New workshop build, with a difference!

[andyacg]

i wouldnt worry about using a euro cylinder. not many opportunist tea leafs will carry a "bump" key. rather than worry about high end locks just get a large dog.

 

[xy mosian]

Hello Chris,

I assume you meant, ‘send back the hinges.’ And this from a man with a massive vocabulary of Dutch - all six words. :wink:

Unfortunately, they were already fitted by the time that I read your post, but many thanks for the link. They look the bee’s knees, but it would have cost £450 for two sets of double doors. :shock: That is a tad too expensive for me.

Hello andyacg,

Thanks for the tip.....now if only I had a ‘local’ anything; just a minute, that why I moved here - to get away from the rat race.

However, whilst searching for the ‘spaniels, I came across a post on here about this very subject. It seems that a lot of pros don’t think that much of them, especially on wooden doors. Warping being one problem, the other, is the security of cylinder locks in general.
The preferred option being deadlocks top and bottom, with a sashlock in the middle, all using the same key, for convenience. I had better watch out as Dibs was one who disapproved of cylinder locks.

Whilst waiting for the inevitable filler to dry (a telling indictment of my wood mangling skills) we worked on trying to get as much liner and underlay out of the now defunct pond as was possible. Given that there is a mix of soil, pebbles and now, a thick bed of grass....Ok, it got away from us. We tried forking the liner, but with so much dross in the bottom, it was impractical.

The object being, to fill it in and create a mini woodland walk with bulbs and hellibores, etc.
The pond is/was 8m x 5.3m x 1m deep. It occurred to us that, on its own, it was larger than our old garden. :shock:

Whilst trying to fork the liner, unfortunately, Diane came up with a frog on the fork...oops. :-&
And this after ejecting at least a dozen frogs and a few toads.

Being me, a tune from the seventies came to mind.....by Lindisfarne.

So, all together.....



‘Frog on the tine is all mine, all mine.’

Sorry, I couldn’t resist it.
I suspect that I will have to explain that one to Kirk.

TTFN.......Dick.

Where is the smiley for inwardly groaning when you need it.
xy

 

[flying haggis]

Being me, a tune from the seventies came to mind.....by Lindisfarne.

So, all together.....



‘Frog on the tine is all mine, all mine.’

Sorry, I couldn’t resist it.


My sort of humour =D>

 

[kirkpoore1]

Dick, when you go frog gigging in your parts, do you need a fishing license, or a hunting license? Because in some places it's one thing, and in other places it's the other.

Kirk

 

[No skills]

i wouldnt worry about using a euro cylinder. not many opportunist tea leafs will carry a "bump" key. rather than worry about high end locks just get a large dog.

No bump key needed, hammer and screwdriver or bolster chisel (both for the well tooled scrote ). Cant agree enough about the large dog tho, just make sure its trained only to take food from you and the other half.

This is a lovely lovely build, dont spoil it with rubbish locking gear.

 

[Cegidfa]

Morning andyacg,

In this ongoing debate about security, there is one thing to remember. For the last year, the only security has been a lift off wooden frame with plastic fixed to it. :shock: :shock: :wink:

Hi xy,

You are far too sofisticated for this column........but I like you. (for the younger amongst you, this is a reference to the late Dick Emery). :shock: :lol: :lol:

Hello flying haggis,

When it comes to humour, I think that xy would regard us as bottom dwellers. Well, we were in a pond at the time..... I can hear xy fiercely sighing as I write. :lol: :lol:

Hello Kirk,

Now there’s a change; I had to look up gigging. :-& :-& :-& Need a licence, I should think/hope that it is illegal over here. We need our frogs to fight the army of slugs and such in the garden.

Hello No skills,

Thank you for the kind words. As it happens, it would be cheaper to use three mortice locks than one multi lock. Not to mention, no routing. :wink:

I have now got two coats of paint on the doors and frame, and the glass has arrived. Typical of me, I forgot to mark both doors for relative position so that the keep can be fitted in the right place. :roll:
So they will have to be hung yet again...doh. Yesterday I fitted the the lower chord 50x50 to the other overhang, ready for the 9mm ply cladding. I do wonder whether I should have bothered with this process, but it gives the overhang some 'substance.' Any views out there on this?

TTFN....Dick.

 

[dlowry_uk]

Hi Dick,
I'll be starting my build soon, and have a couple of questions about building the wall framing. I see you used a Makita impact driver. What model was it, and was it much better than using a cordless drill/driver? I'm baulking a bit at the cost for something I may not use much afterwards, but with a 5m x 4m frame, I'd consider it if it really makes life a lot easier I'll also be on the lookout for a Festool saw/guiderail kit, as thats something I will definitely use afterwards.

Secondly, how did you fix the studs - screwed through the top/bottom plates into the stud ends, or skew-screwed in the other direction?

Finally, I'm awed by the job you've done on the workshop, and I'm going to shamelessly copy a lot of your methods =D>

Regards
Drew

 

[Cegidfa]

Hello Drew,

Did you get my return PM, or did I not press enough buttons? :roll:
I bought the 14.4v BTD130F impact driver and the BHP343 drill driver as a set.
It’s very handy to have one ready to pre drill some holes when required.

If you have never used an impact driver, you are in for a shock. Boy, are they efficient! :shock:
They do require a small learning curve, as they are brutally fast, but one learns to ‘feather’ the trigger. After using one and getting comfortable, you will never go back to a drill/driver - they are so pedestrian. You do need to press into the screw more firmly, as the vibrations will make it cam out.

As to the Festool, you will wonder how you ever managed before. They are a dream to use, and you will soon realise why they cost so much - they are just so much better engineered. Do get the two clamps that are an optional extra. I bought the ratchet set. For board that is flat, the guide rail will stick fast. It requires an act of faith to believe that it won’t move. But, for warped board, definitely use them.

For the studs, I screwed through the plates (two per stud), far more efficient than skew screwing. Make up the frames on the concrete base - Jack up the first on spare 4 x 2, then build the rest off the completed ones. It’s kinder on the back. This process goes amazingly fast, and gives one a real boost.

Feel free to copy our methods. They in turn, are mostly from the TRADA manual on timber frame building. The rest are from the ‘ how the hell are we two going to get that 40kg lump up onto the roof’ school of thought. At this point one turns to the ‘McLuma’ (Chris) philosophy of ‘everything is possible.’

Good luck with the project...Onwards and upwards.

Regards...Dick.

 

[dlowry_uk]

Hello Dick,
Yes I did get your PM, many thanks. I'm trying to source the tools in the UK, as they are WAY more expensive in France. Factoring out the exchange rate, major brand power tools here are about 50% more expensive. Its generally much cheaper to pay the delivery charges from the UK, even for heavy items. Not many UK suppliers deliver to mainland Europe, but thankfully Axminster does, and they carry a pretty comprehensive Festool range. I'm getting a kit with saw, guiderails and vacuuum, a driver/drill kit similar to yours, and a few other odds and ends. Scary for the bank balance, but I generally justify such things by comparing how much it would cost to pay for someone else to do the work..

Regards
Drew

 

[Cegidfa]

Hi folks,

Ok, so fitting doors and hardware is patently not my forte, it being nearly a month since the last update.

Everything that can foul up did! To fit the hinges, I used the Dremel with a baby router base to cut the depth accurately. Then the incline was cut to reduce the hinge gap to about 2mm.
I should mention that prior to fitting the hinges, whilst waiting for the delivery of hardware, I foolishly painted the doors and fitted the windows...what a dope. My impatience will be the death of me.
This meant that we were struggling with over 50kg per door, which is not easy for us. In the end, having had the doors on and off a few times for hinge standoff adjustment, they were looking ok. Now to mark and fit the Chub security bolts. A simple job; put some masking tape on the door frame, and operate the lock, drill the 16mm hole, and fit the keep. The door now rattles about so much that the gasketing won’t compress sufficiently. So, plug hole and re-drill with a 13mm bit - good fit now. So much for the instructions. Now for the bottom set. At this point I must have unwittingly swapped my head for a cabbage. :shock: I pulled the doors to, against a block of wood, marked and drilled the ‘now’ 13mm hole. Does it fit..does it heck? I now assume that it needs to move outwards (without checking) and trim the holes back to no avail...err, perhaps it needed to go right or left? I fitted some tape to the hole and gently marked the position, and realised that it needed to move to the left a bit. It now fits like a p.... in a bucket. Excuse my factory language. So I now have two holes in the oak sill that are too large. I must point out that at this stage I hadn’t fitted the door stops.....don’t ask why. So I set to and milled some oak into the desired size and pushed it against the 'loosely' locked doors, only to find out that that they were way out of line with each other at the bottom. At this point I decided that it was high time to refit the head.
Then, I made two plates out of stainless steel to cover the now, vast chasms.
I had previously bought some brass pins, and these were fitted to hold the oak against the doors tightly, with Diane pushing from the outside. Use the same procedure to mark and drill two 13mm holes. This time, the procedure worked and the doors lock with no rattling at all. The stop was then moved out 3mm to allow for the gasket,
and the rest of the stops were fitted.

The next day, it having rained overnight, we found that water had run down the door and blown under (and this is the sheltered end). It was then that I thought that maybe, I should have fitted a deflector with a drip groove. So, I set to and manufactured two and pinned and glued them on, having removed the paint that I had so carefully applied. :evil:

The lower chord cladding has now been fitted and painted, so we will now move the scaff. back against the end ready for fitting the upper covers.

The moral of this story is, never leave home wearing a cabbage, instead of your head.

Regards......Dick.

 

[Charlie Woody]

Glad to hear from you again Dick, I was only wondering last night how you were getting on. Sorry to hear about the "challenges" of fitting the doors, but it was worth is as they look good so well done.

 

[kirkpoore1]

Dick:

I'm sorry to hear you had so many problems. I wonder whether, instead of struggling with heavy doors, you could have made a mockup door edge, using the same measurements, and fitted that in place to get all your holes drilled correctly before actually mounting the door itself.

Why did you have the doors open outward? For that size of building, I would have thought having them open inward would have been a more typical choice.

Nice work. Good luck on the next stage.

Kirk

 

[Cegidfa]

Hello Charlie,

Gosh, it’s nice to be missed - I could get used to this. :wink:
I think that you have raised an interesting point. The door design couldn’t be any more simple, yet you find it pleasing. Do we sometimes try too hard when it comes to design?

Hi Kirk,

Yes, a storey pole, or rod, as I think they are called over here would have made life easier.
The reality is that I just wasn’t thinking straight. Combine this with impatience and a bad memory and elevated male chickens will surely follow. :shock:

I have never been ‘typical’ in my life, always the awkward sod. The W/S may be large, but with all the machines and a construction area, the space just gets eaten up. Thus it was decided to have the doors so that they could be hooked open outside, both for ventilation and moving long/large pieces in and out. It will be interesting to see if the Dominos hold up as a construction method for 50kg of finished door.

At this point, as the section is called ‘past mistakes’ as well, I ought to ‘fess up to the other, cough....design features of the doors.
Having fitted the glass using the butyl (now non removable) I was measuring up for the glazing bars and thought that 7mm was a bit thin. This meant that the outside ledge was 13mm wide. They should have been two 10mm widths...What a dipstick. So I now have to fit very thin but tall bars. Drilling pilot holes for the fixings was not easy, even with a drill press. I had some long steel roundhead pins, so they were chopped off and the point removed to stop splitting. This worked well, but the hammer was laying on the glass on a sheet of folded paper, finishing with a pin punch......Remove the paper...several scratches on the glass, too deep to polish out....Words fail me. :evil: :evil:
At this point tradition says that the pin ends should be touched in with an oil based paint.
Do I want to drive 20 odd miles to get a paint that I don’t normally like using - so I filled the holes and now rust is permeating at several positions. To add further insult, Diane then reminded me that we had a can of eggshell paint for the bathroom hot tank doors...I want to cry. I now have the joyous task of trying to winkle out the filler, dob in some paint and then replace the filler...Oh, deep joy.

Just when I thought that it was safe to enter the W/S again, I found rain over one side of the left hand door sill. The butyl seal had let by on the upper left hand panel because we hadn’t pressed the glass hard enough to fully seal. If you remember the glass fitting saga on the round window, we warmed the mastic using the underfloor heating in the conservatory, and then did a ritual dance together. Will I ever learn. Luckily, the other three panels have a good seal. So we will wait for the water to dry out and try to refinish the outside. I should have listened to Dibs’ prophetic words when he said that he added a silicone seal to his windows.......
We were just carried away with the success of the first window. :roll:

The only good thing about all this is that the next set of doors will be the most used ones. So hopefully we, that is, I, will have made enough mistakes so that the next time things will go more smoothly.

A thoroughly chastened faux wood mangler. And to think that you all thought that I knew what I was doing.... :-" :-" ](*,) ](*,) :sign3:

Regards...Dick.

 

[Cegidfa]

Hi folks,

Just a small, between showers, update.
We have managed to cut the hole and foam round the ring, using the same method as last time. At the moment, we have clad about one third of the way up the ring, but rain stopped play.

In the absence of any progress, I thought that you might be interested in the bathroom refurb that we did before the workshop. Typically, I forgot to record the ‘before'.

We wanted to make it warm and cosy, so we started off sticking 70mm of celotex to the two outside walls. Before ever embarking on this, it is wise to have lived in a house long enough to be familiar with it’s idiosyncrasies. That is to say, if the walls are ever damp, don’t do it, as the brickwork will deteriorate if the moisture can’t escape inwards. This happens in our bedroom, and the first thing that we have to do is repoint the end of the house, and then see if that will cure it.

Because the bathroom is an add-on to a 1½ height house, the roof impinges into the room.
This means that a shower built into the corner will have a low ceiling. To limit the damage to my head, I built a stud wall 300mm away from the sloping wall and filled it with fibreglass insulation. This has given a pretty good u-value to the west wall, which gets all the bad weather. Then, another stud wall was built out to encase the shower, and create a cupboard for the hot tank and solar water controls. The whole area was then clad in 12mm Hardiebacker board which is tough and waterproof.

Next, we built more studding on the other wall to give us a recess for a mirror, and to place things. And of course, to give some interest to a flat wall. The space was used to run the piping and was filled with insulation, on the premise that every little helps.

Then we had the joyous task of tiling the shower and one wall. I should point out that the shower is 1500 x 900, and will be used as a steam room as well.
This necessitated building a stud wall down to the shower top, to contain the steam.

As the bathroom floor was lower than the hall, the difference was built up using Jumpax, a board system that reduces noise transmission and also evens out floor ‘fluctuations'.
The vinyl floor was laid and then we fitted the toilet and basin.

Shower corner with initial insulation.

Shower recess and solar tank.

Jumpax flooring.

The opening looks a little bare in this picture; we now have a vase of flowers that keep the fish company and fills the space.

Tiling this lot was a right job as the tiles were not all square, flat or all the same size.
And this after sending back half of the packs - they weren’t cheap either.
The company weren’t happy either because their entire stock was in the same state.

Ok, this should stop you getting bored for a while.....maybe.

Regards...DIck.

 

[kirkpoore1]

Nice looking bathroom, Dick. But, why do you have that big screen TV next to the toilet?

Seriously, though, no cabinets for towels & such? You've got lots of floor space.

I like the tile stripe going up the wall.

Kirk

 

[Cegidfa]

At last,

The cladding is finally finished. (hammer) (hammer)

There is just the matter of finishing the bargeboard filling and painting.
I say filling, the boards were butted together and glued with dominos. Then we had torrential rain: I thought that gaps appeared as a result of drying and shrinking. #-o
I seem to have the ability to reverse building science...why do I get the unwanted abilities, as opposed to something useful? :roll:

The window circle has now had it’s outer ring pinned and glued on, so tomorrow I will be routing the curve over. Then the DG panel will be fitted to the frame. Having had the door panels leak, we will use the same technique as before - doing Zorba’s dance on the heated floor. The first window has never leaked, but now, all four door panels have. :evil: :evil:
This means that we will have to remove the doors and furniture, and use the same technique.......oh joy.

Hello Kirk,

The idea is to sit on the ‘throne’ with a mirror, this worked well until I watched The Killing - in Danish, with sub titles...... :shock:
‘No cabinets’... they will be fitted on the wall opposite the television. But there is the small matter of finishing the workshop to make them in. Then there is the matter of making a door......one has to whistle if we have company, but my daughter says that doors are for wimps. It certainly sorts the naturalists from the naturists....

It doesn’t show in the pic, but the stripes are composed of small individual irridescent tiles that look lovely on a sunny day.

Regards...Dick.

 

[kirkpoore1]

Dick, the shop clapboards looks good. How much interior work are you going to do after the window goes in? Have you started on the electrical work? Can you do it yourself, or are you required to use an electrician?

Also, I think for Halloween you need to get a picture of a giant eye and put it up over the window.

One last question on the bathroom: What's up with the water heater? I thought it was only us d*mn-the-environment-just-keep-it-cheap Americans who haven't gone to on-demand water heaters. (And, by the way, when I changed out my water heater last year, I checked prices and there was no way, during the lifetime of the heater, that an on-demand heater would ever have paid for itself.) Or maybe I've been reading too much German propaganda.

Kirk

 

[Cegidfa]

Hello Kirk,

Thanks for that. The inside will have all the stud bays stuffed with fibreglass and then clad in 12mm ply. This will act as the frame stiffener (err, the ply, not the fibreglass) that I haven’t got on the outside. It will also make hanging cupboards easier, if I forget where the studs are.
I will do the electrical work myself, in fact, I should have done it as soon as the walls were clad in insulation. It would have saved running an extension lead every time I need power.
Don’t get me started on certification. :evil: After the abortion that the so called electricians made of our conservatory, and certified it, :twisted: :twisted: ( that I had to redo as it was illegal) I have no faith.
And to add insult to injury, they were Trustmark registered as well. I wouldn’t let them put a plug on....grrrr. See the disgrace below - and note that the bare cable would have been directly covered in render, so that the strong alkalai in the concrete could eat away at the PVC...nice. Not.

Typically, I forgot to take an after pic. Suffice it to say that I double set some more conduit to fit between the crudely hacked off end and the socket, as it should have been. Bare cable buried in plaster hasn't been recommended since I was an apprentice using the 14th edition of the electrical regulations (we are now on the 17th edition). Cowboys...pah. And to think that certification was supposed to stop the wearing of chaps and spurs.....

As for Halloween, it would be a great idea, apart from the fact that only we would see it. The joy of a 100m drive with a curve, and a single track road that goes nowhere.
My old house had a drive that was 3 feet long from the council pavement to the front door; now there it might have worked.

What’s up with the water heater? Perhaps you should try reading the British propaganda instead. :wink: The 300ltr tank is fed by the evacuated tubes in the pic below. The (German)LPG boiler hasn’t been used since March (except for a few odd days of torrential rain). It won’t be needed until November. And any sunny days in the winter will top up the bottom of the tank, thus leaving the boiler with far less work to do...He said, wearing his ecosmug hair shirt and non cow oriented footwear. :roll: whilst eating his bowl of muesli. :shock: :wink:

The on-demand boiler system is known over here as a combi boiler. The principle sounds good, but as all water heaters have to be be condensing boilers over here, they will never be run long enough to achieve condensing mode, and therefore be far less efficient (which was the whole point of the design). :roll:
This means that there will be a whole series of draw offs with the leftover water getting cold, and the boiler firing at max every time...this is not good for the long term health of the boiler, or one's pocket. As opposed to, perhaps, two one hour long firings a day to heat a tank, during which condensing mode will be achieved and make the boiler more efficient to run. We only need to run our boiler once a day, ever. And that’s not from eight in the morning to five at night, either, before you pull my other leg.

Regards...Dick.

 

[kirkpoore1]

Thanks, Dick. It sounds like you know what you're doing on the electrical so you won't be at the mercy of others. (Well, except the inspector, of course.) I wired my basement shop and some extra stuff in my garage, but my wife made me use a pro for the shop--"I don't want you burning the house down!". He was quite good, but way underbid the job, even when I paid him $400 over his bid.

The on-demand water heaters here are tankless. Their alleged efficiency comes from not having a 80 gallons of hot water sitting in your basement--the water is heated as it is used. Of course, you have to size them for maximum flow, and if you exceed that, well, you ain't gettin' your hot shower. Lifespan in areas with hard water is only 10 years or so, and then you have to replace the whole unit, and professional installation is required.

I don't know much about solar water heating around here. It may get too cold in the winter for a direct heat system, rather than running anti-freeze through a heat exchanger. Natural gas has gotten cheaper in the last few years due to new drilling techniques, so there is little talk of them. My parents have solar water panels on their roof, but they don't live in an area that goes much below freezing.

Kirk

 

[Cegidfa]

Morning Kirk,

The inspector has fallen down on the job for the later inspections.
However, he he has had a distraction....see below.

Whilst he, as a male pheasant, is too busy looking good; she is quite bright.
We saw her flapping and jumping up under the feeder on several occasions. She had spotted the fat balls, and was dislodging some fat. So we rewarded her effort by lowering the holder to a suitable height. We were then treated to them standing one each side of the feeder, batting it back and forth. We are hoping that they bring the pheaslets when they arrive.

Our on-demand heaters started out tankless. But because of the regular draw offs, they have taken to fitting a small tank in the unit, to stop the constant firing. But, the boiler has to fire to keep the mini tank up to temp thus reducing savings. But this ‘feature’ can be turned off, which results in higher water usage. :roll:
The reason that your units only last 10 years is probably due to the fact that, over there, if I remember rightly, the units are made of steel, whereas here, the good ones are made of stainless steel. Just wait for the arrival of condensing boilers, then you will see them last even less time. The condense is highly acidic; and when the drain froze in -18℃, the condense backed up into the boiler and ate away some of the fire clay/ceramic that lines the chamber. We have since, rerouted the pipework to comply with the German instructions - as opposed to the British plumbers way. See below, the boiler innards.

You won't suffer as many people did here with the above problem, as your pipework is all inside the house - for that very reason.


Regards...Dick.