Category: Temporary Accommodations

All the walls and door had their first and second coat of varnish (until we ran out of course!). the outside surfaces of the left wall and the front wall had one coat to seal in the surface ready for the normal white emulsion.

The shower tray was carefully angled, with the drain hole in the lowest point, and the four edges were sliced to make them vertical. The drain hole was drilled using several different sizes of hole cutters to make a sloping into the hole ready for the glass fibre resin to be painted on and seal the 40mm plumbing waste pipe connector. Then the upstand side pieces were screwed into place to form the tray with a lip to contain the shower water.

Shower tray assembled

Shower tray assembled

The whole tray measures 1016mm by 1074mm and the slope drops by 20mm in both right to left and front to back.

All the pieces of the shower cubicle were sliced and sanded . exposed edges were rounded. The door was cut out of the front wall and overlapping strips placed around its edge, plus a pair of hinges! The floor of the shower was joined together with glue and screws and left to set.

Tomorrow the first coat of Ronsel’s ultra tough polyurethane varnish will be applied.

We have designed our shower cubicle, a free standing unit to sit in the Garden Room as a temporary module while we live out of the way of the main house being (or will be) built!

We started the implementation by slicing up 5 sheets OSB boards for the box like floor standing cabinet, approximately 1metre (3¼ feet) square and 2metres (6½ feet)high. It will have to built-in down lighters, a set of wire rack shelves on the back wall alongside the shower unit itself and a pull across curtains. The shower tray will be 150mm (6inches) up off the floor which is slightly sloping down to the back and tilting right to left to where the drain hole is located. Under the tray is a heat recycling system where the hot waste water is guided along slim channels made of copper, zigzagging back and forth many times with hopefully will allow enough time for the cold water, coming through in own 15mm copper pipe soldered underneath the copper base, to collect the heat and warm up the cold water and send it back into the shower! We don?t know what kind of performance we will get, we will have several thermometers placed in and around on the copper plate to measure the temperature of the waste water going down the drain hole and the temperature of the incoming cold water. All the data will be collected and stored on the computer for further analysis and we can make adjustments to the angle of the heat exchanger etc.

Today we put up two extra layers of plastic sheeting on the underside of the corrugated roof. We wanted to reduce the heat losses of such a large “window”! being only a temporary construction, we use standard builders plastic sheeting which is not absolutely clear and only costs a few pence per metre.

~images

Putting up two more layers will hopefully create some additional insulation effect especially during the Winter months. It does cut down on the light level (probably by a third) but it is such a large area (10m x 2m), it is still very bright.

Now we can install the return-path air ducting to remove the old hot air from the corridor and allow fresh cooler air in the bedrooms and lounge.

Yesterday The electric mains sockets were installed in all the rooms in the temporary living quarters. There are 13 of them! Each bedroom has 3 and the lounge has 4!

Stephen went around sealing the gaps between the partition walls, using a complete can of expanding PU foam. He only managed to do the lounge and the first bedroom.

Sealing the gaps with foam

Sealing the gaps with foam

Sealing the gaps with foam

The excess will be trimmed off and covered with white cloth tape.

All three partition walls are now finished in their basic structure and coverings. Next we will fill in the gaps around the edges in the corners to improve sound insulation, cover up the joints with white tape and then paint them.

We have partition wall number 2 up and completed! It was pretty much the same as number 1.

We have started on the third and last partition and have up the framework.

~iamges

The first partition wall in our temporary living quarters is done. The framework of 63mm CLS timber filled with 100mm glass wool and covered on both sides with 12.5mm plasterboards.

First bedroom boarded out

Only two more to go!