Week Fifty-three

Week beginning 5th June 2023.

And so we begin our second year of building Gar Bothan.

This morning, after exactly one year we are having the first of two air pressure tests. Optimistically, we are hoping for a score of one but anything below three will suffice. Ideally it would be 0.6 which is the PassivHaus standard but that is extremely unlikely because of our double trusses which will certainly be a weak point.

It’s just after nine and a van has pulled up, it’s the guy who is doing the test but we weren’t expecting him until ten.

We’ve shown him around the house and he is setting up his kit. He will get the pressure in the house up to 50 Pascals and then the airpressure will reveal leaks in the air tightness of the building.

Andrew has arrived and the two of them are talking technical and Pete is taking the external cover off the ventilation system’s in/outlets so that they can be sealed with tape for the test.

With everything sealed up and the testing kit set up the test can begin and the house is quickly getting up to pressure. Using a little smoke puffer the first thing that is revealed is a leak where the internal wall of our bedroom meets the outside wall so Andrew and Pete are taping it up. Now we are finding minute leaks in the tape around the corners of the windows, where the walls meet the floor and where the two trusses meet to make a double truss.

We are following the tester around and fixing the leaks as we go along but we can’t do anything about the trusses until he leaves.

With the test complete we get a score of under 1.4, not as good as we had hoped but we have been assured that if we can find a solution to the leaks in the trusses and fix the other weak points we should get a score near one on the final test. We’ll do our best to get the score down.

Gordon and Sheena arrived during the test but it was so full on that we didn’t have much time for niceties. Now that Andrew and the tester have moved on to another house we can stop for some lunch, which they have brought, and a catch-up.

With lunch over Pete and Gordon are applying some sealant to a particularly awkward area of the double truss in the hope that it will stop the air leak.

Gordon and Sheena are heading off now so we can get on with some more taping and checking.

Our final task for the day is to re-organise one of our stacks of larch which has got into a bit of a mess.

We’re having a short walk before bed and have come across the unusual site of a collection of birds of prey sitting in the garden of the Orchy Bank House. It turns out the owner of the birds had been giving a display today and have another tomorrow so needed somewhere to stay. Well they chose a lovely spot and we have the lovely surprise of seeing the birds.

________________________________________________________

We’ve decided to get on with the larch on the east elevation because the weather is still good and luckily for us it is a bit cooler than on Friday which really wiped us out.

As usual it is a real challenge to fit the larch so that it is straight and level with 5mm shadow gaps. We rarely get all these aspects right but we always aim high. Larch doesn’t ever let you forget that timber is the product of a living entity and it has it’s own tensions and stresses and that’s something you need to contend with.

That’s it, we are done for now on this elevation. It’s looking good but we’ll have to wait until the balcony has been built to finish the cladding here.

________________________________________________________

It’s Wednesday and today we are going to batten the two bathrooms and the kitchen area ready for Des the plumber to do the first fix.

We have come across a few issues and have had to chisel out some of the battens to allow for bolts and find a way of battening around the tie-down straps.

It has taken most of the day to do two rooms, which is quite a long time really, but we’ve got that done and tomorrow we can finish the job.

________________________________________________________

Now that we have worked out how to deal with the tie-down straps we are finishing yesterday’s task by fixing the battening in the en-suite and, with that done, are hopeful that the first fix plumbing can happen soon.

Another of today’s tasks is to try and cut a chanel into the concrete where the en-suite shower trap is to go. It is going to be a dirty and difficult job and Pete has been putting it off for some time but the day of reckoning has come!

Molly is taking on another task that we’ve been putting off, she’s up on the roof trying to get the residue from the double-sided tape we used during our failed attempt to fit the roof ridge on the house. We bought some special glue remover to help with that and it’s helping a bit but some of the bits on the south side came off easily probably because of the heat.

Pete has borrowed a disc cutter, a very powerful saw for cutting stone, but after a few minutes he has realised that the fumes from the two-stroke are likely to knock him out and that wouldn’t be a good outcome, so now he’s using his angle grinder with a stone cutting disc and old fashioned stone-mason’s tools.

Pete has made some progress but it’s been a hard slog and a very dirty one at that. He thinks a different approach is called for.

________________________________________________________

More concrete excavation for Pete today.

Pete has decided to use the hammer drill that Des has lent him and it is proving very effective and much easier to use than he thought it would be.

Molly is up on the shed roof refitting some foam pads that stop the rain getting in under the roof ridge. When we originally fitted them it was much colder than now and we didn’t realise how much the metal roof would expand in the heat. This expansion means that the foam pads have just slipped out and fallen to the ground so Molly is refitting them with a dab of sealant to hold them in place.

Pete has made good progress but is now hitting the metal reinforcement mesh and is having to cut them out as he is going along. The space is tight so it is proving a bit tricky but he’s getting there.

Between yesterday and today, it has taken Pete six hours to dig out this chanel. Pete says he will not be able to take a shower in his en-suite without thinking of what it has taken to do this.

Martin has popped by to see how we are getting on and to offer us help should we need it. It’s so great that people are generous with their time and it really helps keep us motivated.

Molly is up on the trusses finishing what Pete and Gordon had started on Monday and Pete is trying out the diamond stone grinding disc that arrived in the post today.

We are planning to have the concrete as our finished floor but it needs a bit of work.

Pete’s been working at the grinding for a while and now Andrew and Mairi have arrived on their way home from the Isle of Coll. It’s great to see them and they are being very encouraging and insist we call them when we get the scaffolding down and start cladding the north and south elevations.

The grindng disc is working a treat and Pete is especially pleased because he is testing it on the worst bit of the concrete floor. The floor here is very rough but the disc is grinding it smooth with the odd dimple or chip. It will look great once it has been grinded and polished, sealed and coated. What a result!

Before dinner we have a brief visit from Molly’s niece, Karen, and family.

What a great week it has been, we sorted out lots of the things we had been putting off. We got a good(ish) result on our air pressure test and we’ve had lots of visitors. Here’s hoping for many more like this.