Plumbing

The plumber has been busy over the last 10 days, and his 'first fix' is almost complete. There's now an array of copper pipework weaving it's way through the floor void and walls at Hillside, with a combination of hot and cold water pipework, heating pipes and the pipes that will distribute the harvested rainwater to the WCs.

To allow the plumber to do this we've had to spend a few late nights finalising exactly what radiators and sanitaryware we're buying, and earlier this week we delivered the shower valves to site so they could be installed into the stud-work walls. Great to finally be buying something that's not a basic construction material. That said, we've still been buying some basics - this week it was insulation to put in the 1st floor below the underfloor heating pipework.

Without insulation the heat from the pipes will heat the floor void and the ceilings of the rooms below, which isn't the intention as the heat should be rising into the 1st floor rooms. We'd planned on getting loft-type recycled plastic bottle insulation from B&Q but baulked at the price. So when we saw that they're also selling 200mm thick glass fibre insulation made from recycled glass bottles equating to £1/m2 we thought it was too good an opportunity to miss. It's not as pleasant a material to work with, requiring gloves and dust masks, but as we've got these it's not a problem.

We are planning on using the recycled plastic bottle insulation for the walls of the timber frame, which we'll be buying once the underfloor heating and screed is installed, hopefully before the end of the week.