Now the brickwork of the walls is completed, its time to put up the insulation. We have specified 10cm EPS – that’s expanded polystyrene – comes in large blocks. Its quite a bit more than the Greek building regulations specify, but we are trying to get to be most energy efficient. Together with the internal insulation (of which more later!) we aim to get to a heat transmittance value of 0.2 (I didn’t know what this was until some research a few weeks ago!), which is the level of the UK.
The North wall has been started here, insulation around the back door opening.
The insulation is glued and secured with fastenings every so often.
This is the Atrium West wall which will be a series of sliding glass doors covering the whole of the width. You can see the rainwater drain which takes rainwater from the South block and merges it with North block water to drop down to rainwater tanks we will install under the studios’ balcony. We intend to collect rainwater from both roofs to help overcome any future shortages.
Very soon the whole building is completely clad with insulation. It already feels cool inside despite the summer temperatures – bodes well!
That’s the whole building completed, time to turn to the roof. There’s also been some activity elsewhere on the plot!
We are having an infinity side to the pool so we can float on lilos and look straight over to the mountains! It needs a drainage trench for the overflow water to run into, to be pumped back to the pool, so the concrete for this has been poured.
Temperatures have been in the high 30s which makes working outside quite challenging. In fact sometimes it gets to hot for the adhesives etc to harden off properly. Not surprising the workers get thirsty!