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.

February Update

Since our last monthly update things are yet again moving at a pace. We've now got 7 guys on site, (still under the masterful direction of Dave the artisan builder) as I've got two of my guys gain, and Paul is employing his brother Matt and his extremely likable builder John. To try and make progress as fair and even as possible Dave has gone through to work with Matt and John, leaving Mick, Adam, Mark and the other Dave (landscaper) in our barn.


Since the steels went in the lads have put the majority of the 1st floor joists up which is fantastic as yet again we have an even better idea of how the rooms will feel. As the scaffolding was imminent we've had to take the roof off the lean to to allow the scaffold to go across the end gables. Once this was off the lads have brought the brickwork down to the new roof level, and lowered the window sills to the planned elevation. After speaking to my planning officer Paul Taylor this week about our application and how it is going, and was assured enough about progress and the likely outcome that we have made both the french window openings, and in the case of the side elevation (lean to) Mick has skillfully re-bricked the edges of the new opening.

Finally the scaffold has been put up, which means the race is on to get the spline wall up, the roof off, and the new wall plates in to accept the timber roof trusses. Also today (Saturday 23rd February) we've had the vast majority of our spoil taken away (deja vous) so we have again a clean yard, now the 60 tonnes of rubble have been removed.

Cutting out the old steelwork.
Steelwork from lean to roof coming down.
Steels just prior to joists being fitted.

Kate and the kids having a first walk around the scaffold.
Some of the first floor joists.
Tony and Keith removing our rubble.
A clean yard, and a full scaffold.

Planning and Suchlike

In case anyone is interested, you can look at our plans etc on the Harborough District Councils planning portal. The plans and supporting documents are downloadable for those who want a look. for those that don't know we are currently working on a validated Building Control application, but because of ideas we have had as the project has moved along, only applied for a new planning application this year. Luckily (I hope) we have had so many pre-app meetings with the planners, we are hoping all the changes will be approved.

Click the link to view our application.

http://pa.harborough.gov.uk/PublicAccess/tdc/DcApplication/application_detailview.aspx?caseno=JV7HLGHW0DL00

Services?

OK, so our days of rusty brown water out of the ground are nearly over. I say rusty brown water, but in reality I'm sure it starts off as Evian in an aquifer right below where I now sit, but by the time its been through a few ferrous pipes and an old oil drum it surprises you once a day by coming out the colour of a nice cup of Earl Grey.

Anyway, less of that and more of the fact that Tony, Keith, Chris and all the other guys at DTM have been digging a ditch between us and civilization so we can have mains water. I know this pains me to be paying Severn Trent for water, but if we do install (as I hope) a rainwater harvesting tank then we have reached an acceptable compromise.

With any luck we should be getting a connection first week in March.

More walls, and more importantly; STEELS

Having had an email from our 'official' architect (approved and chartered, who will cut the mustard with building control, rather than me, bloke who loves to pretend he's an architect) suggesting politely that we update the blog more regularly.

I say 'we' because I think Kate should be typing this stuff, so I'm going to hand over to her now:

Ok, fabulous news the beam and block floor has been completed and Dave's guys have assembled walls that have created rooms for us !! ; loo, laundry, workshop, hall and children's snug and a defined kitchen space.

This week has been so exciting as the steels went in - we can now see where our ceilings will be and the joists will be laid in the next week or so and the first floors floor can be laid and internal supporting walls continued up the roof line. In addition, window openings are appearing and light is starting to flood into the right places. The building scale is becoming more 'human' day by day and it is suddenly easier to imagine living in the space.

Facade now that the doors and the supporting beam are removed.

Some on site fabrication.

We have been so lucky with the weather this week, crisp, but sunny, its better than we could have ever expected. Also Mark and Dave (Rob's landscapers) are back, which is great, we've told them that as long as Dave (Artisan Head Builder) is happy they can work here until July if they want to!