Week Twenty-three – part two

Thursday 10th November 2022.

We’re onto the next stage on the mega-shed – attaching vertical and horizontal timbers for fixing the larch cladding onto. We have been held back from fitting the windows and doors because they are stuck behind a load of palettes of insulation which are too heavy to move.

Before screwing the studs on we are attaching rodent proof mesh around the building and on top of the edge of the slab and the Isoquick. Once the studs are screwed in place, we will wrap the house in insect proof mesh then fold the rodent proof mesh over it.

On the west and east elevations we are using 120mm x 45mm timbers because the Isoquick we received was too big. By using these timbers we can be sure that once the cladding is on the rain will drip off onto the rendered shoulder of the slab, as it should. To achieve this we are using 200mm screws to fix them securely.

On the north and south elevations we are using 50mm x 50mm timbers attached with 100mm screws. This would have been what we would have done on the whole building if the Isoquick had been correct. Obviously, this has material and budgetary implications – the timber and screws cost more and use more resources to produce and transport. Although it’s not a deal breaker, it does illustrate how errors impact the project further down the line.

Pete is in email contact with Iain, the electrician , to organise us getting power to the caravan and mega-shed. He says he can come tomorrow. Yeah!

Pete is just off the phone with Iain and there is a change of plan, he is coming on Monday because he needs to go to Glasgow tomorrow for an appointment. We are confident Iain will do a good job following the phone call about the electrics.

Full of excitement and optimism, we are contacting Des, the plumber, to ask him to finish connecting the toilet and basin. If we get these two services fixed our lives will be transformed.

So, it’s dark already and it’s only 5pm but we have completed the east elevation and most of the north. We’ll finish it tomorrow.

We get onto finishing the job without much delay this morning and we’re making good progress.

A van has just pulled up and it’s our friend Kathy and her sister Bella, come to see how we’re getting on. It’s nice to get visitors and see our friends.

After Kathy and Bella left we got back to the job in hand and now it’s lunch. We’ve not yet finished and another van is pulling up. It’s Graham from Dalmally Station.

It’s funny, isn’t it, how we don’t get visitors for days and weeks then we get a few visits in close succession.

We made another rookie error. When we decided to finish sheeting the inside of the attic space, we didn’t think that we needed to measure where the vertical frame studs are. This means that we are having to go back to the plans and work out where the studs need to go using a bit of arithmetic and the window as our datum point.

We’ve finished fixing the vertical studs and it’s time to get ready to head off to Edinburgh. We’re going to take our grandchildren out for the day tomorrow.

It’s been an ‘interesting’ week and we’ve had our ups and downs but right now we are very satisfied with progress, not least because, with luck, we will have a power supply, a toilet and scaffolding by the end of next week. Happy days, maybe!