Stormy Times

Once again I have to start this blog with an apology. We have not given you any updates on our mad endeavours for some time. I see now that we have had some 1500 people reading our story and we are even getting people we don’t know asking for an update. We intended this to be a diary for our friends and family but is has clearly gone a bit beyond that! I suppose that’s fine but we might need to be a bit more careful what we post!

We brought in the new year with a bang...well actually more of a splash with the Coll Loony Dook ... this involves jumping off the middle pier into the freezing sea. I think I may have a world record to my name... the shortest swim in history. As my feet touched the surface of the sea my hand was outstretched to grab the ladder... I will try for an even shorter one next year if I'm spared...

Anyway, the reason for the delay in writing is because we are frankly at our wits end trying to get the kit build finished and we wanted to wait until that was sorted... but it isn't and it's been too long...so we are blogging anyway...

The install team did return in January but for only 3 days, and left us once again with a half built house. We were given no return date either. Thankfully they did manage to get the rest of the roof panels on and the rest of the kit panels up though (the porch and kitchen). They left the house however without windows which, on Coll in an exposed location like ours, is a really bad idea. A storm from the wrong direction would blast into the open voids and probably blow the roof off. The worst direction of all would be straight off the sea ... from the North West.

After some frantic discussion with the supplier, we agreed to try to find some local guys to help us get the windows in and I am really really pleased to report that we now have all the windows installed! Well, that is apart from the Velux/roof ones which we cannot put in until the correct flashings are sent to us (we found out that we had the wrong ones about a month ago). In the mean time there is boarding in the holes for them under the blue roof paper.

Here is photo of the "new bits"- the porch/kitchen and dormer before the window install...

And Julia inspecting the ridge beam...or she may be just enjoying the view!

I had to find a telehandler suitable for the last installer visit and thankfully Duncan from Dalmally very kindly agreed to rent us his machine. It was just as well as I had drawn a blank looking for options near Oban and Roy’s machine was still out of order. Duncan is a mainland contractor who has a long connection with the island and does do some work here. He is a pal of Rob’s and very kindly agreed to let me have his machine for the week. He even drove it up to Oban and put it on the ferry for us. It was quite daunting having to walk onto the arriving ferry, jump in the cab and drive this machine off without ever having driven it before. This was not helped by the fact that it was blocking every other vehicle hoping to disembark at Coll. I had studied many Manitou youtube videos though and thankfully it was fine. I managed to get it to the site and put the crane truss on ready for the installers. Thanks very much Duncan!

So we find ourselves now having to source and organise the subcontractors for our supplier. We don’t mind that though because at least we can get some progress. Patrick and Sam very kindly dropped their work at the Church to come and install the windows. It was a pleasure working with them and I also learned so much ... although arguably another skill that I may never need again! My main job was to do the mechanical lifting needed (for which I used Digby to great effect) but I also helped a bit with the install. Julia was preparing the openings in advance by putting the vapour control foil in and and securing the wall membrane. This was no mean feat in a strong wind and something I would not have had the patience for! Of course we should not have had to do any work at all but frankly it is more important to get our house up than worry about a bit of extra work.

We knew a storm would come at some point and on 29/01/22 it did! If we had not had the main windows installed, the 80mph blast from … guess where … yes … the North West (!), could have done for us. We literally put the windows in the day before. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to Sam and Patrick for that. Phew!

When the storm hit we knew that it would build in the early hours with it’s crescendo at about 7am so we decided to risk it and stay overnight in the caravan. We did however abandon ship at 5:00 am as the wind was causing the static to rock violently and we feared for our safety. We made a quick brew and went to sit in the car. Unfortunately, we then started to notice some of the damage being done in the darkness. The first thing was the bulging wall membrane paper on the newly erected porch. The wind was going to rip it off so we needed to act fast. We turned on our head torches and grabbed some baton off-cuts and my Ryobi driver and started frantically fixing batons to the wall to hold the paper down - any old way we could. It was hellish - the wind was blowing the sand up from the beach and it was like being in the Sahara in a sand storm. Our eyes were full of shards but we laboured on (with some considerable shouting) and managed to secure the paper to stop it tearing off. We then retreated back to the relative safety of the car but, as we sat and drank the now cold tea, we noticed scaffolding planks in front of the car that were not there before. It was beginning to get light and we suddenly realised that the heavy planks were blowing off like match sticks. It was only luck that none of them hit the house or indeed our new windows. Thankfully Sam and Patrick arrived and we all fought the winds and took the remaining planks off the scaffolding - Sam and Patrick being considerably braver than me. The only other casualties were a gutter on our shed and a section of the roof paper on the seaward gable end. The roof paper had blown up because, as we learned later on, it was not nailed onto anything on the gable as there was no OSB (wood paneling) underneath it. When the wind died down, we went on the roof and cut off the flapping section.

Our emergency batons...

We later discovered that 2 caravans were casualties of the storm. One a mile or so up the coast from us and the other a mile or so down the coast. One of them was blown over and rolled probably about 4 times and the other one, a similar type to ours, just exploded leaving the chassis behind. So it was probably wise to abandon ours when we did. It does also show that the work Stevie (thanks buddy!) and I did to secure the caravan back in November 2019 was a job well done. Also helped by bro-in-law Chris’ very useful engineering advice at the time (Cheers Chris!). Let's hope we don't see our workmanship tested again time any time soon...

The two casualties of the storm...

And a very jolly Stevie digging for bedrock in 2019 to put an anchor in for the static caravan...

So we now have a semi-water tight house and in fact we are enjoying a break off the island. We still have to seal the gaps below the windows and put the cills in - we left them because we didn't have the right glue and it is also useful for some air to circulate in the house to allow it to dry out a bit. There are also a few leaks in the roof - probably caused by a combination of nail holes in the roof paper but also where the wind has blown water up underneath the overlaps. When we get the tin on (and the rubber on the flat bits) it should be fine...we hope! Unfortunately there are some really big issues to address with the kit before we can complete the structural build. I won’t bore you with the details but suffice to say they are causing a big delay and we cannot go to the next steps (internals) until they are resolved. I’ve been advised not to publish details on this for legal reasons but let's hope it doesn't come to that… we are currently discussing solutions but it is rather depressing to say the least. We have lost about 4 months due to the kit/erection issues - so far. The next steps when we return will be to clad the exterior with timber, put the tin on the main roof and put the rubber roofing on the two flat bits. The “flat” bits are the roof of the dormer window and the roof of the kitchen/porch. They aren’t completely flat - they are 5 degrees but knowing what I know now about Coll weather, I would probably have avoided anything with an angle less than 30 degrees. As I was trying to explain to someone recently, the rain on Coll comes from the side - from all directions, it occasionally come from below but it rarely comes from above! So while we are away, we will be doing a lot of procurement work for the next steps of the build. This will include trying to find cladding at a sensible price. It seems to have trebled in a year which far exceeds the industry index for timber inflation and I have no idea why. We will also start ordering all the renewable kit which I hope to install before mid summer so I can see the peak solar yield! We are also looking at internal plumbing/wiring and flooring which will be next on the ordering phase. Julia is getting excited as we creep ever so slowly towards the bit that she is really interested in…

Just kidding... :-)