The Festive season

Planning: We had done a little planning over the run up to Christmas. We were to be in Aberdeen for the best part of two weeks, but with little steading time.
I needed to correct the problem Building Standards pointed out with our foul drain – swapping a 90 degree bend with two 45 degree bends in our backdrop to the main bathroom inspection chamber. I bought the extra bits to take up with me.
We renewed our public liability insurance for the site.
I endeavoured to contact Stevenson & Kelly, who are based near Balmedie and manufacture roof trusses. This was not initially successful with my emails getting lost. Once I got a direct contact email address, just before Christmas, I was in.
On site:

We had put webbing straps over each end of the caravan, attached to large granite boulders, to stop the caravan blowing over. One strap had worked itself off. Both showed wear marks on the caravan skin where metal parts had rubbed against the metal skin of the caravan. Clearly we had had strong winds between September and Christmas. I put the missing strap back and wrapped padding around the metal parts to stop them rubbing directly.

I had had a roll of heavy duty windbreak netting delivered, to put along the southern boundary, which is where our strongest & most regular winds seem to come from. It was a perforated plastic mesh rather than netting, I used a pack of removable cable ties to fix it on.

I dug up the main bathroom inspection chamber, disconnected the backdrop and pulled the rodding point out from the chamber riser. Oddly enough, the two 45 degree bends fitted exactly where the 90 degree bend had been and I was able to slot it all back together, switching the junction that included the rodding point round 90- degrees so that it provided access down the backdrop rather than up the drain into the steading. No trimming to size needed. I did not have a spare riser, so I put the one with the rodding hole on top of the other one. We can swap it back out next year if needed. I took photos and emailed them to Building Standards. They did not reply before we left to go south, so I filled the trench up to the level of the second riser.

We had realised that we did not drain our water heater back in September and feared for it. Quite rightly. I put the water back on and noticed drops of water appearing underneath. I pulled the cover off but could not see where the water came from. I did track it down – a pinhole in the pipe that takes heated water out of the combustion chamber that carried a tiny jet of water over the wall of the cupboard where it ran down. I consulted with Ric and decided that there may be other leaks waiting to show themselves – we will buy a new heater.

Out daughter Mairi & boyfriend Ian were up and wanted to do something – I gave them breaking bars and got them to open up the missing window in the south-facing wall of our single-storey section.

I planted out our four bargain fruit trees bought last May – Egremont Russet apple, Worcester Pearmain apple, Bramley’s Seedling apple and Merryweather damson – in our orchard patch in the south-west corner of our plot, we had laid out the weed membrane last September. I used our roll of plastic mesh to make rabbit guards for the trees. We had to sort out the area of conifers we had planted on the north side of our plot last September. Most of the rabbit guards were leaning at angles, two had removed themselves and were on our concrete pile. It looked as though they had been wind-blasted. The conifers had suffered badly, but we patched up the guards and put extra stakes in to hold them down.

Right at the end we went over to see another couple who are converting a steading, the far side of Ellon. They are living in a caravan with their two children, have an L-shaped steading and 4.5 acres of field. They have a sheltered access from their caravan into a large shed/workshop. They will work with a builder to get the steading watertight, rather the way Ric is helping us out, then finish the rest themselves. It is good to know others who are in a very similar position to ourselves. They are even expected to build a raised drainage mound as well!

 

This is what the straps should look like.

This is what it looked like on arrival, it got fixed.

Heavy weight windbreak in place!

The leaky water heater.

Misty keeping a close eye on my efforts.

Backdrop corrected as per Building Standards.

Ian & Mairi at work opening the new window on the south wall.

Done, about 70 cm above expected floor level.

Weed membrane in place for our to-be-orchard.

And r first four fruit trees planted.

Our shrubby area on the north side of the plot.