Putting the roof on an Earthship

It is April 2015 and I am here again to get the roof on, I have one week and some help so if the weather is kind to us we might just make it.


Tassie oak decking covering the rafters as we left it back in Dec 2014
The Decking has survived the rain but the tarps we nailed on look to have blown away a long time ago (did I mention the winds we get here?) and the rear of the earthship is waterlogged but we are here to fix all that so let's get stuck in!


With me is Noel who helped me start the project way back in 2013, you may remember him from  Earthship journal  Part I ,also joining us are Erik and Lisa and our friend Amy, all from the build last November, Brad and laura will also help out in between their own building project across the water..


75mm polystyrene with 20mm therma advantage on top to cover the gap between battens

After cutting out the holes where the skylights will go, we started to lay our insulation, Did I mention the wind? it was blowing 5 m sheets off the roof and into the dam!!


We worked out some kind of system using car tyres as ballast to hold down a couple of sheets of insulation at a time but when a car tyre went sailing off towards the dam we decided it might be time for a cup of tea in the hope that the wind would wear itself out.


most of the colourbond we used was seconds, slightly damaged on one edge



Eventually we got all the colourbond  screwed down and we still had a couple of days to spare so we continued working on the skylight openings, experiments in home made flashing for the edges using corrugated iron leftovers and the unfinished bottle brick bathroom wall.






Amy and Lisa had put together a small makeshift kitchen and were cooking up a storm in between bouts of cob making and bottle wall construction. Thanks girls.




Here is what it looks like now... I will be back in November to continue...

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