Electric Feel

With the roof keeping the rain out, and the sun-facing north windows letting heat and light in, we had a bone-dry interior within a few days. We headed indoors to get cracking on the interior; we'll finish the exterior work when we're back to drier days.

 Wiring

Steff put a lot of time and energy into designing a complete electrical system. This involved figuring out the placement of the loads on the system, including lights, outlets, the stereo, and the water pump. She also calculated the gauge of wire needed for safety--we were anxious to avoid the potential for house fires, so Steff overspec-ed the wire. Once this stage was completed, David translated this into a circuit diagram so that we could keep track of the information in a precise and succinct way. Nancy had a traumatising flashback of Year 13 electronics, which caused her to hide behind mountains of administrative tasks in order to avoid any involvement in the electrical proceedings.

Nancy: To be fair, I wasn't just pretending to be busy at this time. It is worth noting at this point that there is a lot involved in keeping the project moving. It helps to have a basic itinerary (anything more specific will be laughed at by the fates, and quickly demolished by unforeseen problems), and to have all the building materials in advance. We've wasted many days to unplanned trips to the hardware store. Even something as simple as a missing box of screws can cause the build day to come to a grinding halt. 

Nancy also helped cut holes in the framing, generating an unholy mess. David demonstrates this below.

The first step is to create as much sawdust as possible...

...And cover everyone in it!

It was quite the mental exercise to work out switches and parallel circuits.

Chocolate boxes

We chose to have our house running primarily on a 12 volt system, mainly because 12 volt systems are safe to work with and do not require professional installation. You'll still know all about it if you receive a shock from a live 12v wire, but it won't necessarily be fatal. For this reason, having a 12v system made it easier for us to be off-grid.

However, we thought it would be prudent to run a 240v system alongside our humble 12v one, as a just-in-case. We had at the beginning of the project made the decision not to tackle tasks that could result in certain death in the event of a mistake, especially as we're really good at mistakes. For this reason, we hired an electrician to wire up the 240v system and install a caravan-style power hookup.

240 powerpoints installed by electrician

Wires hanging from every which-where

All of the wires lead back to a central location under the stairs where we'll install our circuit breaker panel and solar system.

The business end: future location for circuit breaker panel.

The last stage of this part of the project was testing all of the circuits. This was not only to confirm our genius and boost our self-esteem, but also because it'd be a real pain in the arse to attach all the lining to the walls, only to discover that the stereo wouldn't come on, or the water pump wouldn't work.

Hallelujah!

Rage, rage against the dying of the light!

Thus ends phase one of our wiring. We will revisit this system later in the story. But for now, we move onto...

Insulation

 We had a range of insulation options available to us. We conducted a lot of research and found that we could opt for recycled spun plastic as an alternative to fibreglass. The plastic is recycled, locally produced, and easier to work with than itchy glass insulation. In the end, though, we went with fibreglass. This was in part due to budget constraints, but mostly because Pink Batts is what the local store had on the day that we needed to make an immediate decision on the matter. Besides, who could resist this adorable targeted advertising? We were had by a good marketing team.

Insulation installation (say that five times fast) is apparently a job that you can hire professionals to do. We're not certain why you'd need a professional, but we suspect it has to do with not inhaling potentially carcinogenic dust...

Here we are, installing insulation!

We split our batts in half

Handkerchiefed (for safety!)

Steff worked on installing the insulation for a few hours here and there, splitting the batts, cutting them to size and fitting them in place.

Steff: It was rather meditative (read, monotonous) and it felt like I was 
gently tucking in the house.

Fiberglass insulation technology has apparently improved in leaps and bounds, but Steff still
covered exposed skin to avoid itchies.

The house grew notably warmer and quieter (and drier!) as Steff worked her way around the house

We used two bags of insulation for the whole house. In one bag the Batts were saturated in a mystery purple chemical. We trimmed those parts off and tried our best not to get it on everything.

Trimming Batts to size, and cutting off gross drippy bits

Any ideas what this stuff is? Some of our insulation was saturated in it.

It stained everything

From insulation, we progressed on to

Plumbing

While we had initially intended to use standard plumbing pipes, we decided to use marine flexi hose. This is because of the situation detailed in the cartoon below. Please note that the situation did literally happen as depicted in the cartoon, at a plumbing place in the north end of town that we probably shouldn't name for legal reasons (the name starts with "m"!):

David, unfamiliar with the subtle nuances of a patriarchal society had his mind blown by this scenario, and in fact was the one using the deleted expletives, and fluently at that. He often recounts the story now, still amazed that this situation even took place. Other men are shocked. Women are thoroughly unsurprised.

Marine drinking hose (more holes in the wall)

Hose clamps (because it's not a great idea to drip water into the walls of your house)

Smile for the camera!

Hot and cold hoses separated, to be connected to our califont outside.

Future wet zones, kitchen and bathroom

Coming up next: we build some stairs and put up some interior walls!


The Quest Quotient by Nancy Howie and Steff Werman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at thequestquotient2011.blogspot.com.

Fixing a Hole Where the Rain Gets In

Now that the windows were firmly in place, we fixed our cladding permanently. It looks like a simple job, but it took us days and days. Because our structure is transportable, we used screws to fix the cladding. Apparently, cheaper nails are used in conventional house builds.

With walls on and a five-day clear spell on the way, we were ready to climb to greater heights: the roof! On top of our ply ceiling, we screwed down roof purlins to hold the insulation and also to give us something to screw our roofing iron into.

Steff: The days were unseasonably dry, but icy. For many days, I was stationed up on the roof, passing things back and forth. I had a great time contemplating the view and watching the long winter shadows travelling across the site, and it was nice to be outside in the sun, but not getting burned. This part of the build was undoubtedly exhausting, especially as I was using strange and unknown balancing muscles. I also found myself seriously dehydrated by the end of the first day with the cold, dry wind. Four metres up in the air is not where you want to have balance and cognition issues, so I made sure to bring plenty of water for everyone for the rest of the roof days. In between the flurries of activity, my time on the roof was very peaceful. 

Nancy: Being on the roof was by far the most terrifying part of the build for me. I'm not typically afraid of heights, but once the iron was in place, there was nothing to hold onto if one were to lose one's balance. I didn't like climbing the ladder to the roof, I didn't like leaning over the edge to fasten the iron in place with our roofing screws, and I especially didn't like trying to get back down again. The weather was lovely, and there were a few moments when I was far enough from the roof edges that I appreciated the tranquility and quiet (you couldn't hear anyone or anything down below from the rooftop). For the most part, though, I spent those five days tense and cranky, and with a heightened sense of self-preservation.

View from the top.  

Layers, right to left: ceiling insulation, building paper, iron to top the roof sandwich.

First roof, positioned and screwed down

A frosty start to day three

Steff positions the insulation

David stays safely on the ground. Note: aforementioned APRON flashing.

As the sun dipped behind these casuarina trees, it became intolerably cold.
We had to stop what we were doing immediately before we lost our heads and our dexterity to the chill.

The team hard at work

David doesn't like ladders either

The roof needed to be swept to remove any shrapnel that may have burst forth from the iron
while it was being screwed down. Barge flashings are now in place

We brought our builder friend back in to teach us how to put the first roof in place, and he left us to our own devices to complete the project. Due to a fear-induced measurement miscalculation and cumulative error, our second roof is now on very slightly askew. Our friend, when he came back to check it for us, described it as "a bit on the piss, but watertight".

Watertight. After months of battling the elements, tarpaulins blowing rampant in winter storms, waiting on overdue windows, and watching as torrents of water streamed onto months of hard work, we were enclosed and dry. This was a major achievement for us, and cleanly closed a chapter of the build.

From now almost until the end, we'll be inside.



The Quest Quotient by Nancy Howie and Steff Werman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at thequestquotient2011.blogspot.com.

Windows to the Soul

Yeah, we know. It's been a while. The thing is, we had a break from the blog in order to get a lot done on the house.  Now, consequently, we have plenty to write about. Let's start with the windows.

Here's where we are in the blog narrative: we have a house with great gaping holes in it. When it rains our interior looks like this:

More of a swimming pool than a dining room

When we describe our blog to interested persons, they often say to us, "so it's a how-to blog?" We're quick to correct them--this blog is more of a how-not-to.  Here's how not to do windows:

Do not cut window holes in your cladding before you've learned to install windows. 

Do not make the window holes in your cladding too large for the custom windows you have ordered, for you will have weathertightness issues.

Do not trust the professional who measured up your windows to inform you that you've made this grave error. 

With that in mind, here's how we corrected our window mishaps. The first step was to admit to ourselves that we had no idea how to install windows and that we needed help. We enlisted a professional builder to coach us and work alongside us so that we could eventually install a window or two ourselves. Here are some photos of that process.

Preparing a head flashing. This is installed above the window but behind the cladding to divert water away from the house-hole.

Attaching bitumen tape around the window corners--helps to weather-proof the window's weak points.

Steff framed in the unfinished window. Beware the tape's blinding reflective powers.

We originally built the framing for the following window around an old timber-framed leadlight jobbie. Its frame was wonky at best, so we ended up discarding it; this meant that we had to square up our framing so that the new custom window would fit. 

 

Steff secures some side-flashings (to cover up the oversized
cladding holes we mistakenly cut before window installation. Whoops).

Window installed and framing de-wonkified.

The side-flashings were tucked under the exterior window lip on bottom and sides and nailed in place.
They will eventually be covered by battens, in theory.

We had more framing changes at this point. We raised the window to accommodate a roof flashing. This flashing would be tucked under the window and would prevent splashback from driving rain on our low-angled roof. Regrettably, we can't specify the type of flashing as we've forgotten its name. We do know that it is not called a 'skirt flashing', or at least, we now know that's a phrase that shouldn't be Googled.

Yes, that's ice on the roof. Dry winter days made for frosty nights (but also maximum productivity on the house-building front!)

Back inside, we're poking styrofoam backing rod in the gaps between the window and the framing.
This stops our expanding foam from squirting through the gap and out to the exterior cladding.

Backing rod installation party

This is what we mean by expanding foam. It was chaos, and we were applying it without finesse. The foam came out at one speed only, and that speed was uncontrollably fast. There was much surprised whooping, and it was eventually tracked throughout the house. We started out trying in earnest to clear up our colossal mess, but ended up sculpting phalluses out of the foam instead.

More expanding foam glamour shots. After the foam has hardened, we cut it off flush
with a razor knife. Ignore the insulation; we'll get to that later.

Next up: we put a roof on this puppy!

The Quest Quotient by Nancy Howie and Steff Werman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at thequestquotient2011.blogspot.com.