The Icing on The Cake

In the two weeks since the last post, not only has the weather been yet again so kind (and as always that makes life in a caravan so bearable) but that old agricultural hanger we bought is now finally starting to look like a home.

We knew that the next big push was to be the gables, and as this was one area that I knew I had badly detailed on the drawings we have been looking at every gable we pass in the car to get ideas. Originally we had agreed with Dave that curved detail on the projecting timbers (that I now know to be the purlins) should be curved, but Kate and I had a lovely Sunday walk around Biddenham with Andrew looking at all the details there. I firmly warmed to a protruding diamond style, with a smaller one to the top, and Kate being the diplomat she is let me have my own way. The lads built up the blockwork for the gables up to the top of the trusses (a real task and a half), and I made up the purlins for them to set in to it, and Dave and J then cut and set the ends of the gables onto which the final barge-boards sit. Dave and J have been hand cutting all the 'loose timbers' that form the supports for the glazed lightwells and to support the slates opposite the lightwells.
The blockwork gable with unfinished purlins.

Gable one blocked up, with the ends ready to be matchboarded.

Kate cutting the matchboarding.

One of the most enjoyable parts of the last few weeks is that now Dave is nearing completion on the hard elements (brick and block, lintels etc) there is far more carpentry going on, and that means far more jobs we can help out with. As ever Dave seems quite happy to run through how and why each element needs to be done, and how and when he wants us to do our bits.

We spent a great weekend putting up the matchboarding on the first gable, Kate cutting all 100 odd pieces, and when Seamus and Cathy popped in to see us, rather than wanting to stop us, they both mucked in and helped finish the whole thing.

Seamus fixing the last of the matchboarding.

Alas when Troy showed up on the Monday he said that we weren't ready for him, whether we were or not the lads really got the bit between their teeth and worked up the three remaining blockwork gables, and Dave and J did all the timber work. Alas this week there were more than a few false starts, and I was really beginning to think I was about to be let down, but this has all been forgotten with the results of just two days of roofing. Troy and his slater Mark felted the first roof on day one, and today has been an absolute joy to see the slates going up. We thought they looked good in the pallets, but up on the roof they are a revelation. They look absolutely fabulous, everybody has been walking round with a smile on their faces.

The first batch of slates (at dusk) I'll get a better picture in the morning.
Another truly good bit of fortune is that we have managed to get the cast iron effect conservation rainwater goods that I was so desperate to have, but at a price that really wasn't a great deal more than conventional rainwater goods. Despite much haggling our end supplier couldn't negotiate sufficient discount for it to work out to a point that would have been fair and equatable to Paul and Cathy. In a strange twist of fate I got an email last week from a guy called Richard White who I'd spoken to last year about conservation pipes, simply saying 'Sorry to bother you Rob, do you still want me to quote on your gutters' Indeed I did, when he gave me a few metre rates I knew it was game on. This is great news for everyone. Dave and co. have spent all these months shaping the building with so much care, its seems only right to use these type of materials to finish.

Another good piece of news is that Tony from DTM recommended a trade timber contact who has quoted our oak cladding at £6/m less than anyone else, which is nearly a £600 saving, which will help to offset overruns on other items.

Another view of the slates.

Solar: adj. Of or pertaining to the sun; proceeding from the sun.

I'll have to add the text later, but suffice to say, thanks to Harvey the solar panels went up with a lot less hassle than expected. The instructions were absolutely dire, almost all the flashing screws were missing and the picture references were not consistent to the parts in the boxes we unpacked, but by mid-afternoon we had them in place.

Its forward march with gables, rafters and all the decorative timbers so Troy (who we've had to put back a week, alas) can start on Monday.

And then there was a roof (of sorts)

Again the weather has been quite fantastic this week. It didn't take Dave and the boys long to get Tom's trusses and the family bathroom ones up on Tuesday, plus strapping those up ready for the crane on Wednesday. We can't believe how tall our ceilings are, after the compromise we had to make downstairs. Tom's ceiling is a revelation, the fact that his vault runs the lenth of his room, (rather than across as with ours) give the most cathedral like effect.

You can see Tom's ceiling on the left.

Come Wednesday Malcolm and his crane turned up. I could see why he was so cheap. His crane looked like it was on its way to a historical vehicle rally. However, appearances are deceptive, and one by one he dropped each truss down with perfect precision.

I'm afraid a couple of my shoes were not in the right place, but by and large the rest seemed spot on. If they weren't Daves been too polite to say otherwise. If we were pleased with our ceilings on Tuesday, seeing our bedroom ceiling was even better. We'd asked Stuart, the truss designer to make our bedroom ceiling as high as possible, by placing more trusses of bigger overall timber size at closer centres he's managed to get a much greater vault. Kate and I are delighted with the result.

This image clearly shows the height of the vault in our room, and behind the quite respectable height of the other ceilings.

Friday saw the resumption of blockwork to bring the gables up to the top of the trusses, and Troy came over to felt the area where the solar panels are to go. Its my intention to try and get the solar panels up on Saturday, and long term colleague Harvey is coming over to assist. I say assist, the instructions that come with the solar kit are far from helpful, so I'm hoping his lateral thinking will come in handy.

A view from the rear, showing the roof end-on. If you look back in the blog, I feel that these steeper pitches are far more flattering than the original.

Swallows, Cuckoos and Nearly A Roof

This week the weather has sprung the most wonderful surprise, it has been unseasonably warm, with sunshine from dawn until dusk. To our delight we've had the company of the swallows for the last couple of weeks, and as suburbanites its the sound you expect to hear on holiday, not every time you step out the door. Especially in the warmth of the evening.

By Friday Dave and crew had put up all of Paul's trusses, and suddenly the barn looks huge (especially from the A47, its great to see the barn now as you come down Wardley Hill, especially as the trees behind are now in leaf).

The only catch it seems is that whilst the lads have successfully put up all of Paul's trusses, (except two that are too heavy to manhandle) each one had an average weight of 27kg. Because we have chosen to have vaulted roofs our trusses are made from much larger timbers, with the single trusses weighing in at 87kg and the huge ones that edge the light-well nearly 300kg they are hardly safe to manhandle. When they arrived 7 of us had trouble moving the large ones around the yard. 'We'll need a crane' said Dave. At first I thought, 'more costs' but it looks like if we do get a crane in we can cut the erection time by a couple of days which is actually a nett saving of some £500 and more importantly for all of us buys us extra time in getting the roof ready for Troy to slate. I rang around all the nearest crane operators until I came across Malcolm who at £280 was by far the best value, and have booked him for Wednesday.

Further to this, as all my trusses sit on a plate and shoe system it means that I could spend the weekend working out the shoe positions and nailing them myself, which again helps to gain a little time toward getting ready for Troy next week.

The shoes went on quite successfully (but we'll have to see just how well when the crane turns up!) and it was great to spend a bank holiday weekend on the barn again. Come Tuesday the lads spent little time getting Tom's roof up and fixing all the strappings to the wall plate.

Trusstration

Well the first major disaster struck last week with the non-delivery of the roof trusses. Despite weeks of careful planning and a carefully promised delivery date the trusses failed to show on Wednesday. This is a pain for many reasons, primarily that Dave had the whole wall plate up and ready, and secondly as any delays now means extra weeks for the scaffold and therefore unnecessary costs.

The finished wall plate, ready and waiting for the trusses.

The Manitou loader that was so kindly lent to me by one of my colleagues, Jason Fox. Thanks Jase.

Unfortunately it seems that the truss designer had promised us one thing but hadn't communicated this to the factory. However to be fair, once the mistake was realised and after many heated phone calls the operations manager agreed to get his lads in over the weekend to push Paul's trusses out on Monday, with ours following on the Wednesday.

Whilst the roof has been delayed, Mark and Dave have finished the front door and the rear window openings.

Plate level

Just prior to taking the really poor brickwork down.
Clearly we weren't going to get snow until the roof was off. Dave (Follows) and Adam building the new blockwork up on the East elevation.

Seeing building work enfolding on you on a daily basis is a funny thing, some days you think 'wow, what progress' others it seems nothing is happening, and its not from lack of effort on the lads front. Its simply that for each great productive week where things are going up, there's another week where things are going down. Last week was definitely a wow, what progress week as all the dodgy brickwork that had had to be removed on the East facade was suddenly replaced by level blockwork, Dave nipped over for a day to bring the spine wall up to plate level with Mark, and probably my favourite bit of work to date, the first floor windows on the West elevation were finished off by Mark.

Indeed, progress has been so good that despite the fact that we went away for the weekend on Friday lunchtime* when Kate and I had a look round on Sunday evening the whole place seemed to have grown.

The new brick work that Mark has been working on, when its been repointed you'll never know its new.

The main object of all this work is to get the three walls that bear the roof, two outside and the central spine wall, up to plate level. A task aggravated by things like windows, internal doors and the amount of brickwork needed to the front. But we are nearly there, so much so that I was able to ring Harlows the roof truss manufacturers today and book Stuart to come and measure up. He's faithfully promised me delivery of the finished trusses in two weeks from Wednesday.

The South elevation, showing the dining room window openings (right) and french door openings (right).

Sam has joined us for a few days, which is great, and he's knocked out the front door opening.

Some internal views from the ground floor, (above) the hall with the stair well as viewed from below.

Kitchen looking out through what will be the folding-sliding-doors.

Looking from the kitchen to the dining room.

*One of the things that has been keeping us going through all this build is the escapes we've managed thanks to great weekends away thanks in the main to Miranda and William, Stephanie and Richard, Jen and Fred, and of course staying with our parents. Whilst we really have enjoyed being in the caravan, its these weekends that make all the difference, so if any of you guys are reading this, thank you.

Open to the elements

If anyone asks me if I've got any top tips for self builders I'd have to say:

1) Find the right builder
2) Find the right builder
and 3) Find the right builder.

I say this as 4 months into the contract with Dave in charge of the build, we are still feeling like we are in the honeymoon period, (he may have other opinions to this of course, probably along the lines of not working for control freaks!) and for Kate and I at least it has been absolutely great to have a couple of my lads from work Mark and Dave working more or less continuously for us around other commitments.

On Grand Designs this week the builders were moaning that 'Having a client living on site just added to the cost and time' I certainly hope this isn't the case, in fact we've found that tackling any problems as they happen is more easily dealt with if you are around to be kept in the loop.


As you can see from the images the main progress recently has been the removal of the roof. Mark started to take ours down last week, and this week everybody has been on it with the whole thing including steelwork being finished for the weekend.
Final phase, both roofs off, our steels down, and the lads working on Paul and Cathy's steelwork.
Other news this week is that despite the huge roof area we have, I have decided not to have a rainwater harvesting system. this does seem a shame, and its one of the renewables I really wanted to have, but the payback time is really not as cost effective as I would have liked. Although we've discounted it for loos and washing machine, I will probably mackle up a kit for the garden/car washing using some second hand liquid bulk tanks and a decent pump.

After many conversations in the last week with our planning officer having checked the harborough planning portal today I see our planning application has been approved:
http://pa.harborough.gov.uk/PublicAccess/tdc/DcApplication/application_detailview.aspx?caseno=JV7HLGHW0DL00
clearly good news seeings as we have already gone ahead with most of the openings. We've been really lucky on the planning front, we've had a very switched on planning officer who has worked well to bridge the gap between us wanting a house that works, and the districts need for a 'barn' to be preserved.

To much excitement from Beth, these are the start of her 'Pigeon Windows' which the planners have let us have as a copy of the original ones high up in Paul and Cathy's barn. In a genuine moment of parallel development Dave and I both had the inspiration for copying Church windows on the inside, and a quick call to our ever helpful building inspector resulted in a 'Yes, no problems with that idea'.
After a completely plagiaristic looking at both other barns, and no end of well converted houses in Norfolk we've been trying to decide on a colour for all the timber work for the barns. In a genuine blind viewing, both Cathy and Paul, and Kate and I picked the same colour, the second from left if you are interested, French Grey from Farrow and Ball.

Forward March

Since the last blog and the arrival and erection of the scaffold there is now an official countdown of twelve weeks to get the roof up. Although that sounds a long time this means we have to get the whole front facade of Cathy and Paul's built, the old roof off, (and asbestos disposed of) the steel frame cut out and removed, all the brickwork/block work up to party wall height, then the roof trusses can be measured, a two week factory production of the trusses. All this before the roofers can slate the roof.

We also had a serious let down in the fact that the roofer I had wanted to slate the roof has clearly decided he doesn't need the job. Like all things in life this was fate yet again working for us, as one of my lads whilst talking to a client of mine mentioned we'd been let down and I was worried about booking a replacement. No sooner was that client on the phone suggesting I ring one of his roofing suppliers who had some fabulous reclaimed Welsh slate and who's son was a roofing contractor. We couldn't afford the Welsh slate we knew, as the slate alone would cost us £15,000 (between us) let alone the felt, battens and ridge tiles, but we certainly were interested in getting the roofer over. Troy turned up on Saturday, we talked some numbers and he then showed me some samples of the slate. This was clearly mean, it was like cooking bacon in front of vegetarians. They were so appealing I even took a photo to email Dad, even though I knew it was a non-starter. Troy didn't help either, when I told him we wanted to use Spanish slate he ummed and ahhed and politely told me how disappointed I'd be every night when I came home.

I sent him off with a plan to work out a price. To all our amazement, and as a partial result of the simple nature of the roof, and the enormous economies of scale involved with the roof size Troy and father Tony came back with a quite superb price for both fitting and materials. Although we are spending more than we had expected to pay for Spanish, its really only marginal, and in fact the only two Spanish samples we really liked were actually more expensive. I've really been worrying about the roof, and I suddenly feel happier about it than I ever have. Paul and I are off tomorrow to the yard to pick out the crates we want before anyone else can.



Looking back from Paul and Cathy's front to the now cleaner yard.


Looking North East across the valley from Paul and Cathy's corner. This will be their view!

Looking in from Paul and Cathy's front, through the whole barn.

With the impending roof construction I've also realised that the large glazed areas of both ours and Cathy and Paul's barns are something I have given very little thought to from a constructional point of view. I'd vaguely imagined we could do something on a grander scale but a similar vein to the glass roof Dave made for us at the old house, clearly times (and the building regs) have moved on. For this item I'm afraid its a 'watch this space'.

The slates that we never thought we'd be able to have.

Although we're having the enormous satisfaction of seeing so much large scale construction going on week by week its the absolute pleasure of the detail that's doing it for me, particularly these fantastic openings that Mick has made to look like were done originally, and the new brickwork that Dave has laid to Paul and Cathy's frontage.