Whinhill

2008-03-07T19:17:00.010Z

The piping has gone in for the bathrooms. The green plasterboard is waterproof - Well in theory it is anyway

There is a very long pipe run to the kitchen sink. The price that copper has climbed to, this makes it a very expensive sink.

Work has started on lining the window openings. The main bedroom with its matching door and window

The French windows

My strange little quirky window. It used to be the hatch for moving grain from the grain-dryer to the rolling mill.

I discovered today just how good the windows are. I specified windows with one half of them opening. It now seems that not only does that half open, but it can also be opened at the top as in tilt and turn. It gets even better, because once you have opened the window in the standard way, there is a hidden lever which opens the other half of the window as well.

It has been a week of problems. If I hadn't been at home already, I would have run away and gone home. The window sills are such odd sizes that they will all have to be made individually. I decided that since they are going to be painted, MDF would work well. A sheet of MDF is 1200mm wide, the window sills need to be 650mm wide. It will take a full sheet for each sill.

I finally ordered the twin wall steel flue for the woodburning stove. £5 change out of £1,000 - ouch !!

We decided that the window reveals and sills in the kitchen will be tiled. I have now noticed that the beautiful granite mullions have lumps on the back that protrude almost 2inches. We dare not try and cut it away as they are quite fragile. They will have to be boxed in before tiles can be put on.

2008-02-26T18:21:00.011Z

Work is progressing at a fair speed now. Much faster than I had ever hoped.

It is so wonderful that it now looks like a house and I can see light at the end of the tunnel. An end to caravan living. What will we do with all that space - fill it very quickly I should imagine lol

The timber frames were all stuffed with lots of insulation slab.

You can get a better idea of the size of the kitchen now that the dry lining walls are in place.

Phil is trying to make himself feel at home in the lounge. He only really sees progress at weekends because at this time of year he leaves home in the dark and it is dark again before he returns at night.

The wall is up now that divides the plant room, which contains all the manifolds and tanks etc for the geothermal and underfloor heating

The wiring has all been run to where it needs to be. Parts of the walls look like spaghetti junction. I think there are 800 metres of wire altogether, plus the telephone wire and coax for TV and satellite. So probably 1,000 metres of wiring altogether. I had the builders amazed at how many sockets I wanted. But decided that never again do I want to have "Xmas trees" of socket adapters.

We also decided to future proof as much as we could and so have installed a TV point and telephone point in every room. We won't need them, but someone may do in the future.

The plasterboard is done in a few of the rooms now

The pink plasterboard is fire -retardent for the corner where the wood burning stove will be fitted. The stove is mainly for emergency use as the underfloor heating will provide most of the heating needed. But since we get quite a lot of power cuts in winter and seem to be fairly low down the list of priorities for repair, we decided that if we can keep one room warm it will make life much easier.

2008-02-08T14:42:00.000Z

We have had one or two problems in the last couple of days - some of which have been resolved.

The gap between the wall tops and the roof was quite large in places because of the uneven granite walls

This has been filled with many tons of mortar.

The gable end was leaking quite badly in the kitchen

The leak was traced to a crack in the pointing just above the granite lintel. The whole gable has been repointed and hopefully the leak will have stopped.

There has also been a hitch with the piping for the under-floor heating. I think that when the piping was put in, on a freezing cold December day. The workers just wanted to get the job finished and go back to their families. The pies stand away from the wall by 200mm. This is making it difficult to box round them with the dry lining wall.

You cannot imagine how terrifying it is to find the workers attacking the concrete around the pipes with a heavy duty hammer drill with chisel on.

The final problem has not been resolved yet and might be one that I have to learn to live with.The door handle in the opening bedroom door/window is ludicrously low. I am unsure as to whether the door has been put on upside down or not.

The good news is that the floor for the study is in.

This has actually led to a change of bedroom for me and Phil. We were gouing to use the upstairs bedroom as ours because of the spectacular views down towards the fisheries. The walls are higher than we had imagined and this is the spectacular view that I get.

The "Bridge is now in place linking the study and the upstairs bedroom and the first of the insulation is in.

2008-02-05T11:15:00.000Z

There has been a long period with no builders working. But we are making progress again.

The doors and windows arrived

In the last 10 days the windows and doors have gone in. What a difference it has made.

This triple window has been the most challenging. It was origionally a huge barn door.We built it up to windowsill height and then sourced granite sills and mullions to match the origional stonework

The timber for the stud walling. The worksofce for this stage. Including Wojtek who came over from Poland to get the work started.

Work is well on with the partition walls and the dry lining walls

The upper floor is now going in

2007-07-10T14:50:00.000+01:00

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

2007-07-04T15:23:00.000+01:00

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

2007-07-01T19:12:00.001+01:00

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

2007-06-28T22:12:00.000+01:00

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.

2007-06-24T23:53:00.000+01:00

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.

2007-06-21T23:04:00.000+01:00

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

2007-06-19T09:03:00.000+01:00

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.

2007-06-15T20:02:00.000+01:00

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.

2007-06-15T01:02:00.000+01:00

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.

2007-06-13T18:56:00.000+01:00

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.

2007-06-12T17:33:00.000+01:00

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

2007-06-11T21:26:00.000+01:00

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

2007-06-09T17:29:00.000+01:00

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

friday 8th June

2007-06-08T21:14:00.000+01:00

The first side was completely slated today - only 5 sides to go.

The Spanish slates do look nice, just as nice as more expensive Scottish ones. They have been put on with a 2/3 overlap so that in effect each part of the roof will have 3 layers of slate which hopefully will ensure that it is completely wind and watertight.

The Granite copings were removed from the second gable and stone was built up to raise the level so that the copings can be replaced tomorrow at their new height.

Thursday 7th June

2007-06-07T18:55:00.000+01:00

The first lead valley went in this morning and a work of art it is too haha

The first of the slates were then put on. I am just so happy to see it finally happening.

As you can imagine, with Phil being a Health and Safety Manager he absolutely loves the cantilevered scaffolding with no edge protection, guard rails etc. But the new CDM and construction regulations do not apply to private householders. The duty rests with the employer not the client to ensure operations are carried out safely. When Phil sees this scaffolding, he therefore has his householder hat on and not his official one. I am just happy to be seeing progress.

The scaffolding has gone up around the second gable and so presumably work will start tomorrow on lifting the coping stones on that.

Wednesday 6th June

2007-06-06T18:47:00.000+01:00

The Copings were replaced on the first gable today.

I spent a very frustrating day trying to source 6mm x 20mm bolts for fixing the plastic gutter brackets to the metal sarking brackets. Two towns and 8 stores later I finally got them. I think that it probably cost more in petrol than the cost of the bolts.

The membrane has gone onto the first sections of roof today.

Weather permitting the first of 9,000 slates should go on tomorrow

Day by Day Progress on Our Project

2007-06-05T17:29:00.000+01:00

June 5th 2007

I have had complaints that I am not keeping the main website up to date with progress on our Steading conversion.
I have decided that the easiest way to do this is to have this blog reporting events as they happen and then I will update the main website at the end of each stage of work.

The Granite window sills are now in place and so are the superb reclaimed granite mullions in the kitchen window

The roof is progressing well.
81 Trusses were put up and tied together last week

Today they have complete the sarking board. An explanation for English readers here - a roof in Scotland has a completely boarded timber roof put on before the slates are nailed on top of it.

As always there has been a complication - the trusses are not quite the right size. They are about 2" higher than the stone gables. We couldn't correct this by cutting off an amount from the bottom of the legs because then they would have been narrower than the wall tops. So the granite coping stones on the gables have all to be taken off and raised a couple of inches. More time, more money, but it has to be done.