Week Seventy-nine

Week beginning 4th December 2023.

Before Andrew headed home he gave us a to-do list so that we are ready for the electrician, who will hopefully do the second fix on the house before Christmas. So, this Monday morning we are working on insulating the area where the balcony joists meet the supporting timber on the east elevation. This will ensure there is no, or little, thermal bridge from this area. It’s the last area of the house needing insulated. We are cutting the Steico insulation boards to size and cramming them in the spaces then our plan is to use expanding foam to fill the gaps. Pete is wearing a paper cover-all so he doesn’t get fibres stuck to his clothes.

Martin arrived a wee while ago and Gary has turned up too. We are going to try and move our 125kg Sunamp heat battery up onto the east mezzanine ready for Des to plumb it in and the electricians to wire it up.

We’ve had a good chat as to what is the best approach and we have come to an agreement. Pete will go first using a long strap to lift the leading edge onto the step and Martin and Gary will take the bulk of the weight to lift it up one step at a time.

It has gone surprisingly well and none of us got a back strain or slipped a disc. Result! We have been so dreading this task but thanks to these two strong guys, Martin and Gary, it has been painless. Thanks guys you are both top drawer.

Martin and Gary have just left after a cup of tea and some lovely cake that our neighbour Cate gave us so we are back to insulating the area between the joists. Cutting and fitting the rigid insulation betweeen the joists has gone well but our expanding foam gun isn’t working so we are going to have to fill the gaps with little bits of the insulation boards. It’s a fiddly and slow job but well worth doing so there are no gaps for condensation to build up.

Des, the plumber, has just turned up to fit and plumb in the kitchen sink and measure up for the wet wall panels for our showers. We have stopped for a chat and to discuss some of the details about our shower rooms.

With the insulation in we can now cover the area with water-proof breather membrane and insect mesh. It’s another painstaking chore but we have it done now and so the area is ready for cladding with larch.

We have made progress today, nothing as exciting as last week but all these tasks need doing before we can call our house finished and that keeps us motivated.

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It’s Thursday morning, Molly has been away in Edinburgh since Tuesday and Pete has been working. Pete is working again today so Molly is organising the mega-shed ready for the north gable to be insulated and sheeted with OSB.

There is a lot for her to do because we have used the inside of the north gable as a shelf for pots of paint, tubes of glue and various other products. At the other end of the mega-shed we have stored the left over insulation and various other things, a bit of a dumping ground really. It all needs to find a new home to create the space we will need to work and finish the inside of the mega-shed.

Pete has finished work so we are now carrying all the sanitary ware and other bits and pieces for the plumbing down from the west mezzanine, ready for Des to get to work.

Our last wee job of the day is to fit the kickboards to the kitchen units. We are also trying to fit the push open mechanism for the bottom drawer on the four drawer cabinet. It’s not at all clear how it fits as the instruction manual isn’t the best and we are missing a couple of components. We’ll just have to go back to the supplier and get the bits.

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It’s Friday already and we are up and raring to go. The forecast isn’t great but it’s dry for the moment so we are doing the outside work to start with. Firstly, we are bringing the scaffolding tower, base section only, into the shed and erecting it so we can insulate and sheet the north gable later.

We are outside fitting a cladding board over the electric cable conduit that will supply our front door light. It’s the same approach as last week, work-out where the hole is to go and drill it then check it’s right by presenting the board and finally cutting the board to length and nailing it on. Easy! Because that didn’t take long we are doing a few more cladding boards to close the gap between the new board and the existing boards.

We have to take our time and measure very carefully because we need to cut the boards to fit round the joists. Our first attempt has gone badly wrong, we measured it out okay but then Pete cut out the bit that we should have left. Our second attempt has gone well so we can move on with confidence!

We are on the scaffolding in the shed now insulating the gable using Steicoflex we still have from insulating the house, we also have some left-over glass wool insulation that Nick from Kilberry gave us to make up what we need.

We have just enough decent sized bits of OSB to sheet the wall so luckily we won’t need to buy any more but it does mean it’s a bit of a patch-work. Not to worry, it’s our mega-shed and we don’t think we should be making it perfect anyway.

Our last job of the day is to pack the car with rubbish for the dump, lots of cardboard packaging and the remnants of the insulation. We are so pleased about the prospect of getting rid of the insulation, the fibres get everywhere and stick to your clothes and it will probably be a few weeks before the last of it gets cleaned up.

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It’s Saturday and it’s a bit miserable. The forecast is for heavy rain but it’s just drizzling for now so we are adding more cladding boards to the area to the side of our main door. It is a wee bit tricky because we need to cut around the joists again so we are having to concentrate to avoid making the same mistake as yesterday. We’re on good form today and have fitted a few more boards towards the door. We need to stop now because we will need to fit a threshold at the door before fixing on the reveals and finishing the cladding. We are not 100% sure about what fitting a threshold entails so we will need to check with Andrew and do some research first.

The weather is still miserable but the heavy rain still hasn’t materialised. We are moving on to cladding the rest of the north elevation of the house. It’s cold and a bit wet but we feel like we are in our stride so we are just keeping going.

We’ve managed to finish the wall, the first one fully clad, and we are over the moon. It looks great and it has been worth getting cold and a bit wet to get the job finished.

Our new neighbour Steve is coming round for dinner tonight so we can have some nice company and some R&R.

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We have a wee bit of sheeting of OSB on the lower part of the mega-shed north gable to do. We only realised we’d missed it after we had taken down the scaffold and tidied up the other day. It’s not much so it hasn’t taken long.

We are off to the dump then it’s a shower and shopping so we can be ready for the week ahead.

Pete’s off to badminton tonight so Molly can catch up with her sister in peace.

That’s another week over and a good few more tasks ticked off but as ever still plenty to do. No chance of us getting bored!