Friday 30 November 2012

First fix finished

We have finally finished with the first fix work :)

Heidi & I have been busy over the last month with one or other of us at the house for the last 3 weekends working on getting the plumbing finished off. I finally managed to acheive that task last weekend so it is now over to the joiners and plaster to get to the remainder of the rooms plaster boarded and skimmed with plaster.

The GSHP has also now been commissioned and is running the UFH. After switching the system on and running it continiously for only just over 24 hours the house was feeling rather like a sauna so we have put a timer in place to only run the system for 4 hours a day. This seems to be sufficent to keep the temperature comfortable and will allow a slow drying out of the screed. we had a few initial teething problems with insufficent glycol levels in the bore loops but apart from that not too many other problems. I think this is a good demonstartion of how effective the insulation and air tightness in the house is.

 I did have to run a few last un expected cables from the UFH control centres/manifolds to the circulation pump position which was still possible thankfully. A difference in how the UFH supplier thought the GSHP would be set up and reality being the cause of this last minute requirement - at least it was captured in time

To try to remove as much moisture as possible from the house we had been running a industrial de humidifyer but I also manage to get the MVHR system hooked up across the attic areas so that we can extract the moist air this way. The system isn't balanced yet but appears to be doing a fairly decent job so far.

A couple of rooms downstairs have been plaster boarded so far, the loung & dining room. The joiners are only working part time on the plasterbaording and the plaster won't be able to start until January. His work will take an estimated 7 weeks so currently hope to have the plastering done by the end of March next year. This gives us a good break from being on the critical path which is good - still plenty of bits and pieces to plan for and things that can be done but it does take the pressure off a bit - something that I am very happy about. Time to manage the project for a few months rather than doing the actual work.

Will add some pictures soon to try to demonstrate the latest developments