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About this blog

Demolishing an 1970's tin and wood cow shed and building a ICF bungalow for me, my husband and our Greyhound.

Entries in this blog

General

Kitchen installed and bathroom almost done.

Weeks 91 to 105   In May we started in the Bathroom.  It took us almost a month to first fix plumbing inc wet room former, create stud wall behind sink and toilet, plasterboard, tape and joint and then paint.  By mid June David handed the bathroom over to me and I was dry laying the floor tiles out it took me a while as you may remember the plant room floor was the first floor I had ever tiled and I was about to cut larger, heavier, more expensive and diagonal cuts, Oh and it was a wet
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General

Open plan vaulted kitchen, dinner and lounge plastered.

Weeks 75 to 90     The plasters have finished the open plan vaulted area and it’s given us the boost to get going again in other areas.   At the opposite end of the building is the plant room, this was the first room we started work on to enable the solar to be installed. I’m back in here to tile the floor and since it’s the first floor I have ever tiled I am very happy with it. I have left the service penetrations until all the services are in, we currently have tempora
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UFH and screed complete and the Plastering starts in the vaulted area.

Weeks 56 to 74   The UFH is laid and the screed is providing a lovely wobble free surface for the ladders and makes brushing up so much nicer.   Our neighbour kindly lent us his scaffold tower so that we could insulate the vaulted ceiling in the open plan area which is approx 5m high. This has enabled me to finish insulating between the rafters with 140mm of Rockwool and I have PIR sheets to put up under the rafters.  For cutting both the Rockwool and the PIR I created
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Cladding Complete, drainage in and general update

Weeks 40 to 56   So it’s been a year now since we started the build and I’m happy with our progress but perhaps more importantly I’m still enjoying it. If you have followed the blog from the beginning you might have thought this was going to be a quick build as the shell went up quick but don’t worry work is continuing as we expected at our own slower pace, we have no definite finish date but it would be nice to be in for winter next year.   The cladding is finally compl
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Solar PV, more cladding and my first plasterboard jointing.

Weeks 35 to 39   The build is close to our existing working barn and home, close enough that as a Cow Shed power and water was fed from the working barn.  We have renewed the power cable and water connection so that the new build with its 7.5 kwp of solar can power the working barn.  With the solar on the roof the plant room became my priority to get the CU and wiring ready for the solar installation to continue.  This meant us plaster boarding in the plant room, a new plaster board li
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Cladding

Weeks 27 to 34   Cladding   After securing our planning permission I arranged for a few samples of wood cladding from various trees and from a few different suppliers.  I propped them up in the sun and watched for months as they changed colour and silvered off.  We made a short list of which we liked, something with a definite grain pattern so not Poplar, not too knotty so not pine, thermally modified wood as it is less prone to shrink and swell and as it’s no longer sappy le
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Window Installation

Weeks 24 to 27   Windows Installation   Choosing window style and supplier has been one of the hardest decisions.  We finally decided on Aluclad wooden windows from Norrsken.  It’s been a long journey and Norrsken have been with me on that journey since December 2022 to installation end of February 2025.  A big thank you to Nick at the window company for sticking with me on my numerous window quotes, that took over 2 years to finalise.   Due to my architect not thin
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Roof slated and in roof solar installed

Weeks 18 to 23   So it’s been a while since the last update, but a couple of weeks ago the scaffolding came down and we can finally see our lovey slated roof and the solar.  I am very happy with the roofers who worked so hard in the cold and the wind, as we are quite exposed.  Anybody in the South West looking for a roofer I would be happy to recommend them.   On the inside I have started with the insulation between the rafters.  I am using Rockwool flexi slabs 140mm thick wi
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Roof progress

The builders scaffolding came down and the roofers scaffolding went up all to plan. The new roofer has a good gang and they are working well on the roof. The weather hasn’t been great, we have had three storms Bert, Conall and Darragh luckily no damage to the build.  We are approx 615ft above sea level and about 2.5miles to the coast as the crow flies so we get a good breeze coming in off the Atlantic.  The wind has Brought with it some very cold spells that and the shorter daylight ho
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Week 9 and 10 Roof OSB and internal walls

Week 9 and 10 The gable ladder is up, and the OSB 3 is installed over the rafters. The overhang supports are shaped for the secure attachments and put up. The South side of the roof gets its cross batten. The scaffolding comes down, unfortunately due to miscommunication between the director of the company in the office and the director working on site the scaffolding comes down before the North side gets battened.  The builder has given us the materials and refunded us an amount for th
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Week 9 Roof windows delivered and start of veranda.

The Velux windows are delivered.  It pays to shop around for the windows as the prices vary.  As I wanted 4 of the lacquered pine, and they are less fashionable now, they are not kept in stock, so although I paid a good online price they were delivered straight from Velux.   The pallet contains 6 velux PK06 windows (apx 1m square) and in the middle are the fixing kits.  It looked like we were going to be playing a giant variant of Jenga as we had to carefully cut straps whilst holding onto the w
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Week 8, Roof Rafters

The roof rafters are being installed with the openings for the roof windows.  LABC visits for the second time, there have been a few photos sent as well, they inspect the roof, anchors and fastenings etc.  The internal walls are built up around the steel goal posts.  Not as many hours on site this week were one man down, its half term here. I started a Gabion wall, filling it with rubbish stone and facing the front with nice stone from around the plot, it just separates off the garden from
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Week 7 The Steel Roof Beam

On Monday the second gable is poured and most of the internal bracing, corner bracing and window shuttering is removed. Tuesday rains all day so no work on site.  The internal floor is under 1 inch of water with no way to escape, without us brushing it towards soil pipe.  Good to know we are airtight at the floor/wall joint. The steels are installed, we were supposed to have wooden roof beams but somehow this was not calculated by the architect who insisted the roof truss company would
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Week 6 The Concrete Pour

On Monday the internal structural walls are up to the top of the ICF walls and are tied in to the ICF walls.  The windows and doorways have extra bracing ready for the pour. Nobody on site on Tuesday it rains all day and no more prep is needed before the pour.   Wednesday starts with the last minute checks ready for the pour.  The concrete pump arrives on site at 12pm it takes 30 minutes  to set up before the first concrete pours out.  We have 4 builders onsite plus the concrete p
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Week 5, Scaffold, more ICF and internal structural walls.

At the beginning of Week 5 the scaffold arrives.  The ICF walls get past window header height so they can be boxed in first with the ICF to close the side jamb, header and cill then the wood brace for the concrete pour.   The internal structural walls are started and tied into the ICF. These are to support the steel roof beams.   Its good to stand in the open plan kitchen and lounge area now and get the scale of the room, the three windows look down our field to the East and
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Week 4 The R-Wall ICF arrives on site

The last bit of soil pipe and inspection chambers that are close to the house are completed.   The ICF is delivered and by the end of the week we have the start of door and window openings. The insulation is extruded polystyrene XPS 100mm each side of the concrete cavity. U value of  0.14   The windows have rebar in them before 50mm insulation closures are added.   At the weekend we had a yellow wind warning for the South West, our home weather station recorded
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Week 3 The slab

Another beautiful week in Cornwall only 7mm of rain on the Sunday The week starts with laying the soil pipes then it was sand, hardcore, burying the soil pipes, laying the radon barrier, mesh and more concrete for the slab leaving a lovely surface to start the ICF walls next week.  And the field was cut and baled, not as much as a normal September cut due to us moving our spoil down to the far field and tramping the grass down and making a very very muddy gateway between our two fields
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Week 2 Trench foundations and starter blocks

Despite the yellow weather warning we luckily had the coastal wind pushing it away, most of it fell on Tuesday but only 6mm The trench foundations are excavated and inspected. Then the concrete poured, and the first blocks laid followed by dolly blocks and internal supporting wall starter blocks Total man days of labour for week 2 is 13
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Week one clearing the site

We have finally started to build.  Day 1 was Monday 2nd September 2024.  It was nearly 3 years from the first invoice which was for the private planning consultant to discuss and review the possibility of demolishing one of our old barns and building a bungalow on its footprint.  Back then we weren’t overly confident of our chances but the consultant gave us a fairly good chance. Our current home is a listed property on 3 floors. It is far too big for us with 4 double beds, 3 bath
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Building Regs, Part O and SAP

My previous blog entry ended at submitting the building regs in March, although they were not validated until 5th April and then refused on the 31st May.  I believe my architect had complained on them taking too long so I am guessing when they found he had not included a turning circle for a fire engine they refused them as giving the architect extra time would have hit their own time targets.   We resubmitted 1st June and finally had approval on the 5th July.  A few conditions but nothing unexp
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From the start of planning to site electric

We moved from Manchester to Cornwall 6 years ago and we are very happy with the overall location.  Our existing converted barn, was converted by the previous owner and is very nice but is built on three levels and has 4 double beds, kitchen, dinner, lounge and snug and 3 baths so it is far too big for us when we retire.  When we bought the house I always say we chose it for the working barn apx 300m2, not the barn we live in.  We are building for our future in the hope that we can continue to li
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