Esledes Build: OMG...it's TECHNOpor!

One of the days I really wasn't looking forward to finally arrived.... 28 bags (over 7tons) worth of Technopor arrived in an artic from Germany! Well it wasn't that we didn't want it, it was just the logistics of a huge lorry (they wouldn't supply on a smaller one) which clearly was never going to make it up the small narrow private road to our site.

So......a very unorthodox method ensued. Not entirely my idea, but clearly my inexperience certainly didn't help. However, it is a product with very high green credentials (highly insulative crushed re-cycled glass), negating the need for a concrete infill in the foundations, which has been used in Europe for years, but not in this country very much at all.....and certainly not for small domestic self-builds!! And so.....

A neighbouring wide, quiet (well was before we arrived)...road..

..no fortlift (the far too sensible option) Let's go for the 'make large bags fall over and play catch with poor Barry's transit option instead'.....Yes 28 bags, 2 at a time....work it out...

Well it worked amazingly well for 12 trips back and forward to site. Barry and his guys getting superbly efficient at unloading and returning speedily for more until........the bags thought they'd all be better falling over. Uh oh......Thin, loosely tied bags, falling over = mess of small pumice like stones all over the road, van and lorry......(well at least they're relatively light and clean)

The good news is with a bit of hands on help from a large German lorry driver, a suited German Commercial Director and his English colleague, my Dad, me and Barry (what a bizarre bunch of people to be scrabbling around in lorries)....got the last bags on......
.....just....
.....leaving only just the merest hint of light grey dust that we were ever there........ (for about 2hours!)

Possibly they won't suggest this method again!! Yet another notch into the hands of experience for us all!