Wow. Your extension will be the talk of the town, you know.

"I can't believe how tall it is Ethel" That sort of thing...

An eventful couple of days this week. We've been desperately trying to get hold of a pumice flue starter block, liner blocks and backfill. Nowhere I spoke to could get them to me within 4 days so I eventually spoke to a company based near me who claim to be the UK's "Number 1 flue supplier". They gave me the dimensions for the starter block which meant I could cast a suitable sized raft to fit their Isokern system. So I liaise with Buildbase who suggest I go to them directly and they can sort me out and I can take the bits away there and then. I drive for an hour to get there and they couldn't be more rude, unhelpful and plainly wrong. Their rep gave me the impression that he really didn't want to sell me anything at all, despite me knowing exactly what I needed to order, he just chucked a load of business cards for chimney installers at me and wanted me out of there, total knobber. So I've had to go with a different system from Hanson, the only problem is they say allow a 280mm hole for their adapter to the appliance whereas I have 8 inches of cast concrete with a 235mm hole. I've ordered the bits and will just wait and see whether they were being overly generous with their clearance.

So today the first of our steels arrives, this is the "small" one for the first floor.



Our first pack of reclaimed tiles arrives, almost breaking the tail lift of the delivery truck!



Our cavity lintels arrive ready to go in tomorrow.



The steel is moved inside ready to be lifted tomorrow and engineering brick padstones have been laid. It weighs about 260kg and takes 4 to move it so getting it up there will be a challenge.



Here's all the blockwork now waiting for steels and lintels tomorrow. It's going to be a busy day!

Some more brickwork done, these are the two small high level windows next to the fireplace.





The kitchen windows with lintels overhead now, the bottom blocks are coming out to make the openings bigger.



Here's the detailing over the windows to match the rest of the house, there will be a little shelf of cement on top of the tiles.

The two walls are flush, every 4th course where there is an inset on the old house there is a very small piece of brick inserted to fill the slightly bigger gap. In practice it's a part of the house no one will ever really be able to see anyway.

Another busy week this week...

Two joists taken out, they both were near the old toilet and had a bit of woodworm. They've been treated along with everywhere else but as they're relatively easy to take out through the rear wall we are replacing them. Just need to be careful not to fall down the hole until the new ones are in!



A cut course of blocks has been added ready for the joists to sit on.



Lintel over the french doors in place. The lounge certainly won't be dark as it will be getting a lot of light from every direction!



Doorway through from the hall cut and lintel put in place. Every brick that came out of there is being cleaned up, cement removed and saved for future use. On the right as you come through from the hall will be a bank of ovens and on the left will be the backs of one of the sofas facing the fireplace.



Some more blockwork on that wall, again waiting for the joists to sit on top. The fireplace had to be blocked up so hopefully we have the right spacing there!



The brickies are back tomorrow to continue with the brickwork above the windows, the replacement joists for the old house should be coming and possibly the joists for the extension, but I suspect wednesday is more likely. There's also another scaffolding lift scheduled for wednesday as well as the delivery of the steel over the bifolds.

Another busy week and more progress.

Early drama centred around the chimney, the pumice flue liners arrived along with the stainless steel adapter, monday morning starts with frantic angle grinding to ensure we can actually fit the adapter to the starter block as the hole in the 8 inch thick lintel we cast for it was too small.

We then find that the joists over the fire place are too long and protrude into the chimney itself, floor chap has to come back and we come up with a plan to have a longer trimmer taking it away from the chimney altogether and the cutting of about 4 joists to the right length. Here is the hod carrier looking "concerned":



Cavity closers start to go in:



Posijoists:


Brick detailing over the french doors in the lounge complete, ready for the next scaffolding lift which is happening on monday.


Noggins fitted the to the joists and battening to hold them in the right place, lots of fine tuning here which took a while.



The view from the side master bedroom window:



The joists blocked in at the ends:



The new trimmer over the fireplace:



The chimeny starts to taper in now, these slopes will be covered with tiles.


Joists all finished, we have started to mark out the position of the rooms now on the joists, the first marking to the left is the end of the bathroom, the rest is our dressing room/5th bedroom.



The landing, airing cupboard, master bedroom and ensuite marked out.





The brickies want it all boarded out asap with Caberdeck, which is a waterproof flooring, but to do that I need to lay all the underfloor heating first, which is a pain, so a quick trip down the road to U-Heat and this is all the pipe and trays just for the upstairs, very good service and price from them.



The steel over the bifolds arrived today and went straight up, there was some welding of plates and galvanising of that one so not cheap!



That's all the groundfloor steels, and indeed groundfloor complete now



The lounge:


TV is going to sit in the recess above the fire, little windows either side to let in a bit of light and provide ventilation.



The bifolding doors opening for the kitchen:



Detail above the door:



The view from the garden




Tomorrow we will be installing the UFH upstairs and will start to work on the temporary room supports to allow us to knock through and take out a big supporting beam over the stairs. If anyone has a 6m acro prop going spare that would be handy Monday sees the next scaffolding lift and the steel guy back to drill some more holes to feed ~UFH pipes through and mount stud walls. I also need to locate around 110sqm of Caberdeck asap!

Perfect choice of floor/roof joists.

Absolutely wonderful for running cable anywhere you want.

V.

I could do with some opinions on the window cills, standard is black aluminium but I'm not sure that will look too dark or whether wood would soften up the appearance somewhat. I'm also concerned the power coated aluminium cills will scratch too easily. I think I prefer the oak but it is considerably more expensive...

Black:


Wrapped wood effect aluminium:


Oak:


What do you think?

We also started to install the underfloor heating trays today, seems pretty easy, a lot needed to be cut to size and a few noggins moved but they should be finished tomorrow.

The Oak cills are about £1,300 extra but I think we have to get that right.

Yes they will have the black behind them, that's the window colour we are going for, with white on the inside, I think it suits the house a bit better, plain white won't look quite right.