I forgot to mention it on the previous page, but I put up another framed section around each heavy concrete beam at the top of each of the east and west walls to hold the insulation.

And speaking of insulation ...

Sadako and I did the south wall together, then after she went home, I finished off the east and west walls.

When I ordered this stuff, I specified a type that is sold specifically for use in Hokkaido, the northern province of Japan. It's quite dense, a good 10cm thick, and should do the job pretty well.

But any experienced Japanese builder who sees these photos will probably be thinking to himself, "Dave has screwed up here - that pink film is supposed to be pulled off the batts before they are stapled up in place!" Don't get upset - let me explain!

Each batt has a clear plastic front surface that helps act as a vapour barrier, and the rear is surrounded by a light pink plastic, which wraps around to the front. This rear cover is intended to be pulled off as the batt is stapled in place, but I was forced to leave it alone. In 'normal' construction, insulation batts fit quite snugly in their wall sections, and the staples at each side of the front plastic sheet suffice to hold it in place. But in my case, the batts have no support at the rear, as these wooden walls stand clear away from the concrete, with an air space behind them.

I did a test by putting a batt up in place with the pink wrapper removed, and found that without any support at all at the rear, the fiberglas immediately started to slump down. I am sure that as time went by, it would slump even further, and perhaps even pull away from the front sheet. So I left the pink wrappers in place. There is no real worry about trapping condensation I think, as the pink film is very flimsy and fully perforated, and thus should be no 'barrier' effect to moisture. The only down-side is that with the film in place, the batt can't expand to its fullest extent, so I will lose a small percentage of the insulating value.

One corner is left open for a while, so that I can keep clear the place where all the cables come down from upstairs. I'm determined that I won't have wires running back and forth all across this room, and am going to wire in as much as I can from the beginning.

Later on, when the stairs go in and the 'desk' underneath them is built in this corner, I'll be wiring it with telephone, ethernet, S-video for the webcam, intercom ... and everything else I can think of that I will be needing!

You can also see the horizontal dark 'slot' in the wall; this is where room air will be blown into the cavity behind the insulated wall, venting out through those pipes under the floor.