I reckon that we got going on the build in mid August last year so last week was week 30 and this week is week 31 of the build - I'll do a post for each.
Working out how many weeks we are into things was interesting. When we sorted out the contract initially Ian was proposing do the whole build in 20 weeks. It was an ambitious target and here we are 10 weeks over run. Around half the hold up is entirely our fault – what with the damned earth wall falling down and all. The other half seems to have been lost along the way and I have to say I’m very glad things haven’t moved any faster than they have. We’ve had so many things to choose and decide I can’t imagine having done it any quicker!
So … week 30 (last week) saw more scrubbing of floor boards - a joyous 2 days. The oak boarding was much easier to clean than the maple so we got that done fairly quickly then on the Friday got back onto blunting chisels on the mapel gak. Tom, Ian's son, Juliet, Nick's sister and Rob, my friend all helped out on the Friday. Many thanks. There was still a lot left to do after and Nick and I both working this week so Tom and his friend Alfie (whom it turns out Nick used to teach at Long Rd 6th form) worked their way through the rest of the boards this week. It was well worth the money to get them on the case and they got hold of some very heavy duty scrapers that seemed to get through it all a bit quicker than blunted chisels.
The wood is all now stacked inside the house with space around the boards for the air to get to them. The heating has been on and it is getting used to its new atmosphere before fitting next week.
The slate tiles went up in our en suite. After trapsing round all the local tile shops and deciding on slate I had a look on line and thought the colour and pattern of these looked good on the pictures. I'm glad to say that the pictures were accurate (phew) and I really love the rusty coloured patterns.
Family bathroom tiles going up. These are handmade from Mexico (through a london based co. called Milagros). The red tiles in our kitchen at Stanley road are Mexican - they do such vibrant colours and I fell in love with this green although one of the builders thought it looked avacado! humph. 80 retro cool perhaps?
Boxing for the bogs is now done.
On the roof with Ian and Nick. Discovering here that the extract vent cowl for our whole house extraction system from passivent needs an upstand built. Air is extracted from the wet rooms through ducting via a single extract fan in the loft space so there is only one exhaust pipe from the building - therefore less holes in the thermal envelope. Each extract and inlet has a hygroscopic shutter i.e. a shutter operated by a strip that expands or contracts depending on the air humidity. There is a minimal background ventilation all the time and when one of the wet rooms becomes humid the extract automatically opens, the system detects the drop in pressure and steps up the amount extracted. Likewise it automatically closes when the humidity drops. I could go on about ventilation a lot more but Nick says this bit is already boring so give me a call if you want to know more about my thoughts on it!
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