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The stone arrives, as does a caravan!


curlewhouse

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Well, some interesting developments:

1. We bought a caravan! Even though it's only about 8 miles from where we are temporarily renting (though that "temporary" has ended up into it's 3rd year since we sold our old house!) , it's a pain working on the house then having to hide/ lock everything away each time, before going home, then spend half an hour getting it all out again next day, so we gave notice on our temporary tenancy and are moving onto the site at the end of the month. That should make it far easier to do work on the site.

 

2. The stone has arrived. It's backed off stone from an old convent school, and we've also got a few interesting bits of stone found on the site which we intend to have inserted into the stone walls, like ones I cut up for the dry stone waller which have fossils in (nothing startling, just marine corals and the like) and one small piece which for various reasons we believe is likely saxon. I also managed to get free of charge 2 genuine old stone gateposts of which I know the provenance - goodness knows how old they are. One of them looks like Stonehenge is probably missing it :D. But I really like the idea that we know the provenance of all of these things, even the roof slates are recycled (they have not arrived yet but are imminent). We are really pleased with the stone, and fortunately amongst it are enough quoins, which is an unexpected bonus,

 

3. Openreach came out and were helpful. We discussed options and in the end we are going for armoured cable which we are laying as it can be laid simply on the surface, so is going along behind a hedge where it will disappear into the ground of it's own accord. All perfectly acceptable to Openreach due to the low voltages, and actually something they do quite commonly in rural areas where digging would be an issue. The nearest pole is too far away.  Only downside is that despite the entire village getting fibre in only about a year ago, they'd want an arm and a leg to get it to us - however, the guy tells me we'll be the only people on the exchange on ADSL so will probably end up with quite a respectable speed anyway for less money, so I'm not too bothered if this turns out to be correct. I know that as houses in the village were moved onto fibre and off the ADSL, those still waiting were noticing speed increases.    

 

4. Electricity board say they'll be progressing things in the next couple of weeks, so I've cracked on with getting their cabinet installed - it's going onto a retaining wall rather than on the house itself (they are perfectly happy about that) so we have a second cabinet alongside for our junctions off for our sub mains to the garage/workshop and the house, as well as putting an external RCD socket on the outside to give us a temporary supply (handy for the caravan!). The retaining wall is built in blockwork, but is getting covered in real stone, so that's definitely not it's final appearance. 

 

5. With deciding to move onto the site, I need to get the utility room and downstairs bathroom (though the caravan has loo and shower of course) sorted ASAP so we can have a washing machine and so on, so instead of doing the insulation, UFH pipes and screeding on the ground floor all at once, I'm going to have to do those two small rooms first (staged finance prevents me doing it all at once just yet), so am looking now at screeding them myself, though will get a firm in to do the main parts of the building later of course. So last night I put the base of the partition wall in to make it more manageable for me to do in 2 smaller lots. As ever, our dog is fascinated by the laser level (that's not it shining in her eyes I should point out!).

 

 

 

   

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Welcome to the ranks of caravan dwelling self builders.
 Winter is not much fun. We are hoping to at least be sleeping in the house by then as it will no doubt be a lot warmer, even if that's all we are using the house for this winter.

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As an 18 month 'dweller' we found summer much more uncomfortable than winter.

 

A top tip we were given in our first winter was to use a dehumidifier once it started getting cooler. As caravans have lots of ventilation openings and are usually dependent on LPG (oven, boiler and fire), there can be a lot of water vapour in the air, especially when its damp outside. As the van cools overnight, the vapour condenses out and the floor can feel very cold in the mornings.

 

The dehumidifier significantly reduced this effect and, as it kicks out some heat, it also removed the need for the LPG fire (further reducing the water vapour in the air). The increased electricity to run it was worthwhile for the additional comfort.

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I've heard it suggested that building a "skirt" out of, eg, plywood to reduce drafts under the caravan keeps things warmer in winter.

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That's interesting stuff about the caravan. We are *hoping* to only be in it a couple of months... but I think we all know what "just a week or two" tends to turn into for us self builders ?

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I lived for 18 months in a park home in my youth. We then spent 18 months is a static van on out last build, and have been in just a few months this time. So I think I know all the problems.

 

The basic issue is the walls are so thin, the insulation levels are dire. When it gets cold, you WILL get condensation, lots of it. A dehumidifier will help but I can't tollerate the noise of that all the time so we ration it's uses.  The biggest source of moisture is the occupants just breathing, cooking, and showering.

 

If the wardrobes are on an outside wall, forget any notion of keeping clothes in them, unless you like damp mouldy clothes. We keep most of ours in the adjacent touring caravan. Although it's just as cold, with nobody breathing, cooking or washing in it, it doesn't suffer from condensation as there's no moisture to condense.

 

To remain comfortable you have to keep throwing heat into them. Grit your teeth and just console yourself that your big electricity bill is less than the rent you were paying. you need an electric convector heater with a thermostat in every room.

 

I also fitted extra insulation under the floor. Only a few panels had any. I could not work out if it was built with insulation under the floor and most of it fell out, or whether it wa built with none and someone gave up after insulating a bit.  I also fitted a lot more lagging on the pipes to stand a chance of surviving a winter without freezing. And ye I have paneled  in the gap around the bottom. as ours is remaining I have done a reasonable job, and put doors in to access the large storage area.

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Taking on board  the advice above, with the SIPS bit being all done we are actually storing stuff upstairs now, and since its already dry and warm in there, we are going to put our wardrobes, drawers etc in the guest bedroom  so our clothing will be stored damp free rather than in the caravan and just bring in what we want the night before. I am going to be sleeping on site now from  Monday too for security as we've reached the stage where there will be things in of value. We are living barely 10 miles from the new house anyway, so are moving house in increments rather than one big moving day. Our daughters horse trailer comes in useful for more than the horse! :D   

 

The caravan we got is 4 berth but it will only be myself and my wife in it (our daughter wisely perhaps, deciding to stay at my parents house only a couple of hundred metres away and she starts university in September anyway, so that's rather helpful timings-wise). It's second hand of course, but in rather good condition. My wife has re-dyed the curtains and bleached and scrubbed the place from top to bottom - it was clean anyway, but it is nicer knowing its all "sterile"  so to speak. We also put a new carpet in which is actually an off cut from a friends new carpet fitting! So the place actually looks like brand new inside. Not bad for £1500, and I'm confident we can resell it when we are ready to for similar. I was just impressed it came with a build-in satellite dish, but maybe they all do now - the fact the loo and taps are all electric surprised me too - it's been a long time since I was in a caravan, and the taps had a little foot pump in those days, with a choice of cold or... cold.

 

Anyway, I took the old carpet up to fit the underlay and new carpet and found something curious  -  in the top picture, this is the floor in the main living area - look at the markings around each tiny drilled hole, and the second picture is the floor in the bathroom, all squared off and each of those little circles is actually a dowel. It really doesn't matter in the least, but its got me curious - why the circles in felt pen around the tiny holes in the living area wood, and why drill and dowel the floor in such a manner in the other section - and the dowel bit is only in the loo, dressing and shower areas.       Curious.

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Edited by curlewhouse
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Is this a static caravan or a touring caravan?  A static usually has a normal porcelain flushing toilet like any house and is plumbed into the drains and the taps are plumbed into the mains and you just turn them on. It sounds like you are describing a touring caravan where the water is pumped from a container outside that you refill when empty.

 

If it is a touring 'van a lot of them are built with a bonded sandwich floor of insulation material and plywood. They can fail and become saggy over time. I wonder if the dowels are a repair done to fix that?

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Van floor has delaminated over time. Probably an Ace or a Bailey as they were prone to it..! They use a drill with a stop on it to partially drill the floor then inject epoxy resin into the holes. A few carefully placed weights and the whole lot is glued back together...! 

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It is a tourer - I've forgotten but think it's a Bailey. Will know better tomorrow as I am moving in for security as we are moving house incrementally and there will be more valuable stuff at the new house from tomorrow. So I am sleeping there overnight from now on. Wife and daughter staying in old "proper" house until  our official moving out date from our temporary rented house of 31st Aug.

As regards the mystery holes and dowels (though why the holes needed circling in pen is still odd) I've been underneath and if it was a repair then I have to take my hat off to them as its rock solid under there even when I've tried to poke something in (an unfortunate trend of mine :D ) - in fact it may indeed be a repaired/replacement because I felt it was almost too good for the age of the van.    

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There are companies that specialise in it ..! Otherwise the whole of the van interior has to come out to repair it. Probably find it was given a coat of wood hardener too so will be rock solid. 

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Yes. Reminds me very much of when I used to use resin to "waterproof" ply and other wood for a boat ( thinned it with styrene so it soaked well in). You ended up with a really hard bit of timber. Sounds like something similar.

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