This week things have really started to take shape, and when the first sections of scaffolding went up on Wednesday we could "go upstairs" and get a view of how things will look from the mezzanine both to the front and back. It's wonderful.
The photo above shows the view from the dining area looking towards the lounge, as it was earlier in the week. The lounge now has a ceiling! Photo below shows our lounge window with its view gradually becoming more 'framed'.
The I-beams used for both uprights and joists have holes cut in them for the fitting of the MVHR system - this is Mechanical Ventilation Heat Recovery. This is the type of ventilation system used in all modern highly insulated houses to deal with condensation and save having to introduce trickle vents in windows and the like. The unit takes in cold fresh air from the outside and passes it over a heat exchanger to warm it up from stale air from inside, and the stale air is pushed out. Warm and wet air from the kitchen and bathrooms is dealt with by the system, so no need for fans etc.
Here's the kitchen taking shape:
This was the view looking up through the kitchen to the moon, before the ceiling was put in place!
And finally, here's the view across the main part of the building with the first floor 'deck' in place. The open area is the dining area, with kitchen to the left and lounge to the front. The first floor deck will be mostly under the eaves, with the central bit being full height. Office space upstairs! The material used for the floor decking has a peel-off covering for once the house is watertight. The tongue and groove boards are nailed into place using ring shank nails (nails with rings around them, they're harder to get out!) and then glued with a special foaming glue to ensure no movement or creaking. It's rock solid.
We have a very exciting gangway leading up to the scaffolding at first floor level!
And finally, the complicated step up to the rear section of the house was back under the spotlight this week, with its DPM requirements discussed at length between Adam and Andy. It's a tricky part of the house but we have a plan for how it'll all work and the DPM is now sorted. We need to add an extra 200mm or so of floor once the timber frame is in place, hence the steel rebar poking out of the upper part of concrete floor. We can do this later and just deal with having a sort of trough at the edge of the upper section until we do!!
I'm really really really hoping that's the last time we have to think about DPM/DPC.....
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