C.R.A.C

[desperate]

Hallo folks,

well I sure am glad we have stuffed the majority of insulation into this project, if anyone tells you insulating a refurb is easy, poke 'em in the eye from me

We opted to insulate the pitch roof areas right down to the eaves rather than insulate the rear of the ashlar walls and the remaining bits of  first floor ceiling, I have seen that on many jobs over the years and it looks less than satisfactory to be honest. On top of that we have oodles of plummin scattered round those bits going to and from the tanks, heat store, heat dump, solar panels and gawd know what that it just seemed to make sense to bring it all into the warm envelope..

 So 19 sheets of 10cm celotex found their way into the troughs between the rafters and flat roof joists. Cutting up 800 quids worth of boards and then peicing them all back together is an exercise in frustration and extreme patience, not to mention 10 cans of squirty foam to plug up the inevitable gaps, that bit alone took us 10 man-days I think, cutting triangles to fit against the hips and then fitting it while crawling behind the ashlar studs reduced me to a good imitation of  "the very grumpy caterpillar" in short order




Next up was another 23 sheets of 2.5cm Celotex which was to be fixed over the rafters/joists which proved to be a whole lot easier, I think a couple of man-days and a few more squirts and of course an application of ally tape and it all looked like this;



Oh dear now for the Itchy-scratchy in the dormer stud walls, dust masks at the ready, but it wasn't too bad really. I managed to pick up a load of  80 mm rockwool fire-bats which don't fall apart at the slightest touch so a double layer fitted nice and snug into our 15cm studwork and was all done in a day, over that a layer of visqueen vapour barrier was carefully fitted. All the cables came through noggins previously fitted which now were behind the VCL, then a squirt of silly con and the metal boxes could all go on.

A lot of time was spent making sure as many gaps as possible were squirty-foamed or designed out and so far the result seems quite promising. Despite the weather being quite chilly last week the loft and first floor new rooms were pretty comfortable with heat floating upstairs from the Dragonstove.




There, dun it make you feel warm, it certainly did when we started humping plasterboards up to the lofty, but more of that later.

Desp

[desperate]

I Notice that 10cm board is trade named "Recticel"..............I'm not sure if you require an ointment or a bottomottomey for that, but it keeps us warm anyway

Desp

[todthedog]

Ra ra Desp a cracker of a job, don't envy the pb humping up stairs .

[biff]

 Good going Desp
        You are going to be finished for Christmas,
      Biff

[desperate]

Thanks chaps, it would be nice but we still have a couple of issues to sort Biff. I was quoted over 4 grand for two 30 minute fire windows because we are building within 1 metre of the boundary, I nearly fell over when that quote came in The other seven windows including one with a welded cill came in at just over 2 grand.
The thing is we used to have a really fine galleon leaded light with   on the landing wall which is south facing so used to let a beautiful light in. The plan was to set a fixed light into the new south wall and re-fit the galleon as a secondary unit inside, this window is just under 1m2 area. Now according to the regulations if you have more than 1m2 on a wall within the 1 metre they have to be 30mins minimum which rules out the small window we had planned for the downstairs room. Hmmm

Apart from that Tom the spread is busy till after chrimbo, but still we are at least pretty weather proof and warm, and better than that we have a shower at last. Due to Covid shortages we couldn't get the shower door for a few weeks so ended up having a stand up ablute in a bucket, that was quite a hard sell tbh. Luckily Mrs Desp is very understanding

I will be getting loads of stuff in next week just in case brexit jingle bells jingle bells's up the supply chains again.

What with one thing and another it hasn't been a great year to embark on a hundred grand project of bashing the shyte out of cactusville again, you'd have thought I would have learned my lesson eh?

Desp