A Recap & some odds and ends

We were in Aberdeen over the Christmas and New Year period, mostly for social reasons, but with the intention of opening up two more windows in one of the steading walls.

Ric & Geoff had  stayed on for some time after we finished our September stint. We missed the last pour of concrete, in the east wing, and whilst they had made good progress on blockwork before we left, there had been plenty left to do. So our first visit was a chance to catch up on progress and check the state of the site.

Floor slab

We now have all our sub-floors in place. They had done as good a job of the east wing as they had on the rest. All are within a cm or so relative to each other and across each slab, apart from the garage floor which is 15cm higher and is the finished surface. We had not cut the expansion joints that the warrant requires us to do, for any continuous area over 30 square metres. Technically they are needed to provide a line of weakness in the event of contraction, to avoid random cracks across the slabs. However it had been raining whilst the slabs were laid and they were all under a cm or two of water when we arrived, so I expect there had been little scope in between for expansion/contraction. There were certainly no signs of any cracking, although the top few mm was starting to spall off in place, assisted by freeze & thaw. I expect we will cut the slots when we re-start work in April 2018.

Floor slabs

Blockwork
All our replacement walling has to have an inner course of standard concrete blocks laid on their sides i.e. 212mm wide. In the time they had available, Ric & Geoff got every opening that needed blockwork built up, mostly to lintel or sill height.

Having had misgivings about the whole issue of demolishing walling and rebuilding it, I was heartened with how well the blockwork tied in to the existing walling. For example Ric had started to sort out a particularly tricky piece of blockwork where the east wing joins the north wing on the courtyard side. We had removed a lot of granite because it was in poor condition and the adjacent door opening was a fairly shapeless 3-dimensional gap. He had cunningly tied in a column of blocks to form a neat internal corner that we can key quoin stones into, to form one edge of the door opening.

They had got two concrete structural lintels in place over the main bathroom window and had the padstones ready in several others.

They had embedded strips of stainless steel mesh into the blockwork at intervals, to tie into the new stonework. This means that when Ric is next up we can paint on the liquid DPM and get started on stonework, assuming we have our replacement sills and lintels. I am hoping that, once we can get the structural lintels on top of new granite, we can block out the wallheads ready for roof trusses separately from getting the outer, decorative granite lintels in place – if we need to. I expect that, if we want to go for getting roof trusses on by the end of the year, we will concentrate on building up the load-bearing walls at the expense of the gable-ends. Again, if we need to.

New/rebuilt walling

Wind

We had worried a little about the gales in November and the cold snap in December. The good news was that the only wind damage was to our builder’s fence panels, that were mostly horizontal, and to our electricity meter cupboard, where the door had completely blown off. The latter unsurprisingly had damaged hinges but I sort-of put it back together and leaned a solid lump of wood against it until we can do something more permanent – possibly some sort of strap that we can use to hold the door in place. As for the fence panels, we stood them up and used a couple of stout timber props tied into the panels to stop them blowing over again. I hope. We were particularly pleased that our shrub-guards netting survived the gales, having blown away twice over the least year!

All our shrub guards passed with flying colours! They survived the gales.

Drainage

It has rained quite a bit in the area over the last few months and we noted that…

1. Our flooding problem in the track and driveway area is completely fixed!
2. The short section of hedge on our north boundary right next to our track is still under water and we will want to run a short French drain to connect to the one Ric installed last year across the driveway.
3. The east boundary that had flooded around the time we put our fencing and hedging in, was not too bad, mainly because water is no longer running off the fields the other side of the fencing.
4. We will need the planned linear drain in front of our garage door, because water was coming of the track and ponding up. Not much, but it will make a big difference.
5. The mystery excavation under the boundary fence between ourselves and the holiday let had filled with water to 40cm below ground level. I expect that simply reflects the water table in the winter and explains why…
6. The bottom of the plot around out soakaway has some flooding, including a section of boundary hedging. We do need to look to a) do a bit of landscaping to make sure it does not pond up and b) see if we can help get surface water off site a bit quicker.
7. The concrete sump that our septic tank temporarily drains into had water up to 40cm below ground level.
8. A small point, but the drain cover is now in place over our concrete surface water tank, there is one less thing to fall into now. We did not get round to clearing the sludge out from the tank, I need to hire a bilge pump at some point.

So we are clearly not quite there yet, We need to do some minor drainage engineering. Given the high water table, we will be very interested in how our raised drainage mound performs as and when we get it in place.

Caravan and stove
The caravan was in good shape and did not look wind-damaged, but is starting to look green from algae. The drain cocks Ric has installed in the water supply meant the water heater was completely emptied and should be good to go next time we are in residence. The stove was installed in the caravan and Ric had had a test firing of it. The stove does look tiny, but we have high hopes for it.

It looks tiny, but is was highly recommended.

The stove pipe should be a good radiator.

The double-layer section o fpipe should preserve teh roof where it goes through!

Rodents
We have a bit of an issue with small furry mammals. They had got in to the caravan again and must have been desperately hungry. They had found the gauntlets that came with the stove, made of some sort of leather, and had consumed quite a large chunk of one of them. They had even come across a pair of ear defenders in the bothy that were not out of chewing range; They had eaten their way through much of the soft plastic – the foam soundproofing and the vinyl over the earpieces!

The bothy doors
When we built the bothy doors, two years ago, I made them a bit of a tight fit. By the time we got up this time around, the wet weather had made them expand a bit too much and we could no longer close them. I borrowed an electric plane from brother-in-law Bryan and took several mm off one door and painted the edge with preservative. It mostly sorted the problem, there is one point where it catches a little, I will see if it still a problem in the spring.

The tools for the job.

A satisfactory conclusion…

The weather
Having been up in the area off & on over 30-odd years, I got in the habit of expecting one or two falls of snow over Christmas/New Year. For whatever reason though (and yes, I do believe in man-made climate change), the last decent fall was way back in 2010.

• In 2013, when we first discovered the steading, the weather was chilly and variably windy and damp, but not cold enough to snow.
• In 2014, when we were putting up our fencing, it was well below zero, but still, dry and sunny, apart from one day of wind and sleet.
• In 2015, when we put the new doors on the bothy, it was chilly and damp.
• In 2016 when I dug out an inspection chamber do re-route some pipework, it was again chilly and damp.
• In 2017 we had the first significant fall of snow over the period, in seven years. We only got an inch or two, but it stayed for days, iced over and became quite a hazard. The combination of uneven ground, a capping of ice, melt-water and poor grip on my work boots meant that I landed on my bum several times a day and got quite adept at collapsing gracefully. Driving on the local back roads was exciting and the floor slabs became like skating rinks.
• I had left the dog’s water bowl outside and it had a good crust of ice on top. I lifted it out and observed an impressive array of ice crystals that had grown at angles down into the water.

Not much depth of snow, but it iced over and was lethal.

This layer of ice was on teh dogs drinking water bowl. These amazing ice crystals had grown down into the water!

What next, including roof trusses…

Roof trusses

Refreshed from our festive break, I got back in touch with Stevenson & Kelly. I arranged to send my plans over to get an estimate. The architect has specified separate trusses and joists. The trusses are to be raised-tie i.e. a standard truss but with an extra timber on either side to extend them far enough to rest on the raised wallhead, but also provides the depth to insulate the roof.

They got back quite quickly, asking why we were not using attic trusses, they would be cheaper than what was planned. I asked the architect.  He replied that he had used both designs and had problems with attic trusses where the building was at all wonky (as ours is). He thought the installation would be more tricky – we would probably want to buy in help and a bigger crane and may have trouble accommodating variations in our walls.

S&K came back to say they did not think they could design trusses as specified. I left the architect to talk with them, but asked them for a quote for attic trusses with easijoists. It came back at under £10k, which I was pleasantly surprised about.

I showed the architect the proposed design. He pointed out that, as designed, there was not enough room to insulate the trusses. If they were enlarged enough to allow us to use PIR foam insulation, the trusses would cost more, plus PIR insulation costs more than the mineral wool panels in the building warrant. Enlarging the trusses again to use the mineral wool insulation panels would increase the cost of the trusses again. Or we could add timber inside the trusses to create the additional depth for insulation, but this would lower and narrow the ceiling. We also noted that attic trusses could not have the joists shallower than 300mm, whilst separate easijoists could be 200mm deep.

On my last call to S&K, they did own up that they could design trusses as designed, but they would be more expensive than attic trusses.

I concluded that we would accurately measure heights on our next visit and see whether that 10cm difference would really matter.

Next block of work

Ric suggested he could do a long stint – 8-9 weeks in the period March-May. He suggested a) more on surface water drains, b) tidying up spoil, c) preparing for a floor slab and d) laying the floor slab. I would fly up for the first couple of days to get him settled in in March. We would go up for two weeks over Easter. We booked him in.

A few other things

We ordered a new water heater for the caravan – a Morco 61-B. We also decided to get a parcel drop-box put up and get the address activated so that we could get deliveries direct to the steading – I will need to arrange for the post office to check out that deliveries are practical and safe.

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.

Getting settled in

Our caravan was as we had left it and we quickly found the value in being able to shelter from rain showers. We assembled the cement mixer and got the level set up & calibrated.

Levelling up for drains: Before Ric arrived, we did an exercise checking levels in the steading itself. It is indeed very level, we will not have any steps up or down within the steading, despite the existing flooring being quite irregular. We checked the amount of slope down to the bottom of our plot, this is of particular interest to whether our plans for drains were going to work. We thought they would, just about. Once Ric was on site, we did it properly. We set up a datum point, with a stainless steel screw, in a corner of the bothy, near ground level. We established secondary datum points within the bothy, then levelled up the paths of the drainage. This confirmed that we could get away with 110mm pipe at 1/40 slope, keeping our inspections chambers at acceptable depths and allowing us a standard septic tank, but with an extension neck.

Checking the warrant plans: We spent most of a day going though the plans in great detail. We had a lot of questions we needed answers for. We drew up a list and agreed we would see if the architect could run through them with us.

Grounds: We had arranged delivery of  a second load of woodchip a couple of weeks beforehand and spent a happy day barrowing it round to the exposed weed membrane in our runs of hedging. Once again it ran out before we got everything covered over, we will need another load at some point. It is wonderful stuff, I recommend it to anyone. It keeps weeds down, it keeps the ground at a more even temperature and it looks presentable. It does not blow away even with gales. A quick inspection of the hedging revealed quite a low failure rate from all three of our plantings – less than 5%. Most of the plants which had put growing tips above the tops of the tree guards had been nibbled off by bunnies/hares, some were clearly less palatable and were growing happily.

Our areas of grass, nettles and other perennial weeds were rampant. The Japanese Knotweed was greatly reduced in area again and was at an early stage of growth. We planned to leave it until September to spray again, when it as full growth and is flowering.

Setting up the caravan: Ric was keen to get the caravan set up, so I acquired a 19kg bottle of propane gas and a variety of fittings to run a temporary water supply using 25mm blue pipe from our standpipe. Once he arrived, he spent a couple of evenings getting the water and a temporary electricity supply connected. He checked out the gas system and got the Morco gas water heater running. The only thing missing being the plumbed in toilet and water waste – these will wait on getting our foul drainage installed, a job for September.

Tools & equipment: A cursory inspection of the areas we need to dig foundations convinced us that we either hire a concrete breaker, or buy one. We hired one the previous year and it worked out about £70 for two weeks. We clearly had a lot of use for one and I had had an eye on the cheap Titan breaker that Screwfix sell. I knew someone who had bought it and swore by it. I bought it, for a penny under £150. We treated ourselves to another wheelbarrow, more shovels, a pickaxe, a fork and plenty of builders buckets.

Working with Aberdeenshire Building Standards: There are a limited number of points at which Building Standards need to inspect our work, the first being the drains. However, our architect advised us to keep records of everything we do, to demonstrate that we are following best practice and standards. So we will take loads of photos of our building activities and have them available if there is a dispute about what we have done.

Before the main event: The grand plan for July is foundations, for September it is drains. Once we had the digger, however, we wanted to open up some of the new doors/windows in our north wall – ‘slapping’ them, as they say…

So Ric pulled rubble out of the wall where our front door needs to be. We quickly twigged that it is immediately where our new water supply comes to the surface. We took care, but suspected that once we dig the foundation out, our water supply will fall into the trench.

We needed another new opening, for a window, where an old doorway had been blocked up. In true Aberdeenshire fashion, the mortar and blocks were just about indestructible. After a lot of trying, the entire column of blocks parted company with the granite either side and came out in one piece.

The third opening was another old door, that we had opened up last year, but it needed widening to break off the cement and brickwork that would otherwise be visible once it is converted to a window.

All an essential step on the way to re-building, but it once again made the steading look even more like a ruin!