Guttering - Lindab

A busy weekend, saw all the guttering installed (downpipes will be put up after the scaffolding is down). We went for Lindab Galvanised Steel in the end, and very pleased with it - it looks  nice against the white fascia boards - and it is very good quality stuff. We would say it is about 33% more expensive than the plastic stuff, but should last considerably longer and do a much better job. It is obviously more difficult to install - you have to cut it with hacksaw/tin snips, and to be honest it can be a struggle - but it is most definately worth it.

Builders Toilet

It is truly horrendous - the builders toilet. What lurks in there is scary and not for the faint hearted. Watch the Video - If You DARE!!!

Floor Screed + 24 Hours

Just 24 hours later and you can walk on the floor - it will take a little longer to properly cure (1mm per day), so to be safe we will leave it 2 months before firing up the UFH.

Floor Screed

 

Floor screeding done today - this is how it worked out. The concrete pump and Wagon turned up!

The hose from the pump was connected up and fed into the house.

'Sam' the pump driver puts a mesh put over the entry to the pump to stop big bits getting into pump - we want nice smooth screed!

'Jen' the concrete lorry driver pours the screed into the pump.

Mick and terry in action and you can see in the video that this screed is very liquid when poured. This means that there should be no air bubbles in the screed making the EUFH system that much more efficient.

After the pour this is how it looks after it is poured in...

This is the job completed - in all from start to finish took about 45mins! top job.

Thanks to eurostar i made it home sunday - video below is one of the finest sights i have seen for a long time, the eurostar train coming into station to take me home..

Volcanic Ash

Not a lot happened the last 2 weeks - I have been working in Rotterdam, installing MRI scanner into a mobile trailer unit. They are built in Oud-Beijerland, Netherlands in the SMIT factory, which of course means that I am now stuck - thanks to volcanic ash.

I was supposed to be flying home Friday night but I am still in Europe (it is now Sat Night). I am hoping that i may be able to get home tomorrow - thanks to Eurostar.

This is where i've been the last 2 weeks - Hotel Golden Tulip - Rotterdam.

And this is where i am at the moment, Lille - hoping to get on the Eurostar tomorrow to London.

On the road to England

Kingspan and EUFH Installed in Floor

All the floors downstairs have had 80mm Kingspan installed and the joints taped up. Then, as you can see in the pictures, there has been Visqueen put over the top - this is the stuff they use for DPM - it is there because the flow screed that we are using reacts with the Foil backed foam insulation (Kingspan) - so to stop it you use this plastic membrane. Then the Electric Underfloor Heating cables have been put in (red in pics) where required, with floor sensors.

This has taken a bit longer than we thought - we were hoping to have poured the screed by now. Laying the cables right has been the problem, they are of fixed length and cannot be shortened. So if you consider that the cable for the heating in the lounge is about 150 metres long, you need to cover the floor with evenly spaced loops over 20 sq m, it is a bit of a bugger to get this spot on. The fixing strip for the cables has loops to clip the cables to - these have been securly taped to the membrane.

So why use electric UFH when the most popular by far is the hot water pipes UFH you ask. This is the idea - where we live the electric suppliers Scottish Power have an economy tariff (option 14) which gives 14 hours off peak electricity each day. This gives you electricity at about 1/3 of the normal price between 9pm and 8am then again from 1pm and 4pm in the afternoon. So you put a nice 60mm flow screed (much denser then normal screed) on top of the EUFH - and basically 'charge-up' the floor using the off-peak electricity. It then switches off before you go on-peak and the floors act as a 'thermal mass' holding the heat nicely. The MVHR system also helps - it recycles the heat around the house. So we should have a nice warm house for cheap! well thats the theory, we'll tell you if it works when we move in!