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vivienz

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  1. vivienz

    Whoosh!

    By vivienz,

    So not much happened on site today.
     
    Hahahahhahaha!
     
    Just kidding - the 'whoosh' of the entry title refers to the speed of the upper floor going up.  Just amazing.  Equally, though, it could refer to the rotor blades of a Royal Navy lynx helicopter.  Huh? Let me explain.  For some time now, ever since the slab started going down, in fact, there have been a couple of navy lynx helicopters that seem to have a regular route (I assume from RNAS Yeovilton as it's not that far away) passing not far from our site and they're generally over at least once a week.  Since the slab started going down, their fly-pasts have become a little closer each time and a little slower.  This afternoon, a single lynx flew over.  I mean right over.  Like, directly over head, banking steeply around the build at a very low level right over.  I'm sure I saw the pilot wave.  So, I'm just saying it now, but if MBC get an order from either aircrew or a pilot of a navy lynx helicopter, they know where to send the bottle of wine for the free advertising.
     
    So, what did happen today?  Well, the final load of timber frame components arrived around mid-morning but the crane and MBC were there from early doors this morning, busy putting into place what was already on site.  First in were the south east and north west corner walls.
     

     
    Then came the walls either side of the east and west gables:
     

     
    Once the adjacent walls were in, the gable steels were craned in:
     

     
    The east gable was done a little differently.  The steel was put in first, then the timber section placed on top:
     

     
    Here's a closer view of the east gable steel being worked on:
     

     
    And here's one of the big side wall panels being craned in:
     

     
    Then the slightly different design for the south gable.  This doesn't have an apex in the glazing, so the section is done differently.
     

     
    Once the team broke for a late lunch, I scampered up and took a couple of photos from the scaffold for a different perspective:
     
     

     
    By late afternoon, the full height opening for the stairwell window was all in and work was starting on the internal stud walls.
     

     
    As well as the internal walls, the guys were prepping the top of the gables to receive the roof beams that will go in soon by cutting slots in the very top of the apex.
     

     
    Final pic for today that I know will excite all you construction fans, is the treatment of the steel beam ends and the glulams:
     

     
    So, what next?  Well, the scaffolders are due back tomorrow to put the second lift in place and make any adjustments that the MBC team need to do the final stages of the timber frame.
     
    In addition, I'm still chasing down and getting more roofing quotes as my solar PV installation is due on 26th September and I still need to get the eaves course and velux windows sorted by then as I'm pushing my already extraordinarily good luck with the weather in getting weather-dependent jobs done that far into the autumn.  The glazing is also due that week, so I'm hoping for a good one!
     
    I've got quite a few admin tasks to do and need to get to grips with the next section of workflow but I've been giving some attention to that today and will detail my 'next steps' in a separate post away from all this distracting timber frame porn.
     
    Enjoy!

  2. vivienz

    Timber frame, day 2

    By vivienz,

    Moving on to day 2 of the timber frame erection, I make no apologies for this photo-heavy post as the pictures speak far more eloquently than I can on the subject matter.  Especially as I don't know the right words for much of it.
     
    It rained overnight here in Dorset, but nothing disastrous and it was all gone by a couple of hours into the morning.  Here's how I left the team yesterday evening:
     

     
    This morning, another day, another crane.  This one, I think, was even bigger, but it hurt my neck to keep looking that high, so I can't swear to it.  Along with the crane was the next lot of timber frame components, but also the steels for the ground floor ceiling/first floor.
     

     
    There's a lot of steel in my building and whilst being very good for the structural integrity of the building, it's pretty rubbish if you want to stick an MVHR duct through it.  At the production stage, my MVHR guy liaised with MBC to request penetrations through the steels for the ducting so that we didn't have to try and deal with this after the event.  Here's one such steel with the right holes in the right places.
     

     
    Again, the crane did its thing and shifted all the posi joists into the interior the building and helped position the internal stud walls.  All the steels were craned into position as well.  The posi joists were man-handled up onto the steels:
     

     
    This is the run of the posi joists, looking from the eastwards from the west facing  window.  This is looking from the end of the living/dining area towards the kitchen and utility.
     

     
    This is looking back towards the building from the field. The silver box is the attached garage which will not be part of the thermal envelope; we haven't yet decided whether to put any insulation into this, but that can come later.
     

     
    The interior of the garage looking out to the field:
     

     
    A shot taken from the scaffolding. I'm standing at the west side of the living room (where the field is) looking over the lane and the fields beyond.  For those of you who know north Dorset, that's Hambledon Hill near Blandford Forum in the distance.
     

     
    And finally, this was resting on the joists upstairs.  It pleases me greatly.
     



  3. vivienz

    After the rain

    By vivienz,

    I wasn't going to visit the site today, but we've had heavy rain showers today in Dorset and I thought that would be an ideal opportunity to see how level the slab looks after its late night power floating.  My reasoning was that whilst I can't identify any high spots by eye, it would be easy to look for the low ones by where the puddles were lying.
     
    Here's a photo taken from a slightly elevated viewpoint (the top of a pile of wood chippings!), looking from the south east corner where the snug will be, over towards the north west corner, where the main living area will be.
     

     
    Most of the puddles that you can see are barely a couple of millimetres.  I'm not sure how long it had been since the shower that caused these, but it was a breezy day and not hot.
     
    The next is taken from the other end of the right hand side of the property, as seen above.  Between the brown foul waste pipe and the white UFH pipes, you can just about see that there is a hole in the slab.  This is meant to be there right now, but is due to a mishap yesterday.  As the concrete was being transferred in the digger and poured from the bucket, the digger rocked slightly and the bucket bounced on the exposed UFH pipes.  Harry from MBC reckoned that one of the pipes has been damaged as a result, and so the area around the punctured pipe has been left uncovered.  My trusty plumber/UFH person will be coming early next week to fix the damaged section of pipe and make good on the concrete floor, and MBC will be covering the cost of this.  Once I have the bill for the repair, I will pay it and MBC will deduct the amount from my next stage payment.  This was all agreed this morning without any arguments or quibbles.
     

     
    So far, all the puddles in the photos have only been a couple of mm deep.  The deepest is on the far north west corner of the living area, shown below.
     

     
    It's not easy to guage the depth of this area, but I think it's about 4mm at the deepest.  The thingies are a couple of end caps that get put on the pile rebar, but the wind was blowing them towards me.  You can see how they are tilting.
     
    Here's another view of the same:
     

     
    I don't recall the exact tolerance that the slab needs to be within off the top of my head, and I'm not going hunting for it right now as I'm one g&t into Friday evening with a couple more to follow, so no point now.  However, the figure of 5mm is scratching away in the deepest recesses of my grey cells, so I think this should be acceptable. If anyone knows otherwise, please speak up!
     
    The finish on the surface overall is very nice.  I had a walk over the whole thing and couldn't see anything obvious, but then apart from squishy concrete under my boots, I wouldn't know quite what to look for anyone.  To my unpracticed eye, it looks pretty good.
     
    One very good think that came about from all that excess concrete being dumped all over the place yesterday is that the team spread it all out between the hard standing and the slab, so I now have an even more level and sturdy surface for the crane when it arrives with the timber frame:
     

  4. vivienz
    You had better be, because once MBC turn up on site, it's fast and furious and everything has to fit around them.  Things happen at an incredible pace and no matter how much you read about it, how many videos you look at, it doesn't quite prepare you for the reality of that speed, or not in my case.  Some surprises are good, and this was one of them.
     
    I'll get to the photos shortly, but first a few comments on what else has been happening since the slab was finished on the 9th August, or thereabouts, as some is preparation and others are running in parallel.
     
    First off, immediately after the slab was finished, I confirmed that everything was still good to go with the scaffolders and that they would be here the week before the timber frame was due to be certain it was all in place.  I understand that scaffolders have quite a negative reputation in general and I can only speak of this, my one experience of dealing with them, but so far the firm I'm using have been professional and polite throughout, from the manager to the guys actually putting the scaffolding up.  Long may it continue. 
     
    You may recall my post about my little problem with the overhead electricity lines and my concern about being able to put sufficient scaffolding up for the MBC team to do their thing.  The scaffold guys came around as far as they could with it, but there isn't much around where the garage will be and I will admit to having some qualms over this and whether it would cause massive problems for MBC.  It turns out that it didn't.  At all, not in the slightest.  Nada.  Phew.  You'll see the detail of it later, but it was a weight off my mind to see the garage actually going up.
     
    So what's happening with the electricity thing, then, I hear you cry.  Currently, it's a waiting game.  There is a viable and acceptable solution in play, which is to replace the poles that support the lines which oversail my property with taller ones, an increase in height of about 3m.  This is fine with me, as I don't object to the lines being there, after all, I bought the property with them in situ.  The wait is down to planning permission, but not mine.  It seems that because the proposed increase in height of the poles is greater than 10% of their current height, the DNO has to apply for planning permission to replace with the new, taller ones, and the DNO is no different from we mere mortals who also have the statutory 8 week wait for the planning decision.  So, we wait.  Sadly, the DNO are showing no signs of paying for the work so far and the quote for the work, inclusive of VAT, is around £8k.  Let me state at the outset, I have no intention of paying £8k for this, particularly as the lines running over my property are then on a voluntary basis, with my consent (the wayleave agreement).  I have done some reading around the subject and, in particular, the level of compensation that DNOs typically pay to householders if a wayleave or its more permanent cousin, an easement, is granted to the DNO.  In the case of an easement, it's anywhere between 1% and 2% of the value of the property with all the legals at the DNO's expense.  I haven't had a chance to talk through this with the wayleave officer, but I suspect and hope that we will reach agreement on the logical course of their doing the work at their own cost and I will grant them an easement.  It seems a fair exchange and an efficient way to give a good outcome.  Whether they take the same view remains to be seen, but I shall update once I know more.
     
    With regards to other tasks, I'm basically thinking ahead to once the structure is weather tight and secure.  This stage of the timber frame should be done in a couple of weeks, so let's say 14th September.  My solar PV is all booked and ready to go shortly after that but I need to get the velux windows and a roof course of the tiles up so that the PV installation can go ahead.  I'm waiting for quotes right now and hope to have this sorted by early next week.  Once the solar PV is in, I won't call the roofers back straight away as I need to wait for the glazing installation, which is due on 24th September, so the rest of the roof will get done most likely in early October.
     
    What else?  Well, my UFH, MVHR and all the kit for that is actually starting to get sorted this week, from tomorrow.  MBC are pushing off to another job for a couple of days to give my plumber time to get the UFH stuff sorted for the first floor.  What? UFH upstairs? Yes.  I'm a girl and I function best at temperatures a couple of degrees higher than you boys.  It may be that we don't need it, but it's easier to put it in now than for hubby listen to my teeth chattering for the next 30 years. 
     
    Okay, okay, I'll get to the action stuff now. 
     
    So, bright and early the day after the bank holiday, the first enormous flat bed lorry stacked with timber frame arrived.  The crane was already on site, as were the MBC crew.  Actually, I think I've got 2 crews, a total of 7 guys yesterday, which explains the blistering rate of progress.  It was a really tight squeeze getting that lorry up the narrow lane to the site and the drivers really prove their mettle getting in and out of there.
     

     
    This is yesterday's crane.  They have an incredible reach and are quite something to see in action.  I couldn't get the whole thing in a shot.
     

     
    Before anything happens with the walls, the team go around string marking where the beams are and putting down sole plates for the walls to lock into.  The black stuff is the DPM which overlaps the EPS underneath.
     

     
    Space was getting a bit tight on the site, but between the hard standing and the inside of the house, everything found a spot.
     

     
    Once all the marking out was done and sole plates were down in the right places, the crane hauled the walls up and they were guided into position.
     

     
    Here's the view over the field from what will be one of the living room windows.
     

     
    At the end of yesterday afternoon, all the external walls were up and they starting marking out for the internal stud walls.
     

     
    There's more to follow from today, but I'll put that into a separate post.  This one's busy enough.
  5. vivienz
    After such a very long time of planning, waiting, more planning, plotting and scheming, the real and tangible world is now hurtling towards me at a pace.  MBC got in touch this morning to advise that the slab insulation and the MBC team will be on site on 31st July.  That's next week.  Eek!
     
    Now, I don't know exactly what else is going to happen and whether that's the start proper of the slab going down, but I'd say it's a pretty positive sign of it.  Once I have more detail on the schedule, I'll publish on here.  For anyone wanting to see the piling in action, I strongly suspect that Thursday will be the final day (we are due a bit of rain there Friday morning, too) and I'll be around if anyone wants to visit.
     
    I now need to get my scaffolding booked and finalised - it looks like I'll need it soon.
     
    5pm update: it's the full team arriving to do the slab on 31st July, followed by the superstructure on 14th August.
     
    Update 24/7/18 on MBC dates. Insulation and MBC team now due to start foundation on 2nd August, possibly 3rd, with superstructure due w/c 20th August due to over-run on current job.
  6. vivienz

    A difficult day...

    By vivienz,

    ...for the MBC team, and not their fault, but I have a slab. This is only down to the tenacity and incredible hard work from the MBC team who snatched victory from the jaws of defeat today following horrible equipment failure on the part of the concrete company.
     
    So, let's start at the beginning.  The slab team worked like frenzy yesterday morning to get all of the EPS down, followed by the mesh which then got tied into the ring beams.  After that, they put all the underfloor heating pipes in (there are several zones and many, many pipes to come into the manifold).  The building control officer turned up just before 6pm last night and gave everything the okay for the pour today. 
     
    Here's the slab with everything on it first thing this morning, just waiting for the concrete, at shortly after 8 this morning.  On site already is the pumping lorry and one mixer of cement. Very exciting, so far, so good.
     

     
    They started with the furthest part first, and the first lot of cement went onto the garage area, where the chaps are standing in the above photo.
     
    Here's the pump, concrete lorry and plenty of other equipment all good to go.
     

     
    Except, it wasn't good to go.  Well, it was, because that's what it did in the end. Go, that is.  The concrete pump packed up and after a good while of trying to fix it, nothing was happening so off it went.
    All wasn't lost, however, as one of the drivers was also a pump operator and offered to get a fairly old pump out of retirement and use that.  Brilliant!
     

     
    This is the ageing pump putting the concrete over to the garage.  Meanwhile, several hours have passed and after a bit of grumbling earlier in the morning about the concrete lorries not turning up on time, suddenly, they're coming thick and fast and are all parked up our narrow country lane.  Then the second pump got blocked and couldn't be cleared.  A very large man with a very large mallet did all he could to clear it, but it wasn't working. By now, it was nearly 2pm and the slab should have been poured a good few hours ago and power floating started. 
     
    Left with no other choice, Harry, who was heading up the team, got the bucket onto the whopping great digger and ALL of the rest of the cement got dumped onto the slab by digger, and then the guys had to drag it over to wherever they needed it.  This was for a floor area of about 180 sq metres.
     

     
    Fortunately, there were 5 on the team today as they had brought in an extra guy to cover for one who was late back from holiday, but turned up straight from the airport to the site so the numbers were beefed up, and boy, did they need all of them today.
     
    The garage slab was screeded (is that actually a verb?  Dunno, it is now), and was looking fine.
     

     
    Eventually, the rest of the concrete got where it was supposed to be and the lane finally emptied of concrete lorries - there were 5 on or around the site at one point this afternoon.
     

     
    Now, the eagle-eyed amongst you will realise that there are no photos of the final, powerfloated slab.  This is because I pushed off at 5.30 this evening and they were only just starting on the garage; they reckon that they would just about get it finished this evening by the time the light went, so I'm afraid, dear reader, that you really will have to wait for those photos.
     
    One final photo from earlier in the day has something of interest, as it shows the shuttering that was put in place on the threshold for the lift and slide doors that are going in the living room area.
     

     
    Tune in soon for the next thrilling update!
     

  7. vivienz
    Not surprisingly, I've been pondering the dilemma of the overhead electricity lines near/over my proposed garage.  I'm still waiting to hear back from MBC and I suspect my request for a call has got lost in the works somewhere, so I will chase it up. 
     
    In the meantime, I've decided to take another course of action in parallel as, given the choice, I would very much prefer the overhead lines not to be there, or at least not so close.  The immediate thought that comes to mind is £££££.  As many of us know, anything to do with moving electricity supplies tends to be expensive.  This is a slightly different case to the usual one, however, in that the overhead cables don't supply me or my property so I'm not over that particular barrel.  On the deeds to my property is a copy of a fairly ancient wayleave agreement, made in 1958 between the then land owner and what was the Southern Electricity Board.  The key term here is "wayleave". If it were an easement, I would really be in a spot of bother, as an easement is agreement made in perpetuity, as the legal bods like to call it.  To us laypeople, that means forever.  So, the fact that I have a wayleave is a good start.
     
    So what's so good about a wayleave, then?  Well, I can serve notice to the electricity board that I am going to terminate it and they have 3 months to do something about it or respond in some way.  That's not to say that the response will be the one I want, but it gets the ball rolling.  It seems that this not an uncommon request from developers and farmers and there is a well laid out process for it so I shall get things started today - no time like the present and all that.
     
    I will update as and when, but my knowledge is sparse at the moment so I shan't go into too much detail that may be a load of rubbish.
     
    Once more unto the breech!
     
    Quick update: of course, everything has been done before on BH!  Here's a link to a previous thread for Lucy Murray's build in Scotland but with English cases cited from Peter Stark.  Just love this place!
    Burying electricity supply
     
  8. vivienz
    Let's start with the problem.  I can't solve it today as today is a public holiday in RoI and the MBC guy I need to speak to isn't available, so there's nothing doing until tomorrow.
     
    I need to get the scaffolding sorted for when the timber frame team arrive on 27th August and thought I had this well in hand.  I sort of still do, but there's a H&S problem with the scaffold erection and I've spent a little time this morning tracing back to the source of the error.  I need a single lift of scaffolding for the construction of the attached single storey flat roof garage that is at the north east corner of the building.  On the topographical survey that was done for the property by the vendor (for the planning permission that he sold it with), some overhead power cables are shown nearby and the building was designed so that the far corner of the garage cleared these.  So far so good.  All the setting out and construction has been done according to this.  Now, lack of observation on my part, but it is now obvious that instead of clearing the north east corner of the garage by a couple of metres, the OH cables are, in fact, directly overhead of that corner and where the scaffolding would be.
     
    I had a look on the topo survey and the OH cables are incorrectly plotted - they are shown further out than they are in reality, so I'm not sure if this is collective responsibility, or who's it is.  I'm not really interested in attributing blame to anyone at this stage, I'd rather just find a solution that gets the house and garage built within the current schedule.
     
    The issue is this - the cables are high tension and the scaffolder's original suggestion has proved to be a no-goer as the DNO has said that the cables are very high voltage and would just burn through any shrouding. Alternatively, they could switch off the supply running through these cables, but it would have to be for the entire time that the scaffolding is in place.  I didn't even bother asking for a price on this as it's probably more than the build cost.
     
    Where do I go from here? Well, I need to speak with MBC tomorrow and find out if the garage can be built without scaffolding, or if there is some other way around this.  Although all access and materials are coming in away from the OH cables, the concern for the scaffolders is if they make contact with a pole whilst putting the stuff up, or if the power arcs down to one being waved in the air.  I have no idea of the likelihood of any of this, but I really wouldn't want to be responsible for an impromptu barbeque.  Of a person.  Update to follow.
     
    And so onto EPS and beams. I have to say that all that EPS on a sunny day is enough to burn your retinas out.  It really is quite painful to look at, even when you're trying not to, and it doesn't do much for the already hot temperatures out there on site.  You know it's serious when your construction workers are all wearing sunnies, as they're not a vain bunch.
     

     
    The trestles you can see are what they use to rest the rebar sections on before sliding on the steel rings then tying it together with wire before putting in situ and adding the rest of the rings.  The blue polythene that you can see is the DPM/radon barrier sheet.
     

     
    This is the head of the pile that was previously cut to height.  A hole is sawn through the EPS for the pile head to extend into, then the steels from the piles are bent over so that they can be lapped with the rebar forming the ring beam.  Fruit pastilles are optional.
     

     
    The steel protrusions lapping over the EPS will get tied into steel mesh, and the two will overlap by at least 500mm.  The channels in the EPS are where other beams will go.  The EPS offcuts are just being used as spacers to keep the sheets that are down in the right place.
     

     
    Here, you can see where the steels from the pile are tied into the ring beam.  Bear in mind that every single bit of wire that you can see is twisted on by hand.  It makes my hands hurt just thinking about it.
     
    In the main open plan living room area, the west and north facing aspects both have lift and slide doors that need to be recessed into the floor so that the threshold is level.  To allow for this, there are indents in the perimeter beams where the windows will go.
     

     
    This is the westward facing window; you can see that the building is oriented just over 10 degrees off the main compass points by the fall of my shadow - the photo was taken about 9.30 this morning.
     
    And one more photo of the pile steel lapped with the ring beam.
     

     
    The rest of the steels will take all of today and all of tomorrow, then there is the UFH pipe to be laid.  Once all the steels are done, the building control bod needs to come and check that he's happy with all the tying in.  Once that's okayed, then the concrete can be ordered and poured. I'm hoping it will be Thursday as we're due some rain at the weekend, by which time, I'll hopefully have some progress on my scaffolding problem.
  10. vivienz

    Update on slab pour

    By vivienz,

    I briefly popped out to the site this afternoon, dragging hubby with me so that I could show him that I really am spending all that money getting a house built and not squirreling it away into a running away fund.
     
    The MBC team were busy constructing the ring beams that then get tied into the piles.  Lots and lots of work in this and so they reckon that THE SLAB POUR WILL BE EITHER WEDNESDAY OR THURSDAY now. 
     
    No photos today, but I'll take plenty tomorrow for another blow by blow account.
  11. vivienz

    Busy day

    By vivienz,

    It's been a busy old day on site today, and the main MBC associated action was deliveries of EPS and steel and sand, and the team getting on with putting the blinding sand down onto the hardcore, that they finished yesterday evening.
     
    The EPS supplier is based in Essex - the driver left at about 4.30 this morning to make an early delivery but even at that time of day, he didn't make it to the site until just after 8.30 as the roads were so busy.  The amount of polystyrene sitting on the site makes it look as though I've had the mother of all Amazon deliveries and this is the left over packaging.  It's in 2 forms, large flat rectangular sections and the angled corner pieces.
     

     
    Later on this morning, all the steel arrived, 6 tons of the stuff.  It was interesting to see all the component parts of this as I'd never seen that much in real life and, for my own build, only on SE drawings.  The MBC guys were very patient and explained to me how it all gets laid out then tied together to form the ring beam and how they tie everything into the piles.  Very interesting if you've never seen it before.
     

     
    That lot was all put to one side until they need it, and then the main order of the day was getting the sand down.  Progress was slower today as there were only the 2 men on site, but they're still working at a good pace.  The garage area had the sand laid first.
     

     
    The brown pipe sticking up in the foreground is one of the foul water exit pipes.  These have all been put in situ now, along with ducting for any electrical cable that needs to enter or exit through the slab, and this includes my broadband cable.  The following shows the foul water runs; MBC put these to 1m outside the perimeter of the slab.
     

     
    And then we have the ducting to take the electrical cables, visible to the rear of the picture:
     

     
    Then there's a final shot of the blinding going down over the west facing living room area:
     

     
    The other thing that happened today and is worth of mention is the site visit from the scaffolder I'm using.  If you look at the last photo, you can just make out some high voltage overhead cables that don't directly cross the new build, but are very close.  These are close enough that a scaffold erector might accidentally touch the wires with a pole when putting them in position, so the upshot is that the cables need to be shrouded to protect the workers.  This can only be done by the DNO and it's the scaffolding company who contact them and arrange it all as part of their own risk assessment procedures.  When the scaffolding guy raised this with me, he asked if I was project managing the build and whether I needed to do any CDM stuff.  Thank god for BuildHub, as thanks to that thorny and long-running thread a while back, I knew precisely what he was talking about and immediately stated that I wasn't a project manager, but a domestic client and dealing with a sequence of main contractors.  Right answer.  He said that was fine, he would take care of it all.  Phew!
     
    Back to the scaffolding and that shrouding, with another worthwhile point.  Although the firm will organise everything themselves re. the shrouding, there is a lead time with the DNO, currently about 3 to 4 weeks, as it's that time of year.  You may recall that the MBC timber frame team were due on site on 20th August which is more than a little tight.  As it is, I had an email from MBC this afternoon to advise that, as it's that time of year, they've had to bump it back a week due to staff holiday, etc.  That suits me just fine and gives me enough time to make sure the scaffolding is properly in place for the job.  My windows are due for installation on 24th September; MBC will need about 3 weeks for the timber frame, so all of that works out nicely.
     
    The hiatus between the slab and the timber frame will be useful time to make sure I'm organised for the next push with getting the guts into the house and sorting out all those niggly little details.  Like a roof. 
     
    Onwards and upwards!
  12. vivienz
    ...a little more action.
     
    The piles started going in today and it was a glorious sight to behold after so much waiting and anticipation.  It was, in fact, very understated for piles; these are, after all, mini piles, but there was so little fuss and hassle that it was almost underwhelming.  Not quite, though.
     
    I may just happened to have mentioned before that I'm on clay.  Well, I'm on even more clay than I thought.  In fact, you would be hard pressed to find anything other than clay on my site apart from a few meagre inches of topsoil where the garden used to be.  Although these are mini piles, they still go down to 12m in some positions and all that came up off the augur was clay.  Yellow clay at the top, dark grey clay from about 2.5m downwards.
     
    So onto a bit of technical stuff for the piles.  They are being put in by Advanced Mini Piling Systems, who are based in Bath, and they're very nice chaps.  I have 34 piling positions and these were set out by a surveyor on Friday afternoon.  Late Friday, two of the piling guys dropped off the rig for an early start this morning and that's just what they did, about 8am.  Now, don't ask me questions about loadings and things like that; I can probably find out if you really need to know, but I take the view that as I've paid an SE to work out these things for me, I'm not going to double up on the effort and fry my brain in doing so.  Actually, if I come across the pile schedule I can post it if anyone really wants it.
     
    First up, the rig is moved to the piling position and the hole is augured out to the specified depth, with the augur being cleaned of debris as they go.  Because my clay is so dessicated, it came away from the drill with no problems and no difficult cleaning was needed.  The spoil was just shoveled out of the way of the piling positions. 
     
    The top 3m of the holes are lined with an anti-heave sleeve - this looked like a giant tube of plastic impregnated cardboard and I suspect that's exactly what it is.  I understand that they can, at times, be tricky to put in.  The team tried to put the first one straight into the hole and seeing someone balancing on one of these to try and squish it in was quite amusing, but ineffective.  The solution was very simple - before inserting the sleeve, it got wetted down with water and they dropped right in.  The sleeves are a few mm smaller than the hole, so still a tight fit, but the water lubrication worked well.
     
    The concrete lorry turned up mid-afternoon.  The drilled holes and sleeves aren't left open overnight, they are always poured and filled by the end of the day, with the rebar inserted.  The concrete pour was equally straightforward.  A dumper truck gets filled with enough concrete to fill one pile position up to the top of the sleeve, the rebar then gets inserted, tied and pushed in all the way. Rinse and repeat until all the positions are finished.  Once the concrete has gone off, the rebar will get tied into mesh.  Judging by the rate they're getting through the work, the job should be finished on Thursday or Friday morning at the latest.
     
    I will add a word about the dumper truck and, in general, the diminutive size of the equipment.  Because everything is on a smaller scale, they were able to negotiate the site and all the piling positions that were down and I only saw one squashed pin.  Larger equipment would have run the risk of burying everything, if only to manoeuvre around, but this system was very nimble and capable.  The combination of smaller kit and the dry weather also meant that I was able to completely avoid the need for a piling mat, which wouldn't have been cheap.
     
    I'm chuffed with how the work went today and just hope that the remainder goes as smoothly and no one gets heat exhaustion - it was punishingly hot on site today, even with the strong breeze.
     
    Now, what you've all been waiting for, the photos.
     
     







  13. vivienz

    Piles are go!

    By vivienz,

    Game on.
     
    The setting out for the piles is happening on Friday afternoon, 20th July.  The piling contractor will also be getting everything to the site that day so that they can start bright and early on Monday morning.  The piling is likely to take most of that week; I will be around at various times, but certainly Monday and Thursday, with a couple of hours here and there.  If anyone would like to come along, PM me and we can arrange suitable times.
  14. vivienz
    A quick note for anyone planning on coming to see the piles going in on 17th July.  My contractor has been in touch to say that he is over running on his current job and will be starting late on mine.  I have a site meeting with him on Tuesday so will update then.
     
  15. vivienz
    No, really, there's nothing to see, it's all gone!
     
    A great deal has happened in the 2 weeks since the last blog entry meaning that the planned update and photos never happened.  First off, very sadly, my father in law died 2 days after that entry which although not entirely unexpected, still comes as a painful shock and means that there's a lot to do at a time that isn't the best.  I was very fortunate with my in laws and my father in law was a lovely man and will be greatly missed.
     
    On with house matters.  Over the last 2 weeks, all the demolition has been completed and debris removed.  We kept plenty of the timber from the roof, which we will use to make raised beds for the kitchen garden - there's no way I'm going to dig that clay over, no-dig all the way for me!  We also salvaged some bricks that formed an outbuilding, but the rest is gone.  The concrete floor of the garage block formed a really useful hard standing area and that will stay pretty much until everything is done, including a lot of the landscaping.  Shortly after this, the portaloo and site cabin arrived, along with the security fencing.
     
    After the demolition, work started on reducing down.  We've gone down 800mm from a point set by the surveyor but this may need to change slightly as there is still some debate over what the finished floor level will actually be.  There are 3 different levels floating around at the moment, but this will be finalised once MBC have come back with the designed foundation.  In the end, I used a surveyor for setting out the levels then had a play around afterwards to see how everything works.  I'm glad that I used the surveyor as time was limited in getting the setting out done and it only took him a couple of hours once he had found the previous survey points; I'm pretty sure it would have taken me days and I would have lacked confidence in the final result, so it was money well spent, if only for the peace of mind.
     
    One by-product of reducing down was that we found out where the water main was running, which was nowhere near where we expected it to be.  Of course it wasn't.  How naive to expect it to be in a sensible place rather than running through a neighbour's garden then through a field.  I've got some people coming out tomorrow to do a survey and give me a quote on running the main under the verge parallel with the road, but in truth, I'm bracing myself for a very expensive quote that I'm not likely to take up.  On the face of it, the current water main route does seem stupid, or at least inefficient, but in terms of what will go where with the finished build, it's not that bad and I could easily live with it.  It will run close to where I'm having the kitchen garden en route to the house, and I want a tap there anyway, so it doesn't seem such a bad route now.  I also plan to get the electricity cable buried and that will run a similar route, so I could have both in 1 trench and save digging up more than I have to.
     
    The weekend after my father in law's passing, I had a bit of a hissy fit with the architect, but one that I think was thoroughly justified.  I wasn't in the best of humours anyway, but it happens that the 11th June marked exactly 6 months from getting planning permission and instructing the architect to do the building regs plans and details and I felt overwhelmingly frustrated that no matter how close we seemed to be, we were never quite there.  I was highly conscious of the timescales for MBC to swing into production and for my glazing delivery, and greatly concerned that I wanted the building to be watertight before the onset of autumn.  I shan't go into details, but I left the architect with no uncertainty about how pissed off I was and that there would be financial ramifications if I wasn't in a position to sign off on drawings with MBC very soon.  The upshot is that I did, indeed, get my final drawings and these were signed off with MBC last Thursday; I also made the next stage payment to MBC and everything is rolling there, with confirmed dates.
     
    So, my schedule is as follows:
     
    17th July, piles go in
     
    30th July, MBC are in for the foundation
     
    14th August, MBC return to erect the timber frame
     
    If any BH members want to visit and see things in action, let me know and you're more than welcome to come along.  Bring your own hard hat because I have none to spare.
     
    A word here on piling, as I've had my final quote in for the mini piles, which stands at £14,870, all in.  Having done muckaway on a reduced dig of 800mm, I now have full knowledge of the cost of that, and were I to have gone down the route of a reduced dig to 2m (this was the depth MBC reckoned it would need to be to overcome my clay), I can confidently say that the option of piles is cheaper by a good few thousand for me.  Nobody wants my clay soil so the whole lot has to go to landfill and it ain't cheap!  There will be more spoil once we've dug the pond in the field, but I reckon I can lose most of that on the site.
     
    The site is now 'energized', as the electricity suppliers say.  Basically, this was just a case of getting a meter put onto the fuse in the box that runs down from the overhead supply on a pole, but it took a ridiculous amount of time to get through to any supplier that I had a MPAN number and just needed to get a meter installed and sign up for supply.  I truly hate bureaucracy, it's the work of the devil, I'm sure.
     
    So here are a few tedious photos - like I said, there's really nothing to see now!
     
    Photo 1 - if you needed any visual proof that we have clay.
    Photo 2 - demolition done, getting ready to reduce.
    Photo 3 - reduced dig to 800mm from finished floor level.  Plus a view of the neighbours' cottages.
     
     



  16. vivienz

    ......or not.

    By vivienz,

    Chance meetings, research and no fear of being nosy have stood me in good stead for many years and it's proving no different with getting a house built.  The 'dig deep' thing was bothering me, mainly the thought of having to go down 2m over the entire footprint of the build and the cost of all that muckaway, as well as the risk of it all turning into a giant, muddy swimming pool during the process.  I will freely admit that up until about 10 days ago, the thought of having to get piling included in the build struck terror into me due to what I perceived as the potential cost and complexity involved, all down to my own ignorance about piling.  As a new comer to the world of self building, the only thing I'd really picked up on in the past was hearing about remedial work to houses that were falling down and the huge amounts of cash involved.
     
    I'd already had a mooch around this site to see what I could see on the matter of piles and had a look at @recoveringacademic's blog and his comments and rapidly lost my fear but not my trepidation over costs.  I also had a visit to the build site of another BH member who has been very helpful and encouraging.  It was a spontaneous visit as I was really, truly just passing by his site on the way to my own, but his structural engineer was there at the time so I stood quietly by and ear-wigged, as you do, and then one thing led to another and we started chatting about my site and my clay dilemma.
     
    The upshot is that the SEs were really helpful guys and I'm engaging them to design a piling system to support my MBC build and overcome the risk of both lateral and vertical movement that my site is very vulnerable to.  I'm also having them design the drainage system while they're at it.  They will liaise with the architect, building control and the timber frame company and make sure that my build not only gets out of the ground but stays in the same place once it's done.  I've never had an issue with professional fees as long as they are ones that are genuine and add value to a project.  In this case, it will be money very well spent and a huge weight off my mind.  How best to approach the drainage plan had been vexing me for the last few weeks, particularly as my clay soil means that soakaways don't function.
     
    One thing that I think may be worth mentioning is the combination of the passive slab and a piling system.  The soil beneath the building is not just highly shrinkable clay, but also very dessicated thanks to the long term presence of a few trees and a super thirsty hawthorn hedge.  Although these are all now gone, their long term potential affect on the soil will remain for a long time.  In particular, the risk of heave.  The piling system will keep the building in place, but does nothing to stop the swelling of the clay directly underneath from pushing up and breaking the floor of the new structure.  The SE started to talk about a suspended floor to mitigate against this.  However, a few days ago I read a BH discussion where @JSHarris mentioned the issue of an airgap under a passive slab having a detrimental affect on the insulation of a slab so was able to say with some confidence that I wanted the slab to rest on the ground, and my reasons why.  The SE was fine with this and all the gubbins under the floor will now include a layer that is a honeycomb structure with the face of the cells resting on the ground so that if it does expand, it has somewhere to expand into without damaging the slab.
     
    The helical piles are part of an impressive system - no piling mat, no excavation if you don't need it (I need some to make sure that the floor level of the house is level with the ground), super quick to install and little vibration.  This will save a huge amount of time and money compared with digging deep and a far more elegant solution with the dangers of heave solved as well.  In all, the cost of the SE and the piling won't cost me any more and it may be somewhat cheaper.  The time element is important, too, as the lesser amount of excavation will be much speedier and keep me on track for the main part of the build to take place from end of May onwards, assuming everything else is ready.
     
    The cherry on the cake was put in place this morning with full discharge of all the pre-commencement planning conditions.  All in all, a good week.
  17. vivienz

    Time to dig deep

    By vivienz,

    As I'm getting the roof taken off the bungalow next week, I thought that I had best get my site insurance sorted out.  When I was ringing around for quotes, every organisation asked whether the build would need piles in the foundations to which I answered in the negative as I had not heard anything to the contrary.  HOWEVER, the lack of information in one area doesn't equate to certainty in another so I contacted MBC for some information from their SE as to whether he felt, at this stage, I would need to have piled foundations before going ahead and purchasing insurance.
     
    The SE, via MBC, got back very quickly indeed.  This is the plan of our site with the existing and new structures superimposed, as well as where hedges and trees have been.  The handwritten comments are self explanatory, but the orange areas are where the excavation needs to go much deeper than usual, probably about 1200mm, then back-filled with hardcore.
     
    Zarucki Fill_Excavation Depths.pdf
     
    So, to dig deep or to go for piles?  The SE has said that both will work and the deciding factor is which is cheapest.  In the sums I will need to do next week, I will also need to account for the cost of getting any piling system designed as MBC don't do this, then also getting the piles, foundation and super structure all connected up; please excuse the lack of technical terms.
     
    At the moment, I have no idea of what piling system would be needed, but if it's anything like @recoveringacademic experience, then it could be a process that requires a piling mat meaning I'll have almost formed the MBC foundation anyway.  For those who want to read about Ian's experience, his excellent blog account of piles is here:
     
    Recovering academic's pile blog
     
    Of particular note is @Calvinmiddle's comment about his deeper foundation on clay for an MBC build.
     
    At the moment, I'm heavily leaning towards the deeper foundation and no piles.  I will check out the economics of it; if it's a close thing, I would prefer to avoid piling just because I feel more comfortable with the principles involved in the deeper hard core layer and it avoids involving yet another contractor.  But who knows - until 10.00am this morning, I had no idea what a piling mat was and a week is a long time in self-building.
  18. vivienz

    Bat update

    By vivienz,

    Another day, yet another little gem of learning.  I've been getting a bit worried because although I got the bat licence last week, my glacial paced architect had done nothing about getting the pre-commencement planning conditions discharged for several weeks, even though everything was in place for some time.  But that's another grumble for another day.  Anyhow, I've got to get the roof off by the end of April, which is why I was getting my proverbial knickers in a twist over the pre-commencement stuff, so I decided to cut out the middle man and rang the planning officer to ask whether, pleeeease, nice Mr Planning Officer, would you mind awfully, as you're such a nice chap, if I sort of, kind of, well, take the roof off the bungalow to make sure no pesky bats come back?  Pretty pleeeeeease?
    Nice Mr Planning Officer said 'no problem at all, no need to grovel, you are entitled to re-roof your house any time you like.  Just because you don't get around to putting new tiles back on, that doesn't stop you taking off the existing ones to begin with.  Now stop grovelling.'  He didn't really tell me stop grovelling, but his tone implied it, along with the strong impression that he couldn't care less about the bats.  Either way, result.
     
    Fate being the fickle creature that she is, but no more so than the aforesaid architect, I got an email from the architect's admin person late this afternoon to say that they had submitted for discharge of the initial planning conditions.  I prodded them with a very sharp stick on Monday morning - the architect has possibly just taken this long to notice.
     
    I'm waiting to co-ordinate availability of ground worker and bat guy over the next 2 weeks, then off comes the roof.  Followed by the rest of the house shortly afterwards, with luck.
  19. vivienz
    I have my bat licence!  Woohoo!
     
    Albeit that ours was a pretty simple case (summer roost only, no breeding evidence, unoccupied building and no big trees in close proximity), I'm chuffed that we got our licence through quite speedily.  I nagged our architect yesterday about the lack of progress with discharging the planning conditions and this has rather caught him out now, as that's the only thing standing between me and having the property demolished, so time to get on with things.  As soon as the roof is off, I will contact the VOA and have the property de-listed to save on council tax - because the property had been vacant for so long, I didn't get any reduction for it being unoccupied, so I'm keen to get this done.
     
    I've got my site insurance quotes yesterday and my groundworker is on notice, so we're under starters orders.
  20. vivienz
    Can you hear that?  It's the sound of my fingers tapping as I find myself waiting for the wheels of bureaucracy to turn.  This time, it's the turn of Natural England and their (hopeful) approval of our bat mitigation strategy and licence to remove the roof from the old bungalow.  It takes around 6 weeks for them to decide on a licence application but they are behind by a week or two right now, so that means it could be anything up to 2 months.  2 months! Unbelievable!  I've come to the conclusion that this part of self building is like being stuck in the mother of all traffic jams, one that lasts for months and years on end.  Still, all I can do is sit and wait and hope to hell that the licence is granted before the bats decide to move back in for the summer, some time in early May, possibly.
     
    I've planned to within an inch of my life for stuff to do with the house and I don't think that there's much more I can do at this stage that will be of practical use or run into the danger of overthinking things.  My boredom was slightly relieved last week by having the asbestos survey done prior to demolition - nothing nasty, all standard - and getting all the hedges in close proximity to the bungalow taken out by my trusty groundworker.  Actually, I do need to have a look into site facilities for once demolition is done as I can't go for a discrete pee behind the hedges now that they are down.  Things could get tricky if I start mooning the neighbours.
     
    The asbestos survey chap was a pleasant fellow.  I rang around for quotes and they seem to all come in at a similar price, in the region of £350 + VAT.  I used Mark Harverson of Four Paddock Ltd.  He is in Lymington but is happy to travel and was nice to deal with. 
     
    So, I'm waiting for the soil survey report, the asbestos report and the bat licence, for the architect and MBC to finalise drawings for the building regulations submission.  If things get really desperate, I won't be able to ignore work and housework for much longer.  Tap, tap, tap......
     
    Edit: A small addition about the asbestos survey.  In theory, unless the householder suspects that there is asbestos present, there is no legal obligation to have an asbestos survey carried out prior to demolition.  In practice, however, no groundworker will demolish without knowing that you've had one done and what the results were, so best to get it done and out of the way in good time before knocking things down.
  21. vivienz

    Windows

    By vivienz,

    A boring title, I know, but it's succinct and to the point.
     
    I find it hard to get excited about windows, to be honest, which has surprised me given how much they cost but slogging through different window systems and deciding what's best hasn't been the most fun thing to do.  I guess one aspect that takes any joy out of the process is the lack of uniformity in windows where each company does their own thing and has their own systems which, I'm sure, are terribly important to them and they believe gives them their USPs.  From my point of view, too much choice isn't necessarily a good thing and it just makes it impossible to do a direct comparison between window companies.  But then, you all knew that already, didn't you?!  There's certainly been enough discussion about it.
     
    My process for choosing the window supplier was unscientific (apologies Jeremy) and lacking in rigour (apologies everyone) but it worked for me.  I contacted 5 companies, Rationel, Ecohaus Internorm, Norrsken, Velfac and Katzenbeck.  4 replied, I never got anything back from Katzenbeck.  I sent out our planning permission drawings with floorplans and elevations and described the kind of windows I wanted.  Rationel weren't able to do what I wanted with the sliding doors on the ground floor, (a 2 part slider with mullions to make it look as though there are 4 panels) so that didn't go any further after the initial quote.  Velfac sent me a quote, but didn't quote on exactly what I'd asked for, including the sliding doors, but I sort of kept the quote in play just to get a feel for their prices.  I was a little wary of their attention to detail because I'd also specified 3G with no trickle vents and their first quote was for 2G with vents.  Hmm.  Ecohaus were outrageously expensive.  A nice product, sure, but really expensive at £65k with fitting.  That leaves me with Norrsken, and they're my final choice.
     
    I've settled on Norrsken for a few reasons, not just the price although that heavily influenced me, of course.  I've got about 37m2 of triple glazing and it's coming in at about £35k, with another £8k for fitting.  So far, Norrsken have been a pleasure to deal with - not slippery or patronising in any way and very straightforward.  They also have their own in-house installation team; I can't comment on them as yet apart from saying that the installations manager came across as well as their sales guy.  I'll mention the quote from Velfac here, as it came in about £1500 less than Norrsken, but they are supply only and so I'd have to go and find an installations team that would be able to work with MBC and get the fitting right in those super thick walls.  Norrsken have worked with MBC a few times and are familiar with fitting the windows into a passive house; I'm sure that there are plenty of good installers out there but, as is often commented on here, locating them and hiring them is the tricky part.  Also, because Norrsken offer a supply and fit package, they can do this with zero VAT which means I don't have to bother with a reclaim on a hefty chunk of spending.
     
    As for the windows themselves, well, they look nice, they are triple glazed, they open how I want them to and I can have them in the colours I want.  I did say it was unscientific.  No doubt I could go into far more detailed research but that lot is good enough for me.
  22. vivienz
    ....because we have clay, and lots of it.
     
    A soil test was carried out on the site today as MBC need to know what they're building on to do their sums for the foundation.  I used a firm called Mini Soil Surveys (South West), run by a chap called Martin Shirley.  My selection of which firm to use was detailed and exacting - they were the cheapest.  Or should I say, least expensive.  Actually, I had no idea what was involved in this other than punching a few holes in the ground and looking at which flavour of mud comes out of it.  That's broadly it, but in a much more sophisticated manner and it took a fair amount of time, too, starting at 9.30 and finishing some time around 2.30 in the afternoon, which was much longer than I anticipated.  I rang 4 different companies, both in Dorset and a little further afield, with prices ranging from about £1,400 (inc VAT) up to about £3,000.
     
    A mini drilling rig (my terminology is probably entirely wrong here, so please excuse my ignorance) gets trundled onto the site and 3 locations, roughly triangulated on the extreme points of where the new build will be, are chosen.  At each site, 3 sample cores at increasing depths are taken and then bagged up for lab tests, if thought necessary.  Unfortunately, mine are due to a lot of clay coming out in the samples.  The main reason for the lab analyses is to find out whether the clay/soil is shrinkable because this could have a major effect on what gets built on it.  It will take about 10 days for the lab tests and report to be done, so I just need to wait this out and then let MBC know the results.
     
    It's not essential for the client to be there, but Martin was keen for me to attend if possible as, in his experience, other things often come to light that may be relevant to other plans for a site apart from the main build.  Although it was a little repetitive towards the end, I did find it interesting and it brought up another job that is time critical and needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later.  The urgent task is to deal with a large amount of hedgerow that runs around the existing bungalow and to do it before it all gets going and growing in the spring.  I had already planned to get the majority of this chopped down (hopefully next weekend) before birds start nesting, but I need to get another long row, an inner hedge between the bungalow and the hedge that separates the site from the lane, as this can have a significant and negative affect on the clay soil there.  It seems that the water demand of hawthorn hedges is enormous and especially so in spring when they get going after their winter dormancy, and by virtue of absorbing so much water from the soil, it causes the clay to shrink massively and the whole lot becomes difficult to build on.  Having to put in piles is a possibility.  Once the diggers are on site, I can get all the roots grubbed out then.
     
    The arboricultural report that was done for our planning submission had recommended retaining the inner hedge to act as sacrificial root protection for the outer hedge during construction, but it looks like it will instead need to go and I'll have to get some other sort of root protection in place to satisfy the PP requirements, but I don't think this is particularly tricky to deal with and it's a better course of action than leaving it and having to put piles in.
     
    The final point that came up was something that has no bearing on the house, but possibly could on my sewage plant and rainwater reservoir.  Between 2m and 3m depth, the sample had lots of sparkly crystals in it which are some form of sulphate crystals.  Very pretty and all that, but it seems that these, when water gets to them, can attack and weaken concrete.  Both the sewage plant and rainwater reservoir will be anchored into the ground with concrete at just about that depth so I need to make sure that I specify sulphate resistant concrete to make sure that the tanks stay where they are put for the long term.  It's a simple and insignificant difference in cost on the concrete spec, but one that I wouldn't have known to do without the survey.
     
    Another day, another load of new stuff learned.
  23. vivienz

    Reality dawns

    By vivienz,

    After feeling like I've had dozens of different plates spinning in the air at the same time, they are gradually starting to come down to earth and some more gently than others.  This relates to how much it's all going to cost or at least getting an idea of it.
     
    We started out with our budget and a target price per m2 but there's been a lot of theory around that.  In fairness, I had my quote from MBC but that was about it.  More costs are becoming clear now and it's a little intimidating as it mounts up so quickly.  Sort of like a large brick wall with a giant £ sign on it hurtling towards me.  I'm confident that we're comfortably within budget at the moment, with contingency, but there's a lot of guesswork going on at the moment.  I think that the next big brain task is to get to grips with SPONS and try and hang some more figures off things so that I can get a clearer idea of what my cashflow needs will be in order to organise the funds.  In truth, I will probably need most of it in from May - July.  In that time, MBC and the glazing firm need paying and these are the two most expensive single areas.  Because of the nature of the build, all the other internal stuff will follow on pretty quickly afterwards and then tail off towards the autumn. 
     
    In the meantime, I'm eagerly shopping around for everything (see previous post re. south coast inflation) and trying to find the sweet spot of value that sits somewhere between cost and quality. 
     
    Also in the meantime, I'm still waiting for sign off from Natural England to get the roof off the house and deal with the bat summer roost.
  24. vivienz

    South coast inflation

    By vivienz,

    The background plotting and scheming continues as I tick items off a never-ending list of stuff whilst I wait for the bat licence to be granted and start demolition of the bungalow.  Much of this has involved shopping around for various services that we have to have, such as a soil survey (MBC requirement) and SAP calculations.  Other items are for big ticket expenditure such as glazing and cladding. 
     
    I live in Bournemouth but the new build is at the other end of the county, in north Dorset.  Aside from the obvious differences in scenery and population density I've noticed a very big difference in prices, meaning that the closer you get to the coast, the more expensive they become.  This has been apparent on pretty much everything from SAP calculation fees to cladding, with the latter coming in at £58/m2 from a supplier just to the east of Christchurch, but just over £47/m2 from Sydenhams nearest the new place, in Gillingham.  I understand that Sydenhams may command more buying power and, thus, better discounts than smaller outfits but a price difference like that equates to over £1000 on the amount that I will need to spend.  That's the lion's share of our rainwater storage tanks that are now going on the shopping list thanks to BH finding yet another competitive supplier.  It's disappointing that my natural cynisism about the Christchurch/Bournemouth/Poole conurbation is being fed by experiences like this, but I'm sure it's got worse since AFC Bournemouth got promoted into the Premiership.
  25. vivienz

    Getting the ball rolling

    By vivienz,

    The first big money was spent today - I signed my contract with MBC and paid the deposit.  I think I could use a menopausal hot flush about now, to counteract the cold sweat that comes over me at the thought of spending all that money. 
     
    I haven't been idle since getting our planning permission through, either, as I know that the clock is ticking on loads of things that would be done later due to the type of build.  Stuff like how the cabling from the internet satellite dish will run into the house.  I rang the ISP and asked them how they would normally approach things - "well, we will just drill a hole through the wall".  Oh no, you won't!  I'm waiting for them to call me back to have a chat about cabling requirements.
     
    I also found out exactly where the water meter is and the route of the supply pipe.  I have been known to be lacking in powers of observation for things I'm not interested in, and a water meter would definitely fall into that category.  However, I have specifically looked for it a few times but not succeeded and I found out why today - it's a few hundred metres down the lane, outside someone else's house in what the water company described as 'a large chamber'.  All very gothic, but at least I know where to look now.
     
    The architect is moving at his usual glacial pace with things, so I have my rockets ready to be inserted in strategic places to make sure he keeps up with everyone else rather than slow things down as I think will happen if left to his own devices.  The glowing taper is approaching the blue touch paper.
     
    Currently waiting calls back from:
    Wessex Water
    Architect
    His preferred BCO (for a quote and a chat about the house build)
    Highways management (what we need to do when creating the new vehicular access to the garage)
    Planning case officer (about the bats and our roof, to agree timing on removal)
     
    Time to go and do some paid work now.  Sigh.
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