Weather woes and exciting times ahead!

Ah the great British weather. One minute it's a beautiful spring like day, the next it's snowing or there's a storm rolling in named after someone's nan.

A Thursday and Friday could be perfect conditions with the Saturday and Sunday not being conditions you want to build a roof in. And repeat the next week. And the next. And the next. That is why progress has been extremely slow since the last update.

So what else has been going on?

In January, Andy enrolled on a course so that he can complete the rubber roofing himself. This course also gave him access to a discount on materials and allows him to self certify the 20 year guarantee. The roofing product has been purchased and is awaiting a run of good weather to be laid.

This is what the product will look like:

Yeah it's rubber but it's a flat roof. Unless you're in a helicopter, you won't see it though!

We also grabbed a right bargain on eBay!  We need reclaimed bricks as we want to make an exposed brick internal wall separating the living room and 2nd bedroom. We managed to find someone getting rid of just under 800 for £150 quid which is more than enough for that wall.

We need more as we are also having a decorative brick plinth up to window height all around the house looking something like this:

Speaking of windows - that's another thing done and dusted! We had thought all along we were going to use a company called Velfac for windows. They were recommended by our architect and we went to see their stand a few times at the Swindon Home Renovation Centre and liked them. But we knew they weren't going to be cheap and we had heard stories of people ordering the wrong sizes and being stuck with them (Velfac are a supply only company). So we decided to get a quote from Everest. Their rep came out and measured up and the quote came out at £44k (including fitting). We eventually got it down to £15k (laughable) but that was still too much. Their windows also weren't as nice as the Velfac ones.

We then got a quote from Velfac and were quite surprised at their affordability. After some negotiation, we managed to get the price down to just under £5k for all 12 windows. But let me tell you, filling that form in that has a nice disclaimer at the bottom pretty much telling you that "no one is going to check it and if you make a mistake - unlucky" is quite unnerving! There's a lot you have to think about. External colour, internal colour. With over 100 greys to choose from, we eventually settled on a darker grey. The internal colour we left as wood (the windows are Alu-clad). Then we had to work out where the trickle vents go, which way they need to open, how much they can open by, the security on them and more! And this is without adding the sizes! We measured several times and read through their guide several times making sure we were taking off the right measurements (it's not just a case of however big the hole is how big the windows need to be).

So in about 2 weeks, they will arrive and we will know if we buggered up or not! One saving grace we do have is that because we have build out of ICF, it's a bit easier to rectify a problem. If the windows are too big, we can cut away at the polystyrene. If they are too small, we can pack the gap out and squirt some expandable foam into the gaps. The polystyrene facade will eventually be covered by wood cladding.

So yes, exciting to see them!

This is some examples of the type of window they are:

We have also ordered and are awaiting delivery of our roof lanters. We will have 1 in the roof of the master bedroom and 1 in the roof of the living room. These rooms will be quad aspect, as the majority of windows are facing the front of the house, where it's darker (trees...North...) we wanted as much light as possible. It should also help to make the ceiling look a little higher as they are only about 2.1 metres high.

Finally, Andy and I have been chatting about progress and we both agreed we want to be pretty much finished by the end of summer. Working full time and having evenings and weekends only to do this meant this was going to be a tough ask. 

If I'm honest, we've not been working every evening and every weekend as it is. We've managed to get a nice balance between having us time and house time. But of course that means everything takes longer. We still don't want to compromise that balance or we will end up resenting it and each other. 

So we both talked and did the math and Andy is going to give up work to concentrate on the house. He will be working full time on it Monday to Friday and the odd weekend - starting this Monday (tomorrow).

It does mean we won't be able to put any money aside each month so our pot is likely to dwindle faster. We agreed Andy would do this for a minimum of 2 months, after a month we will review progress and finances and discuss next steps. 

So hopefully lots of progress to come!

Another year draws to a close...

Good evening readers!

At the start of the month we set off early on Saturday to go and collect all our rafters from 2 places in London. Which were weirdly the cheapest places to get wood from in the country!

Unfortunately, the weight distribution wasn't quite right after picking up the second load, which meant the Landie had 2 epic snaking episodes (frightening the life out of me) before we pulled over and had to sort it out. Sorting it out meant un hitching from the trailer, sending me to find a Wicks and pick up some saws, then spending the next 2 hours in a lay by just before the m25 turn off unloading all the wood, sawing it down to the right size and re-loading. Which did the trick. We set off from home at 5am that day and returned home at just before 5pm. We slept well that night.

The roof progress is going well. Andy has especially made some headway over the last few days, as he has had time off. With the dark & cold nights, he has not been overly enthused so he's done a little here and there. Weekends throughout this month have unfortuenty not been readily available due to various parties and dinners with friends and families.

That's it then! No more updates til next year. 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to yours from ours! Bring on 2017 - the year we finally finish the house!

We have walls!

Hi!

So we have walls! Yay!

The Beco system is incredibly easy to use and we actually had most of it up on a weekend (not filled with concrete!). The bits that took longer were where the walls were going to link to the existing building.

We'd been meaning to get our electric supplier to move our mains cable to the left about half a metre so that it was no longer outside; which we needed to do before getting the walls poured.

We left it a bit late to contact them and had to wait a few weeks. It wasn't too expensive; a couple of hundred quid I think. 

We finally got a date they would be coming and then booked our final concrete pour for the very next day.

And it actually all went according to plan!

At 7.00am on Friday just gone, the concrete pump started for a final time.

By 8.30 it was all done!

To reiterate: we have walls! Yay!

With the wallform system, you can do what you want! Render it, clad it, brick slips, actual bricks...Whatever you like and you'll never know what's underneath. 

We are going to be getting a brick wall all the way around up to window height with a top like this:

Then vertical wooden cladding. It's going to look fabulous and not stand out so much like it does now just being white!

Next job is to start on the roof rafters! 

In other news; I've discovered we may be able to claim our VAT back! Not on everything, but most of the materials. I was flicking through a self build magazine and one article caught my eye about claiming back VAT. 

I google'd it and then thought it wasn't applicable as it seemed to be for new builds or conversions. Then I found another bit on the government website that mentioned homes that have not been lived in for a decade or more are also eligible....which is us! The problem now is trying to find some proof...

This house wasn't the permanent residence of the previous occupants but they seemed to continue paying council tax and electric and all that all the time they weren't coming here. So if anyone has any bright ideas let me know! We have some time as after we are finished we have 3 months to submit our Vat claim!

Officially out of the ground!

Greetings readers.

The last few weeks have been spent getting our floors ready for concrete. 

This has involved levelling the floor area, building up a few layers of the ICF blocks, putting steel rods in, casting the steel rods in concrete (by hand filling the ICFs) and then putting DPM insulation and steel mesh down.

It's been a bit of a ball ache but this is what our engineer has asked us to do. 

We had huge issues after the DPM went down. As soon as it rained, the rain was trapped on top of the DPM, and underneath the insulation and mesh. We had to find a way to pull up some of the insulation and pump the water out, as the steel was in place, it wasn't easy to untie it all and take it out.

Andy tried to cover it all over with the excess DPM which did help. 

Whilst we could have put the DPM on top, because our concrete floor was going to be 125mm, if we wanted to drill anything into the floor, we would have pierced the DPM. 

Andy also decided it was a good opportunity to put the waste pipes for the toilet, shower, and bath in place. This meant the position of the bathroom apppliances had to be finalised. 

Building control came out and saw that everything was in place and gave the ok to for us to pour the floors.

After booking the concrete pour, Andy worked tirelessly to finish preparing for the pour.  I'm very proud of him! He worked incredibly hard to get everything prepared.

Finally, the day for the final pumped concrete pour arrived! Andy's friends Ben and Jimmy came along to assist, and the concrete was poured.

Unfortunately I was not present to take pictures during the pour due to participating in a hen do for another one of my bestest buddies, Jo (she and her husband to be Chris were mentioned in one of my early blog posts).

So Ben very kindly took some photos after they finished and sent them to me.

It's very exciting to now see the final internal size of the rooms. Not a mansion, obviously, but I'm happy with the sizes. It will be cozy! But not cramped!

The first and last photos are from our CCTV we've put up. We haven't had anything stolen, but where we've had some expensive equipment outside (tractor, rented concrete mixer) etc and some neighbours chased some men off their land who were trying to break into their garage. There's also been poachers and all sorts around so we thought it best to get some sort of security. 

We capture lots on it! Nothing in the way of crime yet, thank goodness. But mainly  the postman and my new friend, Bert! 

Next on the list of things to do is to continue building up the walls and filling with concrete! 

The Walls arrive!

One of the problems of having curved walls is that stuff to fit then needs to be bespoke. Bespoke as in; houses are built with straight lines. If you want something curved, you need to take the straight thing and curve it yourself if you can, or pay for the privilege of having it curved for you.

This is what the plan was with Beco who were supplying our walls. Essentially, they make the straight blocks and then send the straight blocks to another company who bend them.

Unfortunately for us, the bending company are not a big company and ended up causing a further delay (So Beco tell us).

Our 4 week lead time ended up being 8 weeks before we finally received our blocks...and even then we don't have all of them! To cut a long story short, we have some surplus curved blocks from another project that should be enough for us to do the first few courses. This is what we need before filling the floors and hopefully by then, the rest of the curved blocks will arrive.

So whilst we waited, we started on the breeze block plinth that will sit underground with a brick wall on top. This brick wall is purely decorative and goes up to window height before the wooden cladding begins.

As per our original design:

It looks like render on the design, but it is supposed to be red brick.

Anyway...we ended up getting this done on both sides whilst we waited:

Andy also started putting some of the drainage pipes in and connected them up to the existing network of soak away pipes.

Then finally our Beco arrived! We spent the evening moving the packs to the correct side and checked everything we were expecting had arrived. They are incredibly light! I could lift a whole pack which had about 8 blocks in.

You essentially clip them together and fill with concrete. Lego for grown ups!

You then have insulated walls which you can clad, render, tile straight onto, plaster straight onto etc. 

If you want to know more detail, then take a look at the Beco website:

http://becowallform.co.uk

As part of the price, we are given a day of training with a chap called Matt who doesn't work for Beco but contracts for them. We met him at Swindon and he was demonstrating how they work. He has built houses with this stuff for years so knows what he is doing. He came and trained Andy and helped put some of it together yesterday and showed him how to cut it all up to size, manipulate the curved blocks and all that jazz.

If we were pumping the concrete in, he would also come back to help with that - also included in the price when purchasing the product. Nice chap! Knows his stuff. We will get him back at some point to help with some other bits.

So day 1 looked liked this:

Today Andy was on his own doing the rest and the other side. We need to lay 3 courses first and then finish the floors (insulate, DPM and concrete). 

This is because of how our engineer has put the plan together. He wants the floor to be tied to the Beco and lots of steel work in the floor (all because of the clay and trees apparently). The DPM also needs to come up in between the Beco before the Beco in concreted. Keeping up? I have no idea what I just said but it sounded like I know what I'm on about, right?!

Anyway - I came home today and Andy had finished putting the first 3 courses together. He has decided to half fill the Beco with concrete tomorrow so they are steady and weighted when it comes to doing the floor work as they do have a tendency to move around because they are so light.

Up to date pictures from today:

And then we stood and watched the field get combined! And got covered in dust!

Andy has 2 weeks off so is hoping to make a lot of headway with the floor. He has lots to do before getting the concrete poured. Still getting there slowely!

Another update soon!

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

Hello campers!

So we've got another hiatus which is entirely our fault. 

We needed to purchase the Beco insulated concrete forms before concreting the floor. This is because the first few layers need to go down and be filled with waterproof concrete. 

We were waiting for my redundancy money to come through as Beco require full payment for orders under 10k. There was also a 4 week lead time so hence the waiting!

In the meantime, we have been to the Swindon Self Build show to have a look around.

Whilst there, we got a chance to see a full demonstration of how the Beco product works and speak to them. It's very easy - even I can do it! As part of the price they also come to site and give full training.

Andy has decided he wants to bring the roof height in the extensions down so it's not as imposing on the original roof. We were going to be taking about 8 layers of tile off the original roof and that would have been a shame as the roof is one the best parts of the building.

By taking a layer of Beco away, this meant our roof height in the living room, bedroom 2 and bathroom was going to be about 2 metres. 

Andy was desperately trying to persuade me to get a roof lantern put into the living room to make up for the reduction in height, and add more light (most of the windows on that room will be north facing).

I wasn't convinced as I also thought they would be expensive. Whilst at the show, we went to take a look at them.

For those who don't know what they look like, here is an example:

As you can see from the pictures, you get extra head height because of the window poking up, and the ceiling/roof part that is otherwise concealed with insulation and rafters.

They are also actually not too expensive! The sizes we want were about 1500 each (that's not that expensive - honest!).

So he persuaded me! For symmetry reasons, we also want to put one in the master bedroom, even though there isn't a head height issue there (the room is dug down). You can get blackout blinds for them so that will be ok.

The other thing we have decided to change is the way some of the internal doors work. Below is the floor plan:

The doors opening into bedroom 2 and the bathroom are an issue. 

We want to put a sofa bed in bedroom 2 for guests, so when it's pulled out, you won't be able to open the door!

In the bathroom, the shower and bath will be in a different position and the door will hit the bath.

Having them open out into the hall will look rubbish and just be a pain. 

So we thought the only other alternative would be a sliding door.

I had a quick Google and came across these lovely looking doors:

They're hung from the top and you can get them curved which is perfect! I also like how industrial they look. It's another nod to the origin of the building (A pump house).

The other thing I've been doing is designing the bathroom. We need to buy our bath soon and build the walls around it as it will be too tight to go around the corner to the hall and through the door.

So basically I need to work out where everything is going to go in preparation for this.

We downloaded a free program called Sweet Home 3D which lets you create 3d buildings/rooms and place furniture and decorate. Think the Sims house build mode! I won't spoil the surprise by showing you what it's going to look like, but I will show you the picture that gave me some inspiration!

So...fairly uneventful update! Next one we should hopefully have some walls! Or at the very least some walls and floors!