Graven Hill build, 2 month update

[DarrenA]

We've been on site for 2 months now. Here's the original introduce yourself thread. Introduce Myself

 

It's been mostly quiet while we waited 6 weeks for our bricklayer who was delayed on his previous job. We think we put the time to good use by doing the garden. The grass seed has turned into a very healthy lawn, the wildflower area is growing something, probably weeds, we have a greenhouse that doubles up into a very comfortable welfare area, a fully plumbed toilet in the garden shed and a gazebo for project meetings next summer. However all the professionals who have visited the site laugh and say they've never seen a garden before the house site. 

 

Our bricklayer has been on site for 2 weeks and we are ready for the first scaffold lift. It's going very well, the bricklayer is a perfectionist, the weather has been tolerable and we are very happy with the layout of the house so far. The white bricks are very easily marked and we will end up with a more natural white house than the toothpaste coloured cube we were expecting. That's probably for the best in hindsight. We took the advice from here to use a lime mortar mix to keep the colour light and that's going well so far. 

Scaffolding arrives tomorrow, joists and first floor next week, crane to lift the steels soon after and then we can think about ordering the windows. 

Current decisions revolve around whether to go with single ply rubber or fibreglass for the flat roof and terrace and what cladding to use. I'll start a new thread for those. 

 

 

[Thedreamer]

Good progress.

 

Have you considered keeping a blog here?

 

 

[ProDave]

I levelled and seeded our garden LONG before the house was even habitable.  The logic of course was it was the last task for my digger, and once that was done I sold the digger.

 

Is your plot larger than the area currently fenced or is there another plot between you and the house next door?

[Oz07]

Looks good. You're lucky to get a good trowel makes a difference. What kind of rates are you paying?

Notice your subframes have heads what lintels you using?

[DarrenA]

57 minutes ago, ProDave said:

 

Is your plot larger than the area currently fenced or is there another plot between you and the house next door?

No, we just have the fenced area. 460m2 I think. Our house is a row of 9 in an inner crescent. We back onto larger plots up the hill on the outer crescent. It will be a while before any of the outer crescent houses are built. One unexpected surprise is getting flooded by rainwater coming straight down the hill from these plots and flooding our garden. We've had to make dams and canals to send the water where it does least harm. Long term we're considering embracing it and building a trench and rill around the plot and enjoying a water feature. 

[DarrenA]

54 minutes ago, Oz07 said:

Looks good. You're lucky to get a good trowel makes a difference. What kind of rates are you paying?

Notice your subframes have heads what lintels you using?

The bricklayer is expensive. A fixed price of £23k for around 13000 bricks and 3000 blocks. But this is the one we wanted and didn't really shop around for other quotes. I wouldn't take this as a useful indication of Oxfordshire rates. 

 

We have a 200mm cavity and are using Cavalok BigBlok. I made the frames on site from 6m lengths (around £30 a length). I'm fairly impressed for the price. We're having separate concrete and catnic lintels above the windows. The brickie thinks the closers will be in the way in which case I'll take the tops off. But they were useful for keeping things square. 

[Mr Punter]

I am no expert but the brickwork and the site looks very tidy. No point on trying to save a few quid when this is so focal so I think you have done the right thing going with him.  I also approve of the Makita radio.

[DarrenA]

3 hours ago, Oz07 said:

Looks good. You're lucky to get a good trowel makes a difference. 

I take it trowel is a term for bricklayer ?. Never heard that one, will he be offended if I tell him? 

[Oz07]

6 hours ago, DarrenA said:

I take it trowel is a term for bricklayer ?. Never heard that one, will he be offended if I tell him? 

Try it I'm sure you'll be ok

[Simplysimon]

well seen he didn't do this one.

 

 

[DarrenA]

On 05/11/2019 at 19:34, Thedreamer said:

Good progress.

 

Have you considered keeping a blog here?

 

 

I intend to post periodically here and will do my best. My wife puts something up most days if you are interested in more frequent updates. Christine's Blog