We moved in 4 weeks ago

Yes,  on 18 of December 2011 we moved in together with lots of boxes.

We're in and all things are working well at the moment.

The snow has come in the new year and it looks really pretty out here. Kids love it too.

Just today we tried the fireplace and being first time, as it's recommended, we only burned couple of killos of wood. And the fireplace is working well, chimney has good draft, etc.

We had quite a few problems with the house since we moved, later more on that...

UPDATE (October 2012)

Among the problems we had when we moved in was that geo-thermal heating pump had wrong settings with the heat curve set too high, meaning it was heating needlessly much so that in the first week it was really warm in the house. In the end it was fixed and issue was that we should use in the the NIBE pump just curve 5 instead of 9. 9 is is the default setting in the pump but our house is very well insulated and does not need too hot water in the floor heating. The heat curve sets how warm the water in the floor heating should be for a given outside temperature.

Also the were some leakeage from the dish washer water connection which was fixed and luckily the floor did not get damaged.

The third most anoying thing was that after a week or so we noticed that we could not anymore fluch the toilet. That was in the evening of 23 December 2011, really nice ! Likely issue was solved in the same evening with our electrician having to come and connect the the sewage pump to electricity. Small detail but rather important as the sewage water needs to be pumped to the main sewage line, so that sewage tank does not get full, yaaachh!

It's been a while, but here we go...

PART 1 of catching up articles:

We did not publish updates to the works at the house since beginning of July. In the meantime a lot has happened at the house, besides being a lovely summer! The carpenters  were working on the house about half of this period and the rest of the period building other houses (no holidays for them:) or so we've been told).

I listed the events told by pictures in chronological order:

The fireplace was delivered (real soapstone - vuolukivi) and I carried the 1.5 tonne thing piece by piece inside. Strong (office) man!

 ...and this was the result after being installed:

This will look differently in the end because the surface will be tiled with white classic tiles and will get fireplace and oven (black) doors.

Then the inner brick walls were finalized one by one:

wall towards shower room

kodinhoitohuone (washing/ cleaning room)

coming sauna

Then there was the issue that the floor materials included in the house package from Lapponia house for second floor were not fitting very well for the floor heating option. We had these wooden chip boards (lastulevy) which we decided to replace with floor gips boards. Luckily we could sell the chip boards on tori.fi.

The floor heating is transmitted evenly through the floor by aluminium plates. The initial installation of the floor heating pipes went wrong because the installers did not seem to care too much where walls were going to be, were pipes should not be (like in the cold area of the wall) or to leave space for clothes dropping vent  :)...so they had to come back and redo part of the work.

upstairs before floor heating

Vital wood fibre insulation (40 cm)

we live in a wired world...

fire escape installed

also rain water collectors and snow stops were put in August

The upper floor where you can see an organized mess and the gips board floor and the wind paper covering the ceiling. Do you see the hole on the ceiling next to the 2 windows on the far left? Through that hole the ekovilla (recycled wooden fibres) was blown on top of the paper to make up about 40 cm of roof insulation.

The living room has been paneled (roof and walls) (August)

the west side of the living room

busy summer day at the house

storage/ car shelter foundation iron work

storage/ car shelter foundation

my parents helped us a lot, especially with chopping the wood

...to be continued. This is how things were in the end of August 2011.

week 14: Choosing parquet, fireplace and some of the kitchen appliances

We have been changing our mind on what kind of floor we wnat in the living room/ kitchen. Initially we were thinking that tiles go better with underfloor heating but in the end we still like better the feel of wooden floor. So we now decided to use parquet (or so called engineered wooden floor).

We checked various floor options from Parador, Upofloor, Karelia and Kährs. We wanted a floor that is sort of whitish but not look too "made" white. Ash tree (saarni/ frasin) has quite white wood but we did not like much the options found for ash parquet. We found and interesting parquet for oak from Kärhs, model Oak/ Tammi Dew (Harmony collection).

Kährs Oak Dew (promo picture from their website)

photo taken with my phone-  it's surface fees relatively rough as it's been brushed deeply and oiled. It also feels solid compared to other parquets and Kährs gives 30 year guarantee. But it does come at a price, about 40 euro/ sqm.

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Also we have decided on the fireplace, it will be from Vuoleri. We have some criterias based on which we have chosen the fireplace:
- we like the classical looking fireplaces with tiles
- we would like to have also baking oven
- price was also a contraint - our initial budget was 6000 euro including chimney
- it should not be very wide and very deep (max 90cm X 70 cm)
- it should less than 2000 kg and chimney less than 1500 kg (foundation constraints)
Vuoleri fireplaces are made with real stone inside compared to the fireplaces Kermasavi from Tulikivi thus with a smaller fireplace one can get more heat as stone retains the heat better (at least in theory :)). Also Vuoleri were flexible to make us a customized version of the fireplace. We wanted to have a small fireplace with baking oven model like Aino below but then higher by 30 cm and looking tiled like Päivänsäde below. Päivänsäde would have been too heavy for us.

Aino and Päivänsäde next to each other

The baking oven in Aino is closed, not connected to the fireplace underneath thus it keeps clean (no smoke inside). The temparture in the baking oven can get up to 250 C.

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The appliances story to follow...

Meeting on the plot and hunting fireplaces

We met this morning at the plot all the key-people of the project. Head designer, Lapponia house representative and landwork contractor. At -13degrees it was rather chilly meeting... but got valuable second opinion for the landwork (maatyöt) and making the roads last. The landbase is soft clay (old bottom of Baltic sea) and needs to be made strong enough for big machinery of 40 000kg to delivery elements. Since we have about 1meters of snowbed at this very moment, there is no deep frost in the ground but when the snow melts... we will propably come across with some flodding issues. So planning of the roads was rather interesting because of the deep snow... Let's see how it will all go.

Last weekend we were totally scared off by some contractor candidate with the mount of work in order to make the bottom strong enough. Estimate given was about 30 000 eur but today it wasn't that bad at all. So always ask for second opinion or even third. We will go for some contractor known and recommended by Lapponia house.

We also went again to see some fireplaces. This time we entered a company called Tulikivi and there we found some charming old fashioned, traditional fireplaces. Somehow I have been thinking of a modern style so far but Tulikivi made me seriously dream of having proper all-around-tiled fireplace (kaakeliuuni). Tiles are handmade in Finland and this gives some idea of the price too... Roughly 10 000 eur for a fireplace with oven and tandem-chimney incl. installation and delivery. Tandem-chimney we need because we will have wood-heated sauna on the other side of the fireplace wall. So one chimney goes for two "stoves". 

So at the moment we have 3 candidates we are looking at:
One model from Tulikivi

http://www.tulikivi.com/mallisto/ksuunit06/juhani_e_06.JPG 

Another model from Uunisepat:

http://www.uunisepat.fi/WebRoot/521328/10Tuotteet.aspx?id=1142354&Product=Katrilli&Model=Klassikko

and a cheaper version from Suomen Takkateollisuus:
http://www.ultimatemarket.com/PublishedService?file=page&pageID=9&itemcode=10710