Celotex lovin'

So, the last we saw of the corridor a day or two ago it was looking like this:

-nicely painted but REALLY COLD as there was only a bare wall of metal between us and the icy winter nights. We couldn't afford to hang about before getting on with the next stage - insulating.

When we took the wall off we found just a thin layer of Rockwool, which didn't go all the way to the top or bottom of the ribs between which it was placed.

So i got to work cutting up sheets of 60mm celotex and packing it between the ribs


before filling the gaps round the edges with expanding foam, to create an impermeable moisture barrier and fill up any gaps in the insulation


I then took the original rockwool pieces that had been the only insulation in there and put them back over the top of the new sealed celotex layer, ready to be covered by the new corridor wall.


As usual, Vortex was the designated Inspector of Works, and declared everything up to standard.

We have exciting plans for lining the corridor with shelves for books, CDs, DVDs etc. at the sam time as we do the walls of the third bedroom, so stay tuned...

crunchy

Given that Woolworths is closing down, we thought we'd go along to our local branch and see if we could pick up any credit crunch/massive global recession goodies at bargain prices. And lo and behold, for about £30 we got all these nice smart light switches which we'll be putting in the bedrooms as we renovate them, and loads of low energy light bulbs. Hurrah!

Rib ticklin'

So, why is Lorna disguised a miner?

We decided that, as we're in insulating mode rather than final wall-putting-on mode, and as we have a whole load of sheets of wood that we need to use to clear the space that they are taking up (and which we're planning to turn into shelves in the corridor) that now would be a good time to strip the walls off in the corridor, and do to it what we've done to the bedroom.

So off came the walls


revealing a pretty good, solid frame underneath, which is cool as it means we can use that as the basis for our new wall and shelves. Again, the insulation in there was pretty rubbish, so when we fully celotex it it should make a big difference.


All the old paint, because the insulation had been rubbish and so there had probably been a lot of condensation issues, was in a pretty bad state, so we wire brushed as much loose stuff off as we could,


getting filthy in the process. The head torches were great for seeing into all the dark little corners between the ribs, hence the miner look.


Then it was time for a new coat of paint, mixed with thermilate insulation powder, which should hopefully help against any possible condensation problems



Before

and after.


We hoovered up all the flakes of paint and rust, and called it a day.

Breaking the fourth wall

Throughout our renovation works in the bedroom, there has been no wall between the room and the corridor, it being one of the first things we removed. For it to feel like a room again we needed that wall back.

We still had the stud wall framework

so with a bit of tightening up of all the joints and some cross braces to keep it square

and a trim of the floor to give us a straight edge for the room

we could screw the base piece to the floor

and screw the rest of the framework to that. With some celotex filling it all in it looked like a real wall!


It still needs extending up to, and attaching to, the ceiling

and then we can build in the door frame and continue the wall to the other wall.

portholio 3

here's the porthole in the bedroom, all painted up, pretty!

Portholio 2

The engine room has a whole load of portholes around the top (from the inside it's the top, from the deck they're almost at floor level). When it rains they leak horribly, so one thing we decided to try was to weld little rain deflectors above the portholes so that at least water running down the side of the wheelhouse wouldn't go into them.

We ground off the paint above the porthole


and cut a strip of metal to size

and welded it on. A coat of paint and it blended in seamlessy! And it seems to work too...

Insulation Installation

Now that the weather has turned COOOLD, our minds have turned inexorably to insulation. I have spoken before about how the areas of metal hull left bare in the original conversion of Serenity act as a big heat sink and needed insulating, and now we're weldtastic we could finally weld the tabs to screw to the battens to rest the celotex on to temporarily insulate the main room, until we properly build walls over it all when we fully renovate that room.

Lorna ground off patches of paint (wearing her fashionable 'anti-angle grinder's lung' ensemble)

then she used our new (and amazing) magnetic welding clamp to hold the bracket/tabs in place

and welded them on to the wall of the hull.

We then screwed battens to the tabs

and wedged the celotex in place between the batten and the ceiling (this is just a temporary fix until we do it properly, but it does work and make a difference, and the wall behind the celotex doesn't get condensation on it when it is really cold outside, whereas the exposed wall does.).

One on the lips

Where the skylights sit on the roof, there is a point on each one (there are 12) where the wall stops and the window just sits on top of it. This means that any drips or condensation can run down the wall and inside the insulation, not good. We needed a lip on the top of the wall for each window, and the thrid bedroom was the perfect place to test the theory.


Luckily, Lorna's wikkid weldin' skillz were just what was needed.


She cut a strip of metal to the right width and welded it into the gap, and we had just what we needed to stop any more drips.