Barn Project | Page 5 | Construction and DIY projects | Forums

It's a pretty straight forward process Danger, those were really the only two issues I ran into. I am currently framing up the bond beam which would be the exact same as if the walls were full height, so you will be able to see the rest of the process as I understand it. I am going to send a e-mail to the company I had bought the bags from and see if they have any ideas what the issues were with the bags. Is this the earth sheltered home you were talking about? They might want to think about using a cement gravel mixture in the bags below grade.

So the store I had bought the compactor from replaced the broken one for free, I hadn't noticed the handle had lifetime warranty on the side of it, I made the comment if they are giving lifetime warranties how arre they in business, anywho so I compacted the bags

and grabbed the boards that we had used for framing up the slab to start framing up the bond beam

I decided to try and frame up the whole thing in one piece so I could try and level the whole thing

with the different heights there were some gaps under some of the forms, so I was trying to brainstorm a way to fix that

So I started framing out the inside form

I cut some short pieces and framed in the ends. I ran and picked up some rebar

and started cutting 18 inch sections

I went around and spiked the rebar sections down into the bags leaving about 4 inches sticking up out of the bags

I hammered one down every two feet around the perimeter and hammered them at opposing angles every two feet so the cement would adhere to the bags well

I started laying out two sections of rebar

and wire tied them to each other and the rebar stubs sticking out of the bags

I bent some sections for around the corners making sure I had a couple of feet overlap

sections where the horizontal pieces didn't overlap a vertical I set a small rock under the rebar to raise it up

we went around and started leveling up the forms and cut sections of 2x6 and screwed them to the forms to support them

I was still trying to figure out how to fill the gaps under the forms to keep the cement from falling out when it struck me. I had made a thread the other day on the fastfoot system

http://thehomesteadi.....thread1275

the material for the fast foot is very similar to the sandbags, so I figured I would form a little fastfoot in the forms, so I went around screwing the sand bags on the form where I had a gap under them

and proceeded to mix up 33 bags of cement

I will let them set till tomorrow and then probably strip the forms and applying the chicken wire to get ready for stucco, peace

to be honest I just eyeballed them

So I went and picked up some surface bonding cement, I skipped the lime, there's enough in there I figure

and started mixing it up, the first batch I made a little to soupy

so I let it set for a little while and started packing the spaces in between the bags

handpacking it was the only way to go, using a trowel was a exercise in futility

finished the outside and started on the inside of the wall

the buttress and inside corners were taking a lot

but I got the one side finished

and started on the other before it got dark

here's one thing I had never mentioned before, keep a gallon of vinegar around and wash your hands with them to combat the base of the lime, that stuff destroys the hands

I was hoping to finish the inside on the last wall today, but of course it's raining, time to wait