Doing My Bit

As part of the new Building Regulations all new build houses must provide details of energy efficiency they are targeting at design stage and then have this checked for compliance at completion.  In addition you also need to conduct an Air Leakage test too.  There are yet more professionals offering up services to complete these for you and by the sound of it it's not something you can DIY.

It pays to shop around.  NHBC wanted approx £500 for all of the reports but I managed to get the lot for just under £300.  It also pays to ask questions and as my mum always used to tell me "if you don't ask you don't get".  In particular a really cheap and easy way of increasing your chances of passing the Air Leakage test and upping your houses Energy Rating is simply to ensure that all of the joints between your internal brick work is fully pointed up.

The guy at EPS Group was really helpful and he told me a story of a self builder who went round at the end of each day and filled in all of the gaps in the pointing on all internal walls and at the end of this his house was the air tight he very nearly had to install additional mechanical ventilation so he didn't suffocate - a bit extreme but none-the-less I'm all for making my house comfortable and cutting down on those unpleasant drafts from under the skirting boards and around windows.  Let's see if this makes any difference at the end.

This is no criticism of Derek or Pauls work and in fact when I checked their work there was hardly a gap in sight - great work guys ;¬)

Still it matters not a jot if you can't lay a level course of blocks!

It's all starting to gather pace now and decisions are having to be made very quickly.  The house is now turning 3-D and the rooms are starting to take shape.  In the picture above I'm standing in what will be our Lounge - OMG!!!!

Walling Up

One things for sure I'm starting to pick up the building trade lingo now - life will never be the same - I've even started noticing the different types of stone course used, whether it's dressed or sawn and I can now name the quarry certain houses are built from.  You start comparing build quality and can see where builders have cut corners by not mixing the stone off pallet.

Anyway I digress this week I have been on holiday...well for me it's been more like a Busman's holiday!  I spent a few days helping the gang with walling the foundation blocks - well actually labouring with James.  OK I admit making cups of tea and doing a bit of digging and fetching all helps BTW.

Whilst Paul blasted out meter after meter of walling (and trust me the foundation blocks weigh a bloody ton), Kerry spent the day "faffing" with the Bay Window - still it looks nice Kez honest!





After a couple of days the walling had been completed, levelled off ready to take the Byson beam flooring - a recent innovation in the building industry now common place with majority of new build houses.

It comprises of an inverted T concrete reinforced beam that sits on foundation walls and is in-filled with concrete blocks to create a solid flooring system on which internal walls are built to frame your rooms.

Things are really starting to take shape now and for the first time the paper drawings done by the Duncan (my Architect) come to life albeit still very much in 2-D.

It was at this stage that we got the urge to extend the size of the kitch and make it even wider so my wife could have an island feature in the middle of the kitchen-diner area.  We drew out the extension with blue ground spray paint and started sketching the kitchen layout on the floor - it looked amazing.  A quick call to Duncan on Sunday and he popped out to inspect and confirmed it was feasible from a structural design perspective BUT advised we discuss with Derek and our building inspector as planning amendment was likely.  Not perturbed by this I made a call to a friend of mine who is on his 40th house build already and he said that for extensions (which is what this effectively would be treated as) you can increase the footprint by 3 square meters for a semi-detached and 4 square meters for a detached property without requiring planning permission.

DILEMA - if we were to extend now was the time to do it so we either asked Derek to crack and extend the footings and foundations and then seek retrospective planning permission and building regs approval OR we engage all the relevant stakeholders first and risk stopping the build dead in it's tracks.  Decisions....decisions...my wife and I then recalled our moto - "keep it simple stupid" and instead of letting our heart rule our head we decided against the extension - besides which Derek flipped his lid and started spouting words of wisdom - the time to change is during design not build - and then I remembered all of the heartache I had as an IT Project Manager whenever the business changed requirements mid-way through.

I may live to regret this BUT if I do at least I'll be sat in my new house reflecting on what might have been rather than risk the entire build and not have anything to show for it - risk management real world!

Anyway the floor is now down and we are officially out of the ground - major milestone accomplished with relative ease and we're £7K under budget (Derek take note for when I start over-specifying on the finishes
!).

Weather has turned slightly this week and with all the site machinery running too and fro my lawn is starting to chew up...so in time honoured tradition - Custers last stance and all that we erected our defence!

Trench Warfare

They say that the two areas where money is made or lost when building is getting out of the ground and internal finishes.  You have far more control over the latter by simply compromising on the luxury items such as the100" Plasma TV you've always dreamed of, the grand staircase, the antique oak flooring, the granite worktops etc.

BUT the one thing you cannot compromise on is the foundation work.  Once you have committed spade to soil and start digging the footings (the trenches that will take the foundation walls) you have to solve every problem mother earth throws at you...it becomes a war...you have to get out of the ground otherwise you can't built your dream home.

Of course you can buy all sorts of fancy professional services that will assess likely problems before you encounter them - mining reports, contamination reports, percolation tests, drill-holes to locate depth to solid ground.  The list goes on and they are not cheap - you can literally spend thousands trying to mitigate the risk but the bottom line is you have to commit at some point - it's often a bit of a leap of faith.

Fortunately lady luck was on our side when Derek and his team started digging the footings - oh and the weather has been fantastic - long may it last!

Within a short space of time we had hit relatively solid clay-based soil and a quick assessment from the Building Inspector and NHBC Inspector confirmed that they had reached acceptable sub-soil depth and could continue excavating per the house footing plans.

The whole process was made real easy with the machinery.  The bucket on the mini-digger was set at the right trench width, the mini-dumper was nimble enough to shoot around the site dispersing yet more muck whilst James ensured the trench bottom was nice and level.

Amazingly by the end of the day all trenches were completed ready for the concrete pour.

I had only been working in London for two days and by the time I got back 2 loads of concrete had been shot into the trenches, laser-levelled, foundation blocks ordered and the site cleared ready for Monday to start walling the foundation blocks on which the entire house will sit.

There's no messing with Derek - he runs a slick and tidy building site and my lawn still resembles a lawn (for now).  He keeps telling me it's all in the preparation and planning and with a site this large it costs money constantly moving materials around so he likes to have everything exactly where it needs to be when it's needed.

 How neat is that!!!

Tight Fit...

...and I' not referring to the British pop group of the 80's who had a smash hit with their cover version of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" back in 1982 (click here to watch the video).   

Er back to reality - we encountered are first small challenge of the build so far.  The private drive to our new house is er, well ... a tight fit!  To be precise it's less than twelve inches wider than the muck-away truck that arrived on Thursday morning so after a remarkable attempt by the driver to avoid taking out over thirty foot of my neighbours wall we have decided not to take the risk of carting away another truck load.  Ever-resourceful and with some careful negotiation Andy has managed to convince the horse stables opposite my current house to allow us to use their field as a dumping ground so that the muck-away truck can be loaded from there instead.  

It does mean we now need a bigger dumper truck to cart the muck around the corner and pile it in the field so the job of removing the muck has now been delayed whilst the new dumper arrives and the stable owner arrives with the keys to the gate.  The knock on is that we've effectively excavated ourselves into a corner (see photo) until Monday morning :(


With the builder due to arrive on site first thing Monday morning - a frantic few phone calls later and it's all sorted and rescheduled - everyone knows what's happening and where they need to be, when!  I'm sure this is nothing compared to some of the challenges we will have to face so it's not worth getting upset about.

Muck, muck and away!!!

What a difference a day at work makes - NOT!  At times rapid progress is made but then on others not much happens at all.  Today was a case in point.  Even though we're only at the end of Day 3 - I must remember this project is nothing like building computer systems for the banks!  Looking at the pile of muck now completely blocking the site entrance (I'm sure Andy knows what he's doing) tomorrow will be a busy day with monster trucks blocking the drive and upsetting my neighbours - although they have been warned.  There is now a big hole where my lawn used to be and this will only get bigger throughout tomorrow which means more muck, more trucks and more upset.

It's now really starting to look and feel like we're building a house - something as a family we've dreamt and talked endlessly about every day for the past go knows how many weeks, months and years - I can't believe we're finally bloody doing it - OMFG!

Actually that reminds me I need to take out building warranty now BEFORE we start setting out ready for excavating the foundation trenches.

Brian

Ground works for me!

Groundworks is the term used to describe all the stuff builders do beneath ground level.  It's what my house will be built on so needs to be done properly.  It's a right mixed bag involving excavation, drainage, services, concreting and blockwork - a dirty job even when it's not lashing it down - but someone's got to do it.  With the advent of small machinery it's now possible to get into any site but apart from the narrow driveway the site entrance presented no problem for Andy McNair (he said make sure you get my mobile number in the photo - nuff said).

Before we can start the main groundwork activity the first job involved moving the existing private sewer that runs across the site right where the foundations should be...not only that but we also need to move the electric and water services that also run in the same trench - not a big issue - just more of a convenience right now because it means the guys can't use machinery near the services so have to excavate by hand.

First step involved preparing the new trench into which the replacement section of sewer will be placed in order to take the diversion (along with the other services that needed to be retained) around the foundations of the new house.

Until you start digging though you never know what you are going to find - I'm not talking Time Team artifacts - I'm talking pipes nobody knew existed nor which of your neighbours they serve.  Disconnect at your peril!  We found two main water pipes and through trial and error and door-to-door knocking finally solved the puzzle.  Time and money wasted but that's life.

Anyway with problem solved it was then a quick call to the Building Control Officer to ask him to inspect the excavation and proposed diversion for the sewer.  Fortunately we were very lucky and the officers were already out on a job in my area so within 20 minutes of calling hey-presto we had two officers pouring over the works.  I needn't have worried - within a short space of time they had passed the job so Andy could continue with the remaining work to divert the sewer. 

This was my first experience of the Building Control Officers and I must say they were both extremely friendly, very informative and very decisive. 

Here's hoping the rest of the scheduled inspections throughout the build go this smoothly!

So that's the end of Day 2 - the rest of the week should see the new sewer section coupled up to the existing sewer, trench filled in (bit of a hazzard right now) and the rest of the site stripped clean ready for setting out of the foundations.  We're really fortunate that our site is flat so clearance should be done by the end of the week.  There's a fair bit of top soil to get rid of - the term used is "muck away" and hopefully the good weather will hold out until we've cleared everything and got hardcore down to form a stable base on which the rest of the machinery can run on.  The unusual lack of rain is brilliant because this prevents the entire site from becoming a mud bath.

Tradesmans Entrance

Well after weeks of planning and preparation work has finally got under way today to create the entrance to the site so that the groundwork contractor (Andy McNair) can start the task of site clearance - getting rid of the vegetative layer - that's soil to you and I and levelling the ground ready for setting out - that's marking where the house will sit on the plot. I suppose I can now say my building plot has formally become a building site and the spacious garden is no more!

The site entrance will eventually become my driveway but for now provides access for all of the various contractors involved in completing the project.  Now that several trees and a brick wall have all been raised to the ground - thanks Kez and Paddy you made mincemeat of that job - I'm amazed how much space we will have for parking.  It's hard to visualise on drawings but it's a relief that we will easily have enough room to park four cars and still be able to "enter and leave the property in a forward gear" - planning speak to being able to turn your car around on your own land!

Kez doing what he does best...and Paddy doing what he does best!

Chainsaw frenzy! I now also have a pile of firewood for my wood burning stove - that's saved me at least £75 this winter - bargain - thanks Kez.  Search Amazon.com for wood burning stove

Anyway next job is to move the private sewer that runs across my land unfortunately directly underneath where the new house is to be built.  This will address one of the three conditions imposed on my planning approval notice that I needed to resolve before building could commence.  Still could have been worse...it could have been a main sewer!