Roselea

Category: Phase 5

Building the internal framework of all the rooms, 1st floor joists and gallery.
This also includes building the sound proof Entertainment Room.
Plus also installation of insulation, OSB boards and construction framework for upstairs rooms too

  • Utility Room reorganised and First Solid Wall built

    We needed access to the sections of the exterior walls in the utility room to get the insulation boards in, we are currently storing tools there. So today, Thursday, on April fools day, we built the first solid wall between Bedroom 3 and the Utility Room to give us more space to store tools. This wall is the usual 63mm thick but we had put on an additional fermacell plasterboard layer on the interior side of the wall, then filled up the hollow space up with 100mm thick glass wool we had lying around in our garden shed, some 10 years old (and perhaps too old as the material didn’t seems to spring back into its full 100mm thickness), to act as another sound absorbing layer. The whole thing was covered up with a layer of 18mm thick OSB board to provide a good solid first layer of sound reducing wall, between Bedroom 3 and the various noisy equipment that will live in the utility, like the washing machine and drying cabinet and the other pieces of equipment for running the air conditioner etc.

    Utility Room reorganised and First Solid Wall built

    First-solid-wall-1

    Utility Room reorganised and First Solid Wall built

    First-solid-wall-2



    Then we moved the Ikea wooden shelving modules over to sit in front of this new wall and unscrewed the electric switchboard off the wall. We then installed the insulation in the walls and re-installed the (temporary) electric switchboard.
    Utility Room reorganised and First Solid Wall built

    Utility-insulated-and-re-arranged

  • 63mm CLS Timber Ordered and Arrived

    We also been enquiring about prices for CLS timber, the 63mm by 38mm size, again to cash in before the prices goes up. We were lucky to find two of our local suppliers capable of offering a price of £1 per metre against £1.30 (on average) by other builders merchants. We snapped up all they had in stock (from Norwich and Great Yarmouth) and on Saturday and Tuesday, we had two deliveries, we now have another 630 4.8metre planks. The previous price we paid six months ago was 97p per metre so that is very good, especially in this climate of popular demands!

    63mm CLS Timber Ordered and Arrived

    Lots-of-CLS-delivered


    We have got the two pallets sitting alongside the Loke at the moment, in front of the house but it won’t be too long before we will need them all. In fact, that quantity will do the majority of all the internal structure of the ground and upper walls and floors. We may need a little bit more later on if we had generated more waste than we expected. But we are almost using every bit of timber everywhere, whether it is just 500mm long, right up to the full 4.8metres. We are planning to tongue and groove several lengths together when we are doing the horizontal framework which will allow us to use many of the cut-offs.
    It is all about minimising waste, even if it costs more time. That is our philosophy…

  • Ground Floor Walls Being Filled with Recycled Polyurethane Foam Boards

    During the last two weeks, starting last Thursday 4th March and on several days, interspersed with other tasks, we have been filling up the ground floor outer walls with approximately 200mm thick of polyurethane foam “seconds”. We hauled out our slicing bench table from its storage corner and connected up the dust extractor vacuum machine and proceeded to slice up all the various pieces of the PU foam boards, all random in thicknesses and sizes as well as having different coverings (most were foiled coated paper but some were glass-fibre impregnated ones). We resumed clockwise around the building, starting at the Front Door and sliced the foam to fit precisely between the wall legs. We also used spray PU foam to help stick everything together and fill in the vertical gaps, to ensure that we had a air-tight block of insulation.
    One of those other tasks, was to build a Homemade Foam Board Shredder so we can tidy up the rubbish we have generated and will continue to do so.
    We have finished the “C”, “B”, the long “A” section and turned onto the “P” wall and now have reach all the way to the far corner of the Great Room and its Patio Window. We cannot go any further because we got our CLS timber storage located here with the high shelf with other lengths of timber planks resting on it. We will skip that bit and move around to continue on the “N” and “M” walls (part of Bedroom 1) and then around into the “L” and “J” and so on.

    Ground Floor Walls Being Filled with Recycled Polyurethane Foam Boards

    Putting-foam-into-the-walls-1

    Ground Floor Walls Being Filled with Recycled Polyurethane Foam Boards

    Putting-foam-into-the-walls-2

    Ground Floor Walls Being Filled with Recycled Polyurethane Foam Boards

    Putting-foam-into-the-walls-3

    Ground Floor Walls Being Filled with Recycled Polyurethane Foam Boards

    Putting-foam-into-the-walls-4


  • Arrival of Eleven Pallets of Timber Sheet Materials

    On a few days from Friday 5th March to Thursday 11th March, we had the delivery of a load of sheet wood material of various types. All the material is earmarked for our internal structure of our house, doing walls and floors and a little bit of ceiling as well. We ordered it all now because there is several price increases coming because the world of timber is becoming too popular in building houses and high rises using wood instead of bricks and mortar? couldn’t they wait another year for us to get ours done first?? Phew!
    So we ordered the following sheet materials ..

    • 280 sheets of 18mm OSB 3 boards
    •  30 sheets of 11mm OSB 3 boards
    • 170 sheets of 22mm thick flooring grade ‘Tongue and Groove’ chipboards
    • 150 sheets of 19mm thick flooring grade ‘Tongue and Groove’ chipboard

    That is about 15 tons of wood stuff!
    We organised the bottom of our site to store these eleven pallets into four main stacks, each one is covered over with tarpaulin. We had already several tarpaulin sheets but these were lightweight ones and we decided to invest in much heavier duty alternatives, deliberately paying out a premium ‘insurance’ price, to protect our money and our building material while we get on with the other structural jobs that needs to be done first before we can use these sheet materials.
    Approximately, the chipboards will be used first, specifically the 19mm thick ones, to cover the first floor joists when we have finished building the framework on the ground floor and installed the first floor joists. Then once we got all the utility conduits mapped out and inserted, we can nail up the 18mm thick OSB boards to form the walls in all our rooms. Finally, the other thicker chipboards will be used to construct the suspended floors downstairs. The odd 11mm OSB will be used to cover up the roof rafters around in the storage triangular voids up on the first floor to hide away the insulation and rafters to make a neat finish.

    Arrival of Eleven Pallets of Timber Sheet Materials

    Lots-of-sheet-wood

    Arrival of Eleven Pallets of Timber Sheet Materials

    A-wall-of-OSB-6-Tons



    We estimate that we will save about £1000 on the future price increases and we spent about £150 on the better quality tarpaulin for long-term weather protection thus a win-win for us!

  • Insulation PU Foam Seconds Arrives on Forty Pallets!

    On Friday, saw the arrival of the huge load of “Seconds” PU foam boards, all the way from South Wales where an outfit takes spoiled foam boards from the nearby factory and processes then and resells them to anyone who wants them. We wanted it all including the bad parts! By buying everything it makes it slightly more expensive than glass wool, nearly twice as expensive but it is so much easier and nicer to handle than the dreaded glass wool! Plus also, for our walls, the rigid boards are much more reliable and holds its shape vertically in the walls, compared with glass wool, especially the deep amount we are aiming for, over 300mm thick and we didn’t want the wool material collapsing under its own weight after a decade or so. So we found this outfit that packets this spoiled PU foam boards. This time, we wanted as much as he had and could fit on the lorry. We got forty pallets, each measuring roughly four feet by 4 feet and 4 feet high. There were 28 pallets loaded into the main part of the lorry, plus an additional 12 pallets loaded on a second trailer linked to the main truck.

    Insulation PU Foam Seconds Arrives on Forty Pallets!

    Insulation-delivery-truck-and-trailer


    It was slightly more complicated because the driver didn’t want to drive down our Loke and also didn’t want to abandon his trailer module in a layby up the road (was afraid that it would be blocked in). So we took our mini-digger with our new Fork Lift Attachment for our Mini-Digger up the Loke to the main Beccles Road and unloaded all the pallets up there and transported them down on our large flatbed trolley. We had the fabulous assistance from all our neighbours, helping to load two pallets on the trolley and getting that down to our property. That was twenty separate trips in all! Phew!

    We landed the pallets all over the place in a random manner, just to get them out of the way and clear the Loke as quick as possible. It took us over two hours to unload the lorry and a further hour to finish transporting the rest! Double Phew!

    Insulation PU Foam Seconds Arrives on Forty Pallets!

    Blocking-the-loke-with-Insulation-1

    Insulation PU Foam Seconds Arrives on Forty Pallets!

    Blocking-the-loke-with-Insulation-2


    This load of insulation boards will be sliced up and fitted into and between the legs of our wooden walls, filling it up to a depth of around 200 to 240mm deep, and then the rest will be filled up with glass wool. About three quarters of this load of foam boards will be used up in filling the walls, the rest will be used to start the job of filling the roof rafters and we do need another lorry load of seconds again to get that particular job done too!!

    Insulation PU Foam Seconds Arrives on Forty Pallets!

    Big-Piles-of-Insulation-1

    Insulation PU Foam Seconds Arrives on Forty Pallets!

    Big-Piles-of-Insulation-2

    Insulation PU Foam Seconds Arrives on Forty Pallets!

    Big-Piles-of-Insulation-3


  • Pallet Fork Attachment for our Mini-Digger

    We decided that we needed to construct our own Pallet Forks to enable us to unload the load of Pallets that would be arriving soon, full of PU foam boards. We had plenty of left-over pieces of steel, both a large and medium sized C channel bars, some rectangular box bars and angle iron pieces too.
    We took an old 4foot pallet and measured the spacing so we could design a particular size and spacing of the prongs, of course it had to be a compromise and a slight gamble against the unknown shape and size of the forty pallets coming.

    All the pieces were cut using our plasma cutter and then welded together using our MIG welder. Then an angle grinder with various cutting and grinding discs to clean up the ends and edges.

    Then, it was time to practice using this new piece of equipment attached on the mini-digger, using a suitable pallet, loaded with 10 concrete blocks to emulate what the weight would be like and getting the movement of the digger’s two arms to work in a way that lifted and moved the pallet in a horizontal manner without tilting too far forward or backwards.

    Pallet Fork Attachment for our Mini-Digger

    Pallet-forks-fabricobbled-1

    Pallet Fork Attachment for our Mini-Digger

    Pallet-forks-fabricobbled-2



    We are ready!

  • New Wall Hanging Toilet and Frame Arrives for Evaluation

    Today saw the arrival of our new toilet and wall frame!

    New Wall Hanging Toilet and Frame Arrives for Evaluation

    New-wall-hung-toilet


    We wanted to see and learn all the construction requirements for these wall-hanging toilets designs, like how the cistern and the metal support framework needs to be incorporated into our wooden walls.
    The Toilet is a rimless design around the bowl but this is a bit misleading, there is still a wide rim (see photo) for the seat to rest upon
    But what they really mean, is the water flushes out and around the top edge of the bowl in a slight groove and then falls into the bowl. You can see the water flow along and that is what they mean by rimless. It is a new fashion and the plus points are that it is much easier to wash the bowl clean and one can see this immediately.
    But on the other hand, it does mean that the power of the flush has to be controlled to avoid the water simply shooting over the edge if it is travelling too fast. There is a controlling valve inside the cistern to regulate this flow rate and yet another piece of equipment that may go wrong over the years.
    New Wall Hanging Toilet and Frame Arrives for Evaluation

    Toilet-hanging-frame-1

    New Wall Hanging Toilet and Frame Arrives for Evaluation

    Toilet-hanging-frame-2



    The toilet bolts onto the Frame which is fixed in the wall and covered with the wall boards.
    We will evaluate this design, by building our cloakroom straight away, plumb the toilet into the sewage system and supply water to the cistern and learn how it all works.

    We will start on this task mid to late January when Shaun has recovered.

  • Remaining Pillars Installed for Corners and Kitchen Wall Framework Finished

    For our last week of work for 2020 (and also before a long break because of Christmas and a minor medical issue), we went around the last twelve Pillars across all the ground floor rooms, creating sturdy accurate corner and T-junction reference pillars, all vertical and straight.

    Remaining Pillars Installed for Corners and Kitchen Wall Framework Finished

    Last-corners-errected

    Remaining Pillars Installed for Corners and Kitchen Wall Framework Finished

    for-bedrooms-and-bathrooms



    We made sure that the metal legs (holding up the Skylight) had pieces of CLS timber glued to them that were also vertical and ensuring that the metal legs themselves are hidden inside the wall structure.
    Then, for the last day and a half, we concentrated on building the framework that surrounds the Kitchen. We positioned exactly where we wanted the sliding door module to go near the Great Room end of the hallway, plus also a narrow window module (we had one left-over window Oak frame that we didn’t use in the external wall) positioned on the same wall but at the opposite end of the room. Then it was a case of slicing many many vertical posts (two sets measuring 2885mm and 2645mm tall) and went around nailing them into place. This included the first layer of the top plate to secure the posts and form the completed frames of each wall section.
    Remaining Pillars Installed for Corners and Kitchen Wall Framework Finished

    Kitchen-wall-framing-complete-1

    Remaining Pillars Installed for Corners and Kitchen Wall Framework Finished

    Kitchen-wall-framing-complete-2



    It is amazing to how quickly a room like this Kitchen can be built, even if it is just an open framework of posts etc., we can already get a feel for the size and shape of each room we have planned for our Ground Floor.
    We are cutting up lots of pieces of wood for the job (over 200 so far)
    Remaining Pillars Installed for Corners and Kitchen Wall Framework Finished

    Wood-cut-so-far


    This concludes the work for 2020, we can enjoy Christmas and New Year and when we are ready, we can resume work in 2021. It is holiday time now!!

  • Second CLS Layer Laid Down, Analysis and Mapping of Wall Structure and Building of Pillars

    For the start of the new week, we both tidied up all the “blobs” of mortar sticking around all the footplates and also tightened all the remaining concrete screws down. This was joined with the task of pulling out a whole heap of further CLS planks to form the second layer of timber to build up the Footplate on the floor, so they are ready to secure and fix the wall structures themselves. The second layer was glued and screwed down, making sure the warping and twisting nature of the timber is flattened out.

    Then over the next several days, we marked out all the corners and junctions that forms the various rooms and cupboards etc.
    We also ordered another twelve two by six planks (45mm by 150mm regularised timber) to go with the other four planks we already had left-over from when we were building the Skylight kerb structure several years ago. These sixteen planks will divide up into groups of four, in order to build two strong solid pillars to support a steel lintel that is needed at the entrances to all the en-suites rooms plus the bathroom too. It turned out that these four rooms have their entrances in a load bearing walls and we want our en-suites and bath rooms to have sliding doors so there is a lot of floor joists to support (Daphne also want’s a ‘Glass Wall’). We are using left-over pieces of steel 100mm by 50mm legs (the legs that are holding up the Skylight and the roof!).
    We have done a similar thing to hold up our cold water header tank up on our first floor and it needs extra load bearing elements and the position for these elements are located over and along Bedroom 2 wall and its doorway, thus we need another lintel built into the structure of this wall, this time using our larger steel leg left-over piece (160mm by 80mm), laid flat and supported by a solid block of 4 63mm CLS planks, all glued together into one block, one at each end.
    The final couple of days was spent on building the “pillars” for each corner and mid-wall T-junction, using more 63mm CLS pieces and forming fairly complicated shapes to allow each wall to have support for materials at the ends. Each of these pillars were anchored and locked to establish a good vertical straightness by screwing triangular plywood bracing pieces and putting little pieces at the top to join them together into a nice sturdy block.

    Second CLS Layer Laid Down, Analysis and Mapping of Wall Structure and Building of Pillars

    Corners-sprouting-up


    These will help in the long run when we come to put up the top-plate horizontal CLS planks as we can ensure that all our walls are vertical and right angle on the various corners etc.
    We did ten of these pillars and we got another eleven to go which we will have done next week. We have sliced over eighty planks already, about twenty percent of our stock of timber pieces so it won’t be long before we will have to order another pallet load!!

  • Entire Ground Floor’s Rooms are Mapped Out and Footplates Installed

    We resumed the task of laying out the footplates for the entire Ground Floor rooms. We had to tidy up all the excess jumble of bits and pieces that used to live in our outside Store room and we moved all of it into our new Entertainment Room, sorting them into related piles. We will also build some metal shelving and place them in the Entertainment room too to aid in more items to store while we develop the internal rooms and installation of all the utilities.
    The second half the building (the Cloakroom, en-suites, Bedroom 2 and 3, various cupboards and the Bathroom) was mapped out, drawing our coloured lines straight on to the concrete floor. We then surveyed the height of the concrete slab and discovered that one section had a very high level. The relative height difference was 23mm from lowest to highest spots but there was one even higher local spot of another 10mm! We definitely over-did the amount of concrete when making the floor slab several years ago! So we ground down that spot down somewhat but we will treat this particular slab as a special case and have a different finishing level (which means that we just reduce the length of all the stud posts).
    Over the next 2 days We pulled out a heap of 63mm CLS timber planks and laid them out over the entire floor, cutting to fit etc. Next, we did drilled anchorage holes and putting in concrete screws to secure all the timber pieces. We used over 150 screws, each being 100mm long by 7.5mm thick.

    Floor-plates-for-all-rooms-fixed-in-place-1

    Floor-plates-for-all-rooms-fixed-in-place-1

    Floor-plates-for-all-rooms-fixed-in-place-2

    Floor-plates-for-all-rooms-fixed-in-place-2



    Floor-plates-for-all-rooms-fixed-in-place-3

    Floor-plates-for-all-rooms-fixed-in-place-3

    Floor-plates-for-all-rooms-fixed-in-place-4

    Floor-plates-for-all-rooms-fixed-in-place-4

    Floor-plates-for-all-rooms-fixed-in-place-5

    Floor-plates-for-all-rooms-fixed-in-place-5



    The final two days was spent packing mortar underneath all the timber pieces everywhere, we needed four separate mixer loads, each having half bag of cement, three builder’s buckets of soft sand (40kg), a handful of fibre strands and a splash of emulsifier, along with the usual water. The laser was kept in one spot at our four way intersection point of our hallways and we used the detector to set all the footplates at the same height in absolute terms. The only exception to this rule was the extra thick concrete slab as mentioned already, and we lifted the detector up by an extra 10mm and set a higher level for the remaining pieces.
    And on Saturday afternoon, the final task was to tighten the concrete screws for the footplates that we had put mortar under on the day before (it had set enough) to lock down the footplates and then tidy up the cement mixer machine, hose and other bits and pieces, now that we have finished needing mortar for at least several years, the mixer can go back into storage again, around the back of the building.


    Next week will see us doing the job of pulling out another set of CLS timber to put on the second layer to reinforce the footplates, glued and screwed down, and then start marking out exactly where every single stud post will go, taking into account doorways, cleared sections for utility conduits and pipes to go upstairs and other design requirements too.