We made the steel cages this morning...

Take quite a few rather long bars, tie them with God know how many pieces of steel wire to countless hoops and after a bloody few hours, you've got yourselves a rigid metal cage ready to be hoisted down in the trench, to support our walls.
By the looks of it, you would have thought that our extension will be 10m high... well, not quite, just 2m, I don't know why it has to be this sturdy !!
(the old part of our cottage doesn't have any footings at all, and it's still standing, 500years later...

oh well, this is building regulations for you, over-engineering and more...

... and another skip full of mud !

and a brand new one to fill up today !

Concrete coming in...

Big hole

The guys have done a smashing job, digging around (from bottom of the picture to top):
- the new gas pipe (yellow plastic)
- the waste pipe for what ? we don't know (big greyish pipe)
- the FLIMSY water pipe (15mm copper, looks yellow on the picture)
- the old gas pipe (rusted and fairly straight)
- the big teraccota glazed waste for our toilet (brown pipe nearest the top)

Now we need to figure out what we'll do with these pipes...

Offloading the bricks (Tuesday)

Nice reclaimed orange bricks, just like Chelmsford council wants...

Tight fit...

About 20mm from the gas meter.... Careful otherwise BOOM !!

Mini-digger on site (Monday)

Little digger to breal the soil loose so it can be taken away with a wheelbarrow into the skip

Finished radiators

My gawd, even quicker to paint with this metallic paint than with the primer, about 20min per radiator per coat, instead of 6hrs with a brush...
Technology is really our friend, as ever !
(geek! says emily...)

:-(

Busy painting the radiators...

... so I can't bite my nails, pick my nose, scratch my b*lls, etc :-)
Specifications: ardenbrite no32: pewter grey

Rendering, view from the back

Under the eaves...

I had some fun (not!) painting the rafter feet in black, and the underside of the soffit board in white...
the guttering is now in place, with a nice piece of temporary plastic downpipe until the wall is ready to receive the cast iron stuff...

Scaffolding gone, rendering finished...

... for now anyway, before they come again to sort out the side extension...

(PS: notice the nice weather, it's hot, it's sunny, it's lovely, it's beautiful !!)

OH by the way...

Although the boiler is not functioning, I was happy and proud to be able to provide Emily with a hot bath (it will be mentioned that she even had to add cold water to it !)
It took about 45 minutes and about 12 kettles boiled and two pressure cookers full of boiling water, but I did it !
Let's see

our boiler is 32kW and would fill the bath in 5min + 6min of initial heating for the 50L hot water store (when you first power it on).
that's 32 * 11 / 60 = 5.86 kWh of energy to heat up the bath

kettles = ( 3kW + 2 kW (we have 2 at the moment, thankfully)  * 4 min * 12 times) / 60 = 4 kWh
pressure cooker = 2 * 15 min * 3.5kW for the gas burner / 60 = 1.75 kWh
yep, 5.75 kWh total, about the same , it makes sense :-)

However, obviously the bath level was quite a bit lower with method 2 than when we use the boiler, and also, when you fill a bath in 40min and you pour the water in a cold bathtub and in a cold bathroom, well a lot of energy gets lost in the air... That's why I used about the same energy to heat only 2/3 of the water we would have poured using the boiler.

I suppose it is very nice to have these mighty 35kW available on demand though, so in conclusion, a house needs a boiler, really...
(Emily will be pleased to hear my opinion)
(And I did not even mention central heating, which the boiler happend to take care of, as an added bonus !)

Testing the old radiators for leaks

You will be pleased to know that two of them tested so far are perfect (and one more to go)
I tested them at 5bar, which is the pressure at the tap in Chelmsford.
However, like with any pressurised central heating system, they will operate with a hot water pressure in the region of 1.5 to 2.5 bar, so plenty of confidence i have

("your father, he is")

Plasterboard in the bedroom...

... finished !
Tomorrow they will plaster it so it will look nice and traditional

Closeup on bedroom rooflight

nice steel window with a brass crank mechanism.

Beautiful detailing around the window

Finished rendering

3/4 of the building done, the rest will have to wait till the side extention is built.

Finished rendering

3/4 of the building done, the rest will have to wait till the side extention is built.

Rendering going well

DEAD boiler :((((((

Unfortunately, our brand new boiler has stopped working as of Sunday evening, we had a visit from the plumber yesterday, and he couldn't sort out the problem, and did not want to take the boiler to pieces as this would void the warranty.
SO, next steps are, we need to connect it to a few radiators, then the plumber can register the boiler (no point in doing it if no rads are connected because the boiler people would say it is our fault...) then the manufacturers can start the warranty and then we just have to call them in so they can repair...

Anyway it looks like we are going to be a good week without hot water, which pretty much sucks :-(

lovely new boilers: efficient, quiet, powerful, expensive, and UNreliable...

View from the side...

Getting there, getting there !

Rendering under way...

This is only the base coat, to be followed by the top coat tomorrow, weather permitting
Two holes in the wall for the ventilation system...

Rendering under way...

This is only the base coat, to be followed by the top coat tomorrow, weather permitting
Two holes in the wall for the ventilation system...

EML (closeup)

Notice the structure of the EML, like tight chicken wire.
Notice the drip bead at the bottom, so the water running of the wall is forced to drip onto the flat roof rather than sneak inbeteen the walls.
Notice the temporary plastic guttering
Nitoce the black rafter feet, which I painted yesterday
Nticoe the angle bead, in the middle of the picture, standing on the flat roof for no apparent reason
NRErhjksr dfsjklhert
shjkhsfsd
£$%^*%$%^%^&%*£%^*%^^(^"^*%^(%$!$"656

here we go, i've had it, or so it seems

EML up the gable end

We already discussed the details of a warm roof construction, as for the walls, it is almost the same recipe, timber frame, celotex in-between, then plywood outside, battens, tyvek vapour barrier then EML (Expanded Metal Lath), ready to receive the render...
I'm no expert, just commenting on what I see :-)

EML up the gable end

We already discussed the details of a warm roof construction, as for the walls, it is almost the same recipe, timber frame, celotex in-between, then plywood outside, battens, tyvek vapour barrier then EML (Expanded Metal Lath), ready to receive the render...
I'm no expert, just commenting on what I see :-)

Roofer sorting out boile flue

I bet you never thought you would one day have to pretend to be interested in such matters...
... all this for us, thank you we are most grateful !

priming radiators.... done !

The one on the left is for the bedroom, and the two other ones are our kitchen twins...