I'm pleased to say finally we are insulated and have render. Credit to our plasterer who has been brilliant and done an amazing job. The colour is Ecorend marble white so is a very clean white looking colour rather than the yellow/grey looking off whites we saw but we like it. The plasterer came in the early hours before the sun as it was blinding trying to apply it in direct sun over the past couple of weeks. Once we have the aggregate round the house and plants etc I don't think it will look t
It's about time I put fingers on keyboard for a purpose other than Matlab or Perl. So here is a brief summary of the lack of progress in the woodland. I couldn't pass up a few weeks of sea pay, so progress in May was nil but it was lucrative, helping to offset some of the cost increases. And it gave the scaffolders a bit of time to strike the remaining scaffolding (rather a long wait for this). We're still waiting for the arch windows (another long wait) but all the other windows are fitted. Th
As I wrote the last blog entry, Scotland 🏴 were beating England 🏴 in the Calcutta Cup and we were all wondering when Lockdown 3.0 would end - we're nearly there apparently. We were also
sorting out re-mortgaging to a lower fixed interest rate, - DONE, and we are paying about £200 a month less than before!!
choosing insulated raft supplier - DONE, we went with Jackodur Atlas system
determining steel re-inforcement requirements for the foundations - DONE and for
Well despite the light evenings progress has been very limited during June.
I've been working 8-6 with an hour travel each end, then with the dog to walk the horses to sort out and dinner there has just been no time.
I've also been decorating in our house, which needs to be done because we have visitors in a couple of weeks.
HID has been more productive, but as we have our separate roles he has been held up as well.
Just outside the end of the barn when we were trying
It’s been a while since my last blog post and over the last 5 weeks the basement contractors have been busy and have finished the basement. Well, the external walls at least as we still need to build the internal walls and put the block and beam on top.
It’s looking really good although it is a bit reminiscent of a prison with all the concrete and 3m high walls (not that I’ve been in many/any prisons that is, it’s just from watching movies).
The groundworkers are back on-
Over the last month we've spent most of our time continuing to take parts of the barn apart whilst repairing some bits that need to stay.
What's brilliant is that all the fibre cement roofing which contains a small amount of asbestos is gone. The skip company delivered on Friday and collected on Monday and after seeing it all wrapped said it was very good and we didn't need to wrap the skip as well.
We've pretty much finished clearing the back sheds, although there is sti
Weeks 4 and 5 of the build saw our basement slab being poured. it was a major milestone for us and we're really happy....well, apart from the section that was too high and they needed to grind it down of course, but apart from that we're really happy. 🙂
We have 200mm EPS300 specified for under the slab and this was laid by using a long telescopic rule from the profile board strings 4m above at ground level. We are supposed to have a 200mm toe outside the slab and luckily I was outsid
so, here we are at the end of the 3rd week of our build with the groundworkers having dug the basement to depth and put the sub-base down ready for levelling and compacting on Monday with the blinding and insulation to also be completed on the same day.
We got a second digger driver on site this week and things have really got going and on Friday we even had a 3rd person to stand around with the laser level to assist. Here's the time-lapse video of the week.
There's been a considerable hiatus in both blogging and building. Looking back, my last post on November 22 last year was explaining how we were finding it tricky to make progress and that my wife was due to give birth to twins in early Jan this year.
Little did we know that about 24 hours after writing that post, said twins arrived 7 weeks early necessitating a fairly urgent trip to Glasgow, first for my other half and shortly after for me to be present at the birth. For medical rea
It's kind of taken me 4 moths to get here, we broke ground start of January took a while to get the road and the rest of the ground built up with the stone (700 Tonnes circa!). But we have finally done the UFH, tied the mesh and then poured the concrete.
UFH:
Fitting the UFH was pretty straightforward to be honest. I had 1.1km of pipe to lay, and just planned it out as per the Wunda drg, I adapted a little as I went along to avoid awkward bits but it went fine. The UFH
Building controls have issued our “Completion Notice” a big milestone for any self build and definitely called for a celebration. A big sigh of relief from both our councils building control and us.🙄
Our many thanks to all the contributors at BuildHub, we certainly could not have done it without the support of the forum members. Particularly Jeremy Harris @Jeremy Harriswho’s broad knowledge and good advice...goodness knows where he’s disappeared to but the forum is a poorer place wit
week 2 has finished and the perimeter of our basement has been dug down to the sandstone and it is now obvious how bloody massive this thing is going to be! it really didn't look that big on the plans.....honest! 🙂
we were hoping for more hands and heavy plant on site this week to speed things up but Monday and Tuesday came and went and still the one man and a digger. on Wednesday a second digger came! woo-hoo! but no extra help so we now have one man and two diggers. It seems to hav
Over the last month we've spent our time removing bits from the barn that will either be returned, replaced or disposed of depending on there condition and the LPA requirements.
This means that the yard is filling up so deliveries and other storage is now being put in the fields. That's okay with a very dry April, might be more tedious if we have a very wet spell.
I removed the roof from the barns where there was a low ridge height, but that also included the insulation (lucky
The first week of the build is over and I've collated our time-lapse footage for the week and made a 2 minute video, hosted on Vimeo
we're a little disappointed at the speed of the dig but the boss has only given us one driver to do the digging/dumping/lorry loading so a lot of his time is spent moving the spoil around. but I've been told that more hands might be on-site next week and a bigger excavator so fingers crossed that happens and we see more progress next we
There has been much discussion on the short supply of materials etc on the forum, so I'm not repeating it here. Suffice to say, the progress on the house itself is best described as "hurry up and wait". The upstairs windows are all installed, the downstairs are due to go in when the scaffolding finally goes away (any day now?), and the cladding is completed as far as is possible while waiting for the MVHR and air conditioning equipment. The sewage treatment plant arrives very shortly (thankfully
it's been a bit quiet on our blog so I thought I should update it. While we've been waiting for the groundworks to start we've been busy getting the site ready. This has included getting the new entrance to the plot created, getting the sub-base for the driveway in place and then topping it off with a layer of 6F5 as a hardstanding for the construction vehicles (after the build I can then remove the top layer to reveal the, hopefully, still in good condition sub-base to put the final layer on to
Whether you are converting a barn, like us, or building from scratch I just don't know where the time goes. Agreed hubby works full time and although I'm only supposed to work 3 days per week I've been doing a lot more lately as we are so busy with the work new build. It's also been dark and cold which doesn't inspire enthusiasm to get outside to do things. I'm also very limited in what I can do, I'm not very strong and don't always know how to do things.
I've also found that keeping the
Quickish update only because I seem to have run out of hours as now we are building, balancing family life and a full time demanding job.
So after the last update, where the stone wasn't really getting solid. I ended up getting it dug out, it was bothering me too much and I was completely worried about it. It was no major issue the boys dug it out in an afternoon, then put dry type 1 back in there and compacted down and built the levels up no hassles. We had a full dry week so it ma
In at last! Building controls came out and checked the site and have issued a “temporary habitation certificate”. Big sigh of relief especially for a self build where you’ve been the main contractor.
Lots of bits and pieces jobs, as you would expect at this stage of the project. Adding stairs to second floor, making lights work, finishing off bathrooms, the last bits of flooring etc… it’s a long list but getting shorter by the day helped by being on site.
The stairs are a
Been a while. Had no time. Contrary to the rest of the world, i did not have a minute of rest in 2020 and even 2021 looks similar so far. Finally managed to update the blog...
https://tintabernacle.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-ringbeam-is-in-or-above.html
Clickbaity headline , but i promise... Shuttering DID burst (even though nothing fatal) and Concrete DID explode (again , nothing fatal)
More in the blog .
Cheers 🍻
P.S.: @Jeremy Harris , i am sti
We have been increasingly anxious about the approaching deadline for the existing planning consent to expire - mid March 2021 - but today, at last, Dan our builder has made a start on the foundations for our workshop/garage/temporary site office and storage space. A large amount of hardcore arrived, the fencing around the protected oak trees was erected, and a digger and dumper arrived.
Dan suggested making a start by scraping the mud off the driveway which was turning into a quagmire - an
