Week 6 - Scaffolding - and budgeting.

Entry posted by Benpointer in General Sunday at 20:03

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https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/blogs/entry/1095-week-6-scaffolding-and-budgeting/

A relatively quiet week this week - the lull before the storm (hopefully not literally!)

The scaffolders arrived to put up a single-lift all around the exterior on Thursday and Friday (and Saturday morning as it turned out). I say single-lift but there were due to be a couple of hop-ups for the gables on the south-facing roof. However, at one end the gable is over a canopy roof which means the first lift is 2m away from where the gable will be. We've left that one off for now - I'm hoping the timber frame company (Turners) can work off the scaffold tower at that end, or I will get the scaffolders back and put in what the frame erectors would like (we may need a sky-hook to hang it off though).

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The site is looking spick and span at the moment; the groundworkers were really tidy, the weather has no doubt helped (dust is easier to sweep up than mud), and Mrs P. has done some sterling work this weekend tidying up the few bits of spare timber, pallets, bulk bags etc, left by the scaffolders. As they were packing up one of the scaffolders saw an empty bag (which they had brought) and asked "Is this rubbish?", to which I replied "Oh yes, thanks", thinking he was going to take it away, but no, he just threw an empty Red Bull can in it 🤷‍♂️. Scaffolders truly are a breed apart.

The house has proved to be too wide for the CCTV camera, so we moved the camera back. Now we have the workshop roof in the way - grrr!

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Looking at the project finances, frighteningly we have already spent over 1/3rd of the budget 😱. Major spend so far has been on design and planning, the timber frame and windows are both paid for, a good slug of the groundworks costs has also been paid with an invoice for the balance expected soon. This week I ordered and paid for the MVHR kit (based around a Zehnder Q350) and the ASHP and cylinder (Panasonic L series 7kW + 300l cylinder). I ordered the latter through Air2Heat who provide an MCS umbrella service (Paul Thorney - really helpful) so we should get back £7.5k via the BUS grant scheme, which would leave the heat pump and cylinder costing a net £1,200 plus installation costs.

Anyway, we're currently running about £500 over budget (excluding contingency) with some opportunities for future savings and a fair few areas of potential overspend.

Time for Benpointer's three Laws of Budget Management:

If you go over budget, that's bad management.
If you come in under budget, that's poor estimating.
If you come in bang on budget, you've almost certainly committed both 1. and 2.

Next week is going to be very exciting - I hope in a good way. Tomorrow (Monday) our timber frame arrives from Turner Timber Frames, with a team to erect it. The weather forecast is good, so fingers-crossed the frame fits the footings and it all goes up smoothly 🤞.