Close up. The rough hewn pillars were procured locally. They are of unequal length, but on an average, 7' About 2' is let into the ground and surrounded by stone masonry.The stome mason cut a semi circular saddle atop each pillar. We had to level the saddles of all the pillars at the same height... but goofed
Nearby, work on a 250 sq.ft kitchen has begun. This will have mud walls and old fashioned tiled roof. With insufficient experience with mud walls, I have played safer with this building. Cement was used in the foundation and stem wall,seen in the picture. The roof load will be borne by granite pillars, the first of which is being positioned in the picture.
The six pillars are in place. But the saddles ended up at different heights, thanks to failure of my long distance instructions over a mobile. The width of the room, between pillars is 12'. Distance between two in a row is 9'.
To fix the uneven pillar heights I got 6 adapters made of wood and steel bolts. The adapters sit in the saddles and their tops will level true. You will see these red coloured, in the coming pictures. Not the best way to go about things, but a fix nevertheless.
Mar 08: Foundation for the washroom. This is an experiment in cement-free foundation. The existing functional lavatory is about 6 months old and stands veiled in palm mats. It will be included in the finished washroom.
First we laid a lot of large rocks tightly in the shallow pit. These I procured from a nearby well excavation
The trench is full now with large rocks. The top of the bed rock is ground level. Next, we packed the spaces with soil and watered it down so it flows all around the rocks and
Spread 1-1/2" hand broken rocks on top of the bedrock and tamped it down
A layer of river sand was spread to form a malleable bed for a row of dressed rocks. These are from the pointReturn site. A roughly uniform width was maintained with a gap emerging between the dressed stones
Fine broken rock, known as 1/2" chips, is spread over the dressed stones. These permeate all the gaps and pack the row. The purpose of the dressed stone row is to keep the cob wall off the damp ground during rains. Notice the large white pipe set into the run to serve as piping duct and drainage of wash water.
A short distance away, Kutty is preparing cob. Rice straw being scarce, I used chopped vetiver leaf to reinforce. Later when that ran out, I fetched two bales of coconut fibre. [Btw, that was not a good option as being very thin and round -hairy!- it lumped together and didn't disperse well]
Annamalai and Kutty, the father and son team at work. Annamalai was enjoying himself and loved doing what he had done decades ago, which not many want now. He would bark instructions as we went and also actively worked the stuff. He was the cob recipe controller with veto powers.
The cob masons are piling up the stuff. It is useful to have two small projects or one large one going at the as the most height you can raise a cob wall in a day is 2', before the wet weight slumps down. Here they are working on the washroom wall. They will switch to the kitchen wall in a while.
It's the kitchen wall's turn now as the washroom wall dries up a bit.
On April 19, a group of young volunteers rode with me to experience cob building. Here a few are squishing the cob mud that Kutty had prepared. It has clayey red earthy texture with cocnut fibre added in . It also has numerous small grit and pebbles that make for good cob.
Holding on to one another to prevent falling into the squelching cob, Neeraj, Sidharth and Maya are working up a song.
and they didn't miss the disco
Positioned a window in the eastern wall of the kitchen. All doors and windows are from a pile of abandoned stock in my farm at Muttukkadu. A run of cob hold the window in place.
Ananthu is hoisting pan of cob atop Ratheendran's head. Naveen looks on and Maya has her back to the camera. Annamalai, the old hand looks on apprehensively at these city folk in rural parts.
DV ran around to click this picture to include Ratheendran at extreme left
The giggles lingered on with everyone sweaty, dirty and happy.
April 19, 2008 - The team that came for the cob day. In the background is the 1' high mud wall and the window positioned on the eastern wall. From the left, DV, Annamalai, Naveen, Neeraj, Maya, Raju, Jaya, Varadammal, Siddarth, Kutty, Ananthu
To position the big windows in the north and south we needed to build two low walls. I was the brick layer. The lortar was first lime and sand and later lime and mud. Th latter was excellent. I didn't miss cement at all - nor, a bricklayer for that mater
I felt almost Churchillian, doing my brick laying
Positioned the door in the western wall
After a gap, work continued without the city folk as coordination, transportation and organising food for them was a major problem. After all the kitchen isn't ready yet, is it! Raju, Kutty, Annamalai and Myself raised the wall to this height during 4 working days. Notice the red adapter sitting in the saddle of each pillar. Their tops are level though the pillars are of uneven heights.
A closer view. The room is ready for wooden rafters. Getting a carpenter was a huge problem. The local one stood me up on five occasions. Then I found one from a village 10km away. He hit with a nastily high quote but by now I was beyond caring: i wanted the work done.
Over the last year, I had collected country tiles from old homes being demolished from villages nearby. I had paid for about 13,000 - about half might pass muster and the rest too broken.
Carpenter Radhakrishnan Achary from Pounjoor village had a strange work ethic. He would arrive at close to 11am and work till 6 pm with several breaks. I stayed several night over at the place with no electricity and little food doing nothing but urging the carpenter on. The work stretched over 7 days.
Sleeping under the stars is quite exciting but not if your mind is in a quiet rage over the carpenter's lazy pace.
Album Cover
Finally the trusses were getting ready. Two long pieces, [each spanning three pillars on either side] were nailed down on the adapters over the pillars. The trusses will nailed to the runners.
The side windows have been positioned and the gaps infilled with country bricks, brickbats and mud-lime mortar.
The trusses are going up.
Alternate trusses have ties. There are 15 trusses in al about 1-1/2' pitch
Reapers are going up. They are nailed down using a gauge so that a uniform gap is maintained.
It was admittedly long and arduous work under very hot sun. Took all of 3 days to nail down 2200' of reapers.
Finally on June 2, the wood work was done.
Must admit it looked pretty
Turned out it was also the last day Kutty [third from left] will work at pointReturn. He is moving to the city. There have been two others who left for the city in the past fortnight. Kutty was a great asset and has helped me much in the past year.
It was the tilers turn now. I picked them up from a village 6km away and billeted them at pointReturn. Their meals had to be organised and Annamalai with a quiet expertise sneak out every evening to fetch them some moonshine. They were quite a handful!
Kishtan Naicker, of Suriyankadu village, the lead tiler. He still remembers a vanishing art; surprising since he has pickled his brains daily for decades with some nasty moonshine.
Tiling almost done. A team of five locals assisted the tilers for three days to complete the job. Sitting on the ladder is Saminadhan, Kutty's brother who has replaced him as our handyman.
The roof was finally done. The walls have escaped direct hit by rain, but still they need positive protection. The rough hand piled cob walls were wetted and shaved to make them reasonably even. No attempt was made to get them dead flat and vertical.
The finished northern wall. It will later receive another cowdung rich coat and polished with a smooth stone.
June 21, 08: Saminadhan is mixing stucco, made of lime, earth and cowdung
You can see the contrast after the stucco was partially applied by daubing with hand
Here Saminathan is burnishing it with a steel pan going round and round
The walls get a trim and are ready for a coat of stucco
Saminadan's mother is getting ready for the final coat of earth, lime and a high proportion of cowdung, burnished with a smooth stone called "Karaai Kallu" that every hut has for housekeeping. Like the one in her palm, the stone has no edges to scour the coating being polished.
On June 27, Sumathy came along to work with the senior lady to finish the coating and burnishing
Wet coat! You can see some patches still drying. All that remains is to give a lime white wash.
We ran a day's worth of pre-frabbed cob blocks to try out. This could be the answer to the limit of 1-1/2' rise per day when heaping wet cob for a wall. Also the final dressing of the rough walls could be saved. Of course, straight square walls would look less romantic than organic ones
The nearly done kitchen. Look at the rich texture of the wall. We thought of giving it a lime wash protection but couldn't bring ourselves to.
