Back to the Rock

It is May 9th 2022, and it is nothing like the above photo. It is pouring with rain, the horizontal kind of rain, and I'm taking the opportunity to write our first blog for a very long while. The reason we haven't been posting updates is because there haven't been any as we have been away...

While we were away we did a lot of this...

And a bit of that...

We left Coll in mid February having struggled through most of the winter with howling wind and rain and a general lack of activity from our house kit suppliers. It was always our plan to get the house wind and water tight and then leave to avoid the worst of the winter. The plan was to do this in November not February however.

In the end we left the house in a far less completed state than we would have liked. We did manage to get all the kit panels erected which basically means we had a complete shell of the house and we managed to get the windows and doors installed (with Sam and Patrick's help). We did not manage to fully seal the windows though and the roof was left only covered with membrane paper. Far from ideal and far from our original plan which was to leave the roof with the metal sheeting and sealed windows. This all meant that the house could be described as "water resistant" as opposed to water proof!

In spite of this, I am please to report that it appears to have survived with not too much damage. Last winter we learned so much about what the weather here can do and consequently we "battened down the hatches" (literally) pretty well.

We've now been back for a fortnight and are cracking on with the project once more. From now on however it will just be Julia and I working on the site as we have agreed to part company with our suppliers and complete the work ourselves. You might be thinking "Oh Dear... poor souls... what a nightmare etc. etc." ... but don't! We are delighted and much prefer the hassle free agenda, working at our own pace, focusing on getting things right. We hope to have some help from the local guys too for some of the more tricky jobs. We have throughly enjoyed our time away but are really glad to be back. We would have returned a lot sooner if it had not been for commitments in other places. I guess we must be doing something that is fundamentally right for us to feel as we do.

So, apart from a trip to Greece for Nick and Lizzie's wedding (Nick is Julia's brother), we are here to work on the house. On the long drive back from France, we made a list of the thing we agreed we should do before the end of the summer. This is now on the wall in the caravan, known to us as the "Green Mile", and we have already taken great pleasure in crossing a few things off.

In summary, it is our plan to get the house properly finished on the outside and the drainage, landscaping and renewable tech done so when winter comes, we can work on the inside! The main big jobs are to complete the battening of the main roof and put the metal sheets on, install the 8 huge Velux windows in the roof and clad the house with the wood which we hope will arrive here tomorrow. This is a picture of the wood in transit that will cover the house. It is thermally treated redwood and has been stained black...

One of the 8 dormer windows...

We also have two "nearly flat" roof sections - the dormer and porch/kitchen bits, which we will install rubber membrane on. The dormer is complicated as we had to invent a flashing solution down the sides (more on that later). This is something I would have none differently... Rule No.1 for house building here ... NO FLAT ROOFS!!! The rain on Coll rarely comes from above and it is difficult to fully seal more complicated structures.

In addition to that we have to finish some structural joinery inside the house including the erection of some load bearing internal walls and roof ties. We are also going to "Expanding Foam the hell out of the place" as was said in a dark moment because there are literally hundreds of gaps to fill where panels have not been fitted well together. Photo below... Roof ties to the left, walls to the right ... I'm nearly breaking into song...

The other two big jobs are the completion of our sewage treatment system and water capture and filtration kit but that will be much later on in the summer.

We haven't been entirely idle while we have been away. We have been procuring various materials and technology for the next phase of our build. Energy price inflation has caused a run on solar panels, batteries and associated kit so I was seriously worried that we might struggle to get the tech we need to generate power for the house. I'm pleased (actually more like ecstatic!) to report however that we have in our possession 28 solar panels, 2 inverter/chargers, all the kit we need to connect them and... by Wednesday we should have 28kwh of batteries too.

This is what a delivery of 28 solar panels looks like. Special thanks to Dougie and Ben at Engine710 for taking delivery of all our tech kit and roofing stuff. I promise to move it out of your way very soon!

We hope to have these "generating" before the winter too.

The process of establishing what you need to buy, remotely finding and engaging suppliers, and arranging deliveries for what is often a very large sum of money is stressful and problems frequently happen. I won't bore you with all the OMG moments but there are some really great people out there who have helped us. When I was foundering around trying to figure out what kit to buy for the solar system I came across a guy called Ivan who posted his home built system on youtube. I made contact with him and he has been a huge help to me. It is down to his help that I've managed to get the kit all chosen and ordered so thanks again Ivan - we very much appreciate your assistance and I hope you will visit us up here one day!

I've always been a bit cynical of what is called "After sales". Once they've got you to buy their stuff why do they want to waste time helping you?! But after sales help has never been so important to me. What use is a rubber roof if you don't know how to put it on?

However, David Stewart, the MD of Rubberseal has shown great patience with my many many questions. He jokingly said I've received the full course now but that is probably true. Thanks very much for your help David. One roof on and one to go!

When you are a little guy in the big building contractor world you expect to get shafted on prices and you expect to have to work very hard to get sensible trade prices for materials. This has proved to be true in our case but with one notable exception. It is also the reason that we have bought so much of our materials to date from Jewson in Oban. The branch manager, Lorne Farmer has personally looked after me and has given us good competitive prices. It makes life so much easier when you feel you can trust someone to look after you and you don't need to constantly "shop around" for everything. It makes good business sense for them too as, had they not taken this approach, I would not have placed orders with them. Thanks very much Lorne, it's been a pleasure working with you so far!

Jewson have most of our cladding materials order (a whopping £17k) and the timber was sent to a subcontractor for staining. Frazer, from James E Hatch&Sons, took time to have a zoom call with us to show us samples and has offered us really good advice and even sent us some staining accessories. Cheers Frazer!

When you first open up a box of flashings for a Velux window and you try to follow the ikea-style instructions it is truly daunting. You need more than these to understand how it works. After running out of video options on youtube, I ended up calling them. I was dreading the inevitable 15 minute wait, being told that "your call is important to us" and concentrating not to miss the right number in the "Press one for X etc. etc.". I felt my blood pressure rise at the thought of trying to explain myself to a person (probably a very nice person) from a distant land who did not have the skills or the language ability to communicate with me. But after a few seconds, I spoke to Ross in Fife! A qualified installer and very very helpful person. Phew!! This was quickly followed by Ian (also from Fife) when I discovered that some fo the flashings were damaged. New ones on their way - all FOC. Now that is after sales! Cheers Ross and Ian (and of course Velux!)

It just makes such a difference when people help you. I know this isn't interesting blog reading - a bit like the endless hand hurting rounds of applause after a concert but... they really deserve our gratitude. I'm sure once I've got the tech working there will be some more "shout outs"...

So enough about what we are going to do! What have we done this past fortnight? Well, the answer to that is a hell of a lot of chin rubbing and a hell of a lot of youtube building video watching! What seems easy when you are sitting in a chalet in France is less so when faced with the actual tasks. That said, we have installed our first rubber roof on the dormer window and constructed the side flashings (again from rubber roofing). We are pleased with the job we have done but the edging cannot be completed until we have our wood cladding on. The idea of the side flashing is to trap any water that blows up the rubber roof and under the tin and then off the side of the dormer structure. These flashings will sit underneath the metal roof and, any water captured in these gullies will be taken down to the rubber roof below where it will be directed into a gutter... I sense you all glazing over....

We have also installed holding down straps on the porch extension. These should ideally be underneath the membrane paper but that would have involved taking the whole lower run off so we have put them on top. We will cover them with more paper before we clad the sides.

It was a relief when we returned to find the caravan dry, and not infested with rodents. Pretty much everything was still working. The only casualty was the caravan solar panel. Some cows had broken in while we were away, presumably lured by our lush pastures and one of them stood on the cables and tore them out of the back of the panel. Grrr... Anyway that was only a morning to sort it and all is working again. The difference in solar yield now compared to February is incredible. Once again we can run our mini fridge from the panel. I also had to replace the wee 12v water pump last week. They don't seem to last very long for some reason.

In other news, it is great to start normal socialising again. Sam and Rosie were married in lockdown last year with a covid-limited gathering and last Saturday they had the reception party which was a real blast and a wonderful event to return to. It's the first time we have experienced live music (the band was really good) and Ceilidh dancing since 2020.

Julia has also started gardening and planting all sorts of things but I'll let her tell you all about the garden plans in the next blog...

And finally - a very large yacht spotted in the distant sunset last week...

I hope life is as good for you all as it is for us!

Keith and Julia x