Outbuildings: Week 40, Day 3

Outbuildings: Week 40, Day 3

Quite a busy day on-site, with the most visible progress being the installation of the galvanised steel handrail and balustrade for the external staircase.

Galvanised steel handrail and balustrade for the external staircase

This will be left with its galvanised finish rather than being painted, to match the galvanised frames for the adjacent door and window and the galvanised light fittings – and the zinc roof of the house. The bright silver finish will darken down a bit over time.

The main build team were also back to work through the initial snagging list from the Architect. Most of that got completed, though the testing of the foul drainage showed up a major leak in an underground pipe which is presumed to have been fractured by the weight of a digger driving over it; there’s not much depth of soil ‘cover’ over the underground pipes in the Courtyard. The damaged section of pipe was replaced but the nature of the damage means there might be further damaged sections.

Outbuildings: Week 38, Day 3

Outbuildings: Week 38, Day 3

Another frosty night followed by a bright and sunny day, so still some frost visible on the Utility Room roof at noon (despite finding the loft insulation is mostly missing in there and needs to be topped-up).

Good progress on the rainwater attenuation pond:

  • Levelling out the bottom so that – if anything – water will pool at the outlet end, whereas it has been tending to pool at the inlet end
  • Installing the ‘swale inlet’ to calm the flow of water entering the pond, reducing the risk of erosion of the soil at the bottom of the pond in high-flow conditions
  • Installing the silt trap that will help prevent silt entering the pond – containing a ‘bucket’ that will need emptying periodically
  • Connecting to the upstream drainage pipework

The commissioning of the air-to-air heat pump is now mostly complete and all but one of the CCTV cameras are now operational. (The last camera will go up after the handrail for the external staircase gets installed, hopefully within the next week.)