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General

Klover pellet swallower!

Tonight we have moved in to the house, it’s not what my idea of moving in would be there’s stuff everywhere and still no staircase as we await it’s arrival sometime in the next few days, but we have a bed a sofa and a fully functioning kitchen and toilets hopefully I’ll get sorted out before Xmas! The move today had to happen as we spent a sleepless night last night in the caravan with minus whatever degrees and the gas stopped functioning properly, I’m told it doesn’t freeze but stops doing wha

The Build - Mission accomplished! We're in!!

A busy November saw all the trades coming good, albeit some were cutting it fine for the moving in day – 30th November – However, we have moved in with all the services up and running. Having said that, BT and Openreach have missed the deadlines and as a result we are without any internet, phone line or TV for at least a week! Also the master bedroom built in wardrobes are still be fitted.   The landscapers have finished their work, providing us with a patio area and a driveway area wh

Just moving the house a few degrees & making holes

So we had planning approved and were feeling good about being able to link up our engineer &  architect to get started on the details....and then.... had a re-think. We started out planning a re-model and changed our minds as the compromises were too many and the costs were getting high so a rebuild (esp with VAT bonus) was making more sense. But, we didn't really go completely back to the drawing board - we should have. Post-planning we had a good look at the plot, house position and neighb
  • Adam2

Cellulose

Winter is coming, the White Walkers are on the way and, in the meantime, grey snow arrived in my house on Friday.    Allow me to explain.  It seems that much of the artificial snow that you see on film sets is, in fact, made from blown cellulose, particularly to cover outdoor areas without damaging flora and fauna.  I now know this after having some cellulose insulation inadvertently blown into the garage on Friday when the insulation found a gap in a board and made its way through.  N

Blockwork

Our blockwork started three weeks ago. This was always going to be weather dependent and it was mixed for the first two weeks in November but since then we have had a really good weather window where its been calm, sunny and not too cold which allowed the remaining work to be completed.     Our brickie was fitted a temporary gutter which could be taken off when required.   This gable end is where the prevailing wind comes down off the mountains, we have shelt

Underfloor heating problem

So the guy from Greenflame came on Tuesday and set up the pellet stove and thermal store leaving us to get it feeding the underfloor heating, that’s two days ago and still no heat, the stove gets up to 70degrees which it is set at and this should suffice for all the heat and hot water, it then cuts back and ticks over, the problem is the hot water is not getting to the manifold, the flow pipe is hot but everything else is cold, many wasted hours have now been spent with no results- help!

Testing, testing

Yesterday was air tightness test day and MBC's final day on site getting everything prepped for the final test and then finishing off a few details.  For those not so familiar with this kind of thing, a few details of the process follow.   Our house isn't a passive house as it hasn't been designed with that in mind - it was the design first and then build to passive standards, so no accreditation or anything like that.  That said, I wanted a low energy house and hence the choice of the

The Banks press Pause

Disappointing week. I've been waiting three months on a decision by the bank about splitting the property folio and allowing me to sell the old house but keep the side garden to build on. They are concerned if I don't sell the house they are taking a risk as the LTV would then exceeds the Central Bank limits. The reduced property value post split plus the fact I've only a year paid down on the mortgage plays into this. I thought they would hold the side garden as security but it doesn't work lik

And the build goes on.

Having got all my water issues out into the last post, it's time to move on to happier things and talk about other progress.  Actually, that's a little unfair because there is a lot of work in all the flat roof stuff, far more than the pitched roof, and aside from the wet stuff it's going well.   At the end of the penultimate post, the solar PV panels were just going on and the pitched roof was also still a work in progress.  The building was still a shell with no power and plenty of w

Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink

So last Tuesday saw us eventually getting the track inspection passed and we were told 5-10 days for connection.This morning I decided to phone to see if they had a date for us and was told 19th November but could be earlier.Half an hour later Scottish Water draw up so I go to see what’s happening, well I was here to make your connection but I won’t be doing it, firstly the hole is full of water- oh really well we did warn you this would happen! Secondly you have to get a chapter 8 - you can the

Actually, I do care...

....what the weatherman says as things didn't go quite to plan.   It's been a hellishly busy couple of weeks since I last posted and it feels like far longer than 2 weeks, as I'm sure anyone who has had a leaky building will sympathise with.  I was feeling very pleased and relieved 2 weeks ago as everyone was on site and working away and it really did look like I would just sneak in before the weather broke.  Had everyone been where they should have, I would have just made it but the f

We have rooflights! (and some tricky joinery to do)

Today our roof lights were installed.  We are pleased with the finished product and how they fit.  The blue sky and sunshine helps of course. Almost helped take the edge off the unexpected contract lift costs (£1380 in the end, but we have managed to avoid the additional VAT and we got him to lift some roof trusses off the scaffolding which saved a job). Their man on site today admitted that it had taken a long time to get to this point.  Not wrong! The photos will hopefully do th

Scale : 1 inch to 6 feet

Clearing out a little, I have come across a cache of material from my father's Architecture Course at Sheffield University in the late 1950s. There is also a brochure from the GRP products he was offering around 1983 from one of the original Raleigh Buildings in Nottingham.   Lots of interesting projects - this is one for a "Country House", and I can see the stripped down style of the period, but there are also quarters for a maid. And a lot of illlustrations done in watercolour. 

Will they be worth the stress (and the money)?

Our designed house has 5 rooflights.  3 rectangular, 1 small square one in a bathroom and a large circular one above a two storey entrance hall, making it, I guess, the "feature" of the house. Our plot is surrounded by trees on two sides so getting light into rooms is an issue, hence the rooflights.   Here is our rooflight story (part 1)   We got some quotes in from companies and decided on our roof light manufacturer based on price and reasonable service. MBC agreed to

Roofing a flat roof

Our flat roof guys have been great.  Though they worked very short hours compared to MBC (doesn't everyone).   With a flat roof you apparently need at least 18mm OSB to lay the roof membrane onto.  The standard MBC spec is less than that for a flat roof so we had to stump up some money to upgrade the roof deck to 18mm.   We have three different roof decks.  Here is one roof deck with the roof lights (more on those in a separate post one day).     The upper roof

Driven to the edge

I am a very strong person, I don’t usually let things get me down, If I think it’s at all possible to do something myself I don’t ask for help, not even from hubby, some of the things I’ve done many a woman wouldn’t even know about never mind know how to do but these last few weeks have broken me. After the major problem with our electricity supply which I managed to sort out I didn’t think it could get any worse but things are all just getting on top of me now to the point where I have cried to

I don't care what the weather man says.....

....if the weather man says it's raining!  So goes the old song and me, too, by the end of this week.  The roof itself has been watertight for a couple of weeks now, but there was still significant water ingress from the gulleys hidden behind the parapets formed at the top of the ground floor.  However, my flat roof guys have been back on site this week and are working hard.  Today they were finishing off the long, east facing balcony and also moving onto the south facing parapet; they will cont

Tender does it....!

I received the tender documents from the Architect last Friday, about 4 weeks later than I'd hoped. Still it had around 12 documents and a cover letter for me to absorb and read over the weekend. They provided all the details the builders need to price the job which is a lot of detail, wall makeup, foundation and roof elements and I finally get a preview of different cross sections of the house. They provided a window and door schedule, room elevations including a design for the kitchen, utility

The Build - Now on notice !

Blimey another month on there is a real sense we are getting there. So much so, we have given notice on our rental. We move in on Friday 30th November regardless!   The main emphasis this month has been installing the treatment plant and drainage system. The treatment plant was initially installed, somewhat optimistically, without any anchors only for it to pop back out of the ground within 24hrs, despite being filled with water and the pit filled with pea shingle. Needless to say the

Guttering

In our last blog entry we completed the roof.   Guttering was one of those areas in the build that I had never really given much thought to. After doing some research, and asking on here, we came across cast iron effect guttering from Brett Martin. Unfortunately the lead time to get the guttering to Skye was quite long (3-4 weeks). When the outlets and fascias finally arrived, the actual guttering was missing having been lost in transit. We had to order it again, waiting another three

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