What a difference a week makes in the world of self build – Half the roof has been slated, the additional insulation has arrived on site and the liquid screed has been poured.
The guys who did the pour travelled from Perth, some 95 miles away – very few firms seem to do this work north of the Border it seems.
The ground floor was prepared by the guy doing the UFH and our builder. The company doing the screed dispatched a surveyor the day before in order to measure the various heights
This was one of the days that I was most excited about, the raising of the roof trusses.
Our joiners used our trusses as a template for constructing the gable end panels.
The trusses then just went in one by one.
3 lengths of Kerto were spiked together to form our central ridge beam.
The middle section of the 1st floor is being hand cut on site by our joiners. Our children will have a room on each gable. The middle secti
Planning Permission Granted! After trying to ring the planning department on the day of decision at around 4pm and not getting through I resolved to wait until the next morning. At 5:03pm I get an email indicating that planning had been granted. I'd forgotten I'd subscribed to any activity on my planning application! Now, I've still to see the official notification letter with conditions etc but thankfully it was plain sailing. No objections, no requests for information. I took the planning site
I suppose after the impact of seeing the TF go up within a few weeks, progress on the eye thereafter, was always going to be less so. If that was the only reason, then it would be an element of self building one would have to adjust to.
But unfortunately the lack of progress on our build over the last couple of weeks was not just simply down to a trick of the eye! Frustrating yes and in isolation a mere blip, but other things during this period compounded that frustration into real anxiety
The attic trusses arrived today after making a three hour journey from Inverness to Skye.
Offloading took place at our site entrance.
Our joiner did a great job weaving between odd trees on our access.
Trusses unloaded and ready to start being fitted over the next few days.
Had a sneak peak on the top of the scaffolding to get a view from where the treble velux windows will be fitted.
I came across this conversation about having a domain name for a self-built house between @ProDave and @vivienz, and thought that the new .uk domain names are potentially of interest and would be worth a brief comment.
These are domain names which link straight into the uk's top-level domain - so you have dunroamin.uk rather than dunroamin.org.uk or dunroamin.co.uk. That seems to me to be more suitable for a house which is inherently neither a non-profit 'organisation', nor a commerc
No, really, there's nothing to see, it's all gone!
A great deal has happened in the 2 weeks since the last blog entry meaning that the planned update and photos never happened. First off, very sadly, my father in law died 2 days after that entry which although not entirely unexpected, still comes as a painful shock and means that there's a lot to do at a time that isn't the best. I was very fortunate with my in laws and my father in law was a lovely man and will be greatly missed.
Some day for it.
Today was one of those special days where suddenly years of work starts to come together in front of your eyes.
No machinery here just elbow grease.
It was all going so well until the building inspector turned up.
A few internal load bearing walls to be finished and then on Monday we have the telehander coming to stay for a couple of weeks, followed by the delivery of th
Our joiners finished our ground floor joists last week and have been making our panels this week.
Hopefully tomorrow we will have the ground floor panels raised.
It has been 3 weeks now since the last post and the TF arrived as planned. Sadly the tele handler didn’t!! It was two hours late and thankfully, didn’t impact on the delivery of the TF, although the driver was less than pleased being held up for so long.
During the second week of erection, we saw the arrival of the large crane which really did pay for itself as it made light work of the roof timbers. A long day for all, but worthwhile.
The final week saw the sarking and dormers being
Following the completion of the foundations, we now moved onto putting the kit up.
After putting together a list for our timber merchants we are now ready to start. The materials for framing and sheathing arrived last week.
The house will be stick built by a team of two joiners, with prefabricated trusses arriving on site in a few weeks.
Today marked the first day of joinery. The first job was attaching the wall plate followed by cutting the suspended timber f
I've been spending the last week or two chasing banks because of a clause in the Self Build Costing Template - "*Standard Timber Frame Structure with traditional block exterior". I've found they nearly all have a timber frame line in their stage payments due to front loading of the mortgage when using a factory built house, but they all without exception carry the clause above. I'd not queried this up to now but decided to chase it. I've enquiries out now with several banks but so far only 1 per
Howdy, my self build book, selling OK thanks, costs quite a lot as an 'on-demand' exercise (£10 printing and binding...maybe a touch more but I have a friendly printer) £3 post + £2 packing...one those secure and snug commercial, folding jobs!)...anyway I'm not complaining though I do resent the commercial outfits that don't even reply or acknowledge the free copy for comment...you know who you are!...how much energy or cost does it take to Email 'thanks but no thanks...good luck' ? The realiti
It's been a long journey, but our little cottage is finally up and running as a holiday house. First guests just checked out and left us with some very kind words having thoroughly enjoyed their stay.
Of course it's not exactly 'finished' but it's certainly usable. I'd have liked to have had a few extra days to tidy things up, but all the essentials are in place.
There's decking still be be built out the front, I'm hoping to get this done in a gap between changeovers soon.
I didn't realise quite how long a while since the last blog entry so time for an update as I'm on an admin day today, not least for the electricity supply which I'll come onto later.
So, what's occurring? I'll start at the bottom and work my way up:
Groundworks - the groundworkers arrived on site the day after the last May bank holiday, 29th May. They took the roof off back in April to sort out any potential bat issues and now they're back doing the main job. The old c
By way of a quick update as the TF arrives on the 29th May - The Car port now has a slate roof on it - the sides and enclosed shed will be finished once the scaffolding comes down, hopefully the larch cladding will be complete within the next 10 days or so. The scaffolders have erected the main structure in readiness for the TF. You will see one section has been left "open" to allow the panels to be fed inside. This will be closed off upon completion. I'm told the TF will be ready for the windo
“And?” I prompted, ”that’s it” she said. Thus a corner of a green English field enhanced by some royal snowdrops was destined to become a Welshman’s first self-build.
The unexpectedly abbreviated list was a list of life-sustaining features she deemed absolute move-in must-haves for our minimum viable new home. When a woman falls in love with a building plot it is surprising how few luxuries she deems essential to swing the deal with her master builder to be.
I have been a
I attach some thoughts from Pinterest about small garden spaces. The key is the three dimensional nature of the designs...a clue to success. A clue to garden design is to itemise/list nice to haves, needs and wants, taking into account views, overlooking, climate and seasons, indeed not dissimilar to house layout, and of course changes in fashion, plant growth etc. Another must is to observe sun angles (OK that's climate and seasons) but it's easy to make assumptions. Obviously think about famil
It's been a quiet few weeks on the house site waiting for the contractors to come back, but we have done the following:
Building control and quantity surveyor inspected the works carried out to date
The plumber supplied our the internal drainage.
Anchor straps fitted.
Alum clad, triple glazed windows order finalised and placed
Attic trusses design reviewed and finalised
We are now commencing the final stage of the foundations. In filling the
My planning permission is now submitted and I've a reference number and everything! So, there's about 5 weeks waiting for objections and then 3 weeks where the planners will come back with questions / start examining the submission. Then you get a preliminary approval with a 4 week cooling off period before the final official permission is granted, with their contribution bill! Once granted, I'm planning on some preliminary groundworks on the current old house to realign the driveway and access
The ground works have moved on considerably, no doubt assisted by the fine weather we have experienced since mid April. The dwarf wall and base for the car port was always the priority as the frame itself arrives to site on Monday 14th May. The main house sub structure is almost complete – the ducting for the electricity cable and water pipes are in as are the drainage outlets. Over the next week or so the sub base will be completed. The TF is due to arrive Tuesday 29th May.
You will see I
