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After what feels like forever we finally started real works. We’ve done lots to the plot, tree clearance, root removal, digging out beds, planting, etc. but little to da bungalow itself. We held off stripping out ‘til we were sure the project was viable, which was über cautious but that’s us. Selection of timber frame supplier wasn’t straightforward. It came down to a local-ish company (ETE) who supply a panelised frame for manual erection on site or stick built on site under the supervision of an SE. Most frame companies require crane assembly, which we can’t have due to overhead wires. But once we felt we were in the right place, planning, party wall agreements, demolition survey, site insurance, timber frame supplier, the main peeps to help us build, etc. then we got down to it. That initially meant selling/giving away the kitchen, a fireplace, the conservatory, the UPVC windows and door, an electric fire and even a garage. I had intended to do more stripping out before the cavalry arrived, but there was always a more important task: digging test holes for the structural engineer (needed for the foundation design, so vital); getting the gas meter removed/capped off and the pipe cut of at the verge annoyingly costing £1,700 (not safe to have gas on site in the way, so vital); replacing fence panels including digging out big roots (to keep the neighbours on side, so vital); erecting a shed, with of course a base (to keep those working on site happy, so vital); moving the water supply (to avoid it being trashed by the groundworks, so vital); digging in (by hand) the 10m of electric duct, casting a concrete base for and installing a huge, but apparently necessary, meter kiosk to comply with the DNO requirements, enabling them to charge us £9,500 - ouch - so vital); dismantling the garage (which was in the way and we wanted it to be reused, so vital); and finally, dismantling the conservatory (which was also in the way and we wanted it reused, so, you guessed it, vital). Turns out breaking up concrete by hand is exhausting, but oddly therapeutic, even if you do bend your ancient trusty steel spade. I wonder, have I got so used to digging foundation test holes and digging soakaway test pits and digging out roots and digging in pipes and ducts that I’m actually going to miss digging? Scarily possible! Who needs a mechanical digger when you’ve a mattock from Amazon and a new steel spade from Toolstation? But then the real works start. 34 years ago we built our current house helped massively by Steve the builder, who was a bit older than us. This time round it’s a repeat, as the same Steve is helping us and given that I’m nicely in my 60s and oddly, Steve is still older, it means that none of us are in the first flush of youth. So my theory was that Steve was the brains and I would be the brawn. Wrong. Steve is both it turns out. Monday saw us stripping off roof tiles and after a day on the battens I was wiped. Tuesday saw me on the battens again for half a day stripping the rest of the tiles and then, just to vary things, I then spent some time on the battens stripping off the felt on one face so we could get the chimney down and kick down some ceilings (overboarded lathe and plaster). Whilst we were out on the tiles UK Power Networks, our DNO, dug up the road and put in our underground electric feed. And a quick bit of begging over the phone got the meter moved that afternoon, so we had site power again. Bliss in a coffee cup. So by the end of Tuesday I was pleased with progress but exhausted. On Wednesday we started stripping out walls and we discovered that there was a lot more plasterboard than I first thought. Damn. Pronto plasterboard skip ordered, we estimated that we’d need a 4 yard skip, so to be safe a 6 yard skip was ordered. Which meant we needed easy barrow access so we removed a window and cut a new front door. Wednesday night I went home totally exhausted and less than pleased due to all the newly discovered plasterboard. That night I came to terms with my limitations, so I messaged Steve to suggest he do a 4 day week to give me time to tidy up and recover. He agreed and offered to buy me a pipe and some slippers. (Pic of new door) The skip arrived promptly arrived at 07:30 next morning. There then followed a rabid day of plasterboard removal. Incredible how effective a spade can be indoors when instructions are given to the novice. By the end of the day we’d nearly filled the skip and had just a hallway ceiling left covered in the dreaded plasterboard. I could hardly raise my arms. One of Steve’s endearing features is his sense of humour. One of his most irritating features is his sense of humour. So as I’m on a step up, gritting my teeth and willing my arms up again and again yet another joke prompts the giggles. That was it, hopeless. My giggling got him giggling and progress paused. Priceless. But determination sustained and the skip was filled. Thank goodness for over-ordering. I went home a zombie, but with less energy. Friday and Saturday were tip runs and tidying up, and now on Sunday I sit quietly reflecting on a week that was unbelievably productive, thanks to Steve’s experience. But oh my, it starts again tomorrow. I have no idea if anyone will find these ramblings of interest, but they are, much like digging, remarkably therapeutic too!

Just been reading through my last post from end of May, and thinking how on earth did it take me so long to get to this one 🤣 A lot of blood, sweat, tears and swearing later, and i've finally finished the bathroom, which has exceeded what I imagined i might be able to create, I still keep walking in and thinking, naaa this can't be my bathroom. So another room brought to a close 🙂 Those panels on the wall were actually meant for the living room, sound absorbing panels for the home cinema, but despite having ordered 'Natural' and them looking off white on the internet, they came with a blue tinge to them so wouldn't have gone. When i asked for a refund, they didn't want them back and just sent me the money, so I thought they'd be useful in the bathroom, and have massively dampened the echo in there. Aside from not plastering the sloped ceiling, everything else you see internally i've done myself, including the cabinets, which I really enjoy making, i took woodwork at GCSE but was at school at the time when IT was just getting going and consequently we were all pushed down that route. Walls are painted with F&B Ammonite, and the ceiling is F&B Wevet, mixed by Johnstones Trade Best success? Probably trusting myself to measure 4 times, cut once, and actually get it right for once...The solid oak top on the toilet/sink back, £130 alone that cost me, but it came out bang on! Total cost for everything was just a shade under £4k. Onto my new snug next which is actually well underway, but i'll post another entry when its all done and dusted in a month or two's time!

Da bungalow that is, not us mortals. We carry on sweating in our hi vis. We were pleased with how the timing worked out - planning to demolish during cooler months so all the neighbours will be wrapped up warm indoors away from the dust, plus it’s hard work so cooler temperatures help comfort. So much for that plan with our mini heat wave! Steve took pity on me by leaving me recovery time on Monday and Tuesday. Good news from a site clearing and tidying point of view. It gave me time to kick down the last of the ceilings, mostly while the windows were still in, and then for J to pick out all the lathes for safety and for disposal at our nearby recycling centre (I’m old fashioned, I still call it the tip!). Trevor the trailer was bought for £200 just over a year ago to help clear the mountains of brash from clearing the massive overgrown conifers. Skooby the Skoda was bought as a building vehicle for £700. We now realise that they have paid for themselves many times over in saving in skip costs. If I’d known how much we would be saving we might have bought a car with a working heater, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. Monday afternoon was window removal time! Ben arrived bang on time and had agreed to help us remove the windows, though he’d never done it before either. I was relying on Steve’s knowledge. Shame he wasn’t there. So da bungalow now has a series of holes where windows were. Each neater than the previous one. If you look at them in chronological order you can see evidence of two keen but clueless numpties first hacking out a huge hole, taking forever, graduating in stages to the last one which was beautifully neatly and quickly and efficiently removed. Yet another example of experience being the thing that one acquires just after needing it. So by Tuesday evening we had a clear site, which is incredibly important on such a tight, narrow plot. And then next morning, Steve returned to the job, so progress exploded again. We stripped the felt and battens off, with muggins of course being the idiot hopping round on the battens for two thirds of the day, with the last third being careful removal of some of the roof timbers. Rather disappointingly, we found woodworm everywhere. So my plan to build my hideaway at the bottom of the garden from reclaimed roof timbers has gone. Some of the timbers came away scarily easily. But those that didn’t put up a hell of a fight - they used huge nails in the 1920s it turns out - and this wasn’t ideal as force had to be used in moderation in case of unseen weakness leading to accident or collapse. We were probably overly careful but better safe than sorry. The next two days are a blur of heaving and bracing and sledgehammering and chainsawing. Thank goodness for a decent twin battery Makita saw - saved us no end of time - and my little one handed chainsaw - AKA Lightsaber - was slower but brilliant in places too. It’s oddly satisfying knocking off the little bits of wood that hold up the soffits and facias and rainwear - sending the whole assembly crashing down in a plume of dust. Even more satisfying to push over the block gable - the thump when it hit the ground was like felling a big tree, primevally enjoyable. We did take a break for a site visit from the ground worker. He asked all the right questions which does give confidence, including asking me to gain permission from our neighbours for him to hand dig one shared corner of our frontage to carefully identify where our neighbours services are. He might even have a use for the roof timber mountain we now have! More skip cost saving. All this is punctuated with other strands of the project. They are vital but hard to find the will to divert onto when mid hammering. In that way J and I are working together fantastically. I haven’t the bandwidth to think - I run to keep up with Steve when he’s there - I run to tidy up when he’s not there to get ready for when he will be - I go home a bit too late each day and after a coffee and a discussion about the day I then bath and by the time we’ve eaten it’s bedtime. Buildhub, apart from my weekly therapy session (oh ok, blog writing) is a distant memory. So J does the thinking, I do the grunting. That’s a little bit of an overstatement as in my head, when I stop to access it, is a 3D model of everything and every junction and material and supplier and missing quote and little red flag of issue that might become critical path and hence needs sorting before it does. I can and do flick into ‘principal designer’ mode when needed. But the day to day scheduling and remembering is falling to J. J has given me a little exercise book and my own grown up ball point pen to keep my to do list in. It’s a bit year 5 but it turns out very effective, as long as J remembers to remind me to look at it. Between us we are working incredibly effectively. Long may it continue.

We start the week with the latest quandary: how to show the warranty surveyor enough trenches so he can confirm he’s seen 50% of them. He saw some last week and if we dug the rest of them then that would add up to enough. However, if we did that we’d have a massive issue with spoil and we would not get the concrete lorry on to pour, so it would be barrows. Apparently pumping is an option, but we’d need to close the road which is a lot of cost and a great deal of time wasted. So, my Monday morning starts with red eyes from pointless endless ‘loop’ worrying instead of sleep, and the morning on site starts with a replan. The only way to do it appears to be to dig about two thirds of what remains, piling the spoil on the already done foundations, then let the surveyor see the newly dug trenches, then fill that and then next day (yes, this plan extends everything by at least a day) we pull the rest and pour on the final day. This involves lots of wasted time shunting piles of soil around - we can’t have a grab lorry on the road due to low wires, but we can have one on site once we’ve filled the trenches and they are thus stable. All the grab lorries are reserved for Kev the Dig’s last day. Now the issue with this is it mucks up our warranty inspections, (but not our BCO inspections as that one is in the bag already). So it’s on the phone to the warranty provider to seek guidance. Their response to my barely suppressed panic was reassuring and sensible: I’m to take more pics than David Bailey and show the surveyor as much as we can. I resumed normal breathing. But then - “Oh, and by the way, the surveyors report mentions removing roots round the trenches.” Yep, he mentioned that and I have done that I happily said. “And remove the shuttering too.” Another Roy Schneider moment. This is becoming a habit. Apparently this report was written before the surveyor went on holiday, i.e. before we poured any concrete. When, if it had been mentioned in the ‘roots’ phone call, we would still have had time to do that. Panic factor 8 Mr Sulu. Again, a reassuring and sensible response helped me calm down, for which I am grateful. We agreed all shuttering would be removed from the rest of the foundations, and advice would be sought but something low risk like that will be fine, the nice, calm voice assured me. I need to get lots of pics sent in to complete that bit, but it sounds like it’s ok. Phew. So then we finally got on with the dig. Lots of spoil shunting, a few little bits of soft ground to be dug past. A stern lecture (not needed, but kindly meant) from Kev the Dig about not going down a 1.4m deep trench as the sides were just too crumbly, and we were ready for our inspection. The surveyor arrived on time, and was happy and relaxed. Stayed a good few minutes this time (we were his only call that day as it was supposed to be a first day back and in the office day), talked through what we were doing. In response to the shuttering we left in he commented “oh that’s ok”. All that angst. Sigh. He appeared happy with all that he could see, noted that I was talking to the warranty provider peeps, so him being happy is the main thing. So we got on with pour #3 and removing the shuttering. The forces involved in pulling out a piece of 4’ by 8’ ply, even when less than half of it is in the concrete, is staggering. Kev used his digger to pull them out by the rope loops we had attached, but even then it was a struggle and only achieved by wiggling his bucket. Next day, we dug out the rest of the foundations, dumping the soil on the previous day’s pour and then lunchtime we poured #4. Bit of a moment when the digger severed the temporary site water pipe that some idiot had dug in and forgotten. Fortunately when I did that I had used the stopcock at the water meter so I knew it worked and the flow was quickly stemmed. Interestingly, after all my panicking this was the first instance where Steve and Kev showed significant concern and were moved to move rapidly. I guess water mixing with sand makes good castles but poor trenches. I simply don’t know enough to panic about the right things. That overcome the rest of the day went to plan, so we finished the foundations. Four tranches of trenches. Finally, a full set. Thursday was spent moving spoil to the front of site for 5 loads of a 16 ton grab lorry to be removed, and that still left some. Including the previous loads well over 100 tons of material gone by grab, all for a little three bed detached on a diddy site. Staggering. Next week we will hopefully get the invoices and we’ll find out if day rate did save us money. Fingers crossed. Next job is below damp blockwork and we’d planned ahead a delivery (meaning Steve had told me to book one days before) for Friday morning, first thing, so I could bump out and be ready for Steve to start blockwork Tuesday. At one point it had looked like we wouldn’t be ready for it so out of courtesy I warned the builders merchant and agreed I’d confirm by 17:00 the day before. Big mistake. Huge. Waited all day and despite reassurances over the phone no delivery. They finally admitted it would be there mid morning Tuesday. Visit to builders merchants for a ‘robust and direct’ discussion, which at the time felt pointless, as the rogue agent had absented himself, so there was a danger I might be shouting (I didn’t shout, but you know what I mean) at peeps who were already on my side. So instead I shared, in a measured way, both my feelings and the knock on effect on the project. Ten minutes after leaving there I got a call to learn that miraculously they had found a way to deliver Saturday morning, which they did. We aren’t allowed to work Saturday afternoons, Sundays or bank holidays so only a small proportion has been bumped out ready, but it’s a start. But the lesson is be careful with courtesy. In the everything at the last minute, think only seconds ahead building world giving someone a heads up that a delay might happen then sets that delay in stone. Won’t be doing that again. Far better to cancel at the last possible second and try not to feel bad about mucking peeps around. It appears that some won’t worry about how much they muck me around. Overall, in the end, despite my gripes it’s been a good fortnight. We aren’t completely out of the ground yet as we still don’t finally know how deep we need to dig down to ensure our solid floors are indeed solid, but the worst is definitely under us. Might even get some sleep now.

The end of our last blog entry ended thus: Dare I add a what's next list 🙂 ? Well, here goes .... Plastering finished in the open plan area this coming week (by others) Remainder of stone cladding arrives and work begins to get the most inaccessible (high) parts put up before the scaffold gets taken away - this means cladding two 7m x 2m wide walls Plumbing pipework ready for ASHP installation Gabion basket and pad for ASHP to be installed on Mist coat and first coat on plaster (SWMBO is at the ready) Begin fitting upstairs UFH Front door being fitted (January) by others Take 3-4 days off for Xmas ASHP installation (January) by others, that will allow for hot water and the downstairs UFH to be available ... Fit a temporary bathroom ... Fit out utility room as temp kitchen ... ... and this is why - Move out of static van for the month of February (rules is rules!) and decamp to the house The title of the blog may be a little misleading - let me assure you that living in the house for a short while was great. We liked it so much we stayed for 5 weeks instead of the 4 that we had to, as it was warmer than the static van we would be going back to. If you recall the beginning of March was a little frigid, even down here in the South West (the van sits in a valley that collects the cool air very well and so is often 3 to 4 degrees (K and C) cooler than the surrounding area. We can recommend such a short stay in the house before getting stuck into the final push on the interior. It has definitely helped in providing an order of works for us in the coming months before we finally move in properly by highlighting things that may have been overlooked or forgotten in the general melee of all the other things that have been taking place over the previous 6 months. So, back to that list: I've commented on this in a post somewhere else, but in coloured text this is what happened Plastering finished in the open plan area this coming week (by others) This did happen in October Remainder of stone cladding arrives and work begins to get the most inaccessible (high) parts put up before the scaffold gets taken away - this means cladding two 7m x 2m wide walls This also got done before the scaffold was removed in early January - thankfully the temperatures and the rain played ball Plumbing pipework ready for ASHP installation Sorted Gabion basket and pad for ASHP to be installed on Filled and Pad poured Mist coat and first coat on plaster (SWMBO is at the ready) What a job - so much brighter Begin fitting upstairs UFH No, no, no, what were you thinking (but more to come on this below) Front door being fitted (January) by others All done and glad I did not have to lift it up the stairs Take 3-4 days off for Xmas OH, YES and very much enjoyed ASHP installation (January) by others, that will allow for hot water and the downstairs UFH to be available ... All done and worked very well, hence the extra weeks stay Fit a temporary bathroom ... The temporary shower was so good we were going to keep it but then changed design of the bathroom - one of the things from living in the house Fit out utility room as temp kitchen ... This is still in place and being used as part of our welfare unit on site Here are some pictures of the above work And so, we moved in just at the end of January and lived in the house for 5 weeks. During this time we experienced what the house was going to offer us, and, apart from the dust, we were only too happy to be able to stay an extra week when the cold snap came along at the beginning of March and we could delay our return to the static van (AKA tin box). This in spite of a temporary bathroom, kitchen and bedroom facilities. The cat, however, thought differently about the dust, but seemed generally happy with the quality of work While we were in the house during March work carried on with fitting the remaining plasterboard ready for the plasterers to come along in March. This was pretty much all we did - and we're very glad to only have a few more sheets plus some waterproof backerboard to fit. No pictures of this as it is really not that inspiring 🙂 Going into March we created YAL (Yet Another List) 🙂 We've all been there - the ever changing & expanding, rarely static or reducing list. Anyone got onto the LOL yet (the List Of Lists)? This included, in no particular order (that came later), Hassle the SH1T out of the window installation company to investigate and fix the leaks (three fixed windows and a sliding door) that came to light after we did the first lot of plastering the rest of the plastering, the rest of the mist coating and painting, more stone work, moving as much stuff into what we now call the attic (a very large room downstairs as we don't have a real attic) in order to clear all the other rooms, Install the UFH upstairs with plywood cover fit the bathroom, fit the kitchen, fit the utility and cloakroom, electric 2nd fix rainwater soakaways rainwater collection system backfilling concrete lego brick retaining wall Flooring Wood cladding Air tightness test (as I write this, I think "oh, sh1t, I must get that booked in") Fit internal doors Fit en suite Build MY garage A green roof system, because its on the planning application, and may be required for certificate of completion (unless someone can enlighten me as to how to avoid this, and be able to delay the installation) We are focusing on the internal works in order that we can move in, although not necessarily completed on the outside, sometime in the summer months. The first 3 or 4 items have progressed well: <----- This is the "attic" with a garage floor paint that remains a little tacky even 3 weeks later, but it'll eventually get covered with a "proper" floor at some point in the future Despite the window leaks not being fixed yet, we have ploughed on and had all the other plastering done. The window installation company knows the situation and is fully aware that we expect them to repair any further damage caused by the water ingress. (I'll not respond to any comments on this point for my own sanity 🙂 ) Flooring has been ordered, and 2nd fix electrics loosely scheduled in, as well as some of the backfilling, and prepping for the garage foundation. The UFH has started where the floor is available, and in order to be able to install the kitchen (the picture below is not where the kitchen will be - I don't appear to have photoed that - strange. Those who have been reading my blogs will recall from an earlier entry the terrible story of SWMBO's foot. Well today (Apr29) as I write this on a hotel terrace in Oxford she is recovering from her sixth operation, this time a toe fusion, that will take her out of the game for at least 6 weeks, 2 of which she has to spend with the offending appendage raised above her heart for 23 out of 24 hours every day. She won't even be able to climb the walls with frustration. So yours truly will likely be happy to be dispatched to the house each day to GO AND DO SOME WORK!! 🤣 Until next time, which I hope will be the "We've moved in" entry.

The trouble with allowing contingency is that when you don’t need it then it feels like time wasted. I guess it’s a bit of a drawing of breath really, much needed, but one’s natural bent (in my case anyway) is to automatically reach for my spade and start work - thinking not required. Oddly, we aren’t in a rush, in fact, the faster we go the quicker we run out of money unless our house sells, which in this market is looking unlikely. So taking time out is a good thing, it’s just that it feels like I should be making progress regardless. We had allocated this week to a week away, maybe going on a tour of timber cladding suppliers in our campervan (who needs airport security checks when you can be rained on in a muddy field) but other events kicked that into touch. So doing nothing this week should have felt ok. Twitch. In the end I did just two half days to pull up the wooden floorboards. We put them on Facebook as free to good home and after our standard allocation of time wasters a lovely chap turned up and worked hard with me to carefully lift them, remarkably preserving the tongues in the process. The lesson is that I should have bought a pallet breaker as then we’d have done it in one afternoon, instead of two. We did discover a few wasp nests under the floors, one mummified rodent, and an uphill poo pipe - that’ll be fun taking out…. But no other surprises, thankfully. The flow direction is left to right…. But with that and some of the internal doors finding new homes we are pleased with the amount of reuse we have achieved for bits of da bungalow (RIP). Anyway, I promised a demolition summary, so…. We got two quotes for demo companies to do it. One definitely wanted protective scaffolding (we are extremely close to the neighbours) and the other wasn’t clear on that. They were close in price and cheaper of the two was just over £11k and probably scaffolding (undefined). The cheaper one wanted a welfare unit too. The dearer one was willing to do a part demo - he pointed out that if I took the roof off then we wouldn’t need scaffolding and he’d knock £4k off. So despite agonising over which was better we ended up using neither. As part of getting quotes we were told we needed a demolition survey (AKA asbestos check). This cost £350 (zero VAT) and fortunately returned very pleasing results. Steve, our guardian angel, however, pointed out that a demolition company would do it quick but very dirty and with the big machines they’d use the probability of damage to neighbours was significant. Plus about 98% likelihood of really pissing lots of peeps off too. Not good. After some negotiations it was agreed he’d work with me on a day rate and the rest, as they say, is either history or a trauma that therapy will reduce in time, but either way we got da bungalow (RIP) down. To be fair, there remains a small amount of woodwork (floor joists) to pull up which will take me a short day, and there’s concrete to break up and cart away, but the ground worker includes that in his price (partly as there seems to be a local shortage of such stuff), and I’ve three catnic lintels to clean up and sell, but I call it done. Costs: Demolition survey: £350. Demolition notice: Can’t remember, it seems so long ago, but we don’t think there was a charge. Man days: Neighbour (to help get roof tiles off): 1 day at a cost of a lot of tiles (we were robbed!) Steve: 16 days. Expert guidance; lots of hard work; wicked sense of humour but oh, the singing! Me: 25 days - General dogsbodying and everything no one else wanted to do. Why did it always have to be me up the ladder? At least my singing is tuneful. I think. Total man days: 42. The answer to the meaning of life - how appropriate. Materials: Dust masks : ~£30 Gloves: ~£50 Makita reciprocating saw plus blades: £115. Heras fencing: £120 Hard hats and hi vis waistcoats: £22 Angle grinder discs: ~£10 Diesel for umpteen tip runs: £?? - but there was so many it looks like I’m going to be invited to the tip staff meetings from now on. Bath water, washing powder, lecky for washing machine, etc. £?? Total known materials ~£347 6 yard Plasterboard Skip: £396 inc VAT Stuff sold: Scrap (so far, there’s still some copper lurking around) -£292 Roof tiles -£320 Odds and sods sold on faceache -£200 Total sold: -£812 So, if I ignore the cost of my time, it comes out less than £4k. Rather pleased with that, and as the neighbours appear to be ok, it’s a good result all round.

More or less done these two rooms now, which after finishing the bathroom were basically just flooring and decorating, making a bit of furniture and then moving some other furniture I already had which was always destined for the dining room. I’ve got planned some bench seating for the wall side of the dining table to make it more space efficient, but not any time soon. I think this will be the first time, certainly in the last 10 years, where I have no outstanding ‘filler that just needs sanding down and painting’ kind of jobs, everywhere has skirting board which is painted… the little things in life. Everytime I walk in the bungalow and see the French dresser, it just melts my heart, knowing that my late wife would have loved to see it where it is now, we did buy it while she was still alive as they were stopping making it and was perfect for the look we were going for, managed to bag the dining table off eBay from the same range for around £200 I think brand new, and the chairs were ones we had from ikea which I upholstered and painted white to match. I know the plug sockets need covering, managed to locate them just slightly too high! The bookcase is to be backlit with an LED strip light (awaiting Black Friday being the right bugger I am!) and then will be filled with all my books, photo to follow at some point. The hallway has also been redecorated and the floor sanded and reoiled - out of anywhere this small passageway has suffered the most during the works bringing everything in and out, so was nice to get it back to 100% again

(There’s way too much verbage here - sorry - but it reflects the deep spring clean my head needed. Will try to make time for a demolition summary in another post which would be far more useful for others). Each Monday morning, since we started demolition on the 17th of March, at stupid o’clock, I shuffle round the kitchen getting breakfast ready trying to assess how my body is doing, physically. Well, sort of. What actually happens is I slowly get my knees and my back working while bemoaning my stupidity and sheer arrogance in thinking I can do this, convinced that my I am starting the week more tired than the previous Monday. In some ways, almost certainly mentally rather than physically, having a break really takes it out of me. That Monday restart is just simply tough. I could tell myself that this should be the last week of demolition. That this is the last push of the hardest bit of the build. But inside I know that it’s getting towards the end of one phase of a long line of phases each of which I’ll be convinced at the time is the hardest one. But two hours later, at 07:35, I’m on site boiling a kettle waiting for Steve to arrive and my head is in gear and my fatigue is mostly forgotten. My 20 minute meditation, aka the drive to the site, has done its job. I do know I can do this. Anyway, I s’pose I should write a few words about da bungalow. Today, the kitchen gets it! All that’s left now is most of the kitchen walls, composition uncertain, and the dunny. The end of the kitchen nearest the road is, we thought, mostly masonry. The other end is now naked studwork. We left the studwork last week as we suspected it was needed to help the 6m long part timber frame kitchen wall stay up, which is surprising given that this studwork waggles like mad when nudged. So the first task was to take some of the weight off of the 6m wall. We didn’t dare hack the plaster off as we had elsewhere, leaving clean-ish metal mesh to peel off for recycling. Instead we peeled both plaster and mesh together, piling in a heap for me to process later. That worked to start with, but as we made our way along the wall it became clear that there was progressively less strength left in the studs. In the end the wall plate that ran through to the single skin masonry section gave just enough strength to allow us to dismantle the wall in a controlled manner. At one point we did stop and consider just pushing down the middle section, but that could have destabilised adjacent sections and also given the likely state of the soleplate it could have kicked out at the bottom. With next door’s wall only 1,030mm away that felt too close, even with heras fencing between. So we carried on slowly peeling and it became evident that in that middle section, all that remained intact was the two layers of render, topped by a wall plate. Truly scary. Another thing not to share with the neighbours. That done we could then take down the studwork. It was by then wobbly enough to push over safely onto the floor, and a couple of well placed cuts meant it would fall the right way, so push we did. Timber frames falling like that just don’t give that satisfying thump that masonry does, but it does still leave a lot of clearing up of timbers bristling with nail heads. The nail points are, at Steve’s insistence, all hammered over safe. In fact it’s been drummed into me so hard over the last 5 weeks that I now referring to it as ‘Steve-ing the nails’. The wood mountain grows and we learn that the wood man is maxed out and won’t be returning. Would have helped had he told me that last week but that’s life. Back to faceache it is (other social networks are available, but few are as annoying). As we work our way along the kitchen wall towards the road we find a mixture of stuff. Odd bits of plasterboard. Glass fibre insulation as well as the nasty snowy type stuff we’ve had in many other places. Pieces of wood and brick and block and tile just shoved in to repair holes in the render. Satisfied that the remaining masonry end walls (a ‘C’ shape) are safe and stable, we stop for the night. Next day we have rain first thing - the first on the project so far. So we bravely don our hats and coats and bugger off to Cafe Nero to drink coffee and plan. That turns out to be fabulously timely. I have picked up bits and pieces over the years and I’ve recently read tons about building stuff but putting it together in the right order takes Steve’s experience and caffeine. We’ve now got our slightly unusual foundation design, and that enables us to talk over who should do what, when and how. Annoyingly, Steve, with his wealth of experience and such a brilliant, caring and dutiful attitude, would be the perfect ground worker to safely and cost effectively pull our foundations. But he’s semi retired and he hasn’t got the right PI cover and all that. Our party wall agreements (which I was pleased to get as at one point it felt like it might cost us lots and lots of time, money and angst) and our warranty provider (thank you Protek) require fully insured, experienced professional contractors to be used for the foundations. So it isn’t a good idea for me and Steve to do them, even though we’d probably do it more carefully and with less noise and disruption than a ground crew. Sigh. It feels like the litigious nature of our world is killing common sense. In theory the party wall awards required specialist demolition contractors to be used. We did get two quotes, each of which were going to send in a nice big machine with bloody great jaws to eat da bungalow and cause mayhem, and in my view, likely do damage to our neighbours. But we managed to get site insurance (thank you for real this time, Protek) which specifically covered demolition. But if we weren’t bloody minded enough to test and challenge then we could easily have gone with it and ‘done it properly’. Bigger sigh. OK, rant over (for now). The rain stopped and it’s back to site, having lost a couple of hours. We keep telling ourselves that we are not in a rush and it’s not sensible to set targets so of course Steve and I rush to recover the time and hit target for the day - the rest of the kitchen. We first hit single skin red brick, then round the corner, a red brick outer skin and under the internal stud skin, some very old painted plaster from the original outhouse. From the broken earthenware pipes I’ve found digging near there I now believe that this bit was originally the privy. Nearest to the road, so as far from the living rooms as possible, with sections of lead water pipe built in, it conjures up an image of such a different way of life. We find a ‘T’ joint in the lead pipe, simply sweated together - a wonderful illustration of what 100 years have done in plumbing technology terms. By home time we have a short lower section of red brick wall and a twin skinned block section of wall left, both stable but still irritatingly short of the target we didn’t set ourselves. Next day even though we want to finish the kitchen first it’s better to get the dunny down whilst there are two of us. It’s the last chance for a collapse to damage next door so I need Steve on site to blame in case anything happens. The potty is carefully pulled out (will be reinstalled in the house as temporary welfare suite - i.e. a pan, a bucket and for special occasions, a loo roll). The metal lathe and plaster remains only on the inside so is dispatched fairly quickly. Some hammering from a very mobile (but safe) bandstand removes the mostly masonry wall with the window and another sellable catnic is discovered. We now have a trio of them to clean up and sell on faceache. Thence the last studwork to drop. Just like one end of the kitchen, a couple of thought through cuts and a push and it’s down. Just like that. We tidy up, and quickly knock down the last little bit of kitchen wall thats next to a neighbour, and we stand back and contemplate for a mo what isn’t there any more. Steve won’t be back for nearly two weeks, and I think he’s a bit disappointed that he leaves one little corner still standing but he points out that even I can’t cock up taking that down. Personally I think he underestimated my talent in that. So Maundy Thursday sees me bashing plaster off of metal mesh, to get it ready for recycling, and generally clearing up and loading up for a tip run. And something very odd happens. I’m working at the front of the site, nodding at passers by, smiling with my eyes at them (isn’t it weird how a smile gets through a dust mask), when a chap from over the road I’ve not met before comes over. Richard introduces himself and I brace for what I know is coming, as in fairness the dust and noise can’t have been nice for the street. And he hits me with it, and I am taken aback but I try not to show it. He tells me how well we have done and how little disruption, mess and bother there has been. He’s impressed. Wow. Chuffed. We have quite a chat (after all, he will be one of our neighbours and it beats hammering mesh with a spade) and he leaves me rather buoyed up to say the least. Then a chap from three doors down comes and has a chat, just for the neighbourliness of it, and it reinforces how nice a community our new pad will be in. And then (how do I ever get anything done?) Monica stops to say hello and tells me that our demolition ‘is a work of art’. She walks past regularly (I have said hi to her a good few times) and she’s been watching and she is hugely complimentary. If the god of fat, little bald fellas had carefully planned a reward at the end of the demo phase she couldn’t have done better. Tip run done, I then felt I could reward myself by taking down that last corner. Rather than do it top down I stripped out the inner skin (more bloody snowy insulation) and one side to leave a bit of wall to go down with a satisfying thump. Next door have a couple of young lads, the oldest being 9. It struck me that at that age I would have loved pushing a wall down - so a quick convo with his mum, a hastily fitted hard hat and oversize gloves and with mum filming we rock the wall till I can let him give the last push - his grin was a fitting final smile for da bungalow to provide. Bye bye bungalow.

So a quick recap - back in December 2023, what may be my last ever employer decided to ask me to leave. I had mixed feelings about this. I took several weeks to think about next steps and actually get around to writing a father of the bride speech which I'd been putting off. After the wedding in March (a great day and a great speech!) I started to look more seriously for a new job, but being the wrong side of 60 now, the IT industry is not a good place to be looking especially when so many other people have been let go as well. Coming up to the end of May, we sat down and took some tough decisions; we bought a static van on a site about 3 miles from the plot, I stopped looking for a new job, SWMBO did an internal job transfer, we rented out our current house (instead of our original plan to sell up) to three newly qualified doctors (our niece and two others on their first F1 rotations in our local hospital so that worked out well), and we spent 6 weeks decluttering, and moved down SE Cornwall (Kernow) at the end of July. In the last blog entry I ended with a list: Finish ventilation system Finish insulating the GWW Finish backfilling Electrics Floors Walls ASHP and HWC Kitchen Bathrooms The remaining plumbing Outer wall coverings This is how it looks today Finish ventilation system Finish insulating the GWW (Great West Wall) Finish backfilling (on the back burner) Electrics (first fix) Floors (now on the back burner) Walls (En suite partition walls to be done) ASHP and HWC (being done in January) Kitchen (planned for January or February) Bathrooms (temporary loo and basin installed, cold water only, temp bathroom planned for January) The remaining plumbing Outer wall coverings (rendering done, stone cladding starting next week) What I missed off the list, and has taken most of our time: Sound insulation (R35 rockwool and resilient bars) Plasterboarding So a few photos are required I think: MVHR unit in place (since removed as plant room walls have been put in and waiting to be plastered inside) Ventilation distribution boxes and pipes fitted: Plaster board arrived (in May): My cold water manifold has pipes attached for the first time (one now being used for the temporary toilet and basin), no picture of it but just to the right is the hot water equivalent: We powered up the sewage treatment plant for the first time (nearly 4 years after it was first installed!): We started plasterboarding, first a large room into which we moved all our stuff that was in storage so saving a hefty wedge per month on storage fees, and then the much larger and more complex open living area: We took some time off in early October and went sailing for a week, and when we got back some kind fellows had installed some scaffold (first time on this build), and in the following few weeks we had the renderers in thanks to the Kernow weather gods: Meanwhile back inside, we finished plasterboarding the large living area, and during this last week the plastering started (kitchen area first!). We set off a couple of insect smoke bombs as we had a cluster fly infestation and wanted rid before plastering started 🙂 : Dare I add a what's next list 🙂 ? Well, here goes .... Plastering finished in the open plan area this coming week (by others) Remainder of stone cladding arrives and work begins to get the most inaccessible (high) parts put up before the scaffold gets taken away - this means cladding two 7m x 2m wide walls Plumbing pipework ready for ASHP installation Gabion basket and pad for ASHP to be installed on Mist coat and first coat on plaster (SWMBO is at the ready) Begin fitting upstairs UFH Front door being fitted (January) by others Take 3-4 days off for Xmas ASHP installation (January) by others, that will allow for hot water and the downstairs UFH to be available ... Fit a temporary bathroom ... Fit out utility room as temp kitchen ... ... and this is why - Move out of static van for the month of February (rules is rules!) and decamp to the house Well, I'll let you know how it all goes 🙂

Weeks 18 to 23 So it’s been a while since the last update, but a couple of weeks ago the scaffolding came down and we can finally see our lovey slated roof and the solar. I am very happy with the roofers who worked so hard in the cold and the wind, as we are quite exposed. Anybody in the South West looking for a roofer I would be happy to recommend them. On the inside I have started with the insulation between the rafters. I am using Rockwool flexi slabs 140mm thick with an air gap above. On the outside I have put some insect mesh up already before the soffits are closed up, it’s attached to the ends of the rafters and will eventually be attached to the battens/cladding. As per previous blog the costs of parting with the builder and finding our own roofer and solar has proved to be good. Their respective quotes have been invoiced for the same amounts as the quotes, no extras or surprise costs. A saving of at least £12,000 against staying with the builder as his quote would have also incurred extras no doubt as he didn’t include Soffits on his build quote or roof quote, and he acknowledged they had not been included in any quote. Carried forward total £140,645 Scaffolding for roof £1440 Roofing. Felt and batten. Slate with Brazillian Graphite natural slate 500 x 250mm. Hook fix system to costal zone spec as per plan. Dry ridge system Con6 with Marley modern smooth grey ridge tiles. Two vent slates. Total supply and fix. £16786 Supply and fix softwood treated facia and bargeboards. Eave ventilation. Complete counter batten. £2111 Solar 15 x500W solar panels and GSE in roof trays. (Interior fit to be completed once windows are fitted) Supply and fit £4357 DPM for windows £316 1 Pallet of Rockwool 46m2 (Expect to order 2 more pallets to finish between rafters then PIR under rafters) £580 First electrical order (cable and back boxes, enough to make a start) £280 Windows all paid for £20869 A few incidentals from B&Q and Wickes etc Brings the total to date of £186,757

Well, sort of. Working physically hard is sooo emotionally easy compared to the frenetic whirlwind of strip foundation digging and filling. If that means that to you, I sound an emotional fruitbat then I commend your perceptivenes. I find it impossible to predict in advance the bits that will be most stressful. In the last two weeks I’ve had all but two days on my own on site, as Steve has been on his hols. So it’s background organisation tasks and planning for the most part. That means tip runs; getting blocks and bricks and sand and cement delivered for below damp; yet more manual moving of soil; generally tidying up; bumping out stupidly heavy 140mm concrete blocks; breaking up soft reds from the demolition for hardcore; and lots and lots of measuring and thinking. The two days Steve was there were spent setting out and getting some blocks laid. Setting out would have taken Steve on his own just a couple of hours. However, he had me to help him, so it took over half a day. I did learn a lot and because of concerns about preserving the precise sizes of the alleyways either side, and making sure the front face of the house is nicely co-planer with next door, and by the way still sitting properly on the foundations, and working out where to set block levels to, and my constant re measuring and questioning, I managed to burn a lot time more than just the morning. The levels thing was, in hindsight, quite comical. Not at the time however. We ran round the foundations with the laser level trying to spot the highest point, allowing for the 225mm steps. With the best will in the world foundations don’t end up perfectly level, so one finds the high spot, and all blockwork works to that level which saves stupid amounts of block cutting - adding more pug (perhaps a Suffolk word for mortar) is a lot easier than taking some off of a block. But with a laser level a higher number means a lower level, and one of the two of us just kept getting confused by that. I’ll let you guess which one. Confusion is, however, contagious it seems, as eventually I asked enough silly questions to get Steve confused too. It’s nice that I do have something to contribute to the process. Steve’s relief when he finally could get on with some blockwork was palpable. To his credit he must have been sorely tempted to insert the laser level staff somewhere painful, but he kept his patience, bless him. So we didn’t get that many blocks laid but we did enough to be ready for the windframe for the back of the house. Getting that fitted was fun. 200kg is not much by steel standards but my goodness it took some grunt. Because of the slope of the site instead of the legs (columns) being just over 2.5m long they were 3.5m long. The crew were a man short but I knew that when I asked them to come fit it so I gleefully volunteered to help. They were a brilliant pair - it was a constant stream of jokes and leg pulls and laughter. The only exception was getting each leg upright - that was pure grunt work - done nearly silently apart from grunts and barked orders. But the three of us got the first leg vertical. They then told me to ‘keep ‘old of that’ which turned out to be hard work, as keeping a near 12’ length of 1’ wide steel still on a blustery day wasn’t trivial. I also found it hard to believe that some goo squirted from a mastic gun would hold it up. I’ve read about but never seen a chemical anchor. Amazing. The other leg done we attached both legs to the previously lifted beam (with a genie lift - bloody handy that is) - and 16 bolts later we had a windframe. After weeks of a flat site it looks way too big, but after measuring many times I can now confidently confirm that I hope it’s right. Fingers crossed. The other thing this week is that the costs for the strip foundations are now all in, and we are quietly pleased. We were offered a fixed price of £16.5k, and lord knows what the extras would have really totalled as we did go deeper and use more concrete in many places due to soft ground. Instead, overall on day rate they cost us: Digger hire and diesel: £800 Labour (Steve and Kev the Dig) £4,400 Ply (some second hand) and cutting discs £700 47m3 of concrete £5,200. Waiting time for concrete lorry £74 Rebar (for steps and joins in foundations) £100 Spoil away £1,600 Total just under £13k. Happy days. It’s amazing what one doesn’t know and can’t imagine. When ordering concrete from the company we used (they only do 8m3 wagons) ordering 1+ means they send a full lorry then wait for us to tell them how much to send in the second lorry which turns up half an hour or so later. Ordering 2+ means two full wagons turn up at once - yikes! Ours site is just too small for that - hence the charge for waiting time. Anyway, next week Steve is back Wednesday so it’s blockwork to damp and over site over the next few weeks. And after a year of not doing anything towards my man cave at the bottom of the garden suddenly now I need to progress that too. It’s a nice problem to have.

Weeks 24 to 27 Windows Installation Choosing window style and supplier has been one of the hardest decisions. We finally decided on Aluclad wooden windows from Norrsken. It’s been a long journey and Norrsken have been with me on that journey since December 2022 to installation end of February 2025. A big thank you to Nick at the window company for sticking with me on my numerous window quotes, that took over 2 years to finalise. Due to my architect not thinking ahead how Part O would effect the design, the windows had quite a few changes and quotations from a few companies. In summary Part O (Overheating) was first published in December 2021, we didn’t submit plans until May 2022, we passed planning in October 2022. Then we realised that the original design wouldn’t pass Part O that’s when I started understanding that in my opinion the architect should have been planning ahead and designing with Part O in mind. We had an overhang in the design but not large enough to qualify as shading for Part O calculations. I spoke to a local company who could do the Dynamic modelling route to pass Part O but they had a backlog of customers who like me needed help to pass Part O some of which we’re probably going to end up spending thousands on solar glazing and various other mitigating factors. The company suggested I look at the simplified version first which basically is a spreadsheet on which you enter your room sizes, window sizes and orientation of the building. Although our windows were not too big the daytime overheating looked like it could be managed by tweaking window sizes a bit but nighttime bedroom overheating was more of a problem because we are a bungalow and the windows needed to open for ventilation but also be secure overnight against intruders whilst we slept, Part O offers some guidance and I found future homes https://www.futurehomes.org.uk/library#Guidancetoolsandtemplates particularly helpful. In the end we settled on replacing 4 windows with 6 large Velux windows that allow for more air flow and by changing some windows to tilt and turn inwards this allows the bedroom windows to be safely partially open in the tilt position whilst still being secure at night. We had to go back through planning for the window changes but the architect did the amendments free of charge and the revised plans were passed in May 2023. I’m happy with the end outcome. I still have lovely big picture windows allowing viewing far into the distance and without any glazing bars. The opening inwards will allow for easy cleaning, but cleaning is a long way off. The Velux windows free up room for kitchen wall units where we previously planed to have non opening windows. A Velux in the pantry as well as freeing up wall space for shelves lets more light in and probably will result in less switching a light on and off. The house is designed for us in that our en-suite is larger than the bathroom shared by the two guest bedrooms and by changing that window to a Velux it allows for a shower area that doesn’t have a window sill almost in it. I started researching windows quite early on because I wanted to make the most of the views but also I expected it to take a while actually getting round to see different companies. We moved to Cornwall to start a new business, have a field for our Greyhound to run in and be a bit warmer and sunnier than Manchester. I love living in Cornwall but it does have its downsides in that we live one and a half hours away from a motorway, our local home building shows are smaller than one hall of Birmingham NEC. We visited some of the local window suppliers but we mostly got to see one small window or a cut away demo window for each supplier and they didn’t offer a great deal in choice, mostly double glazed not triple glazed samples. If we went away for the weekend I would try to find a larger showroom we could stop at on the way, luckily for us Norrsken has one showroom in the UK near Bournemouth that we stopped at on the way to The Isle of White. We decided to get the window openings measured by the supplier, it cost approximately £800 for this but it was worth it. I had some questions about window opening sizes during the build before the concrete pour and Nick helped answering all my little questions, he knew how the window sizes had been changed to pass Part O. Even though the person sent out to measure ended up having a hour and half travel delay he still spent over 3 hours measuring and discussing the window location within the ICF opening and we marked on where I was to put the EPDM so it would be under the window and coming up the inside at the window board. The ICF is capable of load bearing the windows and fastening them back to the concrete core but the windows were going to be big and heavy (they come fully glazed) so we decided to use stokbord at the base of each window as our ICF was still soft enough that you could make an indent with just your finger (much like PIR) so when the weight of the window was resting on a shim it could push the shim into the ICF and general handling during installation could cause indents in the ICF. We used 3mm stocbord under the windows and 12mm under the sliding door. The 3 windows that look down the field were levelled and measured using a laser to ensure they would be the same height from the floor, and again a laser was used at installation. On installation day the fitters arrived at about 8am and the windows arrived shortly after, it was a great feeling that we were finally going to be watertight and to see our chosen windows. The installation team were all great you could tell they all had a role during the installation, Illbruck FM330 airtight foam was used and Silka EBT+ sealant. I am now taping the windows inside and out using Pro Clima tapes. We purchased 10 windows (4 non opening, 6 Tilt and Turn) and a sliding door. Windows P33A, 10 windows average uW.80 Sliding door S319A 2m wide uW 0.76 Aluminium clad, Marine Finish, Trip,e glazed. External colour 7030 Stone Grey Matt Internal white stain Breakdown of window costs Windows £11,500 Sliding door £3500 Sills and trims £740 Installation £2600 Stocbord £500 Survey £750 Delivery by small HIAB £1320 Total to date £207,626 I have been continuing the installation of the Rockwool in between the rafters and building the gabion wall when the weather is nice. I researched and purchased a plasterboard lifter that will reach 16ft and a table saw for the insulation under the rafters. The renderer is booked in for May, colours chosen. The wood cladding is ordered and ready for final payment so hopefully the next blog will cover the cladding.

Once again it's been much longer than it should have been since I last posted with my last entry being July, wow where has that time gone. Back then we were building the walls for phase 1 and installing the window and door lintels. Back then it was warm, unlike now and building could be done in shorts and T shirts Once these walls were built then it was time to think about a roof, even though it is going to be a temporary one for now as the whole house will have the final roof at the same time. This part of the conversion is designed to look like an extension as it did on the original. So, the South wall is higher and this 'hooks' on to it. We also have on-site building inspectors checking out their new home Then we had to start getting the rafters in situ, allowing for the overhang on the sides and end. The roof 'ladder' was built from the wood that was used to line the windows whilst building. These did take a long time as the roof is 4 degrees so slightly sloped so each block of both cavities times 2 had to be cut to the exact size required The weather wasn't always kind, but we did have some visitors to check out what was happening. Eventually, it was finished with the temp roof on. Windows covered for now as this will become our storage shed for a while During this time, we also had to move the stables. From this, already part demolished, not sure where the original pictures have gone. To this to this, luckily moved by a local farmer. Not sure when the horses will have them back though. Next is to start on the East side of the main part of the build. Originally our SE said that we had to have 2.4m deep underpinning foundations. But, our BCO had on on-side meeting with the SE as he felt this was over the top. We dug some example trenches to show what the soil was. He agreed with the help of the dog that it really is sand in this area. We do have some clay further on where we can have stepped foundations But he has agreed that we can have 750mm where it's sand so we are doing phase 2 which will be the office, master, bathrooms and 2 bedrooms. It will be the plant, another bedroom, family room and pantry which need deeper foundations. We have started digging out for the 2nd phase so will post my next update in due course. Thanks for looking and good luck with your builds

We have finally started to build. Day 1 was Monday 2nd September 2024. It was nearly 3 years from the first invoice which was for the private planning consultant to discuss and review the possibility of demolishing one of our old barns and building a bungalow on its footprint. Back then we weren’t overly confident of our chances but the consultant gave us a fairly good chance. Our current home is a listed property on 3 floors. It is far too big for us with 4 double beds, 3 baths/ensuite and two lounges. It makes a great multi generation home but no longer fits our needs. We are both in our fifties and looking to downsize into an economical to run bungalow. The old wooden barn was given away locally on condition they took it down and removed it without our help. We had birds nesting so we had a planning condition it had to come down between November and February. All that remained was the concrete down the middle, one wall and concrete lintels separating the bays. We chose a local building contractor from Bude, he came recommended and so far his groundwork’s subcontractors have been very good. The build starts with lovely weather but by the Thursday most of the UK has a yellow weather warning for rain, we had 23mm of rain Thursday, 14.2mm on Friday and another 27.7mm on Sunday. By the end of the first week we had a cleared and level site marked out ready to start on the trenches on week 2. Week one total man days of labour is 6

Over the last couple of months we have made steady progress. But, I've been very remiss in taking photos. Last time I posted we were busy building up the walls in phase 1. It's now ready for the lintels, which we waiting a month to be delivered. This one requires some blockwork changes as the overhang is over a block joint. This is the inside looking North looking down over the valley. This is the outside looking in, again some block changes needed. We used thermally broken IG lintels, which were on a 4 week lead time so to fill some of the time we have been prepping for phase 2. We realised we didn't have enough space for concrete lorries and storing the spoil so we moved the soil spoil heap further into the field. This doesn't look much, but it took 3 days and countless repeats of load dumper, move and tip, and repeat !!!! We've also moved into one of the horses winter fields, but we will return to a field when we've finished. Apart from putting block on block and repeat we've bought a few items at auction. We got some windows that are exactly the same model as we are ordering, maybe not the exact size, but we can make them fit. Of course the cill will be replaced. We also got a lovely sink for the utility room. For the first time in months we are dry on site, not sure how long it will last. At the moment I'm trying to order the posi-rafters for phase 1, but I need some input on a beam from the SE who is being very un-responsive. We've realised that we have a beam on our SE drawings which say 'B3' and no details. He initially responded saying it could be either an RSJ or a flitch beam, but that was 2 weeks ago. I was told last week that the rafters are also on 4 weeks lead time. Once we have those then we will be putting some of the barn roofing on as a temporary measure as we'll get the whole build roofed at the same time. I'm horrified at how little we seem to have done, but as I'm no longer working at home I think the work force (hubby) may be slacking 🙂 More soon, when I have some proper progress to show. Jill

Despite the yellow weather warning we luckily had the coastal wind pushing it away, most of it fell on Tuesday but only 6mm The trench foundations are excavated and inspected. Then the concrete poured, and the first blocks laid followed by dolly blocks and internal supporting wall starter blocks Total man days of labour for week 2 is 13

So I spent 3 days with a 1.5 tonne excavator and a pecker breaking up the huge amount of concrete slab. Thankfully, it wasn't reinforced and all I can say is that I didn't envy the neighbours. I am just finishing off pulling up the broken slab with a 3 tonne machine and getting the concrete collected with a grab lorry. There is about 5-6 loads to collect and that is going to cost me about £700. I could have hired a concrete crusher, but I calculated that to hire a crusher, 5 tonne excavator would have exceeded this cost. I also do not have any water on site for the dust suppression, and there was a lot of large lumps, that would have not fitted into the crusher without having to broken up smaller.

The roof rafters are being installed with the openings for the roof windows. LABC visits for the second time, there have been a few photos sent as well, they inspect the roof, anchors and fastenings etc. The internal walls are built up around the steel goal posts. Not as many hours on site this week were one man down, its half term here. I started a Gabion wall, filling it with rubbish stone and facing the front with nice stone from around the plot, it just separates off the garden from the vehicle parking area, holding back about 400mm depth of soil. You can see on the photo the remaining post of the old wooden fence which was behind a skip now removed. Total man days of labour for week 8 is 20 days.

On Monday the internal structural walls are up to the top of the ICF walls and are tied in to the ICF walls. The windows and doorways have extra bracing ready for the pour. Nobody on site on Tuesday it rains all day and no more prep is needed before the pour. Wednesday starts with the last minute checks ready for the pour. The concrete pump arrives on site at 12pm it takes 30 minutes to set up before the first concrete pours out. We have 4 builders onsite plus the concrete pump operator. The concrete is poured into the ICF on all four walls in stages twice round and its up-to window cill height, the ICF cills are pushed into the wet concrete and the wood boards replaced so that the pour can continue higher. A poker is used to vibrate the concrete to ensure the concrete fills the ICF without any voids. At 4pm the pour is finished and the cleanup can start. The pump driver tests out our hammer head turn which was required by BC as we are so far from the road and Fire Engines are not allowed to reverse more than 20m. I think this proves our access works and it’s all down to the driver of the vehicles, the pump driver is great if only all delivery drivers are like this. The gables will be completed later so the concrete has rebar inserted, the other two walls are trowelled level. By the end of the week one gable is braced and poured. Total man days of labour week 6 is 17 days.

Another beautiful week in Cornwall only 7mm of rain on the Sunday The week starts with laying the soil pipes then it was sand, hardcore, burying the soil pipes, laying the radon barrier, mesh and more concrete for the slab leaving a lovely surface to start the ICF walls next week. And the field was cut and baled, not as much as a normal September cut due to us moving our spoil down to the far field and tramping the grass down and making a very very muddy gateway between our two fields. Nether the less it was 10 bales for our friendly farmer Rob. Total man days of labour week 3 is 9 man days Cost to date Brought forward from blog Building Regs, Part O and SAP £14625 Refund from Architect £300 Fee to LABC for inspections £600 Foundations Weeks 1 to 3 £30,000 Total to date £44925

Our groundworkers arrived on site as promised on the Tuesday after Spring Bank Holiday. Raining all day of course! Though tbf it’s fairly light rain. They made a good start removing a concrete slab left over from a long-demolished, clearing the oversight and creating a temporary spoil dump site on the paddock. Three issues this week: An unexpected armoured cable is discovered on day two - our groundworker Marcus is unsurprisingly cautious. Quick call to our electrician Nick. Nick thinks it’s probably the a redundant feed from the neighbouring house to what was their workshop - should be fine. He comes to inspect it and concludes it is dead. We explain that the groundworkers have asked him to cut it if it’s safe to do so. “You want me to cut it?” he asks, slightly incredulously. Yep. Nick angle-grinds through the cable - cable is dead, electrician is still alive - problem sorted. Second issue: We found out on Thursday that the Building Inspector unexpectedly wants a “Structural engineer to design depth of foundation due to clay soil and the nearby oak tree”. Both our architect and groundworker expected that the BI would be happy to agree the foundation depths based on the NHBC tables. But no, the BI is no longer allowed to do that he says. So, we are in a hole so to speak but just not sure how deep a hole... A rapid scrabble to find a SE who is able to help and help quickly, as we want to dig the trenches next week. On Thursday we got hold of a chap we used for another project 15 years ago - he thinks he could help in short order. We await a result. Third issue: We had hoped to keep the existing timber double garage for the duration of the build, for storage through the build. But the groundworkers are worried about access and off-loading our beams for our B&B floor. The timber frame and window companies also think the space is very tight. I conclude the garage will have to come down - now. It was a mistake on my part to try to keep it; we could have dismantled it carefully during the ‘phoney war’ ahead of construction proper. Annoying. Fortunately our PP includes demolition of this garage so, we are fine on that front. Our chippie knows someone who may want it and will dismantle and remove for nowt at their expense, hopefully in the next two weeks. Failing that the groundworkers will knock it down with a digger, but it would be a shame not to recycle it. Edit: The SE has come back with the foundation calculations over the weekend (what a hero!) so we should be all sustems go for digging the foundations next week. Hurrah! Pre-start "One day my son, all this will be yours" Making a start. In the rain obvs: End of week 1. Happy with that!

Weeks 35 to 39 The build is close to our existing working barn and home, close enough that as a Cow Shed power and water was fed from the working barn. We have renewed the power cable and water connection so that the new build with its 7.5 kwp of solar can power the working barn. With the solar on the roof the plant room became my priority to get the CU and wiring ready for the solar installation to continue. This meant us plaster boarding in the plant room, a new plaster board lifter up to 16ft for some rooms, and me watching loads of U-Tube and learning a new skill of paper taping and jointing, drylining. We have knocked old plaster off solid brick walls and put up a small amount of square edged plasterboard for a plasterer back in Manchester but never used tapered edge plasterboard or had to think which way round is best to hang it on stud walls and around windows. To make things a little easier for a first timer I used ready mixed Knauf Fill n Finish, this sanded easily and I didn’t have to waste time thinking about the consistency of the mix. I really enjoyed the process, I wasn’t quick, I wasn’t perfect, but the end result is very good. I did get a few blisters in my first ceiling joints, but I know why and I solved it and overall I quite impressed David with my new skill, so much that later on I can do other more important rooms. The main problem I had in the plant room was its size, a small room with a high ceiling in parts, the tall step ladders wouldn’t fully open width ways and then when they did open fully I was not close enough to the wall/corner. Just moving the ladders around was muscle building but our smaller ladders were not quite tall enough. Once I had painted the walls I handed the room over to David to do the wiring. Back in Manchester we have an Industrial and Commercial Electrical business and David was the NICEIC qualified supervisor for the business, he has now handed that role over to his younger brother but still has the knowledge (once checked the new regs) and skill to get the plant room wired ready for the solar to be finished. That meant he had to stop cladding and come inside the build so I went outside to get ready for the renderers who were coming to render the North wall. Due to the change in ground levels around the building, as it’s situated between the field and the concrete farm courtyard, I wanted to protect the walls with stick on waterproofing, that the renderers batten over. There are so many variants out there of sick on or paint on waterproofing membrane but not many that say they have no solvents or can be used on ICF, most of the small print says block or concrete. I chose Newton Hydrobond SA as it acknowledges its use in ICF builds, but the warranty is provided by the waterproofer ie me in this case. Once the soil is level with the build there will be a gap between the ground level and the render I hope to stick on the roofing slate I have saved possibly with tile adhesive. The walls currently being clad will also eventually be waterproofed below the cladding but I didn’t want the stick on membrane getting damaged and the ICF needed protecting from the sun so as a temporary measure for the ICF walls and a permanent solution on the concrete dolly block, in the area we park the cars I have painted on a bitumen membrane. David will love that I am now sharing my ‘kitchen utensil methods’ with you all, for the sticky black paint I used a washing up dish brush (also good for patio grout, and bathrooms), Its stiff bristles worked the paint in well and long handle kept me relatively paint free and I can also recommend a spaghetti measure that has various size holes and spoon end for stirring paint but his favourite one was me tiling the bathroom and trying to get the grout up between some wood cladding and a tile, a wooden spoon was used, in my defence I was very tired. So now I’m back collecting stone from our excavation piles to fill the gabions and next week when the weather is not supposed to be as sunny I shall be inside continuing with the insulation I’m on my 3rd pallet of Rockwool and soon will have completed two thirds of the roof, next is PIR insulation. A bread knife is great for this as I have to cut various shapes out of the insulation for the eaves, steel ridge beam and the join of the flat ceiling collars to the sloped ceiling rafters. Before the windows were fitted the openings were covered in roofing membrane so this was a cold job and the daylight hours limited my progress, now I’m extremely hot in the loft wearing a polo shirt as protection against the itchy insulation. I’m nearly done for now as I can’t reach any higher in the vaulted lounge/kitchen until we insulate and screed the floor then I should get another row completed before handing the job over for the last bit of insulation and the plastering from off a scaffold tower. May 2025 front cladding completed and March 2023 before we knocked down.

This blog post is out of order, I’ve lots of other content yet to post, but thought it important to capture in the moment. I’ve spent the last few days preparing my en-suite floor for tiling. cut out the 22mm p5 chipboard ready for the shower former. plumb the 40mm shower waste to a 50mm solvent weld pipe, which was a smaller size than the 40mm solvent weld adapter I had. Turns out compression fittings are able to go from 40mm solvent weld (42mm OD) to 40mm OD shower waste. add batten and 18mm plywood level with the post joists, prime chipboard with SBR. Lay 12mm tile backerboard (could have got away with 10mm, but went 12mm to match the walls, less waste) on tile adhesive, and screwed at 300 centres. Install 22mm lussostone former on top of the ply, on a bed of tile adhesive. Use a CT1 like mastic for between the joints for waterproofing. Lay electric UFH at 100mm centres, just to take the chill off the tiles, not intended as a means to heat the space. set packers to level, ready for self leveller. Foam gaps. Pour flexible fibre self leveller, trowel to packers, spike roller. (Note, the fibres really gnarl up the roller, need tclean between buckets) Grout flout tile adhesive over the former to the built in falls. Self leveller would ruin this. Dry lay marble tiles and cut to falls. I was using an electroplated marble blade in my grinder, meant to reduce chipping, but went blunt real quick and ended up ruining a couple tiles, switched to a turbo blade that was actually pretty good. In the future i wouldn’t use the electroplated blade. Tonight I’ve just started to tile and really struggled. Because I self levelled the room and not the tray, I built up 7mm up to the edge of the former, but only spread 2mm adhesive over the top wires in the former. That leaves a 5mm deficit, that needs to be made up over the whole former whilst tiling. That’s a lot of adhesive if you add in 3mm adhesive bed going over the rest of the room. I laid 3/4 of the former, but I ripped 2/4 back up again, I was using rapid set adhesive and i wasn’t able to get it to a standard I was happy with, joints out of line, excessive lippage. if I were to do it again (I’ve got 2 more formers to do), i’d sacrifice a dead level room, to reduce build up at the edge of the former. The former is designed with built in falls, and by building up, I’ve destroyed this. I could have also gone 2-3mm lower with the self leveller and still achieved a level floor, given 3mm adhesive would still be applied over the top of the bare UFH in places. what a nightmare!

Weeks 27 to 34 Cladding After securing our planning permission I arranged for a few samples of wood cladding from various trees and from a few different suppliers. I propped them up in the sun and watched for months as they changed colour and silvered off. We made a short list of which we liked, something with a definite grain pattern so not Poplar, not too knotty so not pine, thermally modified wood as it is less prone to shrink and swell and as it’s no longer sappy less interesting to insects and lighter for handling. We also wanted tongue and groove with secret fixings through the tongue and minimal fixings elsewhere if necessary, this often varies by supplier some say screw, some nail very few actually say nail gun as it can damage the brittle wood. We decided Ash was our favourite and got a few quotes from different suppliers, unfortunately when the time came to order prices had increased and we had to rethink as delivery became a big problem. We wanted it delivered by Hi-ab but most said the charge for hi-ab to us would be quite expensive or that they didn’t offer that service or it would be delivered to a hub then onto us and they couldn’t guarantee against damages. Read the delivery small print if you are thinking of having wood cladding. As it’s just me and my husband we weren’t looking forward to manually offloading the wood whilst the driver was waiting to make his next delivery and as no specific time frame for deliveries were available we couldn’t arrange for help offloading. A local company in Somerset could deliver by Hi-ab at a reasonable cost but it would be knotty pine. We really didn’t want pine but as it was cheaper and the delivery method ok we reconsiderd but still couldn’t make that final decision. Then I found Russwood after initially discounting them due to the fact they are in Inverness and we are in Cornwall and at the time I had at least 4 other companies all based lower than Birmingham some much closer to us. I spoke to Russwood and discussed delivery with them and discovered they deliver by Hi-ab on a big double length trailer but arrangements could be made that half of the trailer was left in a local lay by if necessary and our wood came on just the front half. They offered us Thermo Pine but it is slightly different the knots are fewer than on other pine samples we had from other suppliers Russwood describe them as butterfly knots, through the length of the knot rather than across the heart (round knots), you do still get some round knots. The tongue and groove is better designed in that each piece is fully pushed to the next but on the hidden side has room to expand. Most other tongue and groove needed a few millimetres between each plank for expansion which would slow the process down of putting it up and a bit more fiddly in general. Another difference in our wood is the face edges are rounded it gives a slightly more finished wood that could easily be used internally as well. As we we’re saving quite a bit on the Ash price we decided to over order enough that we can use some on the overhang, I don’t think we know yet how much spare wood we will have. A few comments from my husband are that it goes up really nice, screwing in the groove on the tongue with electric screwdriver so most fixings are hidden. It’s all fairly straight and not warped, some damaged pieces by handling but can be sorted into useable lengths over or under windows for example. On a sunny day he is enjoying this job. Cost to date Brought forward £207626 Cladding £5357 Cost to date £212983 I have noticed the Suffolk meet up chats and thought that If anyone is interested I could have an open day once we have done some more cladding and the rendered wall is complete and hopefully solar installation finished. The renderers are due to start soon so I was thinking May or June. It will only be for Build hub members so just PM me and we can all discuss dates that suit a few of us. If nice weather BBQ outside in the Bude sunshine.

The week starts with the removal of the external walls on the rear half of da bungalow. That’s the fun bit. I’m armed with two chainsaws and a reciprocating saw (aka sabre saw, for some reason). I bought the sabre saw as Steve the builder recommended one for demolition. When I bought it I knew it would be useful, but I knew my trusty chainsaws would get more done quicker and easier. It’s not easy working with someone who’s right every damn time. Sigh. So the chainsaws remain at rest while we quickly get into a rhythm of joist then upright removal, working our way along the frame till the only part of the rear half standing is the chimney and it’s wings (and our neighbours wall are still untouched ….yay!!). The pile of wood at the front of the plot is now clearly tidal. We cut wood, the tide flows. The ‘wood man’ comes, the tide ebbs. The cycle disguises the sheer volume of wood we are handling. It constitutes an awful lot of skip savings. Next day it’s straight back to heavy spade work for me, knocking of plaster and trying to leave the metal lathe mesh stuff reasonably clean to make later processing for recycling easier. In the process I discover previously a hidden window and a door - it would be fascinating to understand the history, the sequence of events and the reasons, but we can only guess. Steve is straight into heavy hammer work taking down the chimney and wing walls, and he discovers thermalite block so that chimney isn’t original either. Most interesting. Nobody tells you about the dust when you talk about demolition. I thought I’d done dusty jobs before but not like this. It’s like you bath in it. Everything on site is coated and one touch leaves my hands feeling almost ‘smooth’ in a strange kind of way. The dust masks that started off annoying are now comforting, I now start the day clean shaven to help them work better. But they discourage hydration as lifting the mask up to drink means putting a sweat soaked mask back on one’s face. Less than ideal. Warm dry weather makes it worse, and when a stiff breeze gets up it really is the limit. My goggles fully protect my eyes from dust. Unfortunately they also protect my eyes from seeing anything, as they mist up in seconds each time they are cleaned. I sprayed them with de-icer and that did help - it trebled the time it took them to mist up - sadly that still only made about two minutes. So, back to specs type protection it is. The high velocity flying bits are deflected but the fine dust floats round and gently crusts, aided by the breeze which isn’t enough to cool me but is easily enough to ensure dust gets everywhere quickly. Skooby (trusty steed, or cheap ancient Skoda on her last legs bought for the build, depending on one’s point of view) now has a light gray interior. Not just from my clothes, though that would be enough, but also from the stuff piled in her for the tip runs. And the litres of moisturiser I get through is crazy - we never budgeted for that - the dust dries the skin like mad. But, one just carries on. So having removed the back half the question is what to do next. Steve is logical and methodical. So he advocates carrying on removing the rearmost and working our way forwards. That means the dunny. But I still have a bladder, and age dictates that that bladder is attended to regularly. And I’m tight and we’ve nowhere sensibly to put a rented thunderbox anyway. So the score on that one ends up as Common sense: 0; G’s bladder: 1. So, after adding some diagonal bracing ‘just in case’ we bypass the loo and work forward. Yet another carefully considered risk assessment debate ensues. These consist of Steve standing and looking for a bit while I remain silent. He then says what we are doing next and I say yes Steve. Simples. In this instance we are going to remove the lintel above the old front door as otherwise when we remove the studwork near it there might be instability, as one end rests on a tiny masonry pillar held up only by studs. It takes an hour to drop the blockwork above and the large catnic lintel we discover. More to clean up and sell, if only I could lift it. Then, finally, it’s back to studwork removal time. The ‘wood man’ has been again so the wood tide is thankful out, so there’s space to put the wood mountain. Another excellent four days, so much so that we all take the Friday off. It turns out that being at home on a day off is emotionally, much easier than visiting site. A few jobs need doing around the house which helps, but it’s basically ok. It tells me that I could never live on site and have any peace of mind. I already spend a lot of time thinking things through/worrying myself into a fizz when I should be sleeping, and I think that would be massively greater if we lived either in site or very close nearby. The 20 minutes in Skooby as she grumbles along is vital to prepare for the day and then later, to help me start to decompress. It’s easy to think about one’s muscles needing rest, but not so easy to think about one’s head, but I’m trying, and it seems that that drive, and a soak in a scummy bath, is as vital as talking the day over with J. It’s like mentally putting one’s tools away, clean and tidy. Cooking helps too… Saturday it’s time to get all the lead, the house wiring, and (as it turns out) 80kg of gas boiler to the scrap yard - no wonder the boiler was so hard to lift!

I've two last major areas to details for air tightness and insulation - this post relates to one of these - a single rear Oriel Window, an architectural feature that juts out from the rear of the building and is finished externally with a metal standing seam. The plan agreed was to create a 20mm lip of metal for the window to sit against. I was right about to commence work when I noticed dampness and beads of moisture and sure enough despite the window being surrounded by a later of insulation, because I didn't think through this detail on the inside, the 2mm metal is bringing in the cold outside and condensing - even though the inside is only 5-7 degrees or so! It's happening all 360 degrees around the window and dripping down to the bottom of the frame too. Obvious in retrospect why this is the case now and lucky I'm aware now due to the time of year so I can address it. I have other metal in the form of an I beam supporting the side of the porch cantilevered outside (80% inside, 20% outside) but this is dealt with by the timber frame company using a thermal farrat - the beam is in two parts and bolted together through the farrat reducing cold bridging immensely. I'm keeping a close eye on this internally during this cold spell to satisfy myself. Anyway, if anyone is to blame for the detailing it's me, it just happened and I had considered angle grinding off the lip to get a better seal as the 2mm metal meanders a bit making it hard to pin against the window frame with rigid insulation or squeeze sealant / spray foam either side of the metal continuously. The window company didn't recommend the angle grinder as the lip provides a water barrier if the external sealant fails. The company I buy my gutex and air tightness products from were confident that covering the metal lip with insulation and using tape would prevent air circulation and address the issue. So, onto the fix: I'm working with Gutex for some areas of the build, a wood fibre board. Messy when cutting (accumulates inside my circular saw) but easy to work with. Not cheap but I'm trying to stick with breathable, natural products and gain experience in their use. I've used Multitherm which is a T&G product around the windows, this time I wanted to use Thermoroom which is a non flexible flat product (no T&G) that I could stack up around this opening. I plan to finish off with a fire rated (A/B) oak veneer rather than plasterboard so needed batons to attach to (main use for this ply is around the internal picture window separating the kitchen from the bedrooms, hence the fire rating but it will match nicely if use in this other area too. I'm going for an air tightness test soon so my current finish is intello plus only so I can inspect and pinpoint leaks. I packed out the Moy Metac flexible insulation and then cut a few Thermoroom boards to size. The board is a lot smaller than the Multitherm so I cut them in half minus 20mm to get the width I wanted and they stack at 50cm heights on top of each other. Battons to secure although I'm finding it hard to get 150mm screws through the baton at times and then through the gutex to bite into the wood frame beneath. When I could get my weight behind it it helped but overhead was a nightmare. Ended up drilling 5mm holes as the top 50mm of the screw was unthreaded and I just wanted it to bite the wood 120mm away and clamp the baton, this worked fine but I've 180mm structural screws to use under the vaulted ceiling later! Drill was set to 15 but still rapped out a lot of time, any suggestions?! SDS with a clutch?! Needed to get a lot of speed up and push force to work. Once the batons were on I filled out the spaces with 50mm rockwool and stapled on the intello plus and tescon vana joined them. The lighter blue tape is tescon profil which has a separated backing allowing you to seal onto the intello first and hinge the tape 90 degrees before removing the 2nd backing to seal to the window. So all 4 sides are now done. I've 11mm OSB on the floor of the opening rather than batons, this sits on 60mm multitherm on top of 25mm bosig phonotherm, a structural insulation board I had spare offcuts for. As this will be sat/stood on a lot I wanted something more secure to sit the plywood on. Now, it's just a case of monitoring and checking if any evidence of condensation still occurs, maybe peeling back the tape in one or two areas and quickly checking but I'm happy for now! Lots more to do. I've to figure out the 6 x Velux openings next and box out about 400mm of splayed / insulated / air tight spaces and close off the last part of the roof. More tower work for me so!!

The builders scaffolding came down and the roofers scaffolding went up all to plan. The new roofer has a good gang and they are working well on the roof. The weather hasn’t been great, we have had three storms Bert, Conall and Darragh luckily no damage to the build. We are approx 615ft above sea level and about 2.5miles to the coast as the crow flies so we get a good breeze coming in off the Atlantic. The wind has Brought with it some very cold spells that and the shorter daylight hours has meant progress has been a bit slow. The roof has been battened, breather membrane and counter battened, eves ventilation and we have some nice joinery on the gables, facia, tilt fillet at the eves for the last slate row and overhang. The slates are looking good and I’m happy with the hooks they are using, sometimes they are quite visible when the sun catches them but these have black tips that blend in nicely. The overhang also has some nice leadwork. The solar panels have just arrived and work will continue next year with the installation. The MVHR vents are installed and the Velux windows are installed, one window still needs its flashing kit completed and slate around so is covered up for now. Whilst the scaffolding is up I have managed to give the bargeboards 3 coats of wood protection with black stain. Finding time when its not too cold for the stain which requires 5 deg plus and keeping out of the roofers way has meant a little at a time but the gables are done and the facia on the North side is done with just the South to have another 2 coats. Im glad I’m doing it now not just because the scaffolding is up but also any drips of the very watery stain are not going on my cladding. We are ICF as you know and we have to be careful that the preservative is solvent free or it would melt the ICF blocks. Whilst the scaffolding is up we have also put the counter battens and insect mesh on the gable ends ready for the cladding next year. We purchased the insect mesh quite wide to go from the battens to the inside of bargeboards. Next job whilst the scaffolding is up is run some sealant in the small gap between the slates and the gable ladder, I have been told this is not done on most sites these days but due to our location the roofers have suggested we do it, so I purchased a huge box of baby wipes ready, I’m sure I will use them when we seal the windows as well. I have moved two empty slate crates just off to the left of the camera and started filling these with the half cut slates and the broken slates. The plan is to may be use the half slates around the bottom of the walls above ground level before the cladding starts, I’m hoping sticking them on will be the easy option, the broken ones will be crushed more and used as mulch on the ground around the edge of the building. We have paid the window deposit and the window openings have been measured, for one sliding door and 10 windows it took apx 3 1/2 hrs to measure the openings and discuss the window placement position and the sill positions and depths, and the sliding door placement taking into account the ffl after the insulation, screed and wood flooring. Some walls are being rendered and some wooden clad so the sills are different depths. We have 3 windows on one wall that face down our field and I wanted them levelled with a laser as well as measuring as these will be a big feature. We paid apx £700 for the measuring service and it will have been worth every penny. The windows are due in production towards the middle to end of February so hopefully before the end of March they will be installed. The cars that managed to sneak onto the photos for this catch up include our own Jensen FF back from the painters and a local customer popped their Jensen 541 in for a quick service.

At the beginning of Week 5 the scaffold arrives. The ICF walls get past window header height so they can be boxed in first with the ICF to close the side jamb, header and cill then the wood brace for the concrete pour. The internal structural walls are started and tied into the ICF. These are to support the steel roof beams. Its good to stand in the open plan kitchen and lounge area now and get the scale of the room, the three windows look down our field to the East and the slider door opening looks out South towards Dartmoor, visible on clear days. The kitchen may look a bit dark but it will have 4 velux windows that as well as providing light help to zone off the open plan area. The photo from the scaffold shows our workshop in the big barn and beyond that just visible is our current home. The weather has not been too bad during working hours, a mixture of sun shine, rain and strong wind with gusts of over 43mph so I will be happy to see the pour next week. This week the car is our own Jensen Interceptor my husband took it out in the sunshine when he went to our local ‘Men’s Shed’ in Holsworthy. Total man days of labour week 5 is 23 man days.

How things can change on a six pence! After deciding to go for the ASHP, I had a couple of local firms in to quote. CVC did come back with a quote of around 20K but without a site visit, I was worried things could add up and that seemed too much. see the whole ASHP saga here; So next week, the new ASHP is being installed. And the unit is going in the back garden, under the kitchen window. This is not where I wanted it to go but the company were adamant that we could not have it at the front of the bungalow. And with certain changes in the pipeline, I am not sure now that we will be doing the extension at all. therefore I am going with the easy option for now. If at a later date, we DO decide to add an extension, we'll just have to move everything. 🤔 The reason for the big change is that the property next to this one came up for sale and after looking at it, we decided to put in an offer. It is larger than our current bungalow and while my parents need help and care, it makes sense to be next door, rather than a 20 mn drive away. It ticks all the boxes for our current situation, garage, workshops, as well as being next door so seemed the right thing to do. We now have a complete chain so are just waiting for it all to happen - hopefully January 2025. Fingers crossed! Looking to the future, we will have the option to choose which we live in and which we sell. OH prefers the new one already....... and we arent even in yet. 😁 I'll update things once the ASHP is in. I just hope it works as well as they say it will.

On Monday the second gable is poured and most of the internal bracing, corner bracing and window shuttering is removed. Tuesday rains all day so no work on site. The internal floor is under 1 inch of water with no way to escape, without us brushing it towards soil pipe. Good to know we are airtight at the floor/wall joint. The steels are installed, we were supposed to have wooden roof beams but somehow this was not calculated by the architect who insisted the roof truss company would do the calculations later. The roof truss companys only want to do the calculations when they know you are ready to order and they said the beam spans could not be done. So on the last minute we had to go back to the SE who worked out our steel beams and the total cost of roof went up £8k. I wish the architect had suggested the SE looks at the roof calculations earlier but unfortunately we just have to move on from this, and up to this point we have had no other extra costs. Since we are no longer working with the architect I have had to find a new SAP assessor who I can engage with as the build progresses. We have been discussing how changing the steel beam might change things as the vaulted ceiling can now be higher if we want. This gives us more space to heat up. I also wanted to know the effect of not putting as much solar on the roof or not having the wood burner changes the SAP results. Since having a smart meter fitted at home we have reviewed our current electric usage and decided that less solar (7.5 kwp instead of 11 kwp) but with the ability to add a battery. Also I think aesthetically one row of 15 panels will look better. Total Man days of labour week 7 is 16 days. Total to date b/f £44925 New Design Stage SAP Calculations (previously done by architect) with ongoing advice about changes that will affect the SAP and to include the As Built SAP documents and EPC at completion £720. It does seem a lot compared to online prices but for peace of mind knowing that we can if we choose to only put 6kwp of PV on the roof instead of 11kwp, is an overall saving. Total to date £45645

A relatively quiet week this week - the lull before the storm (hopefully not literally!) The scaffolders arrived to put up a single-lift all around the exterior on Thursday and Friday (and Saturday morning as it turned out). I say single-lift but there were due to be a couple of hop-ups for the gables on the south-facing roof. However, at one end the gable is over a canopy roof which means the first lift is 2m away from where the gable will be. We've left that one off for now - I'm hoping the timber frame company (Turners) can work off the scaffold tower at that end, or I will get the scaffolders back and put in what the frame erectors would like (we may need a sky-hook to hang it off though). The site is looking spick and span at the moment; the groundworkers were really tidy, the weather has no doubt helped (dust is easier to sweep up than mud), and Mrs P. has done some sterling work this weekend tidying up the few bits of spare timber, pallets, bulk bags etc, left by the scaffolders. As they were packing up one of the scaffolders saw an empty bag (which they had brought) and asked "Is this rubbish?", to which I replied "Oh yes, thanks", thinking he was going to take it away, but no, he just threw an empty Red Bull can in it 🤷‍♂️. Scaffolders truly are a breed apart. The house has proved to be too wide for the CCTV camera, so we moved the camera back. Now we have the workshop roof in the way - grrr! Looking at the project finances, frighteningly we have already spent over 1/3rd of the budget 😱. Major spend so far has been on design and planning, the timber frame and windows are both paid for, a good slug of the groundworks costs has also been paid with an invoice for the balance expected soon. This week I ordered and paid for the MVHR kit (based around a Zehnder Q350) and the ASHP and cylinder (Panasonic L series 7kW + 300l cylinder). I ordered the latter through Air2Heat who provide an MCS umbrella service (Paul Thorney - really helpful) so we should get back £7.5k via the BUS grant scheme, which would leave the heat pump and cylinder costing a net £1,200 plus installation costs. Anyway, we're currently running about £500 over budget (excluding contingency) with some opportunities for future savings and a fair few areas of potential overspend. Time for Benpointer's three Laws of Budget Management: If you go over budget, that's bad management. If you come in under budget, that's poor estimating. If you come in bang on budget, you've almost certainly committed both 1. and 2. Next week is going to be very exciting - I hope in a good way. Tomorrow (Monday) our timber frame arrives from Turner Timber Frames, with a team to erect it. The weather forecast is good, so fingers-crossed the frame fits the footings and it all goes up smoothly 🤞.

We’ve had another very good week of progress by the groundworks team and they are pretty much done now bar some further levelling of the paddock area and one or two other minor details. We are really pleased with their work and the Building Inspector is pleased too, thankfully, so our foundations are all signed-off 👍. Bizarrely, it’s only now that we can submit the “Commencement Statement” for our construction to Building Control, which I duly did this week. Also bizarrely, we are still on schedule - I can guarantee that won’t last! Once the block and beam floor was in and grouted with cement slurry, the concrete block upstands for the internal stud partition walls were laid. With hindsight, it might have been better not to pay the timber frame company (Turner Timber Frame) to supply and erect the internal walls but rather build them later on top of the screed. But we’re way past that decision point now - Turners will be installing those partition walls as part of the overall frame build, so concrete block upstands have to be ready in place. One minor issue that had to be resolved this week - the block and beam floor ventilation ‘periscopes’ are designed for 100mm cavity walls and weren’t going to fit inside our 50mm cavities between the walls and the render-board. The solution proposed by the groundworkers and approved by our Building Inspector is to run them up the inside of the foundation wall before exiting just below DPC level. That gives us a potential cold bridge at each vent (26 in total!) but I think we can mitigate that by doubling the PIR insulation upstands to 100mm where the vents are. It’s not perfect but I think it will have only a very small impact on the overall insulation levels. Next week the scaffold is scheduled to go up on Wednesday/Thursday, then the timber frame is due to arrive the week after - when the fun will really start! Meanwhile next week I need cut the five 150mm oak posts to size and chamfer the edges, ready for them to go in to support the roof canopies over the front porch and rear terrace. (Six oak posts in the picture - I’ll choose the best five!)

Great progress by the groundworks team in sweltering conditions this week - laying concrete blocks in the sun when it’s 30deg C and 80% humidity can’t be any fun at all. Despite the heat, by the end of the week our foundation walls are in and ready for the block and beam floor this coming week. We can really see the house take shape now, although quite a few of the foundation walls are just there to support floor beams and won’t appear as internal walls above the floor. As expected, it all looks a bit too small at this stage. It always seems to be the case that the foundations make the rooms look small. They’re definitely the right size on paper, so I’m sure it’s an optical illusion at this stage (hopefully!) The foul and rainwater drains are also now in place. Our Building Inspector ideally wanted the SVP to come out through the roof above the bathroom but since that roof is covered with Solfit PV panels (https://solfit.co.uk/domestic-solar-panels/) that can’t be penetrated, we eventually agree to put the SVP up the outside of the north facing wall. This is the wall that isn’t really going to be seen from the entrance, front parking areas or garden and we’d really prefer not to penetrate the roof with a soil vent if possible. So, everyone’s happy. The ‘spaghetti’ in the bottom left corner is where all of our external service ducts come into the plant room. 17 ducts in total, including two spare at present, (I may have over-catered): Power to ASHP Power to garden Water pipe to garden Water pipe to workshop Power to workshop Lighting circuit - switched external lights Data to workshop Live power supply in (SSE - single phase) Fibre in (Openreach) Water mains in (Wessex Water) Power to sewage treatment plant PV panel in PV panel in Power to EV charger Data for CCTV Spare 50mm duct (to workshop) Spare 50mm duct (to workshop)

We’re starting our build so I thought I’d attempt a blog. I can’t promise to keep it up throughout the build but I start with good intentions. Apologies for the inevitable typos along the way. A bit of background: We have previously done a lot of alteration and refurb projects for our various homes over the years, the most recent a major eco- refurb and extension of a 1960s bungalow. Last year we decided to bite the bullet, sell the house, buy a plot and build. We sold in October, bought a plot in November, and engaged some local architects to create a design to our brief. The plot is 0.85 acre on the edge of a Dorset village. It already had PP for a conventional 3-bed chalet but we wanted a near-Passivhus contemporary single storey house with vaulted ceilings - incorporating low u-values, ASHP, UFH, 3G windows, MVHR, PV, batteries... just about everything we could think of to make the house comfortable and sustainable. We’ve opted for off-site timber frame construction, clad in a mixture of timber and render, zinc roof. I am sure more of the construction details will get covered if and as I keep the blog going. I am a retired IT project manager so have decided to self-manage contractors rather than employ a Principal Contractor. I’m also a wheelchair user so, much as we would like to*, we won’t be doing much of the hands-on build ourselves (* Mrs. P. may not agree with that sentiment). We applied for fresh PP on the 28 January 2025, received permission on 1 May, and our architects submitted a building regulations application a couple of weeks later. We broke ground last week (see the next blog entry for details). For now, I attach a floor plan and some elevations to give you an idea of the build.

The groundworks team have been putting in the Sewage Treatment Plant and drains this week. We’ve chosen the Klargester Biotec+ 2 STP and that arrived on schedule from Tanks Direct on Tuesday. Also this week the concrete pads were dug and poured for five oak posts that will support overhanging roof canopies - the Building Inspector asked us to put in 1m x 1m x 1m pads which seems excessive for 150mm x 150mm oak posts taking point loads of 5-10kN but it was that or pay the SE for (possibly the same) opinion. The team also started reshaping the paddock area - losing a huge amount of spoil and burying a lot of rubble that had been dumped by previous occupants. We'll probably wait until the autumn to seed it - not much chance of seed taking right now. At the end of a busy week there is not a lot above ground to see for all that effort but we needed to get this all done before the below-DPC block walls go in. Access to the rear of the plot will not be possible for the big machinery once the blockwork starts. The wooden garage mentioned at the end of last week's blog came down over the weekend (in the pouring rain) and has disappeared off site. The extra space created has proved vital - the photo below shows the concrete pad that's left after the garage was removed. (The wooden building that remains is a 5m x 9m workshop which is staying, though it will need re-cladding at some stage.) No new issues this week - hurrah! Fingers-crossed for that happy state of affairs to continue. The timber frame is due to arrive from Turner Timber on 7th July, so just three weeks left to finish the foundations and get the scaffold up. No pressure!

The excellent SE we contacted on Thursday to design the depth of our foundations came back on Friday with the answer - deeper than we wanted at 1.95m in the corner closest to the neighbouring oak (15m away) but his quick response has saved the schedule. We need to add clayboards in the corner nearest the tree but overall it could have been a lot worse. His rapid turnaround was brilliant and it meant we were able to crack on this week. The groundworkers had already discounted Monday as I suspect they thought they’s be waiting for the SE but through the rest of the week dug all the trenches and on Friday we had 7 lorries of readymix poured. The only issue was they hit a shaley layer at the bottom of the deepest trenches, so with the BI’s agreement they poured a couple of loads of concrete in on Wednesday before digging out the rest of the trenches. So now we have all the foundation trenches filled with concrete. Next week the groundworks team plan to concentrate on the drains, installing the sewage treatment plant (we’ve gone for a Kingspan Biotec 2) and ‘losing’ the massive pile of spoil we have, across the paddock. Block and beam floor to go in the following week. Target for completion of the groundworks is 27 June, so three more weeks allowed. I’ve checked in with the timber frame company (Turners) and they are still on schedule to deliver and erect the frame between 7 - 18 July. I have also finally managed to get some quotes for scaffolding and that’s scheduled to go up 1 & 2 July. The company we have always previously used have singularly failed to respond to my repeated requests, so I gave up on them and got a couple of other quotes in, and selected one. Windows, roofing, screed, plumbing and electrics contractors all lined up - I need to sort out some plasterers. The first indicative price I had for boarding out and plastering was… Ouch! Hoping that might be an outlier; it’s certainly more than Homebuilder’s Bible was suggesting £ per m2. In other news, we’ve found somebody who wants the timber garage, which we need to remove to create enough space for deliveries. He, his dad, and a friend are taking it down today.

Clearing the site… (Last weekend I didn’t think there was enough for a blog entry. But this weekend, after a week and a half at groundworks it turns out I had more in my head to clear out than I realise, so it’s a bit longer than expected…) After the grunt and sweat and fatigue of manual demolition it felt like one big ‘Hurry Up -Wait!’, the wait partly imposed by Steve (semi retired builder) being on holiday. The plan was to start groundworks at the beginning of May when neither Steve or Bob (structural engineer) were on holiday. We had a window of nearly two weeks between Steve’s return and Bob going on the 12th of May. But events transpired so we ended up with Kev the Dig starting on site on the 7th. The best laid plans and all that. Steve has a 1.5 ton digger, and he and I could have done the lot, albeit more slowly than we have. But our party wall agreements and our site insurance all required “experienced (tick) and insured (cross) contractors”. So I’d cast around for recommendations and ended up with just one recommendation, Andy the Boss and Kev the Dig, so I got a quote from them. The cost was one of those ‘Roy Schneider’ moments, from Jaws as he sat on the beach and while the camera zoomed into him and the background got further away. But it seemed like we didn’t have a choice as we didn’t want to just google random dudes. So throughout the demolition we had this big looming cost slowly trundling towards us in my mind. Demolition was all consuming, not because of what it was so much as the sheer full on-ness of it, the constant intoxication of elation and fatigue. And that meant I put insufficient time into looking at alternatives, even though we are ‘cashflow challenged’ in getting to watertight. Over and over again I’m learning that the building world takes ‘just in time’ to the ultimate limits. Days before we are due to start I suddenly get given several recommendations of good guys who will happily work day rate and so I arrange to meet some on site for them to have a look so I let Andy the Boss know that we simply couldn’t afford it. Turns out being dead straight with peeps (which in fairness is always our intention) does pay. One quick phone call and it went from me saying “really sorry we can’t afford you” to “yes we understand the risk of day rates but we are really happy to work at those day rates”. So on the 6th Andy the Boss and Kev the Dig turn up with a 2.5 ton digger. Next day Kev the Dig and I start pulling up concrete and scraping off the site. I say “and I” in a kind of loose, hanging round on site, tidying up a bit and wondering what exactly I should do, sort of way. I wasn’t really needed most of the time. I did dig to find the sewer pipe a couple of meters in from the road, cap it off and note position. Will be interesting to see if I can easily find it again. We discovered some bigger than expected lumps of concrete, which Kev dealt with by lifting one end up and dropping them. Later one of our neighbours shared the fact that they could feel those bits happening as they sat at the far side of their house. Scary. Kev suggested we take some of the big heap of stuff we’d saved for floor make up (which I’ve learned to call “crush”) and spread it at the front of the site as a sort of parking/lorry bearing area. Damn good idea, I should have thought of that. So I did have a role to play. My role was from time to time to say “yes Kev”. At least it made a change from “yes Steve”. Kev was very considerate to the neighbours, stopping when he noticed excessive dust being created and sending me round to conduct neighbourly relations. And our poor, dust covered, deafened neighbours continued to be rather brilliant and tolerant. Another example of how fantastically lucky we have been. Thursday lunchtime saw Kev suggest, politely, that I was in the F way (technical term), and that he’d be quicker if he could shut the fencing and not constantly be checking that he wasn’t about to flatten anyone. So I went home and in truth not being on site that afternoon or the day after as Kev did his thing was tough. But when J and I went to site on Saturday it turned out that the world hadn’t ended without me. Actual founds… On Monday Steve and I set out the profiles. What a whole new experience, and I found it a lot more stressful than I had expected. The implications of making a mistake just didn’t bear thinking about. Steve sighed and shook his head at me on a very regular basis but we eventually got there. Then Tuesday Kev the Dig was back, so we started digging in the north east corner. Exactly as indicated by the test holes we hit good ground just below the surface, excellent for our shallow founds. Then the digger straddled that trench to do the south eastern corner. Soft ground. Damn. We at first thought we’d just hit a soakaway, and we did pull out bits of concrete and pipe. We had no choice but to fill in the north eastern corner trench again and get seriously stuck in to the other rear corner. We went down about an extra 600mm, which in the scheme of things is not that huge, and the soft bit was less than two meters long though of course one digs more than that to make sure. So it’s at this point that the warranty surveyor turned up. I’d requested that they attend the next day but they had staffing issues, and as I had previously agreed with the lead surveyor that they’d work partly off pictures if need be, I agreed an inspection as late as possible on Tuesday afternoon. That turned out to mean 12:00, as he had to get home (two hours drive) to pack for a holiday. Sigh. At this point we’d dug about 7.5m of our circa 72m (linear) foundations. His only comment was that he thought we’d need another inspection. He was on site about 10 minutes, and I learned more about his impending trip to Turkey than he did about our build. I got a call from him that evening confirming that I’d need another inspection and that we should cut off the little ends of roots that we’re sticking out of the first few inches of topsoil around the trenches. Roots in the trenches I could understand being a concern, but hey ho, just say yes and try and smile. Anyway, not long after that visit our BCO turned up, also early. But oh, how different. In a lovely way he gently interviewed first Steve then Kev the Dig. I can easily imagine many don’t realise he is interviewing them. He didn’t need to interview me, he didn’t need to. From previous phone calls he knew what a well meaning numpty he was dealing with. We talked about the soft ground we’d found and what we’d done in response; I talked him through the overall project; we talked through the drainage plan (which as a result needs to be redone); we talked through how we had managed and continue to manage risk to the neighbours; and we talked through the floor build up and the placement of insulation and DPM. And it appeared we passed muster. Most pleasing, our founds have BCO approval. The rest of that day passed in a blur of digging and moving spoil to the front of site ready for a grab lorry next day. As part of that we found an unexpected big lump of concrete underground, half of which needed gunning out. I lay awake thinking about the build sometimes, well, mosttimes. That night it occurred to me that during all that shenanigans we’d not rechecked the exact location of the founds. Our outside edges are 900mm wide with the walls placed very near the edge. That means that the placement of those founds is critical - kind of a tolerance of +50mm/-0mm type of thing. Next morning at site I annoyed everyone by checking. 100mm out on the deep bit, less further along which could thankfully be sorted with the digger, but not the deep bit. Oh. So, with a pour booked for the afternoon and Steve and Kev fully employed digging ready for that I searched the employee list for a mug to pop down the 1.4m trench, remove the shuttering on one side and manually spade off 4” and shovel that spoil out all in double quick time. The options were somewhat limited. It was either me or me. That’ll be me then. And after that it was my turn to attack the big lump of concrete with the breaker after Steve had done the first half. Tough morning. But the humour helps, as illustrated by the message Steve sent J. Humph. Getting that done, getting all the stop ends done ready with starter bars, etc. was more time consuming than we had allowed for. But it was ok, I was in control, it was agreed that I would call when ready for the concrete lorry. Only it transpired that Kev happened to be on the phone to Andy the Boss and he told him we were ready for concrete far earlier than I would have done. Massive stress and much gritting of teeth and we did get there, but it was very touch and go. Not doing that again. Thankfully J was onsite to instil a little calm and perspective. And to keep Steve chatting when I needed him to accompany me in running round like a headless chicken (and help me get the stop ends right!). The thing is Steve knew it was all going to be ok, and that I was panicking over nothing. Shame I didn’t! The pour itself was über manic. It was agreed by a majority vote that I was to be in wellies in the trench removing props. (Steve and Kev voted for it to be me, i.e. not them). It’s a bit like an old black and white army film comedy where they ask for a volunteer and everyone but the prize idiot takes a step back while the officer looks away. I had no idea concrete could move so quickly. Struts I had hammered home with every ounce of strength simply slipped out of position as the concrete pushed sideways, but then had to be instantly grabbed and thrown out before being enveloped and lost forever. Down the 1.4m bit was the worst by far. Definite feeling of peril, even though all I would have had to do was stand up and let the guys pull me out -so only my wellies were in any real danger of being entombed, but still a bit scary. So next day I quietly ensured that all accepted that the next phase would be less stressy and better controlled. First diversion from my plan was the ply shuttering. Earlier in the process I’d asked about its removal and was told it was up to me, it could be left there but we could remove it if I preferred. So when I asked if our first job was ply removal I was told that it was too late, if it was to come out it has to come out straight away. Another Oh. Second diversion was another soft bit, opposite the first one indicating that there appeared to be a seam of soft stuff running across the rear of the houses, perhaps thats why they are where they are, to avoid building over a small brook. Either way we dug past it and ended up with a mirror of the other side. This time I tied rope to the lowest struts. Not being down there for the pour again. In hindsight it’s entirely possible that I needn’t have been in the trench at all, but it was effectively a leg pull for the grockle. I did mention previously that the build process is so full of laughter! That evening a small bunch of Suffolkian (carefully how you pronounce that in polite company) buildhubbers met in the pub near our site. As I lead the 47 seconds long site tour (errr, here’s a filled trench, here’s and empty one, and heres some dirt) I realised that the only thing I had to show off was how close the pub was. The safety brief before entering site was longer than the tour - “you should all have hard hats, boots, hi vis and gloves on but you know that so it’s your own bloody fault”. Oh well. It was an interesting evening and I enjoyed my nachos. Because the concrete was ordered for 10:00 the next day we had ample time to prepare. Only to find that they couldn’t get to site till 12:00. There’s one thing more stressy than being tight for time for a pour, and thats dealing with two keyed up impatient builders for two hours with little that can be done. Between the first load and the second we needed to dig a small foundation linking the previous pour to the current one, with the concrete from today’s first pour held back by ply. That we did just in time (providing the stress fix that groundworkers appear to enjoy). That ply did have to come out to allow the two pours of the day to meld, and that took a surprising amount of force. After a late lunch with much planning talk, Steve set my homework (tidying, moving stuff, ordering), and even after that I got home a little earlier than usual, with two thirds of a set of foundations. Behind schedule but still pleasing.

I hadn't realised that my last entry was in Nov last year. Where has the time gone. As with many self builds, particularly those on a DIY basis we have been very subject to weather slowing things down, not that it could be much slower. But, in fact compared with last year we have done loads. The NOT wall (the side of the barn that was open) is now a wall. This wall is 16m long, with 4 lots of French door gaps. double skin block with 150 cavity and 4 heavy lintels. It then turns the corner to head south. We also had a big overgrown bank which we dug out and cleared. Then out next door farmer came and took away all our soil spoil which we didn't need for some holes in his field. About 40 ton we think. And in the process flattened the bank. I then planted a hedge and seeded the bank. Inside what was the barn we have started digging down, in total it needs to go down 500mm so this is just a start The back bank needed digging back to allow for the digger for drains when we get to that stage. And finally in March we've started taking some of the remaining roof off, to be the stables roof in due course Hard to believe this has gone from bog to beach in a couple of months. Once the roof is dismantled then we can start with the trenches for phase 2 of the build. Thanks for reading. See you next time,.

The last bit of soil pipe and inspection chambers that are close to the house are completed. The ICF is delivered and by the end of the week we have the start of door and window openings. The insulation is extruded polystyrene XPS 100mm each side of the concrete cavity. U value of 0.14 The windows have rebar in them before 50mm insulation closures are added. At the weekend we had a yellow wind warning for the South West, our home weather station recorded top gusts of 40mph. I’m pleased to say the R-wall ICF survived with no problems. Total man days of labour week 4 is 22 man days split between Groundworks and ICF builders. The build is going on very close to our workshop entrance which makes the delivery of vehicles and test drives limited. This week we took delivery of a previous customers Jensen CV-8 which now has a new owner who has sent it to us for further works over winter.

Back in ‘91 we self built the house we now live in. Block, render and pantiles. We were both working full time in those days and we did as much as we could, but that doesn’t include groundwork, blockwork, structural carpentry or plastering. Rural location, fields front and back, nice big garden. A third of a century later, at the end of September ‘23, we found ourselves in the back garden of a small, run down 1920s or 1930s timber framed bungalow. It’s in easy walking distance of the centre of a small market town, even closer is a lovely riverside walk, on a quiet-ish road, near a park, and the long, narrow, over run back garden in a quiet little oasis made of half a dozen other long back gardens. For us it’s the location to die for. Especially with our first floor bedroom overlooking the back garden. But the dark and sad and unmortgageable bungalow is not to our taste and crucially, it doesn’t have a first floor. Yet. On one side is another bungalow (a matching pair to ours) but fortunately on the other side is a two storey house (phew!). So we bought it, and put in a pre app during the buying process. The feedback came in (with some gentle, respectful encouragement) just before exchange and that feedback was generally very positive. Between exchange and completion we worked out what we wanted to live in and we met a couple of architects on site, one of which we were happy to work with so we engaged them. As soon as we completed in mid January we submitted our planning app, and we felled some trees and cleared lots of shrubs so we could start to see the garden. I quickly got to know the guys at the tip and I got much better at reversing Trevor the trailer. Our planning design is v close to the pre app design save changes hinted at by the planners, and in early May it was permitted without modification. Woo hoo. A few conditions (e.g. can’t start till September) but nothing too onerous. So, that means lots of time to research, plan, analyse and generally overthink just about everything! Now all we need to do is sell our house….

Greetings on a miserably rainy Sunday October morning. Perfect weather for catching up on some blog writing! As the title suggests this blog will be about our external coverings of the house and, by the end of it, the outside of the building will be pretty much finished allowing us to crack on internally. We started many months ago by battening the outside of the buildings. As we are having external blinds and they have a requirement for fitting the blind cassette we needed a large gap between the house walls and the outside of the cladding. This meant 50mm x 50mm timber battens and counter battens. We did this ourselves and saved many thousands and, even though it was slow going (as, it seems, everything is when you do it yourself!), it was very satisfying with the carpenter saying that it was good work and he’d seen chippies do a lot worse jobs than we did. Nice warm fuzzy feeling ensued. We are having a mixture of burnt Siberian larch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakisugi) and, to contrast the black, standard Siberian larch on the ‘arms’ of our property and entrance porch (all will be revealed in photos below) and I ordered all the cladding to be delivered on-site prior to the carpenter starting. The carpenter started on the garage using the standard Siberian larch which we bought from Jewson at a very reasonable price, and quite a bit cheaper than we could get from the usual timber cladding suppliers and we are very happy with the quality of the wood. He then went on to the black charred larch (which gets everywhere and he and his tools looked like they’d been in a coal mine by the end of each day!). We purchased the charred larch from Permachar (https://permachar.co.uk) who gave us a brilliant price. The wood itself was burnt and delivered from Lithuania (https://degmeda.eu) but they will only sell to the UK via Permachar. It is stunning wood, but incredibly fragile and any sort of dragging or scraping will cause the black char to flake off. While he was busy doing that and while the scaffolding was up I thought it a good time to get the guttering started. Our architect specified Zinc guttering and after a lot of thought and looking at stainless steel and zinc we also decided that zinc was the choice for us. We ordered it from Rainclear (https://www.rainclear.co.uk/guttering/copper-zinc-guttering/guttering-fittings.html?color=235) who offer next day delivery if in stock and were incredibly helpful and very well priced. It’s also a clip on system which even I managed to install without any major issues! Around the same time and while the carpenter was busy putting the cladding up our external blinds got fitted. We bought those from a local company called Powell blinds (https://powellblinds.com) who stepped in brilliantly at the last minute after we were seriously let down by Cornerstar Aluminium (long story which I won’t get in to here). The blinds are fitted up behind the cladding above the windows but externally so they will be hidden from view when lifted up. We absolutely love them and during the heatwave this summer we lowered them and this drastically reduced the temperature inside the house. There was still one large south facing window that didn’t have blinds that needed shading. We wanted and the architect designed a Brise Soleil in this area but all we had to go on was a 2D drawing. I contacted a few companies about getting one made and installed and the quotes came back at between £6k - £7k! A figure we simply could not afford. So I did research and spoke to a local forge called Horsham Forge (https://www.horshamforge.co.uk) with an idea I had. He said ‘that could be done but how about this instead?’. He suggested brackets with a pole running through them and vertical timbers slid on. Genius! On to Sketchup where I draw up the brackets and gave them to the forge to be created and spoke to my timber manager at Jewson who procured me some thermowood at the size I needed and got my carpenter to fit it and it cost me £1700 in total. So we saved around £5k by doing it ourselves and we also enjoyed the journey and got a solution that we designed (with the help of the forge of course). We think it looks fab and it does a good job of shading from the sun apart from a couple of hours when the sun is directly facing that side of the house. So we will still get some solar gain but it is definitely reduced and it’s a brilliant architectural feature. 😉 Right, while all this was going on the chippie was finishing up the cladding and now that it is all finished and I have put the downpipes on we have an almost finished external facade to our dream home. We love it and think it’s stunning. So very happy with the carpenter’s work (http://www.kmlcarpentryandroofing.co.uk). Kieran’s attention to detail at the junctions between the 2 types of wood is fabulous as it is in other areas too. He would also discuss any issues and potential solutions with us to make sure we were happy with them rather than just doing something he thought was right. Hopefully the pictures below do it all justice! (Note: please ignore the 110mm brown downpipe in the below photo! It will eventually be a rain chain but this works for now. 😉 ) Thanks for reading and we hope you like what we’ve achieved so far.

Week 13. Or at least, my body thinks it’s week 13, whereas the calendar says it’s week 3. It’s really odd looking back on the demolition. Starting to strip tiles off seems so much longer ago than 20 days. Most odd. The week started with a tidy up day, as Steve wasn’t there. Almost all of the wiring for da bungalow ran through the loft, and was set to be in the way so out came my new and wonderfully sharp side cutters. About 5 minutes in they went back in my pocket and were replaced by a cordless angle grinder with a thin metal cutting blade. Super quick especially when a bunch of wires were involved. Habits and techniques quickly and unconsciously form through trial and error or, more often on this project, by watching Steve. He’s had best part of five decades building and I’m lucky to be able to tap into that. More luck comes in the form of a guy scrounging firewood at the tip. Phone numbers exchanged (goodness that sounds dodgy!) and a promise to let him know what we have available. It transpired that the ground worker didn’t have a use for our roof timbers so in two runs the wood man has removed about 5 cubic yards and wants all but the nailiest bits. More skip savings and he seems to understand that for it to work he has to turn up when agreed and load up without help. Marvellous. So on Tuesday we started stripping off the internal plaster. The external walls are 4” x 2” stud with metal lathe either side then pebble dash outside and a weak cement render inside with a skim. Between the studs is a patchy application of white fluffy insulation, which had settled significantly, or was completely absent where they missed sections. A fantastic illustration of the cowboy insulators of yesteryear. The plan was to knock off the internal plaster, then peel off the wire to grab and bag the fluff section by section, then thump the pebble dash off from inside. We had visions of the whole neighbourhood being covered in wind blown non bio degradable fluff for decades to come. We soon discovered that the tool of choice was yet again, my trusty spade, backed up by my SDS with a funny crushing bit. Hours of hacking leaves the wire mesh clean enough to go in metal recycling. The render was then barrowed to the growing aggregate pile in the back garden to be used to build up the solid floor. Peeling off the metal lathe involved much yanking with a nailbar and we generated an enormous pile of plastic bags of captured fluff, the only non recyclable bit. Quite pleasing. The frightening bit was knocking off the pebble dash. Too easy. It came off in huge bits with very little effort. It happened so quickly that once we’d cleared that up we had time to start cutting down some stud work. We started with the end wall. A couple of high level cuts and a gentle push and down it fell into the garden, in two sections, with a small plume of wood dust from the disintegrating rotten sole plate. If our neighbours see these bits they’ll be scared stiff at the likely condition of their near identical bungalow, built as a pair roughly a hundred years ago. The chimney and masonry wall in the centre of the bungalow forms a stable support to the side walls as we’d left the joists connected for safety, so we started cutting out an upright and a joist at a time. These walls are only a meter from our neighbour’s walls, so I stood for a good few minutes having a bit of a wobble before doing the first one. It finally occurred to me that the years I’ve spent cutting trees down (an odd hobby but a satisfying one) were of use. Just think of the studs like little trees. Worked a treat. So on Wednesday we went home pleased with progress. I was alone on site Thursday and Friday so it was tip runs to get rid of the fluff bag and wire mountains, and lots more hours of spade work stripping plaster. When on Friday I realised how dusty the site (and our neighbours front patio) had become I quickly deployed the hose to damp the floors down which improved the feel of the shell significantly. I had a day off Saturday, and J and I visited site for J to tend plants and see progress first hand. Oddly, I found not working really difficult. I really needed the weekend off, especially my shoulders, but my head felt I should get in there. As both J and Steve remind me constantly, it’s a marathon, not a sprint, and there’s always tomorrow. But stopping before exhaustion is, I find, very difficult. My body clock has shifted completely now. I wake before 06:00 and lay there thinking stuff through as there’s no way I can get back to sleep even though I’m still tired. We’re still chasing quotes on many things, and it seems in a lot of areas our need for early quotes simply doesn’t fit the industry. We are asking too early, though of course we want the info for both budgetary reassurance or to be able to plan nicely in advance. However getting numbers requires the work to be imminent, it appears. This is even the case with our BCO. He wants all changes from the architect drawn building regs plans authorised by a grown up. Acceptable grown ups include architects and SEs. A good example is the attic. We do not want eve vents, we want just ridge vents and a roof sealed by OSB (sort of sarking). Our architect refused to remove the eve vents as that’s what he’s always done, so we are fortunate that our SE is happy with our alternative plan. All I have to do is draw it up and submit it to Bob, our SE, for approval. I know that’s vital work but as it doesn’t involve a spade it somehow feels less so. Yet another odd thing.

Well, it's been a busy month. I'm taking weekly Pilates to keep my back in check and so far so good. This is the first week I've taken off without any incidents to progress the house. This is the list of what I'm managing currently just to tickle my brain in a years time! Plumbers due to start any day - prep bathroom fixtures - a lot of boxes onsite! Met Electrician to get quote Electrician recommended kitchen design be finalized - booked appointment in showroom Went to get sample of Moso bamboo flooring but they stopped making their natural product. Wanted to use sample to choose kitchen door colour. Contacted the bamboo flooring company so they do ship to Ireland, working out how to get samples and if I'll float / glue and use natural or strand woven downstairs (have a bedroom downstairs to transition between if I mix) I think my foul drainage is connected to the storm drain outlet and visa versa - contacted Irish Water rep to check as plans say I'm right but the smell and sludge says otherwise! Insulation - started Gutex under roof install, walls 90% finished Getting ready to order MVHR but my preferred spot is very busy and could be too tight for all the pipes! Japanese Bath arrived, looks very nice! Bought spa reheating setup and pump Got next bank drawdown after single digit typo held up cheque requisition for a week Cracked a tooth, 50/50 if filling will hold or I'll need removal and root canal treatment! Find out in a week! Installed Rat flap 4" fine but the other pipe appears to be a 6", flushed out pipes with some water. For the external walls (internal buildup) I'm using a 40mm gap and a further 2x6 wall inside. I fill the gap with 50mm rockwool as a thermal break (220mm timber frame) and then add 100mm Moy Metac to hit my U values. I've to use Gutex under the roof in a 60+80mm offset layer with ejot screws & washers and then a 2x4 stud to hold it all in place. Both setups give me a 40-45mm service cavity although the 92mm MVHR pipes will need more carving out of the Gutex when they are installed. I installed Cellecta Screedboard 28 upstairs to provide soundproofing on the floor. You glue these together and leave a 12mm gap around the room edges for some yellow foam they provide. I ran out of boards and had to get some other boards (5) for the landing as I'd miscalculated and they only ship pallets. I also left a 925mm square gap for the ensuite shower. The boards are heavy (18kg each) - I had 42 of them but needed another 5 for the 33m2 area I wanted to cover. I might still add sound insulation between the Pozi joists but for now, I'm happy! My poor car has been taking a lot of runs to the dump lately, offcuts and waste just builds up. I finally got rid of 20 or so pallets lying around so the driveway is clear for work next month. Just need a working toilet to get rid of the tufloo! So, about to start first fix and have a lot of stuff on order / about to order to get me through that. Am choosing Fermacell but can get 2500x600 sizes locally. Finally - I nearly paid the 8K heating deposit to a Nigerian who had got in between the communication between me and the supplier. They asked me to send to a GB CoOp bank IBAN which I thought odd and then followed up that the invoice person was on leave and had I sent the payment yet, everything was ok their end and they were waiting. Luckily I phoned the supplier and we realized what was going on so nearly 8K lost, goes to show! I got lucky as the delay in getting my next cheque from the bank meant I didn't have 8K to send anyway! If something does add up - ring!

Off Grid Challenges Recently, there has been a few people talking about off grid living. This is an admirable and romantic idea, and something I would like to do myself. Then reality kicks in. First we must agree what we mean by off grid. To me it means not connected to main services, but usage of public services i.e. roads, domestic rubbish, healthcare, education, policing, food, clothing etc is allowed. Basically it comes down to water, waste and power. I have come to these limitations because I cannot live without the others. No one want to see me in handmade clothes and washed only in spring water. So the first thing to look at is how much energy I actually use, and when I use it. Luckily I take a keen interest in this and log my electrical data every few seconds (a mean of 8.5 seconds). Internal temperature data is also logged. Initially, to keep things simple, I work with monthly data, but will drop down to weekly, daily and half hourly data when needed. The chart below is the big picture of what I use. Chart 1 I am generally quite happy with my overall usage and internal temperature. This winter I am experimenting a bit with the temperature as my working hours have changed after 15 years of working evenings I have gone back to working days. As Chart 1 shows, January to April shows I have my storage heaters on and use a Mean Power of between 0.7 kW and 0.4 kW, then it drops to 0.36 kW in March, then down to 0.25 kW until the end of October. As you will have noticed, there are two Mean Power lines. One is the ‘normal’ interpretation of the Mean i.e. the sum of all readings, divided by the number of readings. This obviously includes the minimum readings, which are 0 kW and sustained maximum 4.33 kW. ‘Sustained’ in this instance means for at least half an hour. There are times where the Maximum Power peaks at 13.16 kW when looking at half hour data, but this may be for just a few seconds or minutes. By filtering out the 0 kW times, one gets a more realistic idea of what is actually being drawn and when it happens. This is important as it can help when choosing storage and delivery systems. Without changing anything, including usage behaviour, I could get an inverter that has a maximum power delivery of 14 kW and know that all my usage would be covered. Storage, for one day, without any inputs, would need to be at least 26 kWh once 20% efficiency losses are taken into account. The 20% losses are based on a ‘best guess’ as this is a very variable percentage based on different power draws, battery charging and discharging temperatures and the state of charge they are at. So what do I use my energy for. Luckily, being on E7, I can easily see what is used for water heating and what is everyday usage. By looking at my April to November night usage, I can get a fairly good estimate of my domestic hot water usage. Chart 2 Chart 2 above shows the half hourly usage between April and up to November, when there is no space heating on. The mean usage over that period is 4.2 kWh, so apart from the washing machine usage and the fridge switching on, it is fair to assume my daily water energy usage is around 4 kWh/day. This is bourne out my my higher than average water usage. One of my many failing is that I like a bath, every day, and would have two a day if I did not curb my enthusiasm. If I fitted a heat pump, to heat the water, I could probably reduce that down to 2 kWh/day. Or if I took showers, less than 1, but I dislike having a shower, though they are good at getting the day’s fat, blood and grizzle off my body after work. Chart 3 Chart 3 shows the same data, but for January and February when the storage heaters where on. The daily mean, for space and water heating, has increased to 12.25 kWh/day, so 8 kWh/day are for space heating. This works out as a power delivery, for my house, of 27 W.m-2. Using a heat pump could reduce that by a factor of 3, so less than 2.6 kWh/day or 9 W.m-2. Looking at the mean internal air temperature, I see they are within 0.5°C. This is good as it shows that my heating regime is working well and does not need adjusting. So having got my usage figures, and estimated some usage figures if I changed to a heat pump, what can be done about generating energy on site to cover approximately 8 kWh/day. My house is small, and the roof will only support, at the very most, 3 kWp of photovoltaic. It is also less than ideal facing with the optimal side facing South West. Looking at PVGIS to get an estimate of what I could generate, highlighting December because it is the worse month and with similar usage to January, it shows that there would be a total generation of 24 kWh. That works out as around 0.75 kWh.day-1 It is not until April that I could cover my usage, and by October a deficit would be showing. The deficits are in the table below. Month Usage /kWh PV Generation /kWh Deficit January 248 31 -217 February 232 58 -174 March 248 129 -119 October 155 83 -72 November 180 38 -142 December 248 24 -224 Whiles the above energy deficits are not that large, they need to be covered. Even if a battery storage system was installed, without the generation capacity, regardless of how spasmodic the generation, it would still not be covered. The only realistic generation method is to use a small generator. Using December’s data, as it is the worst month overall, on average, a 2 kW generator would have to run for 4 hours a day once efficiency losses where taken into account. During these 4 hours, a battery system of 26 kWh capacity, could be efficiently charged with 8 kWh of energy. By having an oversize battery storage system, more effective charging and discharging can take place, and the system will have a longer lifespan. It also allows for some days to probably not run a generator at all depending on the weather. My choice for a generator would be bottled gas (LPG). While diesel may offer a small improvement in efficiency, they are noisy and if the stored fuel gets some water in it, can be expensive to rectify or repair. Gasolene to LPG is a tried and tested conversion. Ideally a combined heat and power (CHP) unit would be used as these offer the best possible efficiency with about 30% of the fuel input turned into usable thermal energy and 20% into electricity. Unfortunately there are no easily available small CHP units or around 5 kW total output. This would mean that a DIY solution would have to be made. This would be an interesting project. There are some small capacity, water cooled, twin cylinder motorcycle engines that may lend themselves well to this application. There are also cheap, permanent magnet, low speed, direct current current motors that can be driven as a generator. Noise would be the biggest problem with a generator, but as it may only run for a few hours a day, then it can be used during the daytime. It can also be buried in an earthen bank, with secondary inlet and exhaust systems fitted. Modern cars are very quiet at low revolutions, no reasons that a modern motorcycle engine should be any different. My car, and old diesel is quite quiet at tickover, and it is using 1 kWh of fuel per hour. So to conclude, while it is not possible for me to be ‘off grid’, with a larger, more isolated property, and the use of a generator, and about £25,000 of investment, I could be off grid.

I've been out with my back for a bit but now taking Pilates classes and everything feels fine so far. Been crawling around the new attic and installing the Intello membrane and taping for air tightness lying down and in difficult positions without issue. Phew!! I've put a call into the Plumber for first fix and will see when they are next available in 2025. Once they are available I'll book the Electrician. Updates are as follows: Interior stud work for outside walls nearly completed except for open plan area. This is provide additional space for more insulation and a service cavity. 95% of Moy Metac insulation fitted, hope to complete today except for specialized areas (Velux and Oriel Window) 95% of air tightness taping completed except for door thresholds and and Velux/Oriel areas. I've used up my extra rolls of Tescon Vana tape and did a quick run to pick up more from ecological before they shut for Xmas. Needed 2 more rolls, so got 3 !! Very few places stock it and usually I get it delivered but I plan on working on the house over Xmas and needed to have it on hand or I'd have to wait until 2025 to get more! There are some trickier areas to get airtight where studs protrude / the roof intersects, I'm just taping the hell out of it! And using other sealing products to help. The place is a lot quieter with the insulation in place and even though its 3oC outside, the attic work was comfortable as the heat from my efforts is being retained up there! Helps a lot but when I take a break and sit downstairs it gets cold fast and I can see my breath!! Thinking about the outside drainage and have a shopping list as not heard back from groundworker so if I have to do this solo wanted to figure out what I'd need. Tempted to buy now but need to stop distracting myself and work out exact quantities of internal products needed to finish insulation, plasterboarding and to fit out bathrooms I'm the proud owner of three toilets, a wall hung cabinet with sink, tap and led mirror. First time buying any of those! The plan is to get a working bathroom up by Spring so I can ditch the Tufloo outside! I can flush by bucket! So, what a 2024! Slower than I expected but I'm nearly ready for 1st fix and when the trades get onsite they won't hang around. I found an excellent bathroom outfit who can provide a tiler and everything I'm looking for and are local. I plan to let them tackle the main bathroom and all the tiling but may do some of the ensuites myself if I feel up to it! I've used 53 rolls of Moy Metac so far and am the owner of a wide array of power tools. Am proficient in working without main electricity and just off battery power only most evenings (No temp supplies allowed where I am). All the evening work has added up nicely! Best wishes to all planning or executing their projects and hope all goes well for you in 2025!

Not posted an update in a while but was focused on getting the outside of the house rendered, painted, guttered and drill vented before the scaffolding came down. It was off hire on a Monday and I worked 11-12 hours days on the Saturday and Sunday to get through a few tasks including chain drilling the MVHR vents (2) among other things. Basically anything at height. Anyway, while peeling the masking tape off the soffit while lying down on my side I moved to all fours to get up and my back went into spasm! I was still able to move around but the next day it was sore. Off I went to the Chiropractor the next day and he thankfully sorted me out. A few weeks later and I was putting the floor down in the new attic and again lying down while slightly propping myself up to secure the T&G OSB with screws and I felt my back get sore. The next day again I was in agony and off to the Chiro the next day. The following week I took a different approach to finish the attic, very carefully, and remaining standing on the ladder all the time working backwards towards the hatch opening. Thankfully this avoided any further injury and I completed the task. Fast forward a few weeks later and I visited my mum, contracted covid and while propped up in bed the OTHER side of my back went. And this was no fun. No Chiro for me while testing positive (had to wait another 7 days) and it really set itself in. As soon as I tested negative I booked in to the Chiro but despite two visits it was still sore. I could do a 1/2 day at the weekend and a good nights sleep could repeat but it was hindering me. I'd booked 30 x 2x4 and 100 2x6 for delivery this week before the latest episode and had taken the week off work. After they arrived on Tuesday (I insisted on a HIAB thankfully so they could be dropped inside my boundary where I could secure it) I moved the thirty 2x4's inside but felt my back beginning to go again. I lay down but it was getting worse so I covered the remaining lumber and headed home. A few bad days to follow. I tried one Physio my neighbour recommended on Wednesday but it didn't shift the slow, gradual healing along much. I tried Panadol, Ibuprofen, even CBD oil but nothing was helping. I went to a local Physio yesterday and have received some treatment and exercises so I'm resigned to 2-3 months of recovery (my estimate, not theirs) to make sure this is really healed but start Pilates as soon as the Physio says I'm ready. I've been resting up all week and just have to accept I'm the weakest link! In an 18 month project so a few weeks isn't that much but I'd hoped to crack on this week after covid etc. Not to be!! Yeah, so take care of yourselves, especially if you are solo. I've accomplished so much over the last 10 months to get here, it was just one deadline where I pushed my body too hard and am now paying the price. It was a fear of mine but now its here I'm just going to rest, get back to work, wait for my back to be comfortable again (it's still sore) and take things easy for a while (I can plan electrical, home automation etc in the meantime!). How do people in their 60's even do this?!! I'm in my 50's and finding it hard! Fair play to those folks!! Anyway, Off to lie down, I'll call a few favours to get the lumber indoors when I fell I can help at least a little and only tackle jobs when I have a good back regime in place. I reckon it's 8 more months to finish. Can't wait!!!

Week 9 and 10 The gable ladder is up, and the OSB 3 is installed over the rafters. The overhang supports are shaped for the secure attachments and put up. The South side of the roof gets its cross batten. The scaffolding comes down, unfortunately due to miscommunication between the director of the company in the office and the director working on site the scaffolding comes down before the North side gets battened. The builder has given us the materials and refunded us an amount for the labour. It was always our plan to try and get the foundations and walls put up by the same company, so there is no doubt about site measurements. During the tendering process we found it very hard to get a groundworks team who worked closely with a builder where the combined price was what we expected. We had builders who came and quoted then ‘ghosted us’, perhaps they didn’t like us living so close to the build or like that it was only a shell build. One builder put his estimate in for both groundworks and the build but suggested his mates company could do the groundworks cheaper as he had his own equipment, but his mates quote doubled the first estimate. Which left us with little confidence in the builders estimate. Getting a detailed estimates and quotes for groundworks, build and roof became nigh on impossible, and I was quite prepared to call the whole thing off or just do the bare minimum to secure the building works had started. We had still added value to our land and it would have kept our long term options of selling the land with the planning permission commenced. Eventually we found a building contractor who could do the foundations and the build. Although I ideally wanted a dry shell before we took over the project managing, we are parting company with the builder sooner than planned. This is partly due to his inflexibility of using only his choice of solar installer who wouldn’t put the solar panels on that we wanted. The builders solar installer wanted to install 6.52kwp but I had found panels giving me 8kwp and this was better for us and the SAP/EPC. The builders installer kept looking at an outdated list and saying the panels were not MCS certified. The panels only got their MCS certification in July and despite me telling him the MCS certificate number, checking with the wholesaler and MCS that they were ok he wouldn’t change his mind. Due to the builders rising costs we decided we could no longer continue with his company and instead we have sourced our own roofer and solar installer, who will install the all black 500w panels I wanted. This has saved us over £12,000 but delayed work slightly as one lot of scaffolding had to come down on the Friday/Saturday and the roofer will put his own scaffolding up on Tuesday. Total man days of labour for week 9 is 14 days. Total man days of labour for week 10 is 17 days. Grand total of labour from building contractor is 157 hours, this has been recorded by me just for reference it does not include any scaffolding, up or down. The actual cost was on a fixed price quote. Total cost to date. Brought forward £45645 Payments to builder for installing ICF walls, internal load bearing walls, stud walls and roof structure £95000 (ICF £15,000 apx) Total to date £140,645 I have quotes for £20k for the roofer, £8k for the solar and £22K for the installed windows. If this all goes to plan thats less than £200k before internals start.

One aspect of the Passive House PHPP I paid close attention to was overheating risks. As a result we looked at shading and extended the downstairs porch to shade the downstairs bedroom window. The upstairs we though about using Brise Soleil and have 3 canopies over the 3 main windows. I've been working on this for about 8 months with more than half on design and structural engineering and manufacture taking place in June. Then I spent most of July / August trying to get them to fit before bring back the bricklayer to finish some work and the day before scaffolding being taken down, finding I couldn't get the blades to fit....!! So the idea was get briese soleil drawings and have my timber frame SE come up with a plan to support them. This involved extra vertical posts either side of the windows and a big metal "caison" as I call it bolted 360 degrees into the timber structure. I got the timber frame lads to do this bit for me as it was a 2 man job and I'm a solo worker. Then it was over to me to fit the arms. There are two arms per shade with 5 x blades between them. Each arm has a baseplate, a thermal break plate and is bolted through the timber frame and caison and meets another metal plate and then washers and nuts are attached and the whole thing fits together. There were a number of issues, the first was the hole centers for the mild steel caison didn't line up with any of the the powered coating aluminium brise soleil components. Well, Aluminium is an easier material to work with so I used a step drill to enlarge the holes in everything but the mild steel. 1 Arm fitted, then the other. Next a dry fit with with the inner and outer solar sail in place so we can see how we are doing and nope, wouldn't fit! I ended up having to go at the mild steel too but it was much tougher going and I probably only ended up hardening it. Eventually I got the six arms fitted and knocked out the sails so that the brick layer could finish the final course. Last weekend I left re fitting the sails until Sunday, and the scaffolding was off hire on Monday. Not chancing my luck I went at it and found the arms for the longest blades (1.8 meters apart) 30mm too close. It was too far to wedge my body in the gap so how do I solve this. I know it was tight but thought I'd finagle it somehow!?! In the end I figured out how to use a car jack to create the space I needed and managed to get all 5 blades installed this way on all arms but it was a close thing loosing light towards the end. The rooms do look darker but I'm hoping the scaffolding coming down will offset this a bit. Of all the house projects so far, this one was my hardest! Advice: never give up, never surrender, unless it's tea time!

There were 28 cattery pens and an office building to get rid of. We really didn't want to have to pay to have this removed, so we put an advert on Facebook, and were inundated with calls. We sold the lot for 2.5k and after 3 days of removing the roof structure (didn't want to risk people falling through it), the buyers came and removed it. They left a complete mess, but I spent a further three days putting the remnants in one 4 yard plasterboard skip and 2 * 10 yard skips. This meant we were still up 1.5k, so not a bad result. Pictures of the site before clearance and afterwards. The next task is to hire an excavator and break up the masses of concrete slab. Hoping that it is not reinforced so that I can hire a crusher and recycle the waste into hardcore.

We moved from Manchester to Cornwall 6 years ago and we are very happy with the overall location. Our existing converted barn, was converted by the previous owner and is very nice but is built on three levels and has 4 double beds, kitchen, dinner, lounge and snug and 3 baths so it is far too big for us when we retire. When we bought the house I always say we chose it for the working barn apx 300m2, not the barn we live in. We are building for our future in the hope that we can continue to live her a long time, if it takes us 10 years to build we will be 65 when we move in. My husband has a history of bad backs a bungalow with no steps and easy access is high up on our want list. More recently our Greyhound is refusing to go down to the snug in the lower ground floor at night preferring to stay upstairs in the kitchen. He is incidentally another reason we bought the property, two fields he can run off lead. We don’t want anything too large, a well insulated bungalow that will be cheap to run and maintain. We have a small cow shed on our land and although our property is listed the cow shed is outside the curtilage of the property and built in the 70’s so does not require any listed building planning consultations. When we purchased the property a new build was never on the agenda, but it is now. In September 2021 we engaged the services of a planning consultant with a view to demolish the small barn and replace it with a new build, his view was favourable. In January we then approached an architect who suggested full plans would be best since what we were asking for was in keeping with the surroundings, not that much larger than the existing barn and since it was visible from the listed property more detail such as windows and cladding would be required. Two months of absolutely nothing happened then in March we met up to discuss our requirements and finally in May we submitted our plans. In June we had our necessary bat and bird nesting survey, the gentleman who conducted the survey nearly started looking at another old stone barn until we corrected him and he then told us that bats wouldn’t like the old cow shed as it would be too hot in summer (tin roof) and too cold in winter due to the holes, drafts, and thin wood walls. Then in August we had the Phase 1 preliminary risk assessment, required because we were previously farm land. From the survey I learned that in 1884 there were two wells 165m W of the site another 580m SW of the site and two quarries quite a distance away and in 1906 a smithy in the village, no surprise there as there is a house called ‘The Old Smithy” . The geological map indicates that the site is underlain by the Bude Formation - Sandstone. Sedimentary Bedrock formed approximately 310 to 319 million years ago in the Carboniferous Period. The report was very detailed but returned very little about the land the barn is occupying, that a visit to site wouldn’t tell you. Nothing bad was reported so we were happy and we continued pushing more paper around. Eventually its our turn for the case officer to look at us in detail and we get conditional approval in mid October 2022. Mid March 2023 and we have submitted our building regs drawings and my Part O Spreadsheet, window amendments to the planning department and the SE has quoted and is starting on his work. We are over 150m from the fresh water main so will need chlorinating. I found a great guy who has dug the first trench for the Water, Electric and Openreach, he will return when the new build is ready for the second trench to install the services into the house and will then chlorinate the pipework. Site electric is in from the pole in our neighbours yard towards the Old Cow Shed. We were offered a good price by National Grid for 3 phase, they would have struggled giving us single phase due to lack of supply network and another new build close to us in the village has gone off grid because there connection fee was too expensive. We wanted 3 phase any way as we hope to fill the roof with 30 solar panels facing SSW with no shading. As soon as it warms up and the field is firmer we plan to start clearing the site and moving the spoil down the field into our larger field. Doing it now would be like making a mud bath. Sometime between October and February we will demolish the barn and this time next year the new ICF build will go up. In the meantime lots of planning continues and I’m going on a short plumbing course. The husband is an Electrician by trade and can do some plumbing but hates getting down on his hands and knees now. Last year I tanked and tiled our existing en-suite and have learned all about wet wipes and silicone so another job moved from the husband to me. 😀 The main photo shows the site electric and the drive leading up to the cowshed to the left at the end and just on the edge of the photo are the old stables used as workshop storage each stable bay has a different items stored. A new entrance to our field will be made diagonally from the site electric to the left of the old cow shed which will make our farmer happy as he currently has a very tight turn left just in front of the cowshed. He comes twice a year to cut the grass and in return he usually takes at least 15 round bales away. The other images are from the architect but are already out of date. To pass Part O we are submitting an amendment for the removal of 4 windows on the North elevation and replacement with 6 roof windows that offer more ventilation. Costs to date Planning Consultant £600 Council planning application fee £500 Bat and Bird nesting survey £370 Phase 1 preliminary risk assessment £740 Architectural Design and planning £3000 Building regs Drawings £1250 SE £900 Trench and ducting etc for Water, Electric and Openreach £2830 Site Electric £2470 Openreach cable and ducting £0 Total £12660