The paving slabs worked a treat, the windows went in well and the terrace drain situation was remedied and all went well and we were well chuffed with progress.
We then had lots of preparation work to do ahead of laying the concrete slab for kitchen floor.
First off we buried the mains water pipe that comes in through the kitchen door and goes through to the studio where "Richard" resides (the thermal store is called Richard)
You can see the black pipe coming up next to him here on the left.
Once we did that we made sure all the scalpings were near enough level, as can be seen in this photo. The lumpy uneven stuff you can see is actually bits of insulation after we did the kitchen ceiling.
Then it was a case of laying in the electrics that go to the various points around the kitchen and into the studio room where we have the main junction box for all the lounge lights.
(sorry the photos are a bit blurry)
They all lead to where the main boards will be in the corner on the left. (although Richard and all the circulating pumps and sensors etc will have its own isolated board)
Here you can se the electric and communication gains going off to the studio room
Here are ones for the plug points cooker point (even though we are not having an electric cooker) extraction fan etc
Then it was case of getting the sand in to make the surface smooth for the membrane
and then packing it down with the whacker plate and checking the levels again using the laser and a stick.
Now we are on the morning of the concrete arrival and as I unrolled what I thought was plenty of membrane, it in fact only covered half the floor so a quick improvisation was needed and we doubled up with some thick plastic sheeting.
We made the join with a sort of fold over pleat thing and some tape to hold it in place while we put the insulation down.
Not perfect but the clock was running and I didn't have time to go to town to get another roll of insulation .
Next came the insulation I had found that saves a lot of height. It is a multi foil type stuff with a foam sandwich and is recommended for sub floor insulation especially where height is an issue.
Here is the main gain for Richards fuseboard and the plastic coated 22mm copper pipe for the back boiler on the wood burning range
And here it is with the hot and cold for the sink and the electric feeds for the island that will go in later. You can also see the re-enforcing mesh down.
In this one you can see one of the electric boards and the spaggetti of wires that will be connected in due course
We finished just ahead of schedule and had a drop of lunch and waited for the cement lorry to arrive which it duly did.
.
Big beasts are they not?
Here is my son and I after the initial shout of "Let her roll matey!!!"
As soon as it started I thought “Hmm that’s a bit dry” however I decided it might just be the first bit down the chute but in another few seconds I realized it was way too dry and am shouting for him to stop the pour. However he had wandered off round the side of the lorry and doesn’t hear me and before he stops there is well over cube in already.
I am doing two things now beginning with S “sweating and swearing”, which I can assure you is not a great combination.
My son and I managed to drag the dry stuff about and then get him to wet down the next bit of the pour but he was being a complete t****r about how much water he was putting in and stopping before he put to much dry stuff in.
Suffice to say it was a struggle to get it spread out and even close to level with a reasonable finish but we did the best we could to make a good job of it.
I was even running over it with the whacker plate for a while to try and level down some of the humps, which proved to be fairly successful and we got it down to a level that at the most is about 15mm out in places. Not perfect but the best of a bad pour.
To say I was p!ssed off about it (as was MrsB) is an understatement as we both thought it looked like ploughed field and nothing like the lovely level smooth floor we did in the lounge that was nearly twice as big. However it was down and when it dried out in the morning wasn’t quite as bad as we first thought.
You can see here where the pipes for the sink and electric for the island come up through in the places chosen. I will be building the island when I get home in November.
We shuttered off the studio room as we wanted to re-arrange how the floors joined up which we did later by hand an with a gentle slope up to the studio floor. We were not able to get all the floors totally level as it would have meant taking another 30mm off the door height which is already low enough.
To give a a level we are going to create a mat well by the door. This means we will have 20mm to play with using self leveling screed to bring the rest of the floor to a condition that we can tile onto.
Just as a word of warning to others is that had I been thinking and measuring more carefully in the beginning I would have made the lounge floor 25mm lower to compensate for the low door in the kitchen but I am not a pro builder and it is fairly easy to put right. It is not as perfect as II would have liked but it is what it is and is fairly easy to remedy.
It will be next year before I get round to screeding and tiling and in the meantime MrsB has put some jute matting down as a temporary measure to make it a bit more pleasing on the eye for the winter and the gang coming over for Christmas (our first one together in 6 years)
Next up some plumbing.
Cheers
Bentley
We then had lots of preparation work to do ahead of laying the concrete slab for kitchen floor.
First off we buried the mains water pipe that comes in through the kitchen door and goes through to the studio where "Richard" resides (the thermal store is called Richard)
You can see the black pipe coming up next to him here on the left.
Once we did that we made sure all the scalpings were near enough level, as can be seen in this photo. The lumpy uneven stuff you can see is actually bits of insulation after we did the kitchen ceiling.
Then it was a case of laying in the electrics that go to the various points around the kitchen and into the studio room where we have the main junction box for all the lounge lights.
(sorry the photos are a bit blurry)
They all lead to where the main boards will be in the corner on the left. (although Richard and all the circulating pumps and sensors etc will have its own isolated board)
Here you can se the electric and communication gains going off to the studio room
Here are ones for the plug points cooker point (even though we are not having an electric cooker) extraction fan etc
Then it was case of getting the sand in to make the surface smooth for the membrane
and then packing it down with the whacker plate and checking the levels again using the laser and a stick.
Now we are on the morning of the concrete arrival and as I unrolled what I thought was plenty of membrane, it in fact only covered half the floor so a quick improvisation was needed and we doubled up with some thick plastic sheeting.
We made the join with a sort of fold over pleat thing and some tape to hold it in place while we put the insulation down.
Not perfect but the clock was running and I didn't have time to go to town to get another roll of insulation .
Next came the insulation I had found that saves a lot of height. It is a multi foil type stuff with a foam sandwich and is recommended for sub floor insulation especially where height is an issue.
Here is the main gain for Richards fuseboard and the plastic coated 22mm copper pipe for the back boiler on the wood burning range
And here it is with the hot and cold for the sink and the electric feeds for the island that will go in later. You can also see the re-enforcing mesh down.
In this one you can see one of the electric boards and the spaggetti of wires that will be connected in due course
We finished just ahead of schedule and had a drop of lunch and waited for the cement lorry to arrive which it duly did.
.
Big beasts are they not?
Here is my son and I after the initial shout of "Let her roll matey!!!"
As soon as it started I thought “Hmm that’s a bit dry” however I decided it might just be the first bit down the chute but in another few seconds I realized it was way too dry and am shouting for him to stop the pour. However he had wandered off round the side of the lorry and doesn’t hear me and before he stops there is well over cube in already.
I am doing two things now beginning with S “sweating and swearing”, which I can assure you is not a great combination.
My son and I managed to drag the dry stuff about and then get him to wet down the next bit of the pour but he was being a complete t****r about how much water he was putting in and stopping before he put to much dry stuff in.
Suffice to say it was a struggle to get it spread out and even close to level with a reasonable finish but we did the best we could to make a good job of it.
I was even running over it with the whacker plate for a while to try and level down some of the humps, which proved to be fairly successful and we got it down to a level that at the most is about 15mm out in places. Not perfect but the best of a bad pour.
To say I was p!ssed off about it (as was MrsB) is an understatement as we both thought it looked like ploughed field and nothing like the lovely level smooth floor we did in the lounge that was nearly twice as big. However it was down and when it dried out in the morning wasn’t quite as bad as we first thought.
You can see here where the pipes for the sink and electric for the island come up through in the places chosen. I will be building the island when I get home in November.
We shuttered off the studio room as we wanted to re-arrange how the floors joined up which we did later by hand an with a gentle slope up to the studio floor. We were not able to get all the floors totally level as it would have meant taking another 30mm off the door height which is already low enough.
To give a a level we are going to create a mat well by the door. This means we will have 20mm to play with using self leveling screed to bring the rest of the floor to a condition that we can tile onto.
Just as a word of warning to others is that had I been thinking and measuring more carefully in the beginning I would have made the lounge floor 25mm lower to compensate for the low door in the kitchen but I am not a pro builder and it is fairly easy to put right. It is not as perfect as II would have liked but it is what it is and is fairly easy to remedy.
It will be next year before I get round to screeding and tiling and in the meantime MrsB has put some jute matting down as a temporary measure to make it a bit more pleasing on the eye for the winter and the gang coming over for Christmas (our first one together in 6 years)
Next up some plumbing.
Cheers
Bentley
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