Posts Tagged ‘renovation’

New door opens, old door closes

Monday, February 1st, 2010

For the past three years, I guess, Veerle has been trying to get me to agree to close up the living room door and make a new door in the dining room. Last fall, I finally caved. I saw the light, she would put it :-) We discussed our plans with the guy who will be taking charge in redoing our attic, and signed the agreement last November. Half December he gave us a call, and we agreed upon having the job done by the end of January. On the 29th, the demolition man came by and tore a new hole in our wall. Using a water to limit the amount of dust the wall was split apart at the right spot. Three hours later, everything was cleared and the big cleanup could begin. Depsite the water, dust had spread throughout the living room, partially spoiling my plans for getting some work done. With spurious amounts of water and soap, the living room was cleaned, and along with it, all the toys, books, and decoration.

I tore down the old door, with Nathan’s help — he’s scared of loud noise, so I figured that if I could get him to help me out, he would at least stop crying. And he did. with combined forces, we yanked the door from the wall, and replaced it with a brand new wooden framework, against which I put 18mm of multiplex, covered with 9.5 mm of plaster plate (gyproc). A bucket of Knauf Goldband later and the doorway was effectively sealed shut.

I plastered the new door hole, using metal corners to work against — my plastering skillz are pretty good, but only for small areas, i.e., no wider than my tool is. So, without further ado, behold the new door and the sealed old door.

Changing doors
Changing doors

Needless to say, we had to move some furniture around :-)

Changing doors

Mind, a new glass sliding door will be installed shortly. when the money for it arrives on my bank account.

Protection FAIL

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

Oh joy. After installing a bunch of sun protection screens on the building windows, they decided to turn the power breaker off. So, during what is probably going to be one of the warmer weeks this year, the entire installation is quite useless. So much for good planning.

The Architect

Friday, May 9th, 2008

We have an appointment. With the architect. Next Thursday.

Let’s hope he has a plan, an affordable one, and one we like on top of that.

Architects and their work pace

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

In December 2007, we had a long talk with the guy who was to become our architect for the reconstruction and renovation of our attic. He had a number of good ideas, and seemed confident that we could do things within the limitations of our budget. We were told that we should not expected to hear back from him before February, which seemed fair. I understand that he’s a busy man, and such. However, we never heard anything, and had to call him twice ourselves. Today, he confirmed that he had too much work, and he would try to get something prepared by next week.

I’m sorry, but a simple phone call, staying that the queue is full, could we please have some patience, would have been much nicer. We might as well have expected him to have a complete drawing ready. Which is not the case.

So Mr. Architect, from now on, I have some time, and I will carefully follow up your work. We shall not pay you a single penny too much, rest assured.

Technicum renovation

Wednesday, April 9th, 2008

All south-facing windows in the building where I work, have been equipped with sun screens. That is, against the outer wall, technicians have installed electrical sun screens. The idea is that by keeping the sun out during the summer (it can get really warm in here) we would somehow be saving energy. Yet the only air-conditioning devices are located in the server rooms. And they lie next to a cool hallway. I wonder how long it will take before the screens are attached to power: the wire is there, I can see it hanging from the window (through which they drilled a hole), but nobody came by to (i) clean up the dirt, or (ii) connect the screen to power. Sigh.

If the university wanted to do something about the poor state of the building, we would have received new, double-glass windows, with high-insulating gas between the glass layers. But oh no … better we have sun screens.

I sometimes fail to grasp the decisions people at the upper echelons take. No, make that most of the time.

Attic renovation

Wednesday, December 12th, 2007

It has been decided! We are going to rebuild our attic, creating two large rooms and one shower room. The architect we talked to this afternoon figured to it would be best, and cheapest to simply create a completely new roof construction, including the wood, and tiles. This would allow us to place 15 cm thick insulation and yet keep a ventilation space between the insulation and the roof. It would also spare us the cost of having to move several supporting structures that are now obstructing any decent room-forming effort.

Second on the list was how to get to the attic. The retractable staircase that is now in place is obviously not an option. However, a fixed staircase poses its own set of problems. Bottom line: we will probably need to buy three new staircases, such that heads are not making any unwanted (as in unwanted by both its owner and the landlord) acquaintance with either wall or next-floor’s staircase.

Ostend city also has to decide if the work to be done can be filed under a small renovation effort or a normal effort. In the former case, not much paperwork needs to be completed and things can be kept easy. In the latter case, we are looking at at least an extra cost of €1000 for an energy-auditor who needs to write a k-page report on the planned insulation and ventilation requirements imposed by the government. Needless to say, we’d rather use that money to do some fun stuff. If the report suggests that we are not compliant, we are looking at an additional fine equal to the amount of money to will cost to put things in order, or something like that. So the 15 cm of planned insulation had better be enough.

Our architect had some more horror stories on the current requirements, amongst which the proposed ventilation to be put into new houses. Basically, the key idea is to create a draught from the grids above the windows through ventilation grids in door (alternatively you can sow off one cm from the door bottom :-) to the obligatory shaft in the bathroom where the air will be sucked outside. Sounds not very healthy to me. Apparently, have a too insulated house is quite unhealthy too. So, theory bumps into practice again, and this time it will probably be with a bang. Truth be told, his vision of things to come has shaken me up a bit. I do believe we need to put a stop to energy waste, but the measures taken seem to be ridiculous and quite ineffective, because the first thing one does when a wind is blowing outside is close any ventilation grids. Duh.

Anyhow, we expect to hear from Mr. Ampe (hi Els ;-) somewhere in January.