Roselea

Category: Phase 3

Construction begins on main house, groundworks, energy modules, swimming lane, foundations, block wall and floor slab.

  • Insulation Panels Arrive!

    Our order of ?seconds? of PU (polyurethane) insulation panels arrived today!

    It came on 14 pallets on a long lorry that managed to drive backwards down
    our Loke! They were a variety of sizes and thickness of rejected and damaged
    foam panels, making up a pallet load of 8feet by 4feet and about 4 feet
    tall. Since we didn?t have a fork lift truck on hand (huh!), we had to push
    the pallets sideways off the lorry and send them crashing down to the ground
    and rolling them over into our hole!! We weren?t too concerned about causing
    more damage as all the panels will be needing sorting out and cutting bad
    bits off etc.

    Loads-of-Insulation-dumped-off-the-lorry

    Loads-of-Insulation-dumped-off-the-lorry

    We have now stacked up all the insulation into neat(ish) stacks, a large stack beside the storage shed of smaller pieces (nearly all of the pieces delivered are more than 600mm x 1200mm) and a smaller stack at the end of the hole near the earth mound.

    Stacks-of-smaller-pieces-of-Insulation-1

    Stacks-of-smaller-pieces-of-Insulation-1

    Stacks-of-smaller-pieces-of-Insulation-2

    Stacks-of-smaller-pieces-of-Insulation-2

    Stacks-of-larger-peices-of-insulation

    Stacks-of-larger-peices-of-insulation


    The first use of these panels will be the underground Energy Modules which
    are large hot water tanks to store the heat collected from the Thermal Solar
    Panels on our garage roof. Each of the 5 Energy Modules will be wrapped in
    200mm thick insulation and then buried into the ground under the house. We
    discovered these source of insulation panels and it seems that there are
    lots of rejected insulation panels and so a niche market has sprung up to
    buy these rejects from the factories, take off the good bits (to sell at a
    higher ?normal? price of about £100 per cubic metre) and put the rubbishy
    bits together to sell at an amazingly low price of about £10 per cubic
    metre!! We don?t mind buying these foam panels as it is a very similar price
    to Glass Wool, which is what we were considering using in the first place,
    but being PU foam, it is twice as good as glass wool in terms of thermal
    resistance so having ?bad? bits on them wouldn?t matter, because we are
    using multiple layers of these panels to fill our walls and roof spaces. We
    would of course spray in fresh 2 part PU foam to block any air gas or cold
    bridges.

    The other advantage of these rigid panels over glass wool, is that we will
    KNOW for certain that they will hold upright inside the walls, or in the
    sloping roof spaces, without collapsing after a few years. The wool is not
    very strong and having such a large quantity may cause problems of
    compression over the years of the life of the building.

    So we are rather pleased to discover this source of insulation material, it
    requires more work and time to sort them out, but that is the point of our
    “Real” self build project, we are doing everything ourselves and time and
    labour is no cost to us, hence saving huge amount of money and benefit from
    this massive amount of insulation in our walls and roof!!

  • First Pipe Laid!

    Today, we did the 1st of three sewage pipes that needs to be laid in and
    under the house, before we put in the foundations and floor slab.

    Pipe-3-Laid

    Pipe-3-Laid

    This was a short one, from the kitchen and running more or less along the
    front of the house nearest to the Loke and terminating into the man hole
    junction just before the drive way.

    It has to be buried, starting at the kitchen end, 750mm below ground, and
    falling away downhill at the normal “specs” of 1 in 40 slope to arrive at
    the man hole junction point at 950mm deep. That was the easier one to do!
    Tomorrow, weather permitting, will be the one that has to go across the
    drive way and has two bends in it too!

  • Double Check Calculations of Sewage pipe Positions

    This afternoon, we spent the time going over the drawings, calculating the
    exact positions of the sewage pipes coming out the ground (and through the
    concrete slab). We also discovered that the swimming lane is pretty accurate
    and parallel to the house. This and the garage as the 2nd reference point,
    will form the basic alignment for the whole house.

    We created a spreadsheet of all the distances from each of the batter boards markers to all “interest” points on each of the three sewage pipes we have got to
    run under the house.

    We now have these numbers, we can start marking and cutting the narrow
    trench lines for the plastic pipes to go in.

  • Second Day of Fire and Last Bits and Pieces Tidied Up!

    In another glorious sunny day, we had the incinerator going all day today,
    burning up all the old ivy cuttings off our large hedge at the bottom of the
    garden, plus loads of extra trimmings from more ivy around the corner and
    along the Tern Gardens fence line!

    Flames-6ft-High

    Flames-6ft-High

    Cleared-in-front-of-storage-shed

    Cleared-in-front-of-storage-shed


    We moved all the good quality pallets from everywhere and laid them on top
    of the new roof covering our new timber store. We have a dozen of them!! And
    finally, the last bits and pieces lying alongside the garage and garden shed
    were moved inside the timber store, graded by size. We are just about ready
    to tackle the next big job now, the laying down of the sewage pipes from
    various points under the house, to the septic tank.

  • Last Two Covers Installed and a Lovely Fire!

    It was glorious weather today, with a very powerful Sun but it didn’t get
    hot this time as there was a stronger chilly breeze! We managed to assemble
    and install the last two covers over our new timber yard and they are now
    rain proof.

    Covers-finished-and-wood-loaded

    Covers-finished-and-wood-loaded

    Finally, we had a lovely fire in our incinerator to burn up loads of dried
    up cuttings, rotten pallets and other wooden rubbish we had lying around.

    The site is looking much better for our 4 days of effort, with only a few
    bits and pieces left to move over to under the covers like pallets,
    platforms and ramps .. and we will be all done – phew!!

  • Last Pile of Timber Moved and Rain Protection Half Done

    Today, in the lovely sunshine, we moved the last pile of old timber that
    came from the demolition of the old bungalow that was here since around
    1930’s.

    Roof-half-done

    Roof-half-done

    Roofing-the-lane

    Roofing-the-lane


    We spent the rest of the day building rain protection covers to keep much of
    the rain off our timber piles in the swimming lane. We have done 2 of them,
    with 2 left to do.

  • The 89mm CLS Timber is Sorted

    Today, we handled the next pile of timber, the 89mm by 38mm CLS timber. We
    also got our neighbour Terry to come and collect all the unusable pieces for
    his wood burner. He was nicely pleased!

    Timber-stacked-on-lane-1

    Timber-stacked-on-lane-1

    Timber-stacked-on-lane-2

    Timber-stacked-on-lane-2


    Tomorrow, we will move the last pile of “odds and ends” timber and then
    build the rain covering for the whole lot.

  • Continued With Site Reorganisation

    We continued with our reorganisation of our site, completing the pile of the
    63mm by 38mm CLS timber. We have graded the timber into “good”, “so so” and
    “rubbish” to make sure that we maintain the quality of our building work. We
    felt that we needed to get on with the work so we put on our heavy duty
    waterproofs and carried on out in the rain, which was light to medium rain
    falling straight down in zero winds. We had only about 2mm of rain in the 3
    hours of our work.

    Next, we will create a tarpaulin covering along the length of the swimming
    lane to keep the rain off the timber and allow it to stay dry, and then
    after that, we deal with the 89mm by 38mm CLS timber.

    Yes this is taking time, but it is good to tidy up our site, move various
    piles of timber that are lying here and there, and this will create extra
    space for future delivery and easier car parking etc.

  • OSB Sheets and Half the CLS 63mm Timber Moved

    Today, before the thunderstorm arrived, we managed to move over the stack of
    OSB sheets (we have 34 of them left) including the protective house covering
    the wood. We also moved half the pile of the 63mm by 38mm CLS timber over to
    its new location.

    The picture below is the “Before” image of our timber yard just outside our
    front door, we are going to move everything around to the new swimming lane
    to store them there.

    Storage-area-before-clearance

    Storage-area-before-clearance

    Blocks-ready-for-timber

    Blocks-ready-for-timber


  • More Dirt Up Against the Fence Behind the Back Wall

    This afternoon, after the rain interruption in the morning, we moved few
    more tons of dirt over to the gap between the back wall of the swimming lane
    and the fence to our neighbours. It is now full and heap a little bit higher
    than needed so it can sink down over the coming months.

    Filled-to-the-top-behind-wall

    Filled-to-the-top-behind-wall

    Hopefully, this will stop any further floods and rivers of mud coming off
    the neighbouring higher grounds and causing a mess in our land.