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  • Sealing of Test Tank and Running a Hot Test

    One of the things we needed to do and finally got around to doing it this week, is to seal the tiny little leaks we had in our test tank we made a couple of weeks ago. We had a little bit of the brown resin left over from last time so we dropped some hardener into it, and together with some glass fibre tissue, we coated the area, the inside surface, where we had the leak. It took hours for the resin to cure and dry, but it got there eventually. We underestimated the amount of hardener!Next, we put the tub up on wooden battens and then filled the entire thing with water and left it all day, in fact, for several days. There is no sign of any leaks!! Hurray!
    Test tank full of water

    Test tank full of water


    There is nearly ninety litres of water sitting there, minding it own business !

    One of the reasons for building this test tank, was to see what happens when we put in very hot water in. Normally, this style of construction, using ‘standard’ polyester resin with glass fibre, is not dissimilar to other types of plastics and some of those cannot cope with very hot water and start deforming. What we wanted to know is whether our much larger Hot Water Tank will survive having very hot water in it, for years and years. So, towards this aim, we bought specially formulated polyester resin which have been certified to stay good and solid all the way up to 120°C and built this test tank. So the next step is this test run, is to put in several electrical heaters in this tub of water and bring it up to the boil. If it survives actual boiling water, then it will survive the hot water, up to 90°C, for years.
    We used two of our 50V power supplies and plugged them into the mains electricity. We wired up three separate heating elements, two 1.5kW capacity and the third one being 750W rated, so we joined one of the 1.5kW and the 750W to one power supply and the second 1.5kW element to the second power supply. We had to carefully dangle the bigger elements so the contacts didn’t get submerged into the water because there was enough voltage to start splitting the water molecule into their separate components; hydrogen and oxygen!! We didn’t want to have that happening, dangerous stuff having hydrogen and oxygen mixing together in their naked forms and with high quantities, and a spark, would cause a rather large explosion!! So, we stopped immediately and solved this issue by carefully lowering one of the element so it just had the heating rods buried in the water and the second element, we found a plastic old pot and put on a tank connector which allowed us to screw the heating element down through the bottom of the pot and it floated on top like a little boat. The smaller 750W element was already waterproof so that could submerge straight away.

    Heating Elements (1)

    Heating Elements (1)

    Heating Elements (2)

    Heating Elements (2)

    Heating the Test Tank

    Heating the Test Tank



    We started at about 12:50pm and we were collecting 4.2kW of energy directly from the Sun! In fact, we were collecting a new record of 6.96kW of energy from our solar panels and we realised that the inverter substation was able to convert more of the sunshine as the battery still needed charging and the left-over, some 1.2kW, was sent to the battery as well as powering our testing setup.
    Marvellous !!

    Without stirring the water in our Test Tank, it was already reaching 90°C by the end of lunch at around 2:15pm so we decided that was enough of a test. We switched everything off, pulled out the elements and then see if the tank was still solid ..
    In among the twirling steam ..
    And It Was .. nice and solid !!

    Hot Water

    Hot Water


    The temperature of the water was in layers as all the heating elements were nearer the top, which is why it only took an hour and a half to get 90°C water, because it was only at the top half that got really hot. We stirred the entire tank and it settled down to 60°C on average. This was good because it is much less dangerous now!!

    We then spent the rest of the afternoon, experimenting in using our new 40 layer heat exchanger.

    Heat Exchanger (1)

    Heat Exchanger (1)

    Heat Exchanger (2)

    Heat Exchanger (2)


    These units will be used to heat cold fresh water from the header tank up to a comfortable temperature to wash hands and shower yourself. They work by have a stack thin metal plates which are connected on alternating layers to either the hot or cold water supply. Then when the water flows heat moves from the hot to the cold water. We bought this unit as a example and will buy more direct from china.
    We connected up a hose to our garden tap for fresh mains water in one end, a small pump and pipework to stuck the hot water from the test tank in the other end of the heat exchanger. The outputs from both of these ‘sources’ were just sent out of the Garage door and splashed out on to our driveway.
    We put on four temperature probes to monitor the four connections to the heat exchanger and had two flow rate meters so we could control and match the flow rate for both the cold water and the hot water side of the system. We played around with different flow rates, to see how quickly we could cool down the exchanger when we stopped the hot water flowing, plus to what happens if we went at maximum speed etc.
    Very interesting! We ran out of hot water but we learnt quite a bit!

    That concludes our Testing phase, for constructing a Hot Water vessel and we are now confident and ready to make a start on building our third water tank next week, the Hot Water Tank. This is our final water tank for the time being.

  • Assembly of the Cold Water System and Installation of Header Tank

    When we had a spare moment or two, between doing other tasks, we explored the Cold Water System and looking at building it. We did an order for plumbing bits and pieces a couple of weeks ago, getting a collection of parts to allow us to convert our main 32mm water pipe coming down from the Header Tank and joining it to our mains powered pump, and then back out to our domestic water supply that is going around the house to bathrooms and shower rooms etc.
    All the equipment is going inside our sound dampening Utility cupboard and it will be installed near the Air Ducting that is coming up out of the floor. We want to try and arrange the bits and pieces to minimised space because we have two more water pumps to be installed in our Utility Cupboard!!
    So we spent an hour or so fiddling with T-junctions, adapters, shut-off valves etc.
    Here is the exact mapping of the Cold Water System:
    • Header Tank feed (Blue 32mm pipe coming along under the floorboards)
    • A adapter with a 32mm compression joint, converts down to 1inch BS Male Thread, with built-in shut-off valve
    • Flexi-pipe, female to male 1inch threads
    • Water pump, both input and output are female 1inch thread (provides up to 3bars of pressure)
    • Flexi-pipe with male to female 1inch thread (allows the motor to be removed)
    • Shut-off valve with 1inch male and 1inch female threads (these valves allows isolation and removing of pump for servicing)
    • A nipple, all male 1inch threads
    • Non-return valve with double ended female 1inch threads (maintains the pressure in the system)
    • A Nipple, all male 1inch threads
    • T-junction, all female 1inch threads, connected to the sideway middle branch
    • Upwards is the Pressure Vessel with its 1inch male Thread
    • Downwards is digital flow sensor with double ended 1inch male threads
    • T-junction, all female 1inch threads, connected to upper branch
    • Sideways is the Digital Pressure Sensor to provide feedback to the controllers, with adapter
    • Downwards another T-junction, all male 1inch threads, connected in upper branch
    • Sideways to a shut-off valve with an 1inch female threads, which the other end being an 1inch male thread and has an adapter to convert to 22mm compression joints for domestic plumbing pipes
    • Downwards connects to right angle adapter with female 1inch thread to a 32mm compression joint (to go horizontally at the bottom of the cupboard)
    • Short length of blue 32mm pipe
    • T-junction with straight two 32mm compression joints horizontally and side branch a female ¾inch thread
    • Sideways to adapter(s) to connect a drainage stop-cock.
    • Onwards to blue 32mm pipe and starts its journey around the house!

    And here is a picture of our first play in arranging all those parts !!

    Trying out cold water pressurisation parts

    Trying out cold water pressurisation parts

    After getting the Header Tank sealed against those leaks, plus also completed the first stage of building the ventilation ducting inside the Utility Cupboard, we implemented our plumbing matrix as stated above and physically installed the various parts next to the new ventilation duct. We screwed on the expansion vessel first and then used LSX thread sealing liquid on each joint on each part as we went through the design, including the electric pump which was bolted down to the solid concrete floor. The input from the header tank was joined in this network, the 32mm wide blue plastic pipe coming through the cupboard wall beneath the floor level, and then the output pipe which is also blue and 32mm diameter, came out the cupboard in a similar position but went off to the space underneath the sink, to join up with the existing water pipe that is travelling around our house, going from room to room.

    Cold water pressurisation system 1

    Cold water pressurisation system 1

    Cold water pressurisation system 2

    Cold water pressurisation system 2


    The next job was to install our new Cold Water Header Tank upstairs, placing it on the prepared platform and then proceeded to build a wooden framework around the entire tank, putting four legs in each corner, attached at the both the bottom and top, glued and screwed into place. Then, putting four horizontal 63mm CLS wooden bars across the wider faces, evenly distributed and doing the same on the other wider face as well. Finally, we slid in two connecting pieces of timber, to join the front and back frameworks together, to help stiffen up the entire cage surrounding the tank.

    Header tank in place and Framed

    Header tank in place and Framed

    We then connected the blue pipe to the tank connector we had already installed at the base of the tank, including a shut-off valve too. This pipe is the gravity feed that goes down to the space under the hallways, turning the corner and heads to the Utility Room and our assembled motor and associated equipment. This also included a T-junction half way along this pipe, under the flooring, just located at the crossroads in our Hallways, this branch will go off to our ground floor WC and also distributed to all our fire suppression system. We wanted to make sure that these services still work, even when we had lost power or control over our motorised valves and pumps. It is purely based on the good old reliable gravity feed from the header tank. It might be slow but it will still provide a toilet that will flush and the spray nozzles will still inject fine droplets of water during a fire breakout.

    Another job is to connect the “Green and Black” rainwater pipe to the Header Tank, via the filtration and sterilising units, which we mounted on a piece of 18mm thick OSB board that in turned is mounted to the framework around the tank. The 32mm Green pipe is converted to a 22mm plumbing pipe, which in turn goes into a flow-control valve, a drainage valve, enters a particle filter that removes solid bits down to 1micron across and then through a second filter, this time, an activated charcoal filter to remove chemical substances like the chemicals that the farmers used on their fields in our local district, which is blown up and carried by the winds to our slates on our roof, which is then washed off into our rain storage tank underneath the Garage. The third and final unit that this water passes through, is the sterilising that will kill viruses, bacteria and fundi, by bathing the water, and these floating invaders, with strong Ultra-Violet radiation. A similar system is also used for fish tanks and fish ponds.

    Header Tank plumbing

    Header Tank plumbing

    We then connected up the pipework inside our Garage from the underground rainwater tank, to the 32mm black pipe that goes through the concrete floor slab and underground to the main house. It appears up through the concrete slab inside the Utility Room, under the sink and washing machine sections. We already had a pump sitting submerged at the bottom of the rainwater tank so we plugged it into a nearby mains socket and proceeded to run the pump and see how fast the water was flowing after travelling all the way from the Garage and right up to our header tank. We put on our test meter on the flow measuring sensor and it settled down to about 7Hz, which according to the standard formula for these types of flow meters, represents a flow rate of less than 1litre per minute. O Crikey, that is slow!! It would take ages to refill the Header Tank, after we had a shower, or ran a bath!! AND .. This is Before we had inserted the two filter modules themselves! So, after examining the specifications of our existing pump, we are buying a replacement submerged pump, the next model up, going from 250Watts to 500Watts in electrical power. This is probably a overkill but we had no choice. But, we will see later on when we have changed over the pump, inserted the two filters and then measure the flow rate again.

    So while waiting for the pump to arrive, plus also other bits and pieces of plumbing parts, we got on with another task. This time, we went around putting shut-off valves on each T-junction on the blue 32mm Cold water pipe that is going from room to room. We lifted up each hatch that allow access to the plumbing valves and other pieces of equipment, and connected a 22mm inline shut-off quarter turn valve. We carried on doing that from location to location, moving around the house. We did Bedroom Three, Bathroom, Bedroom Two (after having to move the entire stack of sheet material first – Phew!), Bedroom One, then the Great Room (where we had to install two T-junctions on either side of the air duct) and finally, terminating in the Kitchen (where we had to slice into our floorboard to make two little hatches that hadn’t been done yet).

    Cold water outlets in Great Room

    Cold water outlets in Great Room

    Another plumbing job was to take a tap off the mains water 15mm pipe that is running down the hallway (which is going off to the Kitchen) and this branch line goes up inside the wall and pokes up beside our new Header Tank and connected into a series of items, as follows, a shut-off valve, a non-return valve, motorised valve and a flow rate sensor, before a final 22mm diameter copper pipe is bent and enters the Header Tank. This connection will provide a backup method of putting water into our Header Tank, against those times that we have ran out of rainwater. The computer will monitor the level inside our rainwater tank, and automatically switch over to using the mains water supply. Hopefully, this would only happen during very long droughts in the Summer months.

    Also on this Header Tank, is an overflow emergency drain point, right at the top, to make sure that if something goes wrong with the automatic mechanisms, the water will have somewhere to escape and not flood the the upstairs flooring, and drip downstairs into the Bathroom and Bedroom Two. This 40mm diameter “push-fit” white plastic pipework goes down from the tank connection at the back right hand corner, through the floorboard and then turns at an angle to pass through the webbing of the First Floor Joist, to arrive at the drain line that is coming from the Shower Room. We had to use a “flexible fan-folded” pipe to achieve the awkward angle but we managed to join into the pipe, which then goes into a Hepworth Valve (these are non-return rubber valve designed for waste water from bathroom basins and showers, these valves are to stop the horrible smells coming up the septic processing pipes) and this line of 40mm pipe then turns the corner and goes through another webbing of the joist and connects to another branch line that is coming from the sink that will be in the upstairs work room.

    Header tank overflow

    Header tank overflow

    Header tank Overflow and Shower connections

    Header tank Overflow and Shower connections


    The new rainwater pump came today and we swopped over the two pumps. We discovered that the older pump wasn’t sitting as deep inside the rainwater tank, due to the automatic cut-off float switch that is attached on the side of the pump and it made the pump a bit wider and it was jamming at the bottom of the manhole column. So, when we lowered the new pump, it went further down and we discovered that the semi-flexible pipe, the vertical pipe that takes the output of the pump up to the top, was not long enough to reach the right angle connector. We had to extend this vertical part by another 200mm! Fortunately, we could use a spare piece of our 32mm blue pipe and replace the right angle connector with a full sized 32mm version instead, which made it more reliable and neater. We got it all sealed and tightened down and connected up the electricity again, and reran the tests we did earlier. So, the results of upgrading the pump, we achieved a thirteen fold increase in flow rate. The flow sensor went from 6.5Hz to 85Hz! This is so much better and we were pleased. Now, putting in the two filters this time, and the water flow rates came down a little bit, to a meter reading of 65Hz, which translates to around 8litres per minute. Interestingly the fine filter started getting brown almost immediately showing that the ‘clear’ water was anything but. We can live with that and one of the reasons for having such a large Header Tank, was that we could serve people having several showers, lasting 15 to 20 minutes each, which an estimated uses of about 100litres per person, assuming two or three short blast of water, at a rate of 15litres per minute and lasting a couple of minutes or so. With the tank holding 500litres of water, it doesn’t matter that we can only refill at 6litres per minutes and besides, it probably be able to catch up between those short blasts!!

    The final job to do, is to do a leak test on all our fittings. We did this by putting in a reasonable amount of water into the Header Tank and connect up the controller to the new Cold Water pump and pressurise the whole system. But, before we switched on the pump, we discovered that the head pressure was efficient enough to open the non-return valve so we could fill the whole circuit up with water, all the way to the end point in the Kitchen. We attached a short length of 22mm pipe to our manual shut-off valve in the Kitchen and direct the other end in a large trug. Once we had water coming through, we turn the shut-off valve to isolate the flow again, and went around looking and feeling for any leaks. At this point, we estimate that these fittings are being stressed at a gentle half an atmosphere of pressure, just from the height of the water in our Header Tank alone. We discovered one leak in our Utility Cupboard end, the flexible pipe coming from the pump to the shut-off valve so we redid the joint again and make sure it was nice and tight this time. this delay then allow us to discover that all our shut-off valve that hang off all T-junctions were weeping a tiny amount of water, including the last one in the Kitchen. There are eight of these side branches in total and only one of them, the one under the sink in the Utility Room had no signs of moisture. This meant that we had to drain the entire pipework of its water, by connecting a length of garden hose (running it out the door to our garden) to our specially installed drain tap. We ought to had used a pump to suck out the water, but we had the good idea of using our compressed air to push the water out quick, by putting the air nozzle into the Kitchen pipe. The only problem was that it was too FAST and the garden hose flew off the little barbed connector and we had a blast of water and air sizzling out! We hastily turned off the drain tap and began mopping up about two litres of water in the bottom of our Utility Cupboard. Fortunately, we had designed the cupboard to be water tight as possible, using bitumen sealant under the CLS footplate of the cupboard walls and also used preservative treated timber as well. After we tidied up, and finish emptying the rest of the water, we went around the seven locations; Bedroom Three, Hallway outside Bathroom, Bedroom Two, Bedroom One, two of them in the Great Room and the last one in the Kitchen. We had originally put on PTFE tape plus LSX but it wasn’t quite enough so we undid the joint and wound on a couple more turns of the PFE tape and extra LSX sealant and screwed it back on. We left them to cure and dry overnight before resuming testing again on the following morning.

    The following morning revealed that we had fixed those leaks, and under maximum pressure, when the pump is running, we solved those leaks for sure. BUT .. we had another very slight leak at the side branch inside the Utility Cupboard. It is a similar connection combination so we had to drain the pipework again, which turns out not to be very satisfactory. The drain valve is a clumsy design and when we undo the valve, it leaks all over the place. we shrugged our shoulders as it is not going to be often, to be draining the system and doing maintenance work. We fixed the leak in our tap-off branch (to supply water to various destinations inside our Utility Cupboard) and got it back up and pressurised again. We did have to run our rainwater pump, to put more water into our Header Tank so we could carry on with our testing work.

    We also brought out our electronic measuring devices and hooked it up to both the pressure meter and the flow rate meter sensors, they produce an electrical signal and we used two multi-meters to take a reading in tandem. The Pressure sensor produces a voltage between 0.5V and 4.5V, representing 0pascals and 500,000pascals respectively. That is approximately Zero atmosphere of pressure (just open to the air) and Five times the atmosphere of pressure. Our pump can manage three atmosphere of pressure, i.e. 3bars so our sensor can cope just fine.
    The flow rate is similar to the one we have used for the Header Tank upstairs, but it is a bigger affair so the formula is slightly difference. We measure the pulses it generates and then we divide that numerical value by the “adjustor value” which is 1.08 this time, and this calculation gives us litres per minute. So, what are the readings I hear you ask? Well, without turning on the pump, the pressure sensor gives a value of 1V which works out to be just over half a bar of pressure, which is what we would expect considering that the header tank and its water level (the tank is only half full) is about 5metres above ground level and that means half an atmosphere of pressure. The flow rate values that were recorded on the multi-meter was 14Hz so after putting that through the formula, we get a value of 13litres per minutes. That is not bad at all, just for a Header Tank by itself!
    So, after switching on the pump, we got a different set of readings, naturally enough. They were 2.8V for the pressure, which translates to 2.8bars of pressure (a bit of a coincidence) and a flow pulse rate of 35Hz, which translates to 32.5litres per minutes. The pressure is looking good but the flow rate is a bit slow. That is odd (Is the pump running backwards?).

    Now, we can turn off the Kitchen shut-off valve and build up the pressure in our expansion vessel, which takes a few seconds and then we turned off the motor. At this point, we go around and check all our connections everywhere again, now that we have pressurised the Cold Water system. The Great Room is ok, Kitchen is OK, Bedroom One & Two & Three are ok, the Bathroom is ok and the Utility Room is ok too. BUT .. we got another leak! This time, our pesky “bless-its-heart” drain cock is weeping drops of water! O Boy!

    This is the last straw for that poor drain point!! It had to go! So, We found another shut-off valve with a three quarter inch male thread so it could screw directly into the T-junction and on the other half, put an adapter to allow for a quick fitting hose connector so we could just plug in the garden hose and drain it outside somewhere. Perhaps later on, we may provide a drain standing pipe inside the Utility Cupboard, with a U bend trap (to stop the smells) so if we need to drain any water in any of our other pipework, we only have a short distance to stick the hose down and release the water.

    So, off we go again .. we filled up the pipework up (we had a very large trug in the kitchen to allow us to clear the whole pipework of any air etc. .. we had to be very careful to haul this trug of water outside! Twice!) and pressurised the system again. We took a reading off the pressure sensor (measuring 2.775Volts) and leave it for a while to see if the pressure holds .. or not!

    Barring any further leaks .. from our pressure test .. this concludes this particular job! We now have a Cold Water system to serve the House, the Garage and the Garden (eventually) – Phew!!

  • Sealing the Large Cold Water Header Tank, Tested It and Adding Final Plumbing Bits

    For this task, we ordered another batch of polyester resin from our suppliers, this time, specially formulated to be much thicker and jelly like so that we could paint it on without the need for any glass fibre matting or tissue. In the meantime, for the last couple of nights, we have been heating up the Garage during our Economy 7 cheap electricity period so that we had a working temperature around 20°C as recommended when painting on these Gel and Top coats type of resin.
    So on the Monday, we positioned the tank on its side and first of all, when all over the inside surfaces with a sandpaper to scratch the surface, to help stick the resin in better, and vacuumed it out too. We realised straight away that we couldn’t possibly coat a layer of Gel coat all over the surface in one go, for several reasons, not at least, it would take too long before the 15minutes working time we had would ran out, but also, we didn’t want to kneel on the tacky surface when we came to apply the Top coat afterwards. So divided the job up into four sections, starting at the bottom. So for the first section, the bottom area which has five surfaces to do, we went around wiping all the surfaces with acetone, to chemically loosen and unlock the old resin, to maximise the chance of this new coat to stick on good and hard. Therefore, the first Gel coat, mixing 1kg of resin and 20ml of hardener, and also adding some magenta dye colouring too. The darker colour makes it so much easier to see where one has painted and also you can see patches where light is shining through because it is too thin.
    It is very smelly indeed and we were very glad to be wearing our new activated charcoal breathing masks. We also rigged up one of our 150mm fans to funnel fresh air down into the tank as well.
    It was quite tricky to paint all the surfaces, especially the surface above one’s head. It took a bit longer to apply all the 1kg mixture and we had to abandon the last 250grams because it started to go hard. That is the trouble of working in a warmer environment and mixing that amount of hardener (which we had no choice over). So, it dawned on us that it would make better sense to paint the surfaces that are downwards and half way up the two sides first, and then rotate the whole tank over 180degrees and finish painting the other surfaces downwards as well. We also realised that it was a lovely sunny day so we took the tank outside and had it positioned in the sunshine, which helped to double check for those thinner patches too.
    We then applied the Top coat on top of the Gel coat, to seal everything in and provide a very smooth finishing surface.
    Recoating the Cold Tank

    Recoating the Cold Tank


    We carried on doing each section at a time, rotating the tank over for each half and by lunch on the following day, got it all done.
    Cold Tank recoated

    Cold Tank recoated

    We left it to harden for a good 36 hours before we proceeded to test it again. We put in 6inches of water to see if there were any leaks. Like last time, there were none. Then we carried on filling the tank right to the top.
    Header tank full of water

    Header tank full of water

    and bulging a bit

    and bulging a bit



    One thing we discovered was that the two larger sides were bulging quite a bit, due to the heavy volume of water. It is getting up to 500kg of weight! But, it seems to be just fine.
    Oh yes, just to let you know ..
    No Leaks !

    We then needed to empty this tank with its 500litres of water so we inserted a short length of the blue 32mm wide plastic pipe and opened the shut-off valve. The water came gushing out and shot a small stream across our driveway. We thought that it would be a nice chance to try out our new electric pump so we got that connected up, with its electronic controller and created an even larger stream shooting across our driveway!!
    It also meant that we were able to empty our tank in about 5minutes, which means that the pump was pushing the water out at about 100litres per minute!! That is very very fast !! Of course, we are not expecting that kind of flow rate when we have a shower, for example, a modest 15 litres per minute would be perfectly adequate for most people, which means that we could have four or five people having showers all at once, without over staining the pump and just about empty our Large Cold Water Header Tank! Hence why we have such a large tank in the first place!

    The final task to do on the tank is to install the two plumbing filling connectors at the top of the tank, and an overflow pipe around on the side. We put in a 15mm diameter connector for the mains water supply, the second one with a larger 22mm diameter connector, for the filtered and sterilised rainwater and finally, a 40mm diameter overflow connector which will take any excess water away, without flooding the floor and the bedroom downstairs.

    And finally, the last thing to do, was to trim our lid we made a week ago. We trimmed it to the size of the flange and then put in ten small stainless steel bolts and wing-nuts so we can clamp the lid down onto a line of rubber ‘P’ strip that was stuck down all the way around.
    That concludes the manufacturing of our Cold Water Header Tank, which now can be moved upstairs and installed into it place.

  • Started Air Ducting Inside Utility Cupboard

    We have identified that we need to construct the first part of the air ducting inside our Utility Cupboard that connects the “fresh” air coming through ducting buried underground. We had designed our ventilation system to make use of buried Earth Tubes to take advantage of the constant stored energy of the sand and dirt eight feet underground. See <a href=https://roselea.co.uk/category/earth-tubes>Earth Tubes</a> for list of reports of installation etc.
    We needed to make a start on this first part of the ducting because it is a big object, occupying quite a significant volume inside the Utility Cupboard and we had to make sure that we had designed and mapped out the path of the ducting going up the wall and diagonally across to the heat exchanger at the top of the cupboard. Then, this would allow us to assemble and install the Cold Water pump and Pressure Vessel, which are major large pieces of equipment, alongside the ducting.
    Trying out cold water pressurisation parts

    Trying out cold water pressurisation parts

    So, the first task was to make a square socket tube connector that seals to the hole in the concrete floor and provide a means of connecting the rest of the ducting. We made this socket out of 12mm thick cement board, instead of any wooden material because we wanted to make sure that it will last for decades and be robust against any water leaks we may have inside the cupboard in the future. The hole in the concrete measures approximately 295mm by 295mm so we cut the cement board material to produce a square box that will slide inside this hole like a sleeve. We went down 150mm to make sure that we transverse the DPM barrier and sealed to plenty of the concrete side-walls. We extended upwards another 150mm, to provide plenty of lee-way against any floods we might get.
    We made use of four little pieces of battens to screw together the four sides of this box, the front and back pieces were cut to form like shape of the letter T so it hooks over the concrete and two smaller pieces that were screwed in those wooden battens.
    We use grey PU sealant to both stick this socket into the floor and seal all the way around the four sides and the joint to the concrete floor, plus also put in flashing tape inside to provide a secondary seal and a smoother transition for the incoming air as well.

    We decided that it would be much easier if we had a single continuous back panel, to map out the path for our ducting. We need to give it a slight angle, approximately 18degrees leaning rightwards, so it can reach the start (or the end) of the heat exchanger. We also need to expand the width and height of the ducting so we can accommodate the fine mesh filter module we are using to collect a lot of the atmosphere dust and other particles floating in the air. So, it was much easier to draw out what we needed directly onto a sheet of chipboard floorboard, including an “kink” elbow at the bottom for the angle change, a straight section and then the expanding section. We drew several pencil line drawings, using a piece of sandpaper to rub out the incorrect lines and settled on a good design. The first part is the continuation of the 290mm square ducting, with 18mm thick walls. The second part is where it expands to accommodate the standard 400mm dust filter which needs to be able to slide in and out, to be replaced with a clean one every now and again. So, we glued and screwed a double set of sloping battens, to form a “housing” to take the folded cardboard filter module, which measures 395mm square by 100mm thick. That is how big this “slot” is, and also, this is how tall the air duct is at this point. It will go flat from now on, and enter into the Heat Exchanger module.

    We wanted an extra flange piece sticking out on the side of the ducting so we have somewhere to screw the whole thing up on the wall when it is all fully assembled. So, we proceeded to cut away the surrounding excess materials away, to leave a long “funny” shaped behind, ready for a quick test!

    We took this “template” to the Utility Cupboard and slid it flat on the wall and down on to the cement socket we had previously made. We realised that we need to screw a small piece of batten on the wall, to align with the other wooden battens so it can support this back panel. It looks good so we carried on in constructing the rest of the ducting.

    The next job was to put on the two side walls, measuring 290mm high for the first section. We needed two short pieces to create the “elbow” kink of about 18degrees change of direction, which then led on to a single straight piece on the left hand side, going all the way up to the heat exchanger, with the height being adjusted slowly rising to a height of 395mm at the filter section. The slope was 690mm long. The other side, the right hand side, was made up in separate pieces so that the width of the ducting could expand to also the 395mm mark. We glued and screwed these set of vertical walls into place. The last section is constructing the filter so that we could have a removable lid to grab the filter cartridge and pull it out. We mitred some left-over angled pieces of timber, to form a “pocket” for the filter and that got glued and screwed into place as well.

    First Air duct being made 1

    First Air duct being made 1

    First Air duct being made 2

    First Air duct being made 2


    At this stage, we took the assembled Air Duct back down to the Utility Room and did another test fit, making sure that the bottom section fitted over the socket. Again, all is looking good so it was the final job of constructing the lids. The first section will be glued and screwed permanently down but we wanted the slope section removable so that we could gain access to the internal surfaces, just in case, we needed to clean it out or something. We angled the two narrow ends with slopes so that it will squash down when it is bolted. The bolts were 6mm metal machine screws, going into captive nuts that had been screwed into the top of the side walls. We repeated this method for the lid going over our filter which also covers the entrance to the by-pass channel (underneath the Heat Exchanger) when there is too much heat in the waste air coming out of the house.

    Finally, we put on three coats of clear varnish to seal the wood against any moisture coming in from the outside. All our ducting will be protected so that the wood will not get damp and create problems later on.
    The first two layers were put on using a roller but realised that this produced a very rough surface so we sanded it a bit smoother and put on a final third coat with a brush instead.

    Then, we put on strips of foam rubber draught excluder, around the edges of the section where we got our removable lids.
    The last job was to haul it to the Utility Room and its cupboard, and install it into position and screw it down tight. We had left off the bottom portion of the lid so we could reach inside and seal the wooden part of the ducting to the cement square socket at the bottom. Then we glued and screwed that lid on. We also put on the removable lids and put in the air filter cartridge in as well.

    Duct connected to underground Earth Tubes

    Duct connected to underground Earth Tubes

    Fisrt Air con duct in place with Filter

    Fisrt Air con duct in place with Filter

    Duct will connect to the heat exhanger

    Duct will connect to the heat exhanger



    In fact, we thought that it would be a good idea to put a plastic bag around the air filter cartridge so that any building dust and dirt we may generate, wouldn’t fall back onto the filter etc.

    That concludes the first stage of constructing the Air Ducting for our Ventilation System. There will be more to report on when we get on with the next stage.

    This completed job now allows us to proceed to assemble our Cold Water system with the pump and measuring equipment.

  • Testing of Large Cold Water Header Tank

    Yesterday, we fitted our newly arrived tank connector and let the LSX sealant set overnight. today, we stood the tank upright and placed it on two small pieces of battens to lift it off the floor so that we can inspect the bottom surface for any leaks. Yes that is correct, we are testing for leaks! We used the garden hose to start filling it up ..

    And stopped when we were about an inch above the tank connector at the bottom. Then, we left it standing there while we went off to do other things in the house…
    We came back for lunch .. and found .. Nothing !!
    No Leaks !!
    Yippeee!

    So after lunch, we continued filling the tank, after moving the tank onto a layer PU foam matting because when it is full, it will be weighing 500kg, a half a ton !! And we wanted to make sure that the tank is not over-stressed on our bumpy garage floor so we put one of our exercise mats underneath to absorb any irregularities.

    ..

    We put in another foot of water in the tank .. and .. we got pin-prick leaks on the flat sides, not on an edge, but in random places on the flat sides !!
    OOOO Boy!
    It is very disappointing and it just shows you that making a water tank is an exercise in following a method. And, the part of the method we seemed to have skipped, was to put on a so-called “gel” coat first thing, straight on to the mould and allow it to harden to a gel like substance before continuing with the rest of the layers of matting and resin etc.

    So, we are going to have to give our cold water tank a coat of gel resin and then a final top coat, from inside the tank itself. We ordered the necessary containers of resin and brushes and rollers etc.
    Plus also some activated charcoal filters for our breathing masks because there is going to be a high concentration of solvent inside the tank, as we paint the inside surface. We will have the fan blowing fresh air in as well.

    We emptied the tank of the water and stuck the heater inside, to start drying out the whole thing, including driving out any trapped moisture within the strands in the walls, where the leaks were.
    It got to be bone dry because the resin does not like any moisture at all.

    That concludes our second water tank!! Our next one is our Hot Water tank so we had better do it right next time!!

  • Installed Green Rain Water Pipework Up To Header Tank

    While we waited for the leak test on our new cold water tank, we got on with the task of installing a 32mm water pipe, all the way from the Utility Room where there is a similar 32mm pipe coming up through the concrete floor, where the pipe is routed from the Garage and its buried rain water storage tank.
    By law, we have to label our water pipe to indicate that rain water is flowing down the pipe and the standards states that it got to be a black and green striped pipe. We didn’t want to have to pay stupid prices so we had some electrical 19mm wide green sticky tape and wound it around and around the pipe. We also printed two entire rolls of 8metres of white on black tape with the word “rain water” repeated all along the length of the pipe.
    Rainwater pipe being marked

    Rainwater pipe being marked


    We then lifted up the various floorboards in the Utility Room, along the two hallways, all the way to the Bathroom, so that we could aim up inside the wall that divides the Bathroom from Bedroom Two, through the wooden top plate and the floorboard itself.
    We started at the Utility Room end by laying out the pipe all the way outside the house, across the driveway so we could route the very stiff plastic pipe, down under the floorboards, weaving in and out of the legs, making sure that we went pass other pipes and future ducting without causing problems. It was hard work, especially when we needed to turn the corner, to go down the side hall to the Bathroom. The tight sharp bend made pulling the pipe quite difficult and we ripped our nicely stuck on sticky tape and labels in some places – Phew!
    But, we made it slowly and surely !! And We arrived in our bathroom!
    We needed to pull a little bit more through because we needed to thread the other end of the pipe under the flooring and get it routed over to the pipe coming up through the concrete, situated underneath the washing machine section, under the worktop and window in our Utility Room.
    There are two pipe to choose from but we selected the one that would be closer to our rain water connections in the Garage. We put on LSX sealant, put in the inserts and then push the right angle elbow joiner into place and tighten the two locking nuts down tight.

    So in our Bathroom, up the ladder, we drilled a hole through the double layers of the CLS timber that is part of our wall structure, and and through the floorboard as well, to come up just alongside the platform that will have the tall header tank sitting on.

    Rainwater pipe starts under utility floor

    Rainwater pipe starts under utility floor

    Rainwater pipe heads along the halls

    Rainwater pipe heads along the halls

    Rainwater pipe Heading upstairs

    Rainwater pipe Heading upstairs


    We also took this opportunity of laying in, on top of the rain water pipe, another 32mm water pipe, this time blue. It will come down from the header tank and go back into the Utility Room, to the Utility Cupboard, for connecting to the water pump and the pressure vessel. So, we put in the first length from the Utility Cupboard, under the floorboard like before, and reached the corner outside our Tech Cupboard where it will have a T-junction installed later on. This connection will allow for a supply of unpressurized cold water to be available for the fire suppression system and also to feed our downstairs WC so it doesn’t rely on electricity to fill the cistern and allow us to wash our hands. All the other basins and toilets will be fed via the pressurised system as we do not expect to have many interruptions, especially with our Solar Panels and Batteries providing a backup to the supply from the grid electricity. Mind you, the motor might go, or the controller, or even our computers that controls the pump!! So, we got our downstairs WC for emergencies!! Smile!

  • First Stage of Improving Our Skylight Windows

    Today, on this lovely sunny Monday, we took the opportunity to go up on our roof, to our Skylight Windows, to do some upgrades and improve the windows. We have been having some problems with moisture getting in, but we never realised this had been happening because it is very, very small amount indeed. It is only because we have installed our double glazing units, with the moisture absorbing crystals, sucking up this small amount of rain water, and only in the last couple of weeks, some eight months later from when we installed the units, we are now getting leaks. They are coming from the metal tray of these crystals, which have now turned into liquid and running out of the trays. Yukkkk!
    Sklight first leak sign

    Sklight first leak sign


    So, we got the task of finding and sealing the windows better, hence this upgrade and improvement task.After careful analysis, even removing a section of the plywood on the inside of our Skylight, to dig around in the body, to backtrace the water, it seems to be coming from the glass and these trays. The “walls” of the Skylight are not damp at all, so the rainwater is not coming in from around the edges, underneath the glass.

    This leaves the rubber seals themselves that we got squashed on both sides of the polycarbonate plexiglass material. And when we inspected the window up on the roof the other week (very chilly and very windy), we noticed that the bottom edge is showing definite signs of water moisture underneath the plastic glass, inside the rubber strip. We can see quite clearly through the plastic. We then unscrewed the clamping aluminium bar that we used to hold down the bottom edge of the pane of glass, and it is very likely that the rain water is managing to slide pass the thin rubber padding we got under the aluminium bar, and dribbling into the screw holes we got through the plastic. We didn’t do a very good job of creating a seal to block off the clearance holes. Some of the holes had extra sealant in them, but no way enough substance. Not good at all. we decided that we will replace the thin rubber strip with a 18mm wide strip of butyl heavy duty black glue that is designed to be very long lasting and resistive to drying out and very very sticky. We did that aluminium bar on that day a couple of weeks ago and waited for better weather.

    That day came today when at last, we had a calm day and reasonably sunny as well so we got back up on the roof, to first unscrew all the aluminium bars off all the windows, a total of 32 of them, leaving behind the one we did earlier, and take them all down to our tools room. The one thing that we nearly forgot to do, was to label the individual bars with a location code so that we could return each aluminium bar back to its original place.
    We then used the bench sanding machine to clean off the old glue, throw away the thin rubber strips and then apply the new strip of the butyl black glue and get them ready to go back after lunch. They got a protective waxed paper on.

    Rooflight front strips with Butyl adhesive applied

    Rooflight front strips with Butyl adhesive applied

    After lunch, we took a bucket of hot soapy water and a scrubbing pad to clean the dirt away that was trapped under the bar and a towel to dry it off (it turned out that the Sun was strong enough to help dry the plastic by itself) and we went around clockwise with one of us cleaning the bottom edge of the window, moving backwards and the other poked the screws through the holes and the waxed paper, polished the surface to make sure that it is dust free and dry, position the bar down on the holes and tightened the screws up again.

    We completed the job at about 5pm and the last dozen windows was lovely because the built-in solar panels was hot from having the Sun shining on them so we had warm bums !!

    We couldn’t do many photos while we were up there and no one to take any of us sitting up on the pinnacle of our house !

  • Cold Water Header Tank Created

    While we waited for our Test Tank to dry out completely before we can initiate any repairs, we got on with building the mould for our next tank to make, this time the cold water header tank that sits upstairs behind the Shower Room. This tank measures 700mm wide and 400mm deep and 1900mm tall, it will sit on the reinforced platform we have already built and there will be about 150mm (6inches) clearance at the top to allow us to get the lid off and look inside.
    So, we got two more sheets of our 11mm OSB off our rack of miscellaneous sheet materials and proceeded to build a similar designed mould like we did before. One of the major differences is that we need to be able to crawl inside the mould to reach the screws that holds wooden blocks around the edges. We decided that this mould needed more secured edges because it is larger, hence the reason for having more wooden blocks around the long edges. It was quite interesting crawling inside, flat on our stomachs and screwing the final screws in place to tighten the mould together!!
    We did the usual routing on all the edges, to put a nice curved and smooth edges for the glass fibres to bend gently around the flat surfaces.
    Cold Tank Mould being made

    Cold Tank Mould being made

    Mould ready for tape

    Mould ready for tape



    And then, covered the entire mould in our new brown parcel tape, using two complete 66metres rolls!!
    Covered in release tape

    Covered in release tape


    Next, we cut all the glass fibre material into 12 pieces of 2.3metres lengths (this is being the circumference of the tank in a horizontal direction, measuring two sides of 700mm and two sides of 400mm, giving a total of 2200mm so we added an extra 100mm to be on the safe side), then we created six rectangular pieces for the base of the tank measuring 500mm wide strips off the roll, enough to cover the 400mm width of the base, but deliberately used the whole roll width of 990mm to cover the 700mm in the other direction and send the excess around the corner to reinforce the bottom 140mm of the side walls so we can install plumbing connectors and not overly stress the material too much with the very stiff plastic 32mm diameter pipes. Next, we tore off 120mm wide strips and then slice it in half down the middle and these narrow strips will go around the flange at the bottom of the mould.
    Finally, we cut a length off our woven cloth roll, ending up with two pieces measuring 1900mm long and 1550mm wide (the original cloth width). That isn’t quite enough to wrap around the tank so we then sliced off a further 1900mm piece again, but this time, we sliced the width in half to make two 750mm wide strips, to join with the other piece and make a complete loop. The last couple of pieces is for the base and we sliced a 500mm wide length off the roll and also sliced this one again in half, to make the final two pieces.We had originally put our mould on two planks of timber that had four office chair castor wheels so we could spin the mould around when we are working on it. It worked well when we were wrapping the brown parcel tapes onto the mould, but discovered that just standing up in the Garage, on the concrete floor, we actually didn’t want to keep moving it around, and instead, we would walk ourselves around the mould!! So we could off the wheels and those two planks!!

    The next job was to prepare the resin and we are going to use 25kg of the stuff, it comes in a very large bottle! But, we had our tin that had our dark brown resin in, so we poured off the small amount of that left-over resin into a small pot (we will use this resin to attempt to repair our Test Tank). We then tipped the large bottle and filled up the metal tin which holds 5kg, making it much easier to mix in the white colour we want and easier to pour small batches of resin, ready for the hardener catalyst liquid to be added and stirred in. Our white colour, which is titanium oxide powder, needed to be sieve through a old tea stainer, to knock out all the lumps and then have a small amount of resin dropped in the powder, to make a smooth paste. This vastly improves the white colour to be completely mixed into each tin load of resin, by adding several teaspoons of the white resin and thoroughly mixed in.
    Now, we can get started, fresh at the start of a new day, even starting an hour early at 9am and keep going until we have completely finished. We put on the first cloth layer by coating the whole mould with the resin and then putting on the first large piece of cloth, repainting it over again. we decided that we would try and turn it inside out so that we can maximise the amount of resin this very first layer should get. But, it proved rather difficult so we didn’t do it again to the second piece of cloth and just thoroughly coated it with lots of resin. We wanted to make sure that we had a decent starting layer of water tight glass fibre saturated in resin, especially on all the corners. We don’t want a repeat of the tiny little leak we had in our Test Tank!!
    We then started laying on the 2.3metres length of matting, doing the lower half first, and then putting on the upper half afterwards, and making sure that we put on two coats of resin every time. We repeated this twice more so we had done three layers and half way there, at which point, we consolidated all the layers and resins by using our aluminium textured roller, which is designed to pressurised the individual glass fibre strands and mix the resin completely together, going carefully around each of the corners and edges.
    We put on the last three layers of matting and finally, put on the second layer of the woven cloth to finish off.
    We were working for nearly 7 hours non-stop !!

    Header Tank All made

    Header Tank All made


    We left it overnight, to allow it to cure and harden the resin as much as possible, before we tackled the next task of removing the wooden mould from inside the freshly made tank. The first job was to carefully trim the flange so that it is an even amount all the way around the whole tank, by using our wiggle saw and a chunk of CLS timber to act as a spacer guide. Then we carefully lay the tank on its side and prop it up on a couple of wooden planks so the weight wasn’t resting on our new flange after we had removed the first part of the mould. The “lid” came off and we needed to crawl inside to undo all the screws, to release the four sides from each other and make it easier to bend each side inwards and then remove.
    Shaun undoing mould fixings

    Shaun undoing mould fixings


    We managed to get the four long sides out fairly easily but we discovered that the sticky parcel tape has gone extra sticky for some reason. This meant that we had to crawl across this yukky tacky surface to get to the bottom final piece of the mould and dig it out. Mind you, we had to wait five minutes first, to blow away all the fumes of the solvent. We used a fan. This perhaps gives us a clue to why the sticky tape has gone extra sticky because the solvent was able to migrate through the thin plastic film of the parcel tape. Anyway, we managed to dig out the bottom section of the mould and were able to peal the majority of the stick tape off, by starting at the bottom of the tank and pulling it out like a sleeve. We discovered that our tank is translucence and it glowed in the sunshine !!
    Tape stuck to the inside

    Tape stuck to the inside

    But it came off fairly easyly

    But it came off fairly easyly



    The problem with the extra stickiness was extended to the resin finish as well and we needed to leave it open, with fresh air blowing on it, for three or four days over the weekend, before most of the sticky tackiness had disappeared.

    The whole tank got a bit of a rub with sandpaper, to take off any sharp edges and glass fibres that didn’t settle down during the last coat of resin. The flange got its four corners rounded and the sharp edge smoothed over as well.

    In the meantime, we took the original base that the mould sat on, reapplied more sticky tape but this time using the clear parcel tape instead for a comparison test and made a four layer matting with the same white resin flat across the board. It came off much easier, without leaving behind this sticky stuff so it looks like that the parcel tape is too thin to give the best results. So we have made our lid for this Header Tank, so that we can keep out the dust and dirt. It will be clamped down using wing nuts, on a sandwich of rubber draught excluder strips, to provide that seal.

    Cold Water tank lid laminated

    Cold Water tank lid laminated


    That concludes the construction of the Header Tank, we are waiting for plumbing bits and pieces to arrive before we can perform a soak test and find out if we got any leaks. This tank will hold a maximum of 500litres and that weighs half a ton !! So we WILL not be tipping it over, out of our garage door to empty it!! We Do Not want a tidal wave gushing across our driveway!! Hence why we have been waiting for our plumbing order to arrive, with a tank connector and a shut-off valve so we can empty it the old fashion way! In fact, we will take the opportunity to try out our water pump motor and see how it performs and how noisy it is as well.

  • Creation of Test Tank

    We are at the stage of designing and building our water tanks, one cold and one hot. Because, we have a limited target volume to locate these tanks, we decided to make our own tanks, using glass fibre and polyester resin. We have used this kind of construction material a number of times before so we calculated the amount of material we would have to buy, in order to build the three tanks we are wanting. But first, we needed to make sure that it works out properly so we are doing a Test Tank first. Actually, it will become a plant pot for a tree that came at Christmas time!
    It will also be part of a boiling water test as well because we need to make sure that our hot water tank will hold the hot water without softening the walls.
    So we ordered 33kg of glass fibre matting, 35kg of ‘normal’ resin and 30kg of ‘special’ heat and chemical resistant resin, plus also 20metres of woven glass cloth as well.
    The Test Tank measures 450mm on a side, making a cube. We want to have a lip around the top so we can see how well it forms, ready for a lid to seal down on it, on our larger tank later on. The Test Tank won’t have a lid.
    So we need a mould, to take the eight layers of matting and two layers of cloth, to make a wall thickness in the order of 5mm thick.
    This mould will have to be constructed in such a way, that it can be disassembled afterwards, as the completed tank will be solid and sticking to the mould.
    So we used sheets of 11mm OSB boards, sliced it up into four sides and one base. Two of the sides were slightly narrower so that the overall dimensions came out the same on all four sides. Also, these two narrow sides had a saw cut sliced almost all the way through the 11mm thickness, to make it much easier to drive a crowbar into the gap between the finish tank and the mould and be able to bend the sides inwards. We did the same for the base as well. We then screwed little battens around the edges to hold the corner edges together, but done in such a way so that the pre-cut sides can move inwards. It was a careful process of making sure that we could ?undo? the mould, in the correct order.
    Finally, we put on a larger ?lid? on the mould so, when the mould was turned over to sit on this so-called lid, we had a space to form the lip of the tank as well. We rounded all the edges using a 12mm quarter turn shaped router and also applied a little bit of plaster to provide a gentle bend for the lip too.
    Box mould constructed

    Box mould constructed


    Now, we wrapped all over the mould a complete layer of parcel sticky tape because we discovered that the parcel tape offers a very very non-stick surface against the polyester resin. We did some quick test using various grades of sticky tapes, as well as some very thin plastic film material and this is how we discovered that standard parcel tapes works the best.
    So this is what we did with our Test Tank, wrapped it up in this sticky tape. Mind you, we only had the ‘clear’ sticky tape and it was quite difficult to see where we have been or not. So, we ordered the brown stuff !!
    Covered in tape

    Covered in tape


    Next, is to prepare the glass fibre and have them ready, in a pile of torn pieces. But, before that, the 33kg roll of matting needed a carrier so we could pull off the roll the required length. We quickly assembled a wooden carrier using left-over OSB 18mm pieces and a length of broom handle (we had some left-over of those too from a previous project, so we didn’t have to use a domestic broom!)
    The roll is a metre wide so the carrier is 1200mm wide, with a two battens loosely sandwiched together at the top, for the glass fibre matting to slide in between. This allows us to press down on the upper batten and grip the glass fibre and tear pieces off.
    33Kg of Glass fibre Mat

    33Kg of Glass fibre Mat


    So we tore off twelve pieces measuring 450mm long, and four pieces of 900mm long. These form the bulk of the walls but we wanted to put an initial layer of the woven cloth on the mould first so that this offers the maximum strength bending around the corners of the tank. We unrolled the cloth and cut a single piece 1350mm by 1000mm long. Then, we draped it over the mould and carefully cut the overlapping folds, to remove the triangles so the cloth would lay down flat.
    We did a second one so we could put that cloth piece on as the final layer, to encapsulate all the strands of glass fibre that comes in each matting sheet. These matting sheets are made up of a random sprinkling of 50mm long glass fibre strands, held together with a very light glue that will instantly dissolve when the resin is applied.At this stage, we decided to put in colouring dye into the resin so we went for a muddy brown colour by mixing four teaspoons of red powder and four teaspoons of blue powder dye and this made a muddy brown colour, suitable for being a flower pot !
    The final steps of preparations, was to get several pots of acetone ready for cleaning our rollers and other tools, a pile of paper wipes and a collection of mixing trays etc.
    So, we started at 11:25am and mixed our first batch of resin with the hardener, using 1% ratio of hardener so we had plenty of time to apply the mixture before it started setting. The garage temperature was about 15°C so 1% will give us a good 30 to 40 minutes of handling time.
    We coated the mould with the brown resin, using a fluffy roller to transfer the liquid over, and then draped the cloth over. We slid the cloth around and made sure that it went from edge to edge and that the two sides folded in and overlapped properly. Then, we rolled on more resin liquid until the cloth was entirely coated in resin. Then, we got our four larger pieces of matting, and one by one, laid each over the mould, tearing one edge so that it can rotate around the mould and the loose flap goes over the top. We put plenty of resin all over the surfaces. We used the aluminium roller to work the resin liquid into the individual strands of glass fibre, and also, to force out any trapped air.
    Next, we took the narrower strips and went horizontally around the mould, repeating the process of loading lots of resin on each piece of matting and eventually, we put on a total of eight layers. We also put on the second woven cloth material near the end of the process.
    It took us two hours to do this Test Tank.
    Test box fibreglassed

    Test box fibreglassed


    We gave it a couple of days (over the weekend) for the resin to cure and harden before we tackled the task of dismantling the internal mould and generally, it was not too difficult. We unscrewed various screws and then used a crowbar to lever the two side walls that had the ?almost? cuts in them and this then allowed the other two walls to come out and finally, we got the crowbar into the cut line in the base and managed to lever each half out. Then, we pulled off the parcel sticky tape which got left behind on the inside of the finished tank, it looks like that the resin had quite an attraction to the glossy side of the parcel tapes, more than the sticky attraction to the wooden surfaces anyway. It wasn’t a problem as we could peel off the tape fairly easily, leaving behind a brown cubic reinforced glass fibre plastic tank. It needed a bit of trimming around the lip because we had a ‘dam’ to make the lip flange, but it ended up with too much glass fibre and resin. So, we just laid down a small piece of 6mm thick MDF board on the floor and, positioned up to the edge of the flange (the tank is upside down) and used our wiggle saw to slice off the lumpy bits.
    We also ran the sand paper over the surfaces, to rub down little spikes of resin and fibre and also rubbed the edge to round the corners and the square edge.
    Test tank demoulded

    Test tank demoulded

    Test Tank

    Test Tank



    The final stage of this test, is to put in water, both cold and hot water, and see if it holds it without leaking.
    This Test Tank holds about 90 litres so we got the garden hose and filled it almost to the top and sat it in our Garage and left it for a few hours while we got on in making the next mould for the larger header tank.
    Unfortunately, we had a leak!!
    A very very small one! But still a leak!
    It is amazing to how water can get through 10 layers of glass fibre and resin. The leak is actually on one of the rounded bottom edges and we believe that we were not careful enough in making sure that these rounded edges were carefully loaded with extra resin, to make sure even those fibres are saturated.
    We learnt a valuable lesson and this is what this Test Tank revealed to us!
    We will have to patch the leak before we can perform the hot water test and we will do that later on.

  • Started Constructing Walls for the Rooms Upstairs

    These last two weeks have seen us start work on building the initial framework for the walls for the rooms upstairs. We would like to lay down a “floor-plan” of all our rooms.
    But first, we had to move our large pile of our 63mm CLS timber planks! We wanted to gain access to all the space where our “stub” wall will go around the edge of each room, the wall being four feet tall when it meets the sloping ceiling. So we had to move approximately 250 planks of timber, plus also 25 planks of “green” preservative treated timber as well. The green planks will be used for our wet rooms downstairs, where there is lots of water splashing about.
    Anyway, it took a couple of hours to move the timber!
    Then, we built a template that emulates a fully constructed “four-foot” wall, so that we can glue and screw up a whole sheet of a OSB board in one go, without having to slice it at all. This template is only four inches wide so we can slide it along on the floor, until it “bumps” into the sloping roof. We then would mark the floor with a green spirit pen and move along a couple of metres and do it again. The green colour was used because we had already other black marks on the floor from our previous attempts of laying out a rough plan of our rooms upstairs!

    We started near the Gallery and marked out the two “four-foot” walls, one between the Gable wall and the stair case hole, and the other one, on the other side of the room, from the gable to the toilet, which is situated opposite the stairs.

    Next, is framing around the stairs hole, positioning a footplate, made using our 63mm CLS timber. This footplate is lined up with the wall frame that is coming up from downstairs so that the wall surface will continue smoothly all the way up to the roof. We glued and screwed this CLS plank down, going all the way along the edge until it reached the steel leg holding up the Skylight. We then sanded the steel leg, using an angle grinder with a sanding pad installed, and polished the steel, removing all the paint and little bit of rust. We then glued a vertical plank of CLS timber on to the steel leg, using PU construction glue and clamping it into place for 24 hours.
    Next, we carefully took another length of our CLS timber and glued it upwards to the 11mm OSB boards that coats the underside of the roof. This plank forms the top-plate for our wall. we then cut a series of posts, getting taller and taller, with an angled 32degree cut on top of each one, and nailed them every 600mm (2feet) along this section.
    This forms the Hall side of the wall, for the stairs, and will continue across the upstairs, under the Skylight, to meet with the toilet wall.

    There is a steel plate that is glued to the floorboard that ties the two steel legs together, all part of the structural framework for securing the whole Skylight against twisting and sheer forces coming from the winds outside. This means that we needed to glue a horizontal piece of timber on top of this steel plate so we undid the original screws, but first, having used the heads to bash “dents” in our CLS timber so we knew where to drill the clearance holes through the wood. We have been using our green laser line generator which is fully automatic, finding a dead vertical line and projecting a horizontal green line as well. We wanted to extend the stair wall so that it keeps the smooth flat surface going across as well. So, we positioned our CLS piece and bashed those screw heads after we had lined it up against the green laser line. Very very useful tool to have, the laser line generator!!
    We sanded the metal plate like we did before, then glued the wood down and put in slightly fatter and longer screws so it would grip the steel instead of the wooden floorboards underneath, to tighten the new bottom-plate down tight to the steel and the glue.
    Then, we glued another vertical piece of CLS timber on the other side of the steel leg, to finish off that leg beside the staircase.

    While the glue was drying and curing, we continued marking where the “four-foot” wall is located around the rest of the rooms, doing the Study room that is over the Entertainment room and Front Door, around the large Office come Work Room to the right side of the house and then positioned our green laser line to go back across the other two steel legs, to finish the fourth side of this Work Room. The next line to mark down is between the back two steel legs that will have wall to front the Shower room and Toilet, plus entrance way into our Storage area at the back of the house.

    Now we started gluing and screwing down one layer of CLS planks, to follow these new green marks around the floor. We did the three sides of the Studio come Sitting room (which is also our spare Guest Bedrooms, next to the Gallery), to form a space measuring about 6.2metres across (20feet) and about 4.8metres deep (16feet). This is the space between the “four-foot” walls so that is not walking around head clearance, the actual 6foot clearance space is about 4metres (12feet) across, maybe a bit more.
    Then we laid down shorter pieces of CLS timber to form the Toilet, which measures 1280mm (4feet) across by 1800mm (6feet) deep. We put in a double layered wall for sound proofing purposes, and also, to allow a vacuum pipe to come up from below so we can plug in our brush and tube to our central vacuum system, for hoovering the upstairs rooms. The waste sewage pipe is also fully hidden inside the right side wall, plus also it will hold the steel framework that will support a wall mounted toilet bowl. The basin will be located at the back of the room under the sloping ceiling.
    The Shower Room came next so first, we glued and screwed down two lines of CLS planks going across and pass the two steel legs, heading towards the front of the building. This wall is the entrance way into the Office come Work room. Now that we got this line of wall done, we can work backwards towards the Toilet and put down the second wall on the other side of the Shower room. This room measures 1100metres (3½ feet)wide and 1800mm (6feet) deep again.
    Now we laid down a line of CLS around the circumference of the Office Work room, joining back to the piece going across the steel legs. This wall is also double layered so that the steel legs are hidden away so we don’t have unsightly “boxing” sticking out in our rooms. Nice and Neat!
    Finally, the Study room, which is a L shape room, had its line of foot-plates put in as well, joining up to the side of the Office Work room, including a short double skimmed wall as well for more sound proofing. The last line is the one going along the edge of the Stairs and out into the middle of the Skylight. We had to put in a “kink” when we reached the last section going underneath the Skylight, because the wall needs to align to the metal tie bar and the glazing rafter so that the wall surface itself can go up and neatly meet the wooden beam that is supporting the double glazing glass units. So the daylight is divided into the Hall and the Stairs, and for the Study room.
    This “kink” will have a gentle 45degree angle put on it, rather than a sharp right angle turn to the wall surface.

    We then put on two of the three horizontal utility rails, one for the Air Channel, including putting on the MDF 6mm pieces. Then, we put on the lower half of the Utility Channel and that is where we got to. We didn’t have any fermacell sheets sliced up into narrow 175mm wide strips. So, we are going to do that later.

    First floor foot plates

    First floor foot plates

    That concludes this little section of work, to basically define all our shapes of all our rooms upstairs. We can now do something else, for a change. And, we have decided to go and build our cold water header tank, that sits behind the Shower room. We want to get on with implementing a lot of our utility services like water and air ventilation, so we can actually start having the chance of having real running water in the Kitchen or Toilet etc. yippeee!