Week Forty Five - Floored

Moving the electricity meter from its temporary position to its permanent location in the wall of the plant room. This involves disconnecting the existing overhead connection to the barn and connecting up the new cable.  The new suply runs down the pole and through the duct laid in a trench a few weeks ago. Easy peasy - when you've got a cherry picker. Fortunately we're not gonna have to plant any cherry trees.

And voila - new meter box on new plant room wall. Only slight problem is - we don't actually have a plant room yet. Still, all you need is a wall so we're in business.

On site this week we've had 2 plumbers,  2 electricians,  the UK Power Networks guys, 3 plasterers, 2 screeders, plus the usual guys. Could do with more parking space.

The ground floor construction includes 100mm celotex on top of the oversite, under the underfloor heating screed. Should be nice and cosy.

First fix plumbing to the kitchen and main bedroom ensuite.

The supply to  the kitchen sink – hot & cold (soft) and separate supply for hard water to a drinking tap.

Pipework can drive you round the bend, can't it.

The screed upstairs in the main bedroom. It needs a few days to go off so you can walk on it, and weeks before it’s fully set. Looks good though.

Outside the garage & plant room floors have been poured. We've decided the plant room floor will be floated, i.e. will be smoothed out to give a smooth finish, whereas the garage floor will be left rough.

On the ground floor, another layer of polythene is laid over the celotex. Not sure if it’s really necessary but the advice is that it’s a good idea to protect the celotex from the screed.

Issues we've had to contend with this week have included the invert level for the sewage treatment plant - at a fall of 1 in 80 this determines the manhole height and drain runs. Serious stuff.

What garage doors do we want - 7ft or 7ft 6? Are we going to drive a mini or a Shogun? Will we be able to afford anything bigger than a mini?

We had hoped to start excavating for the back garden wall this week but this wasn't deemed possible. So what work is there left outside for the guys to do right now? Because the screeds inside are going down, access to the inside of the building will be impossible for some time so they'll have to work outside.

We also need to start thinking about getting in the floor tile supplier to come and measure up for the ground floor and bathrooms.

And finally

Week Forty Four – Big Issue, Big Issue

The shuttering on the left hand portion of the upstand gave way slightly under the pressure of the wet convrete behind it resulting in a slight bulge in the upstand. Hopefully not significant.

Now the shuttering  of the right hand side of the upstand is going up.

Battle of the bulge - acrows at the base of the shuttering supported by soil to prevent any movement.

... and belt and braces at the top

The windows and doors are all done - apart from the  bi-fold doors on the west side

To get the water from the borehole to the plant room you need a trench

Route of the trench for water pipe from borehole to plant room marked out in breadcrumbs, or something

Blue alkathene water pipe  from borehole  appearing in what will be the plant room. Plant room going up at last. Note gap to the left of the plant room - a 3 foot  back passage. The original design showed the plant room touching the building corner to corner. Not sure how that would have worked so for a number of reasons is good to have a gap.

Things really steaming along now. Here's underfloor heating going down in the main bedroom on the first floor. Next step will be to pour 70mm of sand cement screed over the top of it.

The first floor screed is being pumped

Round the back of the building, the west side, trenches are being dug for drains - foul and rainwater.

And a soakaway for storm water off the rooves.

The right hand portion of upstand has been poured and gone off to the point that the shuttering can been removed. But it's not fully dried out yet.

What did the slug say to the snail? Big Issue, Big Issue

The Big Issue this week has become, will we have a roof over our heads when the budget runs out, or should we cut our losses and sell up now. It’s proving very difficult to move things along any faster, so the only way of coming in on budget is to leave stuff out. Candidates for the chop are the garden walls, the landscaping, the internal decoration. That’s pretty much it. Everything else is indispensable. We have no choice with such things as water, heating, electricity which means we have to do the retaining wall stuff and the plant room. So it’s good that we’re making progress with them.

And finally

Week Forty Three – Dark Clouds on the Horizon

Here we go again with the readymix concrete - this time for the slab for the retaining wall.

No wheelbarrows this time - pouring the slab from a chute on the wagon straight into the hole. It's more expensive but much quicker. Wondering if we should have done that all along.

With the rear retaining wall underway, time to start digging the footings for the garage and plant room. Can't move in till the plant room is built. That's where the heatpump, water treatment stuff, electricity meter, will live. No plant room, no water, no heating no lighting.

 

The slab has now been poured over the ducts in the plant room floor.

Doorway to the utility room in the background and and plant room footings in the foreground. Actually, 1 metre under the ground.

Now the slab has gone off (set to you and me) we can start shuttering up the upstand at the back. It'll be poured in two sections, left hand then right hand.

Rebar structure for the retaining wall upstand

Pouring concrete for the upstand.

The wall studs & window frames line up - more or less. All part of the characterfulness

 

Plasterboard between the studs

Here we see the left half of the upstand is done – the right half has been shuttered up ready for the concrete pour.

Progress inside. Getting ready for the underfloor heating - sealing first floor plywood flooring ready to take sand cement screed which will be poured over the underfloor heating pipework. The blue foam round the outside acts as both a retaining edge for the screed and a soft joint to allow some expansion

Getting ready to build the garage and plant room - bricks & blocks have arrived

Issues. Various technical decisions to make this week - ordering materials for the garage, and getting quotes for the roof trusses and steel beam to span the garage doors. The slope of the roof is a big headache because it mustn't go too high as it's right in front of the neighbour's house, but the pitch angle needs to be above 20 degrees or the rain won't run off properly. What sort of tiles to get that can cope with a 20 degree pitch? Expensive ones of course.

The big question, now, is the budget. At current rate of spend we can only sustain a couple more month's of work. The question is - can we finish it with the amount of resource we've got left? If not, is there anything we can postpone, de-scope, leave out? Can we still end up with a habitable building with just 2 more months of effort? If not, what to do? Much soul searching going on.

And finally