Archive for July, 2009
Heh! ask and thou shalt receive!
In response to my “I would happily wear a Kingspan t-shirt” post of the other week, look what just arrived through my door! Thanks again to Joe at Kingspan Offsite. I will honest to goodness wear one of these whilst finishing the shed. I will endeavour to have myself photographed whilst wearing it. I am an utter wh*re
… That whenever I even think of going outside and doing some shed that it immediately P*SSES DOWN! grr.
The Lighthouse by Potton
Well, not quite – I suspect that gorgeous cladding is somewhat more sexy than my good ol’ exterior ply.
Joe Martoccia, from Kingspan Off-Site mentioned it in a comment on my Paean to Kingspan from last week and a beautiful thing it is too. Available in kit form for self builders at an undisclosed (to me anyway) price. I can probably safely state that it’s gonna be wee bit out of my current price range but it’s absolutely inspiring.
Perhaps more important to some than how it looks is how it works – designated the UK’s first net-zero carbon self build home, it uses a plethora of cutting edge concepts such as a photovoltaic array on the roof, a biomass boiler and wind-catcher coupled with construction from Kingspan TEK Structurally insulated panels to meet level 6 (the highest level) of the code for sustainable homes.
Wowzer. What’s more, it’s not just a picture – the house exists and can be visited in Watford. Read more at Potton’s website.
It was pretty rubbish anyway(!) – The shed’s too big for its vantage point from the back room window to see anything but shed wall now.
I love Kingspan. It is the best building material in the world bar none. If I could build a house out of just kingspan I would. If I ever find myself in the fortunate position to actually do a proper grand design it’s gonna be plywood and kingspan – just huge.
I hate doing electrics at the best of times. I always underestimate the time it will take, but this time I really loused it up. Thinking safety I started wiring the whole shed with 30a cable, despite only having 20A junction boxes… there was just no way the big fat wires were going into the skinny little wire clamps… after 2 and a half hours I started to get really frustrated and actually considered soldering the buggers together. At which point I took a break… Never, ever allow yourself to get frustrated with electrics. I then calmly pulled the wire out and replaced the lighting section with proper lighting cable. Got the whole loom in within 15 minutes. Quite happy with armoured cable, isolation breakers and switching. P*ssed off at the time lost though… Was hoping to get the outside wall on today, gonna have to wait for Friday now.
beginning of stud wall - the bikes fit like a glove(!)
it really doesn't look like much - but that was the most horrible thing I've ever done.
looking like a shed (a big shed, but definitely a shed)
This was yesterday evening – couldn’t stop to post then coz I was convinced I had to get the roof on before the deluge this morning…
