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It has been 3 weeks now since the last post and the TF arrived as planned. Sadly the tele handler didn’t!! It was two hours late and thankfully, didn’t impact on the delivery of the TF, although the driver was less than pleased being held up for so long. During the second week of erection, we saw the arrival of the large crane which really did pay for itself as it made light work of the roof timbers. A long day for all, but worthwhile. The final week saw the sarking and dormers being fixed and created respectively. A few little jobs remain but in essence the TF is up. The details – two joiners spent a total of 14 work days across 3 weeks – half a day being lost due to one of them nailing his finger rather than a rafter with his nail gun. Ouch!! The erection was arranged via the TF supplier, as was the large crane hire for the day. A total cost of £7600. This includes the sarking, soffits and barge boards. The crane hire alone was £500. Whilst all this was going on, the following was also being taken care of – A water connection from the mains across the other side of a single track road into a stop cock just inside the plot boundary. Our contractor carried out the road crossing whilst Scottish Water inspected the trench and established the connection. Cost of Scottish Water services - £976. Road crossing by independent contractor - £932. We took the opportunity to fit in the BT ducting at the same time as the BT pole is also across the road. The electric meter was fitted and power connected. This is being housed in the corner of the car port. Our electrician then came out and fixed up a temporary supply for the various trades to use. I have to say the Utility companies were fairly straightforward to deal with despite their somewhat strange working practices - SPenergy supply and fit the cable but not the meter. That is fitted by someone else. SPEnergy then have to come out and make the connection!! The stand alone car port /shed / log store was also completed. Just the door and window to the enclosed shed remain outstanding. This structure measures 7m x 6m deep – It has an oak frame and larch cladding. [Photos to follow] Finally, a word on the scaffolders. They have been called back to site on a number of occasions to move the structure or indeed amend the position and in fairness to them; they undertook these tasks without complaint. Yes, I will be pleased once they are off site but to be fair, when they have been asked to do a job and have done it. Coming up............the windows and doors will be fitted as will the ground floor insulation, ahead of the UFH pipes and screed going down.

fun evening.

You putting it yours or the others???

You will have are the alcoholics hiding in the bushes making dog and cat noises waiting to be sprayed.

@JamesP mine was quite a while ago (similar area) but we paid circa 7k for the frame erection too. That was direct to the joiners though, it wasn’t done via the TF company. Seems labour costs are much less up here, but then again house prices in the south are crazy so the guys down south have big mortgages to pay I guess.

Come on, Jack. Get real. I think the answer to that is that Mrs Jack quite properly envisioned herself waking up gradually and slowly on a Sunday morning, while you put your clothes, trolled downstairs, bought a paper, and made the coffee - and brought it back up to be presented on a silver tray with an exquisitely prepared breakfast of Eggs Benedict and Melba Toast, while she relaxed on a on a steamer chair on the balcony. Perhaps with the traditional Bloody Mary. Ferdinand

Once the plasterer has been, you will find the roof is ~3mm closer to the floor - no stilts needed then. If £ for plastering is limited - have you thought about crowd funding? Selling a kidney?

I didn't realise quite how long a while since the last blog entry so time for an update as I'm on an admin day today, not least for the electricity supply which I'll come onto later. So, what's occurring? I'll start at the bottom and work my way up: Groundworks - the groundworkers arrived on site the day after the last May bank holiday, 29th May. They took the roof off back in April to sort out any potential bat issues and now they're back doing the main job. The old concrete garage block came down first. The roof panels have asbestos and have had to be properly disposed of, which has been done at a reasonable price of £650 rather than the c. £1300 I was looking at a couple of weeks ago. All done properly and I have my disposal certificate but without having to resort to sending stuff all the way to Swindon and get charged for 2 tons when it was just over one. A small result; still expensive but less than it could have been. My ground worker arranged this with one of his contacts; PM me for details if anyone local needs the details. The concrete sides of the block are all down but we've left the floor in place as it's a ready made hard-standing for everything that will be arriving on site over the coming months. It's mainly parking, portaloo and site cabin taking it up now. I will need to get some hardcore compacted down going further into the site as I'm not sure it will stand up to all the heavier construction traffic that is due. Demolition of the building will be finished this week, but there's still the old septic tank to be dug out and a bit more concrete from where there were sheds in the past. Next up is digging out for the insulated slab, drainage and services, not to mention the piles. I have my groundworker until the end of next week before he's due on another job, so we should get a fair bit done by then. I reckon the initial excavation will be a little rough until we've established the levels, which seems a bit chicken and egg to me at the moment. How can you mark out how deep you need to go when there's a whole lot of earth in the way? Fortunately, there are some useful markers on the site that I can use as references for the setting out of the perimeter but I will get everything checked out before the piling guy arrives and have any remedial excavation done for that. Speaking of piles....I've ditched the idea of the helical screw piles. Not because they weren't lovely enough, but because they were outrageously expensive compared with other, more traditional systems. The initial design drawn up by my SE would have cost more than £42k for the helical screw piling system which seemed like mad money to me, probably because it is. I had a chat with a contact and he said that very little of this kind of thing is done now, certainly on house projects. When it first came out it was embraced with open arms by the telecoms industry for ease and speed of use, but they have dropped it almost entirely now on cost grounds, and I can see why. My initial quote for CFA (continuous flight augur) piles came in at just over £15k which was far closer to what I was expecting. I reckon that in the end, with SE fees and everything it will come in at around £20k for the piles. As mentioned in a previous entry, the alternative was to dig to at least 2m depth over the entire footprint, which in itself is an expensive exercise due to the cost of muckaway (I estimate an additional 15 tipper loads), so swings and roundabouts, the piles aren't as extreme an option as it first seems. I've used Mini Piling Systems Ltd for the piling system - nice people, easy to deal with, based in Bath, will travel. I should add that because these are mini CFA piles, as long as the ground is dry and reasonably level when they come to put them in (July), there is no need for a piling mat as the rig isn't considered a large one. Moving upwards, the other thing that has slowed is getting drawings from holy trinity of architect, SE and MBC to the sign-off stage. The SE has been very efficient and have turned things around very well. The architect and MBC have been slower, but I'm going to hold back some criticism because were I in the shoes of the architect, I would probably be doing this amount of nit-picking on behalf of my client and I'm sure that I will be glad of it. As ever, just because an architect designs a house and it gets planning permission, that doesn't necessarily mean that it can actually be built. In my case, there have been delays in getting the small details that can be glossed over in the desperation to see physical progress and having something coming out of the ground, and this is what the architect has been pushing back on. They are determined to make sure that the proportions of rooms are consistent with the original design. For instance, the ground floor ceiling height has been raised so that the large open plan downstairs doesn't feel oppressively low due to its large area. As a result, most of the ground floor windows will also need to be increased in height as will the front door. This all has a knock-on effect, hence the delays. There has also been back and forth over the balconies and warm or cold roof construction and the parapet wall around them; we're not quite at the end of this but pending a response from a supplier, we are close. The issue is that the common solutions to ventilating the cold roof would look ugly. Everyone has gone to a lot of effort to make the house as good looking as it can be and it would be a shame to rush through this detail and then sit looking at ugly vents on the balconies for ever more. But, tick, tick, tick, more time passes. By far the biggest issue is that until these details and corresponding drawings are signed off and I pay a stage payment to MBC, my manufacturing countdown doesn't start. Standard time for MBC to get on site is minimum 6 weeks, this time of year more like 8 so I'm realistically looking at end of August or early September. Then there are the windows to go in and roof to go on. I really, really want the build to be weather-tight before the weather breaks in the autumn, as it will. Moving on to making the building work as a home, and for construction to actually take place, I'm sorting out the electricity supply at the moment. There is a live supply to the site as there was an existing dwelling there. Last year I contacted the DNO and had a service alteration done, which basically chopped the wire running into the bungalow and moved it all into a box on the pole with the overhead cable running down it. I rang the supplier at the time and advised them of the changes being made and arranged for one of their bods to come along and collect their meter. Sadly, they didn't turn up for the appointment, so now their meter is buried at the bottom of a pile of builder's rubble in the local landfill site. This put all sorts of twists into their collective knickers and it's taken the best part of a day to sort out how to re-establish the connection. It turns out that what's needed is a temporary building supply and this is always done through the commercial team. I've been quoted up to 12 weeks for the whole thing, but this is if you are applying for an entirely new connection, not just to get a meter installed. Even so, it could take around 4 weeks. We shall see. In the meantime, I've (for the time being) decided on getting my kitchen from DIY Kitchens. I've planned it all out and know what units I want and where, so I'm not going to think about that again for a while. I do, however, need to start thinking about lighting schemes and bathrooms/wetrooms as I've made very few decisions on these. Needless to say, there is a huge amount of other small detail going on but little of which can be done until the final drawings are in. Never a dull moment, though, my groundworker has just called to tell me that they have bent over a water pipe to stem the healthy flow of water that was coming out of it when they went to remove it, despite Wessex Water having sworn faithfully to me in February that the water was all turned off at the meter and that nothing should be coming out of anywhere. Off to make some more calls and demo photos to follow soon. Ta ta for now.

A storage container has arrived. According to the box once upon time it belonged to Hyundai.

Isn't that true for all blokes?

OMG is it like the Veet for Men reviews? https://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R3GDDEL1SC1QQ5 We went down this road once before on my heating thread ......

It's burned into my "memory" forever...

Not sure it will be fun but definitely memorable.

Lol, I was thinking that gin was a waste! Citronella spray instead!

Ralgex on the nads makes for a good all round dog/cat/wino deterrent...

Hello, I’ve been browsing the forum for a week or two thought it would be a good place to get advice and maybe share some of my experiences. I’m coming of the back of a full chalet renovation in North Wales, I’ve done most of the work except electrics and plastering. I have a few ‘little’ jobs to finish then I can enjoy it. I’m also 5 weeks into a full house renovation, 1930 semi that’s having a two story side and single story rear extension. All that and I’m expecting my first child in 4 weeks!!!!! House Chalet

Our balcony faces west and it's nice to sit out there watching the sunset, listen to the birds singing and then if we're lucky watch the bats flying around. Good de-stresser after a day working on the house.

Yeah I knew someone would pick up on that, and right on cue ..... I’m here on my tod though so if your wife only sleeps upstairs that may be more a reflection on you

Must be a thing with Kent girls...

That beats "It is a truth universally acknowledged.." into a cocked hat. So tempting to sponsor a story competition with that as the defined opening sentence.

Ours used to jump several feet from a standing start, with very little scrabbling. The mesh might discourage them, but I personally wouldn't rely on it.

I think balconies in bedrooms are more of a holiday thing TBH. I never spend time awake upstairs. That’s the sleep zone.

Hi @JamesP - yes that is the correct price. I think it was probably better than most because we are only 12 miles from the TF manufacturer and the guys they use are local and do not require overnight accommodation etc.

The gizmo I made was a bit Heath Robinson, and as such I'll give a note of caution. Mains electricity and water are not a good mix at all, so I'd not copy what I did without being aware of the risk. What I did was use what I had to hand, which was a spare passive infrared (PIR) outdoor light switch, set so that it would operate in daylight (just turn the light sensitivity to minimum). This had an adjustable timer built in. I used that to provide mains power to a solenoid water valve that had been salvaged from one we'd scrapped some years earlier. The solenoid valve was connected inline with the water supply from the outside tap to the hose feeding the sprinkler, which was easy to do as the valve I used had a threaded fitting to accept a standard washing machine hose, and that hose also had a threaded fitting on the other end that screwed straight on to the outside tap. The outlet side of the solenoid valve had a hose connection that took a normal size garden hose, with a jubilee clip to secure it. The sensor was fitted to a post at the side of the drive, low down, so it would be triggered by the cat. The cable from that ran to the solenoid valve, which I fitted inside a plastic box to protect the electrical connections. The hose ran to a rotating garden sprinkler, set in the centre of the gravel drive. With the tap turned on the sprinkler wouldn't operate, but when the PIR sensor was triggered, it then turned on the solenoid valve which turned on the water supply to the sprinkler. |I had the time set to keep the sprinkler on for around 30 seconds, as that was more than enough to scare the cat away. If doing it again, then I think I would opt to use 12 VDC, from a suitable isolated power supply, or perhaps a battery. There are plenty of 12 VDC PIR sensors and 12 VDC water solenoid valves available cheaply on ebay, and a 12 VDC system wouldn't present any electric shock risk.

We are actually on what is rated as a 12KW supply, and that will be plenty for our house, even with an ASHP for heating (that's not much over 1KW anyway) In our case that came about because there is a 100KVA transformer serving 8 houses and I know if I had asked for a 21KVA supply there was a high probability of them wanting to upgrade that to a bigger transformer. The reality is I have the same size supply cable and same 100A fuse and could draw 21KW if I wanted to. As long as we don't all do that at once.

Thanks @newhome yes I was happy with the erection costs including the crane hire. Well worth it thought when out against the time it would have taken to cut that all on site etc.

What a beautiful thing!!

That might be an issue. There’s a good chance I’ll need it back by then.

2020?

I can lend you a pre worn in trowel if you want. When would you need it?

We got plans drawn up by an architect, I then copied them into Viso so I could plan UFH and furniture etc.. I could spend hours messing with layouts ? We’re living in a rented house around the corner, absolutely no way my pregnant partner could live in it. Hoping to move in early August, it won’t be completely finished but fingers crossed we’ll have running water and somewhere to cook.

Are you trying to solve a problem that might not occur get your brick order in now if you are doing your own brickwork then you need to get up to just under your block n beam you then need to fit your block n beam then you can bring your inner skin up to window chill height. Have you put a realistic time frame on this, you may find it takes longer than you think, factor in a weeks holiday to get over the stress, and bada bing, bricks arrive have you had a firm delivery time.

I might lay some to stop pva etc falling on the concrete and causing later adhesion issues with the floor tiles. Veering towards Febond Blue Grit now though! I'm v.likely going to have a crack myself. Rest assured I'll post up if it cocks up!

We have 1400 members ... if they all give 20p he will have enough for a plasterer and enough left over for an hour with a therapist to get over the obsession with moving shower heads....

One way to dissuade cats is to hook up a water sprinkler on the area where the thing crosses, hooked up to a solenoid valve powered by a passive infra red sensor. I made a gizmo like this to stop cats using our gravel drive as a toilet, and it worked very well (until I forgot to turn it off one morning and it soaked the postman...).

I agree with Peter W about changes over time...especially family change. and Bitpipe re designing from the inside, and especially from the front door in, towards the kitchen. I reference in my book 'Self build home...the last thing you need is an architect', architects who have written books about design...they generally recommend inside/out and the day by day , week by week, season by season acitivities, especially around the entrance (short term storage, rituals, visitors glimpse view to activities and so on) all too much to summarise here (the analysis/reviews, ferdinand, are all in the later edition, the 200+ pager, not the freebie). Design is difficult, yet it's all in one, and I don't just mean fashion! Consider a big bay window to the snug...what a welcoming difference that would make. Perhaps an oriel work window to first floor landing...you need my book (as do all self designers) full of hints and tips for personalising your home...adding value, character and wow factor...internal windows, borrowed light, promise of activity, double use of space and so on. As I say too much to summarise. No waffle and packing. lofthousestudio@hotmail.com...Jamie (caliwag) cheers.

Now following on from above, the roof design - I am going to build it myself rather than buy in trusses (they didn't work out cheaper anyway and they looked like flimsy weak junk). The walls will be 10 blocks high all the way around, the gables are almost certainly going to be built in timber, sheeted, wrapped, battened and clad in cedar etc. There is also a central butt which makes me think I could build 3 sturdy trusses (the timber gables making up 2 of these) and run in purlins over which I could sit smaller rafters and not have joists. I can get some decent purlins from a local building merchant and could use a decent ridge board such as a 8x2/10x2. The idea behind this is that I can maximise headroom - I will probably floor out some of the roof space once I see what storage needs I want but I am going to avoid this for as long as possible as I don't like to encourage hoarding. So I am looking for thoughts here. The only real spec I need to stick to is the roof needs to be about 30° as that's what is on the planning drawing and it will probably have tiles but I may go for those metal sheets that look like tiles - again advice appreciated. I am keen to blitz on with this and start the extension later this summer!

Hi, looking great. Can you confirm that price of £7600.00 for TF is correct, down south you would struggle to have a large garage built for that. Enjoy the build.

Had to call police last night.. sods provocatively loudly calling cats over my garden > things bound across & I see/ angry & it all kicked off/ to & fro of words & anger. 2nd time Ive been onto 101/ CPO (minor police stuff) re. her. They called police them same time. But as Id called before, 2nd time now then.. the CPO parked @ theirs/ 2 vists, with 1 to me between. I got a minor bllking re words, ok, but they got a shock the squad car & focus was on them, & all concilliatory apparantly "not our tree- he can cut" as well as some awful lies I'd said s'thing about his recently rip'd Ma (on contrary I offered my symapthies, gently at the time, now 3 months ago, & I've not mentioned her since.. why would I have?). CPO understood my pov I could tell thank goodness. But for gods sake: all this toxic atmos & vile hatred, ruined relations.. & they admit its not their tree. Utter childishness. Problem now tho.. they'll up the provocation re. cats & now visible all the time in front of my windows/ back area talking loudly etc. The CPO couldn't agree they were being provocative too: frustratingly. Same shenanigans from another n'bor (friend of theirs- oh what a coincidence) opposite with a big heavy very out of control dog/ onto my property etc, mess & bins being launched about. ~65 yr olds these lot are. My 1st house this is. Pathetic childishness. NOT welsh these 3.. english from up north, ganging up on the new southener guy on his own no less.