Week Thirty Two - A week of Firsts

Feeling very excited this week. Lots of Firsts. Lots of new things starting and the impression that the conversion is now transitioning to something more closely resembling a new build. Of course we expect more gotchas, but it feels good.

First section weather boarding has at last started to go up.

Under the boards, and over the celotex, is a breather membrane. It's a bit like paper but made from some sort of magical fibre that lets the air through and keeps the water out. Bit like a GoreTex jacket - allegedly ... Must admit, when I read that sort of stuff I get the old "and if you believe that you'll believe anything" feeling. Just called me an old sceptic - everybody else does. Anyway, the plans say breather membrane under the boarding, so breather membrane it is.

 Another first, and a big big step forward - plumbing 1st fix. They run the pipework, copper and plastic, through walls, under floors, through first floor joists, wherever. Once all the plastering is done they 'll come back and (you guessed it) do 2nd fix That's when they connect up all the bits at the ends like taps, sinks, showers and stuff. (Stuff would include all the unmentionable things like S bends, drainage traps, cisterns, close coupled toilet pans, soil pipes. But to avoid any scandal we'll take that as read, OK?) Here we see hot and cold water pipes and, I think, pipes feeding the underfloor heating.

Unmentionable stuff in the ensuite bathroom to the main bedroom.

Slightly less unmentionable stuff for basins. The pipe runs will all be covered once the stud wall is plastered over.

Much more acceptable in polite society is the materiel of electical 1^st fix, which also started this week. (Another big big step forward. BTW, did you know that Cambodian for big is 'tom'? And very big is 'tom tom'. So we're definitely having a tom tom week.)

Cables run through the stud walls to switches,

 

... and to sockets. The terminal components of sockets, switches and light fittings will all be installed at 2nd fix when the walls are finished. It's beginning to look like a real house under construction.

 

We're a long way from hanging doors but the door linings have been assembled ready for painting and nailing up in the doorways.

Outside, final repairs to the brickwork have begun. The old brickwork needs repointing and damaged bricks have to be cut out and replaced. They start by removing the worst bricks and then raking out the old mortar.

 

It's interesting how modern the raked out bricks look. The mortar is no longer flush with the brick and the effect is quite startling.

Here's a section of new brickwork with new, flush, mortar next to an old section of brickwork where the mortar has been raked out ready for repointing. 

Issues that have exercised us this week have included: how to push on with the garage & plant room where the water filtration, heat pump and equipment will be located; do we use rockwool or sheep wool between the studs; where to put the electricity consumer units (fuse boxes), inside or out; whether to put lead over the windows to protect the window frames from the weather, or not; where to put the keypads for the burglar alarms; how to get the pipework from the ground floor to the first floor; how many loft access trapdoors do we want (2 or 3). Ooh la la, this is doing my head in.

And finally

Week Thirty One - Just Flue by

This week great progress with the chimney/fireplace inside, and the flue outside. The Planners don't allow a brick chimney on the roof of a barn so it has to be a steel flue. And it's not a good idea to take the flue out through the ridge - you'd have to cut through the ridge timbers which would weaken the structure.

So the flue exit is located a couple of tiles down from the ridge.

The wood burning stove is directly beneath the ridge, and the optimal run for the flue would have been straight up to ensure a good flow of exhaust gases and smoke from the stove. To get out via the second tile down from the ridge, the flue has to have a couple of bends in it. Had much heartache working out an acceptable route for the flue which would have minimal impact visually, be within the constraints imposed by the Planners, and have the least bends.

The West window and door frame was delivered this week. Just have to get it painted and the builder can put it up. We've decided on bi-fold doors for this one. Not sure how that's going to work.

They've started preparing the inner side of the walls. Battens have to be nailed or screwed to the studwork to provide a level surface for the internal insulation and plasterboard. Takes an age and uses miles of batten.

Studwork for the new internal walls is built onto existing timbers.

This is going to be a shower room for the bedrooms in the north end of the barn. Looks light and airy right now but when the plasterboard is nailed up it will be rather dark - no windows.

At the other end of the building, the walls to create the ensuite shower room in the main bedroom are going up.

The back stairwell. No stairs at present, just ladders. Would be cheaper, I guess, to leave it like that. Might be difficult getting stuff up there, though.

The chimney takes up most of one wall in bedroom two. It will be plastered over, of course, and maybe a cupboard will be built round it if funds allow.

From the double height area, the fireplace, with its catenary sides, and the rectangular structure of the chimney behind in bedroom 2.

Here you can see how the fireplace pillars have a structural role holding up the first floor joists, not to mention the steel beam at the back.

This week we've started preparing for first fixes next week - plumbing and electrics – all very exciting

And finally

Week Thirty - Hot Air

The Queen’s birthday is marked by an RAF flypast over Buckingham Palace. We chose to mark current progress with the barn by  arranging a flypast of three vintage aeroplanes over the Barn. 
(Just kidding.)

We're having Heat Recovery Ventilation installed. The idea is that the barn is designed to be pretty much airtight and all ventilation ducted in and out via a couple of heat exchangers. As the stale air is pumped out of the building it warms the air coming in. That way the air is changed regularly (way in excess of building regulation requirements) while the heat in the air is retained in the building. Cool huh? Or should that be Warm huh? The HRV kit was delivered this week. We had a last minute change of heart concerning the ducting. The original design was based on rigid ducting, essentially 4 or 6 inch diameter pipes rather like drain pipes. We couldn't see how to route that kind of ducting round the barn given the contraints of an old timber frame with beams and trusses all over the place, not to mention steel beams in the ceilings. So we opted for a system using flexible ducting, the red stuff.

Another view of that diagonal timber across the doorway which had to be cut to let us get to bed.

The plywood on the first floor is fixed to the joists using something called ringshank nails. Whereas ordinary nails have smooth shanks, these things have raised rings along the length of the shank. I think the idea is that the corrugation makes it difficult to get the nail out once it's driven home. Bit like the twisted square nails used to fix joist hangers. Bet you didn't realize that nails could be so interesting? Personally, I find them quite riveting.

The chimney in the centre of the barn is going up. The brick and blockwork will be covered by plasterboard and there will be a facing of bricks visible from the double height area.

The internal domestication of the barn took another step forward with the delivery of the door linings. More learning curve stuff - door linings, architraves, door stops. Not to mention door furniture (handles and locks to you and me) and of course not forgetting butt hinges, washered or ball bearing.

Timber frame against the OSB. Some people choose to put all the insulation on the outside and keep the frame exposed internally. The problem with doing it that way is that the barn tends to bulge. The insulation pushes the weather boarding outwards by the thickness of the insulation deployed, say 100mm or even 200mm. We’ve chosen to have some of the insulation outside and some inside between the studs. There are pros and cons to both approaches and who knows what’s the right thing to do. Still struggling to decide whether to use sheep wool or rock wool between the studs. Probably come down to cost in the end.

King post over the central doorway as seen from the outside. I think it looks great. You can see the original carpenters marks on the timber.

New studwork in the roof space over the back stairs. As if there wasn't already enough timber in the barn, we're adding loads more - for new walls and ceilings.

Partition walls and ceilings over the back hall and staircase. What staircase, I hear you ask. Good question. Watch this space.

And finally

Week Twenty Nine – Blast Off

Busy week this week. Window frames painted and ready for fitting

We discovered this week that the headroom over the south exit door would be around 6ft - a couple of inches short of the regulatory height. As a barn conversion is exempt from certain things where the nature of the structure makes compliance impossible we had the option to leave it as it is or else redo frame above the doorway. It wouldn't be trivial and would involve fairly major surgery. So we decided to leave it. We've been advised to put a picture of a duck over the doorway ... In fact, over several doorways.

There's a pile of old timbers recovered from the barn out the back. We've managed to re-use some of it but not sure what to do with the rest. Would be expensive if we had to go to a reclaim yard and buy it - but who'd buy it off us? Maybe try our luck on eBay? Worm Eaten timber for sale, roll up, roll up.

And the pile of old boards just keeps on growing. Maybe use for kindling some day. Or perhaps just a bonfire.

A picnic table for the guys. Never let it be said that we didn't provide the best facilities money can buy for the wellbeing of our guys.

Plastic closures under the external cladding to keep the vermin out, hopefully. Does that look straight to you?

The timber frame needed sand blasting to remove years of dust and woodworm frass. (Never heard that word before. Dictionary.com defines it as insect droppings. Yuk. It's what the woodworms leave behind after feasting on your antique furniture - a sort of powdery, dusty coating. Like I said - Yuk.) Anyway, we were visited this week by the Blasting Spaceman - at least that's what he looked like.

Dust everywhere and billowing out the door.

Our Spaceman brought with him a machine that looked something out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I expected a squad of Oompa Loompas to leap out and set to work. I wish ...

On the first floor, stud walls are going up – beginning to see how the first floor will look, how the rooms will be. Amazing the difference once you begin to set boundaries to open space.

View from the bedroom - for now, because it will be boarded over in due course.

Not all walls are stud work - here's blockwork up to the truss between bedroom 2 and 4.

Out the back flora and fauna continue to flourish despite the lack of rain.

Noggins between the ends of the joists to stop them falling over

And noggins between the middles of the joists doing the same sort of thing - it's all about greater stability I guess.

A steel beam notched into a supporting post. Amazing that an oak post can provide enough support for a steel beam holding up a load of floor joists.

The view from the double height area through the open stud gallery to the main bedroom. You get a great view from up there over the kitchen and dining area. Just wish there was some way of retaining it. But it might be a wee bit uncomfortable getting into bed in full view ...

Dragon tie in a corner of the main bedroom with celotex between the rafters above.

Ply floor fitted round studs in the main bedroom, with that fabulous, but temporary, view beyond.

We decided this week to reduce size of cloakroom off the utility room. It was planned as a downstairs shower room. We've reduced it to give a bit more space to the utility room, to reduce costs in sanitary ware and because it seemed a bit extravagant to have a shower room downstairs. N'est ce pas?

We're still agonising over what internal doors to buy - not that we actually need them right now. The traditional choice seems to be oak framed ledged and braced with Suffolk latches rather than a proper door handle. Part of the problem is that oak FLB doors are actually quite expensive. Seems odd that the traditional door found in humble cottages all over the land is a bit of a luxury item. You can get solid oak veneer doors thick enough to take a lever handle and normal latch for a fraction of the price. Admittedly they're mass produced, and constructed using a cheap engineered wood. But the finished article looks pretty good and by all accounts is durable. Bye the bye, don't you love that term 'solid oak veneer'? Almost a contradiction in terms. It leaves you thinking it's solid oak (for which you'd have to look into taking out a second mortgage) whereas it means it's a solid door with a film, a smidgin, a smear, a veneer of oak stuck on the outside. Ah well that's progress.

Things are seldom what they seem,
Skim milk masquerades as cream;
Highlows pass as patent leathers;
Jackdaws strut in peacock's feathers

as Gilbert and Sullivan put it.

And finally