G and J

Once upon a time a deluded wrinkly, his much less wrinkly wife and their noisy little dog left their almost fairy tale rural retreat to live in a freezing rented bungalow while they buggered about trying to build a new semi-urban retreat nearby. (How clever am I avoiding the word suburban!). Everything would have gone swimmingly but for the fact that the head of the wrinkly was just too full. It sort of still is I think. In the four months since the last post (stop thinking of a bugler at sunset even though some days that feels appropriate) much has been done: We’ve built a garage and the front of site is much less of a moonscape. All our blockwork is in, much of it rendered. We’ve now got one flat roof and two slated rooves, one with loads of solar panels. All our windows and some of our doors are in. We’ve got 240mm of underfloor insulation and a circa 100mm sand and cement screed with lots of buried pipes, of both the heating and soil varieties. The screed alone changed things to more house than warehouse - fabulous. Almost all the internal wall skeletons are back up - so now we get a much better feel for the layout which is a very good thing. (We built some downstairs walls earlier but took them down to make the DPM and insulation easier.) Most of the frame insulation is in. There’s even loft insulation in the loft - ok it’s still in its rolls ready to be fitted but it’s still there, patiently waiting. And there’s some VCL in place and we’ve made a start on the inner skin - some battens and yet more mineral wool to form what is really an insulated service void to give us a half decent wall U value. The man cave has its insulated metal panel roof and is usefully storing tons of stuff. All the service pipes and wires are buried in a trench ready for connection to said man cave which meant yet more depressing hours on a digger, and now the back garden is a moonscape. A humongous insulated twin pipe monster conger eel of a thing is buried, surfacing at the concrete plinth for the heat pump at one end and in the under stairs cupboard at the other. We have surface water drainage pipes installed at the back. Phew. No wonder we are worn out. And I’ve probably left lots of things out too - when you are on site every day it’s so easy to forget what has been done and focus instead on the rather elongated to do list that keeps me awake at night. Not every night mind, some nights are a lot better than others and I am getting a vaguely sensible amount of sleep more nights than not now, thanks to constantly talking stuff through with J. But there is an essential difference in the build. Before we sold Bramble we knew we were running out of money so we weren’t going at full hurtle. I had a twenty minute drive to and fro and a soak in the bath, all of which helped me keep my head in the game. It felt like there was time to think. Now I have a twenty second walk (if I dawdle) to and from site. Despite the ice box (aka rented bungalow) having a really powerful gas combi boiler it has a low power electric shower that dribbles just enough water to get clean but not get warm. And we’ve the money we need to complete, so it’s warp factor 8 Mr Sulu. Now if I was doing this on my own I’d have no choice but to slow right down, and try and get my head together, and feel in control again. Thankfully we are totally in this together, so we aren’t slowing down. Not that it’s without tensions. J and I talk everything through and she keeps track of tons of things that I can’t (hopefully everything that I can’t, which is an unfair burden but that’s how it is). We identify short term priorities and I focus on them, with me tacitly accepting that I am not personally in control of everything as for me to be so would mean a lot slower progress: neither of us want to stay in the ice box a day longer than strictly necessary. So the tightrope act is to balance keeping the pedal down as hard as possible without us actually losing control or allowing any major cock ups to occur. Simples. It gets harder when there is anyone else on site but ourselves and Rolly, our chippy. Peeps are incredibly (and I believe unconsciously) attention hungry especially when their needs are coupled with my need to monitor all work and limit disturbance to the neighbourhood. It’s so frustrating that when a contractor is on site my own productivity declines enormously. And then there’s the gargantuan mess, especially in one particular case - the thoughtless dumping of spare stuff; the treading of material up and down the road without a care for the frozen moron still sweeping and hosing down the road in the dark hours after they’ve finished their second pint; the drifting flocks of discarded paper bags mixed in with fast food packaging. Sigh. At least everyone we’ve had on site so far has done excellent work, so that does compensate. The feeling of a lack of control is not helped by the fact that I’m completely useless at estimating the time needed for tasks - though as J frequently mentions we’ve not done lots of this stuff before so we should accept that we can’t know. The DPM and underfloor insulation took me many, many times what I imagined and I’ve a black belt in beating myself up. I enjoyed doing the lower polystyrene layer, so nice to work with, but hated the PIR layer. The polystyrene has spring in it and one can cut pieces a little oversize, lever them in and get a really nice, tight fit. It’s messy in that little baubles of white stuff get everywhere but they don’t get down your throat. PIR however is sooooo different. The dust it creates is truly horrible, it lingers in the throat many hours later even if a mask is worn, which it mostly was. It almost appears to shrink away from it’s neighbours - when cut to precise size and shape, wrestled into place shooting showers of nasty dust up as the air trapped underneath is expelled through the tiny gaps at the side - it still sits there showing a small but definite gap between the sheets. Not at all satisfying. Thank heavens we ignored the architect and chose not to put PIR in the walls. So it turns out that there is a job worse than moving tons and tons of crush. But thats now done, thank heavens. As an aside I’d planned just polystyrene, but the reinforced slab came up a bit more than planned so I switched to part PIR to get the insulation level I’d targetted. Note to self: get quotes for different thicknesses of stuff before deciding. Buying stuff that local suppliers have on hand saves tons, which accidentally benefitted us on the underfloor insulation - had things gone to plan it would have cost us rather more for the same insulation performance due to me designing in theoretically available sizes. Odd world, innit. The need to book contractors is a real source of pressure. An example: We have been recommended a plasterer who everyone says is brill and so is v busy and we don’t want to lose him, but that means guessing a timescale and thence sticking to it. I’m an ex-project manager. I know that to manage the project requires knowledge of the timescales for each task in the train, and as above - I really don’t have a scooby. Well, I do, but Skooby the Skoda probably doesn’t count in that regard. So, in summary we’ve got tons done, but tons still to do. Xmas has annoyingly punctuated the project but that’s probably a mental godsend - at least I’ve a popped ballon to enjoy putting in my empty honey jar. We’re working really well and closely together as a couple and I will get used to the feeling of panic just below the surface that not feeling personally in control causes; the foreboding that I cannot be confident that I haven’t missed something important; the relying on J that will deliver much faster progress. You never know, my next post might even be a bit about the build…

You probably know this, but just in case, the first lot we grabbed didn't have the adhesive skirt, so would have needed to be manually taped to the visqeen barrier. We swapped it and the stuff with the skirt went down in no time and did the job of containing the screed perfectly.

Presumably the stripping is in the quote? And scaffold? Our solar is only on one side and in one block, but it took longer than the other side to do, and the roofer came before the solar was installed to help the solar guy set out to make sure he could do best job of setting out the slates. In the end for the same m2 the roof with the solar in was 50% more cost in labour than the roof without.. does your quote take into account working around the solar? If so I can see that adding significantly to the work. We also do not have any roof windows, or valleys. All that said your quote does seem high......however others may chime in.

Hi, yes we did (had to chk, photo attached)...our main roof is 40 degree pitch and we have an attached single storey at 30 degree....just checked 1 1/2slates alone were just shy of 800 ex vat. Other question, does your roof need stripping before they start?

Ours is a new build with in roof solar, in East Anglia. The solar did help with the cost of the slates (same size as yours, cupa gallegas 39), but it is quite fiddly to do a good job around them. One cost of slates that "caught" me out when pricing was the slate and half for the edges...they were about £7.00 each and we have 3 "edges", but they do finish the roof nicely, so worth it. Also need to allow for ridge tiles, eaves kits and membrane etc. Having said that, our 130sqm roof (includes the 25sqm where we have solar) cost just under £16ķ ex vat, split 6k labour, rest materials which we bought direct. That excludes scaffolding.

Echo buy good quality. We've just left a house with 23 year bi-folds, loved them BUT they faced the west (lovely views) but as they aged, when the wind blew across the plains of East Anglia they were both drafty and deflected and they weren't quite 2m. They were however top hung

Hi Jill, we're a bit thin on the ground....would seem more sensible to do after Christmas? It would be good to keep the ball rolling, but a bit more light in the evenings will help. If your around though, before the next meet, pop your head in if you want, there most days.

Such great progress and blog. We are at least few months behind this build and I (J) am using it as a bit of a touchstone. Couldn't agree more on the points quoted above, they really do help, including people being happy to make recommendations for follow on trades and offer advice. Also of course, as mentioned, keeping people updated on progress (or delays!).

Uk power networks charged 9.4k to bring supply 10m from pole to our boundary, all trenching done by us on our site. Big chunk if that was the cost of the road closure, even though was on our side of the road and the road was never actually closed. Cadent charged 1.7k to remove the gas supply. Neither cost was welcome We have water, just need to pay to connect back to drains

I'm cheap, oh so cheap, but not quite free. But J and I are available on the 11th so it’s game on!

My bedtime is 21:45 nowadays so no danger there from my point of view.

“Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.” You too huh? Depressing, isn’t it.

Well as you asked so nicely @Alan Ambrose how about the 11th.....can't do this week as screed going down. Would still need torches if want a site visit as minimal lighting available!

Thank for all this guys. It’s a long run (over 40m) so the Doncaster cable option works out rather more expensive so I’ll go separate. Neat idea for my EV point at the front which is a very short run. I've ducting going in that can take the Ethernet cable anyway, and I like the idea of keeping it away from the mains cable. I’ve found a source of single phase coloured cable - however my sparky is back earlier than expected and tells me to use 3phase coloured cable to save money. I’ll do what I’m told for once.

Thank you Andy. That’s helped enormously.