Interesting European Self-Build

[germanbird]

I was trolling about the internet the other day and came across this interesting self-built house from Europe:  http://www.irishvernacular.com/.

Doing some quick conversions to "American" units, it looks like a 13x40 foot building with a loft built for $35,000.

What I find most interesting is the post and beam setup.  By sandwiching 2x* boards, it looks like he avoids the lateral bracing issues typical to pier foundations and picks up the floor load with a solid member (rather than hanging things off the side of the post).

The one thing that concerned me about the build was the lack of rafter ties in the roof.  As far as I can tell the only thing that ties the two walls together are the 2 or 3 cross beams the main frames.

I'm not sure that it has changed any of my future plans, but it was an interesting read and looks like a pretty nice result.  What do you all think?

[Don_P]

I didn't have time or bandwidth to look it over carefully. The basic concept is interesting and worthwhile. I've got a model of a bent down in the shop that I was playing with a few years ago along the same lines. This build does have multiple issues. By dropping his frames down to just one ply at the main floor level there is probably insuffucient resistance to lateral loading in that direction, he does have short posts but I'm wondering as the posts get taller. The rafters should be fully bearing on the ridgeboard and should not be notched the way they are at their bottoms, both of those details can lead to splitting. The tieing doesn't meet our standards. Again at the upper floor he's down to a single ply resisting the accumulated thrust of what looks like 10' of roof length, the ridgeboard could be a ridgebeam to collect and transmit the roof load to those frames but really doesn't and the frame probably isn't stiff enought there. Those are all detail problems. The basic concept IS using the walls to brace the posts, a big step in the right direction. It is sort of along the lines of built up posts in a post frame building, it just needs more careful detailing.

Just as a side note, I think onduline disappeared from our market a decade ago... and don't go looking for it, it was a failure. My understanding of using something like a black exterior for a solar collector is that during the daylight it is collecting heat, it is also driving vapor to the cool side. At night it is emitting heat towards the black sky, generally a net loss at the time of year when you want the heat inside the building. You need to be able to pull a shade over the black at night.

[Redoverfarm]

I also noted that the floor doesn't appear to extend to the outside walls as convientional flooring. There doesn't even appear to be any type of ledger on the interior around the edges.  I was only able to find one picture of the floor with the sheeting and one could only guess how the long wall sheeting was attached.  Surely there was not a notch in the sheeting to fit back into the walls.   

[MountainDon]

I believe Onduline is now called Ondura and from what you can find on the internet there are lots of people who after a few years, have many problems with it. Many problems reported with bad fading and delaminations all over the place; South Africa to Canada to New Zealand. I checked into the product years ago when planning our cabin. I had seen the Ondura product as being available through Lowe's. I recall finding the same long list of complaints. Sometimes we can find complaints and by reading we can see where the complainer is actually at fault, they did something wrong or were foolish. What I found all seem to be genuine problems. Makes you wonder about the company....

As an aside, the author / builder that was linked to says he was trained as an architect. Ask an architect what he knows about engineering and most of them will admit little to nothing. Architects use engineers to make certain things they design will stand up to weather, etc. They sometimes do perform parallel tasks. The architect displays the creative mind; emphasis on the beauty of the form. Engineers apply science to make sure the project will not fall down prematurely. Ask our member Medeek; he has a foot in each field.

Plus, like many other posts on the internet all we have is the words the other person posted. There is no pedigree to provide some measure of ability of the author. All we have are photos and words posted by someone we do not know. We are left to judge for ourselves, left to make our own decisions.

[germanbird]

Good points all around.  I didn't notice the issue with the floor sheeting or rafters bearing on the ridgeboard.  I did wonder about the strength of the post shrinking to a single 2x around the joints.  Either way, many eyes on a design are a good thing and appreciate the feedback you guys are faithful to give on the various projects and ideas on this forum.  Thanks.

[hpinson]

I actually got a lot out of viewing the detailed plans and the build writeup. It was very much worth spending some time looking through.