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G and J

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  1. G and J

    Post house sale stressy disorder…

    By G and J,


    The house itself.
    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…
  2. G and J

    Leaving our first build…

    By G and J,


    The house itself.
    We apologise for the interruption in our scheduled programme. 
     
    Normal service will be resumed shortly. 
     
    Lots has happened on the build which is great and as it should be and all that, but I just can’t write about that right now. 
     
    Instead my head is full of leaving Bramble.  34 years ago, over a third of a century, we put flesh on the skeleton of a house and we breathed life into it.  
     
    And it’s been a constant ever since.  Now we finally decided to leave Bramble two years ago when we saw da (run down) bungalow.  We had each come to the realisation that we would move somewhere else sometime before then, and not at the same time as each other, but the blue touch paper started slowly smouldering when we told the dumbfounded estate agent who was selling da bungalow we’d have it after only a few minutes of our first viewing. 
     
    We started building without a sale on Bramble and without a sale we knew we’d run out of money just before the new pad was properly watertight, but we started anyway. Mid May we accepted an offer and carried on with the build, uncharacteristically for us we let the estate agents chase it through.  
     
    Which is why after 18 weeks we’d still not exchanged.  By this point we (meaning J) really was looking at a set of spreadsheets with way too many zero entries.  So we started making calls, asking questions, setting deadlines and suddenly we’d exchanged.  
     
    I thought that would reduce our stress level. I’ll never learn, will I.  
     
    Part of why it’s so stressful is that there was only 17 days between exchange and completion.  We (meaning me, G) gave the 17th of October as an acceptable completion date assuming a very quick exchange, giving four weeks between exchange and completion.  But peeps being peeps they latched on to that date regardless of the passage of time.  And it worked for us as it meant we could rent a bungalow two doors up from site, which has it’s attractions. 
     
    Now anyone sensible would pause the build while they move house, or at least cut themselves a little slack and slow things down a bit.  It appears we don’t do sensible. 
     
    So we are running round like loons trying to get packed ready to vacate Friday. 
     
    Moving from Bramble to the new house (via the rental) is definitely the right thing for us both.  But it’s an emotional business, leaving your first build, hence my inability to catch up on me blog like I should. 
     
  3. G and J

    If you want to get ahead, get a hat…

    By G and J,


    The house itself.
    That was an advertising slogan from the 40’s and 50’s, which persisted in popular culture into my childhood in the 60’s (I’m a wrinkly, but not that much of a wrinkly).  And oh boy, with the recent downpours we desperately needed a hat on the house.  
     
    As kids we used to turn the phrase around - “if you want to get a hat, get a head”.  That’s what counted for humour back then.  But like all my frivolous tool purchases over the years that turn out to be really useful if not vital during this build, so that phrase became immensely apposite.  Our timber frame paddling pool needed a head to put a hat on.
     
    In the case of our design ‘a head’ meant a full set of trusses, all braced as per, a layer of OSB (a softy southerner version of sarking), anti everything mesh closing the continuous ridge vent, the eaves bunged up with timber, and the flue hole cut and the attic bits of the flue in place and the final length ready for erection.
     
    Rolly the chippy and I had discussed in great length how to put the trusses up.  They were in a pile on the upstairs floor needing the bird’s mouths to be cut.  We concluded we needed more hands to do it.  At this stage we both nod, look round, remind ourselves that we are alone, then stay silent till one of us gives in and says “shall we give one a try anyway?  See how we get on?”.
     
    That’s the danger of two peeps working together who each refuse to believe they can be beaten.  So, Rolly cut the bird’s mouths on three trusses while I pointlessly thought through different lifting options for a pair of old codgers whose combined total age is 140 years.  If only I’d bought a chinook. 
     
    Anyway, there we stood, each end of a truss, silently psyching ourselves up.   That was brought to a close by a series of half sentences, which we took turns to utter.  Things like “well, we could lift this end onto the plate, then, ummmm….”; “would a rope, sort of….”; “could the scaffold tower help with, maybe, erm….”.  We were facing certain defeat, or at least, the need for help.  Where was my octogenarian neighbour when we needed him. Visiting friends in Europe, actually.
     
    So we did the only thing left to us, we applied good, old fashioned BF&I.  (A core skill of mine, as it happens.)
     
    We fluffed it twice, each time returning to the starting position.  I’m not sure an onlooker would have been able to discern any difference in approach between the three attempts, apart from facial redness growing by each failure.  But attempt three worked.    Hussah!
     
    We sort of repeated the same process, each time making small changes.  By the time the eighth truss went up, as I mopped up the blood (I’d bashed my nose) I wondered what on earth we’d found so difficult.
     
        

    Rolly then did his orang-utan impression, while nailing the bracing on to give us a firm set of trusses to build from while I tidied and generally fussed, pointlessly.  It’s amazing how a couple of well nailed cross members stiffen an otherwise wobbly set of timbers.  That done we continued getting more trusses up.  With each one it got easier with practice but harder with less room to work with, ending up with three trusses bunched at each end that we walked to their position once all was up, Rolly on the scaffold outside, me on my tower inside.  Simples.  
     
    By the end of that day we had got all the trusses up and braced enough to get through the expected storm, v pleased.  
     
         
     
    Not so pleased about the next day though.  The forecast was dire so Rolly stood down and I tried to have a Tidy Friday. However most of the weather missed us so it ended up a day wasted in many ways.   The only really good bit was the roofer popping by allowing a discussion about gable verge and soffit details - that went well, or so I thought - with the roofer happy with our design and booked in to felt and batten us next Thursday. 
     
    Monday we got the rain we were promised for Friday. Sigh.  Dean, the neighbour, turned up to help just as it started hammering down and I’d put the kettle on.  Obviously we blamed him for bringing the rain with him.  I fed everyone biscuits but had none myself (sniff) as our BCO turned up, and I discovered the recipe for a quick and positive BCO inspection.  Try really hard to do good stuff; know one’s design intimately and by heart; and further than that, understand it at a micro level; and have the inspection done in pouring rain so it happens quickly.  
     
    I think the last bit overrides all the rest, but they’re still a good thing.  We are lucky to have a BCO who is a nice guy, who is himself a self-builder, and who loves his job.  Either way our BCO was a damp but happy man with our build.  
     
    Dean and I got a bit of the OSB sarking on when it dried up, while Rolly closed the eaves, so it wasn’t a complete wash out.   Next day Rolly and I got a rhythm going and got loads of sarking up, using ropes for security, leaving just the top rows each side which were thankfully half bits.  
     
    So next day, with nearly a complete layer of OSB on, we discovered how useless sarking is at keeping rain out.  Cue yet more depressing sweeping water off of the upstairs floor.  Yet even in such circumstances illumination is to be found.  Tony trays.  You thought they were just for keeping the air in, but no! they are far more versatile: they keep the rain in too.
     
    With a flat surface like an upstairs floor however fast one sweeps torrential rain towards the stairwell much of it reaches the walls. When it hits the Tony trays it is skilfully guided round the end of the joists and then down the inside walls.  Of course, this is good news especially when one has carefully stored lots of stuff out of the rain, neatly stacked round the edge of the downstairs walls, as all that dry and dusty stuff gets a good cleansing rinse in pure rainwater.  All my paslode nail boxes are now papier-mâché, which doesn’t bloody help.  The best laid plans and all that.
     
    And the delays meant that the plan was starting to look too tight.  We had a day to get the rest of the sarking on and a few other bits and pieces done to be ready for the roofer.  Cue the cavalry - which in Suffolk can be a helpful neighbour.  Rolly did the clever woodworky bits while Dean and I got the top rows of sarking on.  
     
    Our scaffold is v thin on one side as we are so close to our neighbours, so I could only safely lay a ladder up the roof on the other side.  We’d used a roofing ladder for the lower rows but that didn’t work for the top row as the hook was in the way of fitting the boards.  So we laid a normal ladder up the roof, and then I laid on the roof, feet atop the ladder, while Dean attached each sheet to a rope and pulled it up to me to fit in place, first on my side then on the other.  Worked a treat and with Dean holding the rope we had a backup against the gusts of winds which was never really used but was a comfort to have anyway.  
     
         
     
    Actual safety verses perceived safety is fascinating.   As I lay on the sarking getting ready to pull up the next board, waving at a regular passer by (who took another picture), Dean took one look at me, perched on the top of the ladder and asked if I was sure it was safe.  “No”, I said, “I’m at significant risk of bashing my thumb with my hammer”.  If fall off the ladder AND I didn’t keep one hand on the top of the last fixed board I’ll collect the odd splinter as I slowly slide down onto the scaffolding.  Our 40degree pitch means one cannot walk on the OSB but it did mean I could hold myself in place with one hand very easily.  OK if I did slide I’d swear a lot but we’d have a laugh about it after.  If I was monkeying about on a felted and battened roof the risk of falling through would be massively greater and much more dangerous.
     
    In reality I was much more at risk of injury lifting panels on the slab - back injury, crushed fingers, etc.  But Dean saw height and that triggered his ‘oh my’ function, (he’s American so he says things like that and “do the math”, and “oh shoot”, etc. bless him), whereas he and I lifting panels didn’t bother him one bit.  Peeps (no names, no pack drill Rolly!) constantly leave stuff about which constitute trip hazards, and I’m regularly kicking them to the side or picking them up as I fear peeps tripping and the resultant injuries, which depending on what is there to fall on could be really nasty.  Hence my obsessive tidying and my Tidy Fridays.  It took me a while to realise if things get untidy I get a big knotty ball of anxiety in me that I just couldn’t turn off.  But everyone else wanders past the mess oblivious.  So my perhaps irrational trigger is disorder.  Go figure, as Dean would say.
     
    Once I’d put the last bit on I treated myself to a sit down with a view, on the ridge.  I had been looking forward to that moment for many, many days.   My favourite place in our current house is on it, on the ridge to be exact.  The view is spectacular.  Turns out the new pad’s ridge view is just as good.  Sitting there, looking across the river towards the ancient burial mounds, even with the rain starting again, felt like the Pooliverse (any Perishers fans out there?) was telling me that it’s all ok, this is meant to be.   
     
         
     
    As the roofer arrived next day I was back laying down on the job, this time fixing stainless steel anti-everything mesh along the gap at the top for the ridge vent.  I was very glad to see him, until that is, he asked about the gable verge and soffit details.  They are as we agreed, I said, happily.  Only it turns out that he had no memory of our previous discussion and anyway he’s a visual sort of guy, rather than a discussion with drawings, sort of guy.  So I’ve simply no idea what he thought he was agreeing to the previous week, but we had to do the whole discussion again, this time with wood to mock it up.  
     
    Fortunately the end result was very similar to my original design, but sometimes trying to plan ahead and get things nailed down in advance in the building industry does feel like trying to buy spirit level bubbles - impossible, and at the same time a source of great amusement to others.  That discussion was had on the scaffolding in bright sunshine.  But grey clouds were on the horizon so that time wasted was bad news.  
     
    Two strips of felt later the heavens opened in one last assault before we put our hat on.  I guess the Pooliverse has a sense of humour which is hard to appreciate as one sweeps and sweeps and sweeps endless puddles away.  But the rain stopped and the roofer got back up there and we finally weren’t topless any more.  
     
    While the roofer roofed I carried on setting out my flue and while my back was turned Rolly threw up our internal upstairs walls.  Perhaps he wiggles the end of his nose, that would account for the speed.  We were slowed a lot by the joists being slightly not where I thought the plans showed them to be, (“what do you mean I can’t cut through a pozijoist?  I’ve big saws, of course I can!”), but a small (40mm) wall shift sorted the flue run and suddenly we’ve gone from wooden cathedral (micro version) to embryonic home.  Albeit a damp one.  
     
         
     
    The week ended with just me doing my Tidy Friday bit and knocking off early for a bit of a low key garden party held by one of our new neighbours.  I know our build has upset some a bit but, we are again, ridiculously lucky that the vast majority of our new neighbours are very welcoming and tolerant.  The Pooliverse continues to be good to us. 
     
    Oddly, I then hit a downer, which is very ‘me’.  I have no idea if this is an unusual habit, but when faced with the achievement of an important milestone I don’t feel like celebrating, I suddenly have the bandwidth to contemplate what’s left to be done.  This time was a lot worse, as I suddenly realised that my time working with Rolly would soon end, and working with him felt really good.  Funny old emotional roller coaster, this building malarkey.  
  4. G and J

    We need to be trussed up…

    By G and J,


    The house itself.
    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.
  5. G and J

    Nearly a complete walls up….

    By G and J,


    The house itself.
    On your marks: Get set : Wait!
     
    Day 1 of panel erecting was rained off.  Humph.  I tried to pretend to be human again by popping into town with J for a spot of bargain hunting (for stuff we don’t need, natch) but inside I’m still a self build automaton.  My recovery won’t really start till we move in methinks.
     
    Next day we start the day by admiring my new paddling pools. The previous week I carefully swathed the piles of panels with tarps before it rained oodles.  Good theory.  But without me noticing the panels with doors or windows happened to be uppermost so they filled with gallons of water - pulling the tarps into the hole with them, so parts of the panels got a bit wet as I wasted time bailing and lifting tarps to get rid of the water.  
     
    Eventually we started fitting sole plates. Happily the blockwork was very close to mm perfect so there was little in the way of adjusting needed.  Next job was to fix trimmers to the outsides of the windframe which stabilises the rear of the house, and was, we felt, the safest place to start fitting panels.  Cue Hilti gun.  
     
    I was dead clever at this point.  Instead of wasting money hiring I bought a cheap ex-hire one. After a false start requiring the gun to be swapped I tried to use it to fix a trimmer to the windframe. Nil pois.  The flange was 12mm and there was no way a Hilti nail was getting through.   So I’d ended up wasting more money than hiring.  Damn.  Will try and resell.
     
    The self drilling screws I’d bought as a backup didn’t work either, they just snap.  So the cavalry, in the form of J, raced to Grip Fixings for some FB self drilling screws which, after some experimentation we did get to work.
     
    Once the sole plates were down and the trimmers were on it was time to play musical panels (without music, we are a no radio site).  The panels were stacked for most effective transportation, not in installation order. 
     
    But that doesn’t matter as each panel has easily removable lifting straps so it’s dead easy for the crane to pull them off from the top, drop them into position, apply a temporary prop and go on to the next one till they are all up and can be stapled together.  If you have a crane that is.
     
    Our site is oversailed by next doors telephone and mains cable, and the front of the site has both kinds of wire strung across it too.  That’s why almost all of the timber frame companies I talked to at the self build show wouldn’t quote.  Just one SIPs company would but they gave every impression of not caring about minor details like feasibility, perhaps because with the prices they charge they could hire a Chinook.  
     
    The company we are using typically supply builders who instal themselves, which suited us a treat as tins of spinach aren’t that expensive, and otherwise it would be stick built on site which was a bridge too far.   We’ve benefitted greatly from the experience and engineering knowledge of the panel company so in hindsight right now it feels like a really good plan.  
     
    But on the ground, when the panel that logically should be installed next is at the bottom of the biggest pile with the biggest, heaviest panels sitting on top of it, one questions previous decisions.  Many times I called time out to consider if we needed more muscle on the team.  I have excess bloody minded JFDI determination but compared to Rolly the Chippy I’m a snowflake.  I’m not sure he understands the word can’t, which makes ensuring on site safety requires both strength of character and a big gob.  And firmly resisting the temptation to ‘just go for it’.
     

     
    To start with it really did resemble one of the old sliding tile puzzles I used to do as a kid. Only with tiles that don’t slide and are up to 8’ x 11’ and weigh up to 135kg.  It started getting better when I took some time one evening to ship as much possible down to the man cave slab at the bottom of the garden.  
     
    With each panel it got easier and we steadily accelerated.  Happy days.  Not so happy when it rained though, but we erected the little camping shelter I had in reserve which gave us somewhere to sit and plan in the dry and it gave us the chance to deploy my table saw, which is useful.
     

     
    On the Friday the joist delivery and subsequent stacking took me most of the day.  The delivery driver was about 4 decades younger than me, a foot taller, looked strong and was brilliantly helpful.  At first, us moving 6.3m 47kg posijoists from the lorry to our slab saw me running to keep up.  After the first few he slowed down to match my speed, or so I thought.  A few more and I found myself wondering why we were going so slow.  I’d worn him out.  By the time we’d finished he was visibly wilted, but we’d done it.  
     

     
    I separated the flat roof stuff out and shipped that down the garden too, which used up the last of my day. Thankfully nothing stops Rolly the Chippy so he’d carried on doing useful stuff.  
     
    By the end of the week we’d got the two sides mostly done.  I stood in the back garden and looked back at the pics of the site when it was first cleared.  We’ve come a long way.  It was a needed boost.
     

     

     
    The next Monday our big glulam arrived, easily transported on my super useful little trolley.  I’ve been laughed at and teased about my trolley, but it’s moved an awful lot both on the slab and up and down the garden.  Rolly’s little board with casters is better for moving panels on the flat slab but my DeWalt trolley is the bee’s knees otherwise.  
     

     
    By the end of Tuesday we had all load bearing panes (external and internal) up, with header plates in place so we were ready for the metal men to come and instal about 800kg of steel atop the panels.  So Thursday Rolly and I rechecked everything was still plumb (small adjustments needed) after the weight of the steels had landed and then it was time to focus on getting ready for joist hanging.
     
    Friday saw the arrival of the same team of brickies who saved our plant based bacon equivalent two weeks previously.  They are a team of celebrity look alikes: Pete Townshend; Paul Weller and Charles Branson.  Despite this they are a whirlwind.
     
    It hadn’t occurred to me that hitherto I’ve only worked with builders, not brickies.  They are brilliant at what they do, but they only do brick and blockwork.  So I needed to ensure that all was done/planned ready for them.  That meant sorting all the breather membrane on Friday late afternoon ready for the brickies’ Saturday shift.  J and I worked late to do enough to be ready for them and whilst we managed it, with only a modicum of tetchiness, I now realise, that looking back, I really needed to stop and carefully think through how the brickies would work in with the project.  
     
    They are a force of nature.  Light the blue touch paper and dive for cover, but in a good way.  Sort of.  Once they start things happen so fast that there s no time for me to think, and frankly I wasn’t ready.  I think we’ve just avoided cocking up but only by overusing J and my combined brainpower and if I’d been on my own the project would now be in trouble.  
     
    It isn’t helped by the fact that they’d offered to do two days to sort the plinth bricks.  That bit I was ready for.  But then they announced that they could stay till the house blockwork was all finished, so things I thought were a good few days away were suddenly NOW!  
     
        
     
    I’m loving working with Rolly on the frame, he’s precise, informative, patient with my constant stream of dumb questions, and he makes us productive.  But I need to do my part of project management too. And it turns out I find it too easy to get lost in the woodshavings.   
     
    J and I are project managing between us and that is working well.  At least I think it is, if you’ve seen Arthur Christmas we’re a bit like his parents, Dad, like me, wears bright clothes, smiles a lot and peeps think he is leading, but in reality Mum, like J, is keeping track and thinking and usually quietly steering. 
     
    I must try harder next week or we won’t be ready for the upstairs panel delivery next Friday!  And like Rolly the Chippy, I can’t let the word can’t onto site.  
     
  6. G and J

    Still not quite to damp…

    By G and J,


    Groundworks and Foundations
    Forgive me holy Bill Dub, it has been many weeks since my last confession: and in that time I have uttered much profanity and at times, I have edged a small way towards despair.  I used to think I was good at working alone, and I sort of am when I have confidence that I have a good idea of what I am doing.  The other thing about working alone is that it’s dangerous - especially with net access and faceache marketplace.  Guess who now has a fridge freezer in the site hut (vital, darlings) and a bargain paslode (see, we are self builders really!). 
     
    Anyway, to start with the plan was to:
    Block up to damp all but a central path so we could get stuff through to the garden. Hire a digger. Dig out for the Hide (my hermitage at the bottom of the garden). Shutter up and get mesh in for the raft for the Hide. Hire a dumper. Use said dumper to ferry concrete from the road to the Hide (circa 75m) Reduce the ground level at the front of the site where the garage will be. Dig, instal and fill in the 2.4m3 soakaway, using the dumper to deposit the spoil at the front of the site for a grab. Get the spoil gone with a small (9 ton) grab. Enough crush delivered, spread and whackered ready for the over site. Mesh in for reinforced over site. Dumper in concrete. Add top layer of blocks (thermalite) and TA-DA!!  we will be ready to start erecting the timber panels which were due for delivery 18th of July.  
    Good plan.  But as we know, no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.
     
    Due to the stupid levels of heat, and an old injury flaring up, my retired builder buddy Steve has not had that many days on site in the last 6 weeks.  To start with we, meaning Steve, made good progress laying über heavy 140mm concrete blocks.  In hindsight using them was a mistake.  I was advised to use them rather than thermalite hi-strength blocks for all but the top layer to save money, only they didn’t as the weight really slowed us down.   It also took it out of Steve.
     
    But blocks laid, we went on to the Hide, and we got most of it shuttered up and we laid the A393 steel mesh (2.4x4.8m bits of that are heavy!), so we were ready to concrete the raft so I hired the dumper.  But then Steve had to have a few days off.
     
    So I pressed on as well as I could.  I had no digger or dumper driving experience and frankly it showed in the glacial progress.  When I started digging the soakaway hole, if it was being filmed an advisory would be needed at that point to say “those of a nervous disposition please look away now”.
     
    But I managed to dig the soakaway, put the topsoil aside, fill the dumper with load after load of subsoil, dump it by the road, install the crates wrapped in the odd fabric, and put the topsoil back.   Exhausting, especially constantly jumping from one machine to the other, but rewarding despite there being no visual evidence after the event except on my phone.    Our BCO has since approved our soakaway from the pics, which was a relief.
         
    I think it was around then that it became clear that handballing off the timber panels was going to be a nightmare.  Panic.  But one conversation with Andy the Boss and a telehandler was booked. Saved again.
     
    Still no Steve, so onto the crush as we can still run the dumper over the crush and the filled in soakaway to get the concrete to the Hide.  
     
    30 tons of crush sounds like a lot.  However, when faced with a 9 ton load dumped near the front of the site ready for me to drag it onto the slab it feels like an awful lot more than a lot.  So days were spent moving crush, some with the dumper to start with but that only worked for so long so the dumper became redundant.  I did get a bit faster on the digger, eventually.
       
    Originally I had thought about using a line pump but was dissuaded.   Apparently there was a fatality some years ago in our area and it appears amongst many in the trade concrete pumps are the bogeymen.  But as there was no sign of Steve returning it was time for a replan - saved again by Andy the Boss.  So the dumper was returned and the pump was booked and I carried on with more loads of crush.
     
    The second 9 ton load enabled me to create a sort of ramp so by switching to another local company who had a smaller vehicle I hoped to get 4 ton loads dumped direct where they were needed.  It sort of worked.  
     
    He reversed down the site and over my foundations and tipped onto what will be our lounge.  V good.  But then he had trouble getting back up the slope and at one point we were shovelling crush to unstick the lorry.  Not good.  After a few goes he got out, to my relief, but I was told that the remaining two deliveries would be tipped front of site.  Damn.
     
    So I leapt on the digger, and used the hour between deliveries to redo the slope, whackering down the crush in places to help.   When the lorry returned the driver got out, looked, nodded, jumped back in his cab and reversed all the way again.  Result.  Same for the final 4 tons too.  Saved me hours of diggering.  Peeps do seem to try even harder to help when one is building your own home.
     
    Such a small world though.  In conversation with the driver it turns out he delivered the bulk of the aggregates to us during our build 34 years ago.  
     
    Another day of grading and whackering and the digger was finally finished with.  I sort of enjoyed it a bit but one can have way too much of a good thing.  
     
    Steve returned for a couple of days to do the last blockwork needed for the over site pour, which got us into a position where we felt ok about going away for a few days to mark a big anniversary.  Which we really enjoyed.  
     
    On our return we learnt that Steve was grounded until further notice on medical advice.   We had two days on our return to get the A142 mesh in - which was not enough time for me on my own - especially as I had to go get different spacers for the mesh as I’d cocked up my planning.  Carrying the 2.4x4.8m sheets on my own was really weird.    The weight wasn’t so bad but they waggled so much that it destabilised me so had to stop and ground them to reduce the risk of a fall.  
     
    So Saturday morning (the pump was booked for Monday first thing) the cavalry arrived in the shape of J who had re-researched how to do the mesh/spacers/tying in.  We flew along.  Relief.  
        
    On Monday the pour was uneventful.  I learned that the fatality was due to a fall where a chap had his hard hat on backwards - nothing really to do with the boom that was there at the time but legends become self sustaining.
     
    A couple of days of tidying up and many, many phone calls then ensued - I needed the top layer of thermalites done otherwise the panels would sit soaking up sun and rain for days.  Finding good brickies at short notice appeared a pipe dream.  
     
    Not for the first time we were saved yet again by Andy the Boss who rustled up a two plus one brickie team, who, he assured me, would sort things out Friday afternoon as long as I got a mixer on site.  Steve agreed to provide a mixer that he’d drop off Friday morning.  All way too last minute.   We had no choice but to trust and hope.  
     
    On Thursday it was pointed out to me that a pile of crush on site could form a ramp which would allow the telehandler to get on the slab and place the panels in the best spot.  Sweating profusely with my spade and rake was a good way to learn to appreciate a digger.  But by the time I wobbled home site was ready. 

    Friday morning started badly.  Scooby - my dilapidated and beloved Skoda bought a year ago for the build - was booked for an MOT - my mindset was that it was more ‘the last rights’ than it was a routine check.  So I loaded my pushbike on top, drove to site to drop off my tools only to find that without warning, the road was closed.  Annoyed.  Stressed.  We’d had to give 12 weeks notice but apparently Anglian Water decided the day before despite it being planned in in advance.  
     
    I dropped Scooby off at the garage with a lump in my throat and peddled like mad to get back to site.   The water board guys agreed to let our delivery through, much to my relief.   On site I wanted to recheck all my levels and move some stuff to be ready for both the delivery and the brickies.  I’d just got that done when Andy the Boss turns up in the telehandler.  The delivery lorry, however, took one look at the road closed sign and drove off somewhere random to give me a call.  Several gritted teeth calls later and I managed to talk him in (why hasn’t anyone invented Satnav?) and we then did lorry and telehandler ballet, with a support act of irate drivers blaming me for the road closure - more gritted teeth, smiling from the nose down calming and redirection of a succession of stressed senior drivers.  
     
    The first pile of panels fell off badly placed bearers, after which Andy the Boss followed my signals rather than those from the well meaning driver.  (An hour of manual panel shuffling later revealed no damage - thankfully - but they ain’t easy to move on my own as some of the weigh OMFG kg).  The rest of the offloading went ok.   Deep breaths.  
        
    Then Rolly the Chippy turned up to have a look at the panels we will be erecting the following week.   He has a lovely calming way with him, just what I needed.  
     
    The brickies turned up exactly on time and in a couple of hours on a burning hot Friday afternoon laid a phenomenal amount of blockwork beautifully.  Their job was made harder by having to wiggle round the piles of panels but they just took it all in their stride.   
     
    And to make matters even better the garage rang.  Scooby had passed.  I could have cried.  
     
    So much had come together all at once.  Next week we start putting panels up. Unbelievably fortunate.  At times over the last few weeks the fatigue and self doubt had eaten away leaving me feeling that it didn’t matter how much one did right, how much one achieved, all that counted were one’s mistakes.   J rightly reminds me that if it was easy everyone would do it, and talking things through together really does help enormously.   Right now I feel ridiculously lucky.  May that feeling continue.
  7. G and J
    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.  
  8. G and J

    Choose your panics with care…

    By G and J,


    Groundworks and Foundations
    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.
  9. G and J

    Scraping and digging and filling.

    By G and J,


    Groundworks and Foundations
    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.  
     
        
  10. G and J

    Demolition summary and costings…

    By G and J,


    Da Bungalow
    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.
  11. G and J

    Bungalow down! Bungalow down!

    By G and J,


    Da Bungalow
    (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.
  12. G and J

    It’s so warm we’ve gone topless!

    By G and J,


    Da Bungalow
    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.
  13. G and J

    Last Dunny standing…

    By G and J,


    Da Bungalow
    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!
     
  14. G and J

    Bungalow recycling…

    By G and J,


    Da Bungalow
    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. 
  15. G and J
    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!
  16. G and J

    Skoobie joins an anxious team….

    By G and J,


    Da Bungalow
    Introducing Skoobie, a Skoda Fabia and the newest member of the team.  Not the first purchase towards the build, we’ve already bought a twin battery Makita chainsaw and Trevor the trailer to help clearing trees, but they were back in January.

    Skoobie is not in the first flush of youth so fits in well with my (G’s) seventh decade creaking knees, but we are hoping she (yes, this Scooby is female) will do great service in pursuit of our new home.  

    So where is the project now?  We have full planning permission but we still don’t actually know how she is going to be built and by whom.  It seems such minor details need to be sorted before we can assemble a credible budget.  Who knew?

    Our house is on the market but is garnering little interest, so the upside is we have time to plan everything to death and worry ourselves witless.  We’ve done the CIL stuff and they’ve accepted the previous occupancy to reduce the CIL levy should we have to sell in the first three years and they’ve also confirmed our self build exemption.  

    A planning condition prevents starting before September anyway and although we may well start soonish from a CIL point of view with garden clearance and maybe demolish the garage the main action won’t start for a goodly while.

    There is just so much to think about at once, and it is such a roller coaster of emotions.  In the building technology Olympic race we are on the 115th lap (yep, going round and round in circles). Both traditional blockwork and ICF were non starters, kit build companies (SIPs and TF) fell at the high jump as they failed to clear the electric wires on site, so that leaves stick built on site by chippies and a TF kit assembled manually as the front runners, with a SIP kit manually assembled limping in third. 

    On the upside the delayed start has meant I’ve been able to visit two self build sites and learned tons as a result - with me asking more questions than a warranty application form but still being met with such kindness and patience.  

    But time to plan means time to worry too. 

    We thought we were nearing a design which we like which also met all the fire regs imposed by building so close to our boundaries, only to realise that we needed to check that the resulting design would be both mortgageable and lifetime mortgageable - we like to plan ahead and we do want access to funds to grow old disgracefully.  We can hope!

    That’s boiling our brains right now, and getting straight answers from underwriters about a possible future mortgage app is not easy!  But we press on regardless…


  17. G and J

    Action stations!

    By G and J,


    Da Bungalow
    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….





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