Move along, there's nothing to see.
Entry posted by vivienz
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No, really, there's nothing to see, it's all gone!
A great deal has happened in the 2 weeks since the last blog entry meaning that the planned update and photos never happened. First off, very sadly, my father in law died 2 days after that entry which although not entirely unexpected, still comes as a painful shock and means that there's a lot to do at a time that isn't the best. I was very fortunate with my in laws and my father in law was a lovely man and will be greatly missed.
On with house matters. Over the last 2 weeks, all the demolition has been completed and debris removed. We kept plenty of the timber from the roof, which we will use to make raised beds for the kitchen garden - there's no way I'm going to dig that clay over, no-dig all the way for me! We also salvaged some bricks that formed an outbuilding, but the rest is gone. The concrete floor of the garage block formed a really useful hard standing area and that will stay pretty much until everything is done, including a lot of the landscaping. Shortly after this, the portaloo and site cabin arrived, along with the security fencing.
After the demolition, work started on reducing down. We've gone down 800mm from a point set by the surveyor but this may need to change slightly as there is still some debate over what the finished floor level will actually be. There are 3 different levels floating around at the moment, but this will be finalised once MBC have come back with the designed foundation. In the end, I used a surveyor for setting out the levels then had a play around afterwards to see how everything works. I'm glad that I used the surveyor as time was limited in getting the setting out done and it only took him a couple of hours once he had found the previous survey points; I'm pretty sure it would have taken me days and I would have lacked confidence in the final result, so it was money well spent, if only for the peace of mind.
One by-product of reducing down was that we found out where the water main was running, which was nowhere near where we expected it to be. Of course it wasn't. How naive to expect it to be in a sensible place rather than running through a neighbour's garden then through a field. I've got some people coming out tomorrow to do a survey and give me a quote on running the main under the verge parallel with the road, but in truth, I'm bracing myself for a very expensive quote that I'm not likely to take up. On the face of it, the current water main route does seem stupid, or at least inefficient, but in terms of what will go where with the finished build, it's not that bad and I could easily live with it. It will run close to where I'm having the kitchen garden en route to the house, and I want a tap there anyway, so it doesn't seem such a bad route now. I also plan to get the electricity cable buried and that will run a similar route, so I could have both in 1 trench and save digging up more than I have to.
The weekend after my father in law's passing, I had a bit of a hissy fit with the architect, but one that I think was thoroughly justified. I wasn't in the best of humours anyway, but it happens that the 11th June marked exactly 6 months from getting planning permission and instructing the architect to do the building regs plans and details and I felt overwhelmingly frustrated that no matter how close we seemed to be, we were never quite there. I was highly conscious of the timescales for MBC to swing into production and for my glazing delivery, and greatly concerned that I wanted the building to be watertight before the onset of autumn. I shan't go into details, but I left the architect with no uncertainty about how pissed off I was and that there would be financial ramifications if I wasn't in a position to sign off on drawings with MBC very soon. The upshot is that I did, indeed, get my final drawings and these were signed off with MBC last Thursday; I also made the next stage payment to MBC and everything is rolling there, with confirmed dates.
So, my schedule is as follows:
17th July, piles go in
30th July, MBC are in for the foundation
14th August, MBC return to erect the timber frame
If any BH members want to visit and see things in action, let me know and you're more than welcome to come along. Bring your own hard hat because I have none to spare.
A word here on piling, as I've had my final quote in for the mini piles, which stands at £14,870, all in. Having done muckaway on a reduced dig of 800mm, I now have full knowledge of the cost of that, and were I to have gone down the route of a reduced dig to 2m (this was the depth MBC reckoned it would need to be to overcome my clay), I can confidently say that the option of piles is cheaper by a good few thousand for me. Nobody wants my clay soil so the whole lot has to go to landfill and it ain't cheap! There will be more spoil once we've dug the pond in the field, but I reckon I can lose most of that on the site.
The site is now 'energized', as the electricity suppliers say. Basically, this was just a case of getting a meter put onto the fuse in the box that runs down from the overhead supply on a pole, but it took a ridiculous amount of time to get through to any supplier that I had a MPAN number and just needed to get a meter installed and sign up for supply. I truly hate bureaucracy, it's the work of the devil, I'm sure.
So here are a few tedious photos - like I said, there's really nothing to see now!
Photo 1 - if you needed any visual proof that we have clay.
Photo 2 - demolition done, getting ready to reduce.
Photo 3 - reduced dig to 800mm from finished floor level. Plus a view of the neighbours' cottages.
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