Off grid house build Orkney

This is one of the best ever threads on the forum. Fantastic.

It’s going to be mainly as a back up for when there isn’t power for cooking or heating, but I’m sure we’ll just have a few nights in front of the fire too.

Had the guys come to fit the stove today but the flue is going to be going through the ceiling too close to the truss.. he’s said we could use a single wall offset pipe in the flue run to take it far enough away from the truss but that brings the single skin part of the flue about 280mm from the wall. We had bought enamel coated metal heatshields which allow things to sit closer to the wall, but the ones we have ordered are 1200mm but this offset would take the height of single skin pipe to about 1800mm… There are 1800mm heatshields available and we might be able to return the other ones and swap for these, checking with the building officer to see if this is the solution to fix this and stay on top of building regulations. Really wanting to avoid having to mount fireboard as the walls are all finished and taped and filled and painted..

We didn’t tile today thinking the stove guy would be up scaffolding there but got the spacer things out and it being clear makes it feel much bigger.
@hvsds that’s very kind of you, thank you! To be honest I think we’re going a bit faster, not surprising to be honest as he’s building his own house right and getting invoices in so stretching an hourly rate to pay what he needs could quite easily become a thing (I think it had!) either way I think we’re working faster and not taking a bunch of breaks and phone calls each day. Cleared the bedroom and took off the floor protectors and I’m pretty sure our grouting is better than his as well..

@Aldosterone thanks so much, it’s been a dream of mine forever. Always said I wanted to build a house but to be honest I pictured a wee hovel built out of pallet wood in a damp bit of woods somewhere, nothing like this!

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Nice, will be fun to cook on it. I'm surprised you expect to have no power, but maybe worst case. Our heating is from a big wood boiler (45kw) and we have a big wood oven in kitchen too, I do fire it up but just for pizza. Still trying to work out airflow to push heat from it into living room.

There’s a shelf and apparently you can grill or barbecue in the glass fronted bit too! Reckon that’ll be murder to clean though so doubt we’ll be doing it much.
Wow, is that just for heating or does it do your hot water too? Lived in Minnesota when I was younger and stayed with a family on a bit of land who had a similar setup and a forest around them. The grandpa spent his summer chopping trees on the land stocking up the wood pile for rotation for the next winter.

Hmm, wonder how you would? Was talking to the guy fitting the stove about airflow today and he was saying a local restaurant was having a real problem with their stove billowing smoke back into the restaurant and he was doing a bunch of troubleshooting to figure out what was going on and it turned out to be the big industrial kitchen extractor pulling it back down the flue!

For us it's heating only, hot water is an immersion tank. I was over at my neighbours talking about wood and getting some quince jelly and he was showing me his setup. He has a bigger boiler and a huge water tank, must be a few hundred litres as it was 1.5m diameter by 1.5m high with insulation. He said he can heat water and it'll be warm for 5 days, and having felt it out the tap I can attest. Quite cool. He has a bunch of land for timber, he's mid 70s now and struggling so I think in return for my labour he'll go halves on what we cut which will help me.

This is our kitchen oven, you can cook in upper and lower, I do pizzas in upper and you could BBQ in lower. Need to find a shelf and to do pizzas in lower.

Anyway, not to hijack, just thought you'd be interested.

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No not at all @skinny , that’s really interesting! That could be a fantastic setup for the two of you, probably really nice for him to have the help/someone interested in the same things to pass knowledge onto.

Wow, I hadn’t pictured that in my head at all, that’s brilliant! I’ll need to make some kind of brick one outside as a project in time.

Got moving on things again today and almost at the window now! Builder who had been tiling popped by to sink the waste and pour the floor for the shower tray and looked genuinely surprised at how much of it we’d got through so far. Has saved us hundreds of pounds at least already and feels really nice to be doing it with my dad. It’s natural stone and meant to have an antique effect so none of the tiles are perfectly square or level and each one is really individual with its markings. The differences in gaps and stuff was killing me at first but the more we do the more I like it not being perfectly even. We’ve always aimed for it to not look like a new build and I think these will really add to that.

Nihil was also looking particularly cute on our lunch break!

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Been a tiring week, but really chuffed with what we’re managing to achieve again.

Tiled up to the window apart from the cut bits needed at the edge and it really seems to have expanded the space and made it feel a bit closer to being finished. I thought with the tile being darker than the concrete floor it might feel smaller but doesn’t seem to be the case. Also made our way into the utility room and just have a wee edge to finish in there now. I enjoy that there’ll be no door bars into the utility room, bathroom and porch and should trick the eye into it feeling bigger I think. Having to leave all these edges for now as it was too tricky to do without letting the tiles around them cure so we can stand on them for the last bit.

Only the fiddly cuts and then porch and the bathroom to do now really. Reckon those rooms will feel easy peasy after this space, that main bit is around 52m2 (which according to the weight thing on the pallet means we’ve laid 1600kg of tiles so far!)

My mum also came up to help and she’s been clearing out all the channels for grouting using a rotary tool and has helped us get the wallpaper up in the bedroom too! I really like the paper, enjoy that it has a bit of texture to it and really think it’s starting to add a little warmth to the room rather than feeling too dark. We’re keeping the skirting white (I think) and around the window and door too as I think that makes it seem more light is coming in, but will be painting the loft hatch and it’s wee surround the same colour as the wall and ceiling.

Finished off the corner in the utility room the fridge will sit. Used an electric stone cutter I’d bought years ago when I had time to do things like slate mosaics and it’s worked really well on these. Only trouble is the tiles are too thick to use with the guard so had to wear a bin bag and waterproofs yesterday to shield myself from a wave of grey water being spat out at me the entire cut..

Goal for today is to take advantage of it looking like it’ll be dry all day (and my dad is here to help me with lifting) and pull everything out the container to get the fridge and some of the bedroom furniture in. The fridge happening now will be much easier than when the kitchen has started being fitted etc. and my dad thinks it’ll be good for both me and my partner’s mental health if we can get some furniture in to convince us the end is in sight so he wants to have that done before he leaves.

First job this morning is to grout that corner and then get some stone sealer on it so we can place the fridge at the end of the day.

My partner got a signed bible from the queen when she was 8 after winning some school competition so we’re going to try and dig that out while we’re in there and get it up for sale online, who says the monarchy never gives back to the working class.

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Didn’t quite appreciate just how much we had managed to stuff into the container. Some bits at the back I couldn’t get to on my own had got a little surface mould on them. Not bad considering we stuffed everything in there last minute on a drizzly Friday afternoon before the yard closed in October 2019. Some vinegar spray and a bit of elbow grease sorted most things. We had time to get things packed back up in a much more organised fashion after most got a wee scrub and we put together the wardrobes and the bed frame. Just as we got everything together the sunset shone right through the bedroom window onto the furniture. I must admit it did leave me feeling rather pleased with our choices despite this build having very nearly beaten me into submission multiple times recently. Haha, please ignore my dad pretending his shadow is a strongman..

Also heard back from building control and have a solution for the stove flue. Going to add two twin wall 45 degree bends higher up and that’ll take us past the truss ok and we have to mastic some fireboard to the truss as a bit more protection. Apparently you have to stick it on with mastic rather than screw it as heat has been known to travel through screws into the trusses. We don’t have to get bigger heatshields either!

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Really coming together now. Been dipping in to this thread ever so often and I'm in awe of what you're achieving. Can't imagine the strain it must be putting on you both but looks like it's really paying starting to pay off.

Not sure I could sleep well a door-less bedroom though!

Lovely.

Really starting to come together. Been following this with interest for ages, can't wait to see the final build. Bedroom already looks class.

Bloody hell, even with the low light angle, your tiling looks great. If I had have been involved, it would have been like a map of the Himalayas.

Wow, thank you so much, it has been really tough, but the end is in sight. It’s beginning to look like what we’ve seen in our heads for years! Not to worry, soon as I’ve got the floor laid the joiner will be back for all the internal fittings (skirtings, doors and things) and then will be fitting the kitchen.

@skinny cheers bud, if you get any pictures of your neighbour’s land I’d love to see!

@Dexter thank you, and we got super lucky with that furniture, my mum and dad moved to a smaller place and it wouldn’t fit in their new room..

@stevo_com I’ve surprised myself to be honest! And dad has been a huge help. The tiles all being irregular has definitely been useful for it not looking too erratic.

Been cracking on, one more day of my folks being here and I genuinely think we’ll finish it! Have a bunch cut which will finish the porch, the bathroom and into both bedrooms that we’ll put down first thing tomorrow. Then all that’s left will be a line in front of the window and around the stove!

My mum got some of the grout down where the fridge will go and sealed the tiles in the utility room. We’ve decided the grout is much too light so I’m ordering some more which will match the limestone much more closely. Feel the light grout breaks it up too much and looks messy when it sticks in the pitted edges and a darker grout will make it seem like a more continuous space.

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Been lots of cutting today, it’s a great saw though and I’m really happy with some of the fits we’re getting around door frames with it. Trouble is, these tiles are too thick for the guard and without that it kicks up a ton of stone dust water at your face. Not many people can say they know how their floor tastes.. got a little glimpse of how I’ll look as I age as well..

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A career as a Noel Gallagher look-alike awaits.

So now I get to be jealous of a house build AND a hairline? Unfollowed.

truly amazing work.
i didn't appreciate how messy cutting tiles was until i did my bathroom floor. still managed to get crap everywhere with the guard on, and i only cut 6 tiles! (quite big ones though tbf)

Ha - I've been there, and worn the slate sludge T-shirt.

Magnitides better than slate dust though.

Haha, this is it receding! When I was younger I had at most a threehead..

@andyp Now to remember wonderwall on guitar haha. It’s never been that shape in its life, reckon the sludge and adhesive dust had merged and glued it there..

@bigshape cheers, have been gaining confidence with it over the week and still have all ten digits! Yeah I’ve looked a riot every time I’ve come down the road this week. Didn’t expect it to be anywhere near as gross, luckily got a good set of waterproof dungarees which saved me from the worst of it.

@TW oh definitely, reckon I’d have been dodging sparks all day too! The water seemed to clear the channel too, cutting felt a lot smoother than when I tried running it dry?

Got some precision cuts going today. Dad and I had a tough morning, cutting in batches and finding that some didn’t quite fit as the tiles aren’t exact measurements which became quite disheartening. Then mum stepped up and smashed it. Sewing prowess came into play and we basically just started cutting patterns out of cardboard, marking that on tiles, cutting and dry laying one to make sure the next one was right and move on. Became a proper wee production line! Really chuffed with the finish at the windows and around the stove, couldn’t have asked for more! Recut that triangle with the corner missing in the last photo so it looks cleaner now. I found cutting a notch in one side of the tile and then cutting from the other side saves it chipping at the corner when it gets skinny.

I’m back at work tomorrow so mum and dad are leaving, been such a massive help and has made me feel that much less overwhelmed by everything. Can’t believe how much we’ve accomplished and don’t want to imagine how long this would have taken on my own..

The length of small cuts in front of the windows and door aren’t stuck down yet but we figured it was more important to get all the cuts sorted today and I can stick them down on myself.

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Ran in this morning before the boat to work just to have another wee look. Really happy with the finish along the back edge at windows and doors as well as the square (although the camera makes it look like a trapezoid) for a sunk coir mat at the front door. At the windows there’s going to be a wee oak threshold that will sit on top of the tiles which is why it’s not tiled right to the edge. Snug, bug and rug are words that came to mind.

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really nice work!

@gillies Thank you! I’m really surprised at how well it turned out! Reckon if we’d paid a tiler to do it and then come back in we’d have been chuffed with the job they’d done. Here’s the wee triangle cut again for the front of the stove, just helps to tidy it up a bit. We had a nice sunset again last night coming through and here’s a pic from floor level to show the natural inconsistencies in the tile surfaces and a view of it through the kitchen window.

Sealing the stone and then grouting will be my weekend I reckon. Got the stove guy booked in for next Thursday now we’ve got the flue issue solved and hopefully the joiner starts on internals next week or the week after too.

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Spent the last couple days scrubbing and mopping the floors to get them ready for sealing. Has definitely darkened them a little, but I think that’ll fade a little as it cures and then as soon as it’s walked and lived on a little. Dropped a bit of water off a mop onto one of the tiles I’d already done and the water just beads right on the top of it. Never imagined rock needing waterproofed..

Stuck the last of the tiles down around the stove and along the windows as well. Just a few rows of sealing to do next to those bits but the other bit of floor needs to cure enough for those lengths of skirting to move.

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Great effort on the tiling.. some amount of it to be done.. you're getting there now.. Can the ceiling hatch in the bedroom be painted the same colour as the ceiling?

I absolutely love this thread.

Whenever I’ve have a tough day, I browse through your progress photos, epic skies as a mood changer. Your resolve to problems are inspiring too. Thank you sharing all that you have done, still doing, living the dream.

Almac