Steel is up!

It was quite a process. The long horizontal beams were fairly heavy, about 200kg each! With Eddie, Barrie and John to help we carried the first 2 round, the third proved problematic as it has a vertical brace welded to it. A fifth pair of hands were required, as luck would have it Gordon was passing at the time and was enlisted!.
The raising of the sections was fun, 2 scaffold towers and a block and tackle, some huffing and puffing, a bit of sweating and they were up. They are now bolted together with the exception of one small section, Murray is coming tomorrow with his magnetic drill to drill some extra holes, once the last section is added I can level square and plum. Have ordered a self levelling laser to aid the process ( It is a good excuse to buy tools to play with!).

Well! Now we have steel!  Had sheduled it to put up on Saturday but got a head start today, with a big hand from Barrie  there are now 3 columns up and a horizontal.

Have lined up the troops for Saturday 10.30. To lift the big horizontals from the front garden to the back. Once they are round the hope is to hoist them up with a block and tackle strung between 2 scaffold towers.
The kids are enjoying the scaffolding too!

much care is needed with sizes, the holes in the base plates are 20mm, the resin anchor studs are 16mm and the holes into which the resin goes 18mm! Not much room for error!

Hope to post tomorrow "steel up!"

Have also finished the vertical cut for the dpc and have bricked the corner as far as I can without the insulation going in. I dont want to order the insulation till I am in a better place to start using it as I will struggle to store it. Photo below isalso a record of the wall tie system.

Good news is Murray is hopefull for the steel this week! How exciting is that?

Have spent the last week stripping off the rough cast from what will be the internal wall. What with loosing 25 mm to the insulation on the outside wall I recon to have stolen back 15mm or so in the render.

Being tight I didn't want to waste all these good chippings so I have thrown them in as trench back fill. I recon when  the type1 goes in it will all compact together.

First tool casualty! SDS drill began smoking and grinding! Alas it is no more! I paid £40 for it about 10 years ago so it owes nothing. The new one was £60 though! It will have to last 15 years!

Not a lot of progress the last week or so. Been stripping rough cast off wall which will be inside the garage and the new upstairs bedroom. It is a lot of work to save 20mm! It will however make jobs like fitting the walltie strip and cutting in floor joists easier.
Latest dicussion on insulation is a departure from the 100mm full cavity fill, building control were not too happy with it. The new system is 75mm insulation held against inside wall with a 25 mm gap to the outsidevwall. Down side is will need to use insulated plaster board to get full u value, so that will offset the 20mm gained by stripping the rough cast! Will revist the possibility of taking down the outside skin of the old wall at least in part in the new bed room.
photos below show current position. Todays work doesn't look much but the verticle dpc at the front between old and new is mostly cut, just waiting for a loan of Derek's saw, mine is a Sthill and cuts about 5mm short of a full brick! Also the 2 front corners are well up and some bricks are set on the outside wall to string between and fill in. I am reluctant to go much higher with the big long wall as I will need to put insulation in place. I cant do the insulation until I have filled the below ground cavity with concrete,  I cant fill till the ends of the wall are closed, I cant close them till the steel work is in. I wonder if I could just bash on and leave the wall ties hanging on the outer course and push the insulation over them? Only thing is it might be impossible to fit the retaning clips to keep it tight against the inner skin with only a 25mm gap!
oh and I am 10mm high at the back of the long wall, everone I have spoken to says that is nothing, but being me I am going to steal 1mm over the next 10 courses to get it right. chances are though once it settles the 10mm could come or go!

monday14april

Back from holidays and now the

proud owner of 4000 bricks and 700 blocks!

With some help from Barrie I got a cocourse of brick down. 

The driveway and half the back garden are full of bricks and blocks,  I now have to order the insulation for the 100 mm cavity,  have just realised it will take up same space as 4000 bricks! 

bricks and blocks in place

A good lot of bricks and blocks are now in place , thanks to much help from Tom and Barrie. 

Up to date state of play