A significant stutter

Last week was to have been drilling week - the plan being to sink two boreholes each of 130m in depth, to suck warmth from the earth which our ground source heat pump would transfer to our underfloor heating and domestic hot water supply. Things started well, and a million pounds worth of radio-controlled drilling equipment made a dramatic entry to Gellifor and our plot.

somewhat amazingly, the transporter was only in position for a little over 5 minutes

even more amazingly, the rig is being controlled remotely from the little orange box on the technician's waistbelt

so here we are, almost ready for action

this is the business end

and this is the top of the rig

a small selection of the rest of the kit (borehole grout and the smaller of two compressors on site)

It was the team's intention to spend day one setting up, prior to completing a borehole on each of the following days. However, in the middle of the afternoon, a significant telephone call came from head office - a last minute check had revealed a 'geological anomaly' and the job had been referred to a specialist  hydrogeologist for advice. It turned out that the back story was a drilling venture fifty years ago, some one third of a mile to the west, which had led to a significant water blowout costing huge amounts of money to cap and stabilise.

So by 5pm all the kit had gone, with the promise that it would return if the new analysis proved positive. It did not. On the basis of the advice they received, the drilling company withdrew from their contract two days later, warning that had things gone wrong, our house and most of the village would have been significantly damaged by unimaginable amounts of water spouting from the ground. 

Our hopes for a ground source heating system dashed, we have asked our contractor to provide an air source alternative, less efficient but easier and cheaper (in theory!) to install. There will, of course, be a delay. Along with the delay waiting for our windows, which are now due in the second week of November, owing to materials shortages (Covid, Brexit, take your pick).

However, the more positive news is that today our blocklayers were back on site, starting construction of the garage/workshop; and the electrical sub-contractor (another local business) started work on the first-fix electrics. We still feel to be making progress, but the weather has turned now, we've had rain and there is a nip in the air, so the sooner we are water-tight the better.

footings for the garage/workshop going in