360 panoramic from the top of the roof

The house has great views of Portobello.

Solar hot water

About £2,000 all in. Considering installing. Thing that is putting me off is the aesthetics rather than the cost. Above various images from the interweb of the evacuated tubes.

30th June progress

Topped out!






Main progress on gables and ridge beam. Neil notches shadow gap to Post. Shock discussions with contractor on price - I'm paying his team for travel to and from the site. Shock.

Friday 27th Progress

Stoves

From greymetal.co.uk I have narrowed the list of stoves down to 3:


The Luna, will heat 100m3, cost £359.


The Taro, will heat 100m3, cost £360.


The marinella, no info on heat output, cost £499

Telehandler - lift and shift

12m crane with fork lift, a jcb body and all terrain tyres. Available at Robert Purvis Plant Hire in Fife.



available at amazon

Wednesday 25th June

The steel beam being lifted into place by a telehandler, possibly the most amazing piece of plant I have ever seen.



The semi complete corner panels.

Colours for the Alumasc Gutters

I've narrowed the already narrow range to these

23rd June - installation of the post

Not that much to report. Some seriously huge plant is about to arrive on Wednesday which is a worry as there is no space on site. Run out of money now so have started the mortgage which means from now on we are paying two rents.

From the top of the scoffold 21st June

Not that high but enough to give me wobbly legs on the wobbly scaffold.

Disspointing week overall. T. Fleming Homes were late delivering the kit; all the rwong bits came; and they couldn't make more than one delivery. Meanwhile the joiners were not around much - in total 1.5 days all week.

New Orleans tagging of architecture

source

I recommend viewing the original image as there is an explanation of the various tags:

Daikokubashira burnt oak post 2

When wet the post looks very black but as it dries it fades down to a matt finish.







As you can see the grain gets exposed similar to sand blasting the timber. I think this efefct is very successful - it is what I was trying to achieve. The next step is top try and avoid it going very black again when it has a oil or varnish finish.

Daikokubashira burnt oak post

Blackening the burnt oak post using a propane gas burner (normally used for taking off road markings)


test area

burn the wood

dry brush down

I was surprised about how shallow the veneer of charring was

wet brush the log

More images to follow (blogger allows maximum 5 images per post!)

Salvaging the DPM

Next day the weather stayed nice.

Laying the Dpm

The liquid applied DPM.




Looking great so far... then:









After the rain!

Construction continues Friday 13th

Friday morning


Saturday morning


Saturday afternoon

Very satisfying work.

The finish

Shou-kashiwa-ban

I've been deliberating and worrying about the finish of our daikokubashira. A friend of mine suggested burning the timber which I've heard of but was concerned about the method of finishing. He then found me a link to a house blog in San Diego (*edit) which has cladding finished as Shuo-sugi-ban. Sugi is of course Japanese cedar so I'm guessing mine might be shou-kashiwa-ban? Kashiwa being oak... (edited by Makiko who thinks haku is a misreading of kashiwa)

Here are a few of pursuingwabi.com's images (they didn't mind) but the post above is really good and worth reading.





The final finish - Brazilian Rosewood Oil - is regarded as ecologically unsound read more here.

Progress

Didn't have any pictures of progress - the slab cast and set. 7th June 2008.

My big black pillar

My tree trunk soon to the daikokubashira; 100 years old, died at least 60 years ago and found fallen in a wood near Dunfermline. Courtesy of Scottish Wood.