SYWBC Poll #1 results:

Here are the results of the poll, I figure it was a little biased on account folks visiting the site are interested in DIY castles or at least castles in general. There are some new polls up, vote if you wish!

Do you:

Want to build a castle someday?

250 (83%)

Want to buy a castle, old or new?

34 (11%)

Already live in one you've built?

11 (3%)

Think building castles is a silly idea?

5 (1%)



Votes so far: 300
Poll closed

I'm curious about the 11 folks that voted they live in a castle they've already built!

Mother Earth News

I've mentioned this magazine on the site before as a source of information. To the point: It has nothing to do with castles, but it does with some of the things that one could surround one with. Yeah it's a crunchy-granola magazine and there are some ads for cure-all herbal remedies and positively charged water (which may or may not be something you're into), but overall it's a good source of DIY everything. Considering that we'd like to have our home off the beaten path a little bit, not in the hinterlands mind you but with a little land and peace around it, so we can grow some of our own food and the like. So far it's had fascinating articles on how to make your own cheese from store bought milk and some good gardening information, all budget-oriented. Plus, as I've mentioned before, the website has information and stories about those who have "chucked it all" and moved out of the city and pursued alternative building methods from slipform to adobe. A lot of the articles on DIY information is unapologetically and without ado geared towards low-cost.

So, while it isn't strictly construction oriented, some of the readers here that prefer to be off the beaten path (or even those not) may appreciate the home-grown DIY information that can save you more than the $10 a year subscription.

We spent our hard earned $10 and honestly enjoyed every magazine. Looking at trying the home-made mozzarella with our container-garden-grown tomatoes and basil for an all home-made home-grown caprese salad.

Mother Earth News

Google Groups

Well, the castle-builders forum Google Group is pretty quiet. I just stopped by to have a look and realized that the place was being hit by porn spammers. Unfortunately this means that any/all comments will now be moderated for the group, not that there are any! :)

Kasteel Noz Castle

Kasteel Noz is located in Snelling, California.


I know nothing more than what is in this article, and there are several articles on the web featuring this picture and information, but it's great to find another owner-built castle being built. I'll add this to the "need to contact" list of castle builders.

EDIT: I've searched like crazy, even using Google Maps satellite view to try to get more information on this castle. No luck. I'll wait until he makes his information public.

EDIT 05/09: I have received some anonymous comments regarding Kasteel Noz here on the blog, though I am unwilling to post them in their entirety because they possibly contain a legitimate phone number and email information for Mr. Noz and I don't think I have the authority or permission to post someone else's personal data here. What I can do is post a link to the new Kasteel Noz website and allow readers to get contact information there directly from the source. Also, thanks to some other comments that pointed out the Kasteel Noz site, I have sent an email to Mr. Noz in the hopes of getting an interview with him regarding his castle. If that request bears fruit, it will appear on the front page and a line will be placed here to it.

Newman's castle

Newman's Castle in Texas.

I have very little information about this castle other than it is in Texas. I found this slideshow on one of my searches, but I haven't dug any deeper to see if the castle has a website. The castle looks like it is completely built of CMU, and could be owner-built. Will post more info if I can find it.

EDIT: I've exhaustively searched the web for more information, and there's nothing out there other than the bakery associated with the owner. While I'd like to find out more about his castle, I'm not willing to be a castle-owner stalker and call his bakery and try to get in touch with him. As with Noz's castle, I'll just have to wait until they go public.

Update:  You can visit Newman's Castle by seeing a show called "Murder By Chocolate", a dinner theater. Thanks to SYWBC reader Michelle for pointing this out.

Free Sketchup rendering system

For anyone else that is using Sketchup and wants to have a more advanced rendering system for free, I've started using su2pov. You'll need the su2pov file from here and the Pov-Ray file from here. The combination works with the free version of Sketchup, no need to buy the pro version. I've tried several of the other renderers; IRender, Podium, VRay, and Kerkythea. The first 3 are only for pro and are not free. Kerkythea is free, but it is somewhat advanced for the rookie. It does do very good renders, though. I'd also recommend Indigo as a renderer,it's a step up in complexity from su2pov, but the quality is better too. su2pov isn't the best quality system, but it is simple and relatively easy. You can put lights in a building, sunlight through a window... Lots of possibilities to get that nice-looking picture of your project.

The top render is from su2pov (only took a minute); the second render is from indigo (took over an hour, you can see that the foil is "shiny", and a few other goodies); and the third is Kerkythea, which took about a half hour and did a nice job too, but it takes more work to get realistic textures.

EDIT: After playing with su2pov or a bit, the right-click menus are no longer working. I can't assign or change material characteristics. I've tried reinstalling the plugin, tried different models, but it just doesn't want to work. It may just be a peculiarity of my system, but I can't say that su2pov would be a good choice to download if this is a recurring problem.

Wall system

Well, reading all those masonry and construction books has paid off a little. I've finally come up with a standard wall system that is readily available and will fit the bill as far as DIY construction is concerned, and created a representation in my trusty Sketchup. It uses standard CMUs and foamboard insulation. To attach the rubble wall, a truss-type anchor system is employed that allows flexibility to prevent cracking of either wall due to different expansion rates. The cores of the CMUs will be reinforced laterally and vertically when/if required, insulation will be in the remainder of the cores.

The interior is the only remaining question. Due to the standard system, it could easily be wallboard and 2x4s or stone facade. The question is about the second or third floor, how would a heavy stone facade be applied and supported by the wall or floor? Still more research to do.

If interested, click on the picture and it will take you to the 3dwarehouse download.

Yet more...

Yep, still working on the same design. More pictures. Finally got some windows right on the hall, now the rest of the building needs attention.

Click the picture for a much larger version.

Continued...

Still working on castle model I did a while back. If you check the older posts you can see the iterations it has gone through. The model's square footage is now considerably larger, but that's mostly due to the modification of the great hall. Too bad there wasn't a simple way to make a time lapse of all of the changes, it would be pretty interesting.

So far, in my opinion anyway, the structure is looking better and better. It has more interesting features and several questionable structural designs that would have been difficult and expensive, if not impossible to build, have been removed. As usual, the placement of doors and windows as well as the window design is turning out to be difficult.

CMUs are the way to go...

After sitting down with a pen and paper alongside my Sketchup castle design with the purpose being to calculate costs per foot of wall, a clear winner showed up immediately. CMUs are by far the least expensive and most forgiving material to use to build the shell of a structure. I don't mean "fancy" split faced or other decorative type blocks, I mean plain-old flat faced standard blocks. A quick look at a 1' thick wall 1000' long full of cement 8' high at $2.78 per foot is over $22,000 at $75/cubic yard of cement, and I've seen many prices for cement over $100/cu yd. Take the same dimensions using $1.30 a block and the cost comes out to be considerably less, even if you raise the cost to $1.50 a block it still wins. Throw in concrete core reinforcement on top of the CMU construction and yet again, the CMU is still cheaper.

Now, folks will argue that one needs to throw insulation in on top of the CMU cost, and I want a stone interior/exterior for the most part, so now we're approaching the costs of ICF. The decision here isn't too difficult either. Due to the unusual design of a castle and the height of the structure, most ICF will not work. Many of the sites only allow for 2 floors of standard height (from the limited information I could find), none mentioned 3 floors of greater height. Gridwall ICF is right out the window. To have these companies engineer something, or to find a specialty ICF, that would meet my needs plus the cost of poured concrete, exterior and interior finishing, ICF gets taken out of the running.

So, in a nutshell, the basic structure of the building will be reinforced CMU with a stone exterior facade; and on the inside, something along the lines of foam board insulation with a stone facade tied in to the main wall. That's pretty much it. This method will allow for rapid construction of the shell and the decorative extras can be added later.