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The lighting wiring has been started today for the ten fluorescent T5 tubes, controlled by five electronic dimmable ballast. There will be a momentary switch control to operate the dimming feature, done by supplying a mains voltage to the control port. A quick press of the switch will turn it on and off and holding it down will start ramping up or down the brightness level. The brightness level is remembered upon switching back on next time as long there hasn’t been a power cut! Another advantage of this method of controlling the lights, is that we can have several momentary switches besides the door entrances and any one will do the job! this might include a PIR sensor in the room which will trigger the light on!

Cannot wait to see how well the lights will shine from the Light Channel!

Today we paid attention to the problem we are having with some of the metal shelving uprights. We rubbed them all down to get down to bare metal in some cases but mostly to roughens the surface ready for another coat of paint but this time White Hammerite! This is now done and hopefully we have solved the rust leaking problems. When we do the third coat of emulsion on the ceiling, we will touch up the metal uprights to bring them back into line with the rest of the room!

We have put on the third coat of paint on just the walls! It is looking good now but we have realised a problem with the metal upright brackets, the paint isn’t sticking too well especially naked metal where they have been rub raw! So we will have to sort them out tomorrow. The ceiling will be done at the weekend when our pot of Absolute White Dulux paint we had ordered comes.

Paint 3rd Coat Walls

Paint 3rd Coat Walls

Paint 3rd Coat Walls

The light level tests are now 140lux for the lower section (compared with 110 with the one coat) and the upper section now returns 160lux (compared with 140).

The original grey walls returned 80lux and pointing the light meter at the light source gave a measurement of 200lux. That is roughly 80% reflection of the light from our white walls, which is not bad at all!

Second coat of paint is on! We used the Dulux Brilliant White Silk at first but discovered that the pot was lumpy and would not stir smooth. It had small hard lumps in the mixture. That pot went back and got our money back! We continued with the new pot covering all walls, both upper and lower sections. It is interesting to report that even after the second coat of Dulux on top of the B&Q Premium, it is still noticeable that the white is not as white as the double coat of Dulux on the upper sections of the walls. It is likely that we will do a third coat especially on the lower sections! Reading the Dulux web site does indicate that on brand new walls it is recommended to apply three coats with the first one slightly diluted. The B&Q Premium could be treated as this diluted first coat then!

We forgot to do a light level test this evening and we want to continue with the third coats tomorrow so we will take some recordings after the third coat instead!

Paint 2nd Coat

Paint 2nd Coat

Paint 2nd Coat

The first coat of the white emulsion is on! We have bought two different brands of emulsion to find out which works better in the long run. Half the ceiling is done in Dulux Trade White Matt and the other half is done with B&Q Premium Brilliant White Matt. The same was done with the walls, the upper sections with Dulux and B&Q for the lower sections.

The first thing to report is that the viscosity of the B&Q is much greater and more substance gets loaded on to the brush or roller BUT it looks more transparent compared with the Dulux. We will wait until the morning to allow the paint to dry fully before the final comparison tests!

The cost benefit of the B&Q paint might not outweigh the quality we want but we will continue with the second layer of both paints and compare things again afterwards!

Paint 1st Coat

Paint 1st Coat

Paint 1st Coat

Paint 1st Coat

Paint 1st Coat

The light level of the patch of the wall (the same as the last light level tests) is about 110lux for the B&Q lower section and about 140lux for the Dulux upper section but this is probably not a fair test at all! The upper section is closer to the ceiling and the ceiling is reflecting more light towards the upper sections of the walls!! We tried to do a rough experiment using a hand held torch at a fixed distance from each wall surface but the readings were too small (only 7 to 8 lux!) and fluctuating too much. Oh well!

The final filling and rubbing all the surfaces including the ceiling is done! Yesterday we routed the bull nose shape on the light channel’s flange to make it blur and soften the edge.

Then the Grand Clean Up!

We swept and vacuumed everything, all over the place! So much so the filter on the vacuum wore out and started throwing dust back out into the room! We switched over to our emergency backup machine!

Then just before lunch we squirted a line of PU sealant, very tough and fully waterproof, all the way along the edges of the Fermacell boards where it almost meets the concrete floor. We had left a couple of millimetres for this and hopefully this will provide a 99% barrier to major spills in the life time of the garage and not soak into the fabric of the building!

After lunch it was the final stage of the Clean Up operation, the hot water and sponge treatment! The long handle mop for the ceiling and good old fashioned sponge for the walls. Nice grey brown water with a pile of wet goo at the bottom of the bucket!

Ready for painting

Ready for painting

Ready for painting

Ready for painting

Tomorrow It is the White Wash Day! We have taken a light level reading and with just the flood lights on we had a reading of approx. 80lux off the walls!

We have finished all the metal shelving uprights slots and boards joints.

Uprights filled

Uprights filled

We have filled in all internal corners (corners of rooms and light flange) to a smooth curve. Started filling the million or so staple holes!

We have started the massive job of filling in all the staple holes, joints between the boards and the slots where the metal shelving uprights live in. Also the ceiling panels had been worked over to smooth all the joints ready for their filling treatment. It is a long job but getting it all filled in and smooth will make the final affect very pleasing. We hope so!!