Author: Shaun

The air con unit is now assembled together and the “old” extracted air is now going through the heat exchanger and blowing up the chimney to the outside as waste.

The second fan is installed ready for operation but it will not be working much at all until we have provided a chimney at the very beginning of the earth tubes over by the main house! the other end is still underground waiting for the main house to be built but we can put in a temporary chimney to benefit from drawing in fresh air and cooling it down through the buried earth tubes.

Heat exhanger installed

Heat exhanger installed

It is getting there!

Over the last few days, we have installed the air ducting from the fan box, along the ceiling in the garden room, through the doorway into the lounge and then to the sun corridor, and finally all the way along to the end.

Extract vents and ducts

Extract vents and ducts

Extract vents and ducts

Extract vents and ducts

Extract vents and ducts

Extract vents and ducts

It is quite interesting learning about air ducting and how quiet or noisy air is blowing inside them. These ducting are made of 18mm OSB sheets which are not the smoothest of materials and perhaps that is part of the noise and also the joints needed to be sealed with a little bit of cheap caulk filler!

Now the next step is to fit the second fan to push the fresh air into the rooms!

We have finished the heat exchanger at last! It took three days to build, putting layers upon layers of thin plastic film and spacers to create 50 layers of air “ducts”! 25 for each of the two air streams, separated alternatively in the layers. It was quite difficult to get the plastic film to stay straight and not wobble! We are definitely won’t be using this choice of materials again!

Heat Exchanger finished

Also we have put up the first fan ready to pull the “old” air out of the living quarters and the garden room. The ducting will be along the ceiling in the garden room and pop through the doorway into the living quarters. The ducting will be 75mm high and 300mm wide to create a fairly low profile square shape, painted white. This is only temporary while the temporary living quarters are there!

Extract vents and ducts

Today we started building the heat exchanger module to transfer the energy in the old “waste” hot air to the clean cool fresh air! The new fresh air is coming from underground via the Earth Tubes we installed last year. This cool air will help keep the temperature down during the summer and the heat exchanger to transfer as much as of the useful valuable energy back into our living quarters during the Winter times.

We are making the heat exchanger out of thin layers of plastic films separated by 5mm glazing tapes with gaps at both ends for the four connections! It is slow work building up each layer one by one and we are learning the pros and cons of the materials we are using this time around. We realise that the plastic films might not be stable enough for long term use and it is quite fiddly so we will probably switch back to looking to use thin aluminium sheets instead. We were looking for a cheaper material for our smaller temporary exchanger so We will finish this one and put it into operation to learn the results of the heat exchanging efficiency and other factors!

Tomorrow we will continue the build!

Heat exchanger half built

Heat exchanger half built

The header tank for the garage and our temporary kitchen, shower and WC is now built and installed on the roof. It is a long box made of OSB boards covered with some left over rubber sheeting to make it waterproof.

~images

It is only 400mm (just over a foot) high (the water level) but it is 2.4metres long (8feet) and 500mm (1 and half feet) wide!!

This gives us a capacity of about 600 litres to allow us to run the pumping of the tanked rain water in a less frequent on and off cycles. This will reduce wear and tear and noise.

The garden room now has four windows fully fitted with their Oak frame and their double glazing units.

~images

Just one more on the side wall to complete and that is the Garden Room done.

The first 2 windows were completed today! We simply got on with the installation of the windows in the back wall in the garden room regardless of the fact that there was a very slight hint of rain in the air! The forecast said that it would be dry all day just like yesterday so we got on with it!

The Oak frame was sealed in using PU sealant, clamped down while six screws were driven in side ways to provide a solid fixing. The glass was then stuck into place using double sided glazing tape. The glass fits just fine! The Oak frame also fitted just fine too! Phew!

GR First two windows installed

GR First two windows installed

It is interesting that the old temporary plastic windows were much brighter than the glass but that is because the plastic film wasn’t completely transparent and they glowed in the daylight but of course the glass is so much clearer! The room will now be overall brighter when we have the remaining windows done!

Two more to go on the back wall. 7 more of a different design to do later (1 left in the Garden Room and 6 more in the front garage room).