Tag: building a house

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Ducts!

They may not be big enough to crawl through, but what the MVHR ducts lack in girth they make up for in number…

It looks a bit like spaghetti-geddon at the moment, with the ducts going everywhere. These loose ends will be fed into a manifold over the appliance wall in the kitchen, hence the waving around in mid air look. Husband has assured me he has it all under control and I have, to be fair, seen much labelling and even checklist tables.

You can see from this photo how useful the posi joists are in accommodating pipes, ducts and wiring. The gaps between the steel sections are big enough to be woven between.

The plasterboards are also going up. It’s strange how much they change the dimensions you perceive in each room.

All in all, it’s feeling like a good start to the year. The rain and sleet showers come and go but watching them from the big windows at the front of the house whilst work continues within is always inspiring.

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The plasterers arriveth .. or not

The festive break is now truly over, the shortbread is finished and the cards are all taken down . I’ve left some twinkly lights up over one of the caravan windows because I feel that these dark days still need a bit of twinkle. It’s very cold here now, with icy days and occasional snow flurries over the hills.

Icy morning from the caravan

For the last few days husband has been sorting things out in the house in preparation for the plasterer.

Much iciness

The plasterer was supposed to start yesterday with the strapping, the wooden batons that are tied to the stud walls to support the plasterboard, but he is ill and rightly being cautious is delaying until he is recovered. Covid days, eh. One of our many new challenges.

Battens

The house is filled to the rafters with bales of rockwool insulation and pallets of plasterboard and insulation board ready to be fitted. When you see it piled up like this it looks as if there is far too much to ever fit onto the walls.

Filled to the rafters

I can’t wait for this next stage. Husband is ducting and wiring away in readiness for the MVHR and with him and the plasterers in the house at the same time it will feel like we’re about to take a leap forward in visible progress.

Building material waiting to be let in

Internal walls! It doesn’t take much to make me happy. Here’s to lots of progress in 2022.

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Storms and the Winter solstice

The winter solstice is nearly upon us. Somehow, this far north, in the long stretch of dark days, this date takes on a special significance.

From the 21st December onwards the days slowly start to get longer. There’s no appreciable difference in the amount of daylight in January, I always think – but by February it’s definitely slightly lighter. It’s good to feel that psychologically at least we’ve turned the corner and that spring is on its way. Much as I love winter.

Skye is definitely a winter island with its snowy peaks and wild winter weather. The year here has taught us to invest well in thermals, warm throws and plenty of blankets! I’ve recently found Vinted, a vintage second hand site that has proved fabulous for spare fleeces and wraps at very little cost. I seem to be building a wee nest of wool in the caravan on these cold days. 😊

I’m watching the clouds scud across the sky in the aftermath of extreme winds last night. It reached around 80mph around midnight, and we got very little sleep in the caravan whilst we were buffeted around like a small boat on an angry sea. Luckily the straps all held and apart from being slightly tired and grumpy we have escaped unscathed.

Breakfast this morning was a bleary-eyed affair with a second mug of hot coffee needed before being alert enough to get moving. We will need a quick spot check for damage.

I have a few more presents to wrap, the Christmas chocolate orangettes to make (the test batch were all distributed, eaten and declared good enough for gifts) and then we are about all set for the festive week. The preliminary air tightness test on the house is happening on Wednesday this week, so another milestone is imminent, and we will be very interested to see how it scores. Husband will then crack on with the wiring.

Stay warm and safe, everyone. Don’t stress in the run up to a Christmas. It will all get done, and if it doesn’t, poo, who cares.

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Storms and silence

It’s been a while since my last blog post.

The weeks have rustled into full blown autumn here on the island. The hedgerows are full of berries, the heather is fading, and as I often do at the turn of the season, I’m filled with silence and a degree of sadness.

I don’t know why I feel often feel low as autumn approaches. I’m really not mourning summer, but maybe the combination of house build delays, the prospect of another winter in the caravan -which we hadn’t expected- and being a menopausal woman have all conspired to bring my mood down more than normal at this change of the season.

The storms have started, with two weeks of solid rain and wind lashing the croft. I’ve not wanted to leave the caravan. I’ve cooked, baked, read books and cleaned, but apart from that I’ve really not had the energy to do much and haven’t wanted to see people.

I’m looking forward to the screed arriving at some point over the next few weeks for the floor now that we have completed the underfloor heating pipe installation, connection and testing. We are getting there, just very slowly. Our hopes to be in the house by the end of the year are no longer viable and it’s now looking more like summer next year before it will be ready for us to move in. We will survive.

Rainbow over the sound

As with all things, there is often a silver lining. Storms here mean rainbows. Several each day. Small bursts of colour in the washed windows in the grey to remind us that nature and the seasons are full of wonder and magic.

I will try and get out more. Walking is said to be better than Prozac, best friend in France tells me. She has also recommended taking vitamin D and Magnesium.

And there are always pies, which magically lift a mood. Bake more of them.

Pear tart with frangipan

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Flooring in the house

The house ground floor is now fully covered with 100mm thick celotex insulation boards. These are cut and fitted neatly together to form the underfloor on which the screed will be poured.

Insulation boards down and taped

As the concrete subfloor beneath this is not entirely level, we have laid sand to compensate and to ensure that the boards sit as evenly as possible.* readers note – when I say WE I actually mean Husband…

Insulation boards down

The joints between the insulation blocks have then been taped securely to make sure that there isn’t any movement.

Finally a plastic membrane is laid and sealed on top of it all. This is the layer that the underfloor heating pipes will be laid upon prior to the screed being poured.

Membrane down

And I thought it was just popping a few boards down and running pipes over them… I guess this is why people often get surprised at how long seemingly simple jobs take. Like me 😬.

We live and learn.

We crack on.

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House build update

I can hardly believe that we’re in July already, but that seems to be where we find ourselves. The house build progress has been slow, but at last we are through the bulk of the sealing, taping, foiling and re-taping of the house walls and have moved into the next stage. Thank the stars that my husband doesn’t give up easily through what has been a marathon of a process.

Floor insulation slabs

He has been laying the insulation slabs on the internal floors in this past week in preparation for the underfloor heating pipes to go down. Then it will be the screed pouring before finally we have a level, warm floor for the house!

Work in progress

We have the plasterers booked in for September, so we need to complete the floors and basic pipe and wiring installation in the next two months to make sure that we secure their time. I know how quickly eight weeks will go, so it will be another busy time.

Our tinfoil-wrapped sitting room!

In parallel, I’m re-examining all the kitchen and bathroom material choices we made over a year ago. Prices and suppliers have all changed, and we need to get selections finalised and fresh estimates in so that we can secure fittings when we’re ready.

We’ve also sourced an excellent local lady joiner to make us custom built wardrobes and bookcases for the main bedroom, hall and sitting room areas at the end of the year. Hugh could build them, but having done everything else by then I suspect he will be on his knees. And the quality of her finished work looks excellent.

I’m especially excited by the prospect of the extremely high bookcase taking up the whole of the back wall in the sitting room. We’ll need a ladder to gain access to the upper shelves! But it will take a huge quantity of books. Just what we need.

Onward and upwards! We will get there.

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Hot, hot, hot

The weather here on the island has been very hot over the past week. The caravan has suddenly transformed from fridge to oven..

The temperature gauge inside recorded 26 degrees centigrade yesterday, and that’s uncomfortably warm for us. Especially when opening windows to try and catch a breeze results in swarms of midges coming in off the croft…reminder to self, we must get some midge netting fitted to the windows.

The seedlings however are loving it. Uncle Bert’s Kale is growing madly, the potato plants are all greening up nicely and I have my first bean on my borlotti bean plant!

It was too hot to cook indoors yesterday and we were too tired to summon up a BBQ, so we headed down to Camuscross early to try and get a table for a cold drink and some supper. It’s so good to be able to do that again now that lockdown has eased.

There are worse places to be on a hot June evening… This time last year we were in London… I know where I’d rather be.

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We have warmth!

Ha ha! Happy faces! The sun has returned! The air and the soil have warmed up and as I speak we have blue skies and a soft, warm breeze.

It will be the midges soon, but I’m hoping that being at the top of a hill with more wind than most that we’ll escape the worst of them. We’re prepared, just in case – I’ve bought midge hats and nets so that if we do get bombarded we have a fighting chance of avoiding being eaten alive whilst we run back to the caravan.

Impromptu BBQ

We had an impromptu barbecue last night to celebrate the lovely evening. These shots were taken at about 7pm. As the sun dipped behind the hill at the back of the croft at around 10pm it started to get colder, and we wrapped up in blankets and added a bit more wood to the fire.

The birds are singing, the sun is shining, and husband has thrown open all the doors and windows in the house whilst he is working so that it cools down.

I don’t want to count my chickens, but it seems like summer has come at last…

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Flying insulation

A friend commented that there had been precious little recently in the way of house build updates. Which is very true. Progress has been slow, and we are still taping and foiling some months into the process.

A number of things have conspired to make what should have been a relatively quick job a complete marathon.

Husband has had to fill and tape all wall, door and window seams throughout the house BEFORE foiling, as well as taping everything again AFTER foiling.

This has turned into a huge, time-consuming undertaking which he felt was necessary because of gaps left by the builders. Gaps that if left open would have compromised our structural water and air tightness.

His faith in the quality of the work by the builders has been severely dented as these are not cosmetic problems that we felt could be covered over, sure to cause us issues some years down the line.

He has been doing this work alone, and other time-critical work has taken weeks away from this process, such as installing the house guttering and the start of work on the croft as Spring approached.

However, the end is in sight. The floor insulation for the next stage has arrived.

It arrived on a thankfully dry day, but a windy one. About 50 huge sheets of insulation which blocked the drive on arrival and which we had to manually carry between us into the house.

These sheets are big, requiring two of us to manoeuvre, but very light in weight, only 10kg each. They exhibited impressive aerodynamic properties as the wind caught them, acting like a sail, taking both our body weights to counter their desire to take off down the croft.

It took a whole afternoon to get them wrestled safely under cover into the house.

They’ve also provided me at least with a bit of a morale boost. They are a nod to the promise of progressing onto the next stage, which is laying these, then the underoor heating pipes, then screed, and us being a few steps closer to this being a house.

We will get there. Courage, mon brave!

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Guttering

We’ve been waiting for a break in the weather in order to fit the guttering on the house. Standing on a ladder in fifty mile an hour winds is no-one’s idea of a good time!

At last. The weather for the last few days on the island has been dry and clear with light winds, and it looks like it will hold for a good few days more.

My job is holder-of-the-ladder and passer-up-of-tools, brackets and gutter lengths. And maker of tea.

Husband is doing all the technical stuff like measuring, drilling, aligning and connecting.

All the easy stuff 😊…

We’ve gone for Lindab galvanised steel guttering.

It goes well aesthetically with the wood cladding, is solidly well made, can cope with the vast amount of rain we have on the island – as it’s extra wide and deep – and isn’t plastic. Not that there’s anything wrong with plastic, but we preferred not to use it.

We have lots still to fit, and are working our way around the house starting with the back. Let’s hope the weather gods smile upon us.

I was standing holding the ladder today, listening to the silence of the afternoon on this exposed island hillside, the only noise occasional birdsong. And I thought to myself, how life has changed.

How lucky I am.