Monthly Archives: October 2025

Outbuildings: Week 33, Day 3

Posted on by
Reply
Outbuildings: Week 33, Day 3

Completion of the reconstituted stone steps forming the External Staircase. It will be getting a custom-made traditional-style steel balustrade and handrail that will be left with a galvanised finish, to match the other unfinished galvanised steelwork (such as the ‘stable’ window).

Completed reconstituted stone steps and landing for the external staircase – in need of its handrail

The photo above also shows the black ventilation pipes, with their spinning cowls, for the Biorock sewage treatment plant. They’re black powder-coated aluminium, the same as the guttering and down pipes, just a larger diameter (100mm). The vent pipes were only ever temporarily installed previously and were always destined to be fitted either side of the new building. The spinning cowls are Biolan Wind Fans, which have aluminium blades; some other Biolan ventilators are made from plastic. These were sourced from UK distributor Plastic Solutions (Aldridge) who offered good pricing and are fairly local.

Today was also the first day of second-fix for the combined intruder and fire alarm system, which progressed well despite some of the components not being available until they are delivered direct to site tomorrow.

Also a little further progress on the groundworks, with only one person working, and only for part of the time.

Area to the North of the parking area by the Garages more than half cleared and levelled

Outbuildings: Week 33, Day 2

Posted on by
Reply
Outbuildings: Week 33, Day 2

The busiest day on site for a while, with electricians, plumbers, joiners, ground-workers and bricklayers all in attendance for at least part of the day.

With more of the reconstituted steps now on-site, the external staircase progressed well. While the steps themselves are the most obvious element, quite a lot of the time needed to be spent on the brickwork. Two more steps and it will be ready for the ‘landing’ which is a larger flat area formed from several of the steps (without the radius on the long edge).

More of the reconstituted stone steps installed on the external staircase, having arrived on-site yesterday

The joiners completed their work on site, installing the remainder of the door furniture and the architraves. Looks like it needs one more sheet of plasterboard to complete the Workshop side of the cladding, before both sides get a skim-coat of plaster.

The Plant Room door is now complete – with its lock and architrave added since yesterday

A key bit of progress from the electricians was collecting and installing the 25mm2 SWA cable that will provide the incoming connection from the meter, which is located in the outdoor GRP cabinet (shared with the House). This needed to be installed before the solar power contractor installs the Tesla “Backup Gateway” in the GRP cabinet next week. The electricians also installed the outdoor power sockets, the two instantaneous water heaters (ready for plumbing in their water connections) and completed some more terminations in the main consumer unit.

The plumber connected up the outside taps via isolating valves and checked on what fittings will be required to re-work the underground mains pipework. The ground-workers undertook more clearing of the area to the North of the parking area by the Garages, which had been used as a temporary storage area for spare materials, managing to use up quite a bit of the soil excavated from the attenuation pond.