Drying Out

No, the title does not refer to my membership of the Temperence Society, simply the long wait from getting the roof and windows fitted to allowing the house to finally dry out.

Considering that the shell of the house has been ready since October 2023, it is no surpirise that the fabric of the building was wet through. At times the lower ground floor resembled an aquarium rather than a home and I spent numerous hours sweeping out the water only for the next (very regular) deluge to fill it all up again.

Before

After

Chief amongst my concerns was that the basement slab needed to be dry in order to lay the insulation boards. Boy did that take some time!

We were able to move on aspects of the first fix, though. Neil and Nathan did the wiring and waste pipes respectively and that gave us a real sense of moving forward.

So the order of works: lay 75mm PIR insulation board to LGF; install the final waterproofing (tanking) membrane; add another 75mm of insulation board, then underfloor heating and screed.

The insulation was miles cheaper online than locally and we had 30 sheets delivered one Friday lunchtime and I spent the weekend laying it.

Insulation 1

Note the avant-garde art installation!

Of course, I was one sheet short! Having just paid £29 per sheet (with free delivery) I never thought about how much one sheet would be from Wickes. The cheapest was £44! Reduced from £63! When I later priced up the second order at B&Q (£948 online) it would have been £4000 for 30 sheets. FFS! Someone is ripping someone off here - I’m glad it wasn’t me!

After the first layer was down it was time to get in touch with Mat at Watertight Homes to come and complete the tanking. This was done in a couple of days.

Tanking

Now onto the second layer laid across the original and tapes with metallic tape across the seams.

Insulation 2

I did have some major issues with this layer as the tanking wasn’t level. This resulted in me laying, then taking up most of the boards more than once. Eventually I was happy and it was time to get in touch with the UFH company…but that’s another story.