Finishing up the Light Clay Wood Chip

Here is a video update of the shed.  Winter and other projects and responsibilities have slowed down the progress of the shed, but I have been working more on it lately.  I am just about done with the light clay wood chip infill, and am getting ready for the plaster.  This weekend we installed the door and started putting up the chicken wire over the pallets in preparation for the plaster.

Looking back on this project, I have decided that it has taken A LOT OF WORK!  This way of building is not for the faint of heart.  Some of the painstakingly time consuming things I have done so far are:

1. The foundation:  stone by stone trying to save as much mortar as possible by fitting each rock neatly within the wall.  Usually masons will slop on a large wad of mortar and roughly fit the rocks together.  It takes much less time, but uses about twice as much mortar.  I used 15 bags.  Even easier would have been to pour cement footings.  The way I did it saved me money, and used up a pile of rocks and used cement curbing dumped in my yard by my neighbor (dumped before I bought the lot[he did insist on taking care of the pile, but I told him I had a use for it])
2. Salvaging the materials:  I spent hours dumpster diving looking for useful materials. Then, when I got them, I usually had to take out nails, cut of bad parts, or reinforce sections.  Pallet wood is tough and ornery.  The nails don't come out easily, it is hard to cut, and never straight.  
3. The light clay wood chips: Even though I used a cement mixer this process took forever.  We dug by hand a hole big enough for our trampoline to get enough clay.  We found that the term "light clay wood chips" isn't really "light" at all.  When you try and use a light clay slip to hold the wood chips together, they just become flaky when they dry out (even worse if they freeze while still wet).  It takes a lot of clay to keep the chips stuck together.  Our recipe ended up being something like 1/2 parts water, 1 1/2 parts clay, 1 part wood chips.  The end consistency ended up a lot like plaster.  In fact, I ended up using it much like plaster to patch holes.  That is another problem with the way I used pallets; There were many gaps that I missed while filling up the walls that I had to patch later.

Other time consuming things I have still waiting for me to complete include plastering both inside and outside and putting down the earthen floor.  The upside of both of these is that I will be using far less material to make both products.  The walls of the shed are about 10 inches thick and took a few tones of clay and wood to fill. I plan on putting just two coats of plaster on the walls, so they shouldn't take as much clay .  I will need to sift the clay better, but a good chunk of the plaster will be made of sand.

I am not saying that the methods I have employed are bad, but they are just more than I originally reckoned for.  When I am done, I will have a large, sturdy, environmentally friendly, warm, and comfy shed.  I think I'll turn it into my glass shop.

A poor video of me putting light clay wood chips in the wall

I know I need to work on my video technique, but I was also working at the time and it is hard to pay attention to both where the camera is pointed and what you are doing while slopping mud.  I just wanted to show what it is like using light clay wood chip.  From the video you can see that the clay isn't too light.  It definitely isn't cob, but we found that if we didn't have enough clay in the mix, the small wood chips wouldn't stick together very well.  The first few batches we did had about the same recipe as light clay straw, but with wood chips replacing the straw.  The results of those first batches were unsatisfactory and the walls started flaking off wood chips when they were rubbed.  With more clay in the mix, it makes it less insulative, it has  more thermal mass, and it is much stronger.

Putting up the pallet walls

Pallet construction

Putting the walls up

40" Pallets leave a 16" gap on top where I had to cut up a pallet to fit

Once the foundation was finished it was time to put up the pallet walls.  I looked up the standard pallet size on line and it said it was 48"x40"  So I made my plans accordingly.  I was able to get a lot of pallets for free, but only a fraction of them were the "standard size".  I also found out that not all pallets are created equal and that there is a huge variety when it comes to quality. 

After scrounging up a whole lot of pallets (over 130) I was able to find enough to frame up the walls.  After watching a bunch of YouTube videos, I decided to use 2x4s in between each column of pallets with 4x4s on the corners. 

With many of the pallets not quite square (along with wavy but free 2x4s) it was necessary to use clamps quite a bit to keep things as square as possible.  If you do decide to make anything with pallets, I highly recommend getting some 5'+ long clamps along with some 8" long clamps.  It will make your project go much more smoothly and look much better.  

To speed things up while working alone, I build a few columns on the ground with 2x4s on each side, then raised them up and placed the loose pallets in between.

Using clamps helps keep it all square

Clamps also help hold it up square when I'm working alone

Skinny pallets in the corner so I have plenty of room for the door ( I didn't have the door yet, so I didn't know the size)

Starting on the floor joists for the loft

  

Sarah working on filling gaps between slats.  Yes she is using the  power tools.

The north side with the walls all up and getting ready for the loft floor to go up 

 The pallets in deck on the loft were made up completely of 40" x 40" pallets.  I seemed to get a lot of these and ended up needing to use them on the walls as well.  There are sections of the walls that use regular framing like around the windows and the door.

The loft floor half way complete

The floor from underneath

The Joist were salvaged from a house being torn down.

I ran 2x4s along the joists to sit the pallets on

So far all of the 2x4s are salvaged

View from the north east corner