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General

Plague, pestilence and plastering

Okay, so I know that I promised another blog post soon way back at the beginning of December but it was busy on the build.  Crazy busy, details to follow.  As for Christmas, well, that didn't turn out as planned, and I had planned it so well.   Both OH and I were proper knackered by the time we got into December - me with the build, OH running our business by himself, so we planned some quality R&R by running away to Gran Canaria on Christmas eve for a week.  A fly and flop, turn o

"It's Christmas!"

And Christmas is a time for reflection, mostly because it was cold and wet and nobody would go to site with me to work! So, in addition to planning some stuff in my head for the upcoming few weeks, I took the opportunity to review the budget...    ... And promptly started to cry.    We had budgeted £22k for groundworks, based on the estimate from the company doing the works. We had agreed to pay them on a day rate, with 6% overage for the foreman they were supplying - I thoug

A new year begins

Well that’s 5 weeks now since we made our move into the house, our joiner worked away until December 21st then cleared all his stuff away to allow us to get ready for Christmas. We have a fully functional kitchen, lounge, dining room, bedroom, ensuite and bathroom and it has been pure bliss living in a house again! The glass for the staircase should be this coming week after which we will get the upstairs organised and maybe buy some new furniture ? the chap from the heating company came down ev

"What hole?"

First off - an apology. I've been lax in getting this next instalment posted. Several days away over the holiday season led to several days more trying to sort out family issues, which have since spiralled out of all proportion. I think I have now put the genie back in the bottle, so on with the show.   Where were we? Ah yes, we'd poured the basement walls. They'd gone a little wonky (because I was a numpty and failed to install adequate bracing on the outside of internal T-walls), but

Groundwork and Landscaping

We make a start on 15th October with the diggers arriving on 16th October. By the 17th October, state of play is as per the picture below. The gabion wall on the right of the plot was put in by the vendor as part of the infrastructure works. The trench on the left is for a gabion wall that we are putting in on the other boundary. As there is quite a slope from back to front, we are putting another gabion wall across the plot to act as a retaining wall. All OK so far, but there is a surprising am
  • jonM

Insulation 1

Our efforts in the latter part of 2018 was spent on getting the exterior properly wind & watertight. With just the render left to do, we could now concentrate on the insides.   Starting to insulate the suspended timberfloor was the first job to do.   We attached some little bits of timber to the underside of the joists, which will keep the insulation boards in place. Our primary insulation for the groundfloor is Quintherm 65mm (another two layers of insulation will be add

Who knew clay was so heavy?

Before I carry on, let's answer the question I posed in the last blog entry. I posted this picture of the basement rear wall, showing how we had joined the cross wall to the side wall (following the suggestion of the boss of Logix UK, who had attended site whilst the walls were being assembled (and even assembled some of them himself) as part of our on-site training:     The problem here is that this wall is supposed to form part of the watertight barrier of the basement. Th

"It's just like Lego!"

So, our slab is down, starter bars set ready for our walls, lovely. Time for some ICF...   Nope - more prep work to do first, apparently. The boss from Logix UK came up a couple of weeks prior and gave us some on-site training. "It's just like Lego!", exclaimed I. To be fair, it did seem really simple. I learnt just enough on the first day of training to be dangerous.   The basement wall blocks arrived on a pallet truck. Except it was only some of the blocks - they'd forgotte

"Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work we go"

Ok, so maybe I got a bit ahead of myself again...   The second wagon that they filled with spoil didn't fare as well. Matter of fact, it managed to beach itself on every axle:     The muck-away company had to send a 2nd wagon, fully loaded with 6F2 and a big-arsed chain. Then it dragged the beached wagon out across the street using the chain. The (now-freed) wagon drove off with our load of spoil. Since there was a load of crusher run on the rescue bus, we had it t

This was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

Our groundworkers broke ground on October 9th 2017. Here's the digger and fuel bowser arriving:     Bit of a squeeze, but they got it on-site in the end! The driver set to work on the site strip right away. He'd been working for perhaps 45 minutes, when work ground to a halt... A land drain was exposed (well, kind of dug up, if truth be told), in the middle of the plot, all of 6" below the ground. The digger had removed a 2' section of it completely, as this photo shows nice

"Bird's nest my ****"

Waiting isn't something I am known for. Waiting nearly 3 months, for these mythical birds to vacate the invisible nest isn't going to happen.   4 weeks later and we're into July, and I've had enough. Here's what was left of the hedgerow, along with my weapon du jour.     As it happens, there was no nest in the hedgerow. Probably because the houses all around have cats that hunt, and even birds aren't stupid enough to nest 4 feet off the ground when there are dozens

"It isn't big enough" - Planning Part 2

Preparing the documents for the planning application was simple enough. We paid a nice man to come and prepare an "arboricultural impact assessment". Basically, he looked at what trees were on and around site, asked which we'd like to keep, and went away. 3 days later a nice 22 page report appeared, and remarkably it said good things about only the trees we had expressed fondness for.   Then another nice man came around and dug very narrow, but very deep holes in a few places on site.

A big box with a pointy lid and some windows - Planning part 1

But I am getting ahead of myself here...   Whilst the purchase was ongoing, I was assuming a number of roles in the project. One of which was the "architect" (and yes I know I am not an architect, and not allowed to call myself such, hence the quotemarks).   So, I bought a piece of house design software and spent a week playing. I came up with what I thought would do nicely... a big box with a pointy lid and some windows (and doors).   On paper at least it ticked al

Getting to the Starting Line ...

An introduction to myself, my plot and and my self-build can be found in the following thread:   Having carried out one self build which turned out to be a lovely family home, we were keen to do another now that both our children had left home. We were drawn towards Passivhaus and started looking on the Southern side of the English Welsh border around 2015. The plot we eventually purchased was in Shropshire and one of 9 self-build / custom-build plots. The plots  have a design code bu
  • jonM

So how do you build a house, then?

Kim and I were/are avid watchers (and readers) of Grand Designs, and so we took the plunge - we would build our own house.   Well, sort of. Our plan was to "armchair self-build". I would design the house (big box with a pointy lid and some windows and doors), and we would get a builder to construct it. Seriously, at the point we were buying the plot, that's as much as we knew had to be done. Of course there was the detail, but we expected the builder to handle most of that - after all,

It all began with a hole in the ground...

I am Neil, and this is the story of my self build - warts and all.   First, some background. My wife and 2 girls and I live in Lancashire, in a 5 bed detached modern build house on a smallish estate. For a few years, we have looked around for somewhere a bit bigger, but in the same village. We had no luck for ages - everything was either too expensive, or too small, or too near a busy main road (and frequently all 3).   Then in December 2016, a house with a large garden came

The Build - Reflections & sign off.

So after a month or so in the house, the time has provided us with an opportunity to reflect on what we have achieved and what if anything, we would change or could have done differently. In truth there is very little if anything that we would change. The rooms flow, the doors open in the right direction and the lights can be switched on and off in the appropriate places. Even the WBS has proven to be a worry that wasn't worth worrying about, as it's position within the hearth is no lo

Quick Progress Update

A quick photo update, I will do proper blog posts over the next few days......   The ground works were started back in August, however there was a long delay with the timber frame being manufactured (partly due the the first floor layout changes), which meant that the TF kit wasn't  delivered until November the 18th.   Last week the house was made wind and watertight.   This week the ground floor UFH was laid and the screed poured.    We are hoping that th

Cladding part 2

Following on from finishing our blockwork a few weeks ago, our brickie came back the next week and fitted the concrete cills.   We then had a short wait before before our joiners could come back on site and fit the remaining Siberian larch cladding. Here are some photos.       The next exterior job will be rendering, but with the winter weather it might be some time before this can be done. Our attention will now be concentrated on getting the house to 1

What about a Modular Loft?

This week I came across a team installing entire sections of loft on a house-build with a seriously large crane.   Really quite interesting, and an opportunity to indulge in some doggerel.   As I was planning for my toft I met a man with a Modular Loft Windows were installed and tiles With insulation, floors and style Windows, Lift, Loft, Tiles Make an instant ancient pile! A extraordinarily transportable loft -  But do I want one for my tof

Diversions whilst Laying Laminate

A varied, and educational, long weekend laying down laminate flooring (one of the Uniclic range from Quick-Step) to help an acquaintance improve his house in London.   The task was to lay about 3 rooms-worth full of Uniclic Laminate (28 packs), and moving a lot of furniture around - the killer reason for needing two people.   My protagonist in laying the laminate, and moving all the furniture, is a detail-of-finish man, and at one stage was whittling away with a multitool for

Scaffolding and things that go bump in the night

Since my last blog post things have been fairly quiet. Our frame manufacturer, Lakeland Timber Frame, have confirm that our frame is in production and we have a date for erection  of mid January. The crane company have visited site to check the narrow access and hairpin bent for themselves, they’ve confirmed that their smallest crane will be able to get onto site, with difficulty!   Ss with a start date agree it was time to get the scaffold up. Originally I’d considered buying my own a

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