2 Weeks for the price of 1

Things got a little bit hectic here. Ari, he had one more week with me, so it was imperative that we finished putting the internal walls in place, before he left for pastures new, it was just coming up to the Finnish festival for midsummer, or Juhannus as it is called here, this is when everyone celebrates, usually with copious amounts of beer, sausage, trips into the countryside and lazing by one of the numerous lakes, being bitten by mosquitoes is just an occupational hazard.

One of my old army friends, Tony, decided to take a break from his normal routine, he came over on Midsummer's eve, accompanied by his brother, Barry, not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I was only too willing to recruit a couple of slaves for the week, putting them to work was very easy for me, I could watch people work all day.


Internal wall, insulation fitted for soundproofing.


Kitchen wall, battens fitted, to support cupboards.



Shower pipes fitted, normally they are horizontal, as we have a corner unit cabinet they must be fitted vertically.

Bedroom wall, light switch and socket box fitted.



Components for a tap fitting, corner box, brass pipe connector. sorry about picture quality.


Start by pushing water pipes through corner box.Connect brass pipe fittings, this is using compression washer system. insert pipe into fitting, tighten the nut onto the compression washer, push fitting into the box, pull pipes through until the protective pipes slip into the box and lock them in place.


Drill a couple of holes in the wall where you want the fitting to project, place fitting in situ, put a support batten behind fitting to hold in place, that's it, easy as pie.

How it looks from the other side.integrated vacuum cleaner box in place.

Living room and hallway walls, waiting on the art directors appearance.



Waiting on Harri to fit the fuse box.

Framework for the fusebox, starting to look a lot tidier.





Tarja, The art director at work.

The pattern for the kitchen tiles, that should keep me off the streets for a few days.


Bathroom walls, these are made from a different type of board, stone based, similar to asbestos, with none of the properties of asbestos, it withstands water, therefor will not go soft or rot, we still put waterproofing on top of it anyway.
That took care of all the internal walls, after this, it was time to put Tony and Barry to work, Tony waterproofed some walls and Barry was helping Tarja with the joint filling.
Tony, putting vapour sealant on the utility rooms wall, this wall is where the water heater will be situated, also the connection for the water pipes, washing machine/dryer, and ventilation systems machine.
Barry. Giving Tarja a helping hand with the joint filling.

We switched over to fit the ventilation system.
This system is really quite straightforward, air is inducted to the machine from the outside, put through a heat exchanger then expelled into the living room and bedrooms, air is extracted via the bathrooms, toilets, kitchen and boxroom, there is also a recycling facility on the machine, whereby it extracts air from the heat magazine in the fireplace, this air is mixed with the fresh air from outside and pumped back into the house, if it works correctly, then the heat exchanger does not have to work so hard to heat cold air, therefor reducing our heating costs, believe me, heating the outside air when it is 30 below is not very economical.

Ventilation machine, this is its final position, glad I don't have to lift it, it is quite a heavy appliance.

Tony, cutting a hole in the wall enabling the pipe to pass from the sauna into the bathroom.

Silencer fitted to pipes, there is some insulation between the box and the frame to cut down on any resonance.

Pipework in the bathroom, these pipes are hidden between the lowered ceiling and the attic, no need to be insulated.

Pipework in the attic, these must be insulated, this averts any condensation build up, preventing dripping ventilators.

Induction and extraction pipes

Induction pipe to living room.

It took a couple of days to fit the system, 1st day was the extraction side of things, 2nd day was the induction, I could not have done this job on my own, the pipes are just push fits, but it takes a great deal of effort, requiring 2 guys at least, the pipes are plastic, it is easier to work with than the metal ones, no need to rivet joints, tape around them, just to prevent any leakage, Barry assisted us by cutting all the pipes to length, averting the necessity of climbing up and down all the time.

Tony, after his first visit here, was very keen on the idea of building a Sauna back in UK, well the best way to learn is if someone shows you and lets you assist.saunas are very common in Finland, almost every house has one, even apartment blocks have saunas in the basements, it goes way back in their history, the three main types are, Electric, = convenient, wood burning, very popular and hot, requiring a chimney and lots of time, best of all is a smoke sauna, same as wood burning, but without the chimney, (the smoke is let out of the sauna before using it) these are more common in the countryside and very popular.

First comes the insulation, in this case 10 cm rockwool, application courtesy of Tony.

Ceiling insulated.

Then a special, paper backed tinfoil is attached to the frame.


All the joints are taped with aluminium foil tape, purpose being, it provides a reflector for the heat, secondly, acts as a vapour seal, preventing steam to penetrate into the wooden frame. After everything is taped, battens are nailed onto the frame, these are to provide an air gap between the tinfoil reflector allowing the sauna panels to dry out properly, the sauna panels are nailed onto these battens.
Support battens, these are for the benches to be screwed firmly to the walls, or for any other heavy item to be screwed to the wall, the sauna oven for instance, in our case we have a free standing one. the hanging cables are the fibre optic lights.
Basically, that is the preparation work for the sauna, all that remains is panelling and building the benches, Tony is now looking at his options, tooled himself up with a small nail gun,(amazing the souveniers some people pick up) this will help him make a better job of it.

The Art director instructed me to make special frame to hold her latest creation, this will be fitted onto the centre of the sauna ceiling, this is where the fibre optic lights will come into play.
While all this was going on Barry assisted me by putting all the supports for the light boxes on the ceiling,

Barry, measuring where the light box will be positioned.
Cutting a support batten for the light box.

I'm happy to say the lads did rather well, they left the workplace intact, no spare fingers lying about for me to pick up later.

Say what you like, ARMY friends have to be the best in the world, after 30 years they are still willing to come over at their own expense and help on this project, THANKS GUYS.

To the inside

Monday, finally, we get to start work on the inside, Ari and Rami started by carrying all the materials we need to work on the dividing walls, Gyproc boards, cinder blocks, framing materials and insulation wool.

Meanwhile, Joni came and helped me with the measuring out of the inner walls, also we had to fit the external doors and one window, this had been damaged in the factory, so had to be replaced.

JONI ASSISTING ME WITH THE MAIN DOOR.

UPPER SCREW TO THE FRAME

.

Doors and windows are very easy to fit into place, in normal circumstances, they usually have their own frame, so no planing is necessary, just a matter of screwing it into place, we have a special adjustable screw for the job, normal thread into the frame of the house, an opposing thread which grips the door frame, allowing you to laterally move the frame, no need to use wedges anymore, there is a gap between the doorframe and the house, this is to allow us to fit about 15mm of insulation ensuring no cold spots.

LIFTING THE DOOR ONTO ITS HINGES.

FRONT DOOR FITTED.

Tuesday, Rami went up into the attic area, he started to put down the rockwool insulation, this is a 10 cm sheet of rockwool, it fits neatly between the roof trusses, very little cutting required.

Ari and I closed off the ceiling area, fitted the remaining vapour seal and ceiling battens, this had been left open to allow air to circulate more freely after the floor laying, allowing the moisture to escape as opposed to being absorbed by the walls.

I'LL MAKE A CARPENTER OUT OF ARI, CUTTING A CEILING BATTEN.
NAILING THE CEILING BATTEN INTO PLACE.

Wednesday, we started to do some bricklaying inside, first of all was the bottom course for the ``wet areas´´, then the firewall for the fireplace, this consists of a 20cm high cinder block for the wet areas, then a damp proof course is fitted, on top of that comes the wooden wall frame.

BOTTOM COURSE FOR THE FRAME, DAMP PROOF COUSE FITTED, water meter fitted as well, those are mandatory.

SAUNA AREA

FIREWALL, THE FIREPLACE WILL SIT IN THIS CORNER, the small pipe in the floor is for feed air to the fireplace. Firewall goes all the way to the ceiling.

Thursday and Friday, started on putting up the wooden frames for the internal walls, we can put the gyproc boards on one side only, we must leave the other open until the electrician comes and fits all his cabling and switchboxes, also I have to fit the connections for the plumbing before the other side can be fitted, the boards are ``extra hard gyproc´´, they can withstand a bit of punishment, they are impregnated with glass fibres making them more durable than the normal, it also makes them a tad more difficult to work with.

BEDROOM AND SMALL TOILET FRAMES AND BOARDS IN PLACE.

FRAMEWORK FOR THE SAUNA.

That takes care of another week on the build, hard to believe that the house only arrived 5 weeks ago.

Let the good times roll.

This week saw a massive jump in the build, Ari and I carried on, working on the eaves, doing the soffit boards and fascias on the gable ends, the soffits overlap the house by about 70 cm, this is because of the snow in winter, when it comes down it doesn't lay against the foundations, it does unfortunately entail a great deal of work and a few hundreds of metres of timber, still that job is out of the way now, we can get rid of the scaffolding which has been littering the site for the past 6 weeks.

DETAIL AT CORNER

SOFFITS AND FASCIA BOARDS.
FITTING THE FASCIA BOARD ON THE BACK TERRACE, Tarja said we look like Laurel and Hardy
FASCIA BOARD ON THE HIGH GABLE.

ARI, JUST GIVING IT A FINAL COAT OF PAINT.

Tarja, after having been in Norway and seeing the houses there, noticed, that they have decoration on their gables, not to be outdone, I was commanded to do something about it, SWMBO, ``she who must be obeyed´´, was informed to supply the relevant drawings for perusal, smartypants that she is, with the aid of the Internet, an ability to speak Swedish, therefore an understanding of Norwegian, I was deftly handed a drawing, couldn't argue any further, so took it like a man and cracked on as commanded,He who must do as told, working on the GABLE DECORATION.

GABLE DECORATION, AS PER TARJAS INSTRUCTIONS.

The final preparation work was done on the floor, checked the heights of the floor drains, Harri the electrician came and fitted the underfloor heating cables, we have about 90 m2 of underfloor heating, only having control able radiators in the bedrooms, this will be one of our heating methods, we are also having a heat pump fitted, I will explain about this when it comes time to fit it, also is a fireplace, it's a wood burning stove, again, more on this in due time.

HEATING CABLE LAID ONTO FLOOR SUBSTRUCTURE.

HARRI. TYING THE UNDERFLOOR HEATING CABLE TO THE STEEL REINFORCING.

HOT AND COLD WATER FEED PIPES.

DRAINS SET AT RIGHT HEIGHTS, WALLS MARKED OUT ON STYROFOAM.

So, after all the prep work, time to make a few phone calls, first, to the floor layers, to see if they are able to come, then to the concrete centre, to see if they could supply, this done, just a case of waiting, I call the floor layers, the Tourettes brothers, they are usually shouting at each other and cussing like ``good uns´´ so the appropriate sobriquet was attached, this does not detract from their work, I wouldn't dream of using anyone else, they do splendid work.

DID SOMEONE CALL? Don't have a clue about their name though, Betonihamsteri, enlarge the pic if you don't believe me.

Friday, sees 14 m3 of liquid concrete arriving, floor laying gets underway soon after, now that is done.

NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL A SMOOTHING IRON.

YOU STILL HAVE TO FINISH IT OFF BY HAND THOUGH, GREAT WORK LADS, THANKS.

It's downhill all the way from here, with the soffits and fascias done and the floor laid, all the hard part of the construction is over, stick up a few dividing walls, build a fireplace, a bit of tiling and a kitchen, good grief, we are almost ready to move in. It's certainly the downhill slope from here on in.