|
We have two types of floor - sandstone crazy-pave tiles over concrete slabs and compacted, unstabilised earth on the ground.
Here you can see the sandstone in the 'laundry' area, ready for grouting
|
The Floors (278KB page) We have two types of floor - sandstone crazy-pave tiles over concrete slabs and compacted, unstabilised earth on the ground.
|
a sill detail - we used these between rooms they're about 10mm higher than the floor level. |
|
|
The kitchen floor - the sandstone crazy pave tiles are being laid on the slab as it is poured. |
The kitchen floor, grouted - would we use red grout on blond sandstone again?
|
|
We wanted the building intimately connected to the planet but were loathe to use concrete slabs where avoidable. We chose earthen floors in the "dry" areas - they would be much easier on the feet than concrete and tiles - surely!
We had to elevate the floor 225mm above the ground - we decided to do this
First the earth was carted in and an enthusiastic team of helpers started to level it - room by room. This went very well for the first 3 rooms but then we were getting towards the bottom of the earth pile which had absorbed a lot of water from the ground (it had been raining on and off for around 2 years!)
The earth was so moist it couldn't be spread or levelled or compacted - we just had to leave it to dry out - at least it was out of the rain!
Yes - that is a rotary hoe in the main room!! - the general mayhem on the first attempt to fill the earth subfloors has been dug up and is ready for spreading, levelling and recompacting. |
|
|
Spreading the bitumen on the subfloor - the surface imperfections are to provide a key for the final layer |
A sticky business this - the emoleum had a definite affinity for exposed human flesh. |
|
|
The bedroom floor - the emoleum skinned over in 12 hours but remained quite flexible for weeks. |
The main room. |
|
|
Spreading the layer of white quartz - its quite thin but will provide a bright energetic base for the floors. |
The cupola was brightening up proceedings considerably during the sunny days - we found it a challenge to feel glum with this spectacle about! |
|
|
The final layer starts to arrive - Kel's dingo delivers the decomposed pink sandstone to a waiting wheelbarrow. |
The Flight Deck - ready to level the top layer - we had to level it to about 150% of the final thickness so it would compact to the right height - we came within 2-5 mm throughout! |
|
|
The first pass with the compactor - it performed exrtaordinarily well once we discovered how wet the earth needed to be to compact. |
Once level we continued to compact it to produce a good surface - round and round, round and round! The streaks came from lumps of dark sandstone which would powder on meeting the compactor and spread out under the plate. |
|
|
If we wet the floor too much it would stick to the plate and need to be scapred off. The result was furrows rather than a flat surface! Too dry it wouldn't compact easily, if at all! |
Once the compactor had created a flat, useable floor surface we had to deal with minor imperfections. These tampers - ice-cream containers filled with concrete and with a conduit hadle worked a treat - especially the rounded edges preventing unsightly dents. |
|
|
The final detailed tamping around the edges of the floors - produced a great finish at the walls |
The final treatment - an earth-bonding emulsion is brushed on. This was to prevent the surface breaking up while retaining the flexibility of the floor. The floors work well but, after 3 months use, we notice they don't like sharp objects dropped on them - however any gouges can be easily repaired with some mixture and bonding emulsion and a rubber mallet - a very practical user-friendly surface. |
|
 back
|
 top of this page |
 home page |
next
|
