Day 64: Ladders on the Roof

Not much has happened over the summer, and the few things that went on will be reported on in due time. When the previous blog post on Our House went out, we were already moving house, and subsequently it's been a very busy time catching up with all the things that had to stay behind due to the construction. The photo above shows the final stage of the work on the chimney. It is a legal requirement in Finland to have ladders going up to the chimney, which are easily accessible from the outside. These were installed on Day 64, i.e. on Monday, 22nd April 2013. Yes, it took me a while to put that on the blog, and the photo was taken in July, in case you are wondering where all the snow's gone. Stay tuned, there'll be more.

Photo: Thomas Ulich.

Day 63: Chimney Wrapped Up

The waterproofing of the roof after construction of the chimney remained incomplete, but immediately the following day (17th April, Day 63), the entire chimney was clad in metal.

The photo above shows the base of the chimney in more detail. The sheets overlap with the surround on the outside such that water flows from the walls onto the roof without any chance to penetrate.

The whole installation is completed by a little roof on top of the chimney, preventing rain and snow to enter into the chimney and flood the sitting room. Note also that the edge around the chimney pipe is folded up so that water accumulating around it cannot flow into it. Smartly done, and it looks smart, too. The only thing missing now is a permanent access ladder and platform for cleaning and inspection.

Day 62: Waterproofing a Roof

There's seemingly some magic to closing a hole in a roof. Once you cut a hole in the roof, the roof area above the hole acts as a collecting area for water, which then goes straight into – in this case – the gap between chimney and roof. How to close the gap reliably?

First a surround for the chimney base was installed (17th March, Day 62) in such a way, that its edge is under an additional sheet of roof cover. You can see the lower-right corner of the roofing in the photo above.

Thus the water coming from above, will flow onto the chimney surround.  The surround itself is shaped from a single sheet of metal such that there are no gaps and no seams, and the water is guided away from the chimney to flow down in adjacent channels. The photo shows the area just above the base of the chimney.

Here's a view of the entire chimney surround. All screws come with a rubber base, which locks them to the sheet metal in a water-tight fashion.

A small gap between chimney wall and the vertical bits of the surround remains. Thus water can still enter, but in far less quantities than before. This will be fixed another day, and for now the chimney had to be wrapped in some tarp again.

Day 61: Chimney Reaching Full Height

On 16th April (Day 60) in the early morning we began the work on the chimney. A hole was cut into the metal roof, and then the chimney was brought up to its final height. That meant carrying a lot of bricks and mortar up a ladder, but by midday it was done and it looked great. The picture above shows the makeshift scaffolding put into place as a work platform. The platform then grew with the chimney by adding more palettes.

The second photo shows the chimney from above, looking towards the access road to our yard. Unfortunately the person supposed to make a metal cover for the chimney and thereby closing the roof again, didn't have time on the same day, so I had to wrap the hole with some tarp in order to make it survive the following night without water damage. It worked well, but that was due to the lucky fact that the night turned out to have remained dry.

Day 57: Wrapping the Chimney

After the plaster on the chimney under the roof was dry, it was time to wrap it in special fire-proof mineral wool. This is done to prevent the surroundings under the roof to get too hot, should the chimney itself get too hot. Two 50-mm thick layers are wrapped around and secured with wire.

Since the first set of mineral wool sheets are only just tall enough to cover the area to be filled with Ekovilla insulation, I put another set above the first.

This is where the chimney will eventually break through the roof. The roof is made up of large sheets of thin metal, which are pressed into a shape resembling tiles. One can clearly see the shape from underneath.

Unfortunately, it is really difficult to take pictures of this, but during Days 56 and 57 (29th and 30th March), the rest of the family have joined me at the site and began the process of cleaning Our House, beginning with an overall hoover session. Cleaning has started – surely that must mean we are close to moving in: 17 days to go!

Day 56: Bridging the Loft

On 29th March, it was time again for us to make some improvements. The "floor" of the loft, as per standard delivery, is a mesh of planks and bars criss-crossing each other. Below these planks, and in between the bars, there's a 100 mm thick layer of mineral wool, under which there's a folio acting as vapour barrier. The folio also makes the house airtight, which aides insulation. Below the folio are the electrical cables and then the ceiling panelling. Thus it is fairly dangerous to step onto the yellow mineral wool, since one might just crash down into the house. The photo above shows the first planks crossing the loft, onto which longitudinal plants will be placed to create a walkway.

During the next phase, paper-based, insulating wool (Ecovilla) will be blown across the entire floor, which will have two side-effects: first, it will obscure the mesh of planks, making it a rather tricky guessing game as to where one can step safely. Secondly, the insulation effect is hinged on the fluffiness of the wool, and once it is compressed by stepping on, the effect is greatly compromised at that location. In order to provide access for jobs like cabling the TV aerial, we were advised to build a bridge about 65 cm high across the entire loft. Fortunately, there was enough left-over wood from the construction. The second photo shows the near-finished main walkway. Now one can move safely across the entire length of the house without stepping on insulation.

Finally, I extended the accessible area towards and around the chimney, just in case we need to get there when finishing it, and also to allow the chimney to be inspected anytime later on.

Day 55: Santa-Vision

While on Tuesday, 26th March (Day 52), it was too cold to open the roof and bring the chimney up to its final height, we did some preparations. Planks were put on the roof to allow for safely climbing up and down. Later on a level palette will serve as a platform to put bricks and mortar on. Our plan to continue the next day failed, since it was snowing and looked all too grim to work on a roof, even though temperature-wise it would've been ok. In the end, Wednesday afternoon the weather was just brilliant.

The decision was made to bring the chimney up to the maximum height possible inside the roof, without cutting the roof open, on Thursday, 28th March (Day 55). This can be done whatever the weather, and it is becoming increasingly urgent, because any day now the next team might arrive and blow a layer of Ekovilla (paper-based, insulating wool) into the loft. When this happens, the chimney must be as high as possible, so that it can be reached from the outside, since we will not be able to walk in the loft anymore. Once compressed by stepping on, the wool will become useless.

Santa-Vision: this is what Santa will see while descending down our chimney to deliver presents. I don't know how he squeezes himself through such tight places, but I know that we won't be getting any presents in the future with diameters larger than 180 mm!

Day 34: Chimney and Shell

On Monday and Tuesday (Days 32 & 33) I was travelling, and thus the work on the fireplace continued without my help. On these two days, the chimney was built and brought through the ceiling of the living room into the loft. Also, the door for the oven was installed. The photo above is taken at lunch break of Day 34 (Wednesday, 27th Feb), after we built also the first layers (1–11) of the shell. The shell will later be covered by plaster, which will then be painted.

The next photo shows how far we got today, and after cleaning up the place. Clearly visible is the mineral wool insulation, which is a fireproof shield between layers of different types of brick. Tomorrow, most likely no work will be done, but on Friday the brickwork will be complete.

The loft is accessible through a tiny door in the front wall of the house. The door is just big enough to squeeze through, and really only meant for maintenance access. Here's the view inside the loft towards the exit. The white pipes are part of the ventilation system.

The chimney is protruding from the ceiling's insulation by five layers. It is closed for now by a makeshift plug of mineral wool, in order to prevent cold air from the loft to flow into the house, and thereby not only cool the inside, but also hamper with the drying process of the mortar of the chimney. Now we need to wait for period of two days, during which there's no snow fall or rain, and during which it is reasonably warm. We will have to open up the roof by taking two panels off, then bring the chimney up to its final height, and then close the roof and seal it around the chimney. This can hopefully be done some time in March or April.