Room at the top

Glasstex fibreglass wall covering - far less messy than plaster!

With my new-found free time I've made good progress on the "guest room" this week. The woven fibreglass "Glasstex" arrived on Tuesday and I set about hanging it immediately. It takes a little bit of getting used to but is very good if you slop loads of "super high performance" wall paper adhesive on the wall/ceiling rather than onto the fabric itself. By Friday I had managed to cover the ceiling/wall that houses our new Velux windows and four fifths of the opposing side, but ran out of Glasstex at that point so will have to wait until another roll can be dispatched next Monday. I am very impressed though as it does just as the supplier said - covers all the bumps and lumps and appears not to show them. A couple of coats of emulsion should finish the job off well.
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As we only had a small flat ceiling in the guest room, I have fitted tongued and grooved boarding which I will paint white. I'm hoping to get this room finished by the end of next week.
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I made up a template for the hearth tiles on Monday and took it, plus the tiles, to the water cutting specialist in St Albans. He has promised to cut the tiles by Saturday so I can collect them on Monday next. I also had a go at cutting the tiles that have no rounded edges with my newly purchased "cutting disc for stone" for my angle grinder. The first tile was OK but by the second there seemed to be little progress being made. Hardly surprising really because the cutting disc had diminished to about half its original diameter. I managed to complete the "cut" with a Birmingham screwdriver.... As Jan said "Should have given all the tiles to that nice man in St Albans". Why is it that women are so clever?
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And so so the sprinkler/rainwater harvesting saga which appears to have reached a rather more satisfactory status as of Friday this week. The problem I have been having is the difficulty of talking to anyone at the Sprinkler company who actually understands the technicalities of the system. Try as I could, I just was unable to get the main man to call me back - too busy it appears. In desperation I emailed but even then it took 2 to 3 days to get a response. In the end, after a bit if ranting, I have been promised a site visit to review the whole system. The even better news is that the sprinkler company have now come up with a new high performance pump that could replace our existing rainwater pump and provide the desired flow and pressure. Our friendly, and ever available rainwater harvesting man, (another Roger so what do you expect!) has agreed that the warranties will stay in force even with this change. Just got to tie the sprinkler man down to a date to visit now......
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Stop Press - the rainwater harvesting system is having a quiet and continual pee now. It seems that the solenoid that opens a valve should the water in the tank fall below a certain level, is permanently on. This process allows mains water to fill the tank sufficiently for it to continue functioning when there is inadequate rainwater. However, the tank is not empty and even when the power is turned off, the dribble continues. It looks as though the solenoid is faulty or has a bit of dirt jamming the valve open. Oi vey - will this never work correctly!
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Jan & Rog

There's good news and bad news

Our new Velux windows

The view from one of the Velux windows

A bit of Anglian Water stupidity - how we have to label our garden tap

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The good news first - we now have two Velux roof windows as can be seen from the photo above. Whilst we were in Devon, Pete & Lee Brooks fitted them and received the building inspector's approval before refitting the plasterboard. What a difference this makes - the once gloomy roof space is now light and airy and we can see out over the hedgerow to the south west towards Tyne Hill Farm and the Sharpenhoe Clappers (the end of the Pegsdon Hills which form the very tail of the Chilterns). I spent most of Thursday afternoon making good and filling cracks/gaps in the plasterboard and on Friday morning ordered a 60 metre roll of Glasstex which is a woven glass fibre material with a random texture not unlike the sort of finish given by hessian. The major benefit of using this is that we don't have to plaster the room as the Glasstex covers up imperfections and can be painted. Not only that but it has much better fire protection qualities than almost any other wall covering. With the Glasstex ordered I set about cutting and fitting some oak strips to delineate between the existing plaster and the uncovered plasterboard in the guest room. This will provide a useful point from which to start hanging the wall covering.
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Still in the attic room I spent some time filling up gaps in the floor so that the we stand a reasonable chance of passing the air pressure test. I've found that using expanding foam (although something akin to a Quatermass experiment) is excellent although I've yet to judge just how much to apply as it expands, and expands, and expands...... Other areas, for example where the floor to wall gaps were not to wide, have now been silicon sealed.

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And so to the less good news. Having ordered a roll of 25mm black water pipe to replace the blue that was deemed in breach of the rules by Anglian Water, I cut and stuck adhesive tape bearing the legend "RECLAIMED WATER" every 6 inches down 12 metres of the pipe. I also had to chisel out the screed which I had previously laid where the water pipes appear in the utility floor so that our plumber could fit the nicely labelled black pipe. I also made a backing panel for the label for the outside tap which Anglian Water told me had to state "NOT DRINKING WATER". Pleased with completing these tasks, although rather irritated that the screed had to be removed again, I contacted the sprinkler company to check on the progress of the promised quote to supply a suitable booster pump that would give the required pressure and flow. "It will be sent out tonight" said the helpful young lady. Sure enough an email arrived and I scanned the options listed for the preferred one with the booster pump that would be sited in the utility room and seemed the simplest (if not the cheapest). However, it now appeared that this option was not as simple as had been suggested as it now stated that 32mm pipe was required from the rainwater harvesting tank, not the 25mm that was in place now (and was also the diameter of the new black pipe I had ordered and labelled). The problem we now have is that my plumber (the elusive Darren) is not sure if we can fit a 32mm pipe into the conduit from the garage to the house. This saga just goes on and on and is not made any easier by the fact that the sprinkler company take three days to respond to questions and seem unable to supply all the facts when they do respond. Looks like another 'phone call on Monday to try and resolve this one.

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I've decided that there's a great opportunity in producing "NOT..." signs, since almost everything in life should not be used for something or other. How about a "NOT FOOD" sign? The opportunities for this are endless. Signs could be posted on so many things - the front gate, the lawn, ones partner. Or even a "NOT A SEAT" sign to be placed on flowers, barbed wire, the barbecue, and so on. Hmmm - have to think about this a bit more.

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Having decided on a wood burning stove (Danish - what else?) we had to make a decision about the hearth on which it would stand. Due to the shape of the fireplace with its rounded corners, we knew that standard options would not fit. Our choice seemed to be glass, a stone slab of some sort, or tiles. In the end we opted for a dark riven tile, so I bought enough to cover the required area. Due to the rounded fireplace corners and the fact that I wanted a semi-circular front to the hearth we have to get the tiles cut accordingly. This will be done by a firm that uses very high pressure water jets to cut the tiles. I had an aluminium dashboard cut for my manic three wheeler by this guy and the results are quite amazing - really clean cuts to any shape you like. Despite being told how it works I still don't understand how water can cut as it does.

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More progress on the attic room today (Sunday) with all the plasterboard joints caulked and the first length of tongued and grooved board cut for the narrow apex of the ceiling.

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Jan & Rog

On holiday until June 21st

Not a good week

The newly fitted out utility room

Don't you just love the officious nature of some people? As we had completed all the plumbing we asked Anglian Water to come along and connect a meter so we could have full mains pressure. Having telephoned on Tuesday I was told an inspector would call on Wednesday between 12.00 and 17.00. At 12.20 the man duly arrived - so far so good. By 12.30 we had failed the inspection because we were able to put the bathroom shower hose in the toilet. Perhaps I'm unusual but I've never wanted to put the shower down the toilet. In fact I so haven't wanted to do it that the thought of so doing had never crossed my mind. We were found equally guilty of being able to put the shower hose in the bath - heavens - its curtains for us! Muttering darkly about the problems of contaminated water being sucked back into the mains, our inspector said we would have to fix the shower hose by means of a permanent clip, ideally screwed to the wall. Tempted as I was to tell him what to do with his clip I asked why this sort of requirement was not better publicised. "You and your plumber should know" I was told. Quite how we would ever know when even knowing of the problem didn't help to find guidance of any sort on Anglian water's web site. Eventually I found an obscure document on the Water Regulations Advisory Scheme web site with rather poor photos and crude diagrams of showers in toilets, coupled with the dire consequences of breaching this little-known regulations.

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Not content with failing us for our mains supply, he turned his attention to the rainwater harvesting and why the pipes carrying the rainwater weren't a different colour to the main water supply pipe. I acted dumb. "Did we know about this rainwater harvesting of yours" he demanded. "Pretty certain it was an answer to a question on one of the many forms I filled out for Anglian Water" says I. "Well its not in my notes" said the inspector. "If it had been, one of our specialists would have been here instead of me. Hmmmmmmm" You could see him relishing all the potential problems this might throw up. With a scan of his laptop and some furious typing he was gone.
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On returning home I found a suitable clip that would retain the shower hose and ordered it immediately. Subsequent research has suggested that the pipes carrying harvested rainwater should be black with green stripes and carry the words "Reclaimed water" at frequent intervals down the pipe. This gives us a problem as the pipe carrying the harvested water from the garage to the house is blue - the same as the mains supply. Oh dear, I can foresee the need for more digging and screed removal/relaying. In addition we have to apply adhesive labels to every pipe in the house carrying reclaimed water. This means that we have to undo some of the bathroom fitting-out to get to them. Once again I searched the Anglian Water web site for guidance on rainwater harvesting systems and could find none. A Google search eventually produced an Anglian Water newsletter to Anglian approved plumbers (only 2 in the whole of Bedfordshire) that spelt out the requirements for fitting rainwater harvesting. Quite why the application form for water supply to a new build does not firstly, have a question asking if you have or intend to have rainwater harvesting, and secondly giving all the requirements if you do, is a mystery. Possibly the water companies don't want to lose income if people move to reclaimed water.
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Still rather bemused by the Anglian Water scenario we had a visit on Friday from the sprinkler people - to commission the sprinkler system. More bad news - the connection from the harvested water supply is inadequate as the pipe used is 12mm not the 32 mm they required. Worse still was the fact that despite the sprinkler system supposedly being designed and commissioned to work with the rainwater harvesting system, there was totally inadequate pressure and flow directly from the water tank. A call to the supplier of the rainwater harvesting system produced more bad news. Neither the pump in the rainwater tank, nor the pressure switch that activates the water supply could deliver the flow rate required. Furthermore, a quick calculation suggested that the bore of the pipe from the tank would simply be incapable of delivering the required flow rate. Talk of twin pumps and dual pressure switches made me even more depressed. The supplier of the rainwater harvesting system has gone away to do some more accurate calculations, but is not optimistic that anything can be done with the set up we have. Sounds like more money on what has rapidly become the biggest white elephant in the build. The trouble is that without the sprinkler system we can't get the house signed off by building control so we're somewhere between a rock and a hard place on this one. What really irritates is that our building surveyor was supposed to have obtained approval from both the rainwater harvesting supplier and the sprinkler people that the systems could inter-operate and would meet the needs of the Building Inspector. I recall conversations regarding the rainwater system pump capacity and it appears that the unit we have has a capability of only 60% of that which I was told we would have. As we no longer use the building surveyor (are you surprised?) then its back to the drawing board.
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On a slightly more positive note. we do have the utility room fully kitted out with cupboards and worktops thanks to Jon's efforts over last weekend. Unfortunately I've had to take two of the cupboards out again in order to survey the area where the mains and harvested water arrive in the floor.
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Andy the electrician hadn't materialised by Thursday (as expected), but on Friday when I arrived at Wee House, I found a Steve on site busy tugging at lighting cable in the porch. He had been sub-contracted by Andy to finish off the work and spent all day doing to jobs Andy hadn't got round to - mainly the most awkward. Anyway, by 16.00 on Friday all the electrics appeared to be complete. I had to modify that slightly as at 16.30 I noticed that he had missed one non-working light in the shower room. Andy will have to attend to that.
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Jan and I spent Friday at Brookvale, Jan in the garden (more wheelbarrows full of bricks and clay) and me in the house, initially painting the walls in the utility room, then attending to the various trades that arrived (electrician, sprinkler man, plumber). By the end of a depressing day I hadn't painted all that I had planned, although the utility room walls are now finished, but had managed to acquire several rather large problems already described.
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On arriving home from Brookvale we found a mountain of post, including a letter from Central Beds Building Control accepting out building notice for the Velux windows. That was timely as Pete Brooks our excellent chippy had arranged to visit Friday evening to check out the work required to fit the windows. My concerns that he might not be able to start for a while were immediately quashed when he said he expected to do the work week commencing 10th June. As we're on holiday in Devon that week (Hi Jenny & David - really looking forward to seeing you) we should come back to a nearly finished job. The reason it will be "nearly finished" is because I have to arrange for Building Control to inspect the window and its frame before the making good can be done.
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We put our house on the market on Friday and have had one viewing already (negative -our house is too dark apparently), and we have three more viewings on Sunday. That should help fill up all the spare time we have at the moment and keep Jan on her toes keeping me from making the house a mess before viewings.
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Rather depressed of Clifton