We're on the tiles!

The roofers have made steady progress this week, with the front and one side of the roof now tiled. Our hand-made British clay tiles (manufactured in Turkey apparently) are very uneven and give the desired effect of an old roof. The different colours of tile also give a nice mottled effect too. I'm glad that we asked for the bonnet tiles that form the edge of the hips as these look really good. Once the roofers finish this coming week, the scaffolding will be removed to give us a much better view of the house.

Andrew, the electrician, has been adding lots more wiring, and asking very sensible questions about things we haven't thought about, so a number of amendments have been made to lighting, points, etc.

As we are using rainwater harvesting for the washing machine supply, and the toilet cisterns, we've managed to tie this in with the fire sprinkler system. This will mean that the large reservoir tank (captures rainwater from the roof) that needs to be submerged in the garden will have a larger capacity pump that will operate the sprinkler system too. The other option was to have two pumps - one for the rainwater harvesting and the other for the sprinkler. However, if the sprinkler system pump isn't used for years (and hopefully, it will never be used!) then when we came to need it, the pump may not be working. By combining the two we'll be using the common pump all the time so will know its OK.

We've a meeting arranged with the window man Jesse (I don't know how to pronounce his name correctly - should it be Jess with a silent "e", or Jessy as in a big Jessy?). We need to re-measure the windows now that all the openings are finished so that the correct sizes are made. We have to ensure that the glass is Pilkington "K" glass apparently - with 16mm gap between pains and with argon in the gap - to meet building regulations. This glass lets heat in from the outside, but stops the internal heat escaping - clever eh?

The other development is the news that both the gas and electricity infrastructure suppliers have now decided that we can't have our connection at the top of the drive as previously agreed; both have to be run right down to the house. Now despite the fact that we have to dig the trench for the supply pipe/cable to fit in, its going to cost an additional £1000 for each service (mutters rude words to self). However, Gillian (who sold us the plot), has agreed that we can run the service trench by a more direct route across her garden which will make it easier (avoids lots of shrubs and their root systems), so Roy will be getting on with that in a few days - man and mini digger to the fore. At the same time he will dig the hole for the rainwater harvesting reservoir tank - 8 feet deep. As Jan said, deep enough to bury two people (not surprisingly we were easily able to nominate two candidates!)

I've been down and had a clear up today - removing all the broken tiles a tile pieces from the scaffold - just to make life a little safer for the roofers.

One final little snippet - I noticed today that a cast iron bracket, that had been attached to the garage wall by the front doors, was now lying on the ground. I must assume that our nocturnal visitors last weekend are responsible. It therefore seems likely that in the dark, one of the potential thieves walked into this bracket (it was fixed at about the right height). I wonder if its done some facial damage - I do hope so!

Jan & Rog