Bit by bit

Another good week on the build this week. As we had lifted the tiles onto the roof at the weekend, it was all ready to start laying them out on Monday, Ari's lad, Rami, was at a bit of a loose end, so we employed him for the tile laying, good that he was free this week, it really is a job for a young guy, old gits like me try to steer clear of roofing, the muscles just don't want to respond to the challenge, as it was Rami did an excellent job up there, especially as it was his first time, we had planned on a week to do the job, that's what it took, the weather was very kind to us as well, Rami got a half decent suntan, now the temps reached 25 degrees, almost tempted to down tools and drink beer instead.

RAMI WORKING AT THE VALLEY
GETTING THERE, BIT BY BIT.PLASTIC RIDGE SEALER, WITH VENTILATION HOLES.RIDGE TILES BEING SCREWED DOWN.AND THERE YOU HAVE IT.

Meanwhile, down at ground level, Ari and I were inside, we were digging in the drains, setting out water pipes, laying the Styrofoam insulation sheets and fitting the integrated vacuum cleaner, hopefully we can get the floor layers in next week, that will be all the difficult part of the build done then, from there on in it's plain sailing.

SEWAGE AND WATER PIPES UNDERGROUND. The reason they are underground is, we don't want to lose any of the insulation properties in the external walls. this is normal procedure in Finland.Blue pipes are for the cold water, they are fitted under the Styrofoam, the hot on top.INTEGRATED VACUUM CLEANER, PIPES ARE FITTED UNDER THE FLOOR.VACUUM CLEANER PIPE, IT COMES IN BETWEEN THE DIVIDING WALLS, there is a socket box, which you connect the vacuums hosepipe to, it is activated with a low voltage switch, which in turn activates the vacuum cleaner.RADON SHIELD, this is a bitumen based felt, used also as a damp-proof course, it is fitted between the Styrofoam sheets, it's purpose is to guide the Radon Gas, (classed as a cancerogenic) to the outside of the building.

Another week

This week, we carried on where the assembly crew left off, Ari and I started on the fascia boards on the roof trusses, at the same time we fitted the tinplate gutter into the valley on the roof, that took care of a few days. FASCIA BOARDS AND TINPLATE GUTTER IN THE VALLEY

Meanwhile Tarja continued to paint and paint and paint, she is really adept at it, so I am quite happy to let her do it, it's really quite a big job to paint a wooden house, first she goes over the whole structure with a special lacquer to cover the knots in the timber, this is to stop them weeping and changing colour, then she has to paint all the boards twice, fortunately it is a job that only has to be done every ten years or so, many who build leave it for last, but we have found it is best to do it before all the finishing timbers and decoration is put in place.

TARJA CRACKING ON WITH THE PAINTING.

We then moved to the inside of the house, first we had to staple the vapour seal to the trusses, then we put the ceiling support boards in place, ROOF TRUSSES, SHOWING BRACING STRUTS ATTACHED

Also we lifted up the insulation wool to the attic area, at this stage we put down 10cm of sheet rockwool, later on, once we have done all the work in the attic, we will call the machine with the blower to put a further 30cm of rockwool granules over the whole area, all in all 40 cm of insulation in the roof.

ATTACHMENT OF THE VAPOUR SEAL.

CEILING SUPPORT BOARDS NAILED INTO PLACE.

TARJA, JONI AND ARI, CREMATING SAUSAGES.

Saturday, this saw the lifting of the tiles onto the roof, we hired a couple of young guys to do this, it's really quite an uncomfortable job, putting a terrible strain on the back and legs, it took 5 hours to lay them out, ready for fitting, that starts next week.FIRST BATCH OF TILES HEADING ROOFWARDS.

READY FOR UNPACKING.

TILES LAID OUT READY FOR DISPERSAL.

ARI MONKEYING ABOUT WHILE EVERYONE ELSE IS WORKING.

Getting better all the time

This week saw a massive jump in the construction, the 3 assembly personnel arrived on Monday, work started straight away on emptying the load from the truck, this contained all the timbers we require later and also all the wall elements, day one saw all the wall elements in place, day 2 consisted of doing the roof trusses and pillars for the terrace, day 3 entailed the bracing of the roof trusses and gable end top elements, days 4 and 5 fitting of the vapour seal and roof battens, along with doing the valleys on the porch and terrace, all in all a very good week, the construction crew did about 130 hours on the actual build, they did an exception job on it too. nothing to be picked up on or corrected. Now all that remains to be done is about 57% of the construction, unfortunately that will be mostly down to me, woe woe woe.

Next stage is, putting the weather board on the roof trusses and then covering it with panel, on the inside, start to do the drainage system, integrated vacuum cleaner, water pipes, insulation and steel reinforcing for the concrete floor, hopefully that will take care of the next few weeks.

Bracing and fitting of roof trusses, back terrace.Same.Front porch, roof ready for tiling.Terrace and roof ready for tiling.

painting

We had an early delivery, the gable end top elements, we took this opportunity to paint them ready, saves us a lot of time mucking about on scaffolding later on. The ready elements and finishing timber, they come already base painted, so getting on with the painting is not so critical, but if you have the time and good weather, why not?

Not really such a thing as free time on a self build, one can always find something to do, finding the motivation is another thing entirely

Tarja taking care of one gable endThe other one waiting for some paint. It arrived already base paintedSmall gable which fits above the terrace.

Arrival

house on a truck....................... long wall.................................. laying on the foundations.


outside view.............................. inside view.

12th May, sees the arrival of the house and sundry timber components for the rest of the basic construction.

It all arrived on one truck, 9pm on Sunday night, the driver spent the night in his cab, not a way that I would care to make a living.

Not the best of days to assemble a house, the wind was

blowing quite stiffly. The drop in temperature didn't help matters either, everything went according to plan anyway, the walls were up in 4 hours. The construction crew were going to call it a day after that, due to the high winds, they did not want to risk lifting the roof trusses into place today

.

more pieces................................ corner detail. and extra insulation added.

bedroom wall............................. same wall exterior.

placing the element....back of house...............................front porch

final element, front porch..............................inside view

final piece of the puzzle in situ.

DELIVERIES

Now it is getting close to the time to start the main construction.

Delivery of the roof trusses heralds the beginning of the process.

The first batch, 5 small ones for the roofed terrace.Second batch, for the main building, no roof trusses arrived for the front porch, so I assume they are either going to deliver them separately or build it in situ.

So for the next week or so, I will just be in charge of taking deliveries, making sure that the supplies get put to the proper place on the site, just hope that they don't arrive at some god awful time, like 4 am, as sometimes happens, it is quite possible, some of the materials are coming from Lapland, (hence the name of the supplier is Lappli Talot).

JUST A WEE BIT MORE

Well, we had the May Day holiday, fortunately the floor specialists had a hole in their calendar, they agreed to come on Friday and do the garage floor, this is a bit of a bonus job, as there is no hurry to do the garage, we were planning on doing it next year, but the more we do now the better it gets.

The floor is rather special, not just concrete, it has a compound blended into the surface when it is still setting, this gives it an harder than usual surface, very important over here, when in the winter time we are driving with studded tyres, they can easily destroy the surface of the floor if it is just painted, even bare concrete cannot withstand the rigours placed upon it with studded tyres.
PUTTING THE CONCRETE DOWN. All in all it took 6.2 cubic meters of concrete for the floor, depth of concrete is 10cm.


LEVELLING IT OUT. A job for a specialist, certainly not for me, it is the kind of work that requires years of practice, best to hire the right people for the job, these guys are really good, We have used them on all our previous projects and I've recommended them to countless others.USUAL STORY, ONE GUY WORKS AND TWO WATCH. It took about 7 hours to do the floor, first it is laid out, then you must wait for it to start setting, about 1 to 2 hours, depending on the conditions, after that they start to work in the topping compound, it's called Master Top, (Google it), then comes the finishing, which just entails smoothing everything out, easy to say, but a devilish tricky job if you're not experienced in it.