Monthly Archives: October 2025

Outbuildings: Week 31, Day 1

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Outbuildings: Week 31, Day 1

Installation of the Aco threshold drain channels at the four Garage Door openings, connecting to the underground pipework installed previously – together with some more preparation of the foundation for the block paving (including the delivery of a further lorry-load of stone).

Aco Threshold drain channels at each of the Garage Door openings

Note there’s a gap between the Aco channels and the concrete floor slab, where there was previously a row of blue engineering bricks – with large vertical holes – which acted as the ‘shuttering’ for the concrete floor slab. The roller shutter Garage Doors will sit behind the brickwork openings and it seems better to have more concrete in that gap, rather than some of the block paving.

There was also further work in the Courtyard, back-filling around the rainwater harvesting tank enabling the adjacent drains to be connected up and taken further to the West.

Rainwater harvesting tank now back-filled with pea shingle and connected to the incoming rainwater pipe (running diagonally) – with the pipe from the Courtyard’s doorway threshold drains visible on the right.

The first eight of the reconstituted stone steps for the external staircase were also delivered, ready for those to start being installed.

Following the delivery of a further 50m of 75mm-diameter ventilation ducting on Friday, the three ‘Extract’ vents were connected up to their above-ceiling plenum chamber, enabling the installation of the remainder of the loft insulation to proceed (once some further insulation is delivered).

Outbuildings: Week 30, Day 5

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Outbuildings: Week 30, Day 5

With wet and windy weather forecast all day, the main build team had planned to work indoors: adding the second layer of loft insulation where the MVHR ductwork has been completed and finishing off the airtight taping around the edge of the plasterboard ceiling over the Workshop and Utility Room.

Outside, the rainwater tank was installed – with about a 400mm adjustment to the excavated hole when it became clear the tank’s access cover would not line up with the paved path it needs to be contained within. (That alignment was always planned but for some reason the hole was dug slightly out of position.) The adjustment meant removing the tank, making the hole wider, re-levelling the 100mm pea gravel base layer then installing the tank again. With the tank confirmed as being in the correct location it needed to be 1/3 filled (so 1,666 litres of water) to settle it into its base before commencing the back-fill of 300mm-deep layers of manually-compacted pea gravel. It took just over 2 hours to run in that much water through a hose – by which the time the heavy rain had arrived, so outside work was halted for the day.

It proved useful to have a water meter on the (to-be) ‘rainwater’ feed into the House, so that the volume of water being run into the tank from an outside tap could be measured more accurately than trying to judge 1/3-full by eye.

5,000 litre rainwater tank in-situ, photographed from the first floor of the House – looking somewhat dwarfed by the rest of the Courtyard (the tank is 2.3m wide, 2.89m long and 1.3m tall)

Despite the weather, there was further outdoor work – moving a few more lorry-loads of spoil off-site and taking delivery of more stone for the parking area.

The parking area to the North of the Garages being built up further with MOT3 stone, to allow drainage through the permeable block paving. The Aco threshold drain channels are also visible in the doorways.