A roof!

The roof structure is fairly complex so it's taken Regal a few more days than they had originally planned but it's now all up with just the house wrap (waterproofing membrane) and snagging (we check for problems - they fix) to finish.

The front sloping roof being put in place. It's great to get a feel for the shape of the upstairs landing. There's so many angles (that aren't 90 degrees) that it was quite hard to imagine what it would look like. 

The roof panels have holes drilled into them so they can be lowered into place using this hook system. A good view of Girton rooftops from here. 

The regal team. There's a lot of expanding foam around the place, in the roof panel holes and any where else there's a gap! 

SIPs - the last stretch

We've had a good sociable and food filled weekend :-) The house is at a really good stage for tours - the walls are up and rooms all laid out. The rammed earth wall - aptly re-named by Dad as the damned earth wall - was uncovered during all the weekend sunshine and the roof still off so a fun open air feel to it all. There was a birthday gathering for mum on Saturday so everyone got a look round and Lawrence and Iris have climbed all over everything (except the earth wall which Nick vetoed!). I've just been over to meet Meg and Frank (Nick's mum and partner) for a look round. Regal have started fitting the roof today so they are on the final straight and we will have a complete shell in a day or two.

The full height wall in situ. 

View from the SE corner of the 1st floor - earth wall in the background. Standing in a bedroom and looking through to the bathroom and another bedroom. 

Nick in the living area. Looking towards the kitchen end. The far right corner has SIPs panels internally to make up our larder. The window inside this will be louvered - so no glass/open to the elements. The larder walls and doors are all insulated creating a cool storage area. 

Another wall pic - it's soooo tall :-)

The roof panels are stored on the tennis court. The crane reaches all the way over from the road to pick them up and deliver them to the roof. 

A panel on it's way to the roof. 

And the view from the road. This bit of roof is were the solar panels will be fitted. 

REW2 - the final lift begins

Regal have put up some of the 1st floor walls and one of the ridge beams today so we can get a feel for the total mass of the house. They're off site now for a few days for us to get the wall finished.

The picture below shows the beam in place. The 1st story floors are down and this afternoon was spent setting up shuttering and the hoist so we can get going with the ramming tomorrow. 

We've chickened out of going unstabilised for the last bit. I'm sure it would be ok if we did but our jangling nerves have got the better of us. I'm sorry that this element has lost some of it's eco credentials and it's moisture control properties but on the bright side it should look amazing and will still work as thermal mass and all being well we get to hold on to our sanity! 

Structurally Insulated Panels

I haven't had a chance to post anything here this week. There's been a lot of change!

We decided quite early on that we'd like to build using Structurally Insulated Panels (SIPs). They have excellent insulation properties, by nature they make for an airtight structure and they are manufactured in a factory and then assembled on site = very quick build time.

Our panels have been manufactured by SIPs UK in Northants. Using the architectural drawings they sketched the house in 3D and designed the panels from this.

3D view from the back of the house.

Nick paid the factory a visit in August. This is the boss man, Nigel, and some panels. They are constructed using two boards of OSB (oriented strand board - looks a bit like chip board to me) - these go in a gig and a polyurethane foam core is blown in between. Some sort of magic goes on and the foam bonds to the board. No glue required apparently. And there you have it: a strong, light, insulating, board and foam sandwich. 

The fitting company, Regal, came on site on Monday and have been fitting all this week. There's been a couple of small snags meaning they're a day behind but they've been hard at it and we now have some ground floor walls! It's been brilliant this weekend wandering around the spaces - able to really get a feel for the dimensions of it all.

The Kato crane!

Pesky earth wall dressed in blue.

Most of the joists are in place for the 1st floor. Through the window opening you can see the big pile of bean bag things. They'll be strategically placed when the team are fitting the roof, the idea being if anyone falls off the house/scaffolding they'll have a soft landing!

Work on the second part of the earth wall starts again on Tuesday. It's been lovely to have a break from it this week and not really looking forwards to the last bit - too many anxieties about it all. But ... the first bit went well, looks great and is drying nicely so we're carrying on for the full 5 metres.