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No work today. It is SO loving hot out there. One thing I have been doing is after each session trying to rotate out some of the wood lower in the stack and move it to the top for better airing. It was mentioned elsewhere that by stacking them in pairs (I didn't have enough wood to make spacers for each one) I might actually be causing more trouble as the out-sides would dry faster than the in-sides and cause the boards to bend. This is feasible and could be the cause of a few bends here and there, but it's not very prevalent. In any case I'm shifting things round as I go so boards get a chance to dry on their own. 
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Jul 22, 2018 12:43
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The weather finally broke and today was breezy and in the low 20s, so I dragged myself outside and got to work. On the docket is this side of the wall. Need to start by framing that upright.  Had a bit of a reorg and review of my remaining edge pieces.   In an inversion of the usual process I needed to find the least good pieces, because this corner will rarely be seen on account of it being off to the side and behind where the bifolds open. First cut for the top mitre went fine, except I cut it backwards. Sigh. Decided to do the base cutout first and revisit the top mitre, since I'd have to lift it up to have enough material at the top so I might as well have the cutout supporting the piece. I used the same template from last time to mark up where the cut out needs to be for the lip of the door. It was going to be very awkward to cut out so I clamped the piece upright and used the mitre angle rather than the tilt.  Fortunately I did a double check before cutting, because I templated it backwards. As you can tell I was not entirely with it. Remarked it and cut.  Test fit. Not bad.  Top is a little high though, needs trimming.  No wait, after taking that photo it slotted into place. Perfect fit.  The bottom cutout needed to be a little deeper in order to get the piece plumb.  After a few iterations I hit some other limit where it wouldn't go in any further, so I wound up with a deeper cut than necessary. Oh well, nobody's gonna see it much. Marked and cut the bottom mitre, wrong, of course, did it too low.  Recut, done.  Need to remove all those battens from the builder, but this area isn't looking great to work in.  Fortunately I own a machete.  Tried out my new screw bits removing the boards, work well. Always wear earpro my friends, impact drivers are kinda loud.  A lot of the screws were really rusted. I'm not sure if my replacements will be any better. One of them even sheared off.   I might remove it with some pliers, but maybe I'll just leave it there, it won't be in the way. Fitted the verticals in a similar manner to previously.  By this point I was truly knackered. Motivation was tough today but I managed to push myself to this point, and I made the right decision to stop there. Bit of a chill and then packed away. 
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Jul 28, 2018 17:37
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No work on the cladding today. I'm going to take the day as a bit of a break but also catch up on a bunch of household stuff I've been neglecting like washing clothes and emptying recycling. I have, however, started putting proper thought into how I'm going to finish the parapet walls. The front can be done now, that's just a matter of money I don't really have. In any case I have 4 roof drainage channels that I need to hook into proper drainage. Most of the options seem to involve adding a "through wall" piece which looks like this:  The idea is that you sandwich it into the middle layer of your roofing material, in my case fibreglass, so where the normal roof goes OSB -> resin -> fibreglass -> topcoat this would go OSB -> resin -> outlet flange -> topcoat. The only catch is that this would involve cutting out the existing fibreglass so I could put this in, then blending them back together. That's apparently not the worst thing in the world because that's how you patch damage anyway, but it's not something I've done before so it's playing with fire somewhat. Another option, since the channels are already there and already sealed, is to not bother with this and use simple hoppers instead. The only catch would be finding a way to neatly flash the transition from roof channel to hopper, since I won't have the extended pipe from the wall outlet to work with. My roof looks very much like this except without the neat run off ramp here, instead it ends flush with the wall. 
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Aug 4, 2018 12:04
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My goal for this weekend was to finish the back wall. Took advantage of the break in rain yesterday and got out "early", around 9. Bottom frame cut, prepped, propped and ready for fixing.  And fixed  Vertical frame cut, waxed, and fixed  I spend about half an hour sorting through my planks to find the worst ones, since this was the corner that's going to be seen the least. In the process I found that a couple of the boards were about half the weight/density of the others, so I might've got stiffed on materials there? I've contacted the supplier to see. Had to work around this electrical box. The tricky part is that I needed to dry fit all the boards to get the height, but the box is in the way. Can't cut the hole in the boards until I know exactly where they're going. The easiest way was to remove the front cover. These cables are almost certainly live, so I did it carefully.   Dry fit in progress. The first half of these fought me on every board, eventually even knocking out the bottom framing, but by this point in the stack things had settled down and I made faster progress.  While I was doing this I realised I was going to have to add the parallel runner battens for the ends of the boards to nail to. I reeeally didn't want to get my SDS drill out so I used a few of my 100mm self-cutting screws to fix them to the adjacent battens. I was originally planning to SDS fix them afterwards in a couple of places (much easier than trying to hold an SDS drill in one hand and some batten in the other) but they felt sturdy enough so I didn't bother. No great issues except I managed to shatter an impact bit.   Pulled the boards down, trimmed the bottom to the correct height, and waxed the end grain.  Bottom board marked up for the electrical box. It wasn't mounted level (of course) so it had to be a bit bigger than I'd like, but whatever.   And the next board   I was originally thinking about framing around the box but I really can't be hosed. Current plan is to fit rubber seals around it which you'd remove if you needed to take the cover off. Fitting underway. This part isn't too bad because now all the boards are cut and numbered, and they're being held up by nails rather than stacked on the bottom one. About half way up I got sick of searching for crappier boards and just pulled from the top of the stack.  I was really flagging by this point but I had a three day weekend and the idea of spending two of those days not working on the house is a powerful motivator. I think I got my offset measurement a bit wrong (the profile is a bit complicated) so I had to jack the top board up slightly (and the next one on top of it) to accommodate. Fortunately the difference was small enough that the nails stayed hidden.  Fixing of the next rows underway. This went slower than I'd like because I was loving exhausted, and it's tricky to fit a long board by yourself because each section of it can be slightly out vs the one below and getting the T&G to slot together over 3m is hard, especially on a ladder. I had to switch to a stepladder for the last couple of rows too, in order to avoid damaging the wood with the ends of the ladder, so that was even more unstable.   It took every last ounce of energy I had, but I got it done. Finished around 8pm.   I also got close to running out of horseshoe packers, so I've ordered a bunch more. Cost: £50 Total so far: £152,686.96 Jaded Burnout fucked around with this message at 15:15 on Aug 12, 2018 |
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Aug 12, 2018 15:04
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Nicely done, dude. Glad you took a step back and re-evaluated instead of letting it get to you too much. It paid off. As for around the receptacle box, would some clear silicone do just fine? Looks like a pretty consistent gap so it should look fine.
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Aug 12, 2018 15:16
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schmug posted:Nicely done, dude. Glad you took a step back and re-evaluated instead of letting it get to you too much. It paid off. It would look fine, but would be annoying when I need to open it. It's the supply for whatever lighting or what have you I put in the garden, so it will need accessing at some point. I'm getting a bunch of seals to go around the bifolds etc anyway, so I can probably seal this box just with offcuts.
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Aug 12, 2018 15:18
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That looks really nice. All the time and effort paid off there.
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Aug 12, 2018 15:21
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Jaded Burnout posted:It would look fine, but would be annoying when I need to open it. It's the supply for whatever lighting or what have you I put in the garden, so it will need accessing at some point. No I mean just around the outside where you would be worried about water getting behind the box.. Outdoor junction boxes come with a rubber gasket that goes behind the face plate. At least over here they do... schmug fucked around with this message at 15:40 on Aug 12, 2018 |
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Aug 12, 2018 15:38
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schmug posted:No I mean just around the outside where you would be worried about water getting behind the box.. Outdoor junction boxes come with a rubber seal that goes behind the face plate. At least over here the do... That's what I mean also. The front plate needs to come out of that hole, so if I seal between the edges of the wood and the faceplate, surely I'll need to break the seal when removing it?
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Aug 12, 2018 15:40
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Jaded Burnout posted:That's what I mean also. The front plate needs to come out of that hole, so if I seal between the edges of the wood and the faceplate, surely I'll need to break the seal when removing it? No, just apply sealant around the box to seal it from the house. The faceplate and gasket will seal the box. This is the best pic I could find after a quick search.  E1: If your box was a little more proud of the siding it would make more sense. E2: And now i noticed that you cover goes past the siding. Guess you will have to rig it, or buy an extension. I thought it was just a flat faceplate. schmug fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Aug 12, 2018 |
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Aug 12, 2018 15:47
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Something like this, maybe? 
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Aug 12, 2018 16:10
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I'm extremely confused. Lemme lay out what I'm thinking and you can point where you think it needs an edit. The electrical box (without lid) is attached to the block wall, and extends to just inside the cladding, maybe a little proud of the very back of the cladding. I'm not worried about water getting behind the box itself; it's sat like that over last winter with no problems. I'm also not worried about the lid leaking for the same reason. With the lid on it comes flush with the front of the cladding. The hole is cut out wide enough that when I need to open the box I unscrew it and pull the lid through the cladding and out. What I am marginally worried about it water and/or insects getting in around the box and sitting inside the cladding. So it seems to me that I need to seal between the cut out in the cladding and the surround of the lid. Not to seal the lid and the box, but to seal the lid and the hole in the cladding. If I seal that with mastic then it'll be destroyed when I remove the lid.
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Aug 12, 2018 16:20
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How it is now, you're right. I thought the cover was flat and not recessed on the back. I didn't realize it went past the face of the siding. "Normally" the cover would sit proud of the siding and then you could just seal around the box and then the cover would go on as normal. So now you will either need to get an extension, or rig up something now to seal it off. Or as a comedy option, remove all the siding and shim out the box and then re-wire it. 
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Aug 12, 2018 16:31
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Cover the faceplate with a bigger, cuter faceplate (unless that's illegal?) Adding a handle could be helpful. Otoh, how often does that box get opened? Monthly meter check, or emergency repairs?
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Aug 12, 2018 22:31
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peanut posted:Cover the faceplate with a bigger, cuter faceplate (unless that's illegal?) Adding a handle could be helpful. All going well, it will be opened exactly once, to wire in a main feed for the garden lighting (when I have garden lighting (when I have a garden)), so just using some extra rubber seal will be fine. It's just a waterproof junction box.
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Aug 12, 2018 23:03
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It'd be super easy to make an ornamental cap for that with a soft rubber gasket around the perimeter. Regardless: man you did a great job, that looks fantastic.
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Aug 13, 2018 00:24
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That wall ended up looking really sweet. Glad you stuck it out and powered through the issues.
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Aug 16, 2018 23:55
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My goal for this weekend was to clad this wall. Slightly different this time in that there's a gutter here  You've seen this process a bunch now so I'll skip to the highlights Phase 1 battens  I was a little bothered by the floating battens at the bottom, so I refitted the thinner batten that I'd removed. Technically the larger battens are holding this up rather than the other way round, but it provides bracing.  On to phase 2, the framing. Bottom piece needed another 2.5-way mitre.  Lots of fiddling and recutting involved. The bottom one is always the worst. That said, this side one was a bitch too  I had to shave off a whole bunch of the render so it would sit flat  Much faffing later, main framing done.  Framed out the guttering. Lead is a little beat up but I need to do something new with it anyway.  Fully framed  Extra battening for the attaching of wood to (and not the last one either)  Kitty prints  Trimmed a board so that it'll all line up. Doesn't need to be perfect.  Fully fixed  It goes quicker from here, but not a lot quicker because it's around this time I start to flag. Also doesn't help if I keep breaking drill bits.  Half done. Every board after this point was an excruciating slog, not because it was difficult, but because I was running on fumes.  Alignment check; looking good  Takin' a break  Cutting around the gutter. The jigsaw left a rough edge but I don't give a fuuuuuuck  And done.  Another 11 hour work day. I gotta stop doing those. I bought some more horseshoe packers too since I was running out. Probably overbought but whatever. Also picked up some long SDS+ bits because I need to feed an external tap through the wall before the renderers show up in a couple of weeks. Packers: £50.00 SDS+ bits: £26.99 Cost so far: £152,713.95
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Aug 19, 2018 21:26
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That looks great.
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Aug 20, 2018 09:10
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Please sperg about your plans for that gutter.
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Aug 20, 2018 09:38
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peanut posted:Please sperg about your plans for that gutter. I'm not sure yet. I have tentatively spoken with a metalworker about adding a gargoyle, but probably I'll just redo the lead somehow and run it into a hopper, along with the output of the drain pipe from the roof above.
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Aug 20, 2018 11:39
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Looks great! And I learned some new terms today as well! Much faffing start to flag excruciating slog
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Aug 20, 2018 12:52
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Jaded Burnout posted:I'm not sure yet. I have tentatively spoken with a metalworker about adding a gargoyle, but probably I'll just redo the lead somehow and run it into a hopper, along with the output of the drain pipe from the roof above. Attach a small ornamental extension (a gargoyle would be great) with a chain to direct the water. It'll be a lot less visually distracting than a downspout.
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Aug 20, 2018 15:38
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Jaded Burnout posted:
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Aug 20, 2018 20:25
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Applesnots posted:How much room are you leaving on the ends of those? Like what kinda of gap? I would be concerned if there was not at least an eighth of an inch on both sides to help accommodate for thermal expansion and moisture. Might warp or pop the boards. I worked with a guy for a while doing flooring and he did not leave any gaps and boss man made him rip them all up and shave them down. About 2mm. Thermal expansion and moisture aren't huuuuge considerations because it's quite a dense wood and the UK has relatively constant heat and humidity throughout the year. I'll just have to see how it goes, but so far they've not budged despite a couple of weeks alternating between baking hot and pissing rain.
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Aug 20, 2018 20:44
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Jaded Burnout posted:About 2mm. Thermal expansion and moisture aren't huuuuge considerations because it's quite a dense wood and the UK has relatively constant heat and humidity throughout the year. I'll just have to see how it goes, but so far they've not budged despite a couple of weeks alternating between baking hot and pissing rain. Ok, look good
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Aug 20, 2018 21:16
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I've done a little digging and reworking the lead outflows is not something I'm going to take on myself; the skill and financial investment is too high to be worth it. Unless anyone has any other ideas on how I can safely extend these outflows neatly into a hopper, please let me know, otherwise I'll find a new leadworker (my last one just hired out a subcontractor and I always feel like I'm getting ripped off when that happens).
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Aug 21, 2018 13:24
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Looking real good JB, keep up the spirit!
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Aug 21, 2018 16:21
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Thanks 
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Aug 21, 2018 16:28
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Today was another dry day but I really needed a break, so no cladding. However, the scaffolders did show up to set up for the final rendering next week.  Since they dragged me out of bed at 9am!!! and I wasn't exactly going to go back while that was going up, I went out to Screwfix to pick up some parts for prepping the external tap so the renderers don't have to bother me to fill up from the shower all the time. The crux is that I have this connector on the end of the small hose which goes to the outside tap fixture which somehow survived from pre-renovation times, and I need to connect it to some speedfit pipes.   I know the speedfit pipes are 15mm PEX because although they were installed (lazily) by the builder, they're the same ones I used to (shoddily) plumb in the kitchen. This fortunately means I have a bunch of tools and parts already. However, the connector on the hose isn't one I instantly recognise because I'm not a 40 year old plumber. After some measuring and catalogue-rustling I found this part for a fiver or so, which shows that the hose connector is 1/2" BSP. Makes sense. The speedfit tee connector is so I can spur off the main feed.   Next step is to drill a hole in the wall and run the hose through. The connector is conveniently removable (I checked before engaging with this). Grabbed my SDS drill and a 16mm extra long SDS+ bit that I got in a pack the other week for this very purpose.  I picked a decent height, warned the scaffolders not to lean on the wall, and drilled through from the inside. There was some resistance (it's very dense block), but not too much and I was done in under a minute, with only minor snagging of the drill bit on the cavity insulation on the way through. The hose went through without any fuss.     After that I temporarily secured the tap so the renderers can use it, and reinforced the batten it's on a bit so it doesn't flex too much. Once the cladding on this wall is done I'll reuse the hole for a new fitting and tap, then reuse this tap inside to make flushing the underfloor heating easier, so I don't mind so much the money I spent on parts.  For the first time in ages I felt like I completed a potentially difficult task without it fighting me and everything going smoothly. The scaffolders aggravated the neighbours a little so I guess that balances out. I'll buy them a nice gift hamper once I'm doing with all the noisy outside poo poo. I didn't really feel like messing with a live water feed today so I went the hell back to bed. I'll do it tomorrow. Long SDS+ drill bits £26.99 Speedfit 15mm equal tee £2.55 Speedfit 15mm to 1/2" BSP adapter £6.65 Total so far £152,723.15
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Aug 25, 2018 20:26
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Good news op
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Aug 25, 2018 23:37
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da motha fucken chat z0ne for house stuff
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Aug 25, 2018 23:48
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I find I work best when I follow my motivation, and so it was at 8pm that I started redoing the pipework to attach the tap. Here's the junction-to-be  Rough positioning and marking of the tee  The pipework around here is a touch complicated, but it's not too bad. The critical part is that I need to a) cut off the supply, b) cut off any other major gravity sources of water, and c) depressurise the isolated section.  Fortunately this section when isolated still feeds the bathroom next door, so I can use the tap in there to release the pressure, with convenient drainage built in.  Isolated the main feed  Isolated the boiler so I don't get any backflow  With some awkward wiggling due to the zero tolerances the builder decided to go with, got the offending section disconnected and drained   Cut out some space for the tee  The way this works is you tighten it up until the blade is pushing into the pipe, then run the blade around until you feel it loosen a bit, tighten, rotate again, until it cuts through nice and clean.  These inserts are used to provide stiffness to the end of the pipe so that the locking mechanism on the push fit port doesn't just deform the pipe and break the seal.  Cut  Inserts  Fitted and locked  Test fit OK  The extra width from the tee means this end needs trimming. Will fit a new insert while I'm at it.  Here you can see that the copper pipe doesn't have any inserts because it's strong enough not to need them.  Fitted and ready  Roughed in a length of spare PEX. I'm going a little long on this one because I'll be using copper and an elbow on the final fitting, so for now I'll use a little extra.    Hose fitted.  Turn the mains feed back on very slowly in case it pops off—   I noticed it's pulling the insert out, and this connector doesn't have a lock on it, so I tried without the insert since in theory it's not needed. I was still a little concerned because I couldn't find my PTFE tape which you kinda need on a metal thread. To be fair it's been 9 months since I last used this stuff and the house has been changing constantly. Will have to just try it without.  OK so it holds, but it's leaking pretty badly. Do another scour for my tape. Eventually find it in my old toolbox that I'll probably never use in earnest again.    Tested it, still a little leaky, so I gave it another wrapping of tape and tightened it with a wrench and pliers. Annoyingly I'm not sure where my second wrench is and I'm not looking now.  All done and dusted. Opened the feed all the way, closed the bathroom tap, flapped it a few times to generate some water hammer, no issues. Tested the tap outside, jesus christ it's got some power, no wonder the connector had a hard time holding on. I guess it's because it's so close to the source. Now come Wednesday the renderers can fill they dang buckets outside and I can go to work.
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Aug 26, 2018 22:19
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Your builder did do some shoddy looking plumbing. For all my pex runs (most of my house now!) I’ve spent the small amount of time that it takes to get them straight and clip them to the walls and joists rather than leaving them floating. Is that blue pipe off the stop tap not just 15mm that you could have cut and used a speed fit on? If you plan on doing more plumbing: - Buy a set of plastic pipe shears to use on pex rather than the old style rotating blade cutter that you have. Loads quicker and easier. - Go buy 10 packs of the JG T pieces, corners and straight connectors and wall clips from screwfix and keep them ready in a box - rather than buying them individually, as it’s about 75% cheaper and you have them ready when you need them at 8pm on a Sunday night. - Buy a 10 pack of stop valves and add them every time you do any work. You can never have too many stop taps. - Buy a roll of ptfe every time you visit the shop as they always disappear - Don’t use PTFE in every metal thread. If there an olive involved then the ptfe goes on the olive not the thread (or you don’t use it at all)
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Aug 27, 2018 00:32
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Tomarse posted:Your builder did do some shoddy looking plumbing. For all my pex runs (most of my house now!) I’ve spent the small amount of time that it takes to get them straight and clip them to the walls and joists rather than leaving them floating. Yeah. I'll get it all tidied up later. Tomarse posted:Is that blue pipe off the stop tap not just 15mm that you could have cut and used a speed fit on? You mean the pipe that leads to the outside tap? No, it's decades old and narrower. It's possible that there's some form of speedfit that would work but the material was different, it's in imperial sizes, I just didn't want to try it. Tomarse posted:If you plan on doing more plumbing: I'm not planning on doing any more, other than redoing the outside tap. *maybe* I'll tidy up this plumbing mess myself, but that's about it. I learned when doing the temporary kitchen that plumbing is a deep enough area of knowledge that I'm only good enough to do it "functional but crappy", so since there shouldn't be any more temporary jobs I'd prefer a real plumber do it. The pipe shears might be quicker, but they're way more expensive and weren't easy to find such that I could work on the 40 and 50mm waste pipe I was using on the kitchen. I also thing the rotating version provides a nicer cut with no burr or sharp edges.
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Aug 27, 2018 08:04
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Final rendering is complete, seems to be a good enough job. Will give it a week to make sure it's all kosher and then pay the guy and get the scaffold taken down. He's probably going to buy most of the leftover render bags from me at something like half cost, which is fine by me. It has about 4 months before it goes off. Also had a roofer round to quote on the leadworking for the hoppers, seemed reasonable, will go with the guy when all the scheduling is done. I'm going to try very hard to motivate myself to finish the cladding this weekend as it's looking like two sunny days. Then I need to buy some hoppers, coping, and fibreglass.
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Aug 31, 2018 17:46
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I bought some tools, bitch
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Sep 12, 2018 20:50
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tease
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Sep 12, 2018 21:42
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Pics, or it didn’t happen.
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Sep 13, 2018 06:28
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I will pics when they arrive
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Sep 13, 2018 07:41
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