On Monday we finished off the last of the timber stud work for the last bedroom on the first floor.  After that we moved down stairs to do the ground floor stud work.  We had to do some false walls for the fire place and the TV, some false walls for the kitchen layout and a couple of cupboards in the utility and the office.  We got all the stud work done, except the stud work for the kitchen as we had to do some brickwork as a raised floor had to be done before the stud work could go in.

Thursday we did the brick work for the raised kitchen floor in the morning and then we moved outside to do the block work for the oil tank.  The block wall was to act as a fire wall/ barrier so we could position the oil tank as close to the boundary as we could.  We were lucky to get the wall finished, as it, and nearly Stu and I were blown away in the strong winds.  If we weren’t for the house acting as a wind break, we might have ended up over the road in the neighbour’s garden!  We had to take Friday off as I received a call to have a meeting that could lead to some potential new work in the New Year.

Next week we start to plasterboard, and we also have the sparky and plumber on site to first fix, so things continue to progress at pace.

This week was pretty much our last week of working outside the property.  Bearing in mind we are moving into the middle of November, that’s not a bad thing!  We started the week by connecting up the final pipe work from the gutter down pipes to the Rain Water Harvest system so everything was completed in that respect.  We then made up a timber frame for what is to become the concrete base for the exterior oil tank.  On Tuesday we had 10 tonnes of hardcore delivered so we could fill in the area around the water tank and finish off the end of the drive area, which we shovelled around by hand, and Stu went through the last few minor points on our snagging list.

For the rest of the week we moved in doors and made a start on the timber stud work for the bedrooms and bathrooms.  By Friday afternoon we had three of the bedrooms completed, the main bathroom and en-suite stud work completed, leaving us one bedroom to get finished on the Monday.  A nice simple week this week.

It was a labour intensive week this week, but our first job of the week was putting in the under floor heating pipe work on the ground floor.  We had already got a few zones down, but we needed to get the rest of the zones in prior to the floor being screeded later in the week.  Once again Stu laid out the pipe while I followed along with the plastic clips holding the pipe work in place.  We were working to plans provided by the manufacturer, but we had to use a bit of artistic licence as the ‘scaled’ drawings for some reason didn’t match the ‘scaled’ foot print of the build, but we got there in the end.  Tuesday was a great day; we had 150 sheets of plaster board delivered for the first floor area, along with 200 lengths of CLS timber for the various stud walls.  First job was to get the CLS in, and then it was the joy of getting the plaster board in.  We had to get the board through the front door and into the hallway.  Then Stu had to lift the sheet up and pass it up to me on the first floor, where I then had to pull the sheet up and then lay it down and stack them up as they came.  It sounds a lot easier as I write this, but it was bloomin hard work at the time.  In the end it took us all day to get the timber and plaster board into the house, which people don’t always appreciate these things and the time it takes, but it’s all part of the process.

On Wednesday we had 20 tonnes of sharp sand delivered ready for screeding on Thursday and Friday.  After that was delivered Stu and I ran in the underground pipe work for the Rain Water Harvest System, which involved digging out trenches for the pipe work and then feeding the electrical cables and water feed pipe through the larger pipe work and into the tank, with the other end going into the Utility.  By the end of the day after some huffing and puffing we had everything installed and ready to be buried under the earth and hardcore, thankfully never to be seen again!

Thursday and Friday was a fine end to the week as between Stu and I we mixed up the 20 tonnes of sharp sand, with cement, for the floor screed which was being put down by John and J the plasterers.  It was nonstop from 07.30 to 16.00, with the mixer on the go all day as we churned out barrow load after barrow load. By the end of play Friday we were looking forward to the weekend and doing as little physical exertion as possible!

We only had the two jobs to focus on this week.  The first job was to put down the under floor heating pipe work on the first floor.  We had to roll out a reflective foil across the entire floor area, rolling it across and between all the joists.  While I rolled it out and stapled it, Stu followed along fixing all the pipe clip holders into position.  This all sounds nice and easy, but Stu and I were doing our very best tight rope impressions!  We couldn’t put any boards down anywhere to walk on as this would then stop us from getting the foil down.  So we had to do all this work balancing very carefully on the joists which are spaced out every 600mm and are 2 inches wide, with a nice 3 metre drop down to the ground floor.  But we got all the foil and clips into place with no scares.

The next thing was to get all the under floor heating pipe work laid and clipped into the holders.  We had 6 zones to do, with each pipe run starting and finishing at the manifold in the utility loft area.  Once again we put our tight rope skills to the test as we laid the pipe.  I was in front of Stu feeding him the pipe while he was clipping it into position.  I nearly had a moment where I tripped over the pipe and nearly took a dive down to the ground floor.  Fortunately I quickly turned into Spiderman and managed to land myself onto two joists and stopped myself, Stu, the foil and some of the pipe work all disappearing to the ground below!  It certainly made the heart rate quicken.

By Wednesday pm we had all the under floor heating installed, so it was now a case of getting the two tonnes (90 sheets) of floor board delivery from off the drive area and up onto the first floor joists, ready to be laid.  Come Thursday morning we were ready to make a start.  We got the first 8 to 10 down and fixed into position.  We now had a safe working area, so Stu passed up the rest of the sheets and I took them off him and stacked them up.  By the end of Friday we had all 90 sheets fixed down, and we now had a proper first floor, floor area.  The new build has taken another big step forward and starts to take shape.  Next week it’s the ground floor pipe work and the sand and cement screed.