Week 35

The main structure is up and sorted and the building is Dry. Dry is a Big Deal. Even though there are large gaping holes where the windows will go (on 9 January), these will be boarded up over Christmas, and the rest of the structure is Dry. The guys are now finishing off the fiddly bits of the roof on the outside and putting up the frame for the ceiling on the inside.

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fiddly bits and covered subframes
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subframes in the sitting room
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one in and one not

The roof and all the subframes are attached to the concrete by these enormous brackets. Terry assures me that there will be no roof blowing off on this house. The lead will be installed in the coming weeks.

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west bathroom windows
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west-most bedroom

James is making up the inserts for the angled brick sections. We had a meeting with the reluctant warranty company about the design early on. They were quite rightly concerned about water ingress in the junction between all the materials sitting in the oak frame in case the structure settled. We worked then with Dave to create a multi-layered system of composite board, epoxy resin, insulation and compriband that will prevent any drips or drops from getting through. It is very complicated, and James has been pretty keen to get stuck in to building them. They look good so far!

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pre-insert
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brick inserts, pre-brick
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inserts and insulation from the inside of front gable
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inserts from outside

The ceiling is also complicated: the trusses go up really quickly, but then there is much time spent creating a set of noggins in between each truss to support the plasterboard ceiling that will be installed soon.

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east-most bedroom: trusses & noggins, boarding & flooring
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ceiling with loft boarding and dormer window

There are two extra guys on site this week who installed all the subframes and boarded them up. The goal is to get the building dry enough to set the underfloor heating in screed before we all disappear for Christmas. That will give the floor two weeks to set and dry.

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can you spot the elf?

I think everyone is feeling buoyed up by the progress made recently. This was never going to be an easy house to build, and many of the painstaking pieces of the structure seem to be happening all at once. The guys remain cheerful onsite, they help the neighbours with heavy lifting, they’re keeping the place amazingly tidy given the freezing weather and the early nights, they joke around and it seems quite jolly. It’s got a good vibe and looks a nice place to work.

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festive site

We signed off for the kitchen this week (hooray!). That will be 14 weeks. The sanitary ware has been ordered (8 weeks), the floor sourced, and the stairs being drawn up. Many more decisions to be made after our Thursday meeting–I’ve got a 14 point list of urgent items of homework for Monday, and many more pending. But we’re vaguely adhering to our modified schedule which is good. I don’t want to be the one holding up the game. A busy weekend to come….

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Ben’s been playing onsite

4 thoughts on “Week 35

  1. It’s a thrill to see the “elf” photo — the place now looks like a HOUSE! A gorgeous one at that! Glad the guys have high morale — they should — their workmanship is fantastic. The Christmas tree is a nice touch. It’s nice to see the speedy videos once again.

    1. James-the-elf did a fine job of sorting the tree, didn’t he?

      This build is quite different from your normal gig I gather, and they’re putting their best guys on it. I’ll keep bringing cakes to keep ’em going!

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