Author Archives: Ruben Arakelyan

They always say that getting your windows installed is a major milestone, and it definitely feels like we’ve been waiting our fair share of time! Luckily, today (also my birthday) saw the first of our windows installed. After weeks of having to mop up puddles and leaks across the house, it is a relief toContinue reading “Our first window is in!”

While our builders have been busy outside finishing off the block work, our carpenter from Maple Leaf Carpentry and Construction has been busy inside with all sorts of first-fix carpentry work. Alongside the more usual noggins and framing work, he’s also been putting up some acoustic insulation in the ground floor ceiling. As well asContinue reading “Insulation all the way”

For the last four week or so, while we’ve been blogging about what’s happening inside the house, a team have been working outside laying our block external wall. This wall surrounds the timber frame and protects it as well as providing a base for rendering and cladding. It’s been progressing well and has nearly reachedContinue reading “Block work progressing well”

While we wait for the roof at the front of the house to be completed (pending installation of the skylight), the roof at the back is complete, and we took the opportunity a few days ago to have the guttering installed while the scaffolding is still at the correct height. We opted for an aluminiumContinue reading “Seamless guttering”

In addition to our MVHR, there’s also been a lot of work on electical cabling. Mark Warden from MW Property Solutions started work on the first fix electrics which includes running cabling for all the lights and power sockets, as well as network cabling for the places where we need to plug in devices toContinue reading “Let there be light”

If you’re building a house these days, you can be pretty sure it’s going to be well insulated and pretty airtight. What this means in practice is that you generally need some way of getting stale air out and fresh air in. One way is using a combination of trickle vents above windows and extractorContinue reading “Adding in our ventilation”

Our house has been designed with the “cold roof” – that is, the loft space is intended to not be heated and be used as a storage space rather than a heated area that could be a room. Since it’s a “cold roof”, the part we need to insulate is its floor (or the firstContinue reading “Insulating the loft”

Now that our screed floor is dry enough to stand on, plumbing work has recommenced with the installation of the underfloor heating for the first floor. Unlike the ground floor where the pipes are encased in the screed, we’ll be carpeting most of the first floor. Therefore, the underfloor heating pipes are weaved through theContinue reading “More underfloor heating”

Today’s been an exciting day! The team from Smoothflow Liquid Screeding arrived in the morning to prepare the floor and make sure everything was ready. Once they’d calculated how much screed they needed, they made the phone call to the supplier and only a couple of hours later, we had a screeded floor! The houseContinue reading “Our house is a swimming pool”