Before I begin: >>> HAPPY NEW YEAR <<<
I didn't get a chance to update the diary during the Christmas period so I'm going to cover the work completed under this one section. Although thinking about it, for the most part, I was doing one job...stuffing mineral wool!!
As you read earlier I'd pretty much decided on how to complete the ceiling void and the few chances I had over Christmas were pretty well spent filling the ceiling. This is not the nicest of jobs especially when working above your head but it's bearable when you're well covered up from head to toe. It really did involve a lot of cutting which is quite time consuming. Filling in the last gaps was the hardest and I found it a lot easier to cut smaller pieces and insert them separately than trying to stuff large sections in at a time which normally results in the piece breaking up and making a bit of a mess. Anyway, as always you live and learn and things really did start to come together quite well and in general I was really pleased with the results. Though I was relieved to get the final piece up there!!!
>> Photo - Ceiling Void Filled <<
The room had got into a bit of a mess after the last job so it was time for clear up. I wanted to keep as much of the usable off-cuts of mineral wool for any small filling jobs, so I picked the bigger pieces and put them into a bag. I then gave the room a good sweep and vac. It may seem a bit excessive but I can't stand working in a messy environment and it's actually quite therapeutic and it gives you a chance to think about the next jobs.
OK, before I could finish filling the door frame and the back alcove stud-work I needed to add some timbers near the fresh air inlet. I need some structure in the stud-work around the air-brick so that I can feed some kind of duct into the room silencer box on that side. This was formed with two noggings about 90mm apart with a couple of short uprights between them. >> Photo - Fresh Air Inlet Stud-work <<
Once that job was complete I set about filling the door area stud-work. I do need to create a couple more supporting structures in the alcove stud-work as I need to provide some ventilation in the airlock area because the DAW will reside here - don't want to overheat the PC. However, I wanted to finish off the mineral wool job so I put this job off until later and continued the filling. This is a much easier and less messy job than the ceiling and went very well indeed. I was also keen to get to this stage so that I can estimate whether I'll need any more RockSilk for the room treatments. Out of the 96 slabs I bought I used 63 for the stud-work filling leaving 33 for room treatments. I need to go over my calculations to see if I'm going to need any more.
All in all I'm very pleased with the job and a little relieved to get it out of the way. It was my aim to complete this job over the Christmas period and I achieved this while still able to enjoy plenty of time with the family and friends - without compromise. I'm not too far off starting the drywall stage now :-)