Week 4, Day 5

Week 4, Day 5:

  • More progress on the below-ground cavity walls.
  • Initial preparation for attaching the steelwork to the foundations by drilling holes in the concrete.
  • A site visit from Western Power Distribution (the electricity DNO for the area) to assess the condition of the overhead supply cables and poles and to fit a data logger to capture voltage and current snapshots during the coming week.
    • The proposed make and model of Ground Source Heat Pump (a NIBE F1145) has a compressor start-up current of 32A which is just over the limit for some of the existing overhead cables. The data logger will highlight if there are any issues with the cables which mean they need maintenance work anyway; if they do that will (hopefully) reduce the contribution I need to make to having the cables upgraded.
  • A new delivery of building sand for the block laying mortar since the previous supply was too coarse. The old sand will get used for filling in around the GSHP collector pipes.
Week 4, Day 5

Week 4, Day 5

Voltage and Current data logger connected to electricity supply in GRP cabinet

Voltage and Current data logger connected to electricity supply in GRP cabinet

Week 4, Day 4

Week 4, Day 4:

  • The wet weather is back, which means:
    • The quality of the site overview photos is affected (water droplets on the lens).
    • It’s not possible to use electric tools outside (which means holes can’t be drilled in the foundation concrete to fix the steel columns).
    • Using any of the vehicles away from the hard-standing tends to turn the soil to mud.
  • Despite the poor weather, work started on marking out for and laying the concrete blocks to form the cavity walls for below the ground floor.
Week 4, Day 4

Week 4, Day 4

The first section of blockwork

The first section of cavity-wall blockwork, at the south-east corner. All of this will be below floor level.

Ancon TeploTie cavity wall ties

Ancon TeploTie cavity wall ties, made from basalt fibres set in a resin matrix for much lower thermal conductivity than normal stainless steel cavity ties.