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South East Cornwall Low Energy build

A blog by BotusBuild in General

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    39670

About this blog

A collection of irreverent observations on the self building of what is planned to be a low energy, maybe even close to PassivHaus standard, new home in South East Cornwall.

The fabric of the house will start with an insulated slab, followed by ICF walls, a green roof and quite a large amount of West facing windows which are triple glazed (3G to use the appropriate TLA, - that'll be Two Letter Acronym ?

 

Entries in this blog

Slow progress to new home

Slow progress towards a new home

Well, it's been nearly 9 months since we moved in, and I didn't leave a list last time, so here are the parts of the last list that still needed work. As you will see there still remains a lot of stuff to do. You'll soon learn why they're still here 😞    more stone work - still on the list but much reduced rainwater soakaways - still on the list rainwater collection system - decided after deliberating a lot to leave this out for now as it's not a condition backf
Moving

Getting there, and time to sell up

Don't Panic - we're not selling what we've been building.   Back at the end of April (I thought it was longer ago than that - time either slowed down or we sped up, not sure which) SWMBO had just had a toe joint fused together to try to resolve a long period of pain following the critical infection she got over 3 years ago. We're pleased to say that it seems to have done the trick, and she has now rejoined me in getting the house ready for habitation.   I left you all with an
We moved in, the left

We moved in, we lived there, we left

The end of our last blog entry ended thus: Dare I add a what's next list 🙂 ?   Well, here goes .... Plastering finished in the open plan area this coming week (by others) Remainder of stone cladding arrives and work begins to get the most inaccessible (high) parts put up before the scaffold gets taken away - this means cladding two 7m x 2m wide walls Plumbing pipework ready for ASHP installation Gabion basket and pad for ASHP to be installed on
Progress speeds up

Entry 10: Redundancy helps progress

So a quick recap - back in December 2023, what may be my last ever employer decided to ask me to leave. I had mixed feelings about this. I took several weeks to think about next steps and actually get around to writing a father of the bride speech which I'd been putting off. After the wedding in March (a great day and a great speech!) I started to look more seriously for a new job, but being the wrong side of 60 now, the IT industry is not a good place to be looking especially when so many other
Return of SWMBO

SWMBO returns!!

Apart from the “picture from the mound” timelapse blog entry, there’s not been much of an update since mid September 2022. So, get your preferred hot drink (maybe a SteamyTea), and settle back for the next instalment.   Where were we? SWMBO was still in recovery from her foot infection - you remember? The one that might have killed her? The second floor ICF had been installed, and the concrete poured. I’m still going to spare you any pictures of the foot, but here is a concrete pump tr
Picture from the mound

A time-lapse (of sorts)

Since starting this build we've had a handy mound of "spoil" from which I have been taking regular photos from the same(ish) spot to remind me of progress during the "down" days which we self builders all suffer from time to time. I thought I'd share this with you. It starts in May 2021, when the major groundworks had been underway for a few weeks and goes up until April this year - about 2 years.   First a picture of the mound of spoil for reference:   and now the "tim
Blog - Upper Floor Wall

ONE (WO)MAN DOWN ...... (and an upper floor wall built)

I’ve been meaning to  provide an update on the progress of this build for a while, and I find myself with a spare couple of work hours 🙂   At the end of December 2021, we left you with 95% of the lower floor walls complete, and looking forward to getting the first set of steels installed. Of course, last winter’s weather, including some furious storms, had a thing or two to say about that, which included me going down at short notice and staying in the local Travelodge (other chains ar

Ground floor Nudura buildup and pour

We left you with a poured slab and we were chomping at the bit to get the ground floor Nudura walls up before the end of the year. Well, I am glad to report we got there - almost ?    After getting the slab done, I figured I'd get ahead a bit and it would be a good idea to talk to someone about the waterproofing we would have to put on the outside the walls before we started backfilling. To cut a long story short using waterproof concrete in walls such as these is a complete no

This is the BBC - Bars, Bolts and Concrete

... and so, in mid July, we had just a few things to do before we could pour concrete. <CUT, CUT, CUT> That's wrong again, you forgot the three spur walls and you've order some wrong parts. Go again, from the top   ... and so, in mid July, we had an unknown quantity of things to do before we could pour concrete ?    But before all of that happened, as a family we were all brought together for one of the inevitable things about life - every one must some day some to an e

First it was Scotland, then it was Italy. Let's just build.

As I wrote the last blog entry, Scotland ???????  were beating England ???????  in the Calcutta Cup and we were all wondering when Lockdown 3.0 would end - we're nearly there apparently. We were also sorting out re-mortgaging to a lower fixed interest rate, - DONE, and we are paying about £200 a month less than before!! choosing insulated raft supplier - DONE, we went with Jackodur Atlas system determining steel re-inforcement requirements for the foundations - DONE and for

A tale of 3 Lockdowns

I left the site in November 2019 with the two trees felled, and we had decided that the design and approved planning application were not quote to our liking, so we took the decision to put in a variation of condition which went in for consideration in December 2019?.  Little did we know what this would mean to progress; as we are building very much at the DIY end of the self build spectrum, and not living close to site, by the time we had the go-ahead we were in Lockdown 1.0 and unable to

I'm sorry trees, you have to go

Having eventually found our plot in episode one, and worked out where the plans had the house to be built we found that a walnut tree had to make way. A second tree, a horse chestnut was also badly diseases with a split trunk and as we didn't want that falling on the newly built house in the Autumn of 2019 (or Fall for our American cousins as I am writing this on Thanksgiving Day 2020) I headed off with equipment in hand to so some tree felling. First some photos of entrance to site (now wi

Background - the plot search

So, I have told this story to quite a few family members, friends and colleagues over the last few years, and thought I will record it here so that other new members might learn about the patience and surprises that can occur in this phase of the self build adventure ⛺    It all started when I was 14. I blame my stepfather. He made me dig ♠️  foundations by hand ?️   OK, it was only for an extension, but they didn't tell me about the concrete encased foul and storm water drains  we wou

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