The Building of the Laft Hus - Part 3
Millwork
Club member, Norbert Lee, of Red Deer, built the Laft Hus windows from local pine lumber. He also built the beautiful door, assisted by Fred Anderson. Norbert had retired from operating a millwork enterprise in Red Deer for some years, and Fred had immigrated as a journeyman carpenter from Denmark, after World War 2. The window glass panes were salvaged from a renovations project at Lindsay Thurber High School. Each of these volunteers was an exacting craftsman who took pride in his work. Along with the others they assisted with many parts of the project. Fred Anderson daily, including weekends, on the project for over two years.
The traditional high thresholds and low-hanging doors of the old Norwegian houses did not meet with Provincial codes, so yet another concession was made to a more code-compliant doorway. The general design of the door was chosen democratically by building committee vote from several old photos presented. Then it was carefully copied by Norbert and Fred.. A 3" space was left above all windows and door to allow for log settlement. Plasters' metal mesh covered these spaces to deter rodents from crawling in and setting up housekeeping.
Sod Roof
The ridge log is 55 feet long with the required small end circumference of the minimum 14". The roof beams are all pine timber, purchased at Spray Lakes Logging Co. at Cochrane Alberta. Roof decking forming the exposed ceilings is of 2" x 6". Roof decking forming the exposed ceiling is of 2" x 6" tongue and groove pine boards, covered first with a heavyweight plastic vapour barrier. Following this are 2" x 6" roof rafters at 16" centres, filled with layers of 6" fiberglass insulation. Next 5/8" tongue and groove plywood was nailed on, topped by stapled sheets of the special plastic, dimpled, sod-roof underlay, called "grunnmurplate" which was donated by a factory in Notodden, Norway.
Several layers of birch bark were used as moisture barriers as well as to hold the sod in place on the sod roofs of old Norway, but again the modern route was taken as sufficient birch bark proved impossible to obtain in time. Knut Sunde of Alhambra, Alberta managed to harvest enough birch bark in the west country to at least trim the rake edges. Over the dimpled plastic underlay a layer of purchased 2" sod was placed with the grassy side down. Then a 1" layer of black loam was spread over this, followed by a layer of secured stucco wire.
The roof pitche of the Laft Hus was steeper than many of the old Norwegian buildings studied, so it was decided that the stucco wire would help assure that the rows of sod would have a better chance of staying secure.
It must be remembered that no one knew or had ever built such a sod roof in the area before, so these precautions were taken as an extra caution against the roof sliding off.
Over all this went the final layer of 2" sod, placed with the grassy side up. The futile search for "prairie wool" or "virgin sod" in time, forced the building crew to resort, again, to materials available in the here-and now- commercial sod.
A treated half-log called a "vindskier" was placed around the exposed sod edges to help protect it from the wind and metal linedeaves troughing added to help direct water run off away from the walls.
Garth Sandau, son of club members, Harold and Lorna Sandau, recruited his ball team to volunteer their help in laying the sod roof.
A carved dragon head or board of Norwegian design, were gable ornaments in the old days, a carry over from heathen times and Viking ships of old. Originallythey were thought to be protection from evil spirits. Brian Grosseth carved one each for the gable ends of Laft Hus. These were soon destroyed by vandals, remade and installed agian by Cliff Hansen, destroyed again, and remade a third time by Edwin Jones. Vandals also removed Cliff's efforts to emulate the traditional Norwegian pile of stones on the chimney top.
The building committee members were assisted byGarth Sandau and members of his softball team. Many folks came with lawn chairs to watch this old, but new phenomenon of the installation of layers of grassy sod on a building's roof. Questions no one could answer at the time were: 'How will it stand up under Alberta dry weather conditions?' 'How will it be maintained?' ' How will you water it when we have those common extreme dry spells?' 'Will weeds and flowers flourish up there?' 'What will happen if the tree growing beside the house decides to send babies over to the sod roof to grow up there?'
Since then and due to the southe exposure dying from the following summer's drought an underground automatic sprinkler system was installed under the sod and a new layer of sod installed. Surprisingly the unkempt appearance of sod roofs festooned by flowers, weeds and small trees is the norm in Norway. Goats there are encouraged to climb up and keep the sod trimmed down, but the Laft Hus' grassy sod is kept neat both manually and with a motorized cutter. The invasive and prolific root system if the Laurel leaf Willow nearby is an everpresent hazard to the underlying roof system.
