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I haven't posted much of late because everything is happening around me in slow motion. Or at least that's how it appears. I am told (by another self builder) that this is fairly normal for this stage. Progress has been limited by shortages of materials (including a supplier going under - wasn't much fun for anyone concerned) and labour shortages - i.e. us both having to do our day jobs! Corona virus is still making self builds difficult. Add to that my recent discovery that at 42 years old, I'm not actually able to do the physical work of two 21 year olds. This was demonstrated by me picking up a very wet pack of roofing battens, putting them on the Range Rover roof rack and then staggering to bed for the rest of the weekend, not attending site after work all week and sitting bolt upright at my desk, causing concern amongst my colleagues still on site that I had started taking the whole work thing seriously. So on to the progress, and maybe a few pictures so you can tell me what I've done wrong! The windows were all ordered in the middle of October. No sign yet, but I am advised of significant delays, so I am hopeful of some of them in very early January. The difficult arch windows will arrive much later because the window maker seemingly forgot how circles work and wanted to make some very expensive hemisphere templates. We offered to send them a nail, a very carefully measured length of string and a pencil. This didn't go down well but it made the point, and the expensive template was suddenly not required. Building control have visited the site while we were in tier 1. Nothing much wrong with the house structure or roof. Just a few simple observations to make sure I don't forget to do some things that are on the list but easy to forget. The battening plan for the cladding was discussed and approved and I now know how cable holes through the structure need to be done - something I've had very mixed advice on from local sources. The cladding and battening is (hopefully) all arranged and we should be ready to start this part of the work as soon as the last ridge tile is screwed down. So on to a few photos of the roof. First fibreglass valley in place. The BCO was keen we didn't use lead because we have a plan to implement a rainwater capture system at some point in proceedings (especially if we need to demonstrate low water usage - SWMBO gets very disagreeable without her swimming pool sized bath) The capping detail of the valley. No idea how to get this to sit nicely - it's just the wrong shape. Hopefully slates will cover it and I won't have to ever look at it. Not a bad view while I sort out how this dry ridge system is supposed to work. Slates on the left of me, solar trays on the right, and me stuck in the middle with my nail gun and saw... Doesn't quite work as a song. While I mention solar trays, all 20 are up and bolted down. They do look a bit bigger than I intended, but I've got a single phase 6kW export allowance so I'm damned well going to use it. First slates on the south roof. It was a bit odd only putting up one slate-and-a-half and one slate on each row. But that's the way it needed to be to get the best out of the solar panels. Otherwise the bedroom roof put too much shadow on the lower right hand panels in the winter. The bedroom roof finished but for a couple of slates in the corner and seating the gable end ridge tile in place. Still working out how the dry ridge system interacts with the dry verge at the gable ends. There are a few annoying slates where my grading could have been better but overall I don't think it's too bad a job for someone who was afraid of heights until this year and has never done any roofing before. Sitting astride the bedroom roof. Only one small section of slates to go now. I think I need to wash my gloves though - too much slate dust over everything. Another 100 or so slates and some solar panels to go, then I can finish the soffits and look at cladding. I need a holiday when the scaffolding comes down. I am told that digging drainage ditches counts as a holiday. Not convinced myself, but at least it's on the ground.

I've finally got around to starting this blog. I'm hoping that it'll be easily updated and I'll provide lots of good pictures and info...we'll see how that goes. I'm at the point now where we have just taken our first big delivery, which is our insulated foundation system from Kore, this morning. So albeit, this process of building a house has been ongoing for some time, it has just become real that we are at the beginning of the build phase, which is very exciting. Some light background info - I've always wanted to build a house for the last 5-10 years, but it was a distant dream and wasn't quite sure how feasible it would be. I grew up in a rural house, my parents bought in 1983, modernised and updated over the years. It was a great childhood and spent many hours in the fields and in our garden, even just cutting the grass was fun (1 acre and a ride on mower). We sold that when I was 21 and ever since I've wanted to return to that life. I have two young kids of my own now and hence the want to return to the countryside to give them what I had was strong. I was always keen on building, swmbo, wasn't as such. So we searched and searched, but mostly the houses we could find that suited our needs were out of league (price!) and even if they were to be in our league there were things we would change or in the end it would be expensive to run. And hence that search helped my other half make the realisation that self build was our only option. My dad died in 2017 after a long illness with Dementia, a relief for him and for everyone else involved. We were very close and I took care of him day in and out, until he was in care. He was an engineer and had owned his own business since I was a child, albeit he lived a pretty simple life and was happy being at home in the garden he made and house he had renovated. Riding around on the ride on mower enjoying a quiet life...and now I guess that's exactly where I want to be. His passing left us with a little inheritance which has allowed this dream of self building to become a reality, I'm very thankful for this. I know it is something he would have been very excited to be part of and watch us do. So after messing around since 2017 and not being able to negotiate a plot or find one that was suitable (there's a lengthy thread on this!) I'd finally identified 4 acres in July 2019. It took a bit of time ( I had to confirm services and remove an Agricultural tie) but completed purchase in Jan 2020. I'll not cover the planning process in detail, but the plot had legacy planning permission which was 24 years old, but at that time the development had commenced and hence it was a straightforward change and submission of our designs. Building warrant was granted a week ago, with very little hassle really. I joined Buildhub in September 2019 or thereabouts. It's been a wealth of information that has helped me shape the design of the house and provided no end of guidance which I am very thankful for. It has allowed me to validate my opinions and approaches and learn from others to ensure i am following the right path. I started out prior to buildhub wanting a SIPS house, in fact googling that may have made me find my way here. Quickly I decided I wanted an insulated foundation too, I went around in circles a little bit with both of these decisions and reading others opinions on here. I even thought at one point they would both be too expensive for me , however I sit here writing this first post having taken delivery of my insulated foundation today and my SIPS kit is on order and due sometime in February. I don't actually need the insulated foundation till mid-late January but made a decision to get it in the country before Brexit issues occur and tariffs are possibly applied in January (rumoured at 6%). I'm very glad I made that decision as today our new strain of COVID has caused everyone to close the doors to us here in the UK, another couple of days and god knows when I would have gotten it. There is lots of other decisions and stuff has gone on in the background with planning and mortgages and budgets to get here, but that is mostly done and hence I feel this is the end of the beginning and now we can enter the start of the middle.... I'm very pleased and excited for the road ahead. I like pictures in blogs....here's a few of the Insulated foundation delivery today. Stored at a friends farm for the time being. It's being stored outside, has a few tractor tyres on it now to stop it blowing away and the main pallets are all strapped down. That's me standing on top.......

Gus’ Structural Engineering and DIY Part 01 Hello all. I’m giving the blog feature on BH a go.. lots to learn and a special thanks to the FMG / members who run / contribute to this site. This blog is built around the structural alterations and extension that I embarked on.. off.. on.. at the back of my house. I work in the construction industry, mostly in an office these days so this project has given me a break from the computer and allows me to keep my hand in on the tools. I have “experimented” at times. Some experiments have worked out ok, some less so. The blog is not chronological as you’ll soon see. As I go I’ll pick out some common elements that you may find on a self build / DIY project and try and show how I went about their structural design and so on.. Although it’s a relatively small extension many of the design principles can be scaled / adapted up for a new build etc. I hope this will be of interest. If anyone has any questions / advice then just post and I’ll do my best to respond. Please remember that if you are undertaking structural design / work or something that could be a safety risk then always get it checked by a competent person unless of course you are the "that person" before starting work. So here goes! As a quick overview the project involves taking a chunk out of the back of the house and building a rear extension. One aim was to make this as least disruptive as possible so we could keep living in the house with some normality. Other reasons were to save some money and get something bespoke to us. In the next posts I’ll cover some of the different aspects of how I went about the detailed structural design. Photo 01: Sun room sticking out – freezing cold – to be demolished but kept as a secure store room for tools for a while. Fig A 01. Eventually.. What’s going on here? Photo 02 The extension is getting roughed out over the sun room, the sun room was retained for a while to stop dust getting into the house, security and so on. For the eagle eyed.. table saw, yes I know the table saw is missing the guard but it is “under maintenance” The ladder (ex BT which some may recognise) was gifted to me by an old sparkie, who got it from someone, who got it from.. Photo 03: Old sun room down and preparing trench (under radiator and old back door) for temporary strip found to support props. Really soft ground just outside the original wall hence the temporary strip found. The old doors windows are fitted into the new structure to give a bit of daylight. The radiator still works.. as I’m a bit soft. Photo 04: Timber props and needles going in. Photo: 05 The upper side of the steel with the needles cut back. “Sadly” the old sun room is gone. The timbers I could reclaim have been.. the rest has gone on the wood burner. Photo 06: Needles cut back on the inside with restraint straps at ceiling level.. to be explained in following posts. That's it for now until I work out what to do next!

At the moment my project at work is the IT planning for our new 8,000 sqm factory, with a 2 floor office space. Under normal circumstances I work 3 days per week to allow me time to project manage our own build, but not at the moment. We get the water tight building handed to us on the 8th January, then I've got to organise the 1st, 2nd and final fix of all the IT infrastructure from cables to servers. When I tried to place the order for fibre leased lines I was told, there's no fibre on that road and you must have a PSTN line before you can have fibre. Well, as you can imagine that caused a lot of calls, effort and pushing. Now the PSTN is being installed on the 15th (I hope). I'm also waiting for the ducts from the roadside to the building for the fibre. This has resulted in me having to work full time. Then last Sunday I came back from the morning dog walk to find his foot pouring with blood, loads of it. So, padding and bandage applied and off to the vet. He had ripped out a claw and I just couldn't believe how much blood there was. Anyway the vet patched him up, with vet bills at emergency Sunday rate, but that was also another 1/2 day gone. So, my build has gone totally by the wayside, not so much of an issue whilst I'm in the planning phase, but a concern for the future if I'm needed on-site here, and on-site at the factory and then there are life issues as well. And of course I really must do some shopping for the little event in 2 weeks time. I can't see this situation improving much until everyone has moved into the factory at the end of March and the old factory is cleared out. The good bit is the overtime pay can go straight into the build budget which is pitifully low compared with what it should be. I was hoping not to borrow any money, but with only enough money for about £800 per sqm after very expensive preliminaries that is probably going to change. What I want to do is get water tight and do family room with kitchen, master and ensuite and then move in. If I could do this with our existing budget then we can rent our house out and get an income from that to carry on. We really want to avoid borrowing. Anyway, as it's now almost midnight and I have Gary Barlow just finishing his show in the background I must finish my short budget and get off to bed. Take care.