I briefly popped out to the site this afternoon, dragging hubby with me so that I could show him that I really am spending all that money getting a house built and not squirreling it away into a running away fund.
The MBC team were busy constructing the ring beams that then get tied into the piles. Lots and lots of work in this and so they reckon that THE SLAB POUR WILL BE EITHER WEDNESDAY OR THURSDAY now.
No photos today, but I'll take plenty tomorrow for another blow
It's been a busy old day on site today, and the main MBC associated action was deliveries of EPS and steel and sand, and the team getting on with putting the blinding sand down onto the hardcore, that they finished yesterday evening.
The EPS supplier is based in Essex - the driver left at about 4.30 this morning to make an early delivery but even at that time of day, he didn't make it to the site until just after 8.30 as the roads were so busy. The amount of polystyrene sitting on t
So , Monday night saw us spending 2 hours with our electrician going over everything that we wanted, sockets, switches fans etc
saturday and Sunday the plumbers had been in doing first fix which they finished off today, Sunday was an 11hour shift for them, Tuesday two electricians started their first fix and they arrived on site this morning at 5 am! They worked 13 hours today and were off to look at another job when they left here! Oh for the stamina of youth!
roofer did his batons o
The slab team from MBC arrived on site this morning. It's like having the building version of whirling dervishes who've just dropped a few speedballs. My word, they make progress!
The team is headed up by Harry and he has 3 others in his team, but this will fluctuate a little over the course of the job with Harry needing to have a look at another job for most of tomorrow then the younger lad taking some leave to go to a music festival. Tsk, the youth of today! He worked like a ma
Since the last update, things have pressed on but unlike other activities, the visual impact isn’t as obvious. I have uploaded some photos but sadly they are not very exciting as you have to look hard to see the electrics - Anyway, it's a record.
The upstairs has had the same treatment as the ground floor; in as much as the walls have had additional insulation fitted, wrapped in vapour barrier and had service battens fixed.
The last two weeks of July has seen the plumber and electrici
In Part 22, I detailed my decision making process in relation to my choice of a pre-plumb Mitsubishi Ecodan 8.5kW ASHP based DHW and heating system.
I now have a full set of data covering 12 months so can provide figures in respect of how the system, and our house has performed.
My baseline requirement was to maintain 21.5C in the house 24/7 throughout the heating season (October to April), and a supply of DHW water that would allow multiple showers to be drawn of
After 11 days on the job we are now wind and water tight. Plumbers will be in tomorrow, roofer, brickie and electrician beginning of week, definitely moving along at a pace I’m happy with, lots of ordering went on this week to make sure we are ready for the onslaught next week and I may have news about the electricity soon but can’t say much just now, onwards and upwards ?quite an interesting roof in the middle only wish the budget would have run to oak here as it seems a shame to gyproc it all
6 month update.
Started fitting ducting for the MVHR, my wall build is 3 layers, 140mm, 70mm and 50mm so the ducting fitted well (luck) within the walls. Just need to uncoil the 50m lengths and start dragging it through the build.
Then I added the final 50mm timber and insulation before I started the OSB. It took about 2 months to fit about 150 boards, the vapour barrier, double sided tape, airtight tape, it was quite a challenge especially the vaulted ceiling
The windows were delivered last Friday.
They arrived in three pallets, two of them were lifted off by the lorry's tail lift and a pallet truck. The larger pallet had to have the windows taken off manually.
Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the offloading as it was all hands on deck.
I was however involved in the lifting of the windows, on average the windows were about 75kgs each, but the french doors were double at 150kgs.
Here are som
After such a very long time of planning, waiting, more planning, plotting and scheming, the real and tangible world is now hurtling towards me at a pace. MBC got in touch this morning to advise that the slab insulation and the MBC team will be on site on 31st July. That's next week. Eek!
Now, I don't know exactly what else is going to happen and whether that's the start proper of the slab going down, but I'd say it's a pretty positive sign of it. Once I have more detail on the sc
...a little more action.
The piles started going in today and it was a glorious sight to behold after so much waiting and anticipation. It was, in fact, very understated for piles; these are, after all, mini piles, but there was so little fuss and hassle that it was almost underwhelming. Not quite, though.
I may just happened to have mentioned before that I'm on clay. Well, I'm on even more clay than I thought. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find anything other
A few photos of the stone work that has now started on site, whilst others continue to prepare the upstairs for the first fix. I have also included an image of the "biscuit screed" laid upstairs over the UFH pipes.
Close observers and those who have read previous entries, will notice that the windows have been corrected with fire battens fixed.
Anyway, the stone is called a local blend and is made up of Perthshire stone, Cumbria stone and Borders Buff. The Quoins have a hint of lilac t
Game on.
The setting out for the piles is happening on Friday afternoon, 20th July. The piling contractor will also be getting everything to the site that day so that they can start bright and early on Monday morning. The piling is likely to take most of that week; I will be around at various times, but certainly Monday and Thursday, with a couple of hours here and there. If anyone would like to come along, PM me and we can arrange suitable times.
Rather surprisingly our planning permission was granted at the end of last week. It turned out to be easier than we'd thought and a good few weeks before the planning authority were required to make a decision. We have a few conditions, some tree related as we're surrounded by them and one or two of the usual suspects related to foul drainage etc.
As there's no progress on site, we've been doing a bit of woodland restoration (the main reason for building a house here). As I know you
A week ago today the tf arrived and this is where we are now, expecting to be w&w end of next week, Windows arrive tomorrow, excited to see them, welders will be back tomorrow to get the second AFrame in
With the fabricated trusses already fitted on site. The next job was to create the middle section of the roof, this part was cut on site and it was quite satisfying helping to fit the rafters into place.
We had some good weather for this job and I was pleased once these were all in place.
The next task after this was creating the bridles for the Velux windows, fitting the smaller lean to rafters and then the gable ladders.
After this,
When the sun is below the horizon and 450 divided by 2 = 250 it is time to quit for the day.
My assistant setting-out surveyor and I had a minor domestic incident in the gathering gloom at a foundation profile where our joint mathematical error became apparent. The gloom was both visible and mental. We had no choice but to soldier on marking out the foundations because although it was 9:30pm, tomorrow was dig-day and the JCB would be onsite at 7:30am.
I had seriously unde
A quick note for anyone planning on coming to see the piles going in on 17th July. My contractor has been in touch to say that he is over running on his current job and will be starting late on mine. I have a site meeting with him on Tuesday so will update then.
A few more images showing the completed UFH network for upstairs, the servicing battens downstairs and also some additional "supports" to accommodate the fitted kitchen units.
I have really been impressed with the UFH fitter - he has even supplied photos of vulnerable positions so there should be no excuse for puncturing a pipe after the screed and boarding has gone down. You will see the areas left "unpiped" in the en-suite and bathroom areas. The manifold is stored in the landing cupboard
So day 4 since the tf arrived and it’s truss day- we have a man with a telehandler who assured us he can load them all and has done many times, the joinery firm wanted us to hire a lorry with a hi-ab from a friend of theirs but since it was a very high rate ( in our opinion) and the fact that he also charged traveling time at the same rate we decided to trust our man who has done a few things for us already with no problems so fingers crossed it all goes well -my heart is in my mouth and for onc
So this is the 3rd self build we have tackled, the first being a 168m2 bungalow 26 years ago which we lived in for 14 years, this was followed by 18 months in a caravan while we built a one and a half storey 385m2 house, that was the build that nearly did for us, fraught with problems, friendships ruined, but it was a beautiful house.After living in it for 8 years and with the family gone we found ourselves rattling about in it and although we were living mostly in the kitchen/sunroom we still h
A quick pictorial update. The ground floor screed has set allowing those involved to install the additional 50mm rigid insulation to the inside of the external walls of the TF which had 120mm factory fitted insulation pre fitted. They then set about putting up the Vapour/Air Tightness Barrier — Protect VC reflective foil. The next stage will be the 50mm service batons and this will allow the electrician to start the first fix.
Whilst this has been going on, the UFH pipes for upstairs are be
