allerton abbey wofati 0.7: the second winter

Hi all,

Violet and I moved into wofati 0.7 two days ago. It's not complete yet, we're going to try to survive the winter with a heater in here, and we'll document it here for your entertainment.

We're still working on the exterior layers:

We currently have final tarps on the central area of the wood chip insulated layer:

Violet and I rebuilt the kitchen to be down in the lower section of the common area:

We're going to live on this side. Jesse is living in the kids' bunks on the other end:

Violet and I put in a little sawdust walk in, at Tim's suggestion:

We spent all sunday cobbing up gaps in the front wall:

To clarify a little, we're living here with Jesse, so our only sources of heat are the meals we cook and body heat from the three of us. This is jesse cobbing interior gaps on sunday:

We had an hour yesterday morning so we took the front door apart and tweaked everything so it shuts and leaks less and the latch works:

Violet took a way less dark pic of the kitchen area:

We had an hour before dinner last night so Jesse, violet and I cobbed most of the back wall and windows:

We're just starting temperature monitoring:

At 7am today: 33/52 (degrees fahrenheit, outside/inside temp). Suck factor: nonexistent.

Thanks so much for 'taking us along' on your wofati adventure... looking forward to the daily details :)

Only had time to make a few small changes last night before bed. Apparently sleeping on a non-level (feet up) bed is psychosis-inducing levels of miserable. Also, building a bed in the dark and without a level is not entirely a good idea. All fixed now.

10/14 7pm, 56/57
10/15 7am, 40/54

10/15 7pm, 44/55
10/16 7am, 38/54

10/16 10pm, 52/57
10/17 7am, 28/50

Got our first real frost last night, still haven't crossed the 50 deg line inside. Soon, probably. We cooked breakfast for three, lunch for four, dinner for two in here yesterday.

I think this is a good time to point out that wofati 0.7 is not yet complete. The excavator broke down and we could not afford the part - until today. Hopefully, the excavator will be running again tomorrow and we can try to finish this before the ground freezes.

Yep, not finished. The only really big piece that's still missing is the final outer 18" or so of dirt, outside the insulation and waterproof umbrella.

10/17, 11pm, 40/57
10/18, 7am, 35/51

Today was our soul labor day, so violet and I finished cobbing all the gaps we could find around the roof and walls. Hopefully those were a big part of what made last winter so bad in here.

Also I'm trying a test patch of direct cob floor. I'm extremely lazy and know next to nothing about cob so it's just an inch of chopped straw cob applied over the well-packed earth (dust, actually) floor. If i'm happy with it, we'll probably do more of it.

That looks like a fairly significant space! +20 degrees over ambient is not bad for something that's not finished yet. Is that a south-facing view?

Yep, definitely plenty of space! It's more or less north facing - I think the idea is to test the effectiveness of the earth thermal inertia without large solar inputs through the end walls.

Today was rest day so violet and i paneled the upper half of the interior walls today where insulation was exposed. Probably not much heat benefit but a big improvement in appearance! Jesse came up and insulated the door which I expect will help some as well.

10/19 7am 34/52
10/19 7pm 50/57

More pictures

Lookin good! I am jealous (: 42*F here in my camper this morning. Brrr! Cant wait til spring and come out.

10/20 7am 35/55
10/20 7pm 50/57

In the week since we put the insulating layer and final tarping on, we got enough rain that a small area of pooling water formed on the front edge of the roof, so we regraded and retarped since that is BAD news.

We've also continued with the cob floor, but noticed an absolute ton of mouse tracks in the dirt floor, definitely from the night before. No surprise, tim & kristie warned us to get traps:

Lol trap some mice and woodrats and make some soft fur mittens! Hahaha. Pest to present?

Looks good (: So you are doing some cob over the dirt floor for now?

Haha yes maybe eat them too, save a trip to basecamp. Yeah we're just laying an inch of cob down after roughly grading (really more just scraping off the high spots) on the theory that even if it cracks, it's more fun to live on than dirt under the rugs.

Had some time to work on 0.7 this afternoon so we made a bunch more floor cob.

10/20 7am 46/55
10/20 9pm 44/55

Very thankful for this mild weather!

10/22 7am 33/52
10/22 7pm 44/54

Excavator's still down so we did work at base camp all yesterday. Built a super clever cv joint puller using tires, a bottle jack, a 2x4, and a few lengths of heavy tube stock (tim this isn't the leviathan tubing):

Sorry for the radio silence folks! Rainy weather up here and we lost power for a bit.

10/27
7am 34/49
7pm 26/48

Photos!

More photos

The world's most complex debris shelter is nearly complete!

I like the branches as a sort of mulch cover. That should help avoid erosion up above.

10/29 7am 36/49
11pm 35/50

will you be adding a rocket heater ? temps indoors seem a bit low for comfort .

The umbrella is now done!

The umbrella was completed when it was really cold. So the surrounding mass is really cold when the experiment was started. We're tossing around ideas on how we might warm it up to start the experiment.

That's it folks! 0.7 is done! Sort of.

Has there been any thought to having a roof in front, for a sort of front porch? In mild rainy weather it could be useful. . .

Looking good! All the best for winter. How many of you will be living in there?

Julia, it looks as though there is quite a big overhang out the front.

Yeah, I see the overhang, I was just thinking that with a bit of a roof you'd have some useful space there. (We are currently in a rather small house and planning to put a large porch outside. It will significantly increase our living space, at least in milder weather.)

It would probably block too much light, but if that's facing north then maybe not. I don't suppose light-transmitting panels are an option.

Julia Winter wrote:Yeah, I see the overhang, I was just thinking that with a bit of a roof you'd have some useful space there. (We are currently in a rather small house and planning to put a large porch outside. It will significantly increase our living space, at least in milder weather.)

It would probably block too much light, but if that's facing north then maybe not. I don't suppose light-transmitting panels are an option.

Has an awning been considered? Two posts out past the wing walls could support temporary/seasonal shade. Maybe an old sail or something. Though that cuts down somewhat on the back to nature wooded floor and background that is one of the wofati's finer points.


hummm...

Absolutely awesome to see the wofati come to life. I have no doubts whatsoever ya'll wing'it, floor it and crank it it just at the right times and ya'll be fine. God speed, you permies. I love you.