Off grid house build Orkney

Looks like you’ve got quite the project going there! How are things coming along?

It’s going okay thanks. We are so far over budget but nearly there on the main expenditure. It’s mostly the indoor trades now - plumbing, electrics and plastering. I’m doing a lot of my own joinery like studwork, door casings, architraves and skirtings - plus decorating.

I’m not sure about laying the flooring - I might need someone in to do that.

I’ll do a big photodump at some point but these show the size of the job -albeit they’re taken from different corners of the house. The red brick garage is gone and you can see the new garage in the second pic. And we’ve totally re-landscaped the entire site - a big job when the plot slopes about 12m front to back.

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That view across the valley is a bit of alright.

Yeah that’s a lovely raised position you’ve got there! And nicely tucked in at the same time with those trees there! That’s a ton of groundwork you’ve done, so is it almost level now? Was it scrape from one side and build up the other?
Nice, I’m hoping to help out where I can with things too but reckon anything structural or that needs finished nicely will be left to the professionals! We’re buying in 80m2 of limestone tiles as 40 of porcelain and the only thing I’ll be doing with them is helping carry them haha.

That’s a ton of groundwork you’ve done, so is it almost level now?

It hasn’t been levelled. We’ve worked with the gradient to turn a bit of a mess into a terraced garden. Lots of retaining walls and steps.

Sorry - this is a thread hijack. I’ll start my own thread.

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No not at all, that’s super interesting and looks a significant amount of work! We might need to add a step or two places so might have to pick your brains for that and the drywalling.

Our roof arrived yesterday!! If you’d told me we’d be doing the roof on the winter solstice I would have worried, and I definitely wouldn’t have pictured a day like today!☺️ I love it already, so glad we stuck with it through planning rather than going with concrete roof tiles!

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Seems like this happens a lot, no movement for what feels like ages and then things just appear!

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Looks brilliant, very into the grey-green roof panels.

Looks amazing. I really love your views, but think that barrenness would do my (city dwelling) head in after a week.

Thank you very much, “merlin grey” apparently. We had a good idea of what it was going to look like but had never actually “seen it” so we’re pleasantly surprised!

@villa-ru haha yeah I know a few folk who’ve said the same, gave them the fear a wee bit

Can't beat the sound of rain on a metal roof 👍

Not sure you’ll hear that much with 2m of insulation!

I know! Like @dbr says though, we’re hoping not to hear too much constantly but when the rain is heavy and the winds are high it’ll be so noisy against all the glass that the noise from the roof won’t seem too bad anyway haha

Loving popping in and checking in with this thread...coming from Covid central, how much has corona shown it's face locally or are you enough off main thoroughfares that the area has been largely spared?

Can't believe I've only just seen this thread. Enjoyed all 9 pages of this, very jealous!!

For the first year or so it was mainly just wee clusters coming off a fishing boat but really few and far between. It’s deceiving because of all the per capita stuff but think we were worst in Europe at some point after an outbreak at a school and a couple pubs this year.. the island we’re on though I think we’ve had 7 or 8 cases in total.

@On1 thanks very much, I should probably be on a building forum or something with it but this is really the only site I spend any time on these days (other than Jewson and tiling..)

Here’s where we’re at with the roof so far, they were off working somewhere else today but it’s forecast to be dry the next while.
Also, it’s been a while since wee nihil popped up so here’s a few of her looking especially cute!

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Nothing changed today but figured you would appreciate a little update with a hanging trackshark! Turns out deda geco tape is grippy as fuck!

A sunny day riding trackbikes delivering emergency electricity topups to folk and cycling past our house in progress, not a bad Christmas Eve!!

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delivering emergency electricity topups

Explain, my intrigue is piqued.

great thread, really enjoyed it so far

I work at a fuel poverty charity up here and some folk couldn’t afford the transport to top up their key meter with our voucher so I picked their meter keys up, topped them up and dropped them off again.
Despite all the great publicity of Orkney being self sufficient and green (we produce 130% of required electricity in the islands) all of that is sold back to the grid and we have the highest rates of fuel poverty in the country. The ofgem annual price cap of £1277 annually is for an average home in the midlands connected to the domestic gas grid, and that is crippling families right now. I work with people paying twice that quite easily every day, it’s wild and getting worse!

We wanted to go off grid anyway as wanted to only use what energy we could make, but all those figures sealed that decision for us. It would have been different for us with this well insulated a house but, price rises are coming again in April and not moving downwards any time soon..

@MTB-Idle thanks so much, pretty isolated here so nice to have folk following along!

Skies have been pretty great the last couple days, blue skies from sunrise to sunset yesterday and some lovely moody clouds today.

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Much nicer than concrete tiles. Good stuff. How will it weather do you think?

I've just read this whole thread. Love what you're doing, thanks for sharing. A few nerdy questions if you don't mind when you have some time (I don't think I missed these things already, but I might have).

Are you storing domestic hot water and if so, at what temperature? What temperature will the UFH run at? And the battery/PV/wind will be enough to run the ASHP? Out of interest have you chosen your heat pump yet?

I've lurked on this thread for a while, but just wanted to say that your house is looking great, I'm a massive admirer of everything that you have done and what you are trying to achieve with it, and your photographs of the island are wonderful. This thread is a fantastic bit of escapism from a grey, wet London winter.

Thanks!

Thanks very much! I’m hoping it won’t, but wouldn’t mind if some rust eventually ran from some of the screw points or something. It’s marine coated plastisol on the steel and has a 25 year warranty so I’m hoping it stays pretty similar looking.

@Alban cheers bud! We are storing domestic hot water, got a grant 300litre tank with a built in thermal store that we’re going to use as a dump. Water temp is a good question but I’m not quite sure to be honest. Going to just wait for some recommendations from the plumber/sparky on that.

Yeah we’re definitely hoping so haha. It’s going to be a 6kw turbine, about 4.5kw of solar and 20kwh of storage with a 15kva inverter for bringing it into the house so should be plenty. It’s a 6kw daikin r32 heat pump and I’ve been told that’ll be more than enough for heating and hot water.

@Mikey51 that’s really kind of you, thanks so much. I really hope this doesn’t feel like showing off or anything, it’s still blowing my mind and doesn’t feel quite real. I’ve always lived in crumbling single glazed flats and thought I would be renting hovels until I died of pneumonia at some point. I wouldn’t have got near this without my partner’s previous work!

Haha, as always, packaging was way more appealing than any toy..

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Went a wee walk past it today and noticed some condensation. Popped inside to crack some windows and discovered the condensation was on the outside of the outer panels, must be a good sign I reckon! Also, another beautiful sky here today!

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