the appliance of science

We have taken the major precaution of checking the the finished floor level (FFL) is where we want it by using our laser level in conjunction with the high tech approach of standing on a step ladder to see of we can see the view we want. We want to be as low as possible so that the roundhouses bed down into the landscape however, the foreground has a wee rise in it and we agreed we wanted to see the sea horizon as well as the Paps and Islay hills. If the FFL is right then we will get the view from armchair height. Simples !

shedfuls of bad luck

We started on the big shed a good few weeks ago and have got pretty well

advanced since this early shot. Here is the ground just after we placed the drainage - made from reclaimed fish farm pipe - a good 150mm internal diameter.

The footings took ages as the ground was very wet in places and very variable - from rock to mud in a few metres - such are the perils of building on a raised beach. All the levels worked out very well though and the diagonals were within 3mm - not bad for a 6 x 4.8m shed base.

Three courses of blockwork were sufficient to get us to the right level and we backfilled from the pile of 75mm stone on the driveway with the digger. Here yet another problem struck as the digger suffered loss of hydraulic pressure and we are still waiting for the right part to sort out the problem. This is a very bad time to lose the digger as we need it each day but our friend Andy helped out with his mini-digger by finishing off the backfilling for us.

We have hand mixed about 150 batches of concrete in all for this shed with me mixing and barrowing and Jayne placing raking our and levelling. Everything is within 2mm so we are pleased with our accuracy but not our rate of progress. We had to move all the 20mm down concreting aggregate - over a tonne and a half- by hand for most of the flooring from the pile about 20m away. Double handling is tiring and a real pain. Thankfully Andy moved enough in half an hour for us to finish the strip of floor in this pic which is where we are right now. We will not get the house founds done in time at this rate and are looking to get a pan mixer in to get the main roundhouse founds and floors done.

Cold and Wet Volume 1

The turf roof on the wee shed needed a bit of watering and it's raining heavily now for the first time in a couple of weeks and enough to stop me laying blockwork on the footings for the shed/workshop. This is 6 x 4.8m. It has taken us ages to do the founds as there is groundwater seeping up through the rock and constantly filling the trenches. In one 6m length there are two 1m sections of rock with sand and silt between with beach boulders and pebbles. This is the hardest area to work on as it is so wet and the substrate is so variable. We even put in a drain under the founds! The shuttering is now off most of it and blockwork has commenced. Made a mess of a short run last evening - somehow knocked a block out of true and it set out all the others by just too much to correct on the next course -so out they came - only half a dozen but annoying. This is a peril of working late (it was 9:30 p.m.), getting tired and losing concentration. Lots of object lessons here of the more haste less speed variety. I am not really a wet trades person. We can do 30-40 batches in our wee mixer in half a day but I'm not sure I am fit enough to do that day after day. We need over 1000 mixes by the end of August and a similar number of blocks laid. That is about 60 days work in the next 100 - at my very slow pace though we will get some help from friends. Between us we got the founds within about 4mm over the 22m of footings, and the corner blocks were within 3mm on the diagonals. Still I prefer working with wood - it's easier to be accurate - and can't wait till the structure is up and watertight and we are working inside. I like joinery and electrics and plumbing.

The angel of 12v batteries was not on our side the other day as we had three flat at the same time - two on the JCB and one on the Land Rover. So we lost time there too. We are still having vehicle problems, it seems constantly. THis is the way of the self builder - everything goes wrong.

Can recommend Toolstation for a good range, keen prices and fast free delivery even to this outpost.

Now I'm not one to express my political opinions (as they are well off most people's radar) but I have just met a CANDIDATE in a parliamentary election - a real one !!!. Now the last and only time this happened was in 1979 when the Tories were trying to get Waveney Valley - one of their famous wets Jim Prior and it was really his wife and not the man himself who rolled up in his/her Range Rover to canvass. I was painting my garden gate and hence Tory fodder as I was obviously an owner occupier. This time it was the Lib Dem candidate and current MP for Argyll and Bute who was actually on Gigha on the eve of poll. Alan Reid was polite not pushy, did not directly ask for my vote, and otherwise answered my questions about a hung parliament with candour. Now there are less than 100 voters on Gigha so it is quite something for our wee island to get this individual attention. Eve of poll I'd expect him to be in Campbeltown or Lochgilphead (or other big metropolis). I am impressed that the only time since I first voted in 1974 I have actually seen a candidate on the stump and it is in the most remote place I have lived from the centre of political life in Westminster. I have met a few MPs - Michael Meacher when I was a teacher in Oldham and on strike in 1985. I also met Stephen Byers at a rally in the mid 80s (wow, what a smoooth talker and arrogant even then) when he was leader of North Tyneside council before he was an MP and Giles Radice who was my MP when I lived in County Durham. The Labour Scottish minister Des Browne came to Gigha a couple of years ago too on his summer tour of the Highlands.
Anyway we already voted last week as we have postal votes.

Managed to get 20 bags cement in back of Ford Focus estate as the Cabstar is awaiting a new starter motor

free bird

Our friends Helen and Gary had the chance to take a micro-light flight around Gigha just before they got married yesterday. Helen took a a few pictures of our plot and here they are. We have moved on quite a lot since.

This picture shows the plot in centre foreground with Ardailly Mill down by the sea bottom right and Mill Loch central with the east side of the island and Sound of Gigha in the background

Ardailly is in the foreground with the track curving round to the plot and the Mill top right

Our layout shows here with the wee shed adjacent to the track with its turf roof, the driveway flanked by beach boulders stands out and the big shed footings to the right hand side of the large aggregate pile. Stock piles to the left hand fenceline of the plot. Our trial excavations for the roundhouses show exactly where they will be. Yellow blob = non functioning JCB. The full story of our dealings with second hand JCB salesmen will be detailed shortly - once we have checked the wording for any defamatory comments.

Here is a pic of the happy couple too.....

sounds like a nail run along a comb

Down the plot today after finishing off the concreting we had shuttered up the mixer was cleaned and washed. Just as I turned it off the strangest sound came from the rushes below the plot between us and the sea. Sounds like a nail drawn across a comb very slowly. Quite loud and so distinctive - the corncrake is pretty rare and lovely to hear. Its not even common in the Hebrides - a stronghold. I have heard only one before on Gigha two years ago, so to have one just 50 metres away is quite something. Later we refloated the cat on today's spring tide and put it back on the mooring with Micky and Tracy's help. The very low tidal range on Gigha means that even on a Spring tide if it is a high pressure system then the high tide is depressed so we were lucky today.

To see some great pics try Steve Round's website http://www.stevenround-birdphotography.com

embodied energy

Today we laid some concrete down for the first time - apart from the very small pad foundations for the wee shed. This is now functioning well. The two gutters are draining away runoff very well - in the end we finished them with epoxy as a waterproof sealer which also binds the roof membrane. However this is a digression. Despite the fact that we got rained off at about 1700 BST we managed about 30 loads today. This is about 2.4 cubes of C35 mix. So roughly 80 litre mixes. This means we will need to do over a thousand by the time we have got all the concreting done - only 970 to go then. This means about 25 days mixing and laying concrete in the next few months. I mixed and carted and J placed.

We were late onsite too after blethering with Neil and Malcolm at the fish farm then Lindsay and Karen whilst on our way. Blethering is a Gigha pastime. A good blether is a part of island life. This deflective behaviour was because we both had little energy this morning - neither of us sleeping at all well - J woke me up with her amazing snoring - a Bach fugue at 3 a.m.I think it was, but I was going to stay awake for two reasons. One was running through the whole build logistics in my head and the other simply arthritis. So we ended up knackered at normal getting up time and were very slothful in getting moving. Eventually we did arrive down the plot with a two hour window before the rain was due in. In fact we had about 4 hours actually concreting - after we had relevelled the shuttering with the laser level. We eventually got a better than 5mm differential over a 10 metre run so less than 1% out. This is a relearning process for me as it is a long time since I have done much concreting and a new skill for Jayne who actually proved expert at laying, inserting the reinforcing and tamping off. J has a good eye. There was no runoff from the stuff we had done by the time it came on to rain so it must have been level. Thankfully it was light rain and the concrete had mostly gone off so no risk of wash outs.

We are using a lot of concrete in the build as all the floor areas are solid (with 100mm PI foam beneath). This is to create a good sized thermal mass inside the highly insulated structure to store heat. Also it will heat up more slowly and there be less chance of overheating in high summer. Concrete and glass are not the most highly rated eco-materials. We have had to compromise. There is a vast amount of energy used in their production so our house will have a high embodied energy inasmuch as we are laying 90 cubes of concrete in all and have a lot of glass to optimise passive solar gains. Mind you, in energy use the house will have very low energy consumption as the space heating is wood burning, cooking by wood range in winter and hot water from solar and wood range. We are pretty committed to seeking out cost effective LED lighting too.

So despite our own energy levels being pretty much on the low side today we got about a third of the footings done - but in high energy materials and hard graft in mixing and laying.

bath time

Some friends of ours (who live just down the road - you know who you are) tend to catch up on their day whilst sharing a bath once the kids are in bed. We are only having one bath in Tigh Cruinn but two showers, and we wanted a freestanding thing with a wee table to hold the odd glass of wine or G&T next to it and space for two. We found just the right thing whilst hunting for bathroom stuff at the end of January during our Celtic Connections break in Glasgow.

However it was the most expensive bath we saw. Now Jayne likes sloshing around in water quite a lot and a hot soak does my knees good, as well as the arthritis. Should we go for this lovely feature even though it was over our budget ? Well we did - firstly, we had a very good discount and managed to source all the other bathroom items very reasonably so we are only £200 over our total bathroom budget anyway. We also came in over £500 under budget on our underfloor insulation and have pretty much been under budget on most other things so we did go over just this once. I'll have to set the drainage outlet and waste pipe into and under the cement floor which means locating the bath position exactly even before the house is built.

Jayne is very pleased with "her" bath and shows the brochure to everyone who calls. The freestanding tap mount was over £300 so I'm making one up from a lump of wood - probably burr oak - net saving £275.

Any thought over going over budget brings me out in a cold sweat - that and the logistics of getting the substructure built and the kit installed, so it was a major achievement for me to agree to the bath. Anyway here it is. Our floor will probably be multicolour Brazilian slate which we have already sourced too. Yes- we have put the cart before the horse but got some good deals by buying in the retail slump in the recession and during the January sales. We did have a hiatus whilst waiting for the digger to be repaired so have advanced other tasks.

By the way we'd recommend both the bathroom suppliers we used in Glasgow. Both are on Hillington Industrial estate - Try Crest bathrooms and Scope bathroom interiors - both have given us excellent service and no hard sell. Funnily enough the sales lady in Crest used to stay at Pininver on her holidays near Campbeltown with the now retired former Gigha nurse - another strange connection. Frances is a field archaeologist and has done some great survey work on Gigha where every stone big enough to trip over has some significant history attached to it. Scotland is big enough to be independent (if it wishes) and small enough for people to know each other or have friends over long distances such is the network of small communities. Scots are rightly proud of being outward looking and welcoming. Every visitor survey that is done for the tourist industry highlights the Scottish welcome and friendliness- along with the stunning scenery and history.

mud, mud, glorious mud

The north east corner of the plot is on schists and has some clay underneath. It is very wet and yet this is where we are building our shed. The shed needs to go up very soon as it also includes the hardstanding and parking area. There is a culvert which runs water right on to the wet bit and this has a drain to take this away round the edge of the plot. The drain was too shallow as the mini digger could not dig into the schists though there was a decent fall. We also need to level off for the footings for the big shed. Today, after digging out for the duct for our mains water pipe and phone line across the track about 100m away on the croft boundary, I thought I'd have a go with the JCB. Now trenching across the track was wet enough. After backfilling it was somewhat wobbly. So, in the full knowledge that even in 4WD the machine would probably struggle I managed to get the JCB on to the wet bit. Two hours later and it looks like a mudbath and definitely a brilliant spot for some mud wrestling for those who indulge this particular passion. I managed to get stuck on several occasions though the new channel is finally dug into the bedrock about 300mm deeper than it was. The footings are not dug as before this can be done the drains need fixing and the waste backfilling. We are going to use 200mm old fish farm pipe which has an internal diameter which allows conventional 160mm pipe to sleeve it for joining bits up. Have also fettled two rodding chambers ready for installation. Just in case we are also putting in a line of wavy coil - seen in the foreground. I was going to make it into a full french drain but now its deep enough we'll pipe the flow from the culvert runoff and the parallel run of wavy coil field drain will handle any other seepage so we'll just backfill with what's there.

Problem is now that we won't be able to get the JCB on to this area until it really dries out so we'll see what its like after the next few days which should be drying weather. Chances are we'll need to use a tracked mini-digger to backfill and excavate and level the footing runs so I can get on with concreting those and do the blockwork for the shed.

After that the problem will be solved as we will level out the large pile of crusher run in this pic to give is a solid working surface for the drive and hardstanding. After the very dry but cold winter there always was the chance of a very wet Spring and that is what we have had.

turf

The small shed at 3.6 x 2.4 m is just about complete. Made up as a prefabricated kit the sections were taken down to the plot on the Cabstar before assembly on pad foundations - nine concrete filled sections of reclaimed fish farm pipe - 35cm diameter. The roof trusses were prefabricated in 150x50 C16 timber - somewhat over the top but designed to take the very heavy weight of a wet turf roof.

We finally completed turfing the shed roof this morning. After a rainlashed night the ground was pretty wet but we still managed to cut the last couple of square metres, trim them off and get them on the roof. The weather has made it a bit of a stop go process this last week. We put the edge trim on this afternoon and only need to line the two drain hoppers to seal the whole thing.

The roof is the prototype for the big shed following next and then the house. The specification is 18mm OSB over the trusses, then a woven polyester/PVC pond/reservoir liner as the waterproof membrane. We have placed a wool mulch mat over this to retain moisture and provide nutrients as it rots down over the next couple of years. Over that is a layer of coir fibre biodegradable mat. This is to prevent the turfs from slipping on the 26° roof pitch and bind the roots of the turf layer as it grows. The pebbles allow runoff to drain to the gutter hopper.

The turfs are hand cut for this roof but the others will be machine cut. These ones are a bit more variable in thickness and are taken from the actual footprint of the smaller roundhouse. We should have some lovely meadow flowers - tormentil, eyebright, harebells and the like on the roof this summer.