Things I may always look at and just shake my head. Part one.

Doctors bury their mistakes, gardeners dig them up, and architects plasterers wait for the painters to come and paint them over. But if you're building a house, then you're going to live in your mistakes, or with them, or looking at them every day.

I have often regretted my words, and in fact I've also regretted my silence a few times. The upstairs ceiling is a case of both. Part of the plan for being able to breathe in the house while maintaining high thermal efficiency is the ventilation system. Air comes in at the top of the middle of the East wall, goes through the heat exchanger and is sent through ducts around the house. It returns through another set of ducts, goes back through the heat exchanger to ensure that the we're not losing too much heat in the winter, or gaining too much in the summer, then air leaves the house on the high north wall. It took a lot of time and mental gymnastics to work out where these ducts should all go, to ensure all parts of the house would have suitable amounts of air flowing through, and we wouldn't have ducts in the way to trip over or bang our heads on. The final plan had two ducts running across the upstairs south ceiling, from the machine room at the east to the west wall in the master bedroom. The south ceiling has two beams running east-west, one a third of the way up, above the edge of the corridor and the south edge of the master bedroom, another two thirds of the way up, in the middle of the master bedroom and above the stairs. The ducts were to go above the higher beam, covered by a bit of ceiling coming horizontally away from the sloping ceiling, then heading up vertically to meet it again. 

Two ducts were necessary along this bit of ceiling, one delivering fresh air to the master bedroom and to the downstairs room, and the other extracting old air from the kids' room, the loft in the back of the master bedroom and the geta bako (shoe cupboard) in the genkan. So, this bit of ceiling seemed like it would be rather large.

I had the idea of leaving one of the ducts along the higher beam, but sending the other duct along the lower beam. This would have had a more balanced effect on the ceiling, so that rather than one boxy protrusion around half a metre wide, and another beam-sized protrusion a quarter of that, there would be two protrusions, both around 30 cm wide, rather like wide beams. I discussed this a little with the site foreman and architect, and then made the mistake of suggesting it directly to the man in charge of the ducting. The result was that, rather than one of the ducts ending up along the lower beam, it moved to the other side of the higher beam. 

"You don't want it to go along that beam. It'll look strange." They said. 

And I believed them.

They probably just thought that it was too much trouble changing it, or perhaps wondered what on earth was I doing putting these stupid ducts in the house anyway, rather than allowing in real fresh air, bracing or stifling depending on the season. And if I did want these ducts, then surely I'd be happy for them to create a massive ripple on the ceiling. Or perhaps they were more concerned about the other hundred items on the list of things to do.

So now we have something that is likely to make people think, "What the f..." And I'll have to explain that the ventilation ducts are behind there, or tell them the tale I have just told, or pretend the reason is to accommodate the down-light, because we can't put anything through the vapour barrier just under the plaster board on the ceiling, or I'll have to make up a more elaborate story.

Or perhaps they won't notice. I mean, nobody looks at ceilings, do they?

Or perhaps they will just politely say nothing, and I will have no opportunity for elaborate story making.

But I will notice. And I may always wonder why I didn't dig my feet in and tell them what I wanted. 

Of course it may look better when the paint is on. 

Or it may look worse. 

A window that opens!

Two and a half months after the window was installed, and over a year after it was ordered, our big window  is now opening and closing. The managing director and technician came from Pazen in Germany to the house to fix it. They are also at UIA2011 Tokyo, the 24th World Congress of Architects.

Technically speaking, the problem seems to have been a lack of support under the frame. This manifested itself in a twisted hinge at the top right corner, and the final leaf that would not fit properly into the frame, so the paintwork of the frames has been damaged. 

"We have no problems, only solutions," they announced.

Using a spirit level they estimated that the frame was off the level by about 1mm in height per metre of width, or three millimetres over the whole width of the window. This was perplexing as the frame was set to within a millimetre, using a laser. 

Adjustments to the screws on the hinges did not work, and they removed the rotated hinge at the top right corner, then replaced it, but it just went back to its original angle. 

The hinge will only support up to 130 kg, so most of the weight of the windows should be supported by the rail at the bottom. Each leaf weighs around 80 kg, so two will weigh 160 and three 240. The weight is all transferred onto one spot on the rail, and when the window was installed, plastic spacers should have been used at regular intervals to stop the frame and rail from sagging. It seems that wood was used under the frame, which had disintegrated through the weight and through rain getting in from outside. When the window was installed, there was clearly nobody there who knew all this.

The people from Pazen came to this conclusion by removing the caulking around the bottom, which we had put there, probably unnecessarily, worrying at the lack of airtightness from the Compriband. They fixed the problem of the sagging rail by inserting small squares of hardwood, individually manufactured by our master carpenter from left-over bits of floorboard. They had hoped for some plastic spacers, but there were none in the house or in the importer's stock. As the outside of the window frames are now sealed, moisture should not be a problem, and the wood should last for a while. There is now no caulking along the bottom of the window frame, but it looks like it will need to be put in again, perhaps when the tiles are put in.

In the process, I think the Germans learnt the English word for "crow bar" and I learnt the Japanese word, which is disappointingly obvious: ba-ru. They needed this to lift the frame up and insert the wooden spacers.

Of course, problems have human dimensions as well as technical dimensions, and in human terms, the basic problem has been that information on installing the windows did not get to the people actually installing them.

The language barrier could be blamed for this, but I think the biggest problem has been incompatibility between our architect and the window importers. The importers, perhaps justifiably, see the details of window installation to be the responsibility of the architect. The architect, totally unjustifiably, probably sees these foreign windows and the people trying to bring them in as unnecessary, and has been looking for problems with them from the beginning. 

As far as Pazen is concerned, they think they sent a high-quality product, which has been compromised in its installation. They were assured by the importers that they knew all about windows, which may be true, but the information did not get to the people putting them in. These windows were perhaps five times heavier than the windows they were used to, were installed from the inside rather than the outside and had unfamiliar mechanisms, so clearly important information had to be communicated.

Pazen came last November, coinciding with the planned installation of the windows working back from the January NEDO deadline, and gave various instructions and answered several questions from the architect. Two of the instructions, which the architect carefully noted in his book, were that the screws should be spaced 15cm from the top and bottom of each side, and with less than 60 cm between them. In other words, a window with a side 90 cm or less only needed two screws. This message did not get through to the carpenter installing the windows, who put screws in every 50 cm, and then ran out, and is still waiting for more screws two months later. 

Also, the screws should go, not through the middle of the frame, but near the inside edge, as the boss clearly told the architect last November, and the architect clearly wrote in his note book. At least it was clear that he wrote it, although we cannot clarify whether he wrote it clearly. You can see from the picture above where the screws went, and looking at the cross section picture of the window on the left, that's going straight through the middle of the frame, where there is insulation, and it is not the best place structurally. The screws should have gone where the carpenter's thumb is.

So it seems that the architect and importers have been negligent in guiding the builders in the installation, and I wish that instead of worrying about my job, I had made more effort to work between them. I should have made sure I was there at the meeting between importers and builders, and I should have made sure the builders were there to meet Pazen when they came, instead of being left out of the loop.

Another question I have, though, is whether Pazen's design is right for this size of window, or whether the three leaves are just too big and heavy with triple pains. As I was looking at the great size and weight weighing on the little hinge, I was wondering whether it wouldn't have been an idea to have another hinge on the right hand side.  

Or perhaps it was just me being stupid in wanting this window. If this, and the other windows on the South wall, had been double glazed rather than triple glazed, they would have been substantially lighter, and this may not have been such a problem. They would also have been cheaper, and by my calculations would not have resulted in any net heat loss as double glazing lets in more light than triple. Triple windows will certainly be nicer in the winter when it's really cold outside and we are right next to them.

Would you like a wiring plan, or a plate of spaghetti?

Just picking up on a detail. Maybe being unnecessarily picky.

I'd planned the telephone to be plugged in upstairs near the north west corner of the house. There is a telegraph pole on the north side of our land, about four metres from the north west corner of the house. They have things called wireless phones, so there is no need to have telephone wires running around the house any more. The internet connection will also come in on the telephone wire, but I have a wireless port, so once it's in the house, the computers can go anywhere.

For any older readers, I should probably clarify that "wireless" refers to internet technology that does not need to be connected by physical wire, and is not a posh word for a radio.

So, it seemed like a no-brainer to bring a wire from the telegraph pole to the north west corner, then bring it into the house with a metre or so of cable, so that the phone and internet gubbins can be connected.

When I saw the plans, which only came after the electricians started working and under duress, I spotted a telephone wire meandering around the house. The wire comes into the house at the north east corner, then goes out again on the east wall, puncturing the walls and vapour barrier twice. Then meanders all the way across the house to the west wall, where we want it.

The reason for the second puncture is that the phone line needs to go through a protection box, in case there is lightning or something. Rather than being up on the wall next to where the telephone line comes in, this protection box is right next to the electricity metres, so it will be easy to fix it if anything goes wrong, "thinking ahead". Clearly a ladder would be out of the question, presumably since the hypothetical workman in this hypothetical situation may be scared of heights.

And the reason why the telephone line can't come in at the north west corner and must instead go in at the north east is that it won't look very good. In view of the ten-metre high telegraph pole next to the house, with scores of wires coming out of it, I don't think anyone will even notice the wire going to the house, except perhaps in the architect's photos. Maybe I should offer to teach him how to use Photoshop so he can edit it out

At the meeting with the electrician a couple of days ago I said that it was OK and left it to their plans, but since then it's been really bugging me, and I'm strongly minded to put my foot down and insist that they put it all back to the North West corner, "thinking ahead".

-=+=-=+=-=+=-

This may be a good opportunity to tell Anthony's joke about a conversation between a Japanese, English and Irish  IT expert.

First, the Englishman is talking about an archaelogical dig in Britain that revealed copper having been used thousands of years ago. "And that goes to show", he boasts, "that the prehistoric British were using LAN networks."

"That's nothing," says the Japanese guy. "We had an archaelogical dig in Japan too. And you know what they found?"

The other two shake their heads.

"Silicon," the Japanese guy replies. "And that goes to show that prehistoric Japanese people had optic fibre networks.

"That's nothing," says the Irishman. "We had a dig too, and you know what they found?"

The Englishman and the Japanese shake their heads.

"They found absolutely nothing," says the Irishman with a proud smile. "And that goes to show that the prehistoric Irish had wireless internet."