We're Winding Down the Lavacrete Lodge - The Roundhouse Is Calling

Oh, hey there. We've been busy the last few years building a huge HyperAdobe EarthBag home for our family, but it needed a utility building because we're off-grid. So the last few months we've taken a small detour to design and build the Lavacrete Utility Lodge. This 12 by 16 structure will house our off-grid solar system, water filtration and pressurization, fiber internet, and even a small guest bathroom. So, let's get you caught up on the utility lodge progress so far. Our first step was to clear the area for the structure Then we built up the foundation, trenched and ran the plumbing and utility lines, poured a concrete pad with a stem wall, mixed and packed the walls with an amazing group of workshop attendees, complete with debossing landscapes and glass bottle art. Then we bolted down and welded a metal C-Purlin roofing structure, built a bunch of crazy forms, and filled the space between those C-Purlins with more Lavacrete to finally get to today's project. Installing the metal roofing panels. We've got the materials here, our friend Andrew is here to help. Let's get this thing closed in. All right, today is roof day, but before we put the panels on, we have to put this channel receiver on the side so it's a nice clean edge. So if you are building with Purlins, they make this really cool thing called a channel receiver and it doesn't have like the ends that go over like this on the C-channel, it's just straight and it's like a little bit bigger than your C-Purlin, so it fits perfectly. So let's get it up and then panels. I found this fancy bit in my DeWalt box, so when we do these little pan heads, you just, and look it holds it. So maybe it won't when we try to try to drill through all the steel. We might have to pre-drill though, we'll see. I almost forgot my tape measure. You got to like bend it a little bit and then tap it on. It doesn't fit. Not without a lot of banging and bending and like this is like super tight fitting. So like we're gonna have to like pull it out, get one end on and then just move beam by beam and like push this thing on. Let's set it down. I may need some clamps. It's just under six inches. I feel like if we clamp this. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. We just use those pipe clamps and suck this end down before we try to put it on. All right, you good? I'm good. You could bring a rubber mallet if you want that. I need to come down a little. Right there looks good. All right, now if you can give it to me, I'm gonna get it on here. Watch feet. I don't know, you know, it may not go on all the way. I don't know that it has to go on all the way because. Do you have enough roofing panel that you would have to cut one down? The piece that goes over goes over. But then there's a big hole at the end, too. I mean, we could definitely cut. We have plenty of extra pieces. We could fabricate something. Let's screw it on and then if it annoys us too much. Can you take this down? I kind of feel like it's like one of those things that I don't like, but I'm not going to see again. You know, I'm not going to look at it all the time. I mean, I can I can bring this on more, but I think it's only going to go so far. So while Jonathan and Andrew are working on the side, look, I came and harvested some little mulberries. Usually the birds get them before we get to them. They're tiny, but they're delicious. Down a little towards the end. Hold on. OK, that's pretty good one right there. I just hope this extra like half an inch doesn't come back to bite us. Hey, we got the what side is this? We got the east side done. We're moving to the west side. So we've already moved all of our scaffolding. We got to get all our tools over there. We got to measure, make sure it's still 18 foot should be. But we just want to double check before we cut the other piece. We're ready for our first panel. We had to grind down a little bit of those those areas that we put in. There's just a few spots that were too high. So we're good, at least for the first three feet. Get this first panel up. We're going to check square first and then see how close we are. And then once we get the first one in, you know, you just got to get it started right. And then it should be pretty easy. These are pretty long panels, though. So getting them up there might be tricky, but it's kind of low on this side. So it might, I don't know. We do have scaffolding on the inside, which is really nice. Now you, you set the speed. We don't want to push you off the wall. This side is too long. Right there. You're right on this one, but this one bows too. So it's like, you know, this one bows the least. Now, I don't want to do the last one because we got an overlap. We need to go down this line first. This side. Uh huh. And then we can go over. Yeah, I think so. Garden bed is going to be in the way next time. If you're looking at this crazy building and wondering, how the heck does LavaCrete work? Well, before we set out to experiment with this technique, we spent months researching and interviewing both Paul Schramm and Guru Das, two professionals who have years of experience creating this technology and building engineered and permitted homes and commercial structures in Tucson. We put together this really great overview video covering the history and the process of building with LavaCrete. You should definitely go check it out if you have questions, because it will probably answer most of them. And speaking of answering questions, one of the questions we get the most is, this is cool, but like, how do I calculate how much I need? Like how much scoria sand, how much cement, how much water? Well, you're in luck. We made a calculator. Just go to tinyshinyhome.com slash LavaCrete and scroll down to the calculator section and you'll find this really handy tool. Enter your structure perimeter, wall thickness, height, and it will let you know exactly how much lava sand, cement and water you'll need. Pretty cool. And also this page has a bunch of extra information about where you can get scoria sand and spreader clips. And we're going to keep adding to these educational resources. We're going to keep working with Paul and Gurudas, so keep asking those questions. Cool? All right, let's get back to the roof. Okay, we got to get this finished. So we're going to put our side trim and then our front edge piece. We won't put anything on the back because we'll have a gutter back there. It should be pretty straightforward. We've done this before, right? This is always the worst part. We hate it so much. Wish us luck. The way they have it, it's curved in for a pitch, but technically this shouldn't be pitched. So we're going to have to jam it back. I see even that from where I screwed it in. It still comes back. I'm going to screw these down so that it holds its 90 instead of its whatever 112 is. All I'm going to need A to do is push this top edge. So see how it wants to push out? Do you remember how we were worried about that space between the receiver clip and the C purlins and it wouldn't go on all the way? And there was like a little extra opening. Well, we did end up cutting up some C purlins and wrapping the edges of those before we put the metal trim on. We just didn't record it. So it turned out okay. I think if you're standing back and you don't look at it too closely, it looks fine and you would never notice. And that's the whole point, right? All right, guys. The C purlins are here for the roundhouse roof. We have 105 of them, I think. We got a telehandler here that's going to be here the whole time Ashley's parents are here to move the bar joists and the C purlins and whatever else we need to do. But we got to get them off the truck. That's the first step. We've risked everything for love On the outside, always looking in We'll still hold on To all we could've been Would you still take me For a fool if I let it Give it all away for you So take me home Take me home Than it's ever been before Those photographs that once took pride of place Stand no more How long should we try to make these lies Till we fall Would you still take me For a fool if I let it Give it all away for you So take me home Take me home