn't fancy fitting them, mate

The two bottom sets of windows in the sunspace are 3000 x 2100 mm and the top sets are 3000 x 2200 mm at the highest side. The horizontal joining strip is only 2mm wide. We have a vertical glulam post 225mm wide between the two 30° angled windows. The clearances below the windows are 15mm for the sills and there is 6mm each side and on the top slope. The whole window array is 4300mm high and 6000mm wide. I think that fitting these windows is the hardest single job that needs done during construction as they will be really heavy and have to slot in pretty tightly. This job is too much for us to do and will be sub-contracted. The ashlar Dumfries sandstone block solar wall will be to the left elevation in this view. This is a beautiful warm red stone - and gives character to many Scottish cities notably Glasgow and Dumfries. The Burrell collection building in Glasgow strongly features this stone which is where we got the idea. It is expensive but nowhere near as costly as most sawn ashlar blocks.

We think it will be warm pretty much all year round in the sunspace without heating and even provide much heat to the rest of the house by convecting into the main living space - even on sunny days in midwinter. When Robin first showed us the drawings of the house - working from our wee cardboard models - we did both really go "WOW" when we saw how he had drawn the sunspace with these big windows. So, although it is the most expensive bit of the house and it could be built with something much simpler it is his key contribution and signature and we really admire the American Lindal homes style which also has these prows. Also to make the house more affordable (he knew we are on a budget) Robin has cleverly used standard framed windows from the Nordan range through out and that means no bespoke windows which would really bust the budget.

playing catch up

Well here is the renewed blog. After six months of total silence we have made a fresh start. There is a wee bit of back-blogging to do to catch up with where we are now from the posts on our website www.ecoroundhouse.co.uk.

As of today we do not have the Building Warrant but we do have a shed 3.6 x 2.4 m turf roof going on as soon as it stops raining, clad in larch. Photos to follow.

We have spent the Autumn sourcing materials as we have had no digger to work on the site until last week. That is a long story and one which will be told...

As we couldn't do much actually on site given the various complications we have been busy organising and are well ahead of ourselves in buying materials and fittings - we pick up our bathroom stuff next week and already have 220 square metres of slate and wooden flooring.

We have been very lucky to deal with some excellent suppliers, especially for our flooring at Mrs Stone Store, and have managed to find ourselves some real bargains. We have also dealt with some real eejits.

We also have quotations (not estimates) for both kit and windows and these are actually better value than the original estimates when we were costing the project so our budget is looking fairly healthy just now.

Wot no digger (reprise)

Well we bought a JCB 3CX and got it delivered to Tayinloan with a range of buckets and pallet forks etc.,in early December from where I took it over on the ferry. Now it did have an oil leak from the gearbox which should have been repaired before delivery but this was not done due to an oversight and has proved to be a major headache. We have some brilliant mechanics on Gigha - notably Mark and he did a check on what needed done and split the gearbox, replacing parts and getting it working again. But this took almost three months to get sorted so we have been without excavation potential until very recently.

still on the fish

You can see our house Kinnererach from the fish cages at East Tarbert Bay

For most of the Autumn I worked regularly on the fish farms. Usually this coincided with good weather so I missed out on plot work. I also knackered both knees. I suppose a 56 year old marine operative is bound to be vulnerable to a few twisted joints but the left knee now has a torn ligament and the right knee torn cartilage. Okay so a life time spent with much mountaineering, sailing and doing other fairly active outdoor pursuits was bound to leave me a bit vulnerable.

In the bleakest of midwinter periods we graded the fish. This involves lifting the net on a cage, pulling a line of floats half way across the cage and the well boat pumping out the fish from one side, grading them and returning fish within a certain weight category to the other side of the cage, storing fish to be transferred to other cages in their wells. The first night I did this we did over twelve hours without a break from 7 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. It was a starry autumn night and the wind blew up about 7 in the morning after a calm and beautiful night with the Milky Way strewn across the sky. The fish shimmer in the floodlights of the work boats. I have always enjoyed being at sea at night and always loved night watches when sailing. It is very existential when there is a spread of stars. The company pays an antisocial hours allowance for overnight working but this is hardly in the same class as a banker's bonus. The fish grading for me was four days in January of 11,11,13 and 15 hours - again working straight through. The Sunday was 6 a.m. till 9 p.m. but we got it finished ! Now I can't say I like working these hours but it is good to know I have enough stamina to see it through. Problem is I am then too knackered to get on with the build - just want to have a long lie and take a day off. The first law of project management is that you never lose just one day. If you have a day off or the weather is bad or the digger breaks down then you have lost one day's work and another day to catch up - two days ! Any time lost - then double it.... that is how quickly you get slippage...

It's a no brainer

But we do have a Nissan Cabstar ! It's inaugural trip was picking up a tonne and a half of ashlar blocks from Dumfries. Every time you bring any vehicle over to Gigha that is over 5m in length you end up with high vehicle costs. A builder's merchant's wagon costs £190 return and a large van about £80. Our Cabstar is under 5m and costs the same as a car - £13.40 return. It carries just under 2 tonnes payload and has a flat bed big enough to carry full size sheets and 4.8m long sticks of timber propped over the cab. It's a no brainer for us as we have problems getting materials over to the plot given the appalling surface on the track. Taken slowly the Cabstar has high clearance and provided the track is not blocked by cows will take a full load very nicely. Problem is we got stuck turning round after offloading our first load as the rear wheel drive just slips when the truck is empty. However Micky rescued us and we got towed out by our Landrover.

wot no digger

In happier times in the summer the wee digger sat on the plot awaiting her tasks - however her services were required elsewhere and we just could not get even a few days work. Hiring off island is prohibitively expensive, especially if you are working part time and don't know which days you'll get on site and we waited for a mini digger from various sources... and waited.... and waited. Circumstances conspired to leave us diggerless so we just could not get on with the on site excavations and finishing the driveway.

As of winter 2009 the plot remained much the same as in summer 2009. Each stone in the pile of 250 tonnes of 75mm down crusher run remained unturned. So what could we do ? We could wait for a digger to become available on the island or we could buy our own, use it and sell it on. A 360° tracked excavator was great to drive but limited in what it could do. A series of technical problems with Lindsay's digger i.e. the one that was available on the island, meant we had to look elsewhere. A JCB on the other hand, despite being less use on wet ground and leaving a few ruts, had a back actor, a front bucket and could handle pallets - and as we have been loading our blocks etc., on to pallets this could be very useful. A JCB was more mobile than a tracked digger. It would also handle much bigger stones than a mini digger. As we have several stones of about two tonnes to drag and then raise into position for our revetment edge we tried Ian's old JCB. It lifted them fine but was sadly somewhat geriatric in abilities. An old lady maybe, but had the JCB equivalent of a zimmer frame in mobility - aka a dodgy torque convertor. However, the trial convinced us we should invest in a reasonably sound JCB and we watched Ebay auctions feverishly for several weeks, eventually finding one within budget and fully functional in Yorkshire.

Meanwhile, winter snows were everywhere but Gigha - though even in our wonderfully mild microclimate we had several days with smatterings of snow lying whilst the rest of Scotland had blizzards and people were stuck for weeks and couldn't get home. However, the ground got saturated and the far corner of the plot, where our big shed was going to be got saturated.