29/09/05

25/09/05

1st floor floors in at each end.  I’ve used weather proof board as it will be a while before the roof goes on.

02/09/05

And just to show how quick it can progress (with the assistance of a friend! - thanks, Peaky) here it is a (working) day later with all the joists in place, nearly ready for the floor to go down.  I’ll be using a protected 22mm flooring grade chipboard called CaberDeck.  It has a plastic film on the top to repel the rain and once all the joints are taped with the special tape, it should be ok till the roof goes on.  After the build - including plastering and decorating - the plastic film is removed leaving a pristine floor.  It costs about an extra 80% but well worth it to keep the floor, joists and floor below dry and you end up with a nice clean floor.

The cantelevered fireplace hearth again, this time with ledger boards, joist brackets and joists in place.

28/08/05

Re-jigging the scaffolding - I bought enough to do one level all the way round but that means lifting it up (and later starting again from the botttom when external cladding etc goes on) each time I get so-high with the QuadLock.  It will work out much cheaper in the end though as it will be on site for at least 6 months (11/01/08 - Yeah right - more like 2 years as it turns out!).  The verticals here will stay put and are high enough to go to the underside of the roof.

This bit of scaffolding inside (on the left) is to support the joists to the left side of the stairs.  The horizontal scaffold pole on the right hand side running towards the camera will support the joists coming in from the far, external, North (right) wall.  These have been let into the top course of QuadLock and will eventually be encased in concrete when the next pour occurs.

26/08/05 - The joists arrive (up high on the scaffold - you can just see their ends peeking out from under the black plastic).

These are Boise ‘engineered’ joists - much stronger for their weight than solid wood and very little shrinkage, so no squeaky floors.  The 12m ones weigh only 45kg.

  It was easier to get the long ones off the lorry by putting them up here.  Also, once the scaffold has been extended out to meet them, it will be easy for 2 people to take them from here to where they will be installed (see movie clip above).

29/08/08 -  Wall footings rebared and ready for concrete.  Looking North.  This will have a brick and concrete block retianing wall on it.  Further up it changes to brick and brick, non-retaining...