The Nursery continued

With the electricians now finished in the nursery (although not live so we've got no light in there yet), so we've started work insulating and drywalling the room. There were no noggins at the top of the exterior wall, so I added some to prevent air flow through the very top, and sprayed in expanding foam to fill the spaces around to create a more air tight space.

Wikipedia's comments on vapour barrier in construction



Each stud has a bead of vapour retardant adhesive to prevent vapour spreading sideways across the stud once the drywall is in place. I've made a bit of a mess at the top in the middle. The vapour retarder in the first tube ran out, and I only had one tube. When I went to the hardware store they only had larger diameter tubes, which are far harder to use because a greater pressure is needed to get the gunk out. So I was struggling for about 30 seconds with both hands before it would come out - and then it wouldn't stop.

I also got to use my new 'toy' - a compressor and nail gun. Compressors are incredibly powerful. A 6 page manual, consisting of four pages of warnings and two pages of how to use it. Set the tank to 60 PSI, and the inch and a half long staples went into the wooden stud like a hot knife through butter. Much more than that and the end of the hoop would get buried below the surface of the wood and would tear right through the vapour barrier. It comes with a pressure regulator built in to keep it at the right operating range, so although the 2 gallon tank is at 100 PSI, the staple gun is only using 60. When the pressure in the tank drops too low, the compressor kicks in and charges the tank. These compressors are also useful for pumping tyres and sports balls. With the right equipment, you can spray paint too.

Whilst I've been insulating the exterior wall, my wife has been working out the best way to remove the paint from the old wooden window frames. The paint is in a poor state, suffering from age, sun light and damp. Trying just the paint stripper was ineffective and would have turned out to be very expensive if we did the whole house. However using the heat gun to remove the outer layers, followed by the paint stripper got almost back to the wood. The putty round the glass was in a state too, about half had fallen off, but for the most part the rest is still very sound.

In the mean time, the cat inspects the works so far: