Quick update before I go away for a week.
My mum died a few days ago and I have to go back to Yorkshire for the funeral, so I shall be missing for a while.
The pipes went in for the geothermal.
The white blobs are carrier bags full of sand to keep the pipes in position while they are covered over.

The hole through the wall for this piping was a challenge. It had to be almost 1 metre below ground level. Except that it had to be below outside ground level and the outside is almost a metre below internal floor level. Me and Phil had to excavate this rather deep hole and then break through 75cm granite wall. It was fun !!
The distribution manifolds were attached to the top of the pipes.

Work has now started on filling the hole in.
The ground levels are being altered at the same time as it makes sense to do this while the big machinery is on site. It will make the garden easier to deal with if it is level with gentle slopes rather than steep banking

The hole for the geothermal piping is now completed
There were snags along the way as always, including a burst hydraulic pipe on the digger and a break in the drain taking the water from the well under the garden to the burn. The well was running faster than I have ever seen it run, so the amount of water cascading into the hole was spactacular. The picture doesn't do it full justice because there is no scale or movement to it.
The broken pipe has finally been uncovered and the water is now piped through modern plastic pipe.
The house has squatters before we have even finished it.
There is a swallows nest in the bedroom block just above one of the windows. They must have started building the moment the roof was completed there.
Can you imagine their excitment as they tried to decide which of the new trusses to use, and admired the home improvements that we had done for them

The roof is complete !!

It was quite difficult getting the last of the ridge tiles because modern ones are totally different to the traditional old ones that are on. Most builder's merchants only stock the new type. I managed to find second hand ones at a reclamation yard in Kinellar.

The Polish workers set off back home on Sunday morning. They have quite a drive ahead of them as they were catching a ferry from Dover. They would then presumably have to drive across the continent from Dunkirk to Poznan in Poland.

Excavations were started for the huge hole in the garden. I can now hire out my lawn to film makers for WWII films.



The spoil heaps are hugeThe hole itself is going to be quite impressive when its finished. I shall have to throw someone down there to give a sense of scale.
Phil became a very happy man when Tony let him have drive of the digger.


Phil above Tony below


We have also discovered that the ground level outside the kitchen is considerably lower than we had thought.

This means that the hole inside the kitchen where the pipes will come in has to be correspondingly lower

It's been a miserable couple of days with torrential rain and sunny patches between.

The long side of the lounge block is now completed


The sunpipe in that section of roof is in place as well. This should provide extra light towards the rear of the upstairs bedroom which is located in that hipped section of roof.


The study roof is complete as well


The roof is now looking great when viewed from the North


The only work to be done now is the small amount of slating seen on the following picture and the ridge tiles on some sections of roof.


Kenny's mean machine arrived on site today. It is most impressive when you stand next to it, I hadn't realised quite how much bigger than our humble digger it actually was. Work will start in the morning digging out the enormous hole for the slinky piping which will collect the heat for the geothermal heating system.

Work is still progressing well again after a week of slow progress.
There is now another completed angle. So well over half the roof is complete now.


The velux on the hip has been finished and the slating is well over half done.


The final side has been started.

Rain stopped work yesterday after a couple of hours. But a lot of progress was made today.
There are now 2 completed sides on the roof on the North side of the building


The second side of the kitchen is complete


The second side of the bedroom block is almost finished as well

There was some progress on Saturday that I didn't post about because we had a BBQ to celebrate our Wedding Anniversary. We held it inside the part of the house that now has a roof as the weather was very wet and miserable, albeit much better than the weather on the day we actually got married. Hopefully this will be the last time we can hold a BBQ inside the house lol

The first of the ridge tiles have gone on


The third side has quite a lot of slate on now.


But work has had to stop on this side of the building because the huge excavation for the geothermal pipes will come very close to the other side of the building and so that side will have to be completed before digging starts, while scaffolding can still be erected there.
They have moved the scaffolding and made a start on the 4th side.

There were some more slates added today on the third roof side


And part of the second side reached the ridge


I must admit that after the initial surge the slating is going a lot slower than I had expected, but possibly the size of the roof is greater than it appears to be.

The third gable was finally finished today.
I am not at all happy because the builders have been proving some sort of point with me.
I specifically asked them some time ago, and repeated at the weekend, that I was saving the white quartz stones that are sometimes found, to build a wall around our well to make a feature of it.
If you look at the new edge on the third gable you will see that it comprises mainly of these white stones. They possibly think they are being very clever and funny. I am furious. The stones that have been used are not particularly large ones and so their loss is not a disaster. It is the principle that is so annoying. that they will blatently disregard my wishes is very upsetting. I can't put it down to language difficulties because they have on occasions presented me with one as a humorous gift. In the long run they will find that this was not the wisest thing that they ever did.


One of the lead valleys was put in today as well as the lead in the gutter between the two roof sections.


The slating on this third section was started as well as the final paper covering.

The flashing went round the second Velux window today.
The slates have made some progress but they had to stop before the ridge because the paper needs to lap from one side to the other.

The second gable has made some progress but does seem much slower than the first two. Maybe the builders are suffering from fatigue. We are having a Wedding Anniversary BBQ on Sunday and have invited them to come along so that might cheer them up and get the pace of work back to where it was a week or so ago.


The paper has been put onto most of the third roof side today so presumable the next step will be the lead gutters. There will be three altogether on this section because there are two valley gutters which meet at the end of a trough between two parallel roof sections.

Drizzly damp day but the first of 6 Velux windows got all its flashing kit fitted.


Quite a lot more slates on the second roof side now.


The third and final gable is stripped off and partially rebuilt

I have been away for the day today taking a sick grandchild to hospital (she is going to be fine)
I don't know what has happened but it looks like very slow progress. Maybe they have just spoiled me with the fast progress they have been making until now. There might have been unforseen snags that I know nothing about. I will find out tomorrow when I speak to the workforce.
The second side of the roof has made some progress

The valley between the two halves of roof is looking very neat

Slating the second roof side started today


The second gable was completed.

As a change from the house development.
I have started putting the slate paths between the raised veg beds. This is all the broken slates that came of the roof when it was first stripped. It should keep the weeds down and make it easier to get to the beds in muddy wet weather. It will take a lot of walking on before it is broken down and reasonably level but it should be good when it's finished.

The strange black plastic mound on the left of the picture is very weedy raised bed that I have not had time to deal with. Thick black plastic stapled onto the framework should help with clearing it. Especially if I leave it for a year or so - which is quite likely anyway looking at my list of jobs at the moment haha