Tuesday 29 June 2010

back again

We're rather knackered, so here are some pics of the current progress (getting exciting, but don't mention the windows.... delay in ordering partly at this end and partly at the shop end mean ho hum in terms of completion date).
Here's Clare where the upstairs loo will be clare on loo

Kitchen windows:kitche windows

The upstairs ceiling insulated, airtighted and the service void being created ceiling

The rooflight all insulated insulated rooflight

The beginnings of walls upstairs - by the future stairs, and that loo again walls upstairs

Proper obsessive insulation of the gaps between upstairs and down insulating the borders

They've drawn out our future lovely curved bathroom wall on the floor bathroom walls drawn

There's a door into the shower room showerroom door

The gable end will have oak cladding; hurray those horrible aerials have gone, you can see the future little square window gable end

And finally some visitors... I survey the garden with Amy Em+Am
and H+H contemplate the build H+H


We plan to be more coherent next week with our update!

Friday 11 June 2010

Drier and Warmer

After last weeks rain getting in, despite the weather continuing to be wet, the house is dry again, and warmer as more and more insulation goes in.
Here's a good pic of the insulation in situ before the OSB goes on - really packed in!
insulation in situ

The solar thermal (hot water) panels are up on the roof, so in theory we'll have hotwater once we're in:
solar thermal panel just awaiting the piping and tank.

We also now have all the window spaces sorted and we've got lintels galore, hurray the walls shouldn't fall down! Here's where the double doors out to the courtyard will go (pretty huge - should be really light!)hall lintel
And the two bathroom lintels from the courtyard (the left one for the main bathroom, the right the small en-suite shower room)
bathroom lintels

And the space for the study windows study window complete with slightly dodgy timbers that will be cut in to sort out dodgy window timber

The windows are all ordered (those with good memories may remember the 6-8 week lead time for them to be made, let alone arrive from Poland. Don't think we'll be in by the first week of August, do you?) with corrections to some hinge sides and which should be obscured glass (all those on the west side).

And Gil's done us drawings for a stair we LOVE - if only we can afford it once the contractors price it!

No major surprises from the site meeting this week - a bit of rotten timber around the windows shown above, an asbestos drain pipe that needs to be removed from the garage, that seemed to be all - a week without too many additional costs for the first time!

Clare and Emily looking forward to moving...........

Sunday 6 June 2010

water gets in

Well, a little bit has got into the new house, and quite a bit more into the kitchen of the rental - *properly* flooded, silt everywhere, garden a wreck, favourite cookbooks now have kitchen roll between every page in the hope of rescue... Could have been worse though. At least we don't care about the wallpaper coming off the walls or the vinyl flooring curling up!

In the lovely new house (oh how we can't wait to be in there!) there's a leak from the newly started skylights start of skylights and from the openings made for the new kitchen windows (each is 170x100cm).openings for kitchen windows. So nothing too worrying really.

One of the big south-facing bedroom window openings is completed on the outside, the other in progress - you can see the blue engineering bricks.completed window opening south

Insulating and making airtight upstairs is continuing apace. You can see the process - PILES of insulation inserted after the bitumen board and outer membrane are positioned between the rafters (and there's fancy phenolic foam insulation you can't see in the top corner) insulation in wall ;
the insulation piles are then boxed in with OSB wall showing thickness of insulation Then the really posh (=expensive) airtightness membrane (I think it may actually be intelligent...) with equally posh and expensive tape airtightness membrane

So there's still the insulated service void to go before the plasterboard...

Having a little rest before being put to work next week are the new hot water tank (green in the corner of this pic) and the flat panel solar thermal (hot water) thingies. tank, solar thermal panels

So we'll leave you with two images - more piles of insulation (there's still more outside) piles of insulation and the builders' portaloo in the courtyard portaloo in our courtyard

Hope you're drier than us! More after the next site meeting this Friday.