Leaderboard

What a difference a week makes in the world of self build – Half the roof has been slated, the additional insulation has arrived on site and the liquid screed has been poured. The guys who did the pour travelled from Perth, some 95 miles away – very few firms seem to do this work north of the Border it seems. The ground floor was prepared by the guy doing the UFH and our builder. The company doing the screed dispatched a surveyor the day before in order to measure the various heights and lay out what they called “spiders” but are in fact tripods. Each tripod was marked with a height and a spot so that if they were knocked over they could be re-positioned correctly. The pour was completed within an hour and should be ready for “light” traffic on Monday. Talking of which, we should see the Joiner, roofer and builder on site to start the internals, finish the back section of the roof and start building the external chimney respectively. Enjoy the weekend.

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.

The ground works have moved on considerably, no doubt assisted by the fine weather we have experienced since mid April. The dwarf wall and base for the car port was always the priority as the frame itself arrives to site on Monday 14th May. The main house sub structure is almost complete – the ducting for the electricity cable and water pipes are in as are the drainage outlets. Over the next week or so the sub base will be completed. The TF is due to arrive Tuesday 29th May. You will see I have electricity going into the car port structure – this is where I will be housing the main electricity meter. Look close enough and you will see an additional piece of ducting. This will allow a return run back into the house. I have also allowed for water to be supplied to an outside tap in future. You may be able to pick out the orange temporary fencing. Installed to protect the tree as per a planning condition. However, more importantly, nesting in the long grass between the fencing and the tree is a pheasant. She is sitting on a nest of at least 10 eggs. I discovered this as I was strimming the long grass a week or so ago!! I have also attached an image of the trench in which we placed the water and electric ducting. One of the many reasons for joining this forum was to try and establish the likely costs for various elements of a self build. A s a complete novices it was important to us to try and establish such costs as we didn’t want to venture into something that was going to financially break us. So with this in mind, I am happy to disclose the cost of our ground works to the point displayed in the photos shown in this entry. Hopefully, others will appreciate it as I am keen to offer whatever information I can for the immense wealth of knowledge I have gleaned so far from this wonderful forum. Total cost so far for the ground works – Strip site and to do concrete foundations - £5500 To build to floor level - £4100 To prepare and concrete ground floor - £9000 [includes car port] Thanks for reading.

A few days for the foundations to settle and then the deliveries arrive and the builders set to work again............ The images will show the footprint of the house and utility room together with the walling and dwarf wall on which will sit the oak framed car port.

An update - photos speak for themselves........

Yes, after years of dreaming, thinking, researching and waiting, work finally started on our first self build project. After a couple of false starts due to the builder having to finish a job that over ran and the arrival of the better weather, we eventually broke ground on Wednesday 18th April, two days later than anticipated. Annoying yes, but then what can you do? It’s only two days and it’s important to maintain a relationship with your builder. Nonetheless, we are now ready to do the foundations, which start W/C 23rd April. The sheer amount of top soil removed was somewhat overwhelming. The site had to be stripped down to what is called the sub soil – the firm clay stuff and therefore everything above it had to be removed. We had allocated a spot within the plot to store the topsoil but we soon realised that this space wasn’t going to be enough! Thankfully, the neighbouring farmer allowed us to deposit the remaining topsoil, in the field directly next to our plot. He will no doubt make use of it over the coming months but I have to say, if he hadn’t allowed us to do that, we would have had no choice but to hire in a fleet of tipper trucks with grabbers attached. Imagine the expense of that !! Anyway, the top soil removed and store within our plot we come in handy once the landscaping starts. I spent a couple of days as the Dumper truck driver and I have to say, I really enjoyed it. I didn’t have the nerve to give the digger a go – far to many levers and pedals!! The hired in toilet was christened within half an hour of the Digger driver arriving ! Thank goodness it gets serviced every week. SPEnergy and BT Openreach both dropped off their respective ducting for when the time comes. Interesting to note that SPEnergy would only allow us 50 metres of ducting as anymore would affect the type of cabling that would have to be installed. 50 metres should be more than sufficient for us but in any case the guy who dropped off the ducting, gave us 75 metres!! The structures, namely the timber frame for the house and the car port, will be erected during the middle of May and the back end of May. Again, another little set back really, albeit a week later than expected. The team of erectors will not have finished the job before ours in time so we had to take a slot, a week later. More photos will be posted as the work unfolds but for now here are a few of the work so far. Thanks for reading.