Category Archives: Partition Walls

Outbuildings: Week 33, Day 1

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Outbuildings: Week 33, Day 1

A bit more rain overnight and also forecast for the rest of the week; especially Thursday. It’s surprising how quickly the soil turns into mud which sticks to boots and gets carried inside. While the plan is to leave the Courtyard un-paved until Spring – partially to let the ground ‘settle’ and partially to check how well the land-drainage is working – it’s going to want some temporary pathways creating with paving slabs (there are some left over from around the site cabins from when the House was built).

Good progress with the internal joinery:

  • All three internal doors are now cut down to size (they were purchased as 8′ x 4′ FD30 solid-core door blanks) and hung in their door frames, using 4 hinges
  • One of them has its handle installed, matching the handles in the House
  • The two doors installed in blockwork openings have their architraves added, with additional architrave ready to be added to the Plant Room door once the plasterboard has been installed and skimmed
  • Work has started installing plasterboard on the inside of the Plant Room
Progress on the partition wall for the Plant Room

Outside, there was more progress locating some redundant mains water pipework (previously feeding the static caravan and the site cabins) which needs to be removed) and re-routing one of the rainwater pipe runs, followed by some clearance and levelling of the North-East corner of the site, enabling the spoil excavated from the rainwater attenuation pond to be spread there.

Progress clearing and levelling the North-East corner of the site, which had been used to store some spare MDPE pipe

The remaining reconstituted cast stone steps were also collected from the manufacturers, ready for the external staircase to be completed.

Outbuildings: Week 32, Day 5

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Outbuildings: Week 32, Day 5

Another day of groundworks: mostly the rainwater attenuation pond, which has been taken as far as it can be until its flow control inlets and outlets are delivered – then a bit of tidying-up in the Courtyard.

Rainwater attenuation pond completed as far as it can be for now, until the concrete headwall (for the far end) and the ‘swale inlet’ (for the end nearest the camera) are delivered

The subsoil around the site is hard red clay in some places but a more sandy / gravelly material elsewhere, even just a few metres away. Purely by chance the attenuation pond seems to have a gravelly base, which means much of the rainwater should percolate through the bottom – as long as that remains above the water table.

The piles of soil to the left of the pond will be used to level-up other areas of the site, with perhaps one or two more lorry-loads of muck-away.

As expected, the joiners started work today – fitting the door frames to the two door openings in the blockwork then starting to form the wooden partition between the Workshop and the ‘Plant Room’.

Basic structure of the wooden partition wall separating the Workshop from the Plant Room beyond

The ‘Plant Room’ will house:

  • The inverter and batteries for the solar PV system
  • The MVHR ventilation unit
  • The computer network equipment
  • The alarm system control unit
  • The electrical consumer unit (already installed) – although there’s a ‘satellite’ electrical panel in the Garage

The main reason for locating these in an area partitioned-off from the Workshop is for a bit of extra security (there will be a lock on the door) but mostly to keep dust away, enabling a smoke detector (rather than a heat detector) to be installed.

Installation of the wooden partition wall is deliberately being done after the ceiling had received its plaster skim coat, meaning the partition could be moved or removed completely with only minor remedial works to the floor and ceiling.