Big Milestone! Framing Complete for Our Straw Bale Wall

This week on OSRL, we complete the framing in preparation for the arrival of straw bales to build the walls of our house. How's it going everyone? Welcome back. Now if you're new here, my wife and I were building our own home off-grid here in the Arizona desert. And if you've been a viewer, you've probably seen our last video where I haphazardly injured my ankle. Well, it's almost back to 100%. It's feeling pretty good. You know, if I bend it kind of far, yeah, there's a little bit of discomfort in there. But all in all, almost back to 100%. So I want to get back to the framing. I want to get this done. We just got confirmation, big news, just got confirmation on the straw bales and they should be here in about a week's time. Very cool. That means we've got a lot to get done. I definitely want to get this framing done and I want to be ready for when the bales get here. That way we could just get them in place and we're good to go. So I definitely got a lot to do. Let's push on with getting this house done. I was fortunate enough to find some used 2x12 lumber and I thought that was excellent to kind of put at the bottom of these doorways. This particular one didn't have any oil protection. It was just a raw board. So I used a mixture of the boiled linseed oil and odorless mineral spirits and give a couple of coats of oil to this board to protect it. So those straw bales are expected to be here any day now. For any people that are new here, some of our walls here on our house will actually be made with straw bales. So we'll actually be using straw bales here over on our west side as well as our north side. And that's one of the reasons why the framing here looks as strange as it does. I got the rough openings for all of the windows and the doors placed on this north hand side and these windows especially to kind of just look like they're hanging there. I kind of do that for a reason so that I'm not placing boards down here because we'll be sticking bales underneath here. So I'm thinking to myself anywhere where I can kind of utilize those bales, get those in place. I'm thinking it'll be much better for the build as it'll add more insulation along the walls. Of course once we do get the bales and we stick them underneath here then we could put in some support to kind of hold these rough openings in place and create more support. So those straw bales will be here and like I said it will fill in all these gaps in here. It's really going to be the sort of like main building material of the west and north walls. So when that comes these walls should go up pretty quick. Good morning y'all. Now we just finished up with a little heat wave. Here it is toward the end of October and we've been getting some summer-like temperatures up in the 90s. But that's all over now and temps are about to drop. We might even get some mornings that drop down at freezing temperatures. So that's kind of crazy going from some summer temps down to some winter temps real quick. Now I'm making some good progress on the framing. I'd like to get the rest of this done today and then I got a little experiment that I want to try. Something that I can make sure that we can do later on when the house is complete or probably actually beforehand but you'll see what I mean here in a little bit. So I'm gonna get started. I'm gonna knock out this framing and then we'll see about my little experiment. Hey you have a girl hanging out in your cot being all sleepy. It's not particularly hot out today. She usually spends the hot days inside the dome but maybe the wind. The wind's pretty rough you think she's trying to escape the wind? Well that's why I'm in here. I am a little jealous you get to work inside. I'm getting sandblasted out there. You know you've been making really good progress on the top of that dome and those winds really kept you from going up there but that didn't really stop you did it? No there's always things to do everywhere so I just worked on the cab on the inside of the dome. And you're making excellent progress that looks fantastic. Of course and you're getting all those bags that have kind of torn open you're getting those covered up. Have you been finding that to be a particular challenge? It's actually surprising how well things have held up like it's been quite a while since we've finished that dome. Those bags aren't really meant to last very long in the uv light so I think well just the fact that it is inside and it's not in direct light probably helped preserve it as much as it has been. But the stuff that was exposed for a while like before we finished the dome those bags are the worst and they're very fragile so if I even just touch it it starts falling apart. And of course anything falling apart really just seems to be sort of on those outer edges everything in the bags toward like where the weight is resting that stuff is really compressed very nice very solid nothing compromised there it's just those very outer edges where there's no compressed weight. I think actually like adding the cab on any areas that is falling apart it probably strengthens it too because when we were filling the bags you know the the dirt that we're putting in the bags it's not as wet as the cob that I'm using and obviously there's not the straw that's being added to so all of that's going to make it really solid. All right I got the rest of the boards hung those are looking really good I just got to place some boards going in between for the bottoms and then I'll be set for this yeah the framing will be done then we're just waiting for bales. So we did come up with a rooster name we want to thank everyone for putting their suggestions down in the video very cool. Yeah we I think we have fun reading through all the suggestions. I think a lot of people liked my suggestion Gregory Peck. They did and there were a lot of other really kind of creative and funny and and pretty cool names too. But what are we going with? I'm going to be honest I'm probably going to end up just calling the rooster the rooster because it's the only rooster and just yeah that's how I see it going. That's not so bad that's not so bad. Yeah they've come to snuff the rooster you know he ain't gonna die yeah. All right I promise not to sing anymore. I mean this is from the lady that has named some of the chickens cream head and stripey neck so the rooster probably makes a lot of sense. But I like it simple straight to the point no nonsense and and you know who you're talking about right there's no confusing. There's no confusion. Yuvie is happy we're out and about for a walk doing our evening stroll. What do you think Jess is it beautiful out here? You look like you're chilly. Yeah a little chilly. You prepare for that cold cold morning tomorrow? Good morning y'all. Gotta be kind of quiet. Jess is still sleeping. He has a cold one this morning. Temps are down in the 30s. I don't know if they're gonna get quite to freezing but might be pretty close. All right so until the sun comes up just enjoying my morning coffee and staying warm. Despite the temperatures outside hitting 37 degrees that's the lowest I saw inside the dome it was still 73 degrees dome perfect temperature nice and cozy all night long throughout the morning very nice but uh still chilly this morning we're starting to warm up now that the sun's coming up over the mountains and I want to finish this framing and then I want to get to my experiment. So for internet we currently use a weboost along with a mofi in order to get the internet connection we have out here but uh I want to see if I can use the weboost and connect that inside the dome to see if we could get internet connectivity inside there I think that'll be a real bonus if we can be comfortable inside the dome while putting the videos together so I'm going to give it a shot and I'm hoping this works I really want to try and use the system we have to see if this works rather than try and get a whole new system just to find out maybe it doesn't work so well so fingers crossed and let's see if this little experiment works. It's easy to adjust. It's set up a little janky right now but it's just temporary all lights are green I'm hoping that's a good sign let's give Jessica a call hello hello calling you from inside the dome very cool uh look look how well it's working yeah it seems like it coming in loud and clear right should I take this down to the underground bedroom and uh see if it still works down there yeah try it out all right let's head down all right I am in the underground bedroom and look at that still still able to talk no disconnection and I'm and I'm underground and inside the dome it's pretty well well I don't know do I still have a connection Jess I'm still here all right looks like uh looks like we have a success nice and I'm happy the uh look interesting that I got a call and I'm getting a call I wonder if uh it's actually working to get a little more signal out over this way because usually I can't get anything out that way but uh that reminds me I'm glad the little experiment with the wee boost worked uh it seems to work out really nicely uh can make calls inside there can get some some data in there so that's pretty nice probably the thickness of the walls of the dome really limits like the signal that you can get like that those walls are like two feet thick I haven't noticed any signal degrading anywhere else so it's possible I might just leave the wee boost in the dome unless we notice any kind of issues outside of that that'll be nice to have options as far as like where we're working of course I'll do a little bit better of a setup rather than just the little janky little thing I got attached to the chicken coop you know and if I raise it up a little higher it might get a better signal so very cool always time for some belly rubs huh she looks like in heaven to me hey she wants to jump in too wow so the framing is done very exciting I'm having some interesting weather lately we went from like a last summer heat wave to some crazy winds and now freezing temperatures all within like what a week now we're gonna get more rain rain at the beginning of November that's crazy and it's scheduled to come unfortunately the same day that we're for the walls of our house can you believe that uh really weird unseasonable rain coming the same day that we're supposed to get the bales but yeah good news on that the bales are coming the bad news isn't it's scheduled to rain that very same day so it should be interesting I'm very excited I'm very excited for both the rain and the bales I just wish they weren't coming we'll have to make some kind of plan to figure out how we're gonna do that and we'll have to make sure you get a plan together make sure they're safe and then we'll be ready to start the next phase of the build I'm so excited all right y'all so thanks so much for watching and we'll catch you in the next video y'all bye you you're not in the right room that's the washroom