So the whole idea of doing this blog is to share this building experiance, the whole experiance so all the good things the bits going well and also the difficulties and the bits not going quite so well or not to the plan.. So todays blog is me being completely honest and letting you all know what has happened this last week...not quite so good and definately not to plan!

We were so pleased with ourselves MAXRaft Insulation done, underfloor heating pipe fit out done... The pipe fit out was what this blog was supposed to be about and it is to a degree..

So Ed the guy turned up nice and early on the day for fit out of the underfloor pipes, all the piping here (delivered the week before) we had agreed with Ed to hire his main tools for the job like the big stapler and the spinning jenny for pipes ect and obviously pay his time and travel (he lives a few hours away). Gav and Ed worked on the pipes while I carried on grooming dogs around the otherside of the property. Pic below is Pipe layout.



By mid afternoon all was done, Ed had gone home by the time I ventured out from the grooming room to take a look at the progress, my excitement of seeing it was completed was short lived as I spotted a piece of iron bar sticking out of the MAXRaft insulation holding up the ends of the pipes. I went over to take a closer look as it is really important with the MAXRaft that nothing penentrates the polythene below the insulation as this acts as a trough. Sadly it looked like it had been driven down to the ground though the poly.. I rushed inside and phoned MAXRaft explained the situation and they gave me the rundown of how to fix the problem. 

So problem solved, allthough it was a pain and took an hour to sort, Gav removed the iron bar cut out the section of polystrene insulation, taped and resealed the polythene the replaced the insulation. Yay very glad my husband is the builder. Thanks Hunny. X

The moral of this story is ... We need to be very clear to anyone coming onsite that this is an airtight home and any penetrations can cause the building airtightness to fail, we will be explaining to future tradies to inform us of any penentrations (accidents happen) we can reseal and deal with any penentrations but not after its been covered up.

Just a bit about why we have laid pipes for underfloor heating.. We are hoping we dont need heating in this home but there is only one chance to lay these pipes and that is while you are building, so it is basicly insurance if you like, incase we want to connect it up, laying the pipes is the smallest part of the cost of underfloor heating, so we will live in it before making the decission to spend the money to connect it up. Also underfloor heating like this is a very cost efficient way of heating your home if you have a fully insulated floor slab. If your slab is not fully insulated you will have a fair bit of heat loss and be paying to heat the ground around your house as well as your home!

We chose to get our pipes from Warmth NZ as they were really helpfull and cost effective. If you want to check them out click or copy and paste the link below...

Luxurious & Affordable Underfloor Heating Specialist (warmth.nz)

This week of not quite so good and definately not to plan will carry on into the next blog...

But to finish on a possitive ... loving this build and the challenges that pop up! Keeps me on my toes!



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