A roof over our heads

The past couple of weeks have seen great progress on the roof.

The lower roof over the sitting room is already slated at the front and the green roof membrane is on at the back.

We settled on a warm roof construction. Most of the insulation is above the rafters to minimise thermal bridging through the rafters themselves.

We'll add a lesser amount of insulation between the rafters, which is advised to prevent condensation forming within the roof.  Total U value about 0.16, and we're working to get it really airtight.



We had to buy special skewer-like nails to get through the fat sandwich -  38mm battens, membrane, 75mm insulation and 35mm into the rafters.  The standard 4" nails are just too short and would have conducted even more heat out of the house, we would have needed more of them too.

There will be nearly 1000 skewer-nails as it is - each one puncturing the insulation board.

The picture on the right shows the front section of the the sitting room roof before the holes for the Velux windows were cut out, and before we started filling all the gaps between walls and roof. The rafters will be covered with plasterboard, but the 2 big beams will be exposed.

 The upper roof is far from straightforward. We're grateful to have such experienced people on the job.

They've worked hard to overcome the various obstacles (constructional discrepencies, lack of accurate drawings, baffling angles etc. ) along the way.

It's probably for the best that we felt we couldn't afford a SIPS roof - it probably would have been butchered to get it to fit

It was so bright at the weekend with the sun shining through the rafters I'm almost sad to think most of it will be covered in. At least the front bedroom will have a good-sized Velux giving a view across the valley.

We have been busy painting the soffits, undercloaking and exposed rafter ends. It's been a family job.

 

  


Plywood over insulation board - the green roof base.

Joe (who's not family) came over from Lancaster earlier in the week and put on the membrane for the green roof in the most miserable weather. It looks great so far.





He'll return later to finish it off and seal around the stove pipe and make the little balcony floor. 













Once the scaffolding's down and the tree protection zone fence dismantled there'll be a nice view up the garden from the sitting room.

This is the biggest window in the house at  2.4m wide by 1.8 high. I would have liked a full glass wall - but it was prohibitively expensive and would have lost too much heat. I'm quite happy with the compromise. This way there's room for the curtains to be drawn fully back during the day.

Our windows are due on site this week (they've been sitting in the factory waiting since Christmas) and hopefully we'll be having them fitted over the Easter break.

The Lovely Beams

Just when I was beginning to give up on them, the steel men came and measured up. They started work that night and 2 days later came and installed all the steel.

The steels are lovely and as far as I can see they are in the right place.

It doesn't really look like much has happened in the past few weeks. Apart from the beams the garage door has gone on and bizarrely we've had our kitchen sink delivered.






The building still looks slightly surreal with the ziggarat style wall. (Temporary - we hope!)










While they had the lifting gear (and men) they also lifted the timber gluelams for the sitting room roof. So now they are in their pockets,  which is good - but they are not level - somehow the pockets in the wall were set too low on one side. They were correct on the drawing!


This end of the timber gluelam beam needs lifting about 200mm and straightening up.

No crane involved.  A big hi-ab, plenty of men and good planning.  Thanks guys!

I've made a new model 1/50th scale to help explain the roof shape. (My first model got crushed in the car boot). This model doesn't include the ground floor.

Next job - rafters on and a real roof, can't wait!

All ready for the roof-beams

The big east wall - all bedrooms and bathrooms to catch the morning sun. The wooden "barge boards" are just temporary patterns used to check the ICFs are to the right shape and height.  Hopefully they will be reused as rafters.   

Front view - garage with sitting room over on the right, front door in the middle behind the builders sign.

..and from the back

Some rather surreal (unfinished) walls.  You can see the shape of the south sloping roof where the solar panels will go on the right of the big photo.

The specially made padstone sits on top of the dense-block walls where the four steel beams that form the ridges, the valley and the hip of the main roof will be come together.

The lower roof will have timber gluelam beams instead of steel. It looks like butcher's block and they will remain exposed to the sitting room below. I'm  hoping to stain and wax them before they are lifted and  just have to touch them up in situ if I'm lucky.  I'd like a sofa swing - the engineer says definitely not a problem with these beams, they weigh 150kg each. Will we need a crane to lift all this? Wait and see.

ICF walls complete weekending 5th February

Ice, sleet and a chance of concrete.  It all came together. The joiners put in that last bit of floor and put up a temporary staircase. We got some extra scaffolding to fill the void in the kitchen and utility. The ICF crew worked hard all week, and the concrete pump turned up 8am sharp on friday, concrete due at 8.30.....










.. and then we waited and waited, finally the concrete turned up at 10.30 and the ICF walls were filled by 3pm.

Can't wait to get my arm out of plaster and get on!

Second floor in place weekending 29th January

At last some timber in the building! The first floor blockwork internal walls have been built, a couple of steel beams and lintels added (one with a bit of bullying and hacking of ICF ).

and finally all in place for the floor boards.

One last bit to go on....

The finished second floor ice rink. To the right is a void where the utility and part of the kitchen (on the first floor) will be open to the roof.

Time to get the ICF team back to finish the walls!

FOOSH!

I learnt a new acronym last week.  I suffered a FOOSH - Fall On Outstretched Hand and broke my left wrist, and yep, I am left handed. Current release date from plaster expected 22nd February.

Meanwhile back at the plot we finally thawed out and work on the first floor blockwork walls started. There's not much to do, though apparently a steel needs re-ordering. After that the second floor can go on which will seem like progress.

I'll add some pics as soon as I can.

Early January

Some snowy pics

-10 in the shade.

No progress on site yet this year.

Quite pleased we didn't get the water connected!

Icicles on ivy and snow on the first floor joists.

The kitchen!

Young helper sweeping the landing

View of south and west walls.......

                                                                   ..........and across the valley beyond

November / December 2009 The house finally starts to go up...

5th of November - the crew arrive to start erecting the ICF walls. In theory the polysterene blocks are simply stacked up and concrete is poured into the hollow centre.

The polysterene provides the shuttering during construction and stays in place to provide a high level of insulation.

Unfortunately it's not quite as simple as that. Our walls have to hold back the hillside behind the house, and need a strong retaining element. 

Consequently there is a maze of steel bar - horizontal and vertical to assemble within the blocks. Kilometers of the stuff! It proves quite a challenge.

Some of the internal walls were built while we were waiting for the ICF blocks.

The ground floor walls are almost ready to pour..

After the first floor walls have been poured and the internal walls to the ground floor are finished the beam and block first floor is laid.

Friday 13th November is a beautiful calm and cool blue-sky day. A satisfyingly large crane appears for a few hours to lift the beams into place (though I'm told it's the second smallest crane you can get).

This will be the kitchen and the patio outside, I'm pleased to see the house and back garden starting to "match up".  That gap down the side there is 3 metres deep and 23 metres long.


It takes days and days to back-fill with free-draining gravel. It feels much safer now the gap is filled - I take the opportunity to fill the planting area with spring bulbs, hoping the scaffolding is down again before they come up.

This will be a corner of the sitting room, over the garage. It will have windows to the front and rear but none facing the neighbours. 

The stair from the ground floor will come up here, facing a pair of doors that open onto a narrow area with the stone steps up to the garden.

There will be three steps up to the sitting room on the right which is 60cm higher than the main first floor to give a better view of the garden.

The big kitchen, utility and main bedroom are also on this floor.

The ICF crew return and build the first floor walls. External scaffolding is erected.

The house so far viewed from up and down the road.

 The last working week of the year sees the first floor walls being filled with concrete as snow flakes start to flutter.