Sky has sent us the some pictures showing that the roof is starting to take shape and it is making the whole house look like ….well a house.
It is exciting to see the incredible progress the builders are making but also a bit frustrating that we are not there at the moment to see it in person. But I shall be heading back to Carriacou in two weeks to start my portion of the building work this being the plumbing, electrics and the fitting out of the bathrooms and kitchens.
The pictures show that the columns around the outdoor deck area (seen in the foreground) are yet to be cast. This is because the roof rafters will be encased in the concrete ring beam to make the roof much stronger and more hurricane resistant …not that many hurricanes strike Grenada fortunately.
So while we’ve been back in the UK, Liz and I have accumulated just about everything we think we will need for both our place and the holiday flat. This is rather fortunate because there is no more room left in either of our two storage very large units at Access Self Storage in Erdington and also this portion of the overall project budget is pretty much ‘blown’.
One new consideration that has been made while we have been in the UK pondering the sunnier and warmer climes far away is the use of solar energy. This sounds like an obvious thing to look at in a place with so much sunshine, but solar panels and also the leisure batteries needed to store the energy they make for the night time are far less efficient at high temperatures. Nonetheless, I’m confident that two panels measuring one metre by two metres will be enough to drive various essential electrical items, especially the water pump. This means we can still draw water from the cistern to run the taps during a power cut which is useful.