Roof Details

Back on roof work, we put in the proper chimney pipe now. We had purchased some 8" inner diameter piping when the roof guys were setting it up, but we've since decided we wanted 6"id pipe. Since the roof got built before the fireplace/stove was in, we had to do some backwards building to get this right.

Above you can see the shiny double-walled chimney pipe sticking out of the ceiling. Since the roofing is already on, we had to build those wooden brackets in on the ground, screw the flanges in to the top of the pieces of wood, and then get the whole thing up in there tight.

We actually used pipe clamps, between two rafters as extra holders, so that we didn't have to struggle to hold the thing up there while screwing it in.

Here you can see the vent hole we cut in the cross bracket wood, to allow air to flow from the soffets (outside vertical edge of the roof) all the way through to the vents at the peaks.

An important part of this was that we didn't want the chimney pipe area open to this air flow, in the unlikely event of some sort of fire, you don't want the house itself to be breathing the fire along the roof. Thus, we kept the holes just in these areas, that will not be connected to where the chimney is.

We're also working on putting in the soffets - wooden blockers on the outside edges of the roof - and here you can see the vent holes (with screens over them for bugs), also part of the roof cooling system.

In California, they don't really do this venting much, even though it's a great way to add insulation to your roof, to let hot air flow through and out, as it can pull forest/house fires into your roof structure. However, because we have inflamable walls and will do careful landscaping around the outside of our house, we decided that this could benefit us.

Beginning Chimney work

would you believe we had to cut and sand down the tips of the screws that have come through the roof paneling to be able to put the extra supports up around the chimney pipe?

There's a sort of butterfly bracket thing that needs to be supported by rafters/headers, and we needed to get it up near the hole in the roof for the chimney, so up I went, first with the wire cutters, then the belt sander:





In the bottom right of this photo you can see a bit of interior wall! only that far to go (the ceiling) to finish the north wall of the living room

Glass in over the door

As we were cobbing along today, we realized we had to get the glass in for the window over the back door, as the roof would be in the way if we waited any longer. That's a pretty exciting problem to have when you're working towards the roof!


Here's Melissa, thumbing in the cobs around the glass. You can sort of see we've drawn a circle on the glass. That will be the template for us as we build the walls up around that, so we have circular window.

Here's a shot from my phone on a morning dog walk. The fog and clouds often are well below us in the valley.

Big Tree Finally Down

Ever since the first half of this tree fell down on a quiet morning, we've been worried it was going to fall and squish someone or something. Well, since we weren't quite ready to cob the other morning, I went out and finally took it down. In this first picture, you can see me down by the base of the (leaning) tree, getting ready to cut the notch to guide it down:

A few saw cuts later, and boom! the thing was on the ground. I'm actually in this second picture as well, about where the leaves start on the downed tree. I have my arms up in the air. That's how big this tree was. Definitely the biggest I've ever taken down.

Inside quick Scan:

South side Scan:

West Side Scan:

Video! attempting to show the entire outside of the house

North Side scan:

Another Window In!

We put the glass in the window by the front door yesterday.



This will be a small arched window, looking out down the 'driveway' toward the south. Feels good to be moving up the walls!