Demolition and Asbestos
Very early on we had an asbestos survey done (which makes a real mess if you live in the house) and there were some nasties in the garage ceiling that were H&SE notifiable (i.e. not DIY!!!) and some rain goods that were pretty benign. So we decided to get one contractor to do both asbestos removal and demolition.
Having the services disconnected first we then started and luckily we had a fantastic contractor: recycled 90% of the buildi
Trying to be good and catch up on long overdue Blog update and the gremlins hit. A small problem with my latest Blog Post: Services - seems like it posted the same content 5 times! No idea why, or how to remove the duplicate posts. Any help here welcomed! No need to read it 5 time!
Services
As the existing bungalow already had services (phone, electricity, gas, water, main drainage) we expected that it should be easy to sort out the services for the new build. Well some were harder than others!
Gas – to demolish we needed to first have the gas meter removed which was really easy. Then we needed the gas disconnected – it wasn’t too tricky but they were not too sure where it was on the verge. They looked carefully at the tarmac patches in th
Been discussed plenty of times on the forum here. Building regs. Here's my experience :
http://tintabernacle.blogspot.com/2019/10/building-regulations-plans-and-building.html?m=1
At the very beginning, around 3.5years ago, it wasn't clear to me at all what the difference between Planning Permission and Building Regulations are. I didn't understand why you need two different set of plans and what different professionals are involved and why.
It took me around 2 years
The last week or so we've been blessed with pretty nice weather which has allowed for good progress on the frame. We hired in a hiab lorry for a morning to help with lifting the gables, ridge beam and roofing.
As everyone probably finds out, now we start to get a better sense of the size of the house and how it sits in the landscape.
SSE came in the other day for our grid connection. Those who have been following our progress might remember this was quite pric
Time for another update.
Our joiner has pretty much finished the plaster boarding.
Here are some photos of the progress made.
Kitchen/dining room
Our bedroom. Our joiner has started to construct the internal partitions, we now have an ensuite and some cupboards.
Living room
Triple velux arrangement
Upstairs kids living room
Painting commenced on 6th March and was finished about two weeks ago. I heavily underestimated the time this would take. By about 4 months.
White everywhere so it was hard to tell where we were at after the first two coats. Our favourite whiteboard "spreadsheet" tracked progress and filling it in gave great joy.
Why are scaffolders so difficult to deal with, my ex-scaffolder took to texting me at 5:30 in a morning and demanding updates on progress. In the end I’ve shown him the door, mind you, I’ve had value for money out of him. In the future I’ll be using my own to finish off the few bits.
So here’s the photo of the house without the scaffold.
In the next couple of weeks we we start putting in the rest of the windows, the scaffold was in the way previously, making
The sparkie had done his bit and we were now waiting on the plumber.
Not much to see here just your standard first fix plumbing.
We had a couple of dust sheets removed before the scaffold went down. It was great to have our kitchen view back it had been almost a year.
Moving onto the ducting I had previously ordered.
A 45 degree bend was deemed easier to fit so now I got to get that ordered.
We al
With the rough casting having completed its two month cleansing period, I was keen to get painting.
I started with a roller but found it to be ineffective in getting into all the nooks and crannies, therefore this was going to be a brush job. Most of the time was spend dealing with the edges near windows, cladding and soffits. The use of insulation sheets provided a good screen to any paint gone in the wind.
I concentrated on the gables first and was able to use trestles
Because of our budget, there's some hard decisions and trade-offs to be made. Grateful for any constructive comments!
Remaining garage size
It's a double-length garage - 9m. We could just convert half of it, leaving the front part as a regular-sized garage, but that will leave us tight on space. Instead we're leaning towards taking around 5.5m, making the front part just a workshop and store (and hopefully, micro-brewery ?. Floor will be raised by 100mm using PIR with 18mm chip
Apart from a lick of paint and a recent bathroom, the house is pretty much unchanged since built:
Gas warm-air heating (ducts, and lots of 'em) with electric immersion heater for hot water
Parquet floors to lounge, hallway and dining room which needs resanding, filling and sealing (plus filling the gaps left when we remove the warm-air heating outlets)
1970s kitchen, including sliding-door cabinets!
Our aspirations are:
Immediate - Convert current tiny utili
Well lets say it has evolved and been shaped by the titanic forces of nature and the planning process. Its not quite what we initially wanted and has been compromised and compromised over its various iterations and has sadly lost some of our ‘must have’ features. But it is kinda cute, and we do really like it!
The site is about 1/3rd of an acre slopping up from the road and has a shared driveway to our neighbours at the rear. In the middle of the plot is a 3 bed 1960’s bungalow which
A very very long and difficult history to our self-build that we will compact into as short a space as possible to save readers much of the grief we have been through.
We have always lived in (and renovated) old, cold, draughty and character-full houses, and our last house (a Victorian vicarage) had lots of glass and double aspect rooms and was full of light. We wanted to downsize but couldn’t find anything with similar light and space, and some of the new build ones we looked at
Been a busy few weeks. Following the groundworks, the slab was set out and poured. It was a bit of a warm day, and there was a definite sense of urgency as it went off fairly fast.
Now we've got a local joiner putting a frame up for us. It's being built from I-beams on site. I'd planned this all as best as I could, expecting our posi's next week based on what the supplier told us about lead times. It now turns out it will be another 4 weeks. While I'd rather not leave th
I have this hankering to start a standalone blog, and maybe write an e-book. It needs thinking time.
Back in a month or so, though I will keep an eye on messages.
Scaffold down and windows in...big dose of euphoria....feels like a real milestone. We can now get a sense of the completed project. With the scaffold removed the house now looks far more suited to the plot and we hope our neighbours will be as relieved as we are.
The window install went well. Our windows are Velfac and we opted to use an approved installer as it extended the warrantee to six years. It cost a bit more but the standard of install was good with great care being taken. A
This is the last post in my series, with details of a couple of finishing touches and details of what I bought and what it cost.
Summary
For drive-by readers, the total cost came to just on £2200 including VAT, or about £2500 if the project had replaced everything - I kept the washbasin, vanity unit, storage unit and mirror.
There is also potential to reclaim VAT on the approximate £200 spent on specific accessibility pieces such as the shower seat and grab ra
