Upon returning to Newbern, the team continued the metal theme and spent the first day back coating all of the metal elements of the pod with a clear lacquer finish to prevent weathering while maintaining the unfinished look of the metal. Then they made the switch back to working with wood.

With all of the wood for the floors prepped and ready to go, installing the floors was a simple and quick process. Of course, before the wood could be placed, the world’s most substantial termite shields had to be installed. The termite shields comprise of ¼” steel plate welded into a box and are designed to complement the massiveness of the mass timber and concrete foundations.

After the termite shields were siliconed in place, the wood for the floors was placed, a process which took about fifteen minutes. Then the wood was roughly aligned so that the threaded rods could be inserted. Once the rods were in place and lighted fastened, the wood received its final alignment. By far the most time consuming part of this process was tightening the threaded rods as, even with our preliminary tightening, the wood still had subtle warping and cupping that needed to be squished out. The floor installation overall took about five hours, four of which went into tightening the threaded rods.

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Stay tuned for the rest of the pod coming after Christmas.

Building is getting serious,

The Fabulous Floor Folk

Soundtrack: Construction Site Song | The Kiboomers