Things were getting a bit more complex on site, with things happening we needed to know about, and we both started to take time off work - taking it in turns to take half days so we could be around. And it continued to rain..
Our timber frame design called for something known as a sway frame at the rear of the house, which is basically just two upright vertical steels supporting a horizontal lintel. This was to create appropriate support for the rear corner of the house where there wasn't to be much in the way of timber walls. The steels themselves were to be provided by our timber frame firm Touchwood, but we needed to install steel 'feet' into the floor itself to which the uprights would be attached. The design of these feet had taken quite some toing and froing between our architect, the structural engineer and the timber frame designer as there was much concern about the elimination of cold bridges -where cold outside air can transfer to the inside by means of steel.
A solution was found in the form of a custom made thermal break which was to be bolted down into a reinforced concrete padstone, then a steel foot bolted onto this. By this point in the proceedings, Julian's shuttering carpenter Ben was involved on site, and arrived to fashion what was required to make it happen. He made a couple of little boxes which were sat on top of the foundations below, each containing a mini lattice of reinforcing steel bars. Concrete was poured into each to create the padstone.
The thermal breaks were then positioned carefully on top of the padstones and resin bolted into place. I popped out for the first of several times to buy something called M10 resin bar, which is a long bit of threaded rod that you can cut up into lengths to suit, complete with nuts and washers. I'd never bought anything like this before but everyone else including Andy seemed to think it was perfectly normal.
We were relieved that at this crucial point we had our first visit from Adam from Touchwood, who could assure Ben of how to fit the bits, and what was required tolerance wise. Andy and I tried to paint the thermal break with a liquid damp proof substance as directed by the architect, but the shiny steel plate just didn't take it. Apparently it wasn't too important and just belt and braces but we were beginning to have to start accepting a lot of results that didn't appear to be 'ideal'.
The continual rain certainly wasn't ideal!
Our timber frame design called for something known as a sway frame at the rear of the house, which is basically just two upright vertical steels supporting a horizontal lintel. This was to create appropriate support for the rear corner of the house where there wasn't to be much in the way of timber walls. The steels themselves were to be provided by our timber frame firm Touchwood, but we needed to install steel 'feet' into the floor itself to which the uprights would be attached. The design of these feet had taken quite some toing and froing between our architect, the structural engineer and the timber frame designer as there was much concern about the elimination of cold bridges -where cold outside air can transfer to the inside by means of steel.
A solution was found in the form of a custom made thermal break which was to be bolted down into a reinforced concrete padstone, then a steel foot bolted onto this. By this point in the proceedings, Julian's shuttering carpenter Ben was involved on site, and arrived to fashion what was required to make it happen. He made a couple of little boxes which were sat on top of the foundations below, each containing a mini lattice of reinforcing steel bars. Concrete was poured into each to create the padstone.The thermal breaks were then positioned carefully on top of the padstones and resin bolted into place. I popped out for the first of several times to buy something called M10 resin bar, which is a long bit of threaded rod that you can cut up into lengths to suit, complete with nuts and washers. I'd never bought anything like this before but everyone else including Andy seemed to think it was perfectly normal.
We were relieved that at this crucial point we had our first visit from Adam from Touchwood, who could assure Ben of how to fit the bits, and what was required tolerance wise. Andy and I tried to paint the thermal break with a liquid damp proof substance as directed by the architect, but the shiny steel plate just didn't take it. Apparently it wasn't too important and just belt and braces but we were beginning to have to start accepting a lot of results that didn't appear to be 'ideal'.
The continual rain certainly wasn't ideal!
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