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Blogs

Druim nan Darach

Flooring 1

Most of the internal work to date has focused on insulating the suspended timber floor and with this completed our joiners could come back and put down the sub floor.   We considered two different materials for the subfloor:   22mm OSB or 22mm Chipboard.   We decided to use chipboard as it was 25% cheaper then OSB. Plywood would have been another option but this would have been more expensive than the chipboard as well.   To do this job we needed just over
God is in the Details

Ferdinand's New Blog

I'm following the lead of a few others, and starting a blog on my own platform.   It is called "This New House", and will let me reuse some content from the 10,000+ posts I have on various forum sites from the last 10-12 years, and also let me comment on questions beyond the scope of Buildhub.   This is the blurb:     The new website is here, at This New House.
5 (2 adults, 3 dogs) go building in Dorset

Kitchens, Utility Rooms, Pantries and Appliances

This week is half term in school so I have had two days at work, in splendid isolation, making the many many changes to the timetable ready for the first day back.  Today we have the architect round to do a proper start on the plans and while I'm waiting for him to arrive, I started to do some batch cooking of things to last me through the next 6 weeks or so.  Being in the kitchen, turned my thoughts to what I really wanted out of the new house in terms of cooking, eating and washing.  This blog
  • Sue B
Yaffles

External finishes finished (almost)

Well, it’s over. The company that did our render and cladding has finished and the final bill paid so the warranties can be issued. Now I feel I can blog about what has been an up and down experience.   We started looking at companies to do the render and cladding before we had finished knocking our previous house down. The sales guy sat in our caravan in May last year. We felt we had got on top of this at an early stage.    One issue we were really concerned about was the jo
Mr and Mrs Triassics New Home

The Timber Frame Goes Up

The Timber Frame company arrived on site on a very wet mid-January morning. Very quickly wagon loads of components started to arrive and before long every space around the slab and up the drive was dotted with Ikea style flat packs, assorted timber and steelwork.   The first job was to floor out over the basement to form a flat working platform for the main house erection. The original specification called for pre-stressed concrete floor panels, these were changed to Posi-joist, as thi
Druim nan Darach

Insulation 2

As the winter weather has prevented us from moving forward with the rendering and other exterior work we have been working on finishing off insulating the suspended timber floor.     We had a short wait for the plumber to install some drainage below joist level, once this was done it allowed us to finish off fitting the insulation boards. We then used expanding foam along the edges of the boards to ensure no gaps.   The next job was fitting the frametherm as the se
South coast ICF build

And we're off

The firework instruction phrase "light the blue touch paper and retire to a safe distance" comes to mind.  It's been a real baptism of fire, however our builder says it's the worst time and it should settle down now.  All in all it's been a productive week and almost all work has moved us forward.   The digger arrived to dig out the raft area at 8am as requested and work got under way. We had muck lorries scheduled for Tuesday and it quickly became apparent that we did not h
God is in the Details

How to Conceal a Door in a Wall

I spotted this inside a local cafe this week.   Liquorice Allsort chic is not quite my taste, but the door is not as obvious as could be the case.   It is an a sample of how to incorporate an element into a stronger pattern than the outline as a means to de-emphasise it. Here it could have been further concealed by choosing a different handle, or concealed hinges.   It could also have been made full height.  
Self-Build in Shropshire

Building the Timber Frame

Having got all of the groundwork out of the way, it was time to build the timber frame. We were carrying out a stick build, ie: we purchased the i-beams and glulams and the carpenters cut and assembled everything onsite like a huge jigsaw puzzle. We had looked into using a timber frame manufacturer, but we had a good team of carpenters who had experience of stick building a frame, so it didn't seem to make any sense changing a proven formula.    Initial jobs were to get the scaffold up
  • jonM
Blackmore House

Plastering and the white room of paint

It's 3 weeks since my last blog entry and, as usual, things have been moving at a pace.  The difference with the most recent round of work, though, it that the building is starting to look like a liveable house rather than a construction site.  This is largely due to the glory coats of plaster and paint, but far more than that has been keeping everyone busy.   The boarding started in earnest before Christmas and so the plasterers were in bright and early in the new year.  We've got thr
South coast ICF build

Almost ready to start

Well with just days before we start we have our house block plan. All the bricks have ID's so all we have to do its put them in the right places.   The blocks are coming loaded on pallets, each with it's own manifest. The scale of the kit is a bit daunting and having done my bit of Lego with the kids in the past I can't help remembering the fun of looking for that special brick that seems so illusive. Fingers crossed we don't end up with one left over after the last concrete poor.
Clancutt Lodge

Onward and upward!

So, our ground floor walls are up, and ready for a concrete pour... almost! Despite our use of Logix ICF blocks, I had fallen in love with the simplicity of the joist hangers used by NUDURA. Essentially, all you do is slot metal plates through slits in the ICF blocks, hook them onto a bit of rebar in the wall, and pour the concrete. Then you wrap the end of your joists in a folded metal U-plate, and put tek-screws through the metal plates, through the U plate and into the joist. The shear streng
5 (2 adults, 3 dogs) go building in Dorset

How to build - so many options

When we first started on this path, we wanted a hands off, almost turnkey project.  I'd heard of SIPS and seen lots of positive stories about energy efficiency so all was set.  Then we spoke with a mortgage advisor and our world started to tumble down.  I am now 56, Peter is 57.  We will need a mortgage to build this house but because of our ages, we know that the mortgage providers will all keep the term of the mortgage down to 15 years max which will make the repayments large.  Drastic action
  • Sue B
A woodland house

Trees!

Since the last blog entry we've been working away at co-coordinating the paperwork for the building warrant . But progress is slowly being made. Last week we heard we've been lucky enough to get a 50% grant towards our grid connection costs, which is a big help. Anyone else who's thinking of applying, feel free to get in touch if you want to know more about it. I think you need to sit within SSE's (North Scotland) area.   As part of our build we're removing quite a few conifers, the co
The Fun Irish (House)

Tenders are in...

Background: I'm living in a house with a side garden I got planning permission on. Just purchased it a year ago so only 1 year down on the mortgage.    Recap: I was going to wait a year to get my finances in order but the Architect talked me into going out to tender anyway to see what prices come back. We sent out 6 Tenders and 3 responded. I can go back to the cheapest one in a year they said and get it repriced accordingly.  So i was rightly worried that prices in Dublin would b
Yaffles

7.5 Tonnes of Pumped Cellulose

That's alot of insulation - over 600 bags of the stuff.       They cut a load of holes in the MBC vapour layer ply.  More holes than we ever imagined.     Then they pump the insulation into the holes to fill up the walls (300mm deep) and ceilings (400mm deep).         Some of it escapes.  Easy to vacuum up though.     Then they put the ply discs back in and tape over the holes.  They hav
Yaffles

Rockwool, and lots of it

After reading every post on this forum on the subject of sound insulation and in particular Rockwool I wanted to document our experience.   Until the delivery arrived and we opened the packets we really didn't know what we were going to be working with.  Here is the best description I can give.   We ordered the following from Insulation4Less.  They told us the lead time was about 4-6 weeks (nationwide shortage) but actually it all came within a week leaving us with a literal
Yaffles

Pocket doors go in - thought it would be easy, but......

Our design calls for some pocket doors - 6 in total - good for space saving, should look tidy.  We decided to go with Eclisse and got them from the ever helpful Alan at Door Supplies Online.  We will also get our door sets from him, to match, and he'll supply some matching architrave to finish the pocket doors nicely.  Will post photos of the finished doors when we get there (probably September).  In the meantime, we needed to install the pocket frames in advance of plaster boarding.  
Blackmore House

Vertical slate cladding & the pond

At the same time that all the indoors first fix was going on during December, there was plenty going on outside, too.  From the perspective of the build, the main event was the slate cladding but the thing that drew by far the most attention was the digging of the pond.  I use the term 'pond' loosely, and it has been the subject of great debate, but it is a wildlife pond.  Not a swimming pond, not a boating lake, nor a flight pond, which are all alternative suggestions that have been made.  It w
Clancutt Lodge

Walls, walls, walls!

Right, Christmas came and went - I had spent enough time with my family and friends, recovering from the previous 3 months. It was time to resume on site! ☺️   So, first up - inspect what the basement looked like, now that it was largely enclosed...  Big mistake, because it was horrendous:     You can see that the water level is approx 2/3 of the way up the first course of blocks, so about 250mm deep. You can also see the bit of EPS that were chipped away to make t

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