I've so much I want to blog about, I don't know where to begin! But I'll just give an update on progress so far. Ollie (youngest son) arrived last month and began making a mess!
and making holes and pulling cables through the ceiling. He came with his mate Miles and they were both great company and good work mates.
The bathroom arrived and stood around outside for a while until I worried about it getting wet (this doesn't bode well for having a bath!) and made Niels bring it in
The plumber and his mate tackled the air ducts for the heat exchange system. First they laid out all the bends
then the straights, and after much head scratching and studying the not ever so clear instructions
they came up with this. I think it's slightly different from that than shown on the plans but the general opinion is it will do
And this is the famous heat exchange system. The one side deals with circulating air and the other heats water - I think. I've actually no idea how it works so I won't talk about it at the moment. I need to study the wires, and coils, and dials and little switches in more detail first!
The heat exchange system sits just to the left of the back door, in a cupboard - eventually
The struggle for me has been sealing and making good the plastic membrane. Every pipe and cable that comes through the sheeting needs to be sealed with tape or silicone, to prevent air loss
A stuck up soil pipe! We do hair dryer tests. One stands upstairs with the hairdryer switched on and pointing at the membrane while the other stands below and feels if there is a draft! I can't say this system is totally efficient as we can't always seem to agree where the draft is coming from!
This is my neatest sticking up
We decided on down lights, but because the membrane would melt with the heat from the lights we needed to find suitable boxes to sit them in. Eventually we found a company in Denmark
Here is the same box viewed from underneath. After I'd taped the membrane round the sides of the ninth box and stuck both myself and the cable to the box with silicone I began to wonder why we hadn't just stuck with a couple of token down lights instead of the twenty four we've ordered
Once all the sticking and sealing is done there is the insulation to do. This is glass wool and goes everywhere. I should wear a mask as it makes me cough and itchy and scratchy and generally irritable - Niels says that's nothing to do with the insulation! There is still loads more to stuff into cavities and walls and floors but it's in our interest to do it as well as we can.
On a lighter side. The
Internet connection arrived with new phone line
followed closely by the fridge freezer
I leaned some tiles up against the wall and played pretend bathrooms
And last but not least the top of the garden has been landscaped and tidied up
Now we can sit in our garden and see that the grass really is greener on the other side of the fence!
I've so much I want to blog about, I don't know where to begin! But I'll just give an update on progress so far. Ollie (youngest son) arrived last month and began making a mess! 
and making holes and pulling cables through the ceiling. He came with his mate Miles and they were both great company and good work mates.
The bathroom arrived and stood around outside for a while until I worried about it getting wet (this doesn't bode well for having a bath!) and made Niels bring it in
The plumber and his mate tackled the air ducts for the heat exchange system. First they laid out all the bends
then the straights, and after much head scratching and studying the not ever so clear instructions
they came up with this. I think it's slightly different from that than shown on the plans but the general opinion is it will do
And this is the famous heat exchange system. The one side deals with circulating air and the other heats water - I think. I've actually no idea how it works so I won't talk about it at the moment. I need to study the wires, and coils, and dials and little switches in more detail first!
The heat exchange system sits just to the left of the back door, in a cupboard - eventually
The struggle for me has been sealing and making good the plastic membrane. Every pipe and cable that comes through the sheeting needs to be sealed with tape or silicone, to prevent air loss 
A stuck up soil pipe! We do hair dryer tests. One stands upstairs with the hairdryer switched on and pointing at the membrane while the other stands below and feels if there is a draft! I can't say this system is totally efficient as we can't always seem to agree where the draft is coming from!
This is my neatest sticking up
We decided on down lights, but because the membrane would melt with the heat from the lights we needed to find suitable boxes to sit them in. Eventually we found a company in Denmark
Here is the same box viewed from underneath. After I'd taped the membrane round the sides of the ninth box and stuck both myself and the cable to the box with silicone I began to wonder why we hadn't just stuck with a couple of token down lights instead of the twenty four we've ordered
Once all the sticking and sealing is done there is the insulation to do. This is glass wool and goes everywhere. I should wear a mask as it makes me cough and itchy and scratchy and generally irritable - Niels says that's nothing to do with the insulation! There is still loads more to stuff into cavities and walls and floors but it's in our interest to do it as well as we can.
On a lighter side. The Internet connection arrived with new phone line
followed closely by the fridge freezer
I leaned some tiles up against the wall and played pretend bathrooms
And last but not least the top of the garden has been landscaped and tidied up
Now we can sit in our garden and see that the grass really is greener on the other side of the fence!
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