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Open Eaves

New Builder — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:49:33 +0000

Having chosen some exposed rafters in the Master bedroom and in the sitting room at the design stage we decided to have conventional ceilings in the other bedrooms. We did this for to go this route mainly because of the extra cost having Oak rafters throughout.

Once Welsh Oak left the first thing I did was get a Carpenter in to sort the eaves out and it soon become clear that the open eaves we wanted were not going to be easy as the Oak rafters are about one third of the thickness of the softwood rafters and to make matters worse they are are on different levels.

The Oak rafters are all exposed so the plasterboard and 110mm of insulation is fixed on top of the rafters bringing the level up to the top of the softwood rafters that is fairly straight forward, the tricky bit is that the Oak rafters are set lower than the softwood so we will have to cut 30mm out of the softwood and fix some false Oak feet which will then level everything out and allow a fascia to be fixed to hide the insulation etc.

We will then fix a soffit at the top of the of the rafter thus giving a open eave that should appear to be Oak all the way through.

Well that is the plan anyway.

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The Oak frame has started to go up

New Builder — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:34:00 +0000

The crane arrived first thing as arranged, as the ground is pretty soft it took quite a while to get set as we needed matts ouspread the weight out. Ang brought the kids up on the way to school to see the crane, they seemed really exited and could not wait to go and tell their friends.

Once the driver was happy they started on the frame straight away the first Oak post to be lifted in was for the lounge, it was a great feeling watching it go in after all this time

One thing that struck me was just how big some of the pieces of Oak are and how big the joints are, the picture shows one of my size 11 boots next a to a pretty large tenon joint.

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Oak frame is a jigsaw

New Builder — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 14:07:32 +0000

The guys from Welsh Oak Frame spent the morning covering the brickwork below the damp with polythene to protect it from staining by the tannin in the wood, they then fixed the sole plate on the damp proof coarse to stand the Oak frame on.

After a decent sunny morning the rain has returned but the WOF guys are working in it as they have to get ready for the crane in the morning. Each piece of oak has a letter and number allowing the framers to know which part of the frame each piece belongs to so they are spending the afternoon identifying the Oak they need to get started.

Away from the frame I have been looking in to which rainwater harvesting system I am going to use, I spoke to WPL who market a home package which comes in at just over 3k for a 6500 Lt tank which seems a bit expensive but as I have only just started looking I have no idea really. I would be interested to hear anyone elses recommendations or experiences with harvesting systems.

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Bricklayers done

New Builder — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 10:54:04 +0000

The Bricklayers got finished on Thursday so with nothing happening on site on since Friday I took the opportunity to spend some time at home with the family and had a decent Easter break.

So yesterday it was back to it and I spent the morning with the Bob the joiner who I hope is going to manufacture our window frames to which we will fit the Bronze casements. I needed to be clear on a couple if issues before we agreed terms. The main point being Vale show quite a heavy mullion in their drawings and we felt it was a bit to heavy for our house so I wanted to use a thinner frame and mullion so Bob is going to make up some samples early next week for approval.

I have also arranged scaffolding for erection by the weekend I am as I am still expecting Welsh Oak on site on Monday.

Really getting buzzed for Monday just hope I have everything in place.

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