recoveringbuilder

Just said that to hubby ‘were we like that 30years ago?!’

So , Monday night saw us spending 2 hours with our electrician going over everything that we wanted, sockets, switches fans etc saturday and Sunday the plumbers had been in doing first fix which they finished off today, Sunday was an 11hour shift for them, Tuesday two electricians started their first fix and they arrived on site this morning at 5 am! They worked 13 hours today and were off to look at another job when they left here! Oh for the stamina of youth! roofer did his batons on Monday/Tuesday and started roof tiles today, joiners have all the upstairs flooring down and have started insulation contracts manager from David l Douglas was in today taking his hard measurements for kitchen, he has us down for fitting on October 1st but I get the feeling we might bring this forward and need to decide soon as kitchen takes 4/5 weeks to make. Ceramic tiler will be here for a look at the weekend and Phil from Greenflame will visit on Monday to advise of any preparation needed for the pellet stove and thermal store. tomorrow staircase manufacturer will be here to measure up . Oh and today I posted the cheque for the electricity supply!!!

£6000 + vat for drawing plans submitting planning, building control and overseeing with an architect certificate at the end, he does a visit at every stage

Well done, I take it they are putting the offers through their solicitors

Well done, in our last house we had them (as we do again) but after the joiners fitted them we had to take them back out and refit!

We are having a wood pellet burner installed it looks pretty much like an inset wood burner but by having the pellets we will get the interest free loan and also rhi payments, it will be installed by a very knowledgable chap at greenflame installations who are based in grantown on Spey but he does work all over the country, it will feed into a thermal store and he has suggested solar thermal for heating the water in summer thus doing away with the need to light the burner and he has already done this for clients who report it works well, he’s definitely worth talking to

@Redoctoberthe dormers came as panels with cut out for windows and joiners just had to cut out trusses and the panels either side of big windows came as panels ready to fit, they aren’t painted just the membrane on them just now, we’re planning to put cedral on dormers and rest will be blocked up and rendered, the middle section of the roof was the only part that had to be built, no trusses for it and the joiners did a fantastic job making it.

After 11 days on the job we are now wind and water tight. Plumbers will be in tomorrow, roofer, brickie and electrician beginning of week, definitely moving along at a pace I’m happy with, lots of ordering went on this week to make sure we are ready for the onslaught next week and I may have news about the electricity soon but can’t say much just now, onwards and upwards ?quite an interesting roof in the middle only wish the budget would have run to oak here as it seems a shame to gyproc it all but it will still be an interesting shape

when we did our last self build we bought a 26ft twin axel touring van which we lived in for 18 months, it had a fixed bed and shower room. We heated it through 2 winters with the gas blow heating, it took a 13kg container per week and we had a generator for a few weeks until we got electricity connection. It was never cold and we had a container on site with all our belongings which was handy when you found you were needing something packed away.We paid 10k for it and we thought we did ok getting 5k back when we sold it as it would have cost more to go into rented accommodation for the duration. This time we’re in a tourer again slightly smaller but ok and it won’t be for as long this time!

Just a question- did you have to have reinforced roof trusses/ joists upstairs, we were originally looking at putting ufh upstairs as well as downstairs but couldn’t find a company who would do it with a screed without reinforcing trusses and SE was not happy about the trusses being notched out for plates so we ended up taking the easy route of radiators

We are currently building in what was part of our garden, this is our third self build and it’s the second time we’ve stayed in a caravan during the build. I suppose we may have been lucky that both times the buyer of our old house had no qualms about us building.We would not have had the income to support a loan to do the build before selling the old house so it was our only way forward. The first time we spent 18months in the caravan as we did a lot of the work ourselves mostly due to tradesmen who wouldn’t commit to the job but in the end we ended up with a 385m2 house which cost us well under its value although we did end up with a small mortgage. This time we had no mortgage so all the money is going into this build but we have employed a main contractor to get it done quicker with us supplying all the materials, there can be no mortgage this time as we haven’t enough working years left. I agree with everyone else though, no matter what route you take there are always problems and plenty of stress!

I expect you would be charged for that!

@Redoctober your slates look great, you must have had a good roofer, we were all set to use heavy 3 but didn’t realise they needed sorting into different thickness and when I asked the builders if the roofer would sort them he said no so it’s mini stonewold that will be going on

The middle section consists of two AFrames then 3 steel beams across which will hold up the mezzanine, the trusses will be built by the Joiners because of the shape (so I’m told), I don’t quite understand it myself but should know better tomorrow!

Oh no you need to plaster, even when you Ames tape you see it forever!

A week ago today the tf arrived and this is where we are now, expecting to be w&w end of next week, Windows arrive tomorrow, excited to see them, welders will be back tomorrow to get the second AFrame in

Are these poles on your land?

Hubby says you need a mixing valve to take it down to 45-50degrees otherwise you’ll crack the slab (if it’s a slab )or floor tiles , wood flooring etc

Oh aye and mine is Aileen Campbell who’s just had a promotion

How lucky are you @ultramods we wrote to our msp at least 6 weeks ago and are still waiting on even an acknowledgement!

I think @Redoctober that the problem seems to stem from additional costs, need to apply to council for road crossing permits then traffic management and also talking about having to leave trench open for 5 days until SW get off their asses to come inspect, it’s getting out of control what we are being quoted for utilities between this and the 25k quote from SP energy (which I am still fighting) I am beginning to wish we hadn’t started, this kit is going up and all I feel is sick!

Would that be allowed? Haven’t even thought about a phone line yet, as it stands at the moment it looks like we’ll have a house which if we want electricity and water into we’ll have to sell our soul to the devil ?

@ProDaveI have just been back on their website and it says SW provide a plumbing only service and you are responsible for all other work including road crossings, how long ago did you have this done?

Thanks @ProDave, I originally asked the person I had been dealing with at SW to quote for them to do the work and was told they didn’t do that! I’m honestly at the end of my tether here can’t seem to get anywhere with these utility companies but I will go back to them on Monday and ask for an all works quote

Yes this was what we had in mind around 2k