OK, we've had enough winter for now thanks! Today has been pretty miserable weather-wise - it's actually been above freezing which is warmer than it has been for a while, but it has been raining which means the snow is slushy (with ice underneath) and where there's no snow there's mud. I slipped over on the snowy ice carrying our hot drinks - no damage done, but in the two seconds it took me to stand up again, shlurrrp, my clothes had soaked up about 6 gallons of icey water and I had snow up my sleeves . . . and I spilt the coffee!
 |
| Kitchen studwork - looks as though we're trying to do a really naff, exposed timber, pub style room! |
We have been a bit frustrated because of the weather. Earlier this week, we had to make some mortar to make good around the holes we'd made for the plumber and electrician to poke cables and pipes through walls. Trouble was that the sand was frozen! So, we had to break off lumps of sand and put them in the cement mixer and I stood there pointing the hot air gun into the mixer while the sand tumbled round warming up. We then used hot water to mix it with. Oh, I don't know if you're supposed to do all these things, we just make it up as we go along! We also wanted to get on with the roof insulation, but before we can do that we needed to squirt some expanding foam right into the eaves to close up any little gaps between the wall and the slates (don't want wasps crawling in and making nests). Of course if you read the instructions on these products they all say to store between 5 and 25 degrees! Ha, ha - we don't have anywhere that doesn't go below 5 degrees in this weather . . . . unless we take a carrier bag full of tubes of silicone, cans of squirty foam, etc to bed with us! Then of course you can't use the foam when it's colder than 5 degrees - that'll be about May then. It only takes 10 minutes to do the foam, but we just couldn't get on with it. With today going up to a balmy 3 degrees, we decided we'd just have to get on with it, so we plugged in all the big builders lights we have and pointed them at the eaves in the hope of raising the temperature a tad (they do get quite warm - really useful for thawing out fingertips while working) and so that job is done - seemed to work OK. Don't know if you have ever used this stuff - it's brilliant stuff, but you do have to be careful not to overdo it. When we put in the tiny windows in the extension we used it between the stone and the frame. Bob did one and it looked OK, he went off to do something else and when he came back the foam had expanded and almost covered the whole window - it looked so funny and he was horrified! So, when we'd finished doing the eaves we did go outside and check that it wasn't billowing out under the roof and down the walls!
Today, as well as the squirty stuff, we put up some more bits of oak in the kitchen. These will house the above counter sockets and light switch. I also treated all the oak beams and posts in the kitchen to a coat of danish oil for a bit of protection. I was a more than a little horrified at how dark it went - it honestly looked as though we'd used some cheap teak-colour stain and it looked so nice before! Thank goodness though, as it has soaked in and dried, it has lightened a bit and it now has a warm colour (rather than plain orange!) - phew!
 |
| Studwork in the stone extension - the phot is taken from the corridor and nearest to us is what will be the bathroom and beyond that is the utility room |
The plumber has been here for a short time (two afternoons) - he has to keep going off to sort out burst pipes! He has got on quite well though and we now have pipes all over the place as well as cables. He still has to sort out toilet waste pipes and run the pipes for the solar panels, but that should be quite straightforward as Bob has done all the holes through walls and so it is a fairly straight run. The solar panels should be delivered on Tuesday. They are actually evacuated tubes rather than flat panels - we're told these work better in the winter than the traditional ones (I wasn't really expecting either to work in winter, but apparently they do which is a bit clever isn't it?). As our roof faces south (pretty much) we will qualify for the Government payment for microgeneration which should amount to about £400 a year for 20 years (as well as cheap hot water) which is not to be sniffed at. Initially, we didn't want to put anything modern on that side of the roof, but there's not much point in putting solar panels on the wrong side just to keep the old-fashioned cottagey look. If they are to go on any roof, then they probably blend in to slate better than any . . . sort of, and we have made sure all the frames, etc are black. They'll be fine . . . . I'm sure they will . . . . . won't they?
We bought our other woodburner this week, so now the shop has two for us in their storeroom - we sit in the caravan huddled round the oil filled radiator and think of our woodburners! We also had the bath delivered, so we can think of hot bubbly baths too. Oh, and we've ordered our one and only radiator, so soon we'll be able to think about that too. Because the kitchen wood burner has a back boiler, you have to have a 'dump radiator' for it to lose some heat to if necessary. This will be in the en-suite upstairs and we have gone for an old-fashioned cast iron one rather than a modern panelled thing. This is our Christmas present to each other - as it costs four times as much as an ordinary one, it is the only way we can justify it!
 |
| PEEPO! Bob's trapped inside the wall! |
No comments:
Post a Comment