New year

/new year and hopefully a new imputes on the build.  I've rethought some of the schedule, a few items were stolen off site over the Christmas period and as a result I'll suspend any internal fit out until the house is sealed.  I had planned to get a start on the HRV, 1st fix plumbing and the suspended ceiling frame, but rather than pay for some things twice, or have someone punch small holes in the Qualplex, I'll hold off.  Its annoying, but we're not in a rush.

The biggest blocker is still windows.  Snow badly delayed the sill fitting, not completed until late December.  Measurements were taken by a few companies for realistic quoting and we're waiting on these, once we can get them ordered we're away.  In the meantime, there are a few things we can do, and on Saturday we had a meeting with the builder, roofer and architect to plan a few things.

1. Chimney - we need to build up the chimney from the 1st floor balcony to the roof, and above.  We'll fit in pipe for a 7" flue, and work from that.  Blocks to build up to the roof and out, then we can plaster around the chimney and slate to it.  That will be the roof pretty much finished.
2. Front Door - big decision to go to a double front door - as a result a central pillar there has to be taken out.  Good bit of steel rebar in there so I presume cutting it will be fun.  But it's what we both want, and I'm not sure where we lost this in the process, I'm blaming myself to be honest.  Very often you get caught up in something and afterwards remember to talk about feature x... and maybe I never got there.  Still, easier to fix now than in 10 years.
3. Stairs - A little studding to be done at the top and a collar for the roof over the stairwell and we can start getting the stairs installed.  I'm excited about that - it'll float between floors anchored at diagonal corners only, so it will be some feature I hope.  It'll also give my wife a chance to see the 1st floor, she's too afraid of heights to tackle the ladder!  It'll make access between floors much easier, esp with any equipment.
4. Grouting the hollowcore - This should stop the floods of water hitting the basement where there are clear gaps, that will allow us to clean it out and get ready for 1st fix.
5. Service shaft - I still don't know how, but the carefully planned service shaft got fubar'ed on the second floor.  We'll have to joint the shafts and draw them on a short diagonal, then up again on an offset hole in the 1st floor hollow-cores.  It's probably for the best, there is less of a chimney effect and may be safer for fire and warmer to insulate.. who knows

In the meantime I have to tidy up some of the sill corners with silicon and insulation.  Then await the windows!

Slippage from the cold

The cold weather put the inevitable jinx on the schedule, just when things were taking off again. With snow and ice for 2 weeks the site was largely inaccessible at the best of times, and even then as it started to thaw the surface is very slippy and carrying heavy granite sills would be a nightmare.  Similarly a roof would be also particularly treacherous and the last thing we'd want are any accidents.  That said, progress has been made, with the majority of the sills in and finishing off today, and the slates starting to go up on the roof.

We'll measure and order the windows straight after Christmas and then we'll be motoring.  It has been 4 weeks since I was on site, and a taste of what's to come in the future with the hill being snowed in.  With Lorraine's parents trapped in the house for a week or so its something we'll need to keep in mind, particularly when changing cars.  Rear-wheel drive isn't really the best option.

Internally, the roof is shaping out the upstairs rooms nicely, there are some features in there that will make it - in the master bedroom where we have extra height around the front window, and the triangular window above the sitting room framed by the rafters will be lovely

So once the sills are done then we'll be pausing for Christmas, and attack it with a vengeance in the new year. We'll try and get the 1st fix in while waiting for windows- HRV and plumbing, then once the windows are in we can get plastering done and 1st fix electrical.

Gables finished

Finally we have the gables complete - the concrete pour happening this morning.  The house structure is now finished and with the roof frame well under way we can see the full outline of the house for the first time.

There is loads to get a feel for now, we can get into each roof and see what the light is like, the views we'll have and generally feel like it's becoming our house.  I've yet to coax Lorraine up the ladder on the left hand side to get up to the second storey - even the incentive of seeing her walk-in wardrobe isn't enough.  But, with planning to be done in the next couple of weeks for bathroom plumbing, we'll have to find a way, I'll invest in some blinkers perhaps.

With this complete, all the window and door openings are defined and this week should also see the sills installed.  If that works out, we'll be in a position to measure windows by the weekend, and then we'll get those on order.  While waiting, we'll get the roof finished, solar panels installed, and start some of the internal fit out - HRV ducting and plumbing.  Probably best to wait till it's weather tight before we go for the wiring!

Here is another recently completed window - this is in our bedroom looking out.

All in all it's back on track in terms of moving, the roofers are bulling through it and getting great work done.  With the rest of the work as described above we could have a very productive month ahead.

Daylight viewing

This weekend I managed to be down in the daylight to get some photos of the roof.  So far you can see the general frame of it, and we're still not finished on the gables.  There is nothing waiting on these, we need to get the builder back on site to finish them off and pour the concrete.

Also we have the window sill measured out, and can order these from the supplier.  These will take about a week to prepare and deliver, and a couple of days to install.  With these in, we can finally measure and order the windows, with them in we'll have a weatherproof interior and can really crack on with the internal fit out.  Ideally we'll be able to keep the scaffolding onsite until then, and get the outside render done at the same time.  Then it'll start to look like a house for real.

Roof well under way

4 weeks since the last post, but its been slow going for that month.  The roof has certainly started with the skeleton of the roof in place and the majority of the rafters on, you can certainly see it looks like a house now.  With other commitments, the ICF builder should be in place next week to finish off the gable walls, finalise the last of the window openings and start casting the stairs.

In addition, we're considering an extension already! Not much mind you, but in order to have a preferred double-door at the front door we need to extend out about 1300 to create a porch area that we can sit the double door into.  We originally talked about converting the door where it is but the stairs starts right in the middle of that spot and a double door would be pointless.  It should be a nice feature, we're planning on a glass roof there making it light and airy.

Apart from that we have a chap lined up to do the sills, and a decent quote of the actual stone, so hopefully we can get that moving next week and order windows (finally).

With Daylight Savings there is no way I can get down during the week while it's bright, but I'll be getting some photos this weekend to post up.  It should be some noticeable progress!

Roof starts!

A change of plan means that despite not finishing off the gables, we're going to start the roof.  All the internal block work is done, and with that we have all the areas that the roof will be resting on.  So instead of finishing off the ICF and hoping it fits the roof, we can do the roof and fit the ICF to it.  Hopefully this will result in a better fit.  Our roofer is starting the scaffolding, and hopefully within a week we'll be able to polish off the gables.

The internal blocks upstairs completed, we can walk through all the rooms - once you're prepared to climb up a 3m high ladder of course!  There is a really nice bedroom there, with fantastic views and access to the roof of the sunroom - if we have more than 1 child it'll be a fight for that room. We can start planning the layouts of the bathrooms as well.

The other piece to move on now it the window cills - we picked out the type we want and are looking fro quotes.  We're also going to get a blocklayer to fit them, I'd prefer to pay for it to be done right as the damp proof course around these is vital.  We'll try and get this sorted this week and start installing them.  We'll cover them with plastic for the last ICF pour, and then we can have the windows measured.

Up Top

Over the weekend I managed to get up onto the top floor and have a look.  The walls are poured with only the gable-ends left to build up to their peaks... so still a lot of the defining shape of the house is left. Still, getting up there and looking around I could start to pace out where our bedrooms are, the en-suites etc, and check out the views we'll get from these rooms.  Again the windows should be long, close to the floor at the bottom and heading up to a regular height, here in this end is our bedroom and en-suite and somewhere as well is the walk-in-wardrobe that was the principle design effort in terms of sizing! All I know is i'll probably get a drawer or two if I'm lucky.

Also you can stand where the balcony over the living room is and look down into that area.  As the height at that point is significant it seems like a long way down and I'm not worried that the landing area there will be part of the sitting room. its the guts of 3.5 meters here.  The right edge will have a wall running along its length partitioning the stairwell from this room completely.

Once the gables are up we can then start fitting cills and measuring windows as all the openings will be cut.  All going well we can start all that process next week.  Then the stairs needs to be specified and poured - we'll be able to access all levels easily, and the roofer starts.  Then I'll feel like we have some real momentum again.

Almost there

With the height extensions on our ground floor, we've come up against the fact that the house is taller than had been anticipated.  With the ICF walls in bright white, this means we have a very stark impact on the countryside - I can see the house as I drive down from 25 kms away if truth be told.  However, when the roof is sitting on top, we've stone on a large % of the front and a muted render (I guess my dreamed of cerise pink is a no no) then it'll fade back a bit into the environment.  A few pieces of strategically placed vegetation and the fig-leaf covering will be in place.

Right now though its imposing - standing at the front door I look up over 8m to the roof plate which is almost complete.  The roof will drag the effect of this down ideally.  So - Roof plate finally is in sight with the projected pour of these walls tomorrow.  Then the roofer can get busy, we can start casting the stairs and screeding the exposed areas of the hollow-core to stop water pouring in. That'll be a major milestone, enable us to unlock more of our mortgage and start locking in the next parts of the build.  Its been tough to write about this for the last couple of weeks as I'm feel I'm repeating myself at the moment, it's been a week away for the last month and its frustrating.  However the pendulum will swing and soon I'll be giving out about the amount of time it's taking up!  Never happy me.

This was a couple of days ago as the top floor is being constructed.  Without a stairs there is no way for me to get up onto that floor either - so I've no idea what its like up there, but our architect was very happy with the views from that floor where our family bedrooms will all be.  With the heights all finalised, our room ceilings are even higher than we'd originally hoped - with the bulk of the ground floor at 3.3m from finished floor to ceiling.  Plenty of cat swinging room in that.

Ground Floor slabs on

Finally we have the ground floor slabs on.  They were lifted in yesterday, and another stage of the house is completed.  It also helps us to get the real size of the rooms on this floor and many of these are the key rooms in the house as the most used.  The added height of the ceiling (to make up for the step in the kitchen) is evident when you walk in, below the floor to ceiling height is not too far off 3.5 meters, this will come down by 400mm with floor and suspended ceiling.  We can also start thinking of things such as kitchen layouts and other significant rooms that will effect parts of the build such as underfloor heating.  We're still a good 3 weeks behind where I wanted to be, so the race is on to get weather tight - something I'm clearly obsessed with at the moment.  The back rooms now seem dark - the concrete blocks don't reflect any light and we're used to having full daylight all over the rooms.

Window quotes still continue to come in.  There is a range of quotes as you'd expect from a number of companies with products that appear similar.  Some of the things I'm looking for are U-values (performance on insulation) and security - the first is important for us as we're at the edge of the heating system capability and anything we can claw back and save brings us closer to being able to work as is without adding extra heat  pumps.  The question will be how much of a premium that is worth, you spend pounds to save pennies over 20 years or so.  Once that is resolved, then the next phases are pretty much lined up to the point where we can think of starting the interior fit out.

Finally the perspective picture view with these slabs on and the steel frame completed on the front windows.

Slow going with blocks

The blocks are not going up anywhere nearly as quickly as we'd been sold.  These internal walls will be carrying load for the hollowcore 1st floor, so we can't get these in place until they are completed.  It's not a mis-estimation on the builders part, the issue is that the blockies didn't turn up for a few days, and I suspect didn't exactly do a full days work when they were there.  These guys are subcontracted by the structure builder, so I don't have a direct line to them, and the builder isn't always on site while these guys are supposed to be, so supervision is minimal.  At this stage with everyone complaining about the lack of work you'd think people would want to get through it and maintain a good name for the next job.  I guess not.

This story is nearly finished, most of the blocks are up and hopefully this will then get slabbed next week.  The final ICF row, internal blocks and then the roof (finally) can start.  In the picture the columns are either side of the fireplace.  We're looking to install a warm air circulation system, this is above the stove we'll fit here and allow air above it to get heated and circulate back out the top of the stack.  This should improve the heat we obtain from the unit when its on.  We still plasterboard over the area so this space is hidden, and we'll have to work out how to affix heavy items such as a TV etc.  But combined with the Heat-Recovery ventilation we can use the stove to pump heat all around the house.  It's located in the central open space, and warm air here will naturally circulate to the dining room, kitchen, back lobby and top landing.  However, if we're in a position that we're depending on this for heat we're already in trouble!

Again I'm only worried about the pace of building from the perspective of getting the house sealed.  We're getting quotes for windows, doors, stone and have plaster in mind, so if we get pushing we might have an intense 8-10 weeks to get weather tight and ready for internal fit-out.