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.

 With some of the rooms now pretty finished we are ready to prepare the floors prior to putting down the wood flooring.

To level the pug floor screed we use some latex floor levelling compound. With the underfloor heating switched on this will dry quite quickly.

 We are having wall hung toilets in the bathrooms, which means that the cisterns can be hidden in the studwork walls, saving space and keeping the lines of the bathrooms clean.

Here is the first cistern going in, with it’s blue steel framework. The frame is rated to be able to take 400lbs on the toilet, quite a heavy person! 

 Virtually all the ceilings in the house are plasterboard. After the plasterboard ceilings have been dry lined we can paint them. To protect the log walls from spatter we have covered them in black plastic sheets held up with staples.

We apply a 50% water and paint first coat and then two full strength coats after that. All the ceilings will be white as we want to combat the darker colour of the wood walls. Some of the internal walls in the log house will use log siding and some will be plasterboarded and painted to help increase the internal lighting.

 As the utility room is adjacent to the stairs from the bedrooms, we have cut a hole in the ceiling so that laundry can be dropped down without having to go down the stairs. It will land in a cupboard near the washing machine. We have to make sure that we do not enable a fire path by making sure we use a thick wooden flap for the door at the top of the chute. We will take an idea from the vacuum system and make sure the smallest part of the chute is the bit where you put things in so that if items of clothing get past that point then they will make it through. As the total length of the chute is only 18 inches, it should not be a problem.

 We are at that stage of the house where to the untrained eye nothing seems to be happening, but the house is being stuffed with wires, pipes and things to make the house “work”. Here is the foul waste pipe coming down from the upstairs bathroom, various electrical cables and mains feeds to the bathroom sinks etc. The plumbing is further complicated by the “grey water” system for the toilet flushing which will come from a header tank that the system’s pump will fill up. Once all these services are in place we can start fitting the ceilings and wall finishes. This will be a mixture of log siding on some of the internal stud walls, plasterboard on others, generally plasterboard on the ceilings but some tongue and groove in a few places too.

 The ground workers are back and we can start putting the rain water pipes in to get rid of water from the roof. However, again after much reluctance we are going to add a little something else. Watch this space

 The outside of the house is leveled up and a perforated pipe is put in at the house boundary, backfilled with 20mm rejects and then covered with Teram (geotextile membrane) to create a land drain or “French Drain” to help keep the lawn dry in heavy rains. This will be hooked up to the rain water drain and then fed into our next bit of fun, a rainwater recovery system for toilet and washing machine use.

Not very exciting but as we thought our log house would probably have a few wood offcuts left over we are fitting a wood burning stove so had to fit a chimney. This was best done before the sedum was put down to avoid walking on it.

Hope we have got it in the right place to make sure the heat is spread nicely around the lounge. The wood burner will have a pizza shelf too!