The man from the Clapham Omnibus

House Wrap     Now the roof was at last in place it was time to make the home weatherproof . The first stage was to protect everything with " house wrap " . This is a semi permeable material which allows the building to breathe but prevents rain from penetrating . It is similar to " Gore-Tex " in clothing allowing water vapour to escape but keeping liquid water out . It comes in 3 foot and nine foot rolls . I bought nine foot rolls but as I was working on my own cut some of it in half to make it easier to fit .        The product is simply wrapped around the whole building initially spanning window and door openings and stapled in place . A hammer stapler is a good investment here .  .There are also special fittings but in my view they are too expensive to justify their use . Lets hope the manufacturers do not work on the legislators to mandate them at some time in the future . The lowest piece overlaps the foundation by about six inch...

28 foot height limit      There is a mandatory height limit set within the town of Coupeville of 28 feet . This is to preserve the character of the town and to ensure conflicts over new buildings restricting the view from old buildings is kept to a minimum . I was aware of this from the earliest stages of the planning . From my earlier experience in England I was aware that the extra cost of having a full sized basement was not that great over the cost o simply foundations and a crawl space . I actually purchased the particular plot with this in mind . The 28 feet is measured by determining the highest point and the lowest points on the original surface within 5 feet of the finished building . Then the 28 feet is measured from their average - thus with a steep slope such as I had it is possible to have a full sized basement with good windows and functional drainage to the front as the height is balanced by the ground level at the back being much higher . In m...