Getting ready for plastering and tiling

The slabbed wall in the kitchen

This week there was quite a lot of progress in the kitchen and in the bathroom. Both of these rooms have drywall walls and outside walls which need to be plastered. We knew that Biller would be sending somebody to do the final measuring before the kitchen is sent to production, so we needed to do something about the kitchen walls - all of them except the exterior wall, which Chrisch plastered a while ago. One issue was the supporting beam which was to be cased in by the drywall. The beam and the triangular drywall component that was installed by Stuckenberger's team while the roof was off are not in line - they couldn't be (the beam is skewed, off plumb and not at 90° to the exterior house wall). After messing about all last Saturday trying to get the wall some way straight (using long timber wedges to locally support the plaster slabs) we decided that we would put up lats on the whole wall and be done with it. It took about 4cm off the length of the kitchen, but at least it meant we had a straight wall and the Biller chap could properly measure the kitchen. The other wall in the kitchen (the north wall, the back of which is the corridor between the kitchen and the bathroom) was much easier as it was straight and plumb already. All we had to do there was screw the boards on, without even needing to cut them (the room is 250cm high - exactly the length of the boards). We had to cut out the holes for the wall sockets, but that wasn't too bad.

The bathroom is slabbed - almost...

The bathroom also needed a lot of work. The next big steps in the bathroom will be to get it tiled - that needs to be done before bathroom "appliances" can be installed. Before tiling, the walls needed to be slabbed and walls which won't be getting slabs (the north exterior wall and the ytong walls) need to be plastered with Hasit 650 (lime/cement plaster - you can't use normal chalk plaster in a room with high humidity). Sven and I did the slabs in the bathroom relatively quickly - even the view block in front of the toilet was relatively easy to do (investing more work in straightening the OSB below paid off). The ceiling was a bit more of an issue, though, and it isn't finished yet. What we decided on was putting 20cm of rockwool insulation in between the joists, cover the lot with a diffusion layer (a bit like baking paper - it allows air through, but not water) and seal all the joints and around the edge with an incredibly sticky tape (SIGA). The idea is that the whole ceiling should be hermetically sealed against water vapour, but it should be able to breath.

On Saturday I have Chrisch coming to plaster the bathroom (not the slabs - they will be tiled up to 120cm and will be painted above that - though a fibreglass sheet comes directly onto the slabs first, so that movement in the slabs won't cause cracks in the paint). In the meantime, I'll hopefully be able to slab the ceiling with Sven. Once the bathroom is done, the tiler will be able to tile the walls. He can't do the floor until the underfloor heating is properly tested and the concrete is slowly heated and cooled. Apropos the heating, Strohmaier's team are coming tomorrow to installed the water meter - which means I'll be ready to fill the system when Niedermaier's team are ready to carry out the underfloor heating test.

Some before and after photos

Today two major things happened - the concrete floor went in and the scaffolding was taken away. Once the scaffolding was gone, I figured that it was time for a "before/after" photo because (for the first time in months) it was possible to see the house properly.

Fussbodenheizung / Underfloor Heating

Finally, there is more visible progress. Today, Niedermaier's men installed most of the underfloor heating pipes. They did the living room, the kitchen and half of the corridor. They probably would have finished the bathroom as well, but there is an issue with the shower drain - they didn't know what final height the floor will be, so they needed to wait until Christian Schöpfberger (the guy who will be pouring the concrete) determined the height with a laser level.

In order for Niedermaier's men to have been able to install the underfloor heating pipes today, we had to do a lot of work last weekend. I put in two 18 hour days on Saturday and Sunday and Sandra put in much the same. Even Eileen was busy sweeping and hoovering. What needed to be done was to get from a position where we had a OSB floor in all rooms, to where we had 4cm of insulation plus 2cm of a kind of aeroboard with very big beads - the idea is to act as a silencer. What had to be done first was to roll a foam band around the bottom of the wall. This will act as a barrier between the concrete floor and the wall so that no sound will transmit from the floor to the wall.

About 23:00 on Sunday, the boards are installed

Then, the 4cm aeroboard insulation was installed. That took quite a while because of all the cutting we needed to do - not just around the edges and the beams but also because of all the water pipes and network cables that crossed the floor.Once that was finished, we hoovered once more and then installed the silencer boards on top. Not quite as much cutting was needed (because the pipes on the floor were already taken care of by the thicker 4cm boards) and it was also easier to cut as the boards were only half as thick. We also had a hot wire cutter, which meant that we were only producing dangerous toxic fumes rather than a mess (try cutting aeroboard with a knife or saw). Once the 2cm boards were in, a 0.2mm plastic sheet was draped over the whole floor and up the wall so it overlapped the foam band by a little bit. Niedermaier's men laid out cardboard (probably plastic actually) on top of that - the underfloor heating pipes were stapled to that sheet to keep them in place.

As well as the work inside, our painter Sven and I are making considerable progress with the painting of the outside. The west gable is completely finished (2 coats of paint). The north (street) side has one coat of paint generally and two on the reveals. The east side has one coat of paint generally and two on the reveals. The south (yard) side also has one coat and two on almost all reveals. With a bit of luck we should be finished this weekend and can get rid of the scaffolding. When the scaffolding is gone, we can have the balcony and stairs put in (it should be ready by then). Hopefully,on Monday, we'll be able to have the concrete put in for the floor.

The towel drier/heater runs on the same heating as the underfloor heating (<30°)

The pipes from the different zones arriving into the central controller

The pipes are one a revolving stand and can be pulled off as they are needed

The kitchen is finished. Only one pipe is next to the wall (for condensation water avoidance) as the kitchen presses don't need to be heated from underneath

The plastic/cardboard boards which the underfloor heating pipes are fixed to with big staples

Cutting the plastic sheeting

Quick update (no pictures)

The last time I posted an update here was before we went to Ireland (i.e. before August 13th). That's quite a while ago. Since then, the plastering was finished. We now have two coats of paint on the west side (the gable) and the reveals and between the rafters (the visible ends of them) on the north side has also received two coats. Tomorrow evening we're hoping to get the first coat of paint on the north side.

This weekend is reserved for putting in the insulation for underneath the underfloor heating. I ordered 100 square metres of 4cm insulation boards and 100 square metres of 2cm silencer as well as 100 square metres of 0.2mm plastic sheeting and 100m of 15cm high foam for around the entire perimeter. First, the foam around the perimeter goes in (the idea being that the concrete floor should "swim" and should not be connected anywhere, to anything). Then the 4cm boards are installed. Perpendicular to these (and on top of them), the silencer boards are installed. Then the plastic sheeting gets rolled out. At that stage, I can call in Niedermaier to install and connect the underfloor heating. Once that is done, we should (finally) be able to get the concrete floor done.

First coat of plastering done today

Petermaier's men plastering the south side

Petermaier's men will finish the last wall of the house (the south/yard) today. They already had the east gable and almost half of the south side done when we left for Nuremberg at 13:00. What they have to do is to put a coat of Hasit Armierungsmörtel (the same mortar they were using to stick the insulation boards) directly on top of the styrofoam boards. A plastic mesh is embedded into the wet plaster. I'm not sure if they just embed the mesh or if they put another coat on top of it - whatever it is they do, the end result of this (second last) coat is that the wall finally starts to look like a house wall - i.e. plastered. Once the south side is finished this evening, Petermaier's men will go to another job for the rest of the week and the start of next week. The plaster needs a good eight days to dry properly, so there's no point in them sticking around. When they come back next week, they will put on one final coat - this will be a coat with 3mm stones in it. The final optic will be delivered with a sponge. Two or three days afterwards, the wall will be ready for painting. After that, we can finally get rid of the scaffolding.

The finish on the plaster on the inside

Inside, the plastering that Chrisch did in July has dried to a grey/white colour. I thought it might be possible to leave it that way, but it is too grey for my liking, so we are going to paint it white at some stage. The final effect of the plastering here was achieved with a sponge roller - it looked kind of like what you use for applying paint, but there were circular holes in the roller part. I tried to take a photo of it but the camera had difficult focusing.

I also finished the timber part of the drywalling in the bathroom. You might remember that we needed to case the west side of the bathroom as there were pipes for the sink and the toilet which needed to be under the tiles. It wasn't easy to do (the diagonal beam was not parallel to the existing timber paneling and the toilet was fixed to a plane of boards which was not quite parallel to the OSB and also a good 8cm further in). We need to slab the whole bathroom next (the greenback slabs are in the living room waiting to get put up). First of all, ten days in Ireland...

The north side has the second last coat applied already

Lot of plastering done, insulation almost finished

The insulation is almost finished

When I wrote the last blog post the insulation had just started. That was at the start of last week. Since then, Petermaier's crew have almost finished the insulation. They started on the west gable, continued on the north side and then finished the east gable. Currently, they are well on their way to getting the south side finished. There are a lot of windows and doors on the south side, which slows things down considerably. At least the weather has been good (too good really - last week was almost 40° and this weekend is also supposed to be that hot).

Chrisch plastered the living room and kitchen

The major thing that was blocking progress on the inside was the plastering. While it isn't absolutely critical in absolute terms (it could theoretically be done after everything is finished), it made most sense to get it out of the way before the underfloor heating and the concrete floor go in. Last weekend we were lucky to get Chrisch in for Saturday and Sunday. A lot of Saturday was spent installing the steel profiles for the corners and in putting up plastic sheets to protect the timber. It does take a lot of time but the end result is much better.

Today, two of Niedermaier's men arrived to install a hot water pipe down into Alois' bathroom. They currently have an electric boiler to provide hot water. Having the pipe from the 1000l tank in the attic will spare a huge amount of electricity.

The next steps will be do get the bathroom ready - I need to build a kind of step in the wall to hide the pipes and the toilet frame. It isn't all that much work, but it involves a lot of cutting of OSB and the green plaster slabs. Once that is done, we can have Niedermaier deliver the insulation for the underfloor heating and be one more step closer to the concrete floor (and hence the kitchen).

Above the joist is plastered now but a finish coat has to go on

We still need to think of some way of finishing the wall/ceiling join

We're leaving the old timber visible

The kitchen reveals still need to be finished

Wire profiles were used around the curve of the arch

A half plastered window reveal

The plastic profiles are fantastic for sealing the windows with plastic sheeting

The new timber is a result of engaging an engineer

The brick wall will be brushed and pointed

Insulation underway

The north side is almost done. The west gable is done already

It's been awhile since I updated this blog - mostly due to being up the walls at work and on the building site. Since the last update, our insulation has been started. 229 bales (at 1.5m^2 a bale) of anthracite coloured insulation was delivered - a truckload basically. The panels are 50cm high and 14cm thick. They have a UWert of 0.032 W/K/m^2 (watt, Kelvin, square metre) - so they are at the more expensive end of the choices available. I went for those because the next less expensive (0.035) would have meant I would have had to get 16cm thick boards - not much of a problem in itself, but because the windows downstairs were just "swapped out" (i.e. not moved out flush with the old wall like upstairs), with 16cm insulation, they would have been even further back in the wall. As there wasn't all that much difference in the price, we went for the 0.032 boards.

Compriband seals at the top of the wall

I watched the three men doing the insulation for awhile to see how they were doing it. First, I had to spray the old plaster with a kind of glue. That bound all the dust together and kept the plaster from crumbling. Next, they set a 14cm stiff plastic profile around the base of the house - 40cm from the ground. This works as a plinth as well as a base for the first ring of insulation boards. Later, when the scaffolding is gone, I will dig a channel 30cm deep all around the house and the plinth can be finished to below ground level, for optimum insulation. Once the profile was in place, they used a kind of soft, sticky mortar to glue the boards into place. When the whole house is finished, each t-joint will be screwed into the original wall, so there is zero movement. At the top, where the wall meets the roof, they used compriband to have a proper joint that still allows some movement.

It looks as though setting insulation boards is fast work, but windows and doors do slow the whole thing down considerably. They had to put a kind of plastic net around each window - probably so they can plaster the reveal properly. These plastic pieces needed to be aligned perfectly (i.e. plumb) - otherwise the reveal will look wrong later.

I was quite fascinated at how accurate their work was - cutting the boards etc and fitting them was millimetre work - their joints were practically non-existent. Where there were joints, they used an insulating expanding foam to fill them. Later, when the whole house is done, they will go back over the facade with leveling knives (which work kind of like a cheese grater) and level any foam or boards with a belly.

Meanwhile, Niedermaier's crew and Uli were working inside, doing the heating and electricity, respectively. The plumbing to the kitchen and bath was already finished when I wrote the last post. Since then they were basically holed away up in the attic doing the 1000l tank, the attached electronics and the piping. The attic is starting to look like a brewery, with all the pipes and tanks. They are finished for the time being. They still have to install pipes to the bathroom downstairs (which shouldn't be too much of a problem) and as soon as the plastering is done inside, they will be back to do the underfloor heating. Then, I can (finally) order the concrete floor.

Apropos plastering, Chrisch is going to come over this coming Friday (26th July) and set the steel profiles. They need to set overnight. On Saturday we are going to tear into the plastering. He has a plastering machine and I ordered the plaster the other day. We have two palettes of the stuff, but I'm going to ask Brenninger (the local building supplier) to have another one handy in the likely case that we will run out if we need to work into Sunday too. I already stapled plastic protective sheeting in place on our inside ceiling - the plastering machine is basically a compressor tied to a mixer with a 20m long pipe for splattering plaster. I foresee plaster all over the timber inside, so better safe than sorry.

Below are some more photos of the progress.

The first ring of boards and the new window sills

Here you can see how the insulation sits on the plastic profile

Insulation used to fill depression in the wall inside. A steel gauze will cover this on Friday

The ceiling is covered up in plastic

Power supply and more cables installed in the server rack

The west gable almost finished (it was since finished)

Supplies for the plasterers

Some of our bales of insulation

The ceiling covered up

The 14cm plastic profile at the base of the house

The big window was installed (except for the triangle at the top)

Lots of work done on electrics