Roselea

Category: Build Progress

  • The First Floor Roof Rafters All Filled With Insulations, All Covered in OSB!

    We only needed these last couple of days to finish off covering up the plastic vapour barrier membrane with our 11mm OSB boards. We completed the “J”, then the “K” and then the last two sections, “H” and “I”.

    Then, we did the strip along the bottom of the “J”, “K” and “L” with a narrow 135mm wide strips of the same 11mm OSB material, this is to protect the exposed plastic membrane against accidents where something may damage it. This is our main storage area so we need to make sure that the vapour barrier is protected.

    All covered in OSB 1

    All covered in OSB 1

    All covered in OSB 2

    All covered in OSB 2

    All covered in OSB 3

    All covered in OSB 3

    All covered in OSB 4

    All covered in OSB 4



    That means that we have done all the rafters that we can access from the First Floor and now we can start work on the Great Room portion of the roof rafters and get them filled up etc.
    But first, we have to build a working platform right across the whole Great room, extending our Gallery so we can access the rafters without having to resort to using ladders all the time. It is very much safer and much much quicker to work on a solid level platform.

  • Visit from Building Control to Inspect What We Have Done

    We had a letter in the post a couple of days ago, asking whether we had completed our build yet. It had been several years since we had an inspection so we arranged to have visit and bring Building Control up to date.
    The inspector arrived this morning and had a look around the outside and inside our house.
    They took some photos as the walked around, They only thing they wanted a confirmation of the fire suppression treatment that we had applied to our Larch timber that covers all the walls nearest our boundary. We sent the photos and blog report that shows the certificate.
    They were happy to what we have done and we only need to call them out again when we require them to “sign” off our project, for both the house and garage together.

  • C is Half Complete, and Progressing on H, I, J, K, L and M With the Glass Wool and Vapour Barrier Installed

    For the last two weeks, we have been making steady progress in inserting the horrible glass wool insulation into the roof rafters, filling them up to the brim, and then covering it up with our plastic vapour barrier too.
    This includes constructing the gable wall that sits over the Front Door that will form the end wall for the little Study room, or perhaps a spare bedroom.
    We put in a layer of glass wool vertically between the few upright CLS legs, filling it up as we normally do for all our walls, and then we cover all this up with our vapour barrier membrane.
    Then the next job was to nailed on a set of horizontal rails, again using the usual 63mm CLS timber. The bottom rail forms the Air Channel that has a 220mm high strip of 6mm thick MDF material fixed between it and the floorboards. Normally, our Air Channels are only 150mm high, but here, on our First Floor, we are having an extra multiple sandwich layers of dense “sound absorbing” plasterboards, a soft “vibration absorbing” foam and topped with another 18mm thick OSB board, all these layers adds up to 70mm thick. We saw this technique at a house building trade show 20 years ago and we thought that it was a clever idea of isolating noises generated upstairs and make it more pleasant for anyone who is trying to sleep or want peace and quiet downstairs.
    The next couple of horizontal rails is for the regular Utility Channel, with the usual backing layer of fermacell, bringing together a couple of electrical conduits that we have coming through the wall from the outside wall and eves. We then screwed two long diagonal pieces that follows the slopes of the roof and finally, a smaller one half way up to finish providing support and anchorage to hold up the wall boards later on.
    Utility channels and boards on 'C' wall

    Utility channels and boards on ‘C’ wall


    With this done, we proceeded to insert two layers of our newly arrived 150mm thick glass wool insulation, into all our remaining roof rafters that we can access here up on the First Floor. We now have all of “H”, “I”, “J”, “K”, “L” and “M” sections filled up to the brim of the rafters.
    Insulation Finished 1

    Insulation Finished 1

    Insulation Finished 2

    Insulation Finished 2

    Insulation Finished 3

    Insulation Finished 3

    Insulation Finished 4

    Insulation Finished 4



    Then, we covered it all up with more of our black plastic sheeting, only just managing to complete that task before we ran out!
    Plastic finished 1

    Plastic finished 1

    Plastic finished 2

    Plastic finished 2

    Plastic finished 3

    Plastic finished 3

    Plastic finished 4

    Plastic finished 4



    And the last few afternoons this week (we had quite a lot of interruption in the mornings), we started the job of cutting and screwing sheets of our protective 11mm thick OSB material. We started backwards and got half the “M” section done, gone around the corner and completed the “L” and got the first row done over on the opposite side on the “J” section.
    Starting boards on second half

    Starting boards on second half


    One of the little side jobs we had to do, was to install a second air duct for the other half of the toilet come shower suite of rooms. We had originally had just one room to provide the shower cubicle and toilet plus basin for the upstairs rooms, but we realised that we could reposition our entrance doorway into the Storage area and split the shower and toilet apart. This meant that we needed another exhaust air vent for the toilet room.
    We thought that these two rooms will be more used by our guests so when the shower is in use, the toilet is still available, or vice versa.
    So when we resume our next building session, We will finish off putting up the OSB boards and then start working in the Great Room, installing a temporary flooring all over which will allow us have a much easier time to access the roof rafters and get them all filled and covered up. This will also enable us to survey our Skylight windows and calculate exactly what we need to order from our glazing manufacturers, to finish putting up all of the triple glazed windows up in our Skylight and complete the super-insulated shell for the whole building.

  • Roof Sections D and E plus Alcove F and G Are All Complete

    This week, we resumed our work of inserting glass wool insulation into the roof rafters for the next main sections of the upstairs roof rafters, namely the “D” and “E” section.
    Glasswool in D & E

    Glasswool in D & E


    But, before we put up the black vapour barrier plastic sheeting, we went into the Alcove portion in the corner of the roof, where we have a small gable wall extending up from the Side Door and Porch. This is the F section and a tiny sloping piece, the G section, coming back to the levels of the main rafters. We had already inserted the hard PU foam boards into these three areas and they needed to be covered up with a protective OSB sheets next. For the vertical gable part, which also had an air ventilation port, ready for the fume cupboard for our workroom. We cut triangular pieces using 18mm thick OSB boards and managed to slide them into place, but only after we had to slice them into smaller pieces!
    We then did the same for the two sloping sides, but using the thinner 11mm OSB boards instead. these pieces were fairly complex, especially the left hand side (the “G” section) because the pieces needed to come all the way out to the front of the rafters so that it protects the vapour barrier plastic. But we made it! Finally, we cut and shaped several more pieces of the 11mm OSB, to fit and cover the “shelf” that ran along at the floorboard level, at the back of the Alcove.
    We now could proceed by filling the last few rafters and the aforementioned shelf with more glass wool and then covered everything up in lots of the DPM plastic, our two main roof sections, “D” and “E”, all the surfaces in the Alcove, the “F” and “G” sections
    Plastic on D & E

    Plastic on D & E

    Then covered all that lot up with more 11mm OSB boards, including all the ready-made pieces we previously created.
    We now have completed this rather complicated corner of the roof and we can carry on in filling the rest of the rafters with a little bit more ease. We go back and finish off the “C” section, the large gable wall above the Entertainment and Front door wall.
    D & E Covered in OSB

    D & E Covered in OSB

    Side Porch area completed

    Side Porch area completed


  • Completed Section A and B of Roof Rafters

    Today saw the conclusion of filling and covering up the rafters in section A and B of our roof. These last few weeks had loads of glass wool being inserted into the rafters, in front of the hard PU foam, to finish filling it right up to the front. We used our 50mm air-powered staples to secure the wool in place.
    Glasswool insulation in the A & B roofs

    Glasswool insulation in the A & B roofs


    This section of the roof, is right over our staircase so we had to be careful, employing a temporary platform to support us and our ladders etc.
    One of the tasks we did at this point was to take half dozen of our 63mm CLS planks and proceeded to run the circular saw along the entire length of each planks at different angles. Some were sliced at 32degrees and the remainders were cut at 45degrees. Why these angles? We wanted to provide a solid turning point at the bottom of the rafters, for the plastic coming down the roof, to neatly turn downwards in a more or less vertical direction, to the floorboards which is then sealed using butyl-glue strips.
    The angles corresponded to the particular angle of the roof for that section. The A and B section are both have 32degrees and 33degrees respectively so they both had these modified planks nailed upwards into each rafter. We went around all the sections right around the first floor, putting in the appropriate angled plank, to have them ready later on.
    Interdentally, we had a moment with our trusty old nail air gun, it seemed to have blown a seal around the trigger section so we had to switch over to our other air gun and use different strips of 90mm nails we had on hand, luckily!! The main gun is being serviced and we are awaiting spare parts to come from China.
    So after this interruption, we continued to covered up all the glass wool with DPM plastic to provide a vapour proof barrier to stop the human moisture and other sources of water vapour, from penetrating into the wood-work of our roof structure and forming condensation, which in turn allows the fungi and other biological pathogens to grow and eat our timber!!
    First two sections covered on plastic

    First two sections covered on plastic


    The next step was to cover and protect the plastic from being punctured by putting up 11mm thick OSB sheets we had already a stockpile of. We bought them many many months ago before all the massive price increases.
    We started down on the bottom of the rafters, with a whole sheet and screwed it up using the 50mm screws that offers very good performance and secures the board very tight upwards against the rafters. We put in five screws in each rafter, to make sure that it is well fixed because it is going to have to hold the much heavier Fermacell “plaster” boards later on when we get to that stage.
    Then we got another sheet and laid it next to the previous one and that allowed us to finish the row, meeting the valley hip joint between the A and B roof sections. It is a long angled slope.

    We then did the same around on the B section, which needed just one board to complete that bottom row. It was very tight working conditions but making use of a couple of 140mm thick concrete blocks which happened to be exactly the correct size to help support the bottom edge of the sheet while we screwed it up!
    The next two rows were, as you can imagine, a lot easier, especially when we created three little “hooks” to screw to the previous lower board and that also helped to hold up the large sheet while we also screwed it up too.
    The last row is up to the skylight itself and that was a half width piece to finish it off and a 350mm wide strip to finish off the B section.

    First OSB covering finished

    First OSB covering finished


    We now have a much better looking roof, ready for a future stage of work in a few months when we start building the internal framework of all the upstairs rooms. The rest of the A section will be completed when we have populated the roof rafters over in the Great Room because we wanted the OSB boards to flow neatly across into that space in contiguous rows.
    We now resume by proceeding in filling the D and E section next ..

  • Shredded the First Load of Foam Rubbish!

    This week, we used our new shredder machine to tackle the mountain of rubbish we have been collecting over the last couple of weeks !!
    We started this task but we soon discovered that we were filling up our ordinary black bin bags so quickly that we were spending more time in changing over the bags than the actual shredding process. So, we went out to buy those super large wheelie bin liners but none were available in our local shops so we had to order it overnight.

    The only problem was they are made with a very very thin plastic and when we put one bag on the dust extractor, the pressure from the air coming in was strong enough to start stretching the plastic and blow a hole !! We started slapping tape over the holes but more would start elsewhere…
    Oh boy!
    But we had a light bulb moment and put on two bags at once, one inside another. That solved the problem. We even had to put on an extra cable tie on the bottom seam because it would sometimes blow that joint as well!!
    In the photo below, you can see to how fine the shredded material is. This is great because when we pour it all under our Great Room floorboards, we will achieve even better insulation affect and help to keep the large Energy Module from heating up the Great Room.

    Here is a short video of us using the machine. We put on ear muffs, eye shields and most importantly, good quality dust masks as well. (Warning it will be a bit loud…)

    We would blast ourselves clean with compressed air at the end of each session (lunch time and end of day) so we didn’t bring the mess into our living quarters!!

    The original roll of wheelie bags had only 20 on it and so we quickly filled up nine “containers” so we had to resort back to the ordinary bin bags again. We eventually got it all done!


    We then moved all the collected shredded material in their bags and took them downstairs to our Entertainment Room, to keep them out of the way and keep them safe from accidental damage and spilling very fine material all over the place.


    We now can carry on filling up the next section of rafters, doing J, K, L and M in our next week of work starting in May. Next week, we resume our work on the electronic side of things where we can collect data from our batteries, the solar panels and the weather prediction, to provide a more intelligent charging of our batteries during the night.

  • Progressing with Filling the Roof Rafters with Insulation

    We are making steady progress on filling our roof rafters up with the first load of PU foam insulation boards.

    We have now completed the I section, the H section, the G and F porch section as well as finishing off section E. Together with the previous sections D, C and B. We have used about half the quantity of the foam bits and pieces we bought and we still have a fair number of pieces upstairs, waiting to be used up.
    We estimate that we have completed just short of half way. So, it will be a race to whether we will have enough to complete the job when we get to the Great Room. This is not really a problem because we had originally designed for our roof rafters, which are 400mm deep, to have glass wool put in. This would give us an U factor of 0.1W per square metre per °C difference. For much of our roof, we will be even better than that, coming in at around 0.075 W in some spots.
    To give you some idea of what that means, our roof is about 300 square metres in total so if you multiply those two numbers together, you would get about 25W of heat loss through our roof for 1 degree difference. So if we run our house at 25°C, nice and cosy, and the chilly outside is hovering around 5°C, then there would be a difference of 20°C so multiply that number with the other number we got .. 25W times 20°C will give 500W of heat loss for the entire roof area of our house, on that chilly day! One small fan heater on low power would be enough to keep us warm!!

    We have reached a point where we need to tidy up the large rubbish pile that we have created (as well as 2 bags of bits accumulated over the last year)



    So we now need to build a shredding machine to reduce the rubbish to small lumps, ready to be poured under our floorboards in our Great Room.
    So read our next blog for a report on building another quick’n’easy piece of DIY equipment!!

  • Shredding Machine Mark 2

    Yesterday and today, we built a second generation shredding machine. Our first one had a motor failure because we overdid it. The motor wasn’t rated for continuous use and it got too hot and burnt out some of its motor windings. Oops!!So, this time we decided to make use of our heavy duty stair-lift motor with a speed controller to drive a homemade axle loaded up with blunt old circular saw blades. We bought some 20mm threaded rod, got a piece of aluminium tube that just about slides over the rod and the saw blades then fitted on the aluminium tube very tightly. We made 18mm spacers from pieces of OSB board, stacked them together with 2 large nuts, to form a six bladed cylindrical object that spans about 200mm in both directions. We also bent over some of the teeth (by heating them up with a blow torch and bending it while it was very hot) so that it would chop into the foam rubbish pieces and break it up even more.

    We bought two pillow bearing blocks (yes that is what they are called!) that holds the axle nice and tight and we put a cog wheel on the back on the end of the axle which then has a chain wrapped around it and going off to the larger cog wheel on the motor, as you can see in the photo above.
    Also, you can see to how naked .. and dangerous it is currently looking!!

    So we then proceeded to build barriers and shielding to protect us from the spinning teeth and whirling chain ..

    And we also realised that we could connect up our vacuum dust extractor that we already use for when we are slicing up the foam boards and put the resultant rubbish into large bin bags. It would reduce the cloud of dust and pieces flying in all directions.

    We put the whole thing on sturdy legs and put a large lid on top to deliberately force us further away from the “chute” which is also a foot deep clear of the sharp claws too. We will always be careful with these sort of machines and made it much more difficult to be able to reach in accidentally or on purpose.


    So next week, we can start tidying up the large rubbish pile, plus also two large ton bags of stuff too.


    And when we got that done, we can move our slicing table out from that section of the First Floor so we can continue filling in our roof rafters along the J, K and L and the M section.

  • Loading Up the Rafters With Insulation

    We finally restarted our building work on our house again, after several months of rescuing our Financial Crisis caused by the soaring runaway energy prices. We had the delivery of our second-hand PU foam boards way back last year and we have now started making use of it.

    We decided to tackle the section of the roof rafters upstairs over the front door region of the house. This is section B, C and D. Section C is actually a gable internal end to the roof as the rest of the hip roof is the overhanging porch on the front of our house.

    This meant that we had to build an additional internal wooden framework to form the backbone of the wall for that room, and then we proceeded to fill it up with 300mm thick of PU foam boards pieces. Then, the sloping rafters next to this gable end were also filled up with more PU foam bits and pieces.


    It was during this task that we were wondering to how much material we got outside and whether we were using it up too quickly to make it last long enough to accommodate the rest of the whole roof including making sure we had enough to do the Great Room which so far, haven’t had any insulation inserted yet. On conclusion, we decided to be careful and from now on, only put in one layer of PU foam boards in all the remaining rafters until we have done the Great Room and we can know to how much left-over we got. We then can go back and fill in another thinner layer in certain places to fill them up a bit more and use up the last of the foam boards pieces.

    Another aspect that we are having to be careful, is making use of any larger single piece of boards because we need to make sure we can make single “triangular” fillers for the rafters that contains either a valley or a hip. It would be quite tricky to try to insert small pieces, pushing them upwards against gravity and holding them there while the glue sets. Very awkward so hence why we are putting to one side any larger single pieces.

    This stage of our building work will be a long job, not at least because we are also doing our computer work alongside at the same time so we will only write a blog report every so often as we finish major sections of the rafters, like for example, We have done as far as possible for the moment, the B, C and D sections and we have even done some of the E section as well. We will just carry on and drop a quick update now and again.

  • Analysing, Designing and Implementing a Core Set of Procedures and Services

    This last month has been us concentrating on analysing what we are going to have in the way of a network, joining up all our microcontrollers and how they will talk to each other including providing a data stream of information to be recorded in our databases.
    This is an ongoing project and it will stretch into Phase 6, which is where we implements and commissioning of the various Utilities throughout the House and Garage. We are getting to a point where we do need to start designing the hardware level for the network subsystems, connecting each microcontroller distributed right around a room, or outside somewhere. There will be a master controller that will monitor this local network and then make a record of the activities plus passing on commands into the from the wider scope.

    We spent this month having a good tidy up of our various computer systems including rebuilding our old file system and creating a much more modular system running an Unix based platform. We got a build from the TrueNAS organisation which actually uses the FreeBSD implementation of Unix. We now have complete separated servers running on the machine, one for the Web side of things, another for the Database engine, a third for the File Storage itself. We will have other servers setup and running like a Plex Server to allow for media streaming too. The File Server makes backups of all our critical data and documents, copying a set completely off-site as well.

    Another area is making a connection to the national Met Office gateway and downloading their hourly prediction dataset for the next 48 hours from the time you request this service. It provides a forecast of temperature, wind speed, rain amount and their generic weather codes indicating those cloudy symbols or bright sunshine etc. This is very useful because we can then make an intelligent decision to whether we need to charge up the battery overnight .. or not as the case maybe. We can programme the Solis Inverter (this handles the Solar Panels and the nighttime charging) and tell it how much energy we wish to put into the batteries. We have written a series of PHP scripts to make the connection to their data gateway and translate their data into our database design. We can now run a query and acting on the information about our Solar Panels (like their elevation and compass direction), we can predict to how much Solar energy we could generate and act accordingly.

    We have also downloaded all the Solis data that has been recorded since we have installed the Solar Panels and also we have transformed this data and loaded this into our database as well. We can now see what our Solar Panels has been generating. We can compare against an average ten year sample of the weather condition at our Roselea location (using the European Space Agency’s satellite weather analyser that scans the entire Planet) – you can see the monthly breakdown below and get some idea of where we are. Amazingly, we are doing quite well against the predicted forecasted we had used and calculated for our 7 year pay-back plan.

    MonthActualPredicted
    September 2022289kWh324kWh
    October 2022460kWh355kWh
    November 2022204kWh251kWh
    December 2022167kWh209kWh
    January 2023207kWh229kWh
    February 202385kWh330kWh
    Totals1712kWh1698kWh
    Solar values from our system

    As you can see, we are actually slightly ahead of schedule .. so far .. it is all down to the weather !!

    As I said before, this is an on-going project and we decided that we will cycle between these two phases, 5 and 6, on a weekly basis. We do need to get on with the house and regain some grounds that we had lost because of all the work we have done on installing the Solar Panels, Batteries and Storage Heater etc.