Swimming in treacle, flying drones and generating electricity
Entry posted by dnb
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As usual it feels like progress has been glacial. It probably hasn't but most of the jobs this month aren't exactly visible.
The first job was to construct a cabinet for the switch fuses and electric meter since the old back-to-back meter boxes had degraded to the point of uselessness. This of course displaced the drainage installation activity for a while. I did make some progress here too but we are nothing like finished yet as another tonne of gravel disappears into the ground...
Casting a small reinforced concrete ring beam. The ducts for house and garage SWA in the centre. It turns out that making "model" buildings is a bit of fun.
Construction of the timber frame for the meter cupboard, now known as the Woodlands Folly. All materials were offcuts from the house.
Meter cabinet installed and beginning to fix the cladding. Again, everything is from house offcuts including the slate roof.The meter will be accessile from near the road - covid safe meters might catch on!
Almost finished folly. UPVC soffit and fascia were found in a pile in the woodland during the summer chainsawing work!
The inside is lined with floorboards since even I am finding it difficult to burn them. Switch fuse units have been fitted to test sizing ready for connection. One for the house to be connected immediately and one for the garage that can wait for the time being. In the fullness of time a consumer unit will be fitted to the back wall so there is accessible power in the folly for lights and car charging.
Nothing like test fitting a consumer unit in a wall that isn't really there... It's a recessed BG unit fed with SWA from the folly. The "wall" can't be installed properly as yet because screeding the floor is one of those little covid/brexit (delete as appropriate) difficulties in the supply chain along with blue facing bricks. But at least I get to have something to look at even if it doesn't do a great deal. I installed two 2.4m earth rods since there's no PME supply to site and it isn't likely either. The earth test gave 2.7 ohms impedance so well within requirements.
At least the PIR is all fitted, even around all the tricky areas with ducts through the floor. I am considering decomissioning the death saw although it seems a friend would like it to make insulation strips for his roof trusses.
Meanwhile, the same friend wanted somewhere to practice drone flying. This was something I was happy to assist with! These are a couple of stills from a flight showing my extremely untidy site. One day I will have the drains covered up and the treatment plant located in the ground!
And maybe further in the future I can have a garage too! But the roof still looks good.
Now we get on to some very good news. After nearly 9 months of waiting, the arch windows have arrived! First the frames. They even fit in the holes!
And then a week later the glass. I now have a little problem of getting some large 50kg glass semi-circles into the attic without a pair of staircases or scaffolding. This is going to be interesting and may involve heavy plant. What could go wrong???
Finally this month it became urgent to get the solar panels doing something more useful than just keeping the rain out. (My connection offer was due to expire!) So I fitted the inverter in the attic on the first piece of house to be boarded. The DC wires still need clips and some bits are decidedly temporary solutions but all of it passed witness testing so it is good to start generating. Another 6kW of solar on the grid just in time for winter.
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