underfloor heating and floor screeding

We have the underfloor heating installed! It happened so fast. We realised we had a bit of time left before the kit arrives so we contacted our neighbour who we had lined up to do our underfloor heating and a few days later it was down. My brother ordered underfloor insulation and perimeter insulation for us and my husband laid it in an evening. Next day he worked with our neighbour to put down the underfloor heating. It was so quick. That night my brother worked hard putting in floor battens then the next morning all the men gathered on site again to screed the floor. Earlier in the week we had joiners in to put on the wall plate and locating plate so the men screeded off that and across the floor battens. It looks really great. So we now have foundations complete, underfloor heating in, floor battens laid ready for the floorboards to be nailed in to and our floor finished. So the house is at ground floor level now. Just need to get the chimney up!

The night before we did the floor screed we had a bit of a panic that we wouldn't have enough men on site. People that should help (my uncle and cousins!) wouldn't and one friend who wanted to help might not be able to because his wife was going to visit her ill father in hospital. So, a deal was struck that I would mind his 2 kids so he could help. I also had to feed the troops and look after my own two. Thank God, my Mum came out to help. I think we possibly worked harder than the men on site. I was disappointed not to be able to visit the site while work was going on. Mum and my two went down with bacon rolls and I made a meal for the end of the working day. It turned out that the wife (my friend) didn't visit  her dad; she went away on a haircut and shopping trip! It is mad because they are planning to build a house and will need help like we have had from people.  Anyway, it all worked out fine for us and the job was done and done well. A local man with a lifetime of experience came along and made a big difference. There was a fair bit of craic on site and I heard about it afterwards over dinner. 

It feels like a home already because good will and the work of good people is embedded into the very foundations.  It is supposed to be a very stressful time but so far it hasn't been. It is so exciting.

we dug down and now we're going up

I have stood in the foundation trenches and watched them being filled with concrete. Within a couple of days the foundation  block work was complete and we could see the size and shape of the house. A giant footprint on our patch of this earth.  It looked big but when I stepped in to the lounge it seemed so small. "I'll never fit a three-piece suite in here!" I said. I knew the room measured up to a big space but in the wide open without walls to limit the eye it was impossible to guage. I'm a typical woman when it comes to visual-spatial exercises. 

The next stage was to fill it with hardcore which the digger man dug out from our site and created a great back yard space in the process! We had to compact the base with  a vibrating whacker plate. When that was done we dug up some of it to drill holes through the foundation walls for drainage pipes. The brickies should have left the holes in the first place and we should never have filled it in without making sure there were holes there! It was all our fault really as we are the project managers. Anyway, it is all sorted out. I hadn't planned on getting my hands dirty at the foundation stage but the night before we did the concrete floor I was out working at the site filling in holes with a spade and helping to place drainage pipes. My hands were wrecked. Cracked skin, raggy, broken nails and dirt so ingrained it wouldn't wash out. It wouldn't have been so bad but the week before I had spent £20 on a manicure!

Concrete floor day was exciting. There I was in my yellow steel-toe cap Lidl wellies my father-in-law had bought me years ago laying DPM (damp proof membrane) and expansion boards and pressure-testing the drainage pipes. I really enjoyed getting involved and it fuelled my enthusiasm for the whole project. The best thing about the day was the atmosphere of all these people helping us. Friends and neighbours working out of the goodness of their hearts. It is heartening that there still exists a code of helpfulness in our highland village. Neighbours help one another and know they can call on each other for help. Of course, not everyone is willing to lend a hand. We had people on our site pushing 60 and working hard. Yet, our old friend a fit single man kept his distance and took his dog for a walk instead. He doesn't like to help anyone. Resents giving his time away. Although he is like that the people here are so good that when he needs it they will help him too.