Now that our adobe wall is just over one year old
I thought it would be nice to give a look at how the adobe plaster has held up.
We had couple of hard driving rains this past summer
and as expected they left a nice texture to the plaster
but also washed off much of the pigment in the exposed designs.
All of the posts to date are:
Building An Adobe Wall: #4 Putting On The Cap,
Building An Adobe Wall: #5 Hip Roof For The Gate,
Building An Adobe Wall: #6 Plastering And Creating The Designs.
Building An Adobe Wall: #5 Hip Roof For The Gate,
Building An Adobe Wall: #6 Plastering And Creating The Designs.
In the above photo it is easy to see where the rain line is.
The highest part of the wall is protected by the overhang.
The weathering process brings out the straw that was mixed in with the plaster,
and the straw helps to prevent the rain water from channeling as it washes over the plaster.
The lizards survived.
Above you can see the wall right after a hard rain.
Also note that I got the gate finished this year.
It was built from rough cut ponderosa pine from a local mill.
I prefer to use locally sourced materials whenever possible.
From trial and error I have learned to keep gates exposed to the weather
as simple as possible to help shed the rain.
The cross ties are beveled on their top edge to allow for better drainage.
This last photo of the wall is from a couple of days ago
and the snow is why I am inside working on this blog again.
This past spring we finally got around to building this fence
which is a companion to the wall.
The fence boards are the same ponderosa pine that we used on the gate at the wall,
and are screwed into the posts and rails.
The posts are 12' pressure treated 4"x 4"'s cut to 6' lengths.
2' in the ground and 4' above- no waste.
The post holes are dug a few inches deeper to allow room for gravel at the bottom
and then filled and carefully and securely tamped with the dirt that came out.
I also like to mound extra dirt around the top of holes and along the fence
to allow for extra drainage.
A layer of stones at the bottom of the fence boards helps to keep them above the ground
so water does not wick up into the end grain.
Everything was liberally coated with boiled linseed oil before and after assembly.
The rails are standard fir 2"x 4"'s notched into the posts.
The galvanized caps are bent from a light gauge sheet metal
to help protect the wood from rain as much as possible.
The pitch on the top is created with blocks and plywood.
Again, all of the posts in this series are:
