When we published the last update in May we said the next blog would be out at the end of summer and, although there appears to be no sign of an end to the lovely weather, it is well into September! Our neighbour John Fraser, who I consider to be the best local weather barometer, predicted a long run of very good weather at the beginning of May and I'm pleased to report that he was right. It lasted about 50 days and we had a glorious summer.
Unfortunately, due to this, we've been working outside most of the time and neglecting the internal work which is what we need to focus on if we want to bring forward a "moving in" date! We don't care though as life has been very good and I'm sure we will have plenty time inside the house in the winter months.
At the beginning of summer we installed 11,000 litres of water capture tanks from our various roof pitches. There are 6 tanks in total, 5 outside and 1 inside. The outside ones are all connected so if one fills faster than others, they even out. We can get x4 the rain on one side of the house than the other in a big wind so this is more important than you might think!
The indoor tank is inside the garage and we have built a structure to install it as high up as possible. This for the filtered water. It was an interesting job locating it up there. We did it without help and, as I had only one functioning arm, it was not easy. In the end we "slid" the tank up on two long timbers, screwing blocks in to hold it as we went. The sort of solution the Egyptians might have used when building pyramids!
Once this was in place, we put the filtration system in. There are 4 filters at the moment, 3 particle removal ones, each to extract different sizes of "bits" and a UV filter to kill any bugs. The rain water is however incredibly pure as we have no tree leaves to blow into our gutters so I doubt we will need to change the particle filters very often. The really pleasing thing is the tiny 24V pump is super efficient and the UV light only uses 30 watts so we can fill the 1000 litre tank using less than 0.1 kwh. I know that will be meaningless to most of you so in terms of your household bill, that's about 3 pence!
We ran out of bend connectors hence the messy pipework. This will be sorted one day!
We are manually operating this just now and are topping up the tank about once a week but eventually we hope to have "program logic"that turns on the UV light, followed by the pump and tops up the water when the batteries are full and the tank is low.
The green box in the photo is the household pump. It is a very clever one too which only uses the power it needs to meet demand. For the geeks among you, it's average running consumption is 200 watts and produces 3 bar of "mains" pressure. It is also self priming which means if the water runs out, it can sort itself out once the supply is restored. It also has wifi links so we could look at our consumption data if we were really bored. Things haven't got that bad yet!!
So we installed our water system just before the long summer drought,. Luckily we put the tanks in just beforehand and 2 days of apocalyptic rain filled them. Thanks to John's warning we were extremely frugal with our use and so when the rain came, we still had about 5000 litres left! It is hard to see any situation where we could run out as long as we are being careful.
There is no water supply in the house yet (although the pipe is installed) but we did run a supply to the caravan and we decided to connect the caravan drains to the newly commissioned sewage system too. This means that we've been enjoying a flushing loo and shower all summer as well as filtered water! That has been a very big upgrade to caravan life.
The final job before commissioning the sewage system was to install the vent turbine. We have a unique sewage system which doesn't require electricity as it is wind driven. We have installed the turbine just below the gutter to protect it from storms. If we have odour issues though we may need to raise it higher.
After finishing all the preparation for commissioning the system, I emailed the company that supplied it to make sure nothing had been forgotten, the guy replied saying "you're good to go" which amused us somewhat and we've been "going" all summer without incident!
A large part of the summer has been dedicated to landscaping the plot. We were able to get Digby (the trusty digger) into parts of the ground that are normally too wet so we decided to bring forward the creation of our fire pond! Most people who are off grid from a mains water supply have a fire pond which can be used as a supply of water if there is a fire. We however have gone one step further and have created a fire and trout pond. The land from the pond has been used to build up the front of the house (burying the septic tank as well) but we've managed to get enough size/depth to the pond to stock it with trout. I have caught 7 fish from lochs and burns and put them in. I'm hoping they survive and thrive!
Julia stepping in on Digby's day off...
The pond has other uses as well...
In fact, Julia has really taken to the wild swimming and has been swimming in the sea almost every day we have been here. It started with a group of about 20 islanders signing up to "A dip a day in May" and now I'd say she's addicted to it.
Moving the land from the pond site to build up the land infront of the house was a time consuming activity requiring multiple "swings" of Digby's arm to move the soil but worth it...
The photo doesn't really do the scale justice but at least you can see the grass seed has sprouted. The stones in the middle are hiding the septic tank lid!
We have also landscaped the ground on the other side of the house and beside the garage and have created walk ways around the plot.
The black area is teram to stop weeds where Julia is going to plant trees.
There will be a lot of grass to cut so we are going to need a good mower...
We intend to leave a lot of the ground wild too as we have load of interesting natural growth now the sheep have been denied access!
Julia has been planning the garden and has ordered over 100 trees which will arrive in November. Two areas have been covered with teram ready for the planting! One in the photo above and behind the garage for the fruit trees...
Someone recently asked us if we had made any mistakes with the project and the answer is an emphatic YES! I suppose it is to be expected but there have been some big blunders along the way. Most of them have been fixed but the top 4 biggies we are are still living with are...
Not stopping the kit erection process when we realised big things weren't right.
Opting for a suspended floor as opposed to building a concrete slab for the house.
Installing solar panels in different aspects to find we could not efficiently link them.
Designing the thermal store location to be at the same level as the stove.
Number 1. is really history but as a consequence, the quality of the build will always be worse than it could be. We can mitigate this by filling holes and adding insulation in parts but it is a shame that it was not done correctly in the first place. From observing the process however I'm pretty sure lots of new builds are poorly constructed and the owners have no idea because the errors can be easily and quickly concealed. At least we are fixing our issues rather than hiding them. I should add however that I have observed the quality of work in a couple of houses that are being built here by Roy Thorburn the local builder and they look very well done to me.
Numbers 3. and 4. can be solved quite easily so that leaves number 2 (!) ... After days of mixing and pouring the concrete for the garage (300 mixes in total) we were understandably keen to avoid the predicted 600 or so for the house foundations! The engineer suggested either prefabricated concrete panels or a suspended wooden structure. The concrete system involved a lorry with an integrated crane reaching the site to lift in the very heavy 8 tonne panels. We (correctly as it turned out) thought the lorry might not be able to get up our drive and, as there is no machine on the island that could lift 8 tonnes, we went for the wooden structure. This has caused us two unforeseen problems. Firstly, the stove we have bought weighs 200kg and we doubted that the floor structure was designed to take the load and secondly, the wooden substructure needs to be ventilated and our design was to have a patio level with the internal floor all the way around the front of the house.
So, before we install the stove, we had to do a flexion test...
And, the floor only deviated by 1.5mm with the load of 16 blocks on it (about 400kg) so all is well for our stove. We had to compromise on the hearth though, going for super thin stone (more £££) and building up the section below it with cement board and wood, spanning more joists.
We haven't installed the stove yet but that is because we had to find a solution to problem 4. first. More on that in due course.
Getting the stove from the garage to the house was interesting...
We have prepared everything for the stove though including installing an air intake box and an external vent. The stove was supplied without a direct air feed and, because our house is a completely sealed design, we need to draw air from outside directly into the stove. Steve, the MD of Chilli Penguin (the company who provided the stove) has been extremely helpful and patient with me. He has talked me through the fitting process and also help me find a solution to 4. above!! I had to tap screw holes into the bottom of the stove (a first for me) which involved using a special "tapping tool". Another Steve, the island one, very kindly lent me the tool along with some helpful advice to do this.
I won't go into the problems of 4. above in this blog but suffice to say the thermal store should be located above the back boiler in the stove so that there is a gravity flow of water in/out of it. That is why the stove has not yet been installed but at least we know what we are going to do now!
Also as a result of the "number 2" problem, we had to build a drainage channel around the house which is large and deep enough to accommodate the vents for the wooden substructure as well as take water away. This was fiddly and time consuming involving multiple forms and concrete pours. We will cover the drain with a grate so the patio is level with the internal floor. Stevie, who visited us again this summer, helped with this. This was him hard at work...
And this was the near finished plinth...
We then had to build a block wall on the other side of the drain and build up the ground to make the patio slab. We spent a big chunk of the summer doing this work which could have waited until after we moved in!
This isn't the finished product. We have bought some porcelain slabs and matching drain covers (see below) which we will put on top of the slab.
I realise this is turning into a long and possibly slightly dull blog so I'm going to summarise the other jobs we have done quickly. In short, all the internal walls and ceiling joists are now installed, the staircase is in, the house is half covered in vapour control foil, we've started battening the walls for plasterboard.
We also painted and prepared our solar array for more panels.
We did have a some visitors in the summer too. Daughter Lucy with son-in-law Mike and our baby granddaughter Maxie came for almost a week. This was Maxie's first trip to Coll. GrandPa keen to get her on the tools...
and a much needed ice cream complements of Archie and Ellie's entrepreneurial summer venture...
Another first time visit was from Julia's Dad Rodney and his partner Marjorie who finally made the trip from London. We prioritised the building of the front door step and the internal staircase to help them move around the house...
The weather was kind and a lot of beach time was had...
And they even met some of the locals...
Return visitors also included Stevie, who very kindly came to help with the build, and sister Gill with Chris my trusty advisor. Stevie was determined to be put to work and put to work he was! Perhaps a bit too much work...
He said he was here to work but this is what he really came for...
He would have paid good money for this photo to be included!
Thankfully for Gill and Chris, there was little work done and after the usual (and greatly appreciated) site inspection from Chris, we spent time walking in the hills and fishing the lochs. Unfortunately we have no photos of this - probably because I was too busy fishing!
We also had quite a few unexpected visit from various other folk, some of them arriving by sail while touring the west coast. Chris from New Zealand, a friend from long ago, called from Mull to say he was on his way. He also happens to be an electrician, and ended up offering us some very helpful advice.
In other news, we have managed to get away to France for a wee holiday and to tackle some DIY jobs, visiting family en route. I spent my birthday with our Geneva pals (Neil and Aisling) which was great fun. They were supposed to visit us here to run the Coll half marathon with Julia but for various reasons it didn't work out... next year it will though! We had another visit from baby Maxie in France too...
Every summer we have the Coll show which is always a great community day out. There are loads of competitions ranging from the best lambs to the tug of war.
Julia managed, in her tiny temporary garden, to enter several categories including, garlic, potatoes, green beans, sweet pea and parsley. She also made oatcakes, jam and a tray bake. It is hot competition but she still managed to win the best parsley and came second with her sweet peas!
One of the local guys, (and fellow coast guard rescue officer) Alex decided to kayak around Coll and Tiree in August to raise money for the Tobermory lifeboat and he asked me to be "shore support". Well that was fine but there wasn't very much I could do if he went missing... and he did... for a pain staking 3 hours we lost contact and I was getting very concerned. Luckily it was all down to mobile comms issues though and he managed to complete the 100km feat in just under 18 hours. Thats a long day out! He arrived back in the dusk and we used the head lights of a quad bike on the hill to show him the way in. There was a good crowd to welcome and congratulate him too.
Having finished the final training and recovered from my shoulder injury, I'm now "live and on call" with the Coast Guard. We have had some call outs (which I am obviously not able to mention details thereof) but one of them resulted in a visit from the Tobemory life boat. The crew very kindly gave us a tour. Amazing piece of kit it is too...
So that's the round up! Next steps are house plumbing, electrics, underfloor heating, stove, flue, thermal store, more solar, second inverter.... and the list goes on!! We will publish another blog when a few of those things are done! In the mean time enjoy the autumn and the Rugby World Cup. I put a tenner on Scotland to win at odds of 33:1 which seemed pretty good since there are only 20 teams in the competition and Scotland are seeded 5th... but... I hope to make up that loss by the tenner I put on South Africa!
Hope you found at least some of the news interesting and wishing you all the best for the autumn.
Keith & Julia xx