A while since the last entry... we've now taken delivery of £4,500-worth of Spacetherm, for internally insulating the front wall (see article for a more detailed description). As the delivery was on an 18-tonne truck, we had to decant it into my 3.5-tonne van in order to get as close as possible to the house. The contractors are using their joiner to fit the Spacetherm: a slightly curious choice, but makes sense given that there's some difficult angles around the bay windows, and cutting the stuff neatly will be half the battle.

The walls have been prepared now, and the actual fixing is due to get underway next week.

The plumbing is ongoing, with domestic hot and cold water and most of the waste pipes in now, we're moving on to the rainwater system and radiator circuits next week. Although the on-site work is progressing slowly, the bigger difficulty is that I've had to pretty much abandon the original idea of using a Baxi Ecogen MicroCHP unit in conjunction with a thermal store/buffer vessel. Although it's great in theory, the reality is that Baxi don't have a wide enough installer network for a one-off installation like ours to be achieved cost-effectively. So I am, reluctantly, looking at a condensing boiler system instead - will write more on this next week.

The plaster is pretty much dried out; the builders have fitted the new lintel over the front door, and the new kitchen door was delivered today; will be fitted next week.

United Utilities have promised us that they will be gone from outside the house by 2 October. Fingers crossed!