Click here to see April's pictures
Welcome to May - in theory the last month of the job. Seems unlikely, but that said things are moving very fast and it looks like it should just be final tidying up and some external bits left over for June.
May 2007
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Click here to see April's pictures Welcome to May - in theory the last month of the job. Seems unlikely, but that said things are moving very fast and it looks like it should just be final tidying up and some external bits left over for June.
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The plasterers have been busy.
Lounge
The lad's room and on the right the Guest / Karate room
Now a bit of plumbing...
These two lengths of tube are the ends of a 270 metre length that runs right to the far end of the paddock.
This is where they come in from the cold wrapped up in thick insulation.
They will be hooked up to the heat pump.
Across the way will be the hot water tank which will connect to this lot!!
Our friend Jeff came down from Durham to visit and while we weren't paying attention Melvin came along in the Kubota and look what happened......
Today Melvin turned his attentions to the courtyard. A "Y" shaped trench takes gas, electric and water down the road with the water going off to the left and down the slope
and the other two heading for the new extension.
In digging this trench, the brick layer was again revealed. I brushed it off and you can see the brick were laid on edge in rows.
They are about 15 inches below the surface. I don't know when the barn came down but it was there in the 1930's.
See if you can work this out!!
View of the patios from above.
This is the guest / karate room today, nice new bamboo floor, doors and skirtings in too.
We even have a front door, just three more doors to go I think.
That's it for now. Next jobs are to measure up for the landings and the lounge so we can order the floor boards.
Things get exciting in 2 weeks time when the kitchen, Aga and the heat pump arrive.
Well here we are two weeks later .......
Lots of new pics.
The upstairs flooring is making great progress with just parts of the landings to go.
Details od steps between the landing and the gallery.
Light bamboo in the guest room and number one's bedroom
The bathroom is still not quite done
The lad's safety rail!!
We decided to cut the old lounge fireplace down to size a bit. Mark found this ancient chunk of oak.
The main stuff in the last few days has been the ground source heat pump and tank arriving and getting installe dand up and running with very little fuss. (Just grunting and cursing - they are seriously heavy.
Parked in the garage before squeezing into their little spaces.
The water tank is nearly 2 metres tall.
And has lots of pipes and pumps.
The heat pump is not quite so big, but again lots of pipes amd expansion vessels. The bluish tank here is for expansion of the water in the ground loop.
100 litres of antifreeze went into the ground loop!!
We are still getting to grips with this. These are just three of the displays. I had just turned the room temperature down from 30 to 22. It had been working quite hard, putting water at 56 degrees through the floors.
The top left one is a sort of dose-response curve for how it will perform for particular temperatures. The shape of these curves can be altered to fine-tune the system!!
Link to the technical stuff on heat pumps.
The AGA arrived on Thursday and took 4 or 5 guys 6 hours to install. Not a viable "do it yourself" job. 500 components including fixings.
Plinth and heat proof backing installed and ready.
Trial installation of the top plate. Note the three sacks of vermiculite.
At various stages more of this is tipped in till its all full and insulated. Warming up to cook breakfast!
A couple of outside shots, there's still a couple of glass panes and a door to go in.
The observatory is coming on well.
It all moves to and fro on its rails.
I have yet to cut the slot in the floor but the data trunking and power cable are buried (two black pipes) as well as a blue one which is to take water to the paddock.
Inside it is done out with urethane foam insulation an alarm and some basic lighting.
This is the mount for the 'scope. Two girders bolted together. The cylinder will be welded to the flywheel and telescope drive assembply will bolt to the top of the cylinder.
All the girder stuff will be buried about 2 feet down.