Roselea

Month: May 2016

  • Sunday Quiet Jobs!

    As to our rule, for Sunday, we do quiet jobs around the house and the site so not to disturb our neighbors.

    Today, we did several tasks as follows:

    Camera and TV Aerial

    We decided to take down the heavy wooden old pole that holds up our TV Aerial, Camera and floodlight. It was too heavy for the structure of the building, our front door and storage room door were not braced very strongly, so the whole corner was leaning over, especially during strong winds.

    The floodlight went back up on a much smaller and shorter piece of timber we had lying around, a 50 mm by 50 mm piece.

    New-pole-for-floodlight

    New-pole-for-floodlight

    The TV Aerial went up at the top of the weather equipment pole at the other end of the temporary living quarters and reconnected back into the TV.

    Aerial-Moved

    Aerial-Moved

    Mind you, it seems to have stopped working and at first, we thought it was because the birds had bounced the aerial downwards so it wouldn’t be picking up a strong signal anymore, but having moved it now and pointed it in the general direction that our neighbors’ aerial are pointing, we are still not getting a good signal so something else has gone astray!!

    And finally, we moved the camera so it is much closer to our building area where our house is going to be. We used the original heavy wooden pole but this time, we mounted it on the corner of the garden shed, furthest away from any doors etc. We also braced the tall (3.6 meters – 12 feet) pole with two further diagonal wooden CLS timber.

    New-pole-for-Camera-1

    New-pole-for-Camera-1

    New-pole-for-Camera-2

    New-pole-for-Camera-2


    It is much sturdier, stronger and braced against strong winds to reduce the camera shake so our automatic movie generator will only take videos when something is happening in shot (it took the camera shake as “something is happening” and started recording again and again of nothing!). We are recording at a rate of 5 frames per second to keep the storage demands lower, especially as we are using the full HD “2K” resolution as our image size and quality.

    Garden Shed Roof

    While we were up on the roof doing the camera pole, we noticed that the ridge line was showing cracks in the roofing felt. So we got out our trusty old flashing tape and stuck a small piece down along the ridge, about the middle section of the roof.

    Fence Returns

    The orange builder’s fence, one of those holey plastic mesh things, is now back in place to ward off strays who might come over across our building site and fall down into one of our many holes we may have on the go. It is silly but we have to provide some warnings fencing or signs to keep trespassers off our land, and if they fall down a hole and break a leg, they can sue us for not warning them!! Shake of head!

    Hedge & Flower bed + Brambles!

    We started the tidy up trimming of the hedge we have remaining along the Loke and we will finish that off soon. But we also picked up other bags of clippings, and along with the bag of trimmings from the hedge, went up to the top of the garden to our compost heap. Plus also tidied up bags of bark chippings to a neat pile too.

    We had to rip out a small clump of brambles that managed to grow right in the dark corner, right behind our temporary living quarters, along the Term Gardens fencing, because we needed to gain access at that end to feed the TV Aerial cable through the wall and up to the new location for the aerial just above on the weather pole. That was a tough and spikey job!!

    That’s Concludes our Sunday Quiet Jobs!!

  • Chamber and Tunnel Covered in DPM

    And finally, this afternoon, we screwed down the cement board that we mortared down a couple of days ago, and then wrapped everything up in DPM plastic to protect our air supply from getting damp with heavy rain showers and wet ground.

    Earth-tube-tunnel-wrapped-up

    Earth-tube-tunnel-wrapped-up

    The final step is to put in stuttering to form the chimney that will come through the foundation and floor slab, plus shuttering down the side of the tunnel where it crosses under the main house foundation strip.

  • Number 1 Module now Finished – Part 3!

    A lovely warm day to finish off our first Energy Module, by sliding in more insulation panels around the sides of the rubber covered tank. We also put the much needed DPM plastic cover over the top to stop dirt and soil from entering into the tank, and it will also serve as a condensation barrier during the life time of the module when the water gets very hot.

    Module-1-Side-insulation-in-place

    Module-1-Side-insulation-in-place

    We filled up the remaining gaps around the edges of the hole with sandy soil, and packed it all down. Don’t tell anyone, but we chucked in all the off cuts and broken bits and pieces of insulation panels down in the gap too!! Finally, we put the insulation lid on top.

    Module-1-Shaun-ramming-down-fill

    Module-1-Shaun-ramming-down-fill

    Module-1-Top-insulation-complete

    Module-1-Top-insulation-complete


    We have made holes to allow the water and temperature conduits to pass through into the tank, all labelled and measured so we know what is what and how long the wires needs to be!

    Module-1-Ducts-in-place

    Module-1-Ducts-in-place

    The pipes has a ring of white duct tape wrap around them, with the coded info written on it. They read “1-wl”, “1-wh”, “1-tl”, “1-th”, and “1-tu”. More conduits will come together for more temperature probes later on when we get near to pouring the main floor concrete slab.

    Module-1-Ducts-are-labeled

    Module-1-Ducts-are-labeled

  • Number 1 Module being Assembled

    And this afternoon, we went back to our Number 1 Energy Module to carry on
    with the assembling of the underground hot water tank.

    First of all, we drilled down a metre in the middle of the hole to allow for
    a temperature sensor to be placed under the Energy Module. We inserted our
    new 20mm plastic pipe to act as the conduit for the temperature probe, which
    will be installed later.

    Module-1-Temperature-sensor-conduit-drilled-down-and-buried

    Module-1-Temperature-sensor-conduit-drilled-down-and-buried

    After that, it was grabbing pieces of the PU foam to build up the required
    200mm thick insulation barrier between the bottom of the module and the
    ground.

    Module-1-Insulation-in-place

    Module-1-Insulation-in-place

    We then carefully laid down the rubber membrane on top of the insulation
    boards, ready to wrap around the plastic crates to hold in the water.

    Module-1-Rubber-sheet-placed-and-Aquacells-started

    Module-1-Rubber-sheet-placed-and-Aquacells-started

    Then came the plastic Aquacell crates themselves, placing them in a grid of
    5 by 2 to form the 1st layer of 2.5metres by 2metres block.

    Module-1-Bottom-layer-of-cells-finished

    Module-1-Bottom-layer-of-cells-finished

    Then, we had to cut access holes to allow the insertion of the water pipe
    and another temperature probe to go down inside the energy module, right to
    the bottom, plus also a larger hole to allow for inspection of the water
    level.

    Then the second layer goes on, and more access holes are made, this time for
    the 2nd water and temperature probe to be inserted.

    Module-1-Top-layer-finished

    Module-1-Top-layer-finished

    Finally, we pulled up the rubber sheeting around all the edges and folded
    the corners in, just like a parcel. We will put on a layer of DPM plastic to
    seal off the top surface of the water tank to stop steam and moisture
    escaping out of these Energy Modules.

    Module-1-All-wrapped-in-Rubber

    Module-1-All-wrapped-in-Rubber

    Tomorrow, we will put down around the 4 sides more insulation panels and
    then fill in the remaining gap with the sandy soil and compact it all down
    nice and solidly.

  • Air Tunnel Finished – Part 2!

    This morning, we tied our pulling ropes to the 6 support struts and mortared
    the cement board down on top of the wooden T supports.

    Cement-board-mortared-in-place

    Cement-board-mortared-in-place

    We are letting it set and cure before we screw the cement board down and
    start filling in the whole area with the sandy soil, hardcore rubble and
    everything else that is rubbish to compact it down solid and rebuild up the
    level back up to the foundation point.

  • Minor Roof Repairs

    This morning, we installed our Sun Shield covering over the long corridor.
    While up there on the roof, we inspected, as we always do each year, the
    quality and state of the roof felt, and discovered that there were two worn
    patches right on the edge of the roof of our temporary living quarters. It
    was the old original roofing felt that has gone brittle and broken through,
    probably caused by birds or squirrel actions.

    We got our flashing tape, nice 100mm wide stuff, and put several rows and
    covered up the patch again. that was that! Hopefully, the rest of the roof
    will survive the next year or so while we get our house built, and if
    required, we will do running repairs to keep it weather proof until we can
    move out!!

  • Finishing off the Air Tunnel – Part 1

    Today, while we waited for the delivery of our 300metres of the 20mm black
    plastic pipe to come, we worked on finishing off the Earth Tube Mixing
    Chamber and the Air Tunnel structures.

    We dug around the whole chamber and tunnel, removing a spade width of soil,
    down to the foundation slab. This is to allow for us to insert a layer of
    DPM plastic sheeting all over the concrete blockwork plus a sticking out piece of
    about 100mm as well. All this is to keep the whole unit dry and keep our air
    supply from getting damp with wet weather.

    Next, we got a large piece of cement board, 10mm thick stuff, and placed it
    on top of the remaining part of the tunnel that goes under the main house
    foundation, and cut it down to size, with a triangular notch cut out to make
    a 300mm square “hole”.

    Cement-board-mortared-in-place

    Cement-board-mortared-in-place

    This cement board needs lots of extra support inside the tunnel as it is
    going to have to take the load of ready-mixed concrete being poured on top.
    We wanted to make sure that the weight of the fluid concrete will NOT
    suddenly snap the lid! We tested the strength of the cement board by putting
    a medium sized piece 150mm apart on two bricks, and put more and more load
    on the middle and find out if broke or not. It survived Stephen’s weight of
    80kg at the end!! We tried separating the spacing to 250mm and worked our
    way up with the extra load but it snapped with my weight of 70kg. This led
    us to conclude that a spacing of 180mm would be just fine and we can have
    enough to fully support the whole board.

    So we made six T shaped wooden module with one horizontal strut and one leg.

    Cement-board-supports-1

    Cement-board-supports-1

    Cement-board-supports-2

    Cement-board-supports-2


    Each piece of wood will have a length of string tied to them, ready for the
    final process of removing this support mechanism.

    Tomorrow, we will seat the cement board on fresh mortar on the edges of the
    tunnel and press down to firmly hold the support struts into place. Once the
    concrete is poured and set, we can pull on the twelve ropes to yank out the
    individual pieces of the support modules!! We hope we can rescue the pieces,
    all 22 of them!!

    The-strings-to-remove-the-supports

    The-strings-to-remove-the-supports

  • Temperature Probes

    This afternoon, we looked at our requirement of installing temperature
    sensors around each Energy Module. But we don’t have the actual temperature
    probes or wires yet, so we need narrow pipes to act as conduits for sliding
    these temperature sensors in later on. So we have ordered some narrow
    20mm diameter polyethylene pipes and we will cut various lengths and bury them in
    the ground around each module plus also some under the modules too. Then later
    on we can slide in the wires with the temperature probes soldered on the
    wire at the calculated points so we can take measurements and record
    progress of how well (or badly) the energy module is performing.

    So this afternoon, we have been experimenting with ways to seal off the cut
    ends to stop water and dirt getting in and also providing a “end stop” for
    the process of sliding in the temperature sensors in. we discovered that
    polyethylene, when heated with a small gas flame, will melt quite easily and
    we just squashed the end in a vice to fused the end into one solid sealed lump. It worked out very nicely after all.

    Sealed-end-of-conduit

    Sealed-end-of-conduit

    We will install the temperature probes on a stiff wire and then put a cotton
    ball or padded disc between each sensor to keep the air from circulating
    which might interfere with their neighboring temperature chips and ruin our
    data logging abilities and learning what is happening down there with the
    heat.

  • Electric Vibrator Reassembled

    This morning, Stephen put back together the electric powered vibrating plate
    compactor, bolting the off-centre motor back onto the base plate. He also
    had to extend the cable back up to the required length to reach the switch
    mechanism.

    Electric-compactor

    Electric-compactor

    We had used the electric motor to provide the “shake” action to our home
    made sieve machine we built last year for removing the “rubbish” out of the
    soil during the massive site clearance operation.

  • Number 1 Energy Modules Installation Started

    It was our first hole to do (out of the total of 5!) and it is the 2nd
    smallest one to dig out! It lives under bedroom 3, half in and half out of
    its en-suite wet room.

    We dug out 3metres by 2.5metres and 1.2metres down (10feet by 8feet by 4
    feet down), to make room for the insulation (200mm thick under and around
    the edges with 100mm on top), wrapping around the energy module, measuring
    2.5metres by 2metres and almost 1metre tall, being made of 2 layers of 10
    crates, to make a 20 Aquacell “hot water” tank.

    We dug out most of the hole using the digger.

    Module-1-Rough-dug-hole

    Module-1-Rough-dug-hole

    Then Shaun cleaned the bottom with a spade until it nearly level. We got the petrol powered plate vibrator (which is very heavy) into the hole using the mini-digger to lower it down (and back up again!) and ran it around make sure the bottom was compacted
    nice and solid.

    We needed to make sure the bottom is as level as we can make it so we put
    down two edge strips and got them positioned using the site laser height
    gadget and set the two edges exactly at 2.7 metres on the sighting pole. Just
    to clarify, the level generator is sitting on a reference point 1 metre above
    ground, and the foundations (and the whole house) is 500 mm down below ground
    level, thus making the ground we are working on 1.5 metres below the
    reference point so 2.7 metres minus 1.5 metres makes 1.2 metres which is the
    depth of our hole!! Nothing to it!! Smile!

    Module-1-Guide-rails

    Module-1-Guide-rails

    We scraped along the two edges with a flat straight CLS 89 mm timber and got
    the bottom of the hole fairly flat and level so when the water tank (oops I
    mean the Energy Module) is set down, the water will not spill out on one
    edge or another as it rises and falls. We Hope!! Grin!

    Module-1-Hole-ready

    Module-1-Hole-ready

    Tomorrow’s job is to cut and get ready the insulation boards and make up the
    required thickness on the bottom and vertical edges, while we wait for the
    delivery of the 20 mm plastic pipe that we are suing as a conduit for the temperature
    sensors we want under the tank.