Week Eighteen - Keeping the moisture out and the heat in

The re-built sections of plinth have a modern physical DPC (damp proof course) built into them. The remaining sections of the original plinth clearly have no DPC whatsoever. We've had to deal with that by hiring a firm to come and provide what they call injection DPC. It seems to consist of drilling loads of holes along both sides of the wall just above the ground and squirting in some sort of resin that soaks into the brickwork. As it sets, it provides an impermeable barrier to the moisture rising up from the ground under capillary action. (Or maybe it's the hydrostatic pressure from the water in the ground which forces the damp up the walls.) Whatever. Here a trench has been dug next to an internal wall to expose the foundation, ready for the injection DPC guy to come along and do his stuff.

More bracing over one of the trusses holding the east and west walls together.

This time of year the stream at the bottom of the garden is dry. Actually, the stream is a boundary between the land around the barn and our field. I call it the 'land around the barn', rather than a garden, because part of it is still agricultural land, like the field on the other side of the stream. The planning permission we have includes 'change of use' for some of the land, from agricultural to residential. We're not allowed to use the land still classified as agricultural for any other purpose, such as an extended garden. So we won't  be putting flowerbeds, swings and sandpits on the field. It has to remain a field and be used for some sort of agricultural purpose such as growing a crop or raising animals. Interesting, huh?

We've had to hire a series of skips for the the rubbish – mainly celotex offcuts.

Here is just a tiny proportion of the celotex offcuts which are being thrown away. Heartbreaking, but necessary if we don't want to disappear under a pile of rubbish.

Putting some of the waste celotex to good use, at least temporarily - we used some to mark out the location of the walls around the downstairs shower room/cloakroom. It's amazingly difficult to visualize without some props.

Believe it or not, some of the celotex actually ends up on the roof.

On top of, and between, the rafters.

The neigbouring barley field will soon ready for harvest. Not much growth in our field due to the lack of rain.  I'm not complaining. It's an ill drought that brings no man good.

They're getting through it, so we've ordered a bit more celotex ...

Meanwhile, on the roof rafter feet are kicking out in style.

They've started putting the celotex on the outside of the walls, on the OSB. Here's a rather nice mitred joint of two 100mm celotex boards at one of the many corners.

And finally