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...

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....

I have got some more satellite cables and network cables through to various places downstairs to and from the orangery. I am sure that they will come in useful for other jobs.

It comes in 10, 1 meter lengths of reinforced polyester rods that screw together, you then pass the rods into the space, screwing another length onto it as you go until you reach the other side, you can then attach your cable to the eye or hook attachment and pull the rods back dragging the cables as you go.

They are on Amazon for just £11.70 which I think is a bargain and well worth the money.  Click here to find it on Amazon.

Related posts:

1. Service-it Washing Machine Cleaner Review If you have read the last few posts on this blog you will know that we have just come back from a weeks holiday, and...
2. Problogger – Secrets For Blogging Your Way To A Six Figure Income – Review I have both the first and second editions of this great book from Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett, Secrets for Blogging your way to a...
3. Tepilo Review I have listed my first property on Tepilo, the site setup by Sarah Beeny to help people sell their houses. It is a free service...
4. 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...
5. Elegant Themes For WordPress Review I have now been using Elegant Themes for about a month, and thought it about time I gave a considered opinion. Overall I could not...

I have also ordered a satellite finder which will help with the positioning, I have a good quality Compass Clinometer from my Geology days so I should be able to follow the instructions to get it in the right direction, which is 28.2° East and in Hull a polarisation angle of between -11° and -12°

If I get the kit together this evening I will try and get it onto the wall and the cables laid tomorrow evening.

I am  still waiting for the lights we ordered for the front of the Orangery to arrive, this will be the final outstanding job before I can put the plaster boarding up.

Related posts:

1. 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....
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. 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. 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 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. 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 have had a television aerial engineer round, who has quoted around £90 to £100 to fit a wide band aerial, but has been looking into a FreeSat solution that would serve both the Orangery and the lounge where the current TV is with HD TV. He has yet to get back to me and as we are out of time I have done the research myself and hopefully found a solution that I can work with.

I have decided that if I am going to do this I should go the whole way and do it properly. The standard self install freesat kits that you can pick up from B&Q or Screwfix look great on the face of it, a great price and seemingly the ideal solution, however, they will only generally have a 2 way LNB which supply 2 devices, usually one for recording and one for watching TV.

The LNB is the part of the satellite that points back at the dish, this has a number of ports on it, each of those ports can have a wire attached which will supply one device. 

If I am going to go the whole way and wire up the whole house for FreeSat I need at least a 6 way LNB, with two going to the orangery, two to the front room and two to the back bedroom which is also the office. With this in mind I will have to find a custom solution. In theory one could buy the B&Q or Screwfix solution and then replace the LNB with a suitable 8 way LNB, however, I am not sure if they are all interchangeable and where any problems may present themselves.

I have found a supplier who will put a custom package together, it contains a satellite dish, an 8 way LNB, 140 meters of wire cut to lengths and terminated. I just need to get myself a satellite finder device, and two set top boxes along with 3 satellite USB DVB-S device for the three media centre ready PCs.

This kit is all coming tomorrow, this means that I can get the wires into the void above the ceiling in the kitchen before the plasterboard goes up next weekend.

Related posts:

1. Media Centre And Network Storage Solution I have spent the past week moving 100′s of terabytes of data from disk to disk, trying to find the best solution for the central...

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...

The television will be wall mounted at about 1300mm off the ground, we will also have a media centre PC running windows 7 media centre tucked away under a cupboard in the centre island.

I have the problem that I need to get a number of wires between the TV and the media centre PC. I will be installing:

2 x HDMI
1x DVI
1 x SVGA
2 x 3 way phone leads
1x TV aerial

I will be running these cables up the wall in trunking installed prior to plastering so it is hidden. I was looking at solutions as to how to terminate those cables at the TV end. There are many solutions on the market, modular systems that allow you to add the connectors you want leaving a series of sockets for you to plug into, this would mean that we would have to solder and re-terminate wires and would actually cost quite a considerable amount of money.

I found the Labgear Dual Brushed Media Faceplate on Screwfix. This seemed like the perfect solution and at £9.79 inc VAT it was worth a punt so I have bought one.

I must say that I am very impressed. It is a very simple design, the same size as a standard double socket (you can also get a single). It is like a normal blanking plate with the centre area cut out. It then has two rows of brush bristles along the top and bottom, through which you push your wires.

Admittedly this is not as fancy as the modular system or media faceplate solution but it is far cheaper and far simpler to install and use. Just screw it to a socket back box and push your media wires through the bristles and away you go.

Highly recommended, you and buy the Labgear Dual Brushed Media Faceplate from Screwfix.

Related posts:

1. Media Centre And Network Storage Solution I have spent the past week moving 100′s of terabytes of data from disk to disk, trying to find the best solution for the central...
2. Home Computer Network Finally Finished Recently I have posted about my tribulations with setting up my perfect network at home. A quick re-cap is that we have two Windows Media...
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. Google Analytics And Using Segments To Track Keywords As part of a review of my online marketing activity for both my Software Business and for my affiliate business I have been looking back...

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...

It covers me for Gas, Gas Safety Cert, Plumbing, Drainage, Electrics and electrical safety. Which means that I am left dealing with general maintenance which suits me.

There is a monthly cost to the cover £29, however this is tax deductible and as things stand with how precious time is for us at the moment, this is  an investment to get time back more than anything else.

I will blog in the future about how it goes.

As a landlord I have been researching many aspects of property rentals, from legal requirements, to insurance, mortgages and agents who run fully managed services. I have noted that there are rather few sites with provide all these resources in one place that are also aimed at people like me who dabbles in this rather than someone who has 100′s of properties.

I am therefore wondereing if there is an opportunity to create such a resource.

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...