2nd fix

Those of you who visit my Flickr pages will probably have seen that the electricians have retruned and started 'second fix'. This is great as it means the end of the project must be in sight, and it also means that some of the finishing touches are being installed.

For those of you who don't know what 'second fix' is, it's the electricians second (and final) work of installing the surface mounted fittings once the plastering is complete. This means installing sockets, switches and light fittings, testing all the circuits and finally and powering everything up.
So where the plasterers have finished we now have electrical fittings, including the fabulous looking downlights in the kitchen and the LED lights on the external timber clad walls. I can't wait to get power on to see what they look like when illuminated. And if you think external lighting may not seem very eco, we've used LEDs to ensure that they are low energy lighting in the sunken courtyard (see photo). Wherever possible inside the house we'll be using low energy fittings, and while the kitchen downlights come with energy hungry halogen GU10 bulbs we'll be changing these to LEDs soon as well.

LED lighting

The last light fittings we need to source are for over the front and back doors. You'd think it was easy to find a contemporary (but not too high-tech) stainless/galvanised external downlighter with an integral PIR sensor, but it's not. I sometimes wonder if our desire to buy quality products that are stylish as well as functional makes life too hard! Anyway, after too many trips to B&Q and far too much Googleing I think we've found what we're after, Lighting Direct's Luxembourg fitting which I think fits the remit of contemporary but not modern. I'll reserve final judgement until I open the box.

Hopefully another decision made at long last. All we need now is some power...

More emulsion

Progress has slowed down this week as the plasterer has succumbed to swine flu! Due to the credit crunch he's taken a second job as a milkman which has meant his site hours are limited, but piggy flu is an unwelcome reason for him not to be on site.

Meanwhile, and with some help from Steve & Lesley, we've made progress with more whitewash and emulsion. Ceilings in the landing, bathroom and kitchen are now painted in preparation for the electricians starting second fix on Monday. Without the kitchen inplace second fix will have to be limited in extent but nevertheless they should be able to make good progress.

Plastering seems to be on the critical path....

Emulsion

Finally, after what seems like an age, we've been able to open the pots of emulsion and start painting! Hurrah!

We're using Auro's 320 white emulsion to start with. This is their budget eco-emulsion and so far is proving to be a good buy. The fresh plaster in the master bedroom has all been whitewashed with slightly watered down paint and we've given the ceiling two additional coats of it undiluted. And the end result looks good. Tonight we also managed to get the kitchen ceiling whitewashed.

Whilst we want to go for a largely neutral paint palette using white everywhere will probably be too much. We're toying with Auros' 'Nimbus' for the bedroom walls.

Still a long way to go, especially as the plasterer has plenty more to skim and sand down before we can paint, but at least we've been able to start with an internal finish.

Veg

After what has seemed like weeks of warm dry weather, when we've had to make sure the new veg plot has been regularly watered, rain has returned this week. The upside has been that I've not had to visit the plot since last weekend.

So it was a pleasant suprise to see just how much things have grown since last weekend:
The mange tout (sugar snap peas) are continuing to crop well with enough for a few meals each week.
The first runner beans have set with plenty more flowers on the plants so looks like we'll have the first crop soon.
The two courgette plants have suddenly gone mad - last week we had a few very small courgettes on the plants which were (just) fighting off the slugs. Today I found two good sized courgettes to pick with several more following closely on behind.
The broccoli plants are getting to a good size so I must net them to prevent the birds picking the tips. I also disposed of a few slugs that had found the plants.
C's rocket has germinated well, just hope we can keep the slugs away.
A lone lollo rosso seems to have avoided the predators for now...

All in all good progress. Just think what we can do next year when we should have more time for the garden!

Thunderbugs

The western red cedar cladding has it's own natural oils that give it a 60 year lifespan, but the ultra voilet component of sunlight will degrade the colour of the wood. This is fine for the roof shingles, and it will turn a silvery colour which will help the structure settle in to it's surroundings. We don't want this to happen to the wall cladding though, especially as the north facing wall and those parts protected by overhangs will not discolour resulting in a mishmash of silver and red wood. So we've bought Osmo's natural UV protection oil to shield the cladding from the effects of ultra violet light and help maintain it's colour.

We decided to try out the UV protection oil at the weekend. Maybe it was the high humidity, or maybe it was the smell of a lovely natural oil, but very soon after starting to paint the oil onto the cladding we noticed little black flecks on the parts we'd just oiled. Weird, no sign of black flecks in the oil...and it was then we saw all the thunderbugs landing on the wet cladding, getting thoroughly stuck in the setting oil like a whole wall of prehistoric bugs in amber. There wasn't much we could do about it so we're resigned to having to sand that section of wall back and give it another coat.

We used the same oil on the front door so reckon it must've been the humid weather that brought the bugs out, so we'll just have to be careful of when we choose to oil the rest. With the final batch of cladding delivered to site today (we had a slight shortfall), we'll be leaving the oiling until it is all fixed inplace.

Guttering

With the rainharvesting system now installed there's one missing link, the guttering. This is obviously needed to collect the rainwater from the roof to supply the tank.

We've endeavoured to use natural materials wherever possible at Hillside, and in particular have tried to avoid plastics, particularly uPVC, due to their environmentally damaging nature. This is best illustrated in our sourcing of timber window frames. But there are some things, such as electrical cable, that you can't currently supply without a plastic element. Our builder thinks this is the same for guttering, with uPVC being the norm as far as he's concerned. However, we've stuck our ground and have specified Lindab galvanised steel guttering to avoid the use of plastics. Steel has the benefits of being recyclable (unlike uPVC) and is lighter and less expensive than aluminium.

On the aesthetic front, galvanised steel also adds to the contemporary look that we're after, rather than boring old black (or white, yuk!) uPVC.

With the Lindab materials now onsite all we now need is for the builder to install them so that we can start filling up the rainwater tank.

Pellets

Once the Ecoflex boiler arrived in May it was plumbed in and the shiny stainless steel flue was installed. Other than that it's sat at the back of the garage partially hidden behind piles of insulation, spare timber and random bits of unused scaffolding.

With the plastering progressing it's getting to the time of making sure we have a fuel supply setup so that we can get the boiler commissioned as soon as the radiators and other 2nd fix plumbing is complete. So I've been trying to find the 'best' suppliers.

The South West is reportedly one of the best parts of the UK to source wood pellets, with the industry taking off particularly well in Wales. I know from projects I've been involved in at work that the Welsh Assembly have made a big commitment to renewable energy, as we've designed several biomass boiler heating systems for Welsh schools. So I've not expected the sourcing to be a problem.

The key decisions that need to be balanced are ; where are the pellets sourced as we don't want large 'pellet miles', how are they delivered (not in plastic bags please!), and how much do they cost.

Thankfully we seem to have found one good supplier who ticks all these boxes. Treenergy, based in Monmouth so not too far away, can supply in either paper bags or large bulk bags that they will take reuse, and they can supply at the best price we can find. On top of this their ethical stance, and commitment to further renewables such as a CHP plant for Monmouth, is just what we want from a supplier. Sounds like it's time to get some pellets ordered.

Week off?

We've just had a week off work so chance to get a mixture of jobs done. We had hoped to be painting eco-emulsion by now but the plastering is taking longer than expected, not helped by the heatwave this week which meant it was drying out too fast.

Instead we got a range of things done including:

• We collected a load of block paviours for the drive from a friend's parents who have had a new patio laid. This helps with our use of recyced materials and is equally good for the budget!
• I installed the ducting and external pipework for the rainwater tank, and the irony of doing it during a heatwave wasn't lost on me. Still need to pull the cables for the pump and controller through, but hopefully the drawcord I've put in won't break!
• Sanded more internal doors, getting rid of the orange stain, and started stripping the island unit. We tried sanding it but decided we needed to resort to other means so have bought eco-paint stripper from the Greenshop. It has done a reasonable job so far, but with several layers of paint and varnish on the island unit it's not been straightforward and has required a lot of effort. At least we've not been asphixiated by fumes, but who knows how toxic the old paint is that we've been stripping off!
• More render painting - this time to the front of Hillside which makes it look a lot nicer!