Catch up time (Part 3)

Right, so Maria needed to take holiday days so we went to Slovakia for 10 days.

Didn't get many pictures taken as I was working too much!

 Mr Plumber had been busy again, here you can see the bathroom sink drain, along with washing machine drain, cold and hot water with circulation return so you dont need to pour 20L of water down the drain every time you want hot water.
I'm a bit suprised he took the routes he did but he did a good job, if it was me I would have gone straight up instead of running along the wall like that, effectively weakening the wall on one side completely.

 Spaghetti junction getting worse.

White pipes are Cold feed, Hot Feed + Return

Snaking pipes are going to the radiator in the bedroom, and the exit to the right hand side where they join onto is where it leads to grannies radiators.

 Location for Bath tap.

 Kitchen sink + drain. The drain was meant to go out to the left hand side bottom of this pic but he chose to go through the wall so all fine and well.

 Very suprised by this, this is for the dishwasher, cold feed and drain, he used about 15 joints to go around the corner and into the drain, I would have just gone straight to the wall and upwards.

The less angles the better if you ask me, but he insists it will be fine as the dishwasher has pressure behind it, we'll see!

 UFH mixer to reduce the temperature from 50-60C for radiators to 30-40C UFH

 The tank slowly getting connected up.

The pump (Plumber insisted) is for the heating loop for the fireplace, its made out of 28mm copper which was welded instead of soldered, covered in special high temperature insulation.

The pump will switch on once a thermostat with probe reaches a certain temperature at the pipes near the fireplace so the fireplace can come up to temperature properly.

 Fuse box for boiler room, version 1.0, it has been changed after this slightly.

Incase you're wondering, from Left to right, Main switch 3ph + N, Boiler socket (red 10A), Wall socket 16A (Which is now redundant) 16A Socket in basement where water pump is so all the water/heating controls are in one place, 16A twin sockets below fusebox for "spare" things such as tools required for maintenance, 16A socket + junction box for both pumps on the hot water tank, but its been downgraded to 2A now I believe as the pumps almost draw no current. A 6A MCB for the lights in the room, and a 3ph RCD to stop us getting electrocuted if anything goes wrong!

 Wall socket for hot water circulation pump, will have a timer on it.
And the junction box below to be used for the thermostat that will tell the pump for the fireplace loop to turn on or off.

 Side view, Feed on left, Pump in basement next to it, twin sockets, light switch, all the way top left is the boiler socket.

 Started the "lounge" ceiling.

 And lounge ceiling complete.

 The main fuseboxes which were a bit of a pain to do since the main incommer was already in the wall and in use, and I had to put together the fusebox before I could connect it up to the main incommer, hence there is a lot of tension on the box through the cables, simply used a wooden batton and screwed it in place into the wall to keep the box in position whilst using electricians plaster to freeze it in place.

 A company was hired to do the fireplace surround to take a load off my shoulders, rather expensive and over the top if you ask me, but who am I to argue.

Basically they are creating a fireproof box with special insulation, Ytong is extremely fire resistant but yet they insist on glueing fireboard against it, same with the special vermiculite chimney bricks, extremely temperature resistant, also covered in fireboard.

 the place for the fireplace to sit on, and the cold air feed, then the gap in the blockwork is for cold air to be drawn in behind and around the fireplace and heated and expelled at the top again once warm.

Oh, and the two pipes for the backboiler :)

 Thermostatic shower thingy installed into the wall and all pipes ready.

 The window which after 4 months still hasn't turned up..

 Spaghetti junction getting worse and worse, but I believe this is it done!

 Toilet reservoir bolted into place and plumbed up.

And the service channel with various pipes and cables, the plumber had to move the towel radiator feed down as it was refusing to thermocycle by itself since the hot water didn't want to go down there to get it started.

Catch up time (Part 2)

Right, so this is after I came back from Holiday.

Nice new floors laid!

 Very nice...

 Looking good!

 Only 2 real dissapointments here, one, they made very little attempt to protect the shower drain, and actually knocked it off center before pouring screed all around it anchoring it in place.

It simply had a rag shoved inside the joint and a plastic (ribbed!) bottle ontop of it, and a piece of polystyrene in the gap where the floor drain is supposed to go.

As a result, the bottle was impossible to remove, the rag was trapped inside the screed, the joint had been knocked so it was no longer where it was supposed to be, tried freeing it off but the screed goes very hard, I'd even say it goes harder than concrete..

 Second niggle, they burried the drain for the kitchen! Then had the cheek to say it was my fault for not leaving a long enough piece sticking up. (there were lots of offcuts kicking around, they could easily have done it themselves, or at least try to put something there to stop it getting buried with screed!

 Anyhow, cracked on with bedroom ceiling

 Metal profiles added.

 Moved onto the roof finally! This is the first sheet removed and already almost fell through the roof.

 peeling up metal roofing sheets.

 Little bit of rot..

 Bitumen paper was used but had frayed through in some places over time.

 Rot? Where?

 And the old roof removed.

 Apologies for lack of pictures, I was too busy! Here it shows the finished underneath.

New roof beams, bolted either side to wooden beams on the top of the walls, used the left over polystyrene sheets to insulate, the beams were 150mm, sheets 100 so it leaves a 50mm gap for air circulation above it.

Top of the beams is covered in 25mm OSB board, Bitumen paper and then the new metal roofing sheets.

Also added the wooden support beams fo rthe ceiling which will now be level opposed to what it was before, at a weird angle.

 Showing one side bolted to top of main bearing wall.

Hopefully, when they come to replace the old roof this new section can stay in place.

 A view from outside, it needs some work done as I didn't leave enough overhang whilst using the 25mm OSB and the brackets for the gutter.

Simply need to take down the OSB facia, and shorten the wooden beams so there's a bit more overhang.

 Added 1x 32A (6mm) cable for electric induction hob, 1x 16A for electric oven and a normal socket for kitchen.

 Plumber also added a Gas pipe so we can choose between electricity or gas Hob or oven.

 The space for the fuseboxes and bottom space for dishwasher socket + countertop socket.

 Bedroom radiator pipes all put in place inside the wall.

 The UFH pipes leading up to the boiler room, along with the gas pipe in gray.

 And all the cables labelled for fuseboxes.

 The Hot water cylinder arrived, and as you can see it couldn't have been much larger!

It's one of these: http://kotly.com/Storage_water_heater_Cyclone_400_l_with_3_coils,3590.html

Basically, its a 400L tank, which we have used in a slightly different way than normal.

Rather than heating 400L of hot water to use for showers/baths/doing the dishes, for it then to cool down overnight again losing energy, its been "inverted" in that its being used as a thermal store.

The main volume of the tank is used as part of the HEATING circuit that does the UFH and Radiators, the return from these goes back into the tank, then out to the boiler, gets heated up, goes to the UFH/Radiators and returns to the tank again.

The side coil is used for the fireplace. This will eventually help warm up the water in the tank, so the gas boiler doesn't have to do so much work.

The top coil is used as a "Pre heat" coil for the hot water. Cold water from the well enters the coil at the bottom, and leaves slightly warmer at the top before getting sent through to the boiler to be heated to the desired temperature.

The bottom coil eventually will be for a solar pannel, which will have the same function as the fireplace, to simply reduce the load on the gas boiler.




The red thing on top is a Feed & Expansion tank for the fireplace backboiler loop.

http://www.polytank.co.uk/polyred.htm

I chose this model because of its price and ratings, its illegal in some countries to have a sealed (Unvented) system on a Uncontrolled Heat Source (Such as a fireplace which you can't just turn off by turning a tap or hitting a switch)

This means that if the water gets too hot in the system, it will simply evaporate and push it back into the tank, take in a gulp of colder water and cool the system down again.  No risk of explosions or boiling water being spat out into someone's face.  Not to mention, it has completed the 500 hour boiling test where they cycle boiling water throughout it non stop without failing.

 Nice tight fit!

The "temporary" flue for the boiler. It needs to be done again at some point once the roof is replaced.

And then it was Christmas, and I moved away from Slovakia after 3 and a bit years to live in Germany.

Catch-up time Part 1

Apologies for not keeping this updated at all, I've been meaning to do it for ages!

Its been a bit hectic with travelling across europe multiple times since the last update and also moving house to a different country!

Anyhow, pictures from where I left off!

 I had to remove the old wooden trusses, or at least move them up out of the way to get the platform room to a usable height so I put in some new beams and bolted them up.

 Removed the old ones, the nails were the strongest part of the construction, wood was mostly rotten at ends.

 And the boiler room built up.

 The boiler room gets its own fire rated plasterboard ceiling + insulation to keep it cosy.
the beams are simply ran lengthwise and notched into the walls.

 Also grannies hallway still needed to be completed as the floor was never done.
Smashed it to bits with a sledge hammer, nothing more than a few cm of concrete resting on soil, along with gravel in other places.

 All the rubble removed from the floor, kept for backfill.

 down to clear soil.

 Removed the soil to the right depth.

 And backfilled with rubble, with a layer of blinding sand over the top, and concreted over, all done in a few hours.

 electricity in livingroom all put in place yet to be wired up.

 A contractor was hired to come and straighten the old walls so they were reasonably straight.

 Different wall, also straightened.

 40mm drains in bathroom for bathroom sink and washing machine, along with a branch that will lead upstairs to the boiler platform for the condensing boiler and various overflows.

 started hacking away in the wall and foundation for the recessed toilet reservoir.

 Mortared back up all the gaps to stop it falling and making it a bit more solid.

 Started on ceiling support beams in livingroom.

 And the corner left out around the place for the chimney.

 Different view.

 Bathroom all filled in and pipes put in right place along with reinforcing and concrete starting to be dumped.

 A view of the recessed area for the toilet reservoir, added some metal rebar pieces in the top and mortared it in place to support the rest of the wall.

 floor all levelled out with fresh concrete. Shower on left, bath on right, toilet in middle.

 Did the metalwork for ceiling in livingroom.

 added plastic roofing material on the boiler rooms "roof" to stop condensation dripping back down onto the insulation material. and also added the metal profiles for plasterboard.

 Insulated the ceiling and fitted the doorframe.

 Damp proof coursing for wall in bathroom, hurrying to get things ready so the UnderFloorHeating can be installed.

 first row of bricks for wall in place.

 And also a service channel in the bathroom which contains electricity for the platform, workshop, cable for well pump 1x pipe to well 1x pipe to outside tap.

 Cut out a space for the UFH manifold box to go.

 Mortared it back up for strength.

 And the heating engineer started his work!

 Bathroom system boards all in place.

 And the UFH pipes being laid in bathroom.

 Livingroom

 Lounge

 Grannies hallway

I quickly made the electricity in the garage work (3Ph) so they would have a 3ph supply for the pump to do the flooring screed.

Then, I left for 3 weeks back to the UK and let them get on with it!