We have recently discovered that it is very important to make sure that we know where the underfloor heating pipes cut across joists. We will be fitting solid oak floors in most rooms and these will be secret nailed into the joists. So there is the risk that an underfloor pipe could get nailed if we don’t know exactly where these cut outs are.

 Sometimes it is not possible to see where the cut out’s in the joists are once the latex has been applied. So using the wall faces as a datum, we now make a drawing of the pipe cut out’s prior to latexing and then mark the positions with a permanent marker on the latex once it has dried. We also took the precaution of recording all the pipe layouts on camera before we put the pug screed in so this is helpful too for the first floors where we forgot to make a drawing in this way.

 We have constructed a brick and block pier either side of the entrance door to the log house, and now we have time to get round to making the deck that will go here. Some treated 8 x 2 timbers are used to make a base frame. These sit on a plastic waterproof membrane to avoid dampness from the brickwork feeding into the timbers.

We then fit the deck planks, remembering to create a removable cut out round the base of the big post, as this has an adjuster at the bottom that will need access from time to time as the house settles.

 To protect the decking material we put some plywood over it until all the work is finished.