LSB

We've been out of action for a bit with family, but let us know what's agreed and we'll try and come.

what's the plan guys, this week or next month this week now tricky, due to Sizewell taking over our airbnb and wanting us here to babysit Rumanians. When they offered us the money we thought 'great', but now it's becoming a bit of a pain and almost not worth it (until they have left) 8 weeks of them and they don't speak English and I don't speak Rumanian, and they eat smelly food 🙂

where and what time

I started this post out of interest, it's not meant in any way as a criticism of people who 'get others to do things'. If we won the lottery, more than a tenner 🙂 then I would try to persuade HID to do less and get more help, but he probably wouldn't as he doesn't trust others. He's there now on Sunday morning working on blocks for a tricky corner. That said I need to go to work at lunchtime, so not much difference except mine provides a tiny amount of money for bills.

I can't see you slowing down until it's finished and you are living a life of luxury in all those cafes in Woody.

We can't do the 28th, going to the theatre in Norwich

Time moves on and so does the build, albeit much slower than most of the builds featured in blogs. Over the past 4 months we have dug out, cleared and prepared our 2nd phase ready for the groundworks, as in all the stuff that goes in the ground, costs lots of money and is never to seen again. The next wall to be replaced and the old roof to be removed. This is one of the original walls, but it only had 200mm foundation so was not saveable. Cleared Trenched, this is where we had to get the SE to visit, he said we had clay and needed 2.4m trench originally. The BCO visited and said 'you're having a giraffe'. A site visit was arranged between the two of them and 1m was agreed. Of course this cost of circa £500 for a bit of paper from the SE to change the original drawings. Concrete pumping, these guys were brilliant and come greatly recommended. I think G&J had the same peeps. Certainly beats the previous trenches which we raked despite the extra cost Then we needed to dig down for the insulation and floor pour. BCO cleared us to use our own sand for blinding. Then insulation, DPM, more insulation & mesh And the next pour, again with the pump, in 30 degree heat. 22 cbm of the stuff. and our new levelling tool, a bull nosed float, hired for £17 for a week, which gave much better results than our previous raked floor in phase 1. It will, of course, be screeded with UFH when we get to that stage, but lots of walls to be built first. And drains and windows and doors. As per one of my other posts we did have some blocks knocked over for the single wall by the pipe, but looks like that is because of light blocks and hot temperatures. We also had to keep some of the existing foundations and walls as this is a conversion so we need to sort our drainage with those. Talk again when walls are up, in about another 6 months probably 🙂

Welcome, what part of the country are you in.

We can do the 21st & 28th

self build by hubby, he decided on these because they are only 9k whereas the solid ones are 18k and when he started he found them too much. He's stronger now after all the work so changing will be feasible.

no lime added 😞

A mortar question for you guys. I am laying Celcon 7.3n blocks using a mortar mix of 5 to 1 (measured out by eye on the shovel) with blue circle cement and building sand from Travis Perkin and an additive to help the mix. The problem that I am getting is after a week or so the strength of the joint is surprisingly weak with little effort or pressure required to break the block off usually with a neat break with the mortar “delaminating” from the adjacent block or concrete foundation. Where am I going wrong ? What do I need to do to get a stronger bond. We had concrete floors poured on Friday and there pump pipe knocked down 4 blocks as they went from area to area. The wall has gaps for doorways so is only 4 blocks, is it just that this is too few blocks for a very heavy pipe. Obviously, as it's built up it will be supported by lintels above the door ways. The blocks were laid weeks ago, prior to us preparing the floor ready for pouring.

well done, that was a hard thing to do, but you did it and it will be worth it in the long run

As some of you know we are building block by block. But, we are lucky as we own the host house with no mortgage and are converting the barn (old pig sty) to the new house. So, it doesn't really matter how long it takes. We also have a finite bucket as I work to pay the bills and he's building the house. We make mistakes, lots of them and have to go back and fix, but ultimately we will have something to be proud of and our pension will be the sale value or income from the host house. It will cost a lot less to build than buy - if you ignore all the time it's taken.

We were wondering about about floor level, but weren't sure how that would work with shower drain. This is the layout for the 2 bathrooms. It is agricultural concrete, which we have broken lots of, but that didn't matter when it cracked. We need these foundations to stay sound