Hello again

[sphannaby]

Have to say I'm over joyed that someone has taken up the challenge of setting up buildhub after the sad demise of ebuild.

I stumbled upon ebuild after we had started the extension/renovation we have going on in the NE of England.  For me it was a revelation and I only wish I had found it so much earlier as it would have changed a lot of the things we had already done/designed.  Luckily I managed to adapt a lot of the project to take on some new principles and I'm happy so far with how things have been going (although I am no where near the PH standard of some of the regulars).

I'm currently waiting on a helicopter to get me back onto dry land and then I'll be travelling home to get stuck back into some proper work.

This week I'll (hopefully) be finishing 1st fix wiring and MVHR in preparation for boarders and plasterers coming in next week.  (I managed to get on of the cheap Mitsi MVHR units from major Tom that I know a lot of the ebuild regulars got)

I'm sure I'll be firing some questions out over the next few weeks and I'm also going to try and get some pictures up of my progress. 

[Guest Alphonsox]

Welcome back - We're at about the same point in the build as you, plasterers start on Wednesday.

[sphannaby]

Exciting times mate.

I really look forward to working on the house and some of the challenges have been really interesting.  Total opposite to my 'proper' job at the minute and i'm seriously considering a career change once we have the house complete (don't tell SWMBO though!)

[Bitpipe]

We're being plastered too - certainly focuses the mind to get all those little jobs done as the tackers rip through the house covering everything in board!

My top tip is to photograph the whole house before walls get covered up, especially where you've put in support noggins for cupboards, TVs etc - write the top and bottom heights on with a sharpie so you can find them again from the photos.

[reddal]

9 minutes ago, Bitpipe said:

My top tip is to photograph the whole house before walls get covered up

+1 to this.

We thought about doing this - but I wish we had done more and more systematically. If doing it again I would photograph every meter of wall and ceiling so I could trace every wire, pipe and duct's exact position.

[jack]

5 minutes ago, Bitpipe said:

We're being plastered too - certainly focuses the mind to get all those little jobs done as the tackers rip through the house covering everything in board!

My top tip is to photograph the whole house before walls get covered up, especially where you've put in support noggins for cupbards, TVs etc - write the top and bottom heights on with a sharpie so you can find them again from the photos.

Wish I'd thought about the sharpie idea - good tip.

We did take a lot of photos before boarding, but even then they haven't always been enough.  You need to cover every square inch of the walls and ceiling (and floor if appropriate to your construction type), including taking closeups where there's a lot going on.  

It's amazing how quickly you forget what you've done - in one case, a week after boarding the electrician and I couldn't remember exactly how we'd run a particular cable, even though we'd discussed it at the time.  Imagine what it'll be like in 5 years when that electrician is no longer available and you need to figure out how something was done.  The problem is exacerbated in newer houses given the amount of extra wiring we put in compared to houses built 20+ years ago!