All in all it has been a rather stressful day. At the beginning of the day we faced ripping out work that had already been completed in order that building control could view the structure of the ceiling. It turns out that Conservatec should have got the building inspector back to see their work before they handed the project back over to me.

However, as it turns out the number of photographs that I have taken of the project saved the day, the inspector could see the insulation that had been installed and the wall straps so he was happy. We do still need to sort out electrics Part P cert and we will be on our way.

It is funny really as Cheryl pointed out in her very nice valentines card and message to me this morning. At our wedding we had a nice reading, which at the time we thought suited our lives well, and as it turns out it is all the more relevant now than it has ever been, it went as follows:

You are holding up a ceiling
with both arms. It is very heavy,
but you must hold it up, or else
it will fall down on you. Your arms
are tired, terribly tired,
and, as the day goes on, it feels
as if either your arms or the ceiling
will soon collapse.

But then,
unexpectedly,
something wonderful happens:

Someone,
a man or a woman,
walks into the room
and holds their arms up
to the ceiling beside you.

So you finally get
to take down your arms.
You feel the relief of respite,
the blood flowing back
to your fingers and arms.
And when your partner’s arms tire,
you hold up your own
to relieve him again.

And it can go on like this
for many years
without the house falling.
That is the Partnership Of Marriage

A Marriage By Michael Blumenthal

We really have been holding up the ceiling today!

Wren delivered the units this morning and they are now stacked in the Orangery. Here are some pictures:

Unfortunately we need to unpack them all and check them over this evening as we have a limited time to report any faults, really I would have liked to keep them packed until we had painted. We can cover them all with some polythene so it will be ok we will just have to be careful.

Related posts:

1. Orangery Extension Part 31: Fitting The Kitchen We have spent the last two weekends fitting the kitchen in our kitchen orangery extension. We had a group of family and friends round last...
2. Orangery Kitchen Extension Progress Stalled I have had an email from someone who has been following our kitchen orangery extension project on this blog asking how progress is going and...
3. Second Kitchen Fitted In Less Than A Month This weekend I have fitted the second kitchen this month! The first at our home in our kitchen orangery extension, and the second in one...

This put the pressure on to get the Orangery to a state where it could be plastered, a fairly tall order when considering that one whole wall was not boarded out and I had insulation to deal with, sockets and lights to cut out and a whole list of jobs, especially with only one weekend and evenings to do it all in.

I started on Friday evening cutting out the down lights in the up stand of the orangery roof. We are having adjustable down lighters, some that we will angle downwards to the centre island and some that we will point up to illuminate the orangery roof it’s self.

The cutting out of these lights took far longer than it should have done. The time was taken carefully measuring where the lights wanted to be and marking up the wall. The position was critical as I needed to miss the structure of the roof. I had taken measurements of the spaces where I could get the lights into. It turns out that I needed a 75mm gap and on two sides of the roof I old had 75mm to play with, which dictated where the lights could go.

Once I had got that done, I have to admit that I did sit down and watch the 6 nations rugby, but I did so knowing that Saturday and Sunday would be very long days.

The remaining wall that needed boarding out was the outside wall of the Orangery, if you have seen some of the pictures you will have seen that the new walls of the extension part of the Orangery are about 65-70mm wider than the original walls. This is due to the 100mm cavity that they had to have for the building regulations. We made the decision that we should box out the original wall to the same level as the new wall. This would have the effect of merging the new and the old, and hopefully it would not be noticeable that we have had an extension at all. The outside of the building blends in very well, the bricks are almost an exact match, so we wanted the same for the inside. We did a similar thing across the other side of the Orangery with the other wall.

The only thing was how I was going to achieve this. I have been struggling with this decision for some time now. I have done a great deal of research and reading on the matter and int he end I have not come across any authoritative information on what I should do.

As we were boxing out the wall  it made sense to use the space to do something constructive so we decided to invest the money into insulating the wall, it is the external wall and it does not have a cavity so any insulation we add to it will be of benefit. The question was how best to to this.

There are many ways to do this insulation that I have considered and researched. You can get Kingspan with plasterboard attached which you can then just dot-and-dab to the all. The problem with this in some peoples opinions is that you can not do this non-cavity walls. Kingspans website says nothing about where you can and can’t use this Kingspan k18, but I did come across a different kingspan option and that was to use kingspan k19 which is again solid insulation with plaster board attached, but this is designed to be screwed to battens rather than fixing by dot-and-dab.

If I was to have to go through the trouble of fixing battens to the wall, it opens up another option and the option I went with in the end and that is to batten out the wall and put solid insulation in between th battens and plasterboard over the top.

The arguments against this option is that the wooden battens do not hold the same insulation value as the solid insulation, and as such you loose μ value across the whole area of the wall because a significant area is taken up by the wooden battens, also there is an argument that the differential in the insulation properties can cause a differential in surface temperature across the wall, meaning that there is a potential condensation issue.

I have taken the view that there is no right or wrong here and I just needed to take the decision and go with it. What helped me in the decision was that the advantage of battening out the wall was that I could put in two horizontal noggins across the wall at the relevant heights where I will be securing the wall and base units. I would not like to hang the wall units on plasterboard plugs, so having something solid to fix the wall units to is a big bonus of this method.

We battened the wall with 75mm x 45mm battens, I needed to build up the 70mm gap and then add some to cover the dot and dab on the new wall, we then installed 50mm coeltex (kingspan alternative). This meant that we could leave a good air gap behind the insulation panels. We then boarded over the whole wall with plasterboard and then I got the tin work onto all the corners.

You will see from the pictures and the video clips that the plasterer has been for two days this week, he has got on well, there is still two walls to be done and the dining room, but that will be done next week.

Keep tuned for a special valentines present on Monday!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLBDD-XxNPs

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTHqOX2MQwY

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHe87cyNJgU

Related posts:

1. Orangery Extension Part 31: Fitting The Kitchen We have spent the last two weekends fitting the kitchen in our kitchen orangery extension. We had a group of family and friends round last...
2. Orangery Kitchen Extension Progress Stalled I have had an email from someone who has been following our kitchen orangery extension project on this blog asking how progress is going and...
3. Review Of The Western Digital Elements 2 Tb External Hard Drive Regular readers of this blog will have seen that I have been doing some work on a solution for the storage of all my digital...
4. How To Install Under Floor Heating – Ufh If you have read the last few posts on this blog you will have seen that we have just installed hot water under floor heating...
5. Happy Valentines… We Have A Kitchen I hinted in the last update post that there may be some exciting news just ready for valentines day, well the kitchen was delivered today....

It all went very well. We took up the old floor and cleared out the builders debris, two full trailer loads. This will help the airflow under the floor ensuring that we don’t get and issues with damp. While doing this I made sure that there was sufficient air flow, the area of the house we are extending have been converted from several extensions, each time an exterior wall has been left intact without any air bricks. I therefore chopped out bricks to allow the flow of air throughout the underfloor. This was critical as the insulation would take up some of the space under the floor so it is essential the the airflow is maintained lower down.

After the cleanup we made sure that all electrical cables and multimedia cables were laid where we needed them and then installed the new plumbing, hot and cold water feeds for the taps to the centre island, cold feeds to the dish washer, washing machine and American fridge freezer, and the waste water pipes from each.

Then we stapled chicken wire between the joists to support the insulation and filled them with rockwool style insulation, ensuing that the chicken wire had sufficient gap under it to maintain an air flow. We could have used kingspan or similar solid insulation, however, this would have cost in the region of £500 and totally outside our budget.

Once the rockwool insulation was down we taped foil backed bubble insulation over the top creating a 20mm air gap between the foil and the top of the joists, this is where the underfloor heating pipes would be laid. The foil will not only add to the insulation properties of the floor but it will also reflect the heat from the underfloor heating back up into the room.

We then laid the underfloor heating pipes on top of the insulation, clipping it to the joists at relevant intervals to hold it.

We have yet to re-lay the floor or finally connect the underfloor heating up to the manifold and into the central heating system, but that is a job for next weekend.

Here are some pictures of the progress and how we achieved the underfloor heating install:

Related posts:

1. How To Install Under Floor Heating – Ufh If you have read the last few posts on this blog you will have seen that we have just installed hot water under floor heating...
2. Orangery Extension Part 31: Fitting The Kitchen We have spent the last two weekends fitting the kitchen in our kitchen orangery extension. We had a group of family and friends round last...
3. Orangery Extension Part 30: Insulating And Plaster Board On External Wall And Plastering We have had a very busy couple of weeks, I called a plasterer round to quote for plastering of the Orangery Kitchen Extension, I was...

I made my way to the property and opened the door to be greeted by water pouring through the ceilings in the dining room and living room (and little downstairs utility room). After going upstairs it was the same story, two of the three bedrooms had water pouring down the walls, and through the ceiling.

What is more worrying was the water was gushing our of the electrical sockets and light fittings, water has a habit of finding the easiest routes.

The central heating tanks in the attic had frozen solid,  but the water feed had not, thus meaning that the tanks were continually filling with water. The overflow simply could not cope and they were overflowing.

My advice to anyone with empty properties at this time of year is to make a daily check, if you have your central heating tanks in the attic make sure you check those as well. Condensing boilers are so much safer in this regard as you do not have tanks of water sitting around, however, make sure that the condensate pipe that goes outside is free from ice, otherwise your boiler will overheat and switch its self off.

I had left the central heating on low, however, with the loft insulation this heat had not stopped the loft from freezing. This in turn had stopped the boiler getting its water feed and thus it had over heated and switched its self off making the problem worse.

With temperatures of -11°c even with a property you are living in can easily freeze.

It will be a fairly large insurance claim to put it right, plaster has blown on walls, ceilings are coming down as the plasterboard is sodden, the carpets are ruined, and the whole place will need to be re-decorated just after I had finished decorating from top to bottom after a tenant left the place in a bit of a mess.

Related posts:

1. Landlord Insurance As a Landlord it is very important that you get your properties fully insured with the correct insurance. As a landlord you may had additional...

The Window has been delayed due to the snow, the glass delivery was held up which has in turn held everything else up. A little frustrating as I would have liked to have the whole place plastered out and have made a start on fitting the kitchen. As it is we will be delayed now until after Christmas to get this done.

The good news is that Conservatec have been back today and fitted the window. We have changed the window from having two top opening windows which you could never reach over the work surface to having a window with two big push out opening windows at the bottom. This will both be easier to work with and provide more ventilation.

The new window is A rated and is a requirement of the building regulations. It uses the same 1u glass used in the bi-fold doors so this should provide extra insulation in the winter and hopefully keep some of the heat out in the summer as that window catches the sun during the early to mid morning.

Things will now take a pause for Christmas as I will get it in the neck if I create too much dust. I hope to get the wall where the TV is going dotted and dabbed one evening this week. I am just waiting for the delivery of some wire for the underfloor heating  thermostat which needs to go up the wall before I can do that.

Last week I got all the audio/visual wires into the trunking ready. I have probably overdone it in terms of what I have put in, but some if it is to future proof. I suspect that it will not be long before internet ready TV’s are common place so I have put in some CAT5e cables and USB cables. If they are never used it is no real loss.

I have also inserted some bricks in the wall we cut as there was a vertical join all the way up which was not all that great.

Now the window is done the next big job is the Kingspan on the external wall and then plastering and underfloor heating followed by second fix electrics and initial decoration. Sounds easy doesn’t it, but in that list I have missed out some critical details that will take quite some time, skirting board and trims etc etc, and added to all that, we still have a kitchen to buy!

Related posts:

1. Orangery Extension Part 31: Fitting The Kitchen We have spent the last two weekends fitting the kitchen in our kitchen orangery extension. We had a group of family and friends round last...
2. Orangery Extension Part 30: Insulating And Plaster Board On External Wall And Plastering We have had a very busy couple of weeks, I called a plasterer round to quote for plastering of the Orangery Kitchen Extension, I was...
3. Orangery Kitchen Extension Progress Stalled I have had an email from someone who has been following our kitchen orangery extension project on this blog asking how progress is going and...
4. Happy Valentines… We Have A Kitchen I hinted in the last update post that there may be some exciting news just ready for valentines day, well the kitchen was delivered today....

Here is a short video showing the progress and some pictures of what we have done.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNflxgi7UNI

Related posts:

1. Orangery Extension Part 30: Insulating And Plaster Board On External Wall And Plastering We have had a very busy couple of weeks, I called a plasterer round to quote for plastering of the Orangery Kitchen Extension, I was...
2. Orangery Extension Part 31: Fitting The Kitchen We have spent the last two weekends fitting the kitchen in our kitchen orangery extension. We had a group of family and friends round last...
3. Orangery Kitchen Extension Progress Stalled I have had an email from someone who has been following our kitchen orangery extension project on this blog asking how progress is going and...
4. Happy Valentines… We Have A Kitchen I hinted in the last update post that there may be some exciting news just ready for valentines day, well the kitchen was delivered today....
5. How To Install Under Floor Heating – Ufh If you have read the last few posts on this blog you will have seen that we have just installed hot water under floor heating...

The ring main was not too bad, that just went around the edge of the room below the flooring, and most of the floor had already been lifted so no problems there. We also laid two network cables to where the media centre will be going.

The only cabling left to go in is the television aerial, I am unsure what to do about this, we have had a TV engineer round to have a look and he was supposed to be giving me a quote to installing a HD satellite system but has not got back to me. I have therefore been looking into this and I think I will do this myself. I will publish a blog post about this soon, but I think I can do it myself fairly cost effectively, this does need to be done before the plasterboard can go up onto the ceiling in the old kitchen area as I will need to pass a cable through that void into the back bedroom, which is used as my office.

This weekend I have finished off the most of the rest of the work needed before I can plaster board the whole room out.

I have finished off the stud wall battens on the joining wall. This makes the old wall the same thickness as the new wall and creates a step in at a more logical and aesthetically pleasing place between the orangery and the dining room, creating a logical division between the two rooms without closing it off.

I did have a few issues with what line to take with this wall. In the end I decided that I should level it up to the ceiling, and make sure that the width of the ceiling was the same all the way along. The ceiling is only 650mm wide so if this diameter was 50mm out along its length then this would show. In the end it all looks neat and I will be able to fill the cavity with rockwool type insulation which will both provide thermal and acoustic insulation between us and next door.

We then needed to finish off some of the work that Conservatec should have done. They knocked off a row of blocks from the top of one side of the new walls. I removed those, cleaned them up and re-bedded them. In addition I had to add some roof straps to meet building regulations, although it is highly unlikely that the roof will go anywhere in high winds the roof straps add a little bit of protection, although I doubt how much they would actually provide as they are fixed to the low density blocks which are as soft as butter, so any fixing to those would easily pull out, but rules are rules…

The other things that needed finishing off before I can do the plasterboard were some lighting cables that needed passing through the walls to outside lights. I still have the two to do by the bi-fold doors, but they have not arrived from Amazon yet, but that is a simple job that can be done one evening this week.

I hung the spot lights on the drive side wall above where the bins will be, I did not wire it up, but it is hung, the wire is passed through the wall and all is water tight. I do need to fill the holes round the wires with a little bit of silicone sealant, but again that is a minor job.

All in all this was a good weekends work, finishing off the first fix electrics which went into Saturday due to the extra work and getting it to a state where I can plasterboard next weekend was my aim for Sunday, and although I was doubtful that I could get it all done, in the end it all turned out well. If I can get the final bits of electrical work done for the lights on the front and sort the television aerial or satellite cables in this week then we will be in a good position.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToDHoA75OKs

Related posts:

1. Orangery Extension Part 30: Insulating And Plaster Board On External Wall And Plastering We have had a very busy couple of weeks, I called a plasterer round to quote for plastering of the Orangery Kitchen Extension, I was...
2. Orangery Extension Part 31: Fitting The Kitchen We have spent the last two weekends fitting the kitchen in our kitchen orangery extension. We had a group of family and friends round last...
3. Orangery Kitchen Extension Progress Stalled I have had an email from someone who has been following our kitchen orangery extension project on this blog asking how progress is going and...
4. Happy Valentines… We Have A Kitchen I hinted in the last update post that there may be some exciting news just ready for valentines day, well the kitchen was delivered today....
5. How To Install Under Floor Heating – Ufh If you have read the last few posts on this blog you will have seen that we have just installed hot water under floor heating...

Cornerstone Services have been here for the last few days doing the first fix electrics. We have presented quite a puzzle, lights switched in 4 places, at least 9 zones of lighting plus two lights to go on the side of the house while we are at it! This means that there are nests of wires to be put all over the place, but it is coming along nicely.

Once both the lighting and sockets first fix have been done I can get onto the plaster boarding which will again move the place on considerably. The plaster boarding in its self is not such a big job, probably a day all in, but I have had to create a stud work frame on the wall connecting us to next door as the new walls that have been built with their 100mm  cavity are much wider than the existing ones. I will be packing insulation into this stud work before I plasterboard it so we will have some acoustic and thermal insulation.

On the kitchen side I will be using Kingspan Kooltherm K17 as it is an exterior wall and we need the added performance per mm of insulation.

The extra time in the plaster boarding will be involved with adding noggins to the roof frame and curring out the numerous holes for the down lighters. I must get myself a decent hole saw kit so that I can achieve this neatly.

Related posts:

1. Orangery Extension Part 30: Insulating And Plaster Board On External Wall And Plastering We have had a very busy couple of weeks, I called a plasterer round to quote for plastering of the Orangery Kitchen Extension, I was...
2. Orangery Extension Part 31: Fitting The Kitchen We have spent the last two weekends fitting the kitchen in our kitchen orangery extension. We had a group of family and friends round last...
3. Orangery Kitchen Extension Progress Stalled I have had an email from someone who has been following our kitchen orangery extension project on this blog asking how progress is going and...
4. Happy Valentines… We Have A Kitchen I hinted in the last update post that there may be some exciting news just ready for valentines day, well the kitchen was delivered today....
5. How To Install Under Floor Heating – Ufh If you have read the last few posts on this blog you will have seen that we have just installed hot water under floor heating...

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Related posts:

1. Orangery Kitchen Extension Progress Stalled I have had an email from someone who has been following our kitchen orangery extension project on this blog asking how progress is going and...
2. Orangery Extension Part 30: Insulating And Plaster Board On External Wall And Plastering We have had a very busy couple of weeks, I called a plasterer round to quote for plastering of the Orangery Kitchen Extension, I was...
3. Orangery Extension Part 31: Fitting The Kitchen We have spent the last two weekends fitting the kitchen in our kitchen orangery extension. We had a group of family and friends round last...
4. Second Kitchen Fitted In Less Than A Month This weekend I have fitted the second kitchen this month! The first at our home in our kitchen orangery extension, and the second in one...
5. Happy Valentines… We Have A Kitchen I hinted in the last update post that there may be some exciting news just ready for valentines day, well the kitchen was delivered today....

This evening I have laid the temporary floor onto the top of the joists I fitted yesterday. That now means that the whole room is opened up again showing its full size. Cheryl has cleared the whole room so it is all tidy. This gives us more space to spread out and it also means that I can get the hob connected back to the gas so we are not on the camp stove.

I now need to re-assess the plan to find out where I am. I have help scheduled with electrics (Cornerstone services) and help with the plumbing of the underfloor heating I just need to schedule the rest of the work round it as best as I can, and ensure that I am ready for them when they come.

I have to buy all the electrical fittings yet so we need to take some decisions on types of sockets and final layout of the sockets, lighting and multimedia ready for the first fix.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0DPRy_754w

Related posts:

1. Orangery Extension Part 31: Fitting The Kitchen We have spent the last two weekends fitting the kitchen in our kitchen orangery extension. We had a group of family and friends round last...
2. Orangery Kitchen Extension Progress Stalled I have had an email from someone who has been following our kitchen orangery extension project on this blog asking how progress is going and...
3. Orangery Extension Part 30: Insulating And Plaster Board On External Wall And Plastering We have had a very busy couple of weeks, I called a plasterer round to quote for plastering of the Orangery Kitchen Extension, I was...
4. How To Install Under Floor Heating – Ufh If you have read the last few posts on this blog you will have seen that we have just installed hot water under floor heating...
5. Happy Valentines… We Have A Kitchen I hinted in the last update post that there may be some exciting news just ready for valentines day, well the kitchen was delivered today....

I spent 3 hours last night laying the joists. I had hoped to get the temporary floor laid as well, but I ran out of time and energy.

Stupidly I sliced accross the ends on my fingers with the saw, not while sawing either, I was just carrying it, I had it trapped between my hand and a joist and whenI put the joist down I ran my fingers down the teeth of the saw blade. Typing has been fun at work today!

I need to get the rest of the temporary flooring down this evening, which will mean that the drafts from the air bricks are sealed under the floor and hopefully the rest of the work by conservatec is finished and all sealed so that the house is a little warmer.

It will not be the warmest in the Orangery at the moment as there are no radiators and it will rely on the radiators in the back room and kitchen to keep it warm until the underfloor heating is installed, but I am sure we will be able to cope.

It will also mean that the site is a great deal safer for Eva running about, all one level without steps down, sleeper walls and joists to trip over.

Here are some pictures of last nights progress and a short video.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSwgVEemP-g

Related posts:

1. Orangery Extension Part 31: Fitting The Kitchen We have spent the last two weekends fitting the kitchen in our kitchen orangery extension. We had a group of family and friends round last...
2. Orangery Extension Part 30: Insulating And Plaster Board On External Wall And Plastering We have had a very busy couple of weeks, I called a plasterer round to quote for plastering of the Orangery Kitchen Extension, I was...
3. Orangery Kitchen Extension Progress Stalled I have had an email from someone who has been following our kitchen orangery extension project on this blog asking how progress is going and...
4. Second Kitchen Fitted In Less Than A Month This weekend I have fitted the second kitchen this month! The first at our home in our kitchen orangery extension, and the second in one...
5. How To Install Under Floor Heating – Ufh If you have read the last few posts on this blog you will have seen that we have just installed hot water under floor heating...

I am looking at an area of 36 square meters. all of which will have underfloor heating installed, so I need something that will go below the underfloor heating and provide adequate insulation while leaving a ventilation gap under the floor.

The ideal solution is Kingspan as this is rigid and you can install thinner insulation and still get the same insulation properties. However, to do an area this size in kingspan would cost in the region of £650 – £700, a cost that I simply can not justify.

I have therefore come up with an alternative to use rockwool style insulation under the floors. I have managed to get hold of some at a great discounted price from B&Q at just £3 per roll. I also understand that Homebase are doing a similar deal. This is aimed at home owners and not professional builders as it is subsidized by the energy saving trust. This great price allowed me to buy sufficient insulation for the whole area for just £25.

This will provide 170mm of rockwool insulation, however, the problem with this is supporting the insulation I have designed the following which I hope will allow me to easily to lay the insulation.

I will staple chicken wire to the top of the joists and loop it down under the floor, leaving an adequate air gap between it and the floor. I can then lay the rockwool insulation on-top of the chicken wire, followed by the underfloor heating.

I may also add a layer of foil above the insulation with the reflective side up, which will hopefully reflect the downward heat from the underfloor insulation backup.

This is all great in theory, it remains to be seen how well it will work in practice.I am sure it will not be as neat as the diagram I have drawn above but I can not see why it would not work.

Related posts:

1. How To Install Under Floor Heating – Ufh If you have read the last few posts on this blog you will have seen that we have just installed hot water under floor heating...
2. Orangery Extension Part 30: Insulating And Plaster Board On External Wall And Plastering We have had a very busy couple of weeks, I called a plasterer round to quote for plastering of the Orangery Kitchen Extension, I was...

I had originally expected Conservatec to have finished all the work on the Orangery Rood and have the doors fully fitted by Friday, but due to them not being on site for 2 days last week they did not complete. I had them make sure that the area was water tight for the weekend as I wanted to get started on the internals. Therefore they spent Friday afternoon (they were only there for half a day on Friday) getting the bi-fold doors fitted. They look great, very impressive feature, they will be fantastic in the summer when we can open them up fully, extending the room out into the garden. We will create a patio area out the front of the doors eventually but that is a job for next year.

As Friday night was Bonfire night it was the ideal time to have a topping out ceremony, when I got home on Friday, I cleared the building debris from the orangery, setup the garden table and opened up the wall into the kitchen.

After the bonfire and fireworks, we put Eva to bed and then had a couple of bottles of Champagne to celebrate.

On Saturday I built sleeper walls for the new floor, Sunday was spent leveling up the pans (wall plates), which uncovered a load of problems. The current kitchen floor is not level by any means. Whoever laid it did a bodge job of it, trying to level the joists by carving the bottoms of the joists to suit. I know that traditionally you would joint the joists with the pan (wall plate), but these were not joints, they had just created a mound of mortar and then hacked the bottom of the joists to suit.

This left me with a decision to make, should I rip up the existing floor and relay the joists or should I match the new floor to the old one. I decided on the latter, probably not the right choice, but, ripping up all the old floor would be a much bigger job and would mean that we had to keep the house shut off from the orangery for a much longer period. I am happy with the decision, I have leveled up the new area and will teak the joists in the existing area when I lift the floorboards to install the underfloor heating. I can lift those joists that are low with some slate packing, which should work as it seems the floor drops rather than being too high.

I also rebuilt a substantial part of the inner wall on the kitchen side. It looks like the kitchen had originally been a single brick outhouse and outside toilet. When this had been converted, they had built-up an inner wall. The problem with this was they had not tied it in to the outside wall at all. They had also built it with a vertical join all the way up the wall, meaning that after plumbers had hacked the wall to get pipes in and a flu through the wall was very unstable. I took about of third of it down to where it was more stable and re-built it. I added screw-in ties on each row and into the side, I also tied the blocks into the wall creating a tooth effect so hopefully this will now be stable enough, especially as I will be putting the insulation over the top of it so I can really dot and dab the whole area well to bond it all together.

Fortunately due to the thickness of the insulation I am installing we will not need to cut into the walls for wires or socket back boxes so this will avoid causing more damage to the wall.

I hope that tomorrow they will be adjusting the bi-fold doors as they catch a little and slide closed, they will also be finishing the upvc cover over the top of the roof and some of the guttering and final sealing of the doors and roof.

Here are a few pictures of the progress. you can see the bi-fold doors have been fitted.

Related posts:

1. Orangery Extension Part 30: Insulating And Plaster Board On External Wall And Plastering We have had a very busy couple of weeks, I called a plasterer round to quote for plastering of the Orangery Kitchen Extension, I was...
2. Orangery Extension Part 31: Fitting The Kitchen We have spent the last two weekends fitting the kitchen in our kitchen orangery extension. We had a group of family and friends round last...
3. Orangery Kitchen Extension Progress Stalled I have had an email from someone who has been following our kitchen orangery extension project on this blog asking how progress is going and...
4. How To Install Under Floor Heating – Ufh If you have read the last few posts on this blog you will have seen that we have just installed hot water under floor heating...
5. Second Kitchen Fitted In Less Than A Month This weekend I have fitted the second kitchen this month! The first at our home in our kitchen orangery extension, and the second in one...

Related posts:

1. Orangery Extension Part 31: Fitting The Kitchen We have spent the last two weekends fitting the kitchen in our kitchen orangery extension. We had a group of family and friends round last...
2. Orangery Kitchen Extension Progress Stalled I have had an email from someone who has been following our kitchen orangery extension project on this blog asking how progress is going and...
3. Orangery Extension Part 30: Insulating And Plaster Board On External Wall And Plastering We have had a very busy couple of weeks, I called a plasterer round to quote for plastering of the Orangery Kitchen Extension, I was...
4. Happy Valentines… We Have A Kitchen I hinted in the last update post that there may be some exciting news just ready for valentines day, well the kitchen was delivered today....

Conservatec will not be on site until after lunch tomorrow which is again disappointing, it does mean that they will not finish this week and will be back on Monday to finish off. Frustrating to say the least, but they have promised to get the doors fitted which will make the room weather tight, they only things that will be left to do will be the external upvc trims and the flashing on the back wall and joining wall to the neighbours roof. I think that they have probably underestimated the time it will take them to do that flashing as it is not straightforward, but at least I can get on this weekend and look at the flooring, building sleeper walls, and installing a temporary floor on the new area. Then hopefully the whole thing will dry out over the next few days before first fix electrics and further works in the coming weeks.

Here are some pictures of the orangery roof. They have been taken in the dark so are not perfect. I will try and get out tomorrow morning before work and get some in the day light.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLaOE90pZqg

Related posts:

1. Orangery Extension Part 31: Fitting The Kitchen We have spent the last two weekends fitting the kitchen in our kitchen orangery extension. We had a group of family and friends round last...
2. Orangery Extension Part 30: Insulating And Plaster Board On External Wall And Plastering We have had a very busy couple of weeks, I called a plasterer round to quote for plastering of the Orangery Kitchen Extension, I was...
3. Orangery Kitchen Extension Progress Stalled I have had an email from someone who has been following our kitchen orangery extension project on this blog asking how progress is going and...
4. How To Install Under Floor Heating – Ufh If you have read the last few posts on this blog you will have seen that we have just installed hot water under floor heating...

Related posts:

1. Orangery Extension Part 31: Fitting The Kitchen We have spent the last two weekends fitting the kitchen in our kitchen orangery extension. We had a group of family and friends round last...
2. Orangery Extension Part 30: Insulating And Plaster Board On External Wall And Plastering We have had a very busy couple of weeks, I called a plasterer round to quote for plastering of the Orangery Kitchen Extension, I was...
3. Orangery Kitchen Extension Progress Stalled I have had an email from someone who has been following our kitchen orangery extension project on this blog asking how progress is going and...
4. Happy Valentines… We Have A Kitchen I hinted in the last update post that there may be some exciting news just ready for valentines day, well the kitchen was delivered today....
5. How To Install Under Floor Heating – Ufh If you have read the last few posts on this blog you will have seen that we have just installed hot water under floor heating...

The new walls are around 75-80mm thicker than the existing ones. This leaves me with several options, from having thinner insulation and a step in the wall or thick insulation which of course is far more costly, although this extra cost will pay its self back in the long run.

I have been investigating the possibilities and if the truth be told I am getting confused in a sea of different options. All these different methods had advantages and disadvantages but they all have one thing in common they are costly both financially and in terms of installation time, both of these costs have not been considered in the budget or the project plan.

The first option and my current preferred option is to use Kingspan Kooltherm K17 which is premium performance rigid phenolic board, insulation backed plasterboard. As far as I can gather this is very simple to install, just dot and dab the back, and along the bottom of the board and stick it to the wall, add three Kingspan fixings and it is done, insulation and plasterboard all in one. The problem with the Kingspan kooltherm k17 is that it is very costly, however it does provide the best insulation value out of all the products I have looked at, meaning that it will pay it’s self off over time with the improved thermal efficiency it will provide.

Conservatec have used 100mm + 25mm Kingspan in the roof space.

Gyproc ThermaLine is a different type, similar to the kingspan but it is not as thick. I believe the thickest available is 55mm. I am not sure if this 55 mm is including or excluding the plasterboard. Indeed I have the same question about the Kingspan Kooltherm K17. This is actually quite critical as I need to try and keep a neat line across from the new walls which will have plasterboard fixed to it, so the insulation thickness is the difference between the two walls and then the plasterboard should go across the whole lot.

I am not sure that the Gyproc Thermaline will be sufficient for our needs and in direct comparison with the Kingspan it seems to be more expensive for the equivalent thickness/thermal efficiency.

The final option would be to create a wooden stood frame and insert fiberglass bats or eco friendly sheep’s wool in between those bats. This has the great advantage that the wooden stood work gives me something to hang the kitchen units off, where as the kingspan and gyproc options pose a problem in this department with the need for special bolts that will go all the way through the insulation into the wall.

The problem with this solution is two part, firstly and most importantly the wooden battens are now considered to create a thermal bridge as they do not carry the same thermal properties as the insulation and as such risks condensation forming on the colder areas of the wall. The second part to this is that very fact that the wooden battens do not carry the same thermal properties as the insulation, so you do loose the insulation effect across quite a significant area of the wall when you add up all the battens together.

All in all it is very confusing. I actually think that the answer is Kingspan and that one just has to bit the bullet and spend a little extra money in the short term to get longer term benefits. There are issues I need to solve with this such as how do you hang kitchen wall units on walls covered in kingspan. Simply using plasterboard fixings is not good enough as solid oak units loaded with tins or crockery will be very heavy. I will need to source something that will effectively go through the insulation and into the wall.

Related posts:

1. Orangery Extension Part 30: Insulating And Plaster Board On External Wall And Plastering We have had a very busy couple of weeks, I called a plasterer round to quote for plastering of the Orangery Kitchen Extension, I was...
2. How To Install Under Floor Heating – Ufh If you have read the last few posts on this blog you will have seen that we have just installed hot water under floor heating...
3. Orangery Extension Part 31: Fitting The Kitchen We have spent the last two weekends fitting the kitchen in our kitchen orangery extension. We had a group of family and friends round last...
4. Happy Valentines… We Have A Kitchen I hinted in the last update post that there may be some exciting news just ready for valentines day, well the kitchen was delivered today....

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvVz7amo_iA

Related posts:

1. Orangery Kitchen Extension Progress Stalled I have had an email from someone who has been following our kitchen orangery extension project on this blog asking how progress is going and...
2. Orangery Extension Part 30: Insulating And Plaster Board On External Wall And Plastering We have had a very busy couple of weeks, I called a plasterer round to quote for plastering of the Orangery Kitchen Extension, I was...
3. Humber Bridge Half Maraton 2011 – 1 Mile Point It was the Humber Bridge half Marathon today and since a friend was taking part and it went across the end of our road we...
4. Orangery Extension Part 31: Fitting The Kitchen We have spent the last two weekends fitting the kitchen in our kitchen orangery extension. We had a group of family and friends round last...
5. How To Install Under Floor Heating – Ufh If you have read the last few posts on this blog you will have seen that we have just installed hot water under floor heating...

They are back tomorrow at 7:30, the weather seems to be ok for tomorrow, a possibility of some rain mid-afternoon, but otherwise it looks like we will be lucky. Thursday and Friday don’t look so good, but that is still a little far away for an accurate forecast so fingers crossed.

We have spent this weekend preparing the site, I had some pointing to do on the wall, it could have been done when the roof was on but better that I got it done since I had the extra time.

We also took the old plaster off the walls, but when I say plaster I actually mean more like render, making it very hard to remove especially as the inner wall was mostly blocks. It took a good two or three hours to remove it from a wall 4mx2.5m. The Bosch GBH 2-26DRE SDS drill that Cheryl bought me for my birthday really has been worth its weight in gold. Without it, there would have been a great deal of hammering and chipping with the bolster chisel.

I have been to the council tip 5 times this weekend with a fully loaded trailer. Which as with the drill has really been a very worthwhile investment. The amount of money saved on skips has paid the cost of the trailer several times over. It is only a little Erde 122 but it works well for us and saves the car from the majority of the grime.

I still have the ply from the flat roof to dispose of, but if truth be told I am avoiding that job as they are heavy and need cutting into smaller sections to get into the trailer. I will try and get onto that one evening this week as it will clear the garden and make it look less of a building site. Indeed I need to get it cleared for Friday as we plan to have a bonfire party. Hopefully we will also be able to crack open a bottle of Champagne for the opening up of the Orangery as Conservatec are scheduled to have it finished for Friday, weather permitting.

Related posts:

1. Orangery Extension Part 31: Fitting The Kitchen We have spent the last two weekends fitting the kitchen in our kitchen orangery extension. We had a group of family and friends round last...
2. Orangery Extension Part 30: Insulating And Plaster Board On External Wall And Plastering We have had a very busy couple of weeks, I called a plasterer round to quote for plastering of the Orangery Kitchen Extension, I was...
3. Orangery Kitchen Extension Progress Stalled I have had an email from someone who has been following our kitchen orangery extension project on this blog asking how progress is going and...
4. How To Install Under Floor Heating – Ufh If you have read the last few posts on this blog you will have seen that we have just installed hot water under floor heating...

These missing bricks should be behind the flashing for the new roof but I do not want to take that risk and prefer everything to be as solid as possible. Especially as we are spending a great deal of money insulating and making the new kitchen orangery extension as thermally efficient as we can.

I want to get this out of the way before the new roof is fitted so that we are not dropping mortar onto the new roof.

This weekend I want to get a better, closer cut on the nibs left from taking the walls down. This will be a job the for grinder so very messy and again it will be better to get this done before the new roof goes on so that the dust can settle and the clean-up is easier.

This weekend I will also be looking to descale the walls of plaster so that I am ready to insulate them once the area is weather tight and the first fix electrics have been done.

I will also have to make a number of trips to the council tip to get rid of the rubbish that we could not fit into the skips

Related posts:

1. How To Install Under Floor Heating – Ufh If you have read the last few posts on this blog you will have seen that we have just installed hot water under floor heating...
2. Happy Valentines… We Have A Kitchen I hinted in the last update post that there may be some exciting news just ready for valentines day, well the kitchen was delivered today....

We like the idea of white as they would be discrete and not spoil the lines of the up stand, however, as a designer I should have already known that there are many shades of white.

The samples I have bought are more of a gray cream colour and would clash against the brilliant white paint of the ceiling.

The Satin Nickel ones look good and they are probably the preference.

Related posts:

1. How To Install Under Floor Heating – Ufh If you have read the last few posts on this blog you will have seen that we have just installed hot water under floor heating...
2. Happy Valentines… We Have A Kitchen I hinted in the last update post that there may be some exciting news just ready for valentines day, well the kitchen was delivered today....
3. Orangery Kitchen Extension Progress Stalled I have had an email from someone who has been following our kitchen orangery extension project on this blog asking how progress is going and...

Do we want track lighting with spots around the edge of the orangery roof? would this spoil the lines of the ceiling?

Do we want recessed spotlights around the edge and adjustable recessed spots in the up stands into the orangery window?

How many lights do we want, it is a big area, a room of over 5.5mx5.5m. During the daytime the Orangery roof will provide a great deal of light into the room, but at night we will want lights on.

We will also want to be able to control the lighting to set the mood. While cooking I will want good light, but while we are eating or relaxing we will want the lights down lower.

It has also come to mind that as we have virtually the whole of the back wall in glass as Bi-fold doors, and out seating area will be in front of those doors, it maybe nice to be able to lookout onto the garden so we will need to address the lighting in the garden. We do plan to create a patio area outside the bi-fold doors eventually, so this area could have small patio lights, but it may be nice to get some lighting down at the bottom of the garden.

I think the way we will go for the inside is to have fixed recessed spotlights around the edge and adjustable recessed spotlights in the up stand into the Orangery roof.

I have bought some samples from Screwfix to see which we like. Hopefully they will be here tomorrow and at least one of the samples will suit.

We do have a delay in the project, the fitting Orangery roof was supposed to be starting today, but it has been delayed until Monday. Although this delay does not sound too bad, it does cause quite significant knock on issues to the schedule. I wanted to get my Dad (Cornerstone Services) down to do the first fix electrics Wednesday to Friday next week, however, if there is no roof and the new extension is not water tight we can not start with electrics. Even with the roof on and semi water tight witht he bi-fold doors still to be done we cant start electrics as we have a tempoary wall in the middle of the room.

The problem with all this is he is unavailable for electrics the week after so I need to try and re-jig the plan so that we do not loose this time from the project, it will be difficult as the roof, doors and electrics are all on the critical path, and as explained above the electrics are dependent on finishing the roof and doors.

Related posts:

1. Orangery Kitchen Extension Progress Stalled I have had an email from someone who has been following our kitchen orangery extension project on this blog asking how progress is going and...
2. Orangery Extension Part 30: Insulating And Plaster Board On External Wall And Plastering We have had a very busy couple of weeks, I called a plasterer round to quote for plastering of the Orangery Kitchen Extension, I was...
3. Orangery Extension Part 31: Fitting The Kitchen We have spent the last two weekends fitting the kitchen in our kitchen orangery extension. We had a group of family and friends round last...
4. Happy Valentines… We Have A Kitchen I hinted in the last update post that there may be some exciting news just ready for valentines day, well the kitchen was delivered today....
5. How To Install Under Floor Heating – Ufh If you have read the last few posts on this blog you will have seen that we have just installed hot water under floor heating...

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Related posts:

1. Humber Bridge Half Maraton 2011 – 1 Mile Point It was the Humber Bridge half Marathon today and since a friend was taking part and it went across the end of our road we...
2. Happy Valentines… We Have A Kitchen I hinted in the last update post that there may be some exciting news just ready for valentines day, well the kitchen was delivered today....
3. Orangery Extension Part 31: Fitting The Kitchen We have spent the last two weekends fitting the kitchen in our kitchen orangery extension. We had a group of family and friends round last...
4. Orangery Kitchen Extension Progress Stalled I have had an email from someone who has been following our kitchen orangery extension project on this blog asking how progress is going and...
5. Second Kitchen Fitted In Less Than A Month This weekend I have fitted the second kitchen this month! The first at our home in our kitchen orangery extension, and the second in one...

The build took longer than it should have mainly because the builders did not work at the speed that I would have expected and they went to finish off another couple of jobs. It the truth be told I was not as impressed with them as I have been with the rest of Conservatecs service. The sub-contract builder did not live up to the chap who dug the footings who grafted from the moment he got on site to the moment he left.

Having said that the new build looks great, the bricks match the existing walls very well.

Originally we had planned to have the new roof fitted today, however, there has been a delay in its construction so it will now not be installed until Wednesday this week. The builders finally finished the build on Saturday afternoon, which would have left us rather tight to get the site ready for a Monday start anyway.

We had to take the decision when we were going to demolish the existing kitchen roof and walls. If all had gone to plan it would have been ideal, two days this weekend to do that work and then the roof fitters here today, thus meaning a very limited time where the back of the house was exposed to the elements.

The decision was either to take some time off work this week to do the demolition or to get as much as we could done on Sunday and live with the fact that the back of the house was exposed. The temporary walls we have installed are working a treat so we took the decision to go with it.

A group of friends and family came round on Sunday which turned out to be a very long and tiring day for everyone. I started at 8:30 taking up the parquet floor in the back room which did not come up as easily as it could have. I was planning on selling it as it is original to the house, however it was stuck down with a tar and would not be prised up in any form that could really be re-used.

When help arrived we started by taking out the windows and doors from the end of the kitchen. Again I was hoping to sell these and the first one came out very well, with a little help from the SDS drill! but it came out intact without any damage.

The patio doors were a different matter, we took the glass out and all the window bolts, but still the frame was solid in the gap in the wall. No amount of hammering or teasing would get it out so we decided to move onto the roofs with the hope that if we took the walls down from around it, then it would just lift off.

The tiled roof of the kitchen was the first to go, a very easy process, only the bottom row of times were nailed so they all lifted off, the main effort was getting the tiles down from the roof. As I was again reclaiming these, we filled buckets and man handled them off the roof and then stacked them.

The flat roof was next, it was constructed of 8×4 sheets of 18mm Ply, which by the time you added several layers of felt and tar were rather heave. It was a relief to get them down without any accidents, the worry was we did not want to just drop them down as their shear weight could have caused manage to the new walls.

Then the roof timbers from the pitched roof came off, mean while we made the first cuts through one of the mini walls and that came down.

After lunch we proceeded with taking the ceilings down and then removing the rafters. Which left us with the main wall and the patio doors to tackle. After trying again with the patio doors we soon found that they were still stuck fast in the walls, so we proceeded with the wall.

A neat cut down both sides of the wall as tight up against the wall that is being retained almost separated the wall that was coming down from the rest of the house, the blade was about 30mm too short, but this was not an issue as the bricks would break off and I could neaten everything up after the wall came down.

Knocking the wall down was good fun, and it came down easier than expected apart from some areas that had been build with a very strong mortar mix.

All this left us with a load of clearing up to do. After we filled the skip and still has not make much of a dent in the pile, and as it was getting late we moved onto the patio doors again.

After a great deal of effort we found the reason why we could not shift the doors, they had been glued in with copious amounts of silicone. It took all our effort at the end of the day to get the RSJ detached from the top of the doors and then when we found that the whole thing had been glued down as well as along the sides and top I took the decision to scrap the doors. A shame as we could probably have got a decent amount of money for them, but at that stage we  just needed them out.

We left the site it quite a mess and still a great deal of clearing up to do, but I can manage this over the next few evenings. The problem being I only really have two evenings to do this, along with some repairs to the back wall of the house where plumbers have left holes in the wall to get pipes through.The bathroom has always been drafty, and these missing bricks which were covered by the pitched roofs loft space are the most likely cause, so a repair on those will hopefully stop those drafts.

The problem now is that the skip company can not pick up the skip before tomorrow so all the clear up will have to happen tomorrow night.

The house was not too cold this morning despite the heavy frost we had. The kitchen and back room were a little chilly, but given an hour with the heating on this soon heated up.

If everything goes to plan, hopefully by a week on Wednesday we will have a roof on and the bi-fold doors fitted. I have penciled in my father (Cornerstone Services) to some and do the first fix electrics a week on Wednesday. This needs to be done prior to any plastering or boarding/insulating of the walls. We will need to review the kitchen plan to ensure that it all still works with the measurements we have and review where we need sockets and lighting.

Related posts:

1. Orangery Extension Part 30: Insulating And Plaster Board On External Wall And Plastering We have had a very busy couple of weeks, I called a plasterer round to quote for plastering of the Orangery Kitchen Extension, I was...
2. Orangery Extension Part 31: Fitting The Kitchen We have spent the last two weekends fitting the kitchen in our kitchen orangery extension. We had a group of family and friends round last...
3. Orangery Kitchen Extension Progress Stalled I have had an email from someone who has been following our kitchen orangery extension project on this blog asking how progress is going and...
4. How To Install Under Floor Heating – Ufh If you have read the last few posts on this blog you will have seen that we have just installed hot water under floor heating...
5. Happy Valentines… We Have A Kitchen I hinted in the last update post that there may be some exciting news just ready for valentines day, well the kitchen was delivered today....

The bricks are a very good match to the existing house which is good because this was a requirement of the planning permission and more importantly we want the new part of the house to blend in with the original house. 

The builder thinks that he will be done by Thursday and at the moment we are still scheduled for the new roof on Monday next week. This means that we have a tight window to get the old one removed and the inner wall down. We are going to take a view on what the weather is doing on Friday and then hopefully go for it, thus limiting the amount of time that the house is exposed to the elements.

Related posts:

1. Orangery Extension Part 31: Fitting The Kitchen We have spent the last two weekends fitting the kitchen in our kitchen orangery extension. We had a group of family and friends round last...
2. Orangery Extension Part 30: Insulating And Plaster Board On External Wall And Plastering We have had a very busy couple of weeks, I called a plasterer round to quote for plastering of the Orangery Kitchen Extension, I was...
3. Orangery Kitchen Extension Progress Stalled I have had an email from someone who has been following our kitchen orangery extension project on this blog asking how progress is going and...
4. How To Install Under Floor Heating – Ufh If you have read the last few posts on this blog you will have seen that we have just installed hot water under floor heating...
5. Second Kitchen Fitted In Less Than A Month This weekend I have fitted the second kitchen this month! The first at our home in our kitchen orangery extension, and the second in one...