Wednesday 12 February 2020

S Bricks in a rendered wall

This is the end result of the project reported here:
actionforswifts.blogspot.com/2019/09/swift-brick-camera-box.html 

S Bricks do not have enough headroom to house a camera, which is why 4 out of the 10 Swift bricks in this project are a custom design.

The 'before' picture: the hip roof in the middle is to be converted into a gable

S Bricks installed
4 custom camera boxes installed
The 'after' picture: 6 S Bricks and 4 custom camera boxes installed

Sunday 9 February 2020

A solution looking for a problem

This is a bit of fun. We were presented with the problem of a building in Swavesey with Swifts nesting on top of the wall in a high gable. The Swifts are sometimes getting into the building, occasionally found dead.

The owners do not want to lose their much-loved Swifts. There is no way to get at the inside of the gable to block their entry. So the solution seems to be to provide alternative nest sites in the same gable, then block the entrances on the outside.

It is a solid wall, with headers and stretchers. So we came up with the idea of removing a header and then inserting a configurable nest box as described in this animation:


                  [Hit (ctrl) > loop to make it loop] 

The overall dimensions of the nest box, with the slider retracted is 30cm x 12cm x 8.3cm.
A simple box this size would give an internal floor area larger than an Ibstock Swift brick, but slightly smaller headroom. Although this would have been an option, we wanted to give the Swifts more space.

Having built a working prototype, we have now discovered that there is no insulation beneath the recently re-tiled roof, which means the roof space would get dangerously hot.

We are thus reverting to a plan B, which will probably be S Bricks with an insulated back embedded in the wall.