Today was the penultimate of 6 gas monitoring check as part of our phase 2 contamination survey. 

They dug 6 bore holes of 3 m deep and then left 2 with gas monitors in situ.

I noticed today though that the one on the left has some dying plants around it, which is slightly worrying as it used to look like the other one.

But, at their last check they have not found any gas at all in their holes, mainly because where they are looking is subsoil where a building used to be rather than in the field 100m away where the slurry pit was.  The ex slurry pit is not in the curtilage of the barn conversion so they couldn't look there, phew.

They also took soil samples, which we won't get the results of until after all the monitoring has finished.  I'm hoping to get the report by the end of November.

Then I need to discharge the planning condition.  I don't know how to do this yet, so I shall have to be investigating that.

Over the last week I have been visiting plumbing / electrical / builders merchants to find out about trade accounts and discounts.

They were all pretty keen to get the business, although a couple of them were rather patronising and said to get my builder to talk to them, the perils of being a female of the species.

The Electric Center said that you can get grants for fitting car chargers, if you have them installed  by certified madmen, sorry I think that was meant to say electricians.  Has anyone elase heard about this.

Do others get trade accounts to get supplies and how does this work with the VAT.

Despite not being able to start we have pulled down the metal sheeting that was protecting one side of the barn, it wasn't fixed and was just held in place by lengths of wood just to keep it a bit dryer.

We currently store lots of wood, big tools (tractors etc) in the barn so we decided to take the collapsed roof off of the old bike shed and put a new one on to use that.  Well the roof was removed weeks ago and HID has not lost interest in putting a new one on.  This is rather worrying when he is supposed to be converting the whole barn.

I'm still compiling the list of requirements to send of for estimating, starting from scratch means that we can have sockets, plumbing etc where ever we want it, but when given the choice I'm finding it difficult to think now about how we will use the rooms once we move in.

I've been hearing quite a few 'not so good' things about warranties and how difficult it is to claim on one, with HID supposedly doing all the work when he isn't qualified I would be very surprised if it was worth anything.  The plan is for this to be our last home, famous last words, but who knows what will happen.  With a tight budget I only want to buy what is essential so I have some money left for the inside, so no decision made on that yet.

What I must sort out for the new year is insurance, although our barn is pretty much ignored at the moment I suspect that once we put a fence around it to say building site then there will be more interest and potentially some unwanted visitors.

There is a local auction on Monday where we are considering buying a dumper and some other equipment, all depends on the price and what others will pay of course.

As I think of things I've been adding them to a project plan, this is now getting huge, but it does at least mean I will remember to get things done.  Before we start though I will need to get it all in a sensible order, after all installing windows really can't be done when there are no walls.

Right, back to my electricity plan, how many sockets can one house need, probably never enough.