G and J

Come and look at our neighbours house.....yes the paint will peel off.

[stage whisper…] Psst, they aren’t really powerlifters. Just groundworkers who’s lifting capability with one hand (whilst holding a conversation and drinking tea with the other hand) exceeds my total lifting capacity by a lot. An awful lot.

Blogging: an activity where the perpetrator converts trivia into prose and in doing so reorganises their own otherwise disordered mind. Possible side effects: perpetrator enhancing feelings of self importance; boredom amongst those reading; history being rewritten. I find it interesting to contemplate why I don’t have quite such a burning need to blog at the mo. I’ve always enjoyed working with wood and metal and power tools. And that’s what I’ve been playing at for the last three weeks. I’m not really at home with concrete and soil and masonry - they’re from another planet. On top of that I’m working closely with Rolly the chippy, and he is knowledgeable and experienced, which translates into me having great confidence in him, and additionally he is calm, and has a very powerful calming influence on me. So my head isn’t quite so haywire most evenings now, certainly less than it was during both demolition and groundworks. My head is also full of diagrams and schedules. Both the project and the timber frame kit are constantly changing puzzles which I do kinda understand and can usefully sit and think through - and having puzzles to occupy me keeps both anxiety and random diversionary thoughts at bay. Which is a v long winded way of saying that I’m happy with how it’s going right now. Since the last entry the house has shot up. We’ve had roughly a metric ton of steels popped on to the top of the downstairs panels. Two steelworkers, me, and a genie lift, watched by J and Steve the injured builder. It’s fascinating how banter volume is inversely proportional to difficulties being encountered. It’s also fascinating how distracting, frustrating and irritating little side comments can be from the audience. I’d never cope with stand up - even the gentlest heckling would completely derail me. Jerry and Paul however are made of more hardy stuff. Most of the steels they got up in no time, but then we got to the bogey - the longest, heaviest beam. It would have been massively easier had it been wheeled into the house the other way round, and in hindsight we’d have finished quicker had we put it back on the trolley, wheeled it out into the road, smiled sweetly at the scowling motorists who appear to turn purple if delayed by more than 2,345 microseconds, spun the beam round and wheeled it back in. In fact that was even suggested, but no, perhaps because it would mean admitting defeat, we soldiered on regardless. Regardless and in near silence. Even the audience cottoned on and were uncharacteristically quiet. Then suddenly, we got the beam to spin round above the head binders, dropped it into place, bolted it up and the only thing drowning out the huge sigh of relief was the loud resumption of banter. Banter and tea appear to run our build, both as a glue and a lubricant. Feelings do run high at times and managing feelings, both my own and others, is far more important than I ever imagined. An essential part of that is that the peeps working with us seem to care about our progress, take pride in helping us. We make no secret of our inexperience and our reliance on others and so far that has been met with both kindness and determination to help us. We’ve been stupidly fortunate. Anyway, we’ve also put up the rest of the downstairs panels, including the monster 11’ wide one which was the heaviest of the whole build. Leaving that till we’d done the rest of the downstairs turned out to be a very smart move. We probably found it easier than any of the panels we put up in the first week of frame erection, despite the weight of it and the fact that it was awkward. Part of that is Rolly and I settling in to work with each other. There is now a lot less verbal communication than there was to start with. We’ve also honed panel handling so there’s less pure physical grunt needed. And of course, as time goes on with each panel fitted we’ve more room to work, and that’s also significant. With such a cramped site we are constantly tripping over stuff, moving stuff repeatedly, trying to get stuff delivered at the last minute, etc. But much as I might try to plan, at times there’s no choice but to work with way too little space. A good example is the joists. They were delivered before we’d finished putting up the downstairs panels and there’s an awful lot of them. Ideally I’d have put the delivery back a couple of days but that wasn’t an option. I had no idea how much time the limited space would cost us. Ho humm. Talking of joists that was the next job. Rolly and I deposited nearly another metric ton onto the downstairs panels by hand, (just how much does this ‘lightweight’ timber frame structure support?). I say by hand, but shoulders, knees, and just about every other available body part was deployed. I don’t know what lifting capacity each of us have but somehow when working together we exceed more than the sum of our two capabilities. It’s probably simultaneously driving progress and pushing us a teensy bit too far towards injury risk but it’s just what one does. Joists up Rolly set to making us a temporary staircase while I attacked flooring boards. The temp staircase really has helped reduce fatigue and made getting things upstairs safer and easier. Good idea Rolly. Anybody would think he’d done this house building stuff before. We’ve so many joists we almost don’t need flooring boards, but they’re on the design. Yet another metric ton of them. Plus several kilograms of this funny polyurethane glue stuff. That’s really odd to work with. The first day I came home with black gloves on, only non removable ones. I’m sure my fingerprints must have been obliterated (I certainly couldn’t unlock my iPad) so that would have been the time to do a bank job. But there was no time for niceties as the following day the upstairs panels were due and the telehandler was booked, so I had to get enough decking down to allow the piles to be dropped upstairs and sorted/distributed so the other two piles could follow. Rolly was given the day off for the delivery - he’s not supposed to be full time anyway and his skills are reserved for the clever woodworky bits. So Andy the Boss supplied a telehandler driver who was also a power lifter and another equally capable bod to help me sort the panels. When the downstairs panels were delivered they were dumped in the piles they were transported in and Rolly and I had to reshuffle them, which took lots of time and energy. This time I got the long suffering timber frame company to send me pics of the piles so I could work out which pile to do first and how to sort them into sensible piles. For once the theory worked in practice and despite the complaints about how near the edge of the deck I kept walking that day ended with three piles in a near sensible assembly order. I was pleased with myself but I had a nagging doubt - would it speed erection? As I was pondering this very question Dean the neighbour (two doors down) wandered onto site to offer his help with future deliveries. “Why wait for a delivery?” I asked, there’s tons to do and I’m certainly not too proud to accept help. Next day Rolly and I attended to the odd bits and finished the decking whilst the first lift of scaffold was put up. I’m not sure I did anything but look for discarded cups, (sort of) wash them, boil a kettle and make tea, repeat. Rolly has a near infinite tea consumption capacity but the scaffolders beat him hands down whilst managing, like Rolly, to work hard and get lots done at the same time. The song definitely has it wrong, nothing stops for tea but it gets drunk anyway. Tea is useful though. Rolly arrives way before we are allowed to start work so tea helps him cope with rising agitation as the clocks edges glacially towards 08:00. Tea (and biscuits) helps me get Rolly to stop work long enough to help me plan too. And as we drank our tea and discussed the upstairs panels Dean the neighbour arrived. “I can help for a few hours” he said. Now Dean is in his mid eighties so the average site age rose to 73 that day. Hence my initial caution. I started getting Dean to help me organise and stack lightweight stuff, but it became clear that as he tuned in to the way Rolly and I worked (it’s a kind of grunt and nod based language previously unknown to science) that more ambitious stuff was in order. Panels! The three of us got the first two corner panels up, rather effectively. Whilst Rolly was checking and bracing and securing those panels Dean and I got ready for the next panel, only we didn’t, we put it up ready for Rolly to do his check/brace/secure thing. Fast forward, and I do mean fast, and five hours later almost the whole of upstairs was up. Staggering. And very satisfying for all concerned. Perhaps the speed was helped by my sorting after all. The next day Dean pitched up we lifted the gable panels from the ground floor - there was no room on the deck to use the telehandler to get them up previously - we used ropes, crabs, ladders and way too much giggling but up they went so another keep me awake job was dashed off. Don’t underestimate the capability of us wrinklies. Not so easy was the cement board fitting next day. It’s a bitch of a material to work with and slower than I’d have predicted. But we need it done before we fit the roof trusses - finishing these and getting breather membrane on will be the first job next week. On Friday we were ready in good time for the roof trusses, all 19 of them. Two powerlifters from Andy the boss arrived just as the lorry backed onto site. It’s almost like it was planned. They took one look at the job, shook their heads and took up positions. It worked like this (after a couple of false starts): Driver on lorry pushes ends of truss to edge of lorry. Shortest guy on site grabs end furthest from house and has the job of stabilising the truss. It’s at this point I realise why I need platform steel toecapped boots. Short tempered power lifter grabs end of truss nearest the house. Truss is run towards house like a pole vaulter on speed. At last second short tempered power lifter pushes his end of truss skyward. Shortest guy at back of truss grunts and struggles to keep truss upright whilst swearing, profusely. Truss end is caught by other power lifter (the smiley one) just before it lands on the upstairs floor. Smiley power lifter drags truss upwards as shortest guy is dragged along the ground with it still trying to keep truss upright. Rolly and smiley place truss neatly on rapidly growing pile. In total there was 31 minutes between lorry arriving and the truss pile being completed - if my pics weren’t time stamped I’d not now believe it. That made even the short tempered power lifter grin. To finish the week while I continued fitting cement boards Rolly prepped the first truss for a test fitting. Getting the first truss up felt good, really good. That made me grin. I’m loving this part of the build. Yes, progress is visible, and that helps, but it’s more than that. Even when I’m doing things I’ve never done I’m in my comfort zone, and the muscle and joint aches diminish overnight, and I’m not generally laying awake worrying. OK, that probably means I’ve missed some thing or things that are really important, but I’m feeling good. Long may it continue.

Standardisation and volume production are key to cost effective reliability. Yes, maybe if we were designing our domestic systems from scratch we’d go low voltage dc. But we aren’t. And the range and variety and price of ac control options are impressive. Be a bit careful with dc ratings. Some switches have a very low dc current rating compared to their ac rating (I think that’s due to arcing). And whilst it’s a seductive argument to replace all those ac-dc converters in each light bulb in reality a system would probably have just as many dc-dc converters which are pretty similar. A while ago I investigated dc domestic lighting, spurred on by the thought that I could easily battery back 12v lighting circuits and improve efficiency. But the argument disappears when one considers the efficiency of modern ac coupled battery units. So instead I settled on a split CU and an ac coupled battery unit with backup capability. Simples.

So dot and dab helps an old fashioned masonry build feel like a proper modern timber frame build. 😉

Thanks Kelvin

Hi there @Kelvin, and others, can I ask what you used in the end behind your cladding. BCO's now are not "abke" to give advice, but will give approval to suggestions if appropriate. We are in Suffolk, timber framed, block on the ground floor, and t&g cladding above. The walls facing the neighbours have cement board sheathing and will have fire treated vertical t&g cladding. Neither of our gables face neighbours(both at 90 degrees), but we are considering putting intumescent strips in them behind the cladding. This has not been specified as necessary, but seems to the uninitiated, like a reasonable idea. (We will be using vertical timbers at the corner junctions) We are working with russwood and see their current recommendation is both pricey and out of stock, but notice they used to supply tenmat ff102/50.

We've just has a gang of 3 do our plinth and the majority of the ground floor blocks. They were super speedy and the quality of the work excellent, but they are used to having a "foreman" and their speed meant that without regular "eyes on" they could have completed a whole lot of "wrong" in no time at all. They'll be back to do the remaining blocks to just under joist level and the single skin garage, and this time we'll be ready 😉

“Luck is when preparation meets opportunity”. Think that actually both apply, however good the plan, sometimes you also need that following wind to fly

Me too. And many peeps struggle to understand me, so I know how they feel. My vote is for laterer.

Hang on now, it’s not just a fan. It’s a fan with an app. Therefore providing endless pointless distraction.

Welcome. Post your plans and I’m sure the grown ups on here will help you get a handle on things. And by plans I don’t just mean drawings, I also mean whether you’ll be wielding the nail gun or employing or whatever.

I take offence at that. I know I’m not very tall but to count me as half a person is just plain rude! 😉 I’m with @Nick Laslett on this one, next month would definitely be better. I’ve a highbrow social diary including things like a roof truss delivery this Friday, much as I’d like to come see.

Genie lift till above the balustrade and four strong peeps to lift it off the lift down onto the landing?

Going great.....very impressive and a good tip re the front door that we will seriously consider copying

Is there a translation into English available? 😕

Good grief I simply couldn’t cope with that. We are four months into the demo/founds/frame stage. I’ve been pretty much full time on site throughout so far. At some point I need to reduce my hours/intensity to make the project more reasonable for both of us. Working with a joiner now means keeping up with him, but once that’s over I can reduce my hours a bit to restore balance to the force - J will raise her eyes at that and shake her head almost imperceptibly, probably refusing to believe I can be less full on foc-used. She’s probably correct. But we’ll soon be getting more trades in: roofer; solar dudes; brickies; k-rend peeps; etc. In that way we will hopefully complete in less than the 15months site insurance we took out in March. If I took 3 years that would mean 2 more years out of the rest of our lives trashed. Ouch. That’s probably at least 10% of my remaining active years. I know we could do more than we are intending to, but at the core of it we designed our house. We made it happen. Regardless of how little I/we do I’m going to continue to think of us as self builders. Hopefully, eventually, happy (and quietly proud) ones.

We did some research before we finalised our designs and found exactly this.

Caveat.....we are not yet watertight (!)....but do have estimates/quotes to get us there Referencing @nod it does look like watertight will be about 50% (give or take) of what we set out to spend (obviously if we were to go wild with finishes, designer everything ...very unlikely....this could shift ). Once we'd built our budget, based on researching prices for materials and trades in relation to our m2 (rather than just £ what we had available wanted to spend!) we compared our budget to the " build it" pie chart and whilst initially it was tempting to think " we won't need to spend x on y" However it is easy for individual items to vary quite a lot when it comes to it e.g. services, given we already had all services in the bungalow we were demolishing we didn't expect a 10k payment to remedy a now "unacceptable" overhead connection, but overall, as a guide, it has proved to be fairly accurate.

The SE we didn’t use told us to engage a bore hole based ground survey costing £1.5k plus for three little holes which, in hindsight, would have told us nothing. Bob, the SE we are working with told me to get me spade out and dug 4 holes a meter deep and let me know when he can look down them. As I’m a Boy Scout at heart (never did get the Blue Peter badge I so dearly deserved) I complied and in addition made a water level and I did a site level survey which has proved itself to be invaluable. It was more pertinent for us as we rather inconveniently had a knackered bungalow filling the site back then, but still useful to have hard data on your levels. The test pits proved their worth, big time - we still hit a few soft bits but we managed with fairly close to designed foundation levels. In your shoes I’d seek agreement to visit site with a spade.

I think the only safe option regards what constitutes development in Proteks mind is to ask them......we've found them to be very helpful. Maybe a call and then a follow up email to confirm what you've understood?

The subtext to the post above was more in the spirit that we actually want a house that is fit for purpose, if not better, and by having 2 parties involved we feel we've got a bit more value.....it was not intended as a dig at the insurers, who are providing a service that we wanted (i.e. the safety net of future mortgagability). Protek never saw our drawings, but they had links to planning documents

Good grief, and I thought it was a simple question. We have a professionally created design that satisfies all the relevant regs. Tick. We are sticking to that design except where we perceive it can be enhanced in which case we seek agreement from our SE, who is brilliant apart from his long summer holidays. At times we have what seems to us, good ideas, so we research them before asking any grown ups. That research involves google and buildhub amongst other online resources, but often we fail to garner enough info from just searching so we ask for opinions. We aren’t trying to pull a fast one, or cut corners, quite the reverse. I can believe that a fire resistant/rated/whatever VCL is a waste of money, and maybe when I ask our retained grown up (Bob, our SE) thats what he will say, but I thought it worth asking. I’ll learn one day, perhaps. No gin, no cement dust yesterday, but I did spend the day inhaling polyurethane glue vapour, and generally getting too tired to think straight. Oh hang on, I can’t think straight any other time either. Perhaps that’s why I’m enjoying self build.

No, there shouldn't be, both are working to same regs, but as in all situations individuals may have a keener eye on areas of interest to them, so you do need to keep them all on side. Some warranty providers do also offer building regs, whether having them do both is a good idea, Idk, our building control guy is experienced and pragmatic.

It’s hard to believe that it’s a good idea to have a basic VCL when, for a few pennies more, I can have a fire rated one. But do I need one? Are there any downsides to having one? Has anyone here had one and found the downsides? What fire rated VCLs have peeps used?