Week 20 - Stress down, progress up.
Entry posted by Benpointer in General
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Two weeks since the last blog and there’s a lot to cover - but lots of pictures too, so persevere!
The main issues and concerns two weeks ago were 1. how well the airtightness test would go, and 2. keeping ahead of the plasterers.
The good news is: both of those concerns can be consigned to the bin.
Airtightness
As previously reported, we had engaged Aerobarrier to test, spray their magic mist, then retest the airtightness of our house. Prior to their visit they asked us to send video walkthroughs of the house. Because of concerns we had about how well the airtight membrane had been fitted and taped, which the videos did nothing to dispel, I asked Josh from Aerobarrier to plan some extra time for them to re-tape some of the wall ceiling interfaces, for an agreed price.
The Aerobarrier team duly turned up as planned - Josh plus two others. After a few hours taping the house, the initial airtightness test gave a disappointing if not entirely surprising 3.2 ACH - go enough to satisfy Building Regulations but above our target of 1 ACH. But after running the acrylic misters for a couple of hours the airtightness improved to 0.8 ACH - an 80% improvement which we are obviously very pleased with.
Aerobarrier left the place quite tidy, they had masked the horizontal surface on window frames, door handles etc. The only weird result was the screed floor was left as sticky as a dodgy Wetherspoons. A week later and the stickiness has more or less gone though.
No photos of the process in action I’m afraid, tricky to get inside with all that mist flying around.
First fix electrics
…is now complete! Power, lighting, PIRs, smoke detectors, data cables, room stats, TV… there are a lot of cables threaded round our walls. We’ve had a great team plugging away at this for a few weeks - Nick, Martin, but especially Darren, who installed the majority of cables and boxes, have done a super job.
Carpentry
In parallel our two chippies Chris and Alan have been making sure various false walls and ceilings have been put in place ready for the plasterers. They have also fitted three of our four pocket door frames - just one more to install next week.
Somebody also needed to run the MVHR ducts and fit the vent plenums to the rooms the plasterers were planning to start with. This seemed like a golden opportunity for Chris and Alan to acquire some new skills. I am not sure it was high on their wish list to be honest but they cracked on with it nonetheless. Regular free breakfast baps still works wonders when you’re asking people to go the extra mile.
Acoustic insulation
I could see that Mrs P. was itching to get involved with something and fortunately someone needed to push all the Rockwall acoustic insulation in to the internal stud walls. Luckily as it’s Rockwall rather than glasswool no further itching was involved. Anyway, Mrs. P has done a great job, as you can see.
Plastering
All of the above were things we needed to have done (or at least done enough) for the 8th of October, which is when our plasterers Dan, Sam and Brandon were booked to start. They duly turned up as planned and we had enough of the rooms ready for them to get started. In the plan, all the carpentry work would have been completed before the plasterers started but they seem happy enough to board out then skim one room at a time as the carpenters keep ahead of them.
The initial focus has been on the boarding out bedrooms 1 and 2 and the bathrooms and the early progress bodes well for the rest of the task which we aim to complete by the end of October… ready for the floor tiler!
In other news…
Our timber cladding has been delivered. We’re using Brimstone Ash from Vastern near Swindon https://www.vastern.co.uk/timber-cladding/brimstone-ash/ which we will be having fixed vertically. Once Alan and Chris have finished all the internal work required for the plasterers the plan is for them to move on to the external cladding - assuming they haven’t had enough of us by that stage. More breakfast baps may be required!
We have also had a number of trees delivered, which Mrs. P. was strangely much more interested in than she was in the pallets of plasterboard or multi-finish skim! 🤷♂️
And finally, I have bought a new toy… a Topdon infrared camera to plug in to the iPhone. Cue quizzical look from Mrs P. “er… and you needed this for what exactly?”
Good question Mrs. P, but I have at least been able to check that the UFH loops are all working:
During the next two weeks...
… we hope to be getting plastered!
Dashboard:
Contractor days on site this fortnight: 32
Contractor days on site since build start: 311
Budget: No change - still over budget but within contingency.
Plan: Still on track to move in by Easter 2026.
Issues and worries closed this fortnight:
- How well the airtightness test will go.
-
Keeping ahead of the plasterers.
Current top issues and worries:
- Nothing too pressing - it'll be something we haven’t thought of, probably.
-
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