There was a lot of discussion as to why Welsh Oak Frame have designed the Oak frame in such a way that it is going to be difficult to finish the inside of the frame to an acceptable standard. .

I had our roofer Mark on hand to work with the installers from Cannon Glass and together they come up with a work around that will get us watertight and should also give us a decent looking roof.

We are now able to continue with tiling the rear part of the roof and now the bars are installed the glazers were able to take accurate measurements for the double glazed units, we should get the glass delivered in the next 4 to 6 weeks.

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I have started a labourer on site as I just cannot keep up with the “little jobs” that I have been trying to do but that seem to end up taking up most of the day and just never seem to get finished so the sensible thing to do was take on some help which will give me the extra time to get things organised.

Today I have had him treating the Oak facias and barge boards that were delivered on Friday, as with the rest of the external Oak we are using Osmo UV protection oil.

Bricklayers have been continuing with the chimney’s  which are starting to take shape, I really need them to crack on as I want the roofers to start ASAP and they can’t until the chimney is on the roof .

At lunchtime I drove down to Bob at the joiners to give him a tin of the Osma so that he can give the frames a coat to seal them before they install them in the next couple weeks, I also had a sample of the Vale trickle vents so that he can router the holes in the Oak frame. While I was there we went through the sizes of the frame openings so that Vale can get on with the manufacture of the casments.

Having looked at a few of the underfloor heating companies out there I decided to order ours from Robbens Systems although they are based in East Sussex they have visited the site twice to make sure the quote given was correct.  Although it is designed as a self build system I have decided to use one of their registered installers so delivery to site will be in about 3 to 4 weeks.

I also ordered the guttering from Rain Clear Solutions, we have chosen the Evolve rainwater system made by Marley. I considered going down the cast Iron road but thought better of it when I considered both the cost and the maintenance cast iron would need.

The Marley Evolve guttering has the appearance of cast Iron but with the benefits of modern seals in the joints backed up with a silicon compound which is also supplied, made of a coated aluminium it will not rust and will hopefully give us many years of maintenance free service also I felt comfortable with it being manufactured by such a well known company as Marley.

Bed

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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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They have left another Welsh Oak team to complete the lead work around the windows. They have also been inserting the panels in between the exposed Oak in the external wall or the first floor. The panels are made up of pre cut OSB board with a piece of 140 mm Kingspan attached providing the insulation inside.

Externally  there is a breathable membrane attached to the OSB board then a plastic lathe is stapled every   5 – 10 mm over the whole board then to finish the panel of there is a plastic render bead on the edges with a lead dressing on the lower edges making a really neat job.

These panels will finally be coved by Lime Render which has a natural colour and wont need painting.

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