15th Sept 2010 - Painting the mist coat

I've been away for a few days on the Isle of Eigg, getting away from it all.

Coming back to the house after a few days it was good to see the plastering almost finished, the painters just finishing the mist coat, and Stuart back getting ready to hang the doors early next week.

Also, Tony now has all the steels on order for the extension at last - all sorted with the new engineer on board. Hopefully steels will be deliverd on Monday-ish, so then we can crack on with the extension roof - also with Stuart.

10th Sept 2010 - Screeding

Screeding has occurred as illustrated above!

And I am also pleased to announce that the new structural engineer is one zillion times better than the previous engineer. We now have the steels on order for the apex window of the extension, and are almost ready to order the trusses or cranked steels for the extension roof. This means that a lot of my panic has gone now. (We still lost about 2 or 3 weeks on the extension though...)

4th Sept - Underfloor heating installation

The pipes for the underfloor heating have been installed. We will have UFH on the ground floor, and rads on floors 1 and 2.

The UFH is the Uponor system, which is a well established provider with a good simple product. We will be using an air source heat pump to run the UFH - since ASHPs are good for heating water to the right temperature levels for UFH.

The screed goes on top of the UFH pipes - hopefully early next week, since it's quite tricky walking around in there at the moment!

4th Sept - garden steps complete

Let's talk about some of the good things that are happening on the project!

The groundworkers have almost finished the patio and the garden steps - which all look very attractive. Even the wife is happy with the mortar colour!

4th Sept - Time to get a new structural engineer

Well, the first substantial time problem has arisen. The structural engineer that we have been using has been absolutely s*** since the outset. His calcs on the main house were professionally done, with all the necessary pages & pages of calculations & drawings satisfactory for the building inspector.

However, for the extension the t***er still hasn't come up with the necessary calcs for the roof trusses and for the steels to support the apex window. He's had over 6 weeks and is a complete pain in the a***. Since we don't have his calcs, the builder can't order the steels, and therefore construction on the extension is currently stopped at plate level. We are basically now losing a couple of weeks on the extension.

So, we have now appointed a new structural engineer - this new one we have much more confidence in. He has worked with the architect & the builder on previous occasions and seems very responsive - he even answers the phone (which is more than the previous t***er was capable of doing).

Honestly, I should have canned the original engineer before we started on the extension, but we didn't.

It's been a highly stressful week, but I feel much better now we have a forward path (albeit that we have lost a couple of weeks on the extension).

Of course, work on the main house is not directly affected by the delay on the extension, but as soon as possible we need the extension water-tight and secure since there is currently a gaping hole in the wall!

22nd August - More plastering

Here is another plastering photo - this one is of the kitchen. They have been putting up plaster board and hardwalling all week, and there is still loads of it to do! After one week, they still have more hardwall to do on the ground floor, and haven't started wet work upstairs at all yet. Not complaining - they seem to be doing a nice job, straight & flat as required - it just takes a while...

22nd August - Patio

The patio at the back is being laid. We have gone for Bradstone "Autumn Green" sandstone slabs, and they look very nice. No fossils have turned up in them yet - rumour is that all these sandstones come from India, but I don't have any geological information other than that. Let me know if you want to do some palynology or micropaleo for these please...

18th August 2010 - Plastering!

The plastering has begun. This is a huge milestone - suddenly all the rooms are really becoming visible for the shapes and sizes that they really are. Plasterer seems to be doing a good job - nice and flat, so far, so good - although he is a Brummie...

And the groundworkers have almost finished their contribution to the extension, have built some of the steps in the garden and are preparing to lay the patio slabs (Bradstone Autumn Green).

12th August 2010 - The extension has started

Did I mention the extension? Well, it may seem curious to add an extension before the house is even finished, but that's what we are doing! The wife really, really, really wanted to add a large lounge to the south side of the house.

The remit was:

• make the room as large as possible (it's 8m x 5m)
• give it a wow factor - so it's going to have a vaulted ceiling and a large apex picture window at the rear
• make it look not-too-much like an extension

so that is what we are doing! Theoretically, this is still within the budget (we just spent the continguency)...

We applied for planning permission on 2nd June, got it granted on 26th July and Scott started digging foundations on 2nd August. The plan is to get it completed in the same timeframe as the main house - i.e. not to add any extra time onto the overall schedule.

This photo shows the foundation trenches, just after the concrete pour.

12th August 2010 - Plaster board tackers

The tackers have started putting up the plasterboards for the ceilings. This is another big leap forward in seeing what the final rooms will look like. Up until now we've been looking at joists, noggins, pipes & wires - now we see a nice flat ceiling. This photo is of the hall.

11th August 2010 - Fan-fold doors & back door

The funky, modern 5-way fan-fold door has now been fitted - it leads from the kitchen onto the patio. It's the in thing these days.

Also the back door has been fitted - the wife wanted a green one, and I agree (better than boring old white) - although it's not quite as dark green as this photo indicates! We don't think the back door will be used much anyway, what with the door in from the garage, and the fan-fold doors already mentioned!

5th August 2010 - Insulation & getting ready to close up

We've had a few days hiatus with practically no-one working on site for 3 days, which was curiously dull and disappointing.


Now it's all back at full speed again. A huge mound of Celotex insulation has been delivered and is now being fitted into the roof spaces.




The ultra-expensive fire-proof cabling has also been run for the fire alarm system (to BS5839, L2 in the unlikely case that you're interested...)

26th July 2010 - More windows being installed

We have about 50% of the windows installed now. And they look very nice with the powder coated aluminium frames and the leadwork on the top parts. However, they have managed to install a clear glass window in one of the bathrooms and an opaque glass window in the study - but that is easy for them to sort out later!

As soon as the windows are all in, and the balcony floor is sealed, then we are more or less watertight (well no front door obviously) - and then we can think about plastering soon.

16th July 2010 - Scaffolding down and the first two windows are in

And voila - the house is revealed now that the scaffolding has come down: ... and from the rear she looks like this now:

This is the side wall of the garage:

9th July 2010 - Internal beginnings....

When viewed from the roadside, things now appear to have slowed up. However this is a false impression! All the work for the time being is occurring inside. The chippies are doing an awesome job - they have installed all 3 staircases, almost finished all the stud walls, almost finished putting all the floor boarding down and are sorting out the final roof timbers in the playroom. They have even fitted in most of the oak for the balustrades on the galleried landing - this looks fantastic - although will now need to be boxed in with ply for a few months to protect it.

Meanwhile, the plummer finished a few days ago - having installed all the pipework for the rads, the H&C water, most of the wastes, the guttering and created the terminations in the garage for the Air Source Heat Pump. The plummer pressured up the system to beyond the max, and it didn't burst (i.e. his joints all seem good). It's almost all in copper pipe, which is great, since everything is soldered, rather than these days it's more common to use plastic pipe and then the connections are just chemically bonded which can break after a year or so. Apparently. The plummer has now left the system charged up at low pressure, so if anyone bangs a nail through a pipe we'll know right away.

Bob, the sparks, has been hard at work too. All the ground floor rooms are wired up for electricity & lighting, and he is now starting on the 1st & 2nd floor wiring. We are a day or 2 behind on that because the wife & I have been moving all the TV sockets around and have finally settled on the final positions of all the sockets, etc. We couldn't really do this until the 1st floor was boarded out to allow us to walk the rooms and see what should go where. A drawing is great, but there is nothing quite like walking in the rooms to allow you to cogitate as to where the bed & wardrobe should actually go!

The fork-lift has also gone off-site now - which will save Tony paying for it any longer, since all the roof tiles have been lifted up onto the top of the scaffolding now. The roof tiles are just waiting for the club tiles (that's the curly shaped ones that make a nice diamond feature). I think they forgot to order those, and then they can finish the roof tiling. We are also waiting for the window man to fit the first 2 windows into the dormers, and then the scaffolding can come down!

So, all in all, a lot has happened in the past couple of weeks... Last night, I even did some work there myself! I cleared a massive patch of stinging nettles - about 5m x 5m - it took and hour or 2, and I got stung to bu**ery. I rather fear those stingers will be a perennial feature of the right hand side of the back garden.