Week 23 - Heating - 3rd Jan

Starting the new year at 100mph, Steve the tiller is here on bank holiday Monday so that the store room can be tilled ready for the heating on Tuesday. It takes a couple of hours to measure everything out and I'm shifting the tiles again, this time into thicknesses so Steve can get the floor as even as possible... good for working of the Christmas excesses mind.

To get the best result you need to start in the middle of the Kitchen and work out so Steve has layed out the tiles and is working his way into the store room, he came recommended from the Norwich Tile Centre and I can see why he does all their displays. The amount of thought and care he is putting into getting the floor just right is great, although this means questions every few minutes.

The plasters are also back and are hoping to be finished in the next week or two which will be great, as it's taken much longer than we (or they) anticipated. I'm glad we fixed the price or I'd be having kittens by now!

After starting quickly we have slowed.....I thought I'd just check the heating guys had everything they needed and they don't....Nu-heat have failed to deliver the ground source heat pump and are saying it will be next week before they can get it here (Apparently the snow is to blame!!!).


After a few rather sharp phone calls they have found one that was to be for another customer who does not need it quite yet and we are set for Thursday so only two days lost.

At least that has given Steve time to get the floor further on.

We also have the electrician and the plumber back this week, so it's lucky we've built a big house as it's like Piccadilly circus.

The heat pump has arrived on Thursday as and boy is it large, especially the water cylinder. We know it should all fit in the store room but It's going to be fun getting it all in.

Week 22 - Skimming - 27th Dec

With Christmas over too quickly it's back to the plastering and the guys are back in Tus - Fri to try and get done. The store room has dried over Christmas and we are in painting it whilst the Kitchen is being skimmed.

We have got a Dulux paint pod which means you do not have to keep getting up and down to put more paint on the rollers and it uses less paint and as we have a rather large surface area to get through this seemed like a good investment, also Focus have put the paint on sale and instead of £25 a pot they are £10 each...Happy days!!

Buy the end of the week the skimming is done and we are trying to dry it all out with the space heater, whilst painting once dry.

To seal the plaster we are using PVA mixed with water (1 PVA to 5 water) which goes on to the walls and once dried it looks like you have not done anything but should then only require 2 coats of paint.

We've put in some hours this week and are looking forward to letting our hair down on new years eve at a party down the road (as long as we can both keep our eyes open).

So we are all ready for the heating next week and also we have managed to get a tiller to start work on the bank holiday before the heating arrives to get the floor down in the store room so the equipment can be located in there.

Week 21 - More Internals - 20th Dec

The drylining will be finished this week and a start can be made on the plastering, the Kitchen, sun room and store room need to be finished this so we can paint before the heating system comes on the 4th Jan.

When the kitchen comes in the 2nd week of Jan there cannot be too much moisture in the air else it will be absorbed into the units and warp them so we are getting the back half of the house plastered first so we can minimise this risk. Also the store room must be finished so the heating system can be installed.

We have hired an LPG space heater to help dry out the plaster and are leaving electric heaters on over night to stop the water in the plaster freezing. This would be very bad as the plaster cracks and you have to rip off the plaster and plaster board and start again.....No Thanks.
The space heater pumps out so much heat, within 5 mins the place is like a sauna, and I recon you could cook breakfast nicely on the top of it, maybe we don't need the kitchen??

Paul the electrician has made the power sockets in the sun room live which is great as there are so many extension leads running off extension leads they keep cutting out.

We also have water into the house now and with the really cold weather this week we have been lucky it has not frozen.