Yesterday was air tightness test day and MBC's final day on site getting everything prepped for the final test and then finishing off a few details. For those not so familiar with this kind of thing, a few details of the process follow.
Our house isn't a passive house as it hasn't been designed with that in mind - it was the design first and then build to passive standards, so no accreditation or anything like that. That said, I wanted a low energy house and hence the choice of the
Disappointing week. I've been waiting three months on a decision by the bank about splitting the property folio and allowing me to sell the old house but keep the side garden to build on. They are concerned if I don't sell the house they are taking a risk as the LTV would then exceeds the Central Bank limits. The reduced property value post split plus the fact I've only a year paid down on the mortgage plays into this. I thought they would hold the side garden as security but it doesn't work lik
Having got all my water issues out into the last post, it's time to move on to happier things and talk about other progress. Actually, that's a little unfair because there is a lot of work in all the flat roof stuff, far more than the pitched roof, and aside from the wet stuff it's going well.
At the end of the penultimate post, the solar PV panels were just going on and the pitched roof was also still a work in progress. The building was still a shell with no power and plenty of w
So last Tuesday saw us eventually getting the track inspection passed and we were told 5-10 days for connection.This morning I decided to phone to see if they had a date for us and was told 19th November but could be earlier.Half an hour later Scottish Water draw up so I go to see what’s happening, well I was here to make your connection but I won’t be doing it, firstly the hole is full of water- oh really well we did warn you this would happen! Secondly you have to get a chapter 8 - you can the
....what the weatherman says as things didn't go quite to plan.
It's been a hellishly busy couple of weeks since I last posted and it feels like far longer than 2 weeks, as I'm sure anyone who has had a leaky building will sympathise with. I was feeling very pleased and relieved 2 weeks ago as everyone was on site and working away and it really did look like I would just sneak in before the weather broke. Had everyone been where they should have, I would have just made it but the f
Today our roof lights were installed. We are pleased with the finished product and how they fit. The blue sky and sunshine helps of course.
Almost helped take the edge off the unexpected contract lift costs (£1380 in the end, but we have managed to avoid the additional VAT and we got him to lift some roof trusses off the scaffolding which saved a job).
Their man on site today admitted that it had taken a long time to get to this point. Not wrong!
The photos will hopefully do th
Clearing out a little, I have come across a cache of material from my father's Architecture Course at Sheffield University in the late 1950s. There is also a brochure from the GRP products he was offering around 1983 from one of the original Raleigh Buildings in Nottingham.
Lots of interesting projects - this is one for a "Country House", and I can see the stripped down style of the period, but there are also quarters for a maid. And a lot of illlustrations done in watercolour.
Our designed house has 5 rooflights. 3 rectangular, 1 small square one in a bathroom and a large circular one above a two storey entrance hall, making it, I guess, the "feature" of the house.
Our plot is surrounded by trees on two sides so getting light into rooms is an issue, hence the rooflights.
Here is our rooflight story (part 1)
We got some quotes in from companies and decided on our roof light manufacturer based on price and reasonable service.
MBC agreed to
Our flat roof guys have been great. Though they worked very short hours compared to MBC (doesn't everyone).
With a flat roof you apparently need at least 18mm OSB to lay the roof membrane onto. The standard MBC spec is less than that for a flat roof so we had to stump up some money to upgrade the roof deck to 18mm.
We have three different roof decks. Here is one roof deck with the roof lights (more on those in a separate post one day).
The upper roof
I am a very strong person, I don’t usually let things get me down, If I think it’s at all possible to do something myself I don’t ask for help, not even from hubby, some of the things I’ve done many a woman wouldn’t even know about never mind know how to do but these last few weeks have broken me. After the major problem with our electricity supply which I managed to sort out I didn’t think it could get any worse but things are all just getting on top of me now to the point where I have cried to
....if the weather man says it's raining! So goes the old song and me, too, by the end of this week. The roof itself has been watertight for a couple of weeks now, but there was still significant water ingress from the gulleys hidden behind the parapets formed at the top of the ground floor. However, my flat roof guys have been back on site this week and are working hard. Today they were finishing off the long, east facing balcony and also moving onto the south facing parapet; they will cont
I received the tender documents from the Architect last Friday, about 4 weeks later than I'd hoped. Still it had around 12 documents and a cover letter for me to absorb and read over the weekend. They provided all the details the builders need to price the job which is a lot of detail, wall makeup, foundation and roof elements and I finally get a preview of different cross sections of the house. They provided a window and door schedule, room elevations including a design for the kitchen, utility
Blimey another month on there is a real sense we are getting there. So much so, we have given notice on our rental. We move in on Friday 30th November regardless!
The main emphasis this month has been installing the treatment plant and drainage system. The treatment plant was initially installed, somewhat optimistically, without any anchors only for it to pop back out of the ground within 24hrs, despite being filled with water and the pit filled with pea shingle. Needless to say the
Some things are irresistable.
This prescient 1903 painting by C. M. Coolidge shows Planning Consultants meeting the Council, even though it is supposedly called "A Friend in Need".
With apologies to any highbrow art people on the forum ... this is very much the 1890s version of the Jack Vettriano niche.
In our last blog entry we completed the roof.
Guttering was one of those areas in the build that I had never really given much thought to. After doing some research, and asking on here, we came across cast iron effect guttering from Brett Martin. Unfortunately the lead time to get the guttering to Skye was quite long (3-4 weeks). When the outlets and fascias finally arrived, the actual guttering was missing having been lost in transit. We had to order it again, waiting another three
So 16 days ago the builder said he had a weeks worth of work to do, 16 days later he still has, the electricity connection is happening this week and we’ve told them once there is power we’re in but it doesn’t seem to make any difference to them, the plumber said today when I told him our plans, do you really think this will happen, short answer- yes you lot are not forcing me into staying in this caravan any longer my furniture is coming home next Thursday and once it’s here there’s no builders
No, I haven't managed to sneakily bury the wayleave officer somewhere on site! This post is for the other electricity cable on my site, namely the one that directly supplied the previous building and will supply the new one. This comes onto the site via an overhead cable and a post and stay that are very close to the new building. Entirely safe but very ugly and certainly won't fit in with the lovely garden that we're planning. So, from the outset, we've planned to bury this supply as much as
So a few snaps from Google Earth of the before images - these may be the current images also for a few months. of course Google does mangle the views and the walls are straighter than they appear!
So going on holiday in the middle of your build is not ideal. Best laid plans and all that. Holiday booked a year previously. With extended family so couldn't avoid it. House build delayed by lots of things. Resulting in our holiday being slap bang in the middle of the timber frame construction.
Reluctantly we left for northern France, asking the build team at MBC to send photos. They didn't. [But a friend did, so we knew it was all going up]
The problem is that we didn't
Using a timber frame company (such as MBC) made the frame erection stage of self building quite satisfying. It only took two weeks to build something that truly looked like a real house.
We did spend more than 7 months in dialogue with MBC over all the little details. And still we made some quite clanging errors. More of that in my next post.
It was glorious weather back in July. [How I wish we weren't in rainy autumn now - we are still not watertight......]
