wildlife, guttering & cables

One of the best things about our site (when will it become "our house & garden, I wonder?) is the wildlife that we can see.
Yesterday, up high on the scaffolding (when I should have been connecting the guttering) I could see the adult swans teaching their almost-adult offspring how to scare off an intruder. Rising out of the water, wings flapping, they were a wonderful sight.
Today I watched a heron standing as still & patiently as only a heron can, before rising magnificently with that slow, powerful wing beat.
Sadly, you get no photos of these treats as I am too inept with a camera, and all my efforts have produced only a white blob on the landscape, with barely a clue as to which was a heron and which a swan.
You can see the guttering:



And I did manage to get a picture of the cows, who are large enough to show up in my pictures:



We are about half-a-mile away from one of the popular swimming places on the River Nene, and there was a small, but steady stream of people making their way there today, to make the best
of the lovely weather.

We have been fitting the cabling for our "smart home". There are so many cables - most of the rooms have cat5e, TV/computer and audio cables. Keith has organised a system of coloured tape in different combinations so that we know which is which:

It reminds me of those signal flags that sailors use to say things like "I am lowering my defences and advancing slowly"
Tomorrow, 540 Fermacell boards are being delivered.

Central vacuum system

When we chose our mechanical heat recovery pump, the nice people at Villavent gave us a central vacuum system.
We had seen these at the house building shows - they are usually set up with clear tubes in complicated shapes, and they vacuum up coloured dusters to create a show. We are told that after hours they set up competitions ( wonderful people you meet when you're doing a build!)

So Keith has been setting ours up. The pump will be in the garage, with a big dust bag attached. There are 3 vacuuming points in the house. The one in the hall and the one on the landing are for attaching a hose, that you use to vacuum with. One in the kitchen is for sweeping bits into.
This is the downstairs point, and the tube goes up to the ceiling and out to the garage. What you can't quite see if the immediate 90 degree bend (behind the white oblong) that enables you to rescue anything that might block the system.



Some time ago, my friend Gill gave me a book about Victorian architecture. It seems that when the vacuum cleaner was first invented, some London houses were fitted with this system. Of course, the more usual domestic vacuum cleaner had a bigger market, and the central system fell by the wayside for some years (although some blocks of flats had them) until resurrected, mainly by self- builders.

On Monday, we were made very welcome at Denford's Harvest Supper & auction of produce. We came away with a blackberry & apple pie (not much time for cooking at the moment) and a basket of lovely apples to sustain us.

another layer on the floor

So, after all the work that has gone into the floor, yesterday, it was all covered with screed.
Here is the pile of sand and the cement, with the mixer / pump.


This is a close-up of the fibre that goes in with the mix and gives it strength (those of you who think I'm getting too nerdy can scroll on down!)

The work begins: as you can see, it will cover the under-floor heating pipes. The idea is that the screed layer will heat up slowly, and will enable a constant low heat, which works well in a well-insulated house.

Here you can see the screed, doesn't it look lovely & smooth? Many thanks to Dean & the team at D&K Screeders for an excellent & efficient job.




When we began work on the plot, in May, we watched the swan family with their cygnets, promenading down the brook daily. We have watched them grow, and last week saw mum & dad on their own. Today however, the almost-adult cygnets were back for an outing with their parents:

Underfloor central heating

This is a popular form of central heating with self-builders. Yards & yards of pipe snake under the floor and provide gentle background warmth. They get laid under the screed, so the screed itself acts as a giant sort of radiator.
We chose Nu-heat to supply this, and our solar hot water panels. They recommended Ian Young Plumbing to fit them.

It all begins with the manifold in the utility room:


From there, the pipes go out to every room in the house. This is the ground floor, with the pipes laid over the second layer of black plastic.
The screeders will cover this on Friday. One of my tasks has been to go round the ground floor, marking the location of electric cable, water & gas pipes, and where these pipes pass through a frame, before they are all covered with screed and lost to sight.

bricks

Today saw the delivery of our bricks. Here they are, being unloaded:



Difficult to tell, through the plastic wrapping, what they will look like. On the right are the slightly pink buff that will be the main brick; on the left, the terracotta for the window details, quoins & waistband.

Heaven, Hell & flapjack

In the last few days we have either been up on the scaffolding, adding extra coats of stain to the soffits & fascias, or on our knees laying damp-proof membrane & cutting floor insulation.
I should not complain, as Keith (who knows how to treat a girl) bought me a pair of gel-filled knee-pads and I shuffle around on them. Fortunately the Denford fashion police have fallen victim to the cuts.

Hell:
Here are the sheets of insulation, this was the easiest bit, in most rooms, Keith has been sawing them into the right shape; sometimes they crumble at the edges, like those pink wafer biscuits we used to have with ice cream!


And covered with a second layer of thick black plastic that takes a lot of wrestling into place! If I never see another roll of black tape, I won't complain!

Heaven:
The photo-voltaic panels are all up now, but will not function until the permanent electricity supply is connected.


Many thanks to our old neighbours Chris & Dave who came up to inspect our work and left home-made flap-jack to sustain us.

Dave - the 3rd pipe in the bathroom is for the pump circulating the hot water in the bathroom, including the whirlpool bath.
Neices (and others) - the whirlpool bath, along with Denford back brook is the nearest we are getting to a hot-tub. I guess you could run from one to the other and call it a spa.

3 pieces of work today

Well, here I am, up on the scaffolding, staining the soffits & fascias. Keith is there too, but I got him to take the picture!
Plumbing: here is the trap & drain for the wet-room downstairs
And here is the I-box for one of the showers:

I am loving seeing all of this stuff go in, and seeing how it all connects.

And back on the roof, here are Jeff & Colin fitting the photo-voltaic panels. There will be 14 in total. For anyone who is wondering why we haven't fitted them into the roof, the answer is that we could get double the number on if they are fitted over the tiles.


Details continue to take time to sort out. Today we realised that the rain water harvester header tank had to be 5 metres above the washing machine (ie: not just in the loft, but raised up) - so then we had to check with Potton if Keith could build a platform over the rafters. The answer is yes, so that will be a job for next week, along with beginning the flooring.

systems

After a "day off" yesterday, back today to get things running. Here is the site "office":



Today's main task for us was to start installing the Villavent mechanical heat recovery & ventilation pump. It will extract warm moist air, and draw in fresh air from outside; by using a heat exchanger, much of the heat will be kept in the house (and it has a summer by-pass, in case we get a hot summer!)
It has a lot of concertined metal tubing, different sizes, swathed in insulating wool & plastic.
This is Keith, taping the tubing & connectors:

This picture is of the exhaust tubing in the loft, that we have been stretching & connecting. The vertical piece is going to the air vent in the roof.

The minor task of the day was moving 40 sheets insulating board into the house (no pictures!)

Tomorrow we will probably stain the soffits & fascias if it is a nice day.

bits and bobs

4,500 tiles for the garage roof, all moved by Keith in order to make room for the bricks to be delivered
Many of you know that we are fans of freecycle. At our age & stage of life, and having cleared 2 houses recently, we have "gifted" more than we have received. However, today Jacky collected 10 bags of loft insulation gifted on the Wellingborough site - here they are, stuffed into the rafter space.

Something that is amusing us is "walking through walls" before they get boarded up. This shows the walls of the bedrooms as they are at the moment.

This week, the photo-voltaic panels should all go up, the first-fix plumbing will be finished, and we take delivery of all the under-floor insulation. Many thanks to Maria at Sheffield Insulation in Bedford for organising the delivery of 40 panels for us.

electricity

Well, it has taken a week from the electricity cable being laid, to the final connection today.
It has gone like this:
3 months ag0, request electricity supply
2 months ago, nominate provider
6 weeks ago, install meter boxes
25th August: a team dig up the road (and very kindly as well, the bit of our site that needs ducting)
26th August: the supplier connects the electricity, but we can't use it until the provider installs the meter
the footpath remains dug up for the entire bank holiday weekend
30th August: the filling in team fill the footpath
3ist August: the barriers are removed so the good people of Denford can use their footpath again
Today: the provider installs the meter and we get a temporary supply to the property (ie: 6 sockets near the front door)
I am so delighted that I can both boil a kettle and stop running cables to our long-suffering neighbours (many thanks to Peter & Sheila) that I forget to take a picture!

The one below is of the noggins that Keith is putting around the electricity cables (as yet un-connected) in the kitchen wall. These will supply the ovens that I am looking forward to using.


The roof is finished, and these are the solar hot water panels.
Today Tim & John from Solar Partner have been working on the roof to the left, installing the photo-voltaic cells that will provide some of our electricity