More shop

Only plumbing and painting remains.

Army Cub to Oppdal

Took a trip to Oppdal with the Army Cub from 1949 a couple of weeks ago. My neighbour was a passenger in the nice cold weather. Only one student flew that day. He was practising solo landings with the ASK-13 in the nice but calm weather (no wind and consequently no waves that day to keep the gliders in the air). The student was from Israel, and his plan is to go back to Israel to try to become a fighter pilot ones he have the gliding licence and some hours.

The shop is almost there

The shop is almost finished. Some work remains on the interior with the walls. When that is done, all the airplane stuff must be moved to the new shop, and the old shop shall be made into a living room again. Then, I can start decorating the shop with table etc + some painting. The large door is a sliding door for easy access. It can also relatively easily be removed when needed. Originally the whole thing should be finished by now, but the chief carpenter got seriously ill (blood clot in the brain), so things slowed down. He is better now, but he is not allowed to drive a car.

Previously the priming room was inside the house. A new priming booth in the garage will be made. The fumes from the priming is not compatible with the wife...

The 4 new bedrooms and a living room in the old house is now finished, only the last living room remains.

The back wall of the shop

On the back side of the shop the wall need to be made of some kind of brick or concrete. It also need to be insulated. My wall is made of this new "material" or process from Vartdal. It consists of foam bricks that are set in place, then filled with reinforcement bars and concrete is poured into it. Almost exactly like LEGO. The result is a very strong and completely insulated wall. On the inside the wall must be plated with sheets of plaster for fire proofing. A rather interesting house building concept and a movie of the process can be seen here

Concrete floor in place

Early this morning the concrete was pored in to make the floor. As can be seen on the right edge, the floor got a bit larger than planned...

Piper Pa-25 Pawnee

Cool picture of LN-NTH taken some weeks ago.

The new shop - base

The base for the new shop is finally being finished. After digging and blasting, the concrete floor will be laid tomorrow on top of insulation and steel.

New shop and other changes

It's been quiet on the build-front the last year. Been getting lots of fun tail wheel practice doing glider towing in the Pawnee, but that is hardly count as building airplanes. Besides being busy with work, the main thing that has happened is I have gotten married to my fiancée (since 10 years), and she has moved into my house. She also brought 3 kids with her, so now we are 2 adults and 6 kids (age 11 to 19). The two oldest have moved on to study other places, but still require a place when visiting, and the rest of us require considerable more room than what was required before.

The end result is my shop has to go to give room for bedrooms and living rooms. A new shop is being built. This will be a 35 m2 room on the ground floor. The room will be built with electricity, water and sewage. The last two is not strictly required, but may come handy and is good for future use. It will be easily converted into more ordinary house usage if that is needed. On top of the shop will be a large terrace connected to the main living room in first floor of the house (3 floors in total). The financial part of it is rather amusing. Living in a dense populated area (by Norwegian measures), in a pressure area regarding growth, the average house price is around 25 kNOK per m2. The new shop having ordinary house standards regarding heating, insulation and so on will cost me around 7 kNOK per m2. So the added value is around 18 kNOK per m2 (of course not usable until I sell the house - and the market for houses hasn't collapsed, but it's a nice thought nevertheless). The most important thing; my wife is in total agreement with this project.

The plans and drawings have been done by an architect (Resell, an old glider pilot), and the construction will be done by an entrepreneur. In the old house, 6 rooms has to be made/redecorated (new walls, new floor etc) and some additional changes, this I am doing myself at the moment. The RV-4 is in storage mode until the new shop is ready in a couple of months.