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General

Out of the ground at last

Since the basement was finished at the end of June things seem to have been dragging on for ages but we are finally out of the ground and ready for the timber frame. It has taken 13 weeks and we had delays with materials that held things up but when I look back at the photos from the basement being finished to where we are now it is amazing how much has been done and we’re very excited about the timber frame going up next week.   When the groundworkers came back post-basement they star

the concrete is (finally) done and it is.......a garage floor

As @Russell griffiths pointed Out numerous times... if you dont go over the poured slab often  and quick,  again and again , you be ending up with a garage floor. So we had the concrete ordered for morning and ready with 4guys to spread and level, tamper and float. Pouring went smooth. Pumping was good. But when we started tampering and levelling the concrete,  Murphys law kicked in: -concrete went off a lot faster than my groundworkers seen in quite a while -one Of the guy

August 21 - clearing the back passage

During August we focussed on clearing the exterior of the site to allow for easier access for future work, such as laying drainage and installing electricity.   This was the back passage when we started, at the end of the winter before all the weeds started growing.     and this is after most of the roof is gone and the bank & retaining wall are cleared.         In the south west yard where the electricity pylon is, this time
  • LSB

Plinths wall , Garden Wall , Bricklaying ... PART2

After the Transport of the Materials was done , It only needed the beams spreading, bit of insulation in between and above , Underfloor heating in and a bit of a plinths wall built around the whole thing... and done. How long can this take - maybe 4-5weeks ?     https://tintabernacle.blogspot.com/2021/09/plinths-wall-garden-wall-bricklaying_3.html  

Another year...another room

Having not had the best of years health wise this year, which has unfortunately made the decision for me that someone else will have to build the side extension, i thought i'd get a bit more work done, but rather than the norm of a room taking me 3 days tops, i've spent weeks on this one, slowly picking it apart and now putting it back together (admittedly it is the biggest area of the bungalow). This is the last room which needed everything out, so I can finally say goodbye to woodwormed timber

Jul 2021: FT work + DIY build = slow slow slow

This blog is for me to look back over time to see how things have changed and to assure myself that we are making some progress, albeit very slow. I appreciate all help and friendly comments, but appreciated that this is not an exciting blog. Looking through my diary for the last month it seems to say, work / work / work and not on the conversion. Moving to a new factory seems to entail lots of extra hours.  Good to add some OT to the budget, but by the time the taxman etc. have t
  • LSB

Building the workshop

After three visits to our plot (two ten day trips and one long weekend) we have made quite a lot of progress with building the workshop - in no small part thanks to this site and the generosity of members in sharing wisdom and advice. I've learned a huge amount, and am delighted with what we have achieved so far. Below are some photos of the work in progress which largely speak for themselves.   We had help in the first tranche from my son and his friend who had finished Uni for the su

Are we finished yet?

I'm pleased to say finally we are insulated and have render. Credit to our plasterer who has been brilliant and done an amazing job. The colour is Ecorend marble white so is a very clean white looking colour rather than the yellow/grey looking off whites we saw but we like it. The plasterer came in the early hours before the sun as it was blinding trying to apply it in direct sun over the past couple of weeks. Once we have the aggregate round the house and plants etc I don't think it will look t

A few steps forwards and a couple back

It's about time I put fingers on keyboard for a purpose other than Matlab or Perl. So here is a brief summary of the lack of progress in the woodland. I couldn't pass up a few weeks of sea pay, so progress in May was nil but it was lucrative, helping to offset some of the cost increases. And it gave the scaffolders a bit of time to strike the remaining scaffolding (rather a long wait for this). We're still waiting for the arch windows (another long wait) but all the other windows are fitted.  Th
  • dnb

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

June 2021 - slow progress

Well despite the light evenings progress has been very limited during June. I've been working 8-6 with an hour travel each end, then with the dog to walk the horses to sort out and dinner there has just been no time. I've also been decorating in our house, which needs to be done because we have visitors in a couple of weeks.   HID has been more productive, but as we have our separate roles he has been held up as well. Just outside the end of the barn when we were trying
  • LSB

We have a basement….and some utilities

It’s been a while since my last blog post and over the last 5 weeks the basement contractors have been busy and have finished the basement. Well, the external walls at least as we still need to build the internal walls and put the block and beam on top.   It’s looking really good although it is a bit reminiscent of a prison with all the concrete and 3m high walls (not that I’ve been in many/any prisons that is, it’s just from watching movies).   The groundworkers are back on-

28th May - digging out and repairing

Over the last month we've spent most of our time continuing to take parts of the barn apart whilst repairing some bits that need to stay.   What's brilliant is that all the fibre cement roofing which contains a small amount of asbestos is gone.  The skip company delivered on Friday and collected on Monday and after seeing it all wrapped said it was very good and we didn't need to wrap the skip as well. We've pretty much finished clearing the back sheds, although there is stil
  • LSB

We have a slab!

Weeks 4 and 5 of the build saw our basement slab being poured. it was a major milestone for us and we're really happy....well, apart from the section that was too high and they needed to grind it down of course, but apart from that we're really happy. ?   We have 200mm EPS300 specified for under the slab and this was laid by using a long telescopic rule from the profile board strings 4m above at ground level. We are supposed to have a 200mm toe outside the slab and luckily I was outsid

Week 3 - a big hole almost finished

so, here we are at the end of the 3rd week of our build with the groundworkers having dug the basement to depth and put the sub-base down ready for levelling and compacting on Monday with the blinding and insulation to also be completed on the same day.   We got a second digger driver on site this week and things have really got going and on Friday we even had a 3rd person to stand around with the laser level to assist. Here's the time-lapse video of the week.    

Beginning of the end!

There's been a considerable hiatus in both blogging and building. Looking back, my last post on November 22 last year was explaining how we were finding it tricky to make progress and that my wife was due to give birth to twins in early Jan this year.   Little did we know that about 24 hours after writing that post, said twins arrived 7 weeks early necessitating a fairly urgent trip to Glasgow, first for my other half and shortly after for me to be present at the birth. For medical rea

Part 5 - Foundations Finished (Finally)

It's kind of taken me 4 moths to get here, we broke ground start of January took a while to get the road and  the rest of the ground built up with the stone (700 Tonnes circa!). But we have finally done the UFH, tied the mesh and then poured the concrete.    UFH:   Fitting the UFH was pretty straightforward to be honest. I had 1.1km of pipe to lay, and just planned it out as per the Wunda drg, I adapted a little as I went along to avoid awkward bits but it went fine. The UFH

Done and dusted!

Building controls have issued our “Completion Notice” a big milestone for any self build and definitely called for a celebration. A big sigh of relief from both our councils building control and us.?   Our many thanks to all the contributors at BuildHub, we certainly could not have done it without the support of the forum members. Particularly Jeremy Harris @Jeremy Harriswho’s broad knowledge and good advice...goodness knows where he’s disappeared to but the forum is a poorer place wit

Week 2 done and dusted

week 2 has finished and the perimeter of our basement has been dug down to the sandstone and it is now obvious how bloody massive this thing is going to be! it really didn't look that big on the plans.....honest! ?   we were hoping for more hands and heavy plant on site this week to speed things up but Monday and Tuesday came and went and still the one man and a digger. on Wednesday a second digger came! woo-hoo! but no extra help so we now have one man and two diggers. It seems to hav

26th April - taking apart (carefully)

Over the last month we've spent our time removing bits from the barn that will either be returned, replaced or disposed of depending on there condition and the LPA requirements. This means that the yard is filling up so deliveries and other storage is now being put in the fields.  That's okay with a very dry April, might be more tedious if we have a very wet spell.   I removed the roof from the barns where there was a low ridge height, but that also included the insulation (lucky
  • LSB

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