Yesterday we finished the last piece of work needed to be done on the floor in the Garden Room. The central section where the Earth Tubes comes up out of the ground, is channelled under the false floor and we decided to change, slightly, the arrangement of the panels. Instead of 4 square panels, we sliced them in half and joined one long strip together and permanently screw it down. The other strip is where the Earth Tubes are accessible so we replaced this strip with two 8feet long pieces and glue the two together. This will be our removable covers to allow maintenance of the Earth tubes.
The last job was to install the 50mm thick PU foam to insulate the Garden Room against any effect of the air being drawn from outside and down to the Earth tubes. The outside air temperature may be at a higher or lower level and could affect the comfort zone.
Today we smoothed the whole floor to remove any major differences in the levels of the boards. Not all the pieces we put down could be Tongue&Grooved so with the variability of the thickness of the OSB sheets, we had to plane and surf-form the edges to reduce the sharpness, in readiness for the installation of the laminate floor tiles. We will hire a large industrial belt sander to clean the surface of any remaining unwanted artefacts! Then we will wash it and start the laying process in a few days time.