Supporting the weight

Whilst waiting for floors to dry, Steve's guys have been helping us out with the ever expanding to do list! On a recent walk around the property, we noticed that the floor of the master bedroom had a bit of a wobble to it. On further inspection we found there to be a 2" gap below the skirting board - eek! Because we are intending on putting an en-suite in here, we thought it might be prudent to look at supporting this some more. We made a quick call to Dave, who advised us that it was because the original floor joists had been positioned the wrong way and so would need two RSJ's to support the span and prevent any further deterioration. A few calculated drawings later and the guys were in and up with the new beams in no time.

Chopping into the wall to accommodate the steels:

Steels lifted into position (by hand!?)

noggings put in place along the length of the steel, ready for the plasterboard and coving:

Once covered, these will look like they've always been there. We can also be at peace every time we're using the bathroom above, we won't be falling in on the room below - phew!

Clean Water!

A real treat today - we have clean and filtered water which can be drawn straight from the tap! And just in time for a big family visit - yay! Welcome to our shiny new pump house where we have micron, arsenic and nitrate filters, a water softener, dual pumps, pressure vessels and...

an 800 gallon water tank:

 WOW!

This will service our whole house and has a reserve ready for the business. We need to keep an eye on our salt and check that it is all running to power but other than that - no water bills and the knowledge that we have pure clean spring water that we can drink, bathe and cook with - brilliant!

Boxing in the Hopper, Bricking up the Pumphouse, Sorting out the Water

Mike has been in the cider barn making good of the housing around the new hopper:

And also been blocking in the old doorway on the pumphouse:

It's fully insulated on the inside now:

And after a tough few days fitting it out with 18mm plyboard:

Hendy's have been in to attach all of the inner workings: 

So it's looking like it won't be too much longer now until we have 

clean, filtered, spring fed water - yay!

Creating the Kitchen

The guys have been hard at work making good of the gable end, now that the chimney is down. The speed at which it has been happening has been quite astonishing too! After only two days we went from oil tarred stonework to this:

The bedding in looks great:

And if you hadn't known there'd been a chimney there 

I don't think you could tell now by looking!

The steels are in to support the weight of the wall:

And the block work has gone in to stabilise the new roof:

The tiles from the old utility roof have come down:

And the opening from the inside looks fantastic:

They've also been hard at it digging up the floor ready for insulation and heating. We weren't too sure what there would be under the suspect lino, but there were some fantastic flagstones waiting for us:

They need a bit of a clean up but we think they will look just great in the new conservatory 

(in a few years time....)

The salvage yard is filling up quite nicely now:

And it's great to see mother nature still making her mark in amongst all the chaos too:

A field called home..

After our meeting with Simon about the static home, he said we didn't need the hard standing and that the field itself would be fine. So, in anticipation of our new home arriving, we marked out a spot in the field, strimmed it down and waited.

At 7am the following morning the phone rang - Simon was waiting with Aspen in the field:

We showed him the spot and he backed her up - our new home was literally falling off the back of a truck! 

After an unusually long while levelling the van 
(that hill in Clayhill is really dramatic in places!) we were up and ready to go. 

Well, almost...

Next we needed to attach water, gas, electric and drainage. Water and electric was fine - we could run this over from the pig stys. For gas supply, it was a quick visit back to Simon for the bottles:

and a borrowing of the paving slabs from the patio to level them:

Then it was an afternoon's ring round for certified engineers to check the gas for safety and for available plumbers to connect the van for service:

We then needed to address access through the meadow:

secure the pipework and lay an accessible lawn:

Mike got to work building some steps from old pallets: 

And by the end of the week it was home with hot and flushable water home!

Hooray! 

The sunset's not bad:

And the morning is even better!

So I think we could be quite happy here for a while now...

Fitting out the Plant Room (+ some more piping)

It been a busy few weeks for the heating engineers. The boiler arrived and it was a good job the whole team was on site - it weighed a tonne - literally!

A fantastic bit of kit though - Austrian engineering at its best:

It took six men + a series of straps, ropes and ties to get it down a makeshift ramp to the plant room:

Got it in though and it's looking great!

The hot water cylinder had a huge big jacket that was a bit of feat to get zipped up:

And the complexity of pipework coming off it is quite something:

There's also been a lot of progress in the house with the piping:

The beginnings of an en-suite: 

with diagrams to help:

The flue for the boiler has gone through a series of configurations:

And commissioning should be happening later this week too!