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Down the big long lane...


dpmiller

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31 minutes ago, Onoff said:

Love that front door.

 

Ta. Yes, I'm well pleased with it. Colour, glazing etc was a joint decision with SWMBO, and the door itself is a bog-standard Apeer composite unit. Even tho the rest of the house has anthracite frames on the outside, I reckoned on the white frame for this as the porch is going to have Z-stone on it and I thought the grey stone and black door needed something to break it up.

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Other than the chimneys, the blockwork is DONE! Goodies are trickling in- UFH manifolds are here, and a lovely Compact RCBO CU from SBS arrived thismorning. I've chased NIE for a requote on the electric connection and it'll be here imminently. Anybody got a spare 15m of 25mm split concentric kicking around for my submain?

 

No word on a timescale for the insulation squad to descend- the apparent shortage of glass- and mineral- fibre insulation currently is holding things up. Ah well, it'll give us a chance to get some tiles on.

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Visited the guys up at BPC today to collect a couple of bits of duct that we were in a rush for. Great bunch of fellas, nice to meet them and see round the shop. Heading home after that and the phone rang- delivery from Plugin Solar. Wow, that was pretty fast to get a couple of pallet loads over safely. Panels and tray all look super and thankfully the digger was able to fork them out of the side of the Sprinter they arrived in.

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19 minutes ago, dpmiller said:

Visited the guys up at BPC today to collect a couple of bits of duct that we were in a rush for. Great bunch of fellas, nice to meet them and see round the shop. Heading home after that and the phone rang- delivery from Plugin Solar. Wow, that was pretty fast to get a couple of pallet loads over safely. Panels and tray all look super and thankfully the digger was able to fork them out of the side of the Sprinter they arrived in.

Gary is a decent lad.  I met him at his house a good few years ago and always said hello when I went past his stand at the self build show. 

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Busy today, even if it was cold and grey. Better half was gainfully employed getting the protective film off the windows while I trimmed back the fascia and rafter ends behind the chimneys, flushed all the batten ends off at the verges and added felt trays over the eaves in readiness for tiling.

 

Now enjoying a mini keg of  Sharp's Doom Bar (£6 @  tescos  with a short expiry)... Yum.

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8 minutes ago, dpmiller said:

Busy today, even if it was cold and grey. Better half was gainfully employed getting the protective film off the windows while I trimmed back the fascia and rafter ends behind the chimneys, flushed all the batten ends off at the verges and added felt trays over the eaves in readiness for tiling.

 

Now enjoying a mini keg of  Sharp's Doom Bar (£6 @  tescos  with a short expiry)... Yum.

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Like the scaffold props!!  They really do make a massive difference.  

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well today brings a milestone. Firstly the arrival of a large truckload of various insulation types heralds the approach of internal warmth.DSC_0597.thumb.JPG.a8b6af0919010cb8342a8bbbd24942d2.JPG

 

and blockwork is complete. Having chimneys really plants the house, to me.

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the eagle-eyed amongst you will no doubt note the stack of PV waiting to go up, and the small patch of tile I've put on for a look-see.

 

Finally. I climbed up to see the guys' handiwork on the chimneys and was truly touched to see this:

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4 hours ago, dpmiller said:

Well today brings a milestone. Firstly the arrival of a large truckload of various insulation types heralds the approach of internal warmth.DSC_0597.thumb.JPG.a8b6af0919010cb8342a8bbbd24942d2.JPG

 

and blockwork is complete. Having chimneys really plants the house, to me.

DSC_0600.thumb.JPG.2cb57b1d1f5cb2802d029e0afa88279a.JPG

DSC_0598.thumb.JPG.42ec1c61a8cd45a0a8ff7667819d785d.JPG

 

the eagle-eyed amongst you will no doubt note the stack of PV waiting to go up, and the small patch of tile I've put on for a look-see.

 

Finally. I climbed up to see the guys' handiwork on the chimneys and was truly touched to see this:

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The magpies  will love that. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

It just keeps on keeping on here.

Shortly after the insulation touched down, the install team appeared. Two local chaps, and two Romanian brothers. The Romanian guys are stellar workers but together they all put a goodly number of evening and weekend man-hours in and insulation is now complete. Frametherm between the studs, foiled VCL, 40mm PIR, 50x35 service battens. Neat work.

 

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One of the Romanian guys- Marian- currently has no "real" job but on the basis of his work so far I'd be more than happy to let him loose on some other stuff.  Infact, whilst I was considering hiring in a telehandler for a day to place the tiles "up above", he offered to shift them with some of his friends. Deal done, they arrived on Sunday morning past and in four hours handballed around seven tonnes of clay tiles up and around the scaffold. Now *that* was hard work. Respect.

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other bits and bobs? Finished the infill panels above the porch, fitted the continuous soakers there and did some tiling, and fitted the flashing to the Keylites. Fitted Compriband (well, Soudal stuff...) between window frames and sills. Amazing how slow it expands on a cold morning. And I've put in the earth rod and carried out a Ze test as we'll soon need to be getting the electric in. Happy with the result- 68ohms- much better than 200.

 

Now to set the tiles out on the other roof faces and put up the GSE trays. Once all that is done I might just soldier on with the tiling, or I might see what big Marian and his mates think about it...

Edited by dpmiller
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  • 2 weeks later...

Jeez it's been windy this week. Nevertheless we've most of the verge trims on, the first two GSE trays installed (with lots of fiddly setting-out done that will carry over to the other two and eight) and tiling has started in earnest on the leeward side. I think we made a great choice with the Snowdon tiles even if they are pretty heavy.

 

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Tiling tribulations...

 

so yesterday didn't qo quite as planned although we've recovered well and as the man says, there are never problems , only solutions

 

Regardless of how I measured it previously, with the GSE trays up on the roof, there's no way eight are going across the rear face in two rows of four. Four across the top and one either side of the dormer is almost as good and takes no extra material. As for the last two panels then,  we noted yesterday the chinmey isn't as much of a shadow issue as anticipated even this early in the year so they're going on the "front" SW roof face. Just need an extra pair of top corner flashings to complete. In actual fact, because of a shipping delay the quad inverters haven't landed yet so we're going back to duals which will suit and ease wiring to the 6 rear panels. It's a few quid extra but well worth it.

 

The other "solution" involves the valley trays. The kit had been erected with 8x1" boards in the valleys (for flat trays or lead) but we've gone for the Filon dry valley with upstand like Jeremy used. This results in the inner gutter bars of the valley tray sitting too high and putting the last tile at a cant. Roofing blokey that made up our chimney backgutters reckoned it would be an issue, and as much as we can get the tile to sit down nearly flat by grinding the back out of it it's time-consuming and not quite perfect. So the executive decision was made to pull the boards off and replace with a fine ply layer. Local BM has just delivered a load of ply to site ripped into 225mm strips so tomorrow's job is to replace boards with ply. Heck it's hassle and a few quid but a darned-bit better than having to cut all the tiles or cut all the valley boards and set them in on battens...

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  • 4 weeks later...

...and then the weather turned pants. Lashing down/ blowing a gale/ bleedin cold. Any two on any day we were free to work, for a couple of weeks. So s-l-o-w progress.

 

But today as it was fine and the wind was down, and we've tiled up as far as possible without causing access issues to the trays, the panels went up.

 

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Better.

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  • 1 month later...

Has a month really passed?

About 400 tiles left to go we reckon. And boy will I be glad to see that job complete. Guttering (UPVC ogee) arrived today.  I've got the microinverters in place in the attic, and they're all flashing away happily. SWMBO and boy have some of the sloped ceilings stuffed, I've got VCL over some if them, and the PIR awaits cutting and placing.

Next stop firstfix of the MVHR and other services.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Productive weekend. First few sheets of PB up downstairs, more tiling (both side wings complete, ridge tiles on etc), and the main ducts in place for the MVHR. Still need to strip them all back out to seal joints/ make up hangers/ insulate etc.

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