more trenches and pouring concrete....

So far this week... head scratching around some thorney decisions to do with Building Regs

Chris and Nathan (pictured above) have been working like troopers and carved up the site into a mass of trenches. 

Then today they poured two loads of concrete into the trenches. The image below shows the full footprint with stepped trench foundations fully poured. In addition the small square holes in the middle of the footprint take the loadbearing posts of the timber frame. 

Due to the tricky access issues with the site, getting concrete where it needs to be has not been straight forward. In the end Simon arranged for the lorry to pour the concrete into the bucket of the Tonka, it then came up the drive in the bucket was poured for temporay storage into a skip and then dished out into the footing with one of the smaller diggers. Amazingly there was no mess.  

Looking ahead, blocks get delivered tomorrow and weather permitting laying of blocks should start on Thursday.  

wk:4 demolition and groundworks week 4 of 7...

The end of week 4 saw the first trenches dug for the foundations along the northern edge of the build. This was really exciting as it was actally happening concurrently with the last of the old house being carted away, no time is being wasted.

The two parallel trenches are for the back wall of the house and the retaining wall further out, there will eventually be a path between the retaining wall and the house that runs around the side of the house which can be seen in the plan below.

The plan view below gives and idea of what footings will be needed. Again Chris has been fast and loose with a liberal peppering of sports cars. Maybe this is meant to represent a day when he comes to visit.

Next week: more trenches, and maybe even some concrete to look forward to.

dig, dig...

This week saw some delays to progress for Simon and his team due to availability of wagons to cart away the rubble, but as you can see they seem to be pushing on again now and we are starting to get an idea of the footprint for the new house.

in bits...

wk:3 demolition and groundworks week 3 of 7...

The week has ended well with us finally signing contracts for Johnathan. This represents a big step for us and is the result of a huge amount of hard work by Emma and Johnathon. We used the industry standard JCT (Joint Contracts Tribunal) Design and Build Contract which to the uninitiated is a fairly terrifying beast. The main contract runs to 113 pages and that does not include the details of the client or supplier's supporting documentation which probably weighs in at about the same again.  Luckily Emma had experience with such monsters and we finally signed the thing today.

Below, Jonathon appearing to have second thoughts...but he came good and moments later we were all posing for a photo opertunity infront of Jonathon's van.

We have also finally completed the mortgage process this week. We are using Ecology Building Society's Self Build Mortgage to finance the project. Partly becuase of what they are trying to achive generally and partially becuase of how they are trying to do it, i.e. they incentivise, via discounts, high efficiency building, which means when we get certification we recieve a discount to their standard mortgage rate. 

Demolition also hotted up this week. For me the presence of much cooler Tonka kit on site was up there with seeing the old house almost totally flattened.  

Only the cronky old leanto style bedroom remains. As seen below Simon and his guys are doing a great job and keeping a very tidy site. Much less devastation than I had suspected at this stage. Mind you there is always tomorrow.

"the Tozer machine..."

Still no wrecking balls but at least today a digger arrived. The thing dragging it looked much more fun but sadly didn't stick around.

I was kind of hoping for something a bit bigger, but I guess its what you do with it that counts.

Here is Simon - the S in S.Tozer doing the Right Guard.

Unfortunately we were not around to see the start of the action but Simon provided a first action shot. Good bye Riverways mk1.

how much wood...

This is a large trailer that holds about as much timber as a good sized skip. So far Simon and his team have taken away about 10 trailers of timber (not counting the timber George removed to fix his "Gin and Tonic bench") and reckon there are about 5 more to go. It has all gone off to be recycled. Feels like a lot of timber for such a cranky old house.

Meanwhile a tuck load of huge 9 metre  (almost 30ft) lengths of framing I-Joists from Steico in Poland have arrived at Jonathan's workshop in Ashprington. His team starts to chop them all up into the bits that will make our house as of Monday. Last I heard he had just bought a very big radial arm saw.

 To give an idea these i-joists are put together something like this:

The drawing below show the level of detailed design done by Jonathan from PassivHaus Homes for a single side of the new house. These are all the bits that will get cut out in the workshop and then assembled on site once Simon's team has completed the foundations and slab.

wk:2 demolition and groundworks week 2 of 7...

Another short week after Easter but Simon and his team have been cracking on. They are literally stripping and separating everything before knocking in the walls, to the extent of actually taking  the kitchen and bathroom tiles of the walls. There have been a lot more layers of bodging discovered than even we guessed so the strip has been a bigger job than expected. But they are still in high spirits and reckon to have the place down by the end of week 3 and to be onto digging footings by the end of the same week. Seems optimistic but at least the weather is being very kind to us so far.

I think there is a lot to be said for the placement of the bath here.

Kitchen before and after!

Looking into the dining room from the kitchen. If only we had known there was more wood effect wallpaper behind there.

Concrete roof tiles - lots and lots of them!

Growing up we had this very same oven. It even had a rotisserie in it for roasting chickens. Alas its roasting days are over. When we moved in, the roasting spit (if that is what you call it) was gone. I think this is karma for a past crime against a rotisserie. Em did manage to bake some pavlovas in it but generally we used it as the cake cupboard. 

All timbers gone apart from the sizeable purlins which we have asked to keep. They'll probably sit at the bottom of the garden and rot slowly until I take up chainsaw sculpture in my retirement and make awful carved things. 

Showing windows out and stacked against the garage.

In other news the offsite construction of the frame was meant to start this week but has been pushed back by a week, so should now start next week with a little luck. The framing material should have arrived from Steico in Poland and be sitting at Jonathan's workshop. This is what the walls will be made of Steico I-Joists. They may not look very exciting but hopefully the sum of the parts and all that...

wk:1 demolition and groundworks week 1 of 7...

Monday 30th was the first week of demolition phase. We were hoping for something like this...





But, alas it was a bit more subdued, though luckily for the neighbors. No wrecking balls or hendrix in sight....

The Contractor for this package, Simon Tozer, will be doing the demolition as well as the new footings, slab, terrace and retaining wall to the rear. His program is for 7 weeks. At the end of the fist week there are no huge diggers or wrecking balls.. but there is a loo, a skip and a good deal of work been done inside in terms of soft strip. Asbestos was meant to come out on Thursday but that has now been postponed till next week. The plans for next week also include removal of roof, windows and potentially starting to knock in the walls. Like this week though it is a short week. Fingers crossed.

Currently the loo perfumes the site with a light hint of almonds. 

Our electrician has been on site again this week and has taken down the phone line and put a temporary power supply into the garage. The potting shed which continues to hang onto life by a thread (of expanding polyurethane) can now provide tea as well as First Aid - apparently.