Some work is progressing ... a bit

The windows all went back into the farmhouse in varying states of finish, and we painted and varnished them as time allowed for the first summer visitors. About the best I can say about these windows is that the more I have repaired, the better the standard of the repair. But "better" regrettably doesn't mean "good".


Here is a window whose bottom edge is now a good deal more solid that it was. In fact, before the repairs the bottom of that frame was loose and could be wobbled several millimetres back and forward - with a correspondingly loose pane of glass.



The picture below shows the inside of the same pair of windows. The glazing bar at the top of the picture of the right hand window was similar to (or perhaps actually is) the one shown previously (May 25th) with a large amount of rot at the joint. The joint is now filled with the resin-based filler, and strengthened with a metal T-piece. The left-hand window was one I repaired last year and needless to say the repairs are much more visible.



The glass is now all in one piece, instead of several, and the putty is a good deal more secure. In fact, as we have now painted over the putty - previously it had all been left unpainted, and had cracked away - there is a chance that the glass will stay where it is and rattle a good deal less in the winds.

We have finally got around to starting the building for the solar panels at the end of the garden. I know that putting them at a distance from the house is not ideal, but I have some hopes that the extra distance will be compensated by the larger area, 10 m2. Eventually I imagine we will find out.

Yesterday, in pouring rain, Paul and I dug out the foundations and shuttered the hole - mostly Paul I'd say. By the afternoon the rain had made the ground so slippery that Paul was only just able to get his van up the lane behind the barn, and the pouring of the concrete was deferred for a day or two in the hope of better weather. I spent the afternoon shifting the concrete blocks for the walls down to the site - they had been delivered up by the farmhouse.

This is the present state of the work:



There are four and a half tonnes (=250 blocks) of those blocks, shifted five at a time by wheelbarrow, and it has to be said my back is complaining about the hard labour yesterday. But the forecast is for a dry morning tomorrow and I have every hope that we'll get the concrete poured and the first row of blocks in place. The corner blocks - which are different from the wall blocks - accomodate steel reinforcing to tie them together. It is possible to see just one of the corner blocks edge-on in the picture, a little to the right of the top edge of the wheelbarrow, with the square hole at one end only, and you can compare these with the end-on views of the other 8 or 9 wall-blocks.

The intention will be to get these vertical reinforcing rods cast into the foundation slab, and then up a couple of levels of blocks, at each corner. The first layer of blocks will - I hope - be set into the concrete foundations before the concrete starts to harden.