Author: stephen (Page 29 of 61)

Building a new roof the old fashion way

October 17, 2013 / stephen

The roof to the new extension is being built-in a near-by industrial unit. The three large oak trusses are hand-made and assembled at ground level. The timber is then numbered, disassembled and brought to site.

All of the joints are made the old-fashioned way – tenons and oak pegs – to fit in with the existing cottage.

The current plan is that these will be on site and in place in the next 2-3 weeks (weather permitting!).

These are the two oak trusses for the lounge. They are being built in an industrial unit near-by before being numbered, taken apart and shipped to site.

The third oak truss has been disassembled and is being sanded. You can see here the tenon and peg joint on the end of one of the purlins (under the wire brush next to the sanding discs).

Close up of the joints in one of the trusses. This truss has been taken apart and has been sand. There is only one screw in each of the trusses.

One of the new tenon joints on the end of one of the purlins.

Progress on the external work on the extension

October 16, 2013 / stephen

I have been away from site for the past couple of days and it is great to get back to see that some real progress has been made on the extension. A lot of progress has been made on building up the external walls. This can be slow as it involves reclaimed stone rather than concrete blocks.

Unfortunately, when I arrived on site today, so too did the rain. This means that the stone work is all covered up with hessian to prevent the sand and cement getting too wet.

We will have to wait until another day to see what lurks beneath.

The new stonework is hidden under the hessian, but the external wall to the front of the kitchen and the porch is starting to take shape.

This is the side wall of the new porch and we are starting to get a sneak preview at the stone work that lies beneath the hessian.

Painting the internal window reveals

October 13, 2013 / stephen

We have panelled the inside of the windows – in a very similar way to how they may have been done origninally, albeit in waterproof MDF. The window frames are the same colour inside and out. We thought that the best colour for the internal window reveals would be a very pale green. The walls will be an off white colour. The architraves around the doors and windows will be painted MDF, as will the architrave around the windows. Not sure of the colour yet. However, we are sure that the colour needs to be light – there seems to be a lot more little in the room once the reveals were painted white – even if it was just undercoat!

At first sight, painting the internal window reveals a pale green has produced some large areas of green. However, we are going to paint the wall around the window (once the plaster dries out) before making any final decisions. This will also give us an opportunity to get some “prototype” architrave and skirtings fitted and painted.

The inside of the window reveals have been primed and have a coat of white undercoat. Tomorrow, we will paint them a pale green to match the window frame colour.

The internal window reveals have been painted a very pale green – a colour out of the Dulux trade Heritage range. I suspect that it creates too much green in this room, but we will paint the walls off white being making the final decision. Notice that the plaster is much drier in this photo than the one above.

Plastering starts

October 10, 2013 / stephen

The end bedroom upstairs is now fully boarded and we have started plastering. This is mainly around one of the windows so this will allow us to get a window finished and painted so that we can make sure we have chosen the correct colours. We will also put up the architrave and skirting boards, so that we can check these too.

For some reason, we have always used the window in this room as our “prototype”!

The rafters are hidden underneath the insulated plasterboard, but the roof trusses and purlins will remain exposed. The exposed timber has been waxed and it should be easy to get off any dust or plaster marks.

Cutting around beams with the insulated plasterboards was difficult, plastering around them is even more difficult. But they are doing a great job.

We are having to use small tower scaffolds internally to be able to reach the ceilings. This makes getting around in here difficult while the plasterers are at work.

We have always used this window as our prototype. As soon as the plasterers are finished in here, we will paint up this window and get the architrave added. We will also put up a strip of skirting board.

Blockwork complete on the extension

October 10, 2013 / stephen

Well, complete – more or less.

The waterproofing (called “tanking”) of the portions of the walls that will be below ground level is now complete. The subsoil is being reinstated alongside the walls, so that the builders have a level surface to work off.

If the weather is ok tomorrow, we will start on the stone exterior of the extension. We will start at the front and work our way around to bring all the sides of the extension up to the same level. The the exterior wall will be built in courses right around the building. If it rains, we will have to find other things to do!

The blockwork is more or less complete and the tanking to the rear of the property has been completed. We are now already to start on the stone work.

The blockwork is more or less complete. The insulation boards have been added (held in place by red round plastic clips). The pink boards at the base of the wall are to protect the damp proofing when the soil is put back in place. The large black pipe is the conduit that will carry the main electricity supply (hence the yellow warning tape you can see next to it).

We are ready to start building the exterior stone wall at the front of the extension. The stone is being kept dry under the plastic in the foreground.

With the tanking complete, the subsoil has been reinstated. You can see here that the ground level outside is higher than the floor level inside the master bedroom.

Trench for water and electric

October 8, 2013 / stephen

We are going to be moving both the water and electric connections around to the new utility room. This was something that got missed off the original budget and can be a significant cost.

We have decided to dig the trench now. Once the new extension is built, the access would be severely limited by this trench. So we are going to do it now, lay the pipework and fill it back in before the porch is built.

We are also going to put connections into the outbuildings for both water (for the orchard and polytunnel) and electric for the sheds (lighting and power).

This was completed in a day. Probably another day’s work will get it to the utility (!) room. We will put a connection into the outbuildings for both water and electric.

The new water and electric connections will go in this trench. It is cheaper for us to dig it and put in the conduits rather than the utility companies doing it. The tarmac is cut with a floor saw and then a mini digger is used for the trench.

Drains

October 8, 2013 / stephen

I lifted one of the manholes to the septic tank yesterday. I wish I hadn’t!

The drain to the tank was blocked and the content backed up the drain. I filled a dustbin with water using a hose and put that down the manhole in the hope that it would flush out the blockage. No luck.

There was nothing else for it other than to use a set of drain rods to clean the blockage. Not a nice job. I will save you the pictures, but it is safe to say the problem is now resolved. It took a while for the back log (no pun intended) to completely clean as it had backed up a long way.

Although it doesn’t look like the septic tank is full, we don’t know when it was last emptied. I have arranged for it to be emptied on Friday and then at least if we get more problems it will not be because the tank is full. Ho hum.

I will save you from the photos of the inside, but the blockage has now been removed. Phew! Notice that this now has proper manhole covers rather than the homemade covers.

Firebelly FB1

October 6, 2013 / stephen

We have just purchased a Firebelly FB1 for the Snug downstairs. This will be fitted in the middle hearth in the existing cottages.

We have looked around and these stoves are a great fit for what we were looking for. They are also made in Eland – 10 miles or so away! You will find more information on Firebelly stoves here: http://firebellystoves.com/

Unfortunately, we can’t fit it just yet as there is a slight leak down the chimney. We have identified the problem and will hopefully get to fix it in the next week or so.

We aren’t quite ready to install this stove yet. Bit it won’t be long! This is Firebelly FB1 in pewter. We have a stove pipe in the same colour to match.

Zep guarding the new stove!

Timber for the roof trusses in the new extension

October 6, 2013 / stephen

The timber arrived at the end of last week for the three large roof trusses in the new extension. These will be constructed in a local industrial unit. The timbers will then be individually numbered and the whole thing taken apart and brought onto site. This means that it will take a fraction of the time to construct the roof on site. Which in turn means that it is less likely to get exposed to the weather (important at this time of the year).

The roof trusses are constructed from green oak. This wood is heavy to lift and easily marks if it gets wet.

It will require lifting equipment to manoeuvre the large pieces of timber into position. The tie beams in particular are very heavy due to the size of the timber. Another reason for constructing the roof trusses off site initially.

Very large sections of green oak will be used to construct the three large roof trusses.

More timber for the roof trusses.

These are the horizontal beams (refered to as “tie beams”) for the three roof trusses.

Utility room

October 5, 2013 / stephen

The utility room is fairly big – 2.3m x 3.8m – but there is a lot of kit to go in here. Two cylinders for the ground source heat pump, under floor heating manifold, pump module and the ground source heat pump. The layout suggested by the ground source heat pump installer would have effectively converted the utility room into a plant room.

We realised early on that there was significant height in this part of the extension and therefore decided to raised the two cylinders up onto a platform so that the underfloor heating manifold and pump could be installed underneath them. This reduces the amount of space required in the utility room to install this kit.

The steels that will support the platform for the cylinders were installed this week.

There is a lot of kit to go into the uitlity room that relates to the ground source heat pump. By putting some steel beams into the utility room we can raise two of the water cylinders up and put additional kit underneath the cylinders.