Concrete Floors

The sun was out today! What a great change that makes. Let's get to it anyway as I'm a bit later starting this evening.

Sunrise through the trees as I took Rosie to school

Bekir starts mixing up cement for the day

Thelma brings her ball to be played with

First section done and smoothed to the edge

Getting started on the next section

Bekir makes sure everything is perfectly level

Two sections done and smoothed

First thing this morning I had a message from Halil that he had broken down on the way to our house. Fortunately Thomas was available and he was able to tow his car from where it was broken down, to get fixed, and made it in not that late. When he came to collect the Thomas he dropped Bekir who got stuck in mixing up cement and shortly afterwards Halil was also there. All day this is what the men have done; mixed cement then carried it in buckets up into the roof to lay it down on the floor, Halil doing the lifting and Bekir does the smoothing. They got the first two sections done very quickly indeed and were then moving to the part of the floor which was most eroded, and needed the most cement to get it to level.

Sweeping up all the dust they can

Copious amounts of water onto the floor

Adding cement dust and scrubbing it in with a broom

The next section is begun

Loads of progress today on the floor

I caught the full process they go through in pictures during the afternoon which I thought was interesting. First of all Bekir swept as much of the dust as he could away from the area he was going to work on, putting it into a bucket to take away. Then he got a big bottle of water and threw it all over the floor before grabbing a broom and brushing hard while Halil scattered cement dust into the water. This was then mixed in using the broom and this both enhances the "grab" between the old floor and the new cement and also captures any dust that would otherwise prevent that grab. It was then back to Halil carrying buckets and Bekir spreading it out. By the end of the day they had done a fair amount of the floor at this end of the roof, and pretty much covered all of the big dip where the worst of the water damage from the years of the property being empty had occurred.

So there it is. For the next few blogs you'll have the pleasure of Angela doing the updates as I'm going away for a bit. Thanks for reading!

Pipes in place

Today has been another grey and miserable day for the most part and I wish it would just brighten up some - I don't mind cold but grey is meh.

Pipe lagging for our day today

Fitting the plaster board back into place

Measuring the pipe ready to cut to size

Pipe is nicely behind the plasterboard

The other side done as well

Anyway the men were to the shop first thing and arrived after that with all the insulation they needed for their task of the day - to run hot and cold pipes underneath the plaster board ready for when we get to the next part of this job which will be to actually fit the boilers and run the water to them. First of all they replaced all the insulation and panels that didn't need to be down then set to cutting and fitting the pipes in place. They had to pop out again to get a different angle corner joint for it to work perfectly but it's better to have the correct thing in place. It took them all day but by the end of the day the pipes for both sets of solar panels were run and in place. Tomorrow they will put some conduit in for the far panels which will eventually contain power (as I've got the option of a resistance heater in each boiler as well for days like, well, today) and then I think this may be done for the year as the weather is not good enough for climbing about on the roof with heavy boilers.

A lovely end to the day

The panels on the roof; now waiting for boilers

The overcast finally cleared late afternoon and it was a lovely blue sky and a nice autumn afternoon. I also snapped a picture of both the solar panels in place.

So there it is. Thanks for reading and back tomorrow.

A weekend then the second panel

Another weekend has flown past and we are now less than two weeks until Christmas! Crazy how fast time is flying now.

Lovely autumn/winter morning

Big bumps that needed sorting out

Rosie puts a stone into the wheelbarrow

Weeded and de-stoned; lots more to do though

Rosie sits on top of the big pile of sand

Our little sandcastle that we made together

The train comes into sight

The weekend was a pretty good one all told but had its moments as you'll see. I was woken about 4am by Xena being sick and then later on she started throwing up blood. Once the vet was in his office I dashed her over to get checked out and he gave her some injections and special food and said she had a stomach bug. Fortunately she got better steadily through the day and was fully back to normal by Sunday. When I got back it was time to go outside with Rosie to get some chores done. I raked over the huge bumps in the drive by the front gate and then, with Rosie's help, started to clear stones and brambles from the burned section next to the gate. We worked really hard and I was pretty exhausted by the time we stopped. We then had fun with the big sand pile and also made a small sandcastle next to the sand and stone pile. It was a good day outside and great to get lots of progress done. At the end of the day we spent some time in the lounge and set the train running around the tree which is always good.

Angela re-covered this in the night

Play time in the lounge

Rosie feeds the birds

Angela clearing out the Glass room

Plants on the windowsills, Rosie and the pups look on

Christmas stickers onto the windows

The lounge looking lovely and Christmassy

Rosie with her sparkler

I did not get much sleep, unfortunately, as a storm blew in with really strong winds and it was howling and banging outside and kept waking me up. When I got up the next morning Angela told me that she'd been out earlier putting plastic back over the blocks as the wind was so strong it had blown the tyres off the top of the pile! I got the trolley and shifted them in really quickly. Angela and Rosie had fun playing with some magnetic toys and then the sun came out so Rosie and I went to feed the chickens then did another load of clearing down by the gate. While we were working on that Angela was clearing in the Glass room and preparing a load of plants for winter so then Rosie and I helped by carrying them up to the lounge. It is great to see that room looking so awesome now. In the afternoon Angela and Rosie did stickers on the windows and doors in the lounge and now we really are ready for Christmas. There was time in the evening just before bath time for Rosie to have fun with a sparkler.

Taking the shrink wrap off the final panel

We needed to remove insulation to access the beams

Cold damp and wet on the roof

Not an ideal day for roof work

The securing metal strap in place

Such a beautiful view up here

Bekir takes the pipes upstairs

And so to today which started off foggy and cold and stayed that way for almost the entire day. I suggested to the men that they stay inside because of the weather but they decided to work on getting the second frame put in place just to get this phase of the solar boilers complete at least. Halil removed some of the plaster board and insulation from the place they'd need to access to fit this frame and then Bekir went onto the roof and set to work. It was a much quicker process, as expected, and they managed to get the frame and the final panel in place during today. I didn't get a picture of the panel yet unfortunately as I was busy. The weather cleared briefly during the day which was nice while it lasted but it didn't last long. At the end of the day the men went to pick up some water pipes so they can run these out to the roof, but just cap them inside and out and not attach them to anything, so we can then put plasterboard and insulation and plaster everything inside. I don't know when we'll finally get these boilers fitted due to waiting for some special valves (which I have now ordered) and also the weather not being ideal for working on the roof.

My pizza from this evening

This evening Rosie asked to go out for our dinner so we went and had a lovely time and some good food too.

So there it is; thanks for reading and back tomorrow.

Panels in place

Well we've made it to another Friday and today has been another learning and slightly frustrating day however progress has been made.

We actually could see the sun this morning

Joining fittings being tightened into place

The panel is in place, but it doesn't fit

Bekir working to true the frame

It was a nice morning for once, and so lovely to see the dawn and the sun rise rather than the thick cloud or heavy fog we've had for days now. The men were in on time and headed out almost straight away to go to the shop to pick up a pipe cutter, the light fittings for the eaves crawl space storage, and also to check the invoice we've received. When they came back they set to work on the first of the solar panels, trimming the pipes to the same size and then fitting the joining fitments before shifting it onto the roof. I missed this process however when they had the panel in place they found that the frame was not 100% plumb and square and so they had to spend several hours fixing this slight mistake. We are learning so much doing this and that always makes it a little slower.

Halil trims the tiny pipe

Hefting the panel up onto the roof

Carrying it over to the correct location

Carefully sliding it into place

We have solar panels

There goes the sun

Bringing blocks in

With the frame now square it was time to prepare the second panel and get it fitted; they did the trimming of the pipe and then I watched, slightly panicked, as they lifted and carried it into place. It went without a hitch which was a huge relief and I left them to making the final adjustments to the frame and then joining the two panels together. The day was bookended by lovely sun while the middle of the day was cold and overcast again, and right at the end while Bekir was still finishing up on the roof Halil got the trolley and brought in a load of the blocks from the patio. He has also covered those he didn't bring in really well with plastic, in case it rains.

So there it is; we've made progress but there is rain forecast now so we may end up pausing our solar boiler experiment for a while until the weather improves. Let's see how it goes. Thanks for reading, back on Monday.