Friday Nothing much has happened on site for a number of reasons, but it allows me a chance to catch up with the pace. Who would have thought there would be so much detail in a fireplace? And how does one address skirting around it? Garage doors--they need to know the size of the frame … Continue reading Week 15
Week 12
Friday Team meeting at the contractors' this morning, so not much occurring on site. A few deliveries and some tidying in the afternoon between raindrops. Looking forward to the brick layers arriving on Monday at long last! https://youtu.be/r5gPXohJ6NE Thursday The heavens opened today. And closer to home... I can't believe our gorgeous lovely neighbour was … Continue reading Week 12
Week 11
Friday Soak-away is under the bricks. It's a little damp around the edges. The guys have split the bricks front and back and have forklifted the back ones around the lane. https://youtu.be/hD7gMc2DIqg After hours, there are loads of animals that visit the site. Thursday One soak-away dug and dusted... https://youtu.be/Frj3vUdf46I Wednesday https://youtu.be/95kAGuKVIWg The bricks arrived! https://youtu.be/OrUmqxjqSd4 The … Continue reading Week 11
Week 10
Friday Wandering back from the house over the train bridge, Gareth spotted a lock on the railing. It's just as atmospheric as the Pont des Arts.... apart from the dog poo. The guys are finishing off the edges which requires a lot of cutting and mucking in. They'll be doing this into next week too. Then the … Continue reading Week 10
Week 9
Friday This test panel of bricks is a complicated affair: the dry mortar is bucket handle joint with a normal mix of lime, cement and sand as per the specification two courses above that is the West O sand mix with a slight recessed or raked mortar joint the top three courses above that is the … Continue reading Week 9
Week 8
Friday Hooray! Concrete has been a real headache. Lee was anxious to get back on site today and make some real progress to finish the job. So close!...only one more trench to dig out. Having a silo onsite would have been the alternative, but the guys thought that since the concrete depot is only a couple miles down the … Continue reading Week 8
Week 7
Friday The percolation test is carrying on: 1 hr 55 minutes to drop sufficiently. That's a blindingly fast rate of 1mm every 50 seconds or so. The average speed of a snail (Cornu aspersum) is 1.3 mm/s, and this is 0.2, or 6.5 times slower. The literature suggests a time of 24 seconds. Ha! Looks like … Continue reading Week 7
Week 6
Thursday More digging, more cement, and more digging. https://youtu.be/xgO1-L3Mpqk At least it's warmer now, and the guys can dig longer trenches without concern that they'll cave in while they're waiting for the cement to arrive. One interesting thing is that the test bricks have arrived. These will be made into a panel for inspection. We'll … Continue reading Week 6
Week 5
Friday Today has been about waiting for the building control inspection and the concrete, and fingers were crossed for most of the day that they would arrive in that order. The sides of the trenches were temporarily shuttered with big sheets of ply. The first steel reinforcements went in just fine: Jamie dropped them in … Continue reading Week 5
St Anne's 