site agent's diary

The three year old likes the window height...


Its 'perfect'.





He also reckons that his tipper truck operator's license is not too far off.

wooley thinking

A mountain of sheep's wool insulation has arrived.


















It works for many of the locals...


so why not us?

undercover

Over the course of the last week quite a bit has happened.






The sarking has been put across the trusses, the roof paper's been tacked on, battens & purlins have been fixed, and the 'wrinkly tin' is being fit.













A bit of earthmoving has also been achieved along with the commissioning of the new septic tank. Yes, our waste has a new destination. It's still not completely covered up yet as a few bit and pieces have yet to arrive but our fearless plumber assures us that it's good to see if it works before we cover it up completely. Now to convince the three year old that he can't play in the big hole...

trussed

The trusses have arrived and been put into place.







The basic shape/size is now apparent.







Inside, the ceiling heights can now be imagined.




A bit of a lull as we wait for the digger to return and backfill. Maybe then our garden will look less like the Somme.

framed view

The kit's up and it's starting to take shape.

fits & spurts

The building process seems to happen in flurries of activity followed by periods of patiently (or perhaps impatiently) waiting. The couple of weeks that resulted in the production of the underbuilding has been followed by 6 weeks of drying out and queuing. A three week hiatus is recommended (but generally ignored) before fixing the timber frame to the blockwork. Being swots, we took notice. Of course if the joiners were raring to go at week 2 we'd have sanctioned the fixing of the frame. That's the kind of opportunist expansionists we are.

In the meantime we've found other uses for our new patio: dance venue, bike riding circuit, slug-free locale for herb growing, half-court hoops venue. It's amazing what one can do with a bit of hard standing in a land of bogginess.

We've also taken up crater-making as a pastime--much to the delight of the three year old. It seems finding a home for our 10 person capacity septic tank has been more difficult than expected. Why a 10 person tank for a three bedroom cottage? Flexibility of course. It means we can have 6 more children or exploit the development potential of our croft--i.e. build another house with 5 bedrooms. Likely scenarios? Probably not. But the 6 or 8 person tank we really wanted wasn't made by the manufacturer we ordered the original 4 person tank from. So, to avoid a rather ridiculous re-stocking charge we super-sized our septic capacity. In this age of excess, why not?

Well, I'll tell you why not: rock. Yes, as mentioned in a previous post, we live on a beach. A beach under which large swathes of toridonian sandstone (which is not as soft as it sounds) flow. Furthermore, due to the nature of our "soil" (also mentioned before) over-digging is required to avoid self levelling. These two factors resulted in the first hole being immense but due to the presence of the aforementioned rock, 150mm (6 in) too shallow. So on to a second hole closer to the house to minimize the required amount of fall in the pipework and therefore the depth of the hole. The depth was achieved, albeit with significantly more effort from a digger two sizes too small for the task at hand. Which probably means a significantly larger invoice. Perhaps the re-stocking charge was a less fraught option.

So the timber has been purchased, delivered (to the wrong address of course) and stacked in the byre to dry out for the next flurry of activity due to commence tomorrow. The joiners have finished off with those in the queue before us and we're next. Watch this space...

heavy plant to the rescue...

progress...

Despite a week of gales and rain work has continued apace.

Three courses of blockwork and the slab are in the ground.

We'll give it a bit of time to cure and then onwards and upwards.

In the meantime...we might as well jump!