As the first blog post of the year, I'd like to start by wishing you all the best for the New Year. This is one of the most important years of our lives to date. Somewhere towards the middle of it we will be moving into our new home and in September we'll be getting married. Nothing like cramming a couple of major life events in, in a few months!
We've had some pretty awful weather over the last 2 weeks, when it's rained its really RAINED, it's been windy - VERY WINDY, but we've actually had quite a few dry days or afternoons complete with blue sky and the upshot of that is that we've managed to dodge the weather to do some work on the outside of the house that we weren't necessarily expecting to be able to do.
So it's been all hands on deck over the Christmas break, with no trades on site we've been busy ourselves and have had some help from my Mum & Dad and also the kids when they were up with us.
With the weather being kind in patches we've painted both the gable ends of the house (3 coats of paint, so that's finished), the front of the house under the eves, with 2 coats and the rear of the house 1 coat. Considering the time of year that's pretty good going! We've also managed when dry to move 85 x 6meter feather edge boards inside the house to dry and shifted most of the Kingspan K7 Kooltherm Roof Insulation upstairs, in the dry. Maneuvering around the scaffolding proved tricky, but we managed to do it. Keeping as much of the materials as possible dry at this time of year is critical to being able to get on to the next stage...
I sourced 6 meter Baltic grown, Larch Feather Edged Boards from local Kingsland timber merchants Powell & Co. Excellent service and very helpful staff and being just 5 mins down the road from our home very handy! Once we'd moved all of the feather edged boards inside, we set about giving them a coat of paint. We had plans on doing them all, but due to a technical issue (um I spilt a tin of paint and when I tried to replenish it found out that the supplier was closed until January 2nd) we only managed to get a third of them painted and dried. Josh & Liv spent a day over Christmas mucking in and helping us paint a few of the boards. Giving them a coat of paint (or 2) now means that if and when they shrink on the outside of the building we won't be left with unpainted wood showing through (that tip was from John at Border Oak). We've now got more paint though so can crack on with those over the coming weeks. Our deadline for getting this done is the end of January. Weather permitting, the external timber cladding is scheduled to be fitted early February.
We managed to get started on insulating the roof, but from what I've seen so far it's going to be a long process! Dad and Mum helped out and we've managed to make a good start, but with 175mm of insulation going into the roof (between the rafters), before the plasterboard on top - it means cutting every section twice. Something I've learnt from speaking various insulation buffs is that the aim of the game with insulation is to keep it continuous and free from gaps. Any joints between the front boards and the rear shouldn't be the same, overlapping and taping joints. The big and straight sections aren't too difficult, but the small intricate sections are time consuming and tricky.
If anyone else reading this is planning on Self Building, I'd say that you need to be flexible with your approach to the jobs you plan to do yourself - when it's dry, do as much of the outside work as you can, because once you've got the house in the dry you can always revert back inside.
Over the next week, we'll be carrying on with insulation, painting more boards and Boyd Scaffolding will be on site to take down the scaffolding - so we'll be able to see the house properly!
Thanks for reading this blog!
Tim
We've had some pretty awful weather over the last 2 weeks, when it's rained its really RAINED, it's been windy - VERY WINDY, but we've actually had quite a few dry days or afternoons complete with blue sky and the upshot of that is that we've managed to dodge the weather to do some work on the outside of the house that we weren't necessarily expecting to be able to do.
So it's been all hands on deck over the Christmas break, with no trades on site we've been busy ourselves and have had some help from my Mum & Dad and also the kids when they were up with us.
With the weather being kind in patches we've painted both the gable ends of the house (3 coats of paint, so that's finished), the front of the house under the eves, with 2 coats and the rear of the house 1 coat. Considering the time of year that's pretty good going! We've also managed when dry to move 85 x 6meter feather edge boards inside the house to dry and shifted most of the Kingspan K7 Kooltherm Roof Insulation upstairs, in the dry. Maneuvering around the scaffolding proved tricky, but we managed to do it. Keeping as much of the materials as possible dry at this time of year is critical to being able to get on to the next stage...
Kingspan K7 Kooltherm in the dry
75mm & 100mm K7 Boards laid out for easy access to cut and install
85 x 6 meter Larch Feather Edge Boards inside, laid out for painting or drying
I sourced 6 meter Baltic grown, Larch Feather Edged Boards from local Kingsland timber merchants Powell & Co. Excellent service and very helpful staff and being just 5 mins down the road from our home very handy! Once we'd moved all of the feather edged boards inside, we set about giving them a coat of paint. We had plans on doing them all, but due to a technical issue (um I spilt a tin of paint and when I tried to replenish it found out that the supplier was closed until January 2nd) we only managed to get a third of them painted and dried. Josh & Liv spent a day over Christmas mucking in and helping us paint a few of the boards. Giving them a coat of paint (or 2) now means that if and when they shrink on the outside of the building we won't be left with unpainted wood showing through (that tip was from John at Border Oak). We've now got more paint though so can crack on with those over the coming weeks. Our deadline for getting this done is the end of January. Weather permitting, the external timber cladding is scheduled to be fitted early February.
The first piece of Kingspan K7 Kooltherm insulation in place - quite a few more left to do!
We managed to get started on insulating the roof, but from what I've seen so far it's going to be a long process! Dad and Mum helped out and we've managed to make a good start, but with 175mm of insulation going into the roof (between the rafters), before the plasterboard on top - it means cutting every section twice. Something I've learnt from speaking various insulation buffs is that the aim of the game with insulation is to keep it continuous and free from gaps. Any joints between the front boards and the rear shouldn't be the same, overlapping and taping joints. The big and straight sections aren't too difficult, but the small intricate sections are time consuming and tricky.
Insulation taking shape.
If anyone else reading this is planning on Self Building, I'd say that you need to be flexible with your approach to the jobs you plan to do yourself - when it's dry, do as much of the outside work as you can, because once you've got the house in the dry you can always revert back inside.
Over the next week, we'll be carrying on with insulation, painting more boards and Boyd Scaffolding will be on site to take down the scaffolding - so we'll be able to see the house properly!
Thanks for reading this blog!
Tim
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