Strawbale House

This blog is intended to chart our progress through the self-build process, from half-hearted plot-hunting through to completion of the build. The twist is that we're building the house from timber and straw (hence the blog title).

Click on the image at the end of each post to see that day's photos.

Saturday 5 January 2008

January 5th - electrics and bathrooms

Spent the morning finishing the upstairs ring main. This should have taken about 20 minutes, as I just had three sockets to fit. Having done that, however, I tested and discovered that the ring didn't have continuity, suggesting that there was a pair of cables hidden inside a wall somewhere where I'd intended to fit a socket, but which had been sheeted over without being brought through the plasterboard (nice one, lads!). Tracked the problem down to a corner of the twins' bedroom, took a punt, cut a hole and found them. Installed a socket here and tested again, with the same result. Investigation suggested that the break was now in Ellie's room, and once again I managed to cut a hole in exactly the right place. The ring was now complete, and I powered it up and tested all the sockets.
After lunch I delved in my delivery of plumbing parts and dug out the fittings I'd ordered for the bathrooms. The remainder of the day was spent installing the three wash basins. Two of them were fractionally too low to be screwed to the timbers Mal installed in the walls to support them, but I suspected that might be the case and had ordered some heavy-duty plasterboard fixings, which did the trick. The weight of the basins is taken by their pedestals, of course, but with our three terrors I thought the stronger the fixing to the wall, the better!
I finished the day with a lovely run up Hownam Law, just as dusk was falling.

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