Before I carry on, let's answer the question I posed in the last blog entry. I posted this picture of the basement rear wall, showing how we had joined the cross wall to the side wall (following the suggestion of the boss of Logix UK, who had attended site whilst the walls were being assembled (and even assembled some of them himself) as part of our on-site training:
The problem here is that this wall is supposed to form part of the watertight barrier of the basement. Th
So, our slab is down, starter bars set ready for our walls, lovely. Time for some ICF...
Nope - more prep work to do first, apparently. The boss from Logix UK came up a couple of weeks prior and gave us some on-site training. "It's just like Lego!", exclaimed I. To be fair, it did seem really simple. I learnt just enough on the first day of training to be dangerous.
The basement wall blocks arrived on a pallet truck. Except it was only some of the blocks - they'd forgotte
Ok, so maybe I got a bit ahead of myself again...
The second wagon that they filled with spoil didn't fare as well. Matter of fact, it managed to beach itself on every axle:
The muck-away company had to send a 2nd wagon, fully loaded with 6F2 and a big-arsed chain. Then it dragged the beached wagon out across the street using the chain. The (now-freed) wagon drove off with our load of spoil. Since there was a load of crusher run on the rescue bus, we had it t
Our groundworkers broke ground on October 9th 2017. Here's the digger and fuel bowser arriving:
Bit of a squeeze, but they got it on-site in the end! The driver set to work on the site strip right away. He'd been working for perhaps 45 minutes, when work ground to a halt... A land drain was exposed (well, kind of dug up, if truth be told), in the middle of the plot, all of 6" below the ground. The digger had removed a 2' section of it completely, as this photo shows nice
Waiting isn't something I am known for. Waiting nearly 3 months, for these mythical birds to vacate the invisible nest isn't going to happen.
4 weeks later and we're into July, and I've had enough. Here's what was left of the hedgerow, along with my weapon du jour.
As it happens, there was no nest in the hedgerow. Probably because the houses all around have cats that hunt, and even birds aren't stupid enough to nest 4 feet off the ground when there are dozens
Preparing the documents for the planning application was simple enough. We paid a nice man to come and prepare an "arboricultural impact assessment". Basically, he looked at what trees were on and around site, asked which we'd like to keep, and went away. 3 days later a nice 22 page report appeared, and remarkably it said good things about only the trees we had expressed fondness for.
Then another nice man came around and dug very narrow, but very deep holes in a few places on site.
But I am getting ahead of myself here...
Whilst the purchase was ongoing, I was assuming a number of roles in the project. One of which was the "architect" (and yes I know I am not an architect, and not allowed to call myself such, hence the quotemarks).
So, I bought a piece of house design software and spent a week playing. I came up with what I thought would do nicely... a big box with a pointy lid and some windows (and doors).
On paper at least it ticked al
An introduction to myself, my plot and and my self-build can be found in the following thread:
Having carried out one self build which turned out to be a lovely family home, we were keen to do another now that both our children had left home. We were drawn towards Passivhaus and started looking on the Southern side of the English Welsh border around 2015. The plot we eventually purchased was in Shropshire and one of 9 self-build / custom-build plots. The plots have a design code bu
Kim and I were/are avid watchers (and readers) of Grand Designs, and so we took the plunge - we would build our own house.
Well, sort of. Our plan was to "armchair self-build". I would design the house (big box with a pointy lid and some windows and doors), and we would get a builder to construct it. Seriously, at the point we were buying the plot, that's as much as we knew had to be done. Of course there was the detail, but we expected the builder to handle most of that - after all,
I am Neil, and this is the story of my self build - warts and all.
First, some background. My wife and 2 girls and I live in Lancashire, in a 5 bed detached modern build house on a smallish estate. For a few years, we have looked around for somewhere a bit bigger, but in the same village. We had no luck for ages - everything was either too expensive, or too small, or too near a busy main road (and frequently all 3).
Then in December 2016, a house with a large garden came
So after a month or so in the house, the time has provided us with an opportunity to reflect on what we have achieved and what if anything, we would change or could have done differently.
In truth there is very little if anything that we would change. The rooms flow, the doors open in the right direction and the lights can be switched on and off in the appropriate
places. Even the WBS has proven to be a worry that wasn't worth worrying about, as it's position within the hearth is no lo
A quick photo update, I will do proper blog posts over the next few days......
The ground works were started back in August, however there was a long delay with the timber frame being manufactured (partly due the the first floor layout changes), which meant that the TF kit wasn't delivered until November the 18th.
Last week the house was made wind and watertight.
This week the ground floor UFH was laid and the screed poured.
We are hoping that th
Following on from finishing our blockwork a few weeks ago, our brickie came back the next week and fitted the concrete cills.
We then had a short wait before before our joiners could come back on site and fit the remaining Siberian larch cladding. Here are some photos.
The next exterior job will be rendering, but with the winter weather it might be some time before this can be done. Our attention will now be concentrated on getting the house to 1
This week I came across a team installing entire sections of loft on a house-build with a seriously large crane.
Really quite interesting, and an opportunity to indulge in some doggerel.
As I was planning for my toft
I met a man with a Modular Loft
Windows were installed and tiles
With insulation, floors and style
Windows, Lift, Loft, Tiles
Make an instant ancient pile!
A extraordinarily transportable loft -
But do I want one for my tof
A varied, and educational, long weekend laying down laminate flooring (one of the Uniclic range from Quick-Step) to help an acquaintance improve his house in London.
The task was to lay about 3 rooms-worth full of Uniclic Laminate (28 packs), and moving a lot of furniture around - the killer reason for needing two people.
My protagonist in laying the laminate, and moving all the furniture, is a detail-of-finish man, and at one stage was whittling away with a multitool for
Since my last blog post things have been fairly quiet. Our frame manufacturer, Lakeland Timber Frame, have confirm that our frame is in production and we have a date for erection of mid January. The crane company have visited site to check the narrow access and hairpin bent for themselves, they’ve confirmed that their smallest crane will be able to get onto site, with difficulty!
Ss with a start date agree it was time to get the scaffold up. Originally I’d considered buying my own a
Tonight we have moved in to the house, it’s not what my idea of moving in would be there’s stuff everywhere and still no staircase as we await it’s arrival sometime in the next few days, but we have a bed a sofa and a fully functioning kitchen and toilets hopefully I’ll get sorted out before Xmas! The move today had to happen as we spent a sleepless night last night in the caravan with minus whatever degrees and the gas stopped functioning properly, I’m told it doesn’t freeze but stops doing wha
A busy November saw all the trades coming good, albeit some were cutting it fine for the moving in day – 30th November – However, we have moved in with all the services up and running. Having said that, BT and Openreach have missed the deadlines and as a result we are without any internet, phone line or TV for at least a week! Also the master bedroom built in wardrobes are still be fitted.
The landscapers have finished their work, providing us with a patio area and a driveway area wh
So we had planning approved and were feeling good about being able to link up our engineer & architect to get started on the details....and then.... had a re-think. We started out planning a re-model and changed our minds as the compromises were too many and the costs were getting high so a rebuild (esp with VAT bonus) was making more sense. But, we didn't really go completely back to the drawing board - we should have. Post-planning we had a good look at the plot, house position and neighb
Winter is coming, the White Walkers are on the way and, in the meantime, grey snow arrived in my house on Friday.
Allow me to explain. It seems that much of the artificial snow that you see on film sets is, in fact, made from blown cellulose, particularly to cover outdoor areas without damaging flora and fauna. I now know this after having some cellulose insulation inadvertently blown into the garage on Friday when the insulation found a gap in a board and made its way through. N
Our blockwork started three weeks ago. This was always going to be weather dependent and it was mixed for the first two weeks in November but since then we have had a really good weather window where its been calm, sunny and not too cold which allowed the remaining work to be completed.
Our brickie was fitted a temporary gutter which could be taken off when required.
This gable end is where the prevailing wind comes down off the mountains, we have shelt
So the guy from Greenflame came on Tuesday and set up the pellet stove and thermal store leaving us to get it feeding the underfloor heating, that’s two days ago and still no heat, the stove gets up to 70degrees which it is set at and this should suffice for all the heat and hot water, it then cuts back and ticks over, the problem is the hot water is not getting to the manifold, the flow pipe is hot but everything else is cold, many wasted hours have now been spent with no results- help!
