The building of the new conservatory at my home in Great Barton.

(Click on any picture for an enlarged image)

Thursday 25th March 2004

The old brick and wood conservatory needs to be demolished and it's base dug up so that a new base can be built to take the weight of a new conservatory. So with just 2 days notice the builder arrives ....

At 8:30 in the morning the builder, working on his own starts work on demoilishing the old structure.
You can see the old conservatory is a half brick half glass construction with wooden window frames and a flat roof. The window frames are the main reason for the new conservatory as the old wood required rubbing down, filling and painting every summer.

By 12:30 it's all gone. Now just the base needs digging out, for which there is this neat mains powered pneumatic drill that can be seen leaning against the wall.

It's at this point that I realised just how much light the old flat roof was blocking out from the kitchen. The amount of extra light is amazing.

I returned to work in the afternoon and so was unable to follow events closely. However, come 18:30 and not only has the old base gone but the footings for the new base are in. I did wonder whether he was building a swimming pool at this point.

The fowl old drain in the left of picture will be rebuilt and sealed in the morning.

Friday 26th March 2004

I wasn't around to see the days action but apparently there were three men working on pouring the concrete at one stage. By 17:30 it's all done complete with new brick base and damp course. Believe it or not, under the concrete in the middle is a steel reinforcing mesh and a slab of polystyrene about 5 inches thick! And the drain now has a nice plastic lid for 'rodding'.

At this point I realised that I would have to seal the door and electrics with plastic to keep the rain off until the new conservatory was built. Plus try and stop blut-tits nesting in the now open end of the roof!

 

 

Tuesday 20th April 2004

After a month Zenth Windows finaly have all the bits they need and so a two man team arrives at 08:30 to start installation.

This is the situation at 09:15 which just shows how quickly they can get the basic frame in place. Each panel just locks into the adjacent panel using a special tool inserted into the gap in between. The gap is later covered by plastic trim so when you look at a completed unit you wonder how on earth they do it.

Very lucky with the weather, a nice sunny warm day. So by 14:30 it looks like the job is done.

But don't be fooled, there is no glass in the roof of the conservatory yet.

However, they have fitted the roof beams and blended them into the exitsing pitched roof very neatly using just two tiles worth of space. The marine ply box is sealed with lead flashing which I'm assured makes the whole thing waterproof.

Let's hope it doesn't rain overnight.

Wednesday 21st April 2004

Another 08:30 start for the team and they have a felt roofer with them today.

The waether forcast for today is foul and it does start to rain at about 9am. However the luck holds and the day turns out dry and warm, if dull.

So by midday the conservatory is finished completely with full glass roof and drainage channel along the front. The roof box is now covered in proper roofing felt.

Now, where did I put that tin of pink paint?

And this is my new view of the garden. With the glass roof I still have huge amounts of light in the kitchen. And, of course, the first thing I did was to sit in the new conservatory while eating my lunch.

Now I need to put a floor leveller down and then some form of floor covering. But some plants have moved in already, even before I've found the pink paint.

Good job I mowed the lawn!.