Welcome to our blog.

This blog will follow the ultimate in home improvement: demolish and rebuild!

This is our starting point: a 1930s bungalow. While not a bad house; it is too small for us with three teenage children so what should we do? A full storey extension versus complete rebuild - ultimately the stronger eco-credentials and more certain finances of a new-build helped to guide our choice.

For a number of years we've been trying to find the right route for us to build an eco-friendly, low energy home. We tried various architects and building companies and have eventually settled with a German prefabricated build. The new house will be nearly to passivhaus standards (but not quite due to budget constraints). In any case, the house will be heavily insulated and airtight.

As a family, we have not built a house before so everything is new and exciting but the risk of making a mess of things is quite high!

This blog aims to outline the day to day steps involved in our build.

Wednesday 7 July 2010

utility room and smooth walls

This morning as I went into the summer house (oops I mean site office) with the coffee thermos, I looked back on the house and noticed that the electricians must have put the outside unit of the heat pump on the house yesterday. As you can see, it looks a bit like an air conditioning unit but it's not noisy. It takes the heat from the air into the heat pump via the refrigerant pipes that run through the floor slab to the indoor unit.
Paul was on site again. Today he attached the expansion vessel of the cylinder. It has pipework that goes to the right of the cylinder down to the ground where a pipe takes any excess hot water through to the outside. This heat pump installation requires real team work between the electricians and the plumbers. It's great that they work well together.
The water softener has arrived. This works by replacing the calcium and magnesium ions in the water with sodium ones, as sodium salts do not form deposits. We all know from our kettles what calcium and magnesium deposits look like. This replacement of ions is helped with a diaphragm and salt in the water. The choice of water softener is determined by the need for a high throughput of water.
Meanwhile, the walls in the upstairs rooms started to look very smooth and there was an electric motor sound. I saw Charlie.
But he was quietly covering the cracks...
...that left Ebi, who had gone prematurely grey . I caught sight of him through a mist of dust and electric sander in his hands. They were still busy when I left at the end of the day.

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