Digging Out

Digging out a trench to do a few things; 1)let us swing a hammer to tack in some mesh the stop insects living in the walls 2) allow some crawl space to paper and insulate under the floor. and finally 3) to fill in with pebbles to stop splash, when raining, back onto the boars. prevents them from rotting. 

The Bridge

After a lovely weeks holiday i came back to find the beginnings of a beautiful bridge made by my loving boyfriend. He has screwed together such a sturdy bridge base i think it will be longer that the barrel its self :)

Thank you!

Cladding

So, a while ago dad and scott went to a friends saw mill and ripped down the excess timbers cut from the top of the barrel in to cladding boards. I think they got 4 per whisky barrel timber. 

Now, they are being put to use, cladding over our foil insulation. We are using a brad nailer to fire thin nails at each corner of the board and 2 in the middle through to the horizontal cladding. We are using the thin nails to avoid splitting the wood as it is very old timber. Also, vertical cladding as the boards would not take the curve of the barrel. Where board meets board we have cut an angle to lap the exposed joint so water will flow down the edge and water will be less likely to be drawn up. 

Beautiful patterning on the wood from the whisky making process. As you can see the boards begin to stagger as they are ever so slightly tapering timbers so this has a knock on effect. We plan to bridge the gaps with an additional thinner baton so everything is snug. Its a bit hard to keep thing plumb though. 

Here you can see the horizontal batons across the kitchen box holding down the thermal foil and allowing a platform for us to clad on to. 

And all the while as i am cladding there are territorial frogs preparing their pad ( hehe) for the ladies. Pretty loud.

Satisfaction :)

Selfie 

Jazzy looking boards

Younger sisters inspection

That knock on effect of a tapered timber. adds up. 

Insulation (spaceshipifying)

We are using a single layer of this thermal insulation foil roll (bubble wrap insulation) onto of vertical batons. This creates an air pocket in-between the waterproofing paper and the insulation and acts as extra insulation. 

We then horizontal barton over this to keep the foil layer on the building and it also gives us timber to clad into.

Looks kinda Si-Fi huh? 

Whisky Barrel Being used in the Whisky Process

Other Environmentally Friendly Ways to Heat the Home

Geothermic Heating

KITCHEN :)

The last couple of days my dad and i have been putting up the frame and rafters for our added kitchen. We have been through the process of chainsawing out a hole through the timber of the whisky barrel its  self; putting a lintel in above it so that the now unsupported timber/ roof section would be safe again; digging trenches in the top soil to reach the sad level (2.5 ft deep); getting their placement a bit off so having to dig corrections; levelling out recycled breeze blocks to be our foundations; then the floor came (size of a stirling board sheet 2400x1200, with added triangles at the edges); and now finally the frame has gone up and you can all see some change in presence. We have a real kitchen shape :).

Happy days! Here are some other angles: