House Build Diary
Discussion
So chaps I'm very excited today as we've just received word from our planning consultant that our application has been approved and the decision notice is in the post! So in the finest tradition of H G & DIY I'm doing a build thread where I'll share what happens from now on.
A bit of background; my missus' parents own a farm on the outskirts of Durham and to cut a long story short we have become the proud owners of about 1/4 of an acre of land on a leafy little lane that borders the farm to one side and the neighbouring village over the fields to the other, behind an embankment that belongs to a disused railway line that used to take coal from Consett steel works towards Durham. The railway line is now a footpath which provides ampledogging, er, I mean rambling opportunities in the scenic Durham countryside.
We made all the classic errors in the first instance when we went to see the planning department a few years ago; took pictures of the site, a few screenshots of the kind of house we'd like to build etc and emailed them over to the planner. He summonsed us in to see him and amongst the plastic plants, screwed down chairs, chavs and ner-do-wells hovering for a variety of services in the depressing surroundings of the council's reception building told us that our plot was outside a settlement boundary so was classed as open countryside, and therefore could categorically NOT be built upon.
We left, dejected and drowned our sorrows in a pub up the road. A year or so later, they started work on flattening a disused old car body shop over the other side of the embankment that had been sold to a developer for housing. After a protracted fight with the planners, an application for 23 'executive' houses had been approved. In no time at all, these houses started springing up behind the embankment, adding further insult to our planning rebuff. It was at this point that a family friend pointed us to a planning consultant who was in her words 's
t hot' and likened to him the 'Mr Loophole of planning law' and that if this guy couldn't get it through, no-one could. Let us hope. So after working on things for a long while, he submitted basic plans for pre-application advice. We were a tad annoyed that this 20 page document was answered with literally a ten line email from the planner, stating that the decision would be 'finely balanced' and that according to Policy H4 (which is guidance in the Durham Council plan about developing infill sites in villages with no settlement boundary) this particular plot was of high importance to the street scene so MAY be judged unsuitable for housing. Argghhh.
Thankfully the government published the new NPPF just before we submitted our application, a lot of which helped us. In a nutshell, it promoted 'sustainable' development and pushed planners a bit further into considering sites such as ours that previously they might have resisted simply because they felt they were too 'rural'. In the end, the NPPF saved our bacon and after 11 weeks of sleepless nights to our utter amazement our application passed through the system like a hot knife through butter and they approved it. Job done!
So here are the plans:
Few things: the plot is long and narrow, so we've put the house at the widest point. It faces that way to get sun on the front in the morning and the rear in the evening. The L shape allowed us to screen off the patio side from the road, although it's a tiny lane and doesn't go really anywhere, so it's very quiet. The brick external chimney was to give the flat side of the house facing the road a focal point, as the architect felt it looked stark with no windows on that side and the planners might not like that. A few people think that a car port is pointless, even a nice oak one like ours. I tend to agree, as they don't stop driving snow and squally showers from hitting your car as they are open sided and unless you get one with a lean-to shed, can't be used to actually store anything except a car. However, we did try all kinds of permutation of garage styles but because the only place to put it is in front of the house and the oak frame is a) nice to look at and b) allows an open 'aspect' around it because it's open sided and doesn't look like a huge brick blot in front of the window we ran with it.
We're going over to the plot tonight to break open a bottle of bubbly on our new 'home' and I'll get some snaps. Next job is a builder and get the finances in order. So there is much to do. Wish me luck!
A bit of background; my missus' parents own a farm on the outskirts of Durham and to cut a long story short we have become the proud owners of about 1/4 of an acre of land on a leafy little lane that borders the farm to one side and the neighbouring village over the fields to the other, behind an embankment that belongs to a disused railway line that used to take coal from Consett steel works towards Durham. The railway line is now a footpath which provides ample
We made all the classic errors in the first instance when we went to see the planning department a few years ago; took pictures of the site, a few screenshots of the kind of house we'd like to build etc and emailed them over to the planner. He summonsed us in to see him and amongst the plastic plants, screwed down chairs, chavs and ner-do-wells hovering for a variety of services in the depressing surroundings of the council's reception building told us that our plot was outside a settlement boundary so was classed as open countryside, and therefore could categorically NOT be built upon.
We left, dejected and drowned our sorrows in a pub up the road. A year or so later, they started work on flattening a disused old car body shop over the other side of the embankment that had been sold to a developer for housing. After a protracted fight with the planners, an application for 23 'executive' houses had been approved. In no time at all, these houses started springing up behind the embankment, adding further insult to our planning rebuff. It was at this point that a family friend pointed us to a planning consultant who was in her words 's
t hot' and likened to him the 'Mr Loophole of planning law' and that if this guy couldn't get it through, no-one could. Let us hope. So after working on things for a long while, he submitted basic plans for pre-application advice. We were a tad annoyed that this 20 page document was answered with literally a ten line email from the planner, stating that the decision would be 'finely balanced' and that according to Policy H4 (which is guidance in the Durham Council plan about developing infill sites in villages with no settlement boundary) this particular plot was of high importance to the street scene so MAY be judged unsuitable for housing. Argghhh.Thankfully the government published the new NPPF just before we submitted our application, a lot of which helped us. In a nutshell, it promoted 'sustainable' development and pushed planners a bit further into considering sites such as ours that previously they might have resisted simply because they felt they were too 'rural'. In the end, the NPPF saved our bacon and after 11 weeks of sleepless nights to our utter amazement our application passed through the system like a hot knife through butter and they approved it. Job done!
So here are the plans:
Few things: the plot is long and narrow, so we've put the house at the widest point. It faces that way to get sun on the front in the morning and the rear in the evening. The L shape allowed us to screen off the patio side from the road, although it's a tiny lane and doesn't go really anywhere, so it's very quiet. The brick external chimney was to give the flat side of the house facing the road a focal point, as the architect felt it looked stark with no windows on that side and the planners might not like that. A few people think that a car port is pointless, even a nice oak one like ours. I tend to agree, as they don't stop driving snow and squally showers from hitting your car as they are open sided and unless you get one with a lean-to shed, can't be used to actually store anything except a car. However, we did try all kinds of permutation of garage styles but because the only place to put it is in front of the house and the oak frame is a) nice to look at and b) allows an open 'aspect' around it because it's open sided and doesn't look like a huge brick blot in front of the window we ran with it.
We're going over to the plot tonight to break open a bottle of bubbly on our new 'home' and I'll get some snaps. Next job is a builder and get the finances in order. So there is much to do. Wish me luck!
Soooooo.
The first thing about building a house, certainly for the world's most impatient man like me is that it's bloody slow. I think I imagined that within hours of the PP being issued we'd be driving onto the site in a JCB and it would be a bit like 'Challenge Anneka', with a team of blokes descending onto the project like ants! Now of course I know that getting PP is only the beginning. We have no builder's plans for starters and our architect doesn't do that side of things so the first job is to find someone to get those drawn up and get them into building regs. Then it's engaging builders. I met with one up at the site to show him the plot and the PP plans and he saunters up, 40 minutes late. I sense that this is the way of the world with builders! He was however a nice bloke, a real sage old-timer who gave me lot of useful advice so even if we don't use him I'm grateful for his input. The builder feels that by the time we've got building regs and the proper plans out of the way we'd just be starting in time for the crap winter weather, which isn't something he would personally do for a house that he was going to live in. His point was that if the basic structure is up by time Jan/Feb comes around then all the frost, ice and snow will be inside the house as it won't have a roof or be watertight and that 20-30 years down the line we might see issues related to this that would be negated by hanging on. He felt that we'd be best to start the groundworks now while the ground is still soft and then wait until Spring before we start on the main build. Hmmmmm.
Also we planned a traditional blockwork construction, although the builder I met today suggests that a timber frame might be the way forward. Our architect suggested a masonry build was probably cheaper and easier for our house than the cost of a one-off timber frame. Interested to hear any PHer's opinion on that one. Obviously as long as it looked identical to the plans submitted to the LA for planning then we can construct it any way we like, as long as the building control people are happy. So more phone calls to make!
Next job is to start tidying up the site. I'll get my brother-in-law to come along with his tractor and mow the verge, so we can see the state of the stone wall running along the whole plot. It will need repointing, if it doesn't fall down first! Then we need to open up the wall a bit wider to get plant onto the site and start scraping off the topsoil so we can get in and do the soil samples.
So, the obligatory pictures. Not much to see yet as the whole plot is totally overgrown. Even the stone wall along the verge is hidden behind years of foliage!
Looking down the plot. It's pretty long and ends where the grass verge goes from monstrously overgrown to neat and trimmed in front of the neighbour's house. Keen PHers will notice that the wife's E92 is the unloved 325i, saving us a bit of cash over the bonkers 335i for our house build.
Behind there is a stone wall!
The site was originally a paddock. What's in there we won't know until we get in with the tractor. Let's hope there's nothing nasty......
Next stage is builder's plans and soil samples. I'll keep you posted!
The first thing about building a house, certainly for the world's most impatient man like me is that it's bloody slow. I think I imagined that within hours of the PP being issued we'd be driving onto the site in a JCB and it would be a bit like 'Challenge Anneka', with a team of blokes descending onto the project like ants! Now of course I know that getting PP is only the beginning. We have no builder's plans for starters and our architect doesn't do that side of things so the first job is to find someone to get those drawn up and get them into building regs. Then it's engaging builders. I met with one up at the site to show him the plot and the PP plans and he saunters up, 40 minutes late. I sense that this is the way of the world with builders! He was however a nice bloke, a real sage old-timer who gave me lot of useful advice so even if we don't use him I'm grateful for his input. The builder feels that by the time we've got building regs and the proper plans out of the way we'd just be starting in time for the crap winter weather, which isn't something he would personally do for a house that he was going to live in. His point was that if the basic structure is up by time Jan/Feb comes around then all the frost, ice and snow will be inside the house as it won't have a roof or be watertight and that 20-30 years down the line we might see issues related to this that would be negated by hanging on. He felt that we'd be best to start the groundworks now while the ground is still soft and then wait until Spring before we start on the main build. Hmmmmm.
Also we planned a traditional blockwork construction, although the builder I met today suggests that a timber frame might be the way forward. Our architect suggested a masonry build was probably cheaper and easier for our house than the cost of a one-off timber frame. Interested to hear any PHer's opinion on that one. Obviously as long as it looked identical to the plans submitted to the LA for planning then we can construct it any way we like, as long as the building control people are happy. So more phone calls to make!
Next job is to start tidying up the site. I'll get my brother-in-law to come along with his tractor and mow the verge, so we can see the state of the stone wall running along the whole plot. It will need repointing, if it doesn't fall down first! Then we need to open up the wall a bit wider to get plant onto the site and start scraping off the topsoil so we can get in and do the soil samples.
So, the obligatory pictures. Not much to see yet as the whole plot is totally overgrown. Even the stone wall along the verge is hidden behind years of foliage!
Looking down the plot. It's pretty long and ends where the grass verge goes from monstrously overgrown to neat and trimmed in front of the neighbour's house. Keen PHers will notice that the wife's E92 is the unloved 325i, saving us a bit of cash over the bonkers 335i for our house build.
Behind there is a stone wall!
The site was originally a paddock. What's in there we won't know until we get in with the tractor. Let's hope there's nothing nasty......
Next stage is builder's plans and soil samples. I'll keep you posted!
Edited by bennyboydurham on Thursday 30th August 14:40
So chaps, an update. Planning was awarded at the end of August and it's all been quite frustratingly slow, but we're getting there.
Thanks to some friends who have just about finished their own self build, we found a great building engineer to do the builder's plans and oversee the build. First job was to clear the site up a bit and dig a few holes with a friendly neighbour's JCB so we could get a peek at the soil conditions. Unfortunately the holes were dug the night before the engineer came out and it rained, so I had to unenviable job of climbing in and bailing the water out. In the end my efforts were a bit pointless as the fact that they'd filled with water which hadn't drained away told us all we needed to know - we would be building on good old clay which is great as a solid foundation for a house but not so good for handling drainage. The topsoil is nice and deep however and of great quality so I'll have nice lawn one day at least.....
The JCB made a right old mud bath of the site!
The engineer with his er, stick, thing.
The other big event is that we are moving into a caravan! While we're waiting on the building plans, quotes, mortgage applications etc. I felt we might as well be saving some cash so I gave the landlord notice and hunted for a static. £2000 later......
Yes it's a 1999 Atlas Fairline. 3 bedrooms, double glazing and er, lots of velour...
As we don't have any services at the site yet, my in laws kindly let us stick it at their farm for now.
Having failed in our bid to tow it into position with a Freelander (note the mud marks on the front from us trying), it was time to bring in the big gun!
Bro in law busy doing manly stuff!
I was more interested in seeing whether we could pick up a decent 3G signal inside the caravan - I was very pleasantly surprised:
So there's lots more to do. Caravan needs to be hooked up and winterised, as it was bd freezing in there yesterday! We're going to stick some bales of hay round the bottom to stop the wind whipping underneath it. Apparently you can buy rolls of a thermal insulation from B&Q as recommended on a caravanning forum for about £7 each and bang them on the underside of the caravan with a staple gun. Most people seem to be able to do it for around £150 which is probably money well spent considering we'll be moving into the caravan at the start of January!! The caravan has those bloody vents all over the place which are supposed to vent LPG leaks and reduce carbon monoxide levels inside if you have a leak. They also let arctic level draughts of cold air come in. Blocking them up, according to the caravan people, is more dangerous as taking a walk through Helmand Province wearing an 'I love Bush' T shirt made of bacon. Surely if you have an LPG/Carbon Monoxide detector then you're fine to block (at least some of 'em) up?
The quote for a temporary electrical supply was a pleasantly low £650, although we do have to pay again to get it moved from the temporary supply area to the main house when we need it, so it might not be that cheap by the end. The water board charge you £80 just to ask for a quote, so I haven't done that yet. Next is organising a mortgage. We've already had the first of many meetings with our mortgage broker and covered a lot of ground. We still don't have the finished builder's plans and schedule of works yet so until we have that we can't proceed with the money side. Hopefully that will be nailed down this side of Xmas so we can crack on with the build by the end of Jan. I'll keep you posted all.
Thanks to some friends who have just about finished their own self build, we found a great building engineer to do the builder's plans and oversee the build. First job was to clear the site up a bit and dig a few holes with a friendly neighbour's JCB so we could get a peek at the soil conditions. Unfortunately the holes were dug the night before the engineer came out and it rained, so I had to unenviable job of climbing in and bailing the water out. In the end my efforts were a bit pointless as the fact that they'd filled with water which hadn't drained away told us all we needed to know - we would be building on good old clay which is great as a solid foundation for a house but not so good for handling drainage. The topsoil is nice and deep however and of great quality so I'll have nice lawn one day at least.....
The JCB made a right old mud bath of the site!
The engineer with his er, stick, thing.
The other big event is that we are moving into a caravan! While we're waiting on the building plans, quotes, mortgage applications etc. I felt we might as well be saving some cash so I gave the landlord notice and hunted for a static. £2000 later......
Yes it's a 1999 Atlas Fairline. 3 bedrooms, double glazing and er, lots of velour...
As we don't have any services at the site yet, my in laws kindly let us stick it at their farm for now.
Having failed in our bid to tow it into position with a Freelander (note the mud marks on the front from us trying), it was time to bring in the big gun!
Bro in law busy doing manly stuff!
I was more interested in seeing whether we could pick up a decent 3G signal inside the caravan - I was very pleasantly surprised:
So there's lots more to do. Caravan needs to be hooked up and winterised, as it was b
d freezing in there yesterday! We're going to stick some bales of hay round the bottom to stop the wind whipping underneath it. Apparently you can buy rolls of a thermal insulation from B&Q as recommended on a caravanning forum for about £7 each and bang them on the underside of the caravan with a staple gun. Most people seem to be able to do it for around £150 which is probably money well spent considering we'll be moving into the caravan at the start of January!! The caravan has those bloody vents all over the place which are supposed to vent LPG leaks and reduce carbon monoxide levels inside if you have a leak. They also let arctic level draughts of cold air come in. Blocking them up, according to the caravan people, is more dangerous as taking a walk through Helmand Province wearing an 'I love Bush' T shirt made of bacon. Surely if you have an LPG/Carbon Monoxide detector then you're fine to block (at least some of 'em) up? The quote for a temporary electrical supply was a pleasantly low £650, although we do have to pay again to get it moved from the temporary supply area to the main house when we need it, so it might not be that cheap by the end. The water board charge you £80 just to ask for a quote, so I haven't done that yet. Next is organising a mortgage. We've already had the first of many meetings with our mortgage broker and covered a lot of ground. We still don't have the finished builder's plans and schedule of works yet so until we have that we can't proceed with the money side. Hopefully that will be nailed down this side of Xmas so we can crack on with the build by the end of Jan. I'll keep you posted all.
Thanks all, your suggestions are all taken on board.
@Emma - we were dead against PVC windows at the beginning of the process but our attitudes softened a bit after we lived in a new build barn conversion with wooden windows which are a pain in the arse. They look nice but all the paint has flaked off, they've twisted and warped in the weather so many of them don't close properly and of course they're bloody expensive. We went to a home show at the NEC and they had a few different suppliers of PVC sash windows with all the right furniture and a textured finish that frankly you need to rub with your hands to discover isn't actually wood. They're a fraction of the price of wood, can be repainted different colours (not the easiest job, but doable) and last for yonks with no twisting or warping. So PVC it is. In an ideal world we'd go with timber but hey ho, this is the forever house and it's something that we can revisit one day if we feel we made a big mistake.
@Paul, yep that's it. It's a nice spot but you're right it's a car journey anywhere from here. I'm all about peace and quiet however so it's horses for courses.
@Emma - we were dead against PVC windows at the beginning of the process but our attitudes softened a bit after we lived in a new build barn conversion with wooden windows which are a pain in the arse. They look nice but all the paint has flaked off, they've twisted and warped in the weather so many of them don't close properly and of course they're bloody expensive. We went to a home show at the NEC and they had a few different suppliers of PVC sash windows with all the right furniture and a textured finish that frankly you need to rub with your hands to discover isn't actually wood. They're a fraction of the price of wood, can be repainted different colours (not the easiest job, but doable) and last for yonks with no twisting or warping. So PVC it is. In an ideal world we'd go with timber but hey ho, this is the forever house and it's something that we can revisit one day if we feel we made a big mistake.
@Paul, yep that's it. It's a nice spot but you're right it's a car journey anywhere from here. I'm all about peace and quiet however so it's horses for courses.
Bit of an update for you all. We now have the final set of drawings from the building engineer and they've gone out to a few builders so we'll have some quotes soon. Then it's a case of organising the mortgage and then hopefully we'll be on our way to a new house!
Since my last update we moved out of our rented house into the caravan and it's not been the total nightmare we were worried it might be, despite the fact that we've had some of the worst weather imaginable up here in the last month - 2 weeks of snow, temperatures not above zero for over a week, gale force winds, the whole deal. Things have been made easier by the fact that we have services on site due to the proximity of the stables next door. This means that we've got a septic tank, cold water feed, electricity and even the luxury of a feed from the combi boiler in the stables which means we've put in a couple of old radiators in the living area and in the hallway where the main door is. An oil filled electric radiator keeps the bedroom toasty. This has been a Godsend and I'd imagine those people who stick a caravan in the middle of an empty field for a new build will have one hell of a job just connecting up the services for the caravan, let alone the house! We've also bashed the caravan around to suit our needs. The wardrobes have been ripped out in the main bedroom as you couldn't get in the bed or open the wardrobe unless you put in a tiny bed. The second bedroom is now for clothes and the third had some big holes drilled in it to allow us to put in a washing machine and tumble drier. There are also a couple of new holes in the side for my 3G aerial and Sky+.
We've had a few moments - the whole caravan is run off single plug into the stables so my wife always seems to choose the coldest, wettest, windiest night to put on the heater, hairdryer, microwave and kettle at the same time, with the result that I'm despatched into the night to change the fuse. We've got through 3 so far! We emptied the first (19kg) propane gas bottle in less than a week so I banned the missus from using the gas fire unless she was going to pass out from hypothermia (unlikely, but our old house was 23 degrees all year round, so she's not acclimatised yet) and the next one lasted over a month so we're clearly getting a bit better at eeking it out. Internet has been a challenge, too. We could have a BT line but the ADSL speed round here is crap so 3G seemed the way to go. I bought an EE Huawei dongle which I connected to an external aerial (on top of a drain cleaning rod!) and was overjoyed to get solid speeds of around 10 meg down and 2 up. I work from home so we use a lot of data and I burned through the EE allowance of 5GB in no time. 2GB top ups at £15 a time started to get pricey. I noticed that 3 did an all you can eat data package with their PAYG phone sims, but the woman in the shop claimed it wouldn't work in a dongle. Once I get it home, unlocked the dongle and stuck the SIM in it, er, didn't work at all, not giving me a flawless connection up to 20MB. A week on and having not eaten through probably around 30GB of data it still, er, isn't working and isn't connecting me to internet as I type this whilst, er, not watching Top Gear in HD on iPlayer.
The other downsides of the caravan are really as you'd expect. There's not a lot of space and it easily becomes cluttered if you're not ferociously tidy. Ours has a laminate floor which is (especially away from the heated areas) bloody freezing on cold days and nights, although as long as you wear slippers it's not an issue and on milder days is ok. It's somewhat muddy around the caravan although I'm sorting that with raking a bit of shale between the entrance and where we park the cars. Security is a worry, despite having an alarm and a presence on the site most of the time. If we go away we take the stuff out of the caravan and put it somewhere else but you do feel vulnerable, certainly.
The build process itself is not for the impatient. We got planning permission at the end of August. It took us a good few weeks to find someone to do our building regs drawings and act as architect/engineer for the build. This took us to the middle of October and by the time the plans were taking shape it was Christmas and we moved into the caravan. This took a few weeks to get settled in and organised so took up most of Jan. It's now mid-Feb and we've still got an empty field with nothing but a few holes. This is the frustrating bit where nothing seems to be happening and six months has passed, but hey ho, the next stage is finances and a builder so hopefully it'll all move on much quicker now.
I will keep you updated, chaps.
Since my last update we moved out of our rented house into the caravan and it's not been the total nightmare we were worried it might be, despite the fact that we've had some of the worst weather imaginable up here in the last month - 2 weeks of snow, temperatures not above zero for over a week, gale force winds, the whole deal. Things have been made easier by the fact that we have services on site due to the proximity of the stables next door. This means that we've got a septic tank, cold water feed, electricity and even the luxury of a feed from the combi boiler in the stables which means we've put in a couple of old radiators in the living area and in the hallway where the main door is. An oil filled electric radiator keeps the bedroom toasty. This has been a Godsend and I'd imagine those people who stick a caravan in the middle of an empty field for a new build will have one hell of a job just connecting up the services for the caravan, let alone the house! We've also bashed the caravan around to suit our needs. The wardrobes have been ripped out in the main bedroom as you couldn't get in the bed or open the wardrobe unless you put in a tiny bed. The second bedroom is now for clothes and the third had some big holes drilled in it to allow us to put in a washing machine and tumble drier. There are also a couple of new holes in the side for my 3G aerial and Sky+.
We've had a few moments - the whole caravan is run off single plug into the stables so my wife always seems to choose the coldest, wettest, windiest night to put on the heater, hairdryer, microwave and kettle at the same time, with the result that I'm despatched into the night to change the fuse. We've got through 3 so far! We emptied the first (19kg) propane gas bottle in less than a week so I banned the missus from using the gas fire unless she was going to pass out from hypothermia (unlikely, but our old house was 23 degrees all year round, so she's not acclimatised yet) and the next one lasted over a month so we're clearly getting a bit better at eeking it out. Internet has been a challenge, too. We could have a BT line but the ADSL speed round here is crap so 3G seemed the way to go. I bought an EE Huawei dongle which I connected to an external aerial (on top of a drain cleaning rod!) and was overjoyed to get solid speeds of around 10 meg down and 2 up. I work from home so we use a lot of data and I burned through the EE allowance of 5GB in no time. 2GB top ups at £15 a time started to get pricey. I noticed that 3 did an all you can eat data package with their PAYG phone sims, but the woman in the shop claimed it wouldn't work in a dongle. Once I get it home, unlocked the dongle and stuck the SIM in it, er, didn't work at all, not giving me a flawless connection up to 20MB. A week on and having not eaten through probably around 30GB of data it still, er, isn't working and isn't connecting me to internet as I type this whilst, er, not watching Top Gear in HD on iPlayer.
The other downsides of the caravan are really as you'd expect. There's not a lot of space and it easily becomes cluttered if you're not ferociously tidy. Ours has a laminate floor which is (especially away from the heated areas) bloody freezing on cold days and nights, although as long as you wear slippers it's not an issue and on milder days is ok. It's somewhat muddy around the caravan although I'm sorting that with raking a bit of shale between the entrance and where we park the cars. Security is a worry, despite having an alarm and a presence on the site most of the time. If we go away we take the stuff out of the caravan and put it somewhere else but you do feel vulnerable, certainly.
The build process itself is not for the impatient. We got planning permission at the end of August. It took us a good few weeks to find someone to do our building regs drawings and act as architect/engineer for the build. This took us to the middle of October and by the time the plans were taking shape it was Christmas and we moved into the caravan. This took a few weeks to get settled in and organised so took up most of Jan. It's now mid-Feb and we've still got an empty field with nothing but a few holes. This is the frustrating bit where nothing seems to be happening and six months has passed, but hey ho, the next stage is finances and a builder so hopefully it'll all move on much quicker now.
I will keep you updated, chaps.
Lynch91 said:
Interesting thread, one thing I thought worth mentioning regarding Internet is could you just tether the data from your phone (assuming your on unlimited data)?
I can tether, but the phone only has a decent signal in certain spots inside the caravan, and I only have 3GB from the misers at EE. So not a replacement solution for ADSL. Chaps, bit of an update for you. We got the final building regs drawings done in February and then started the process of looking for a builder. Seemingly builders don't worry too much about things like returning calls, turning up for appointments or actually sending quotes out. How many of them actually stay in business astounds me. When you apply pressure on them to send you an estimate they just send you a quote seemingly pulled from their backsides. One bloke quoted half a million! No breakdown, nothing - just a line 'construction of x1 new build house price £500,000 plus VAT.' Er, thanks.
By the end of March we had been to see our finance guy and were just waiting on a final builder's quote to get sign off on the mortgage. Once we had this, we could commence within a few weeks, notwithstanding any issue with the building regs. All was on course for a late Spring start, which was later than planned (the building plans took way too long) but with a herculean effort we might be in for Christmas.
Then a week later I lost my job, as the company I worked for was folded up and integrated into the larger sister company up the road.
Streamlining, downsizing, a 'commercial decision', blah blah blah. Either way it was bks and as I work in a rather specialised industry with a very small jobs pool, it quickly became evident that there were no commutable options for me here in the North East. So here we were, in a fking caravan, with a plot of land and no way to get the house built as the mortgage offer had just vaporised before our eyes.
Cue the last 9 months being spent setting up a new business, which we've done from a caravan, on one income and against the backdrop of knowing that I'll not get live in my dream house if it doesn't pay off, as I'll be living in a one bedroom flat across the other side of the country doing my old job somewhere else. It's not all been bad news though, the missus is now a director of her family business ( nope she's not goateed nor powerfully built) and that extra income from her new tax-efficient status allows us to scrape into building the house, albeit with some serious corner cutting and cost saving measures.
The best part of a year in a caravan with no money has taught me a lot about what's important. Yes I've looked upon friends going on fancy holidays and buying flash new cars with some envy but a few years ago that was me, heading off around Europe in a Z4, or turning up at some posh gaff for the weekend in my (then new) E65. Ploughing a new furrow has been the hardest thing I've ever done but in the words of Thatch, TINA - there is no alternative. Yes I'd love a granite kitchen, a TV room with a 60 inch Panny and an oak garage but sometimes these things just take longer than planned. At this juncture a house that doesn't blow about in the wind, come with velour curtains, a gas stove and wasn't built in Hull out of aluminium would be like a dream come true.
So the builder is chosen and we're cracking on, provisional start date is end of Feb. Watch this space.
BB.
By the end of March we had been to see our finance guy and were just waiting on a final builder's quote to get sign off on the mortgage. Once we had this, we could commence within a few weeks, notwithstanding any issue with the building regs. All was on course for a late Spring start, which was later than planned (the building plans took way too long) but with a herculean effort we might be in for Christmas.
Then a week later I lost my job, as the company I worked for was folded up and integrated into the larger sister company up the road.
Streamlining, downsizing, a 'commercial decision', blah blah blah. Either way it was b
ks and as I work in a rather specialised industry with a very small jobs pool, it quickly became evident that there were no commutable options for me here in the North East. So here we were, in a fking caravan, with a plot of land and no way to get the house built as the mortgage offer had just vaporised before our eyes. Cue the last 9 months being spent setting up a new business, which we've done from a caravan, on one income and against the backdrop of knowing that I'll not get live in my dream house if it doesn't pay off, as I'll be living in a one bedroom flat across the other side of the country doing my old job somewhere else. It's not all been bad news though, the missus is now a director of her family business ( nope she's not goateed nor powerfully built) and that extra income from her new tax-efficient status allows us to scrape into building the house, albeit with some serious corner cutting and cost saving measures.
The best part of a year in a caravan with no money has taught me a lot about what's important. Yes I've looked upon friends going on fancy holidays and buying flash new cars with some envy but a few years ago that was me, heading off around Europe in a Z4, or turning up at some posh gaff for the weekend in my (then new) E65. Ploughing a new furrow has been the hardest thing I've ever done but in the words of Thatch, TINA - there is no alternative. Yes I'd love a granite kitchen, a TV room with a 60 inch Panny and an oak garage but sometimes these things just take longer than planned. At this juncture a house that doesn't blow about in the wind, come with velour curtains, a gas stove and wasn't built in Hull out of aluminium would be like a dream come true.
So the builder is chosen and we're cracking on, provisional start date is end of Feb. Watch this space.
BB.
Update time - we have a hole!
So - things are looking up. My business launch, whilst still in its early days, has been a big success and I've resisted the temptation to buy a chipped 330d with the proceeds and crack on with the house build. It's been a long, tough slog in a caravan but we can see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel now. Hopefully it's not some idiot with a torch!
The builder came along in March as planned, but we were still waiting on finance (I honestly cannot stress how inept and slow mortgage and finance companies are) so March became April and eventually May became June and thankfully before my wife and I went to shoot someone at the land registry (don't ask) finally the big day came when a digger arrived! Annoyingly I arrived about 5 minutes too late to catch a picture of them breaking ground...
Things went fast from this point - within a day the site was cleared out:
At the back of the site will be a fairly chunky retaining wall:
All the founds were dug within a week and the steel went down:
Then we laid down a load of dolomite as a base for the entrance area so we could get in and out of the site. The first time I pulled my car into my drive was a nice moment!
Then, predictably, things go tits up. The building inspector shows up and starts asking questions about soil surveys and roots and the retaining wall. Blank faces all round. We call the architect but he's on holiday for two weeks. He returns from holiday but then the building inspector is on holiday. Arghhhhhh.
After going around the houses for a month (by which time the founds have slowly filled with water) we settle the soil question and have to spend more money on more structural calculations for the wall, something we already did. So now waiting for the building inspector to return this week, along with the guy who will provide our building warranty so that we can get the concrete poured, something we hoped to do 3 weeks ago. Oh yes, and Halifax still haven't actually given us any money yet and on my desk is a bill for the valuer (£500), steel, sand, concrete, blocks and bricks (£2300), the warranty guy's deposit (£500), the water and electricity connection (£2000), the liability insurance for the site (£980) and the new structural calculations (£290). Anyone got a fiver they can lend me?
So - things are looking up. My business launch, whilst still in its early days, has been a big success and I've resisted the temptation to buy a chipped 330d with the proceeds and crack on with the house build. It's been a long, tough slog in a caravan but we can see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel now. Hopefully it's not some idiot with a torch!
The builder came along in March as planned, but we were still waiting on finance (I honestly cannot stress how inept and slow mortgage and finance companies are) so March became April and eventually May became June and thankfully before my wife and I went to shoot someone at the land registry (don't ask) finally the big day came when a digger arrived! Annoyingly I arrived about 5 minutes too late to catch a picture of them breaking ground...
Things went fast from this point - within a day the site was cleared out:
At the back of the site will be a fairly chunky retaining wall:
All the founds were dug within a week and the steel went down:
Then we laid down a load of dolomite as a base for the entrance area so we could get in and out of the site. The first time I pulled my car into my drive was a nice moment!
Then, predictably, things go tits up. The building inspector shows up and starts asking questions about soil surveys and roots and the retaining wall. Blank faces all round. We call the architect but he's on holiday for two weeks. He returns from holiday but then the building inspector is on holiday. Arghhhhhh.
After going around the houses for a month (by which time the founds have slowly filled with water) we settle the soil question and have to spend more money on more structural calculations for the wall, something we already did. So now waiting for the building inspector to return this week, along with the guy who will provide our building warranty so that we can get the concrete poured, something we hoped to do 3 weeks ago. Oh yes, and Halifax still haven't actually given us any money yet and on my desk is a bill for the valuer (£500), steel, sand, concrete, blocks and bricks (£2300), the warranty guy's deposit (£500), the water and electricity connection (£2000), the liability insurance for the site (£980) and the new structural calculations (£290). Anyone got a fiver they can lend me?
VEX said:
Great news BBD.
Congrats at sticking with it and following the dream.
Don't give up on the toys either, just because you may not be able to add or justify the toys now, still plan and wire for them, then your ready for when you can.
Ideally you should think about this when you are planning the sockets and services ready for your first fix.
Good luck with the build, looks a great location.
V.
Thanks all. V, we had a chat on the phone a LONG time ago about my toys. Also you got us a free ticket to the homebuilding show at the NEC so I'm in your debt Congrats at sticking with it and following the dream.
Don't give up on the toys either, just because you may not be able to add or justify the toys now, still plan and wire for them, then your ready for when you can.
Ideally you should think about this when you are planning the sockets and services ready for your first fix.
Good luck with the build, looks a great location.
V.
As you say, CAT 5 (or is it 6 now?) cable costs pennies in the big scheme of things so we'll definitely make sure we're future proofed for home automation etc.
At the very least, I'd like some smart lighting, wifi enabled heating and some provision to get HD telly piped around the place.
So - the building inspector came along yesterday, grumbled a bit (he's a glass half empty sort of chap it appears) but eventually gave us the thumbs up to get the concrete poured. We'd already alerted the cement company and then it was a case of waiting for them to show up, which they did - two hours late.
Desperately trying not to drop my iPhone in the cement while helping the lads rake it out
One of my pals, a fellow PHer, yesterday reminded me of the classic episode of Partridge where he's talking to 'John' the builder and has a meltdown in his static caravan in front of HMRC. So from the bunkette of my own Apache I fired up the DVD....
Desperately trying not to drop my iPhone in the cement while helping the lads rake it out
One of my pals, a fellow PHer, yesterday reminded me of the classic episode of Partridge where he's talking to 'John' the builder and has a meltdown in his static caravan in front of HMRC. So from the bunkette of my own Apache I fired up the DVD....
Edited by bennyboydurham on Saturday 12th July 17:37
Ok chaps, update time.
Concrete went down fast and blocks were set out. Next problem was Halifax, who are the most agonisingly slow organisation I've ever had to deal with. The last link in the finance chain was the valuer to come and check that the plot exists, pretty much. This was supposed to have happened 3 weeks earlier but as the summer was fast running out and the builder had another house to build next year, we were given clearance to start but only to concrete pouring stage.
Thankfully we only encountered a tools-down delay of a day before the (miserable) surveyor arrived and we carried on.
Next bit of odd news was the surveyor had written down the value of the finished house to at least £75k less than our original estimate. He'd essentially added the build cost (which we've already shaved down to the min, no bathrooms or kitchen included) onto the value of the land and then chipped a bit off that! I know people tend to be unrealistic about these things when it comes to their own homes but if you can buy a near 300m2 six bed house in its own generous plot on a quiet leafy lane a few miles' drive from Durham for his estimate then good luck. Halifax then came back with a revised offer based on that - £185 pounds less. Yes, £185. No, I don't understand either.
So, onwards and upwards. An unexpected bonus arrived in the form of a part-time return to doing my old job, which as you can see involves playing records. That'll help!
Next to go down were the blocks for the floor to sit on:
And then in the blazing hot sunshine the beams arrived, which were fooking heavy.
Beams went down with the blocks and a floor appeared!
Then as of yesterday some walls started to appear. Next week the facing bricks arrive and we'll actually see the outside walls go up.
Elsewhere, it's a good job the house is coming as the static caravan is literally falling apart now. They're not designed for year round living and the shower is leaking somewhere so it's rotting the MDF floor. In hot weather it's probably more miserable than the dead of winter as it's literally a tin box in the sun.
I'll patch it up when I've got time as even old 'un's like ours still fetch strong money, however.
That's the update, I'll keep you chaps posted.
Concrete went down fast and blocks were set out. Next problem was Halifax, who are the most agonisingly slow organisation I've ever had to deal with. The last link in the finance chain was the valuer to come and check that the plot exists, pretty much. This was supposed to have happened 3 weeks earlier but as the summer was fast running out and the builder had another house to build next year, we were given clearance to start but only to concrete pouring stage.
Thankfully we only encountered a tools-down delay of a day before the (miserable) surveyor arrived and we carried on.
Next bit of odd news was the surveyor had written down the value of the finished house to at least £75k less than our original estimate. He'd essentially added the build cost (which we've already shaved down to the min, no bathrooms or kitchen included) onto the value of the land and then chipped a bit off that! I know people tend to be unrealistic about these things when it comes to their own homes but if you can buy a near 300m2 six bed house in its own generous plot on a quiet leafy lane a few miles' drive from Durham for his estimate then good luck. Halifax then came back with a revised offer based on that - £185 pounds less. Yes, £185. No, I don't understand either.
So, onwards and upwards. An unexpected bonus arrived in the form of a part-time return to doing my old job, which as you can see involves playing records. That'll help!
Next to go down were the blocks for the floor to sit on:
And then in the blazing hot sunshine the beams arrived, which were fooking heavy.
Beams went down with the blocks and a floor appeared!
Then as of yesterday some walls started to appear. Next week the facing bricks arrive and we'll actually see the outside walls go up.
Elsewhere, it's a good job the house is coming as the static caravan is literally falling apart now. They're not designed for year round living and the shower is leaking somewhere so it's rotting the MDF floor. In hot weather it's probably more miserable than the dead of winter as it's literally a tin box in the sun.
I'll patch it up when I've got time as even old 'un's like ours still fetch strong money, however.
That's the update, I'll keep you chaps posted.
Bit of an update chaps - a little overdue seeing as we're now putting the roof on!
I'm happy to report that things have progressed reasonably smoothly. Walls going up with brick finish up to cill height outside, above this will be cream render.
Round the back with the utility room door to the left and to the right the kitchen - this space will be filled with bi-fold doors. As much discussed on here, bi folds seem to go from about £1000 for 2.3 metre widths up to the cost of a nice E38 from the 'bargain barges' thread. We originally were going to buy a cheapy set from Jeld Wen and then replace them further down the line but at the Grand Designs show we went to at the NEC last week we found an outfit called Vufold who made a much better quality door that isn't much more money so we're going for that instead.
Beams for the first floor arriving. The jib on the truck delivering them froze in the 'up' position just moments after I took this snap. The driver was a miserable tw%t at the best of times, so being stranded in our lane didn't improve his day one bit!
Living room with first floor beams in place. We have a room! We wanted a square shape as it's much more sociable and versatile as a layout than the long, thin lounges you see in so many new houses these days.
Upstairs on the first floor - no walls up there yet.
Front view, with the scaffolding moved up to first floor level and the blocks going up
External chimney. Inspired by the Border Oak house episode of Grand Designs!
Chinmey pot arrives early. Taking it for a drive, as you do.
That's an update up to about 3 weeks ago, plenty more happened since then which I will update later.
Still tonnes to do:
Roof felt and slate to go on
Velux conservation windows on top floor
Windows in
Order front door in timber (around £950!!!)
Back door to go on
Bi folds to go in
Under floor heating to go in and pour screed to ground and first floor
Render exterior while scaffolding still up
Then we have an exterior! The inside then needs to be turned from an empty shell into a house. More follows....
I'm happy to report that things have progressed reasonably smoothly. Walls going up with brick finish up to cill height outside, above this will be cream render.
Round the back with the utility room door to the left and to the right the kitchen - this space will be filled with bi-fold doors. As much discussed on here, bi folds seem to go from about £1000 for 2.3 metre widths up to the cost of a nice E38 from the 'bargain barges' thread. We originally were going to buy a cheapy set from Jeld Wen and then replace them further down the line but at the Grand Designs show we went to at the NEC last week we found an outfit called Vufold who made a much better quality door that isn't much more money so we're going for that instead.
Beams for the first floor arriving. The jib on the truck delivering them froze in the 'up' position just moments after I took this snap. The driver was a miserable tw%t at the best of times, so being stranded in our lane didn't improve his day one bit!
Living room with first floor beams in place. We have a room! We wanted a square shape as it's much more sociable and versatile as a layout than the long, thin lounges you see in so many new houses these days.
Upstairs on the first floor - no walls up there yet.
Front view, with the scaffolding moved up to first floor level and the blocks going up
External chimney. Inspired by the Border Oak house episode of Grand Designs!
Chinmey pot arrives early. Taking it for a drive, as you do.
That's an update up to about 3 weeks ago, plenty more happened since then which I will update later.
Still tonnes to do:
Roof felt and slate to go on
Velux conservation windows on top floor
Windows in
Order front door in timber (around £950!!!)
Back door to go on
Bi folds to go in
Under floor heating to go in and pour screed to ground and first floor
Render exterior while scaffolding still up
Then we have an exterior! The inside then needs to be turned from an empty shell into a house. More follows....
barryrs said:
Coming along nicely.
Quick question; how did you get away with such a small amount of cavity wall insulation?
We are using a minimum 100mm full fill when using dense concrete blocks internally.
I don't really know, but I do recall our contact at the building merchants recommending Ecotherm over Kingspan as a cheaper and better alternative. There was some to-ing and fro-ing back and forth between our architect (who didn't believe them) and the manufacturer before he gave us the green light. Quick question; how did you get away with such a small amount of cavity wall insulation?
We are using a minimum 100mm full fill when using dense concrete blocks internally.
From what I understand we've specced the glass in the windows to a very low U value and also as I understand it the blocks themselves are much denser than normal. Either way, we've hit the SAP target and even the underfloor heating guy said this was one of the most energy efficient houses he'd come across in terms of the spec.
ETA
The roof slates started going on this week and the windows are arriving in a couple of days, so my diary is well behind! I should also point out that Halifax have now been renamed Halitw@ts, as they are literally useless. There are no words.
Edited by bennyboydurham on Tuesday 28th October 17:13
Bit of an update - the build is progressing well. The windows arrived today and look great. We wanted wooden sash windows but the budget didn't stretch that far and in the end we went with UPVC sash windows with georgian panes and chrome fittings. They do UPVC in a kind of wood 'foil' effect but on balance they actually look better in the matt white plain finish as it looks less like something that isn't wood masquerading as wood, if you see where I'm coming from. The quality is excellent and we're very happy with the price - pics to follow. The windows will go in over the weekend, followed shortly by the doors and veluxes. There's still about half the roof to slate and the felt and laths are all on.
The one thing that isn't going well is the finances. In fact, the situation has driven my missus to boiling point which takes some doing! You might remember upthread I moaned about the surveyor sent out by Halifax who penned the finished valuation at the thick end of £100k less than the ballpark figures we were working on. In fact, now we've got a realistic breakdown of the build costs (what we've spent + the remaining quotes) his valuation is less than the build costs plus the value of the land, so he was miles out. That at the time didn't matter as the figures still stacked up for the mortgage we wanted and apart from a few snorts of derision when the valuation arrived in the post, that was the end of that.
Well, he's struck again and this time his poor grasp of property values and indeed knowledge of how self build works has dealt us a mortal blow. A month ago, having hit roof plate stage we asked for an advance and our friend the surveyor was duly dispatched to make sure that we were where we claimed we were in the build stage. He reported back to his masters (after seemingly not even getting out his car, as no-one actually came on site that day) that 'the roof wasn't finished and no builder would take it on in this condition', so put the current value on our house at the same as it was - when it was a muddy hole in the ground!
No-one - from my builder, to my architect to the mortgage advisor that set all this up can understand what he's going on about. The money is released in stages and bearing in mind that the structure is essentially complete with tens of thousands spent in labour and materials, we are at a complete loss as to what to do as the advances are based on his valuation. Our problem is that the Halifax is such a huge, unwieldy organisation that getting through to anyone is an absolute nightmare as you just end up in Indian call centre Hell. Try explaining to someone in Bangalore about your self build mortgage roof plate stage payments and you might as well be speaking in Flemish for all the good it does.
My wife has literally spent several hours each day of the last two weeks on the phone, being passed around from pillar to post. Yesterday - she blew and refused to get off the phone until they sent another surveyor who actually understands a bit about self build around to have another go. Today she spent a long time talking to banking Ombudsman who agrees that our treatment has been shockingly poor and will get involved on our behalf. So there we are folks - we've got a house and lots of bills and the rest of our cash is still with the bank because they don't seem to understand their own product! Thankfully we have a very understanding builder and a generous credit line from the builders' merchant but both are running fast out the comfort zone. I'll keep you posted.
The one thing that isn't going well is the finances. In fact, the situation has driven my missus to boiling point which takes some doing! You might remember upthread I moaned about the surveyor sent out by Halifax who penned the finished valuation at the thick end of £100k less than the ballpark figures we were working on. In fact, now we've got a realistic breakdown of the build costs (what we've spent + the remaining quotes) his valuation is less than the build costs plus the value of the land, so he was miles out. That at the time didn't matter as the figures still stacked up for the mortgage we wanted and apart from a few snorts of derision when the valuation arrived in the post, that was the end of that.
Well, he's struck again and this time his poor grasp of property values and indeed knowledge of how self build works has dealt us a mortal blow. A month ago, having hit roof plate stage we asked for an advance and our friend the surveyor was duly dispatched to make sure that we were where we claimed we were in the build stage. He reported back to his masters (after seemingly not even getting out his car, as no-one actually came on site that day) that 'the roof wasn't finished and no builder would take it on in this condition', so put the current value on our house at the same as it was - when it was a muddy hole in the ground!
No-one - from my builder, to my architect to the mortgage advisor that set all this up can understand what he's going on about. The money is released in stages and bearing in mind that the structure is essentially complete with tens of thousands spent in labour and materials, we are at a complete loss as to what to do as the advances are based on his valuation. Our problem is that the Halifax is such a huge, unwieldy organisation that getting through to anyone is an absolute nightmare as you just end up in Indian call centre Hell. Try explaining to someone in Bangalore about your self build mortgage roof plate stage payments and you might as well be speaking in Flemish for all the good it does.
My wife has literally spent several hours each day of the last two weeks on the phone, being passed around from pillar to post. Yesterday - she blew and refused to get off the phone until they sent another surveyor who actually understands a bit about self build around to have another go. Today she spent a long time talking to banking Ombudsman who agrees that our treatment has been shockingly poor and will get involved on our behalf. So there we are folks - we've got a house and lots of bills and the rest of our cash is still with the bank because they don't seem to understand their own product! Thankfully we have a very understanding builder and a generous credit line from the builders' merchant but both are running fast out the comfort zone. I'll keep you posted.
Edited by bennyboydurham on Friday 31st October 01:33
Sadly no further forward today. The valuer is sticking to his guns on his absurd valuation so we're effectively at an impasse. We've launched a formal complaint with Halifax, but this has been ongoing for month now.
We are considering having an independent valuer to come along and give us a valuation, giving us some ammunition to sling back at Halifax, but clearly that's just more money spent! Very, very frustrating.
We are considering having an independent valuer to come along and give us a valuation, giving us some ammunition to sling back at Halifax, but clearly that's just more money spent! Very, very frustrating.
Small update - late on Friday afternoon we got a call from a senior complaints handler at the Halifax and she took things quite seriously, especially when she found out the ombudsman was involved. It was too late to get much done on Friday but we've been promised a resolution tomorrow and it was acknowledged that someone somewhere has screwed up. We were also given £75 in compo for our troubles as a 'goodwill gesture'. Nice and all but they need to add about three zeros onto that pronto.
Bit of an update chaps, I've lots of pics but for a few reasons that will become clear soon enough I'll hold off on posting them up just yet.
Latest:
We got the money from Halifax. They're gimps, but they paid up in the end.
The house is essentially complete. However there's still a tonne of work to do including rendering the outside, putting in the drive, second fix plumbing, kitchen appliances to fit, a couple of days plastering left to do, doors, skirting and door frames to go on, decorate, wood burner to fit, carpets and curtains. That seems a fairly long list but when I look at what we've done since November it seems tiny! Most of those jobs will be completed in the next couple of weeks. The rendering, outside stuff, carpets and decorating will take longer.
We're hoping to get one of the top floor rooms finished this week (oak floor down, carpentry and painting done) so that we can at least sleep there overnight from this weekend. Our waste treatment plant (a v expensive septic tank with moving parts!) is in and all the utilities are connected so once there's a loo and a shower then we're sorted.
Pics to come, it's been a long and very emotional journey but when you stand in the house that got built against all the odds, by God it's worth it...
Latest:
We got the money from Halifax. They're gimps, but they paid up in the end.
The house is essentially complete. However there's still a tonne of work to do including rendering the outside, putting in the drive, second fix plumbing, kitchen appliances to fit, a couple of days plastering left to do, doors, skirting and door frames to go on, decorate, wood burner to fit, carpets and curtains. That seems a fairly long list but when I look at what we've done since November it seems tiny! Most of those jobs will be completed in the next couple of weeks. The rendering, outside stuff, carpets and decorating will take longer.
We're hoping to get one of the top floor rooms finished this week (oak floor down, carpentry and painting done) so that we can at least sleep there overnight from this weekend. Our waste treatment plant (a v expensive septic tank with moving parts!) is in and all the utilities are connected so once there's a loo and a shower then we're sorted.
Pics to come, it's been a long and very emotional journey but when you stand in the house that got built against all the odds, by God it's worth it...
Ok guys, update time.
Unfortunately between my iPhoto account and my phone, all the photos from October seem to have gone walkies so there's a bit of a jump from the last update but that kind of 'where the hell did that go' thing goes with the territory for self build. Your life becomes completely dysfunctional as your whole life is crammed into a tiny caravan and you can never find anything, you always look crumpled and your shoes are always muddy. Always.
Each of these photos come with some kind of story or drama. In fact, at every turn we encountered challenges with almost every single element of the build. The beams for the block and beam floor upstairs were bowed, meaning that we had to overcompensate with extra screed upstairs to get the floors flat. There was mains gas connected to the site (someone in the past had put it there) but as the connection had no MPAN number we hit a dead end at attempting to get it made live. In the end we simply reported a gas leak so that someone came out and it finally showed up on 'the system'. The plans didn't make sense and the builder had to change stuff as we went along. A young scrote (aged 9!) climbed on the scaffolding one rainy night and nearly killed himself, but thankfully for him the large pile of bricks he knocked over landed on my stone window cill and not him or his mate. He spent an evening in the company of Durham Police for his trouble and I needed a new cill. So many of these annoying and fiddly things just get resolved and buried as there's no time to dwell on them, so forgive my lack of detail in places.
Anyhow - windows arrived. We wanted timber Georgian sash but the cost was nuts. In the end our builder recommended a guy who supplied very decent UPVC sash style and they turned out well. We actually went for the flat finish in the end as the 'wood grain' looks a bit too much like something pretending to be wood. Most people can't tell that they're plastic without rubbing them:
Roof joists arrived but the challenge remained of how to get them up as we couldn't get a crane on site due to nearby overhead cables....improvisation kicked in:
The water connection was an interesting one - one bloke came out and sprayed on the road where he *thought* the mains was. He was the first of about four or five different contractors - one dug the hole, another one made the connection, another one filled it in and then another bloke came out to sprinkle some grass seeds on the verge!
Found a guy to make my door. Even though we had UPVC windows, we were keen to have timber doors. Top one is the rear door, the one with all the panes in is the front door:
The roof trusses went up fast and the roof itself didn't take long. Once the windows were in and the doors were on, it really started to look like a house. There'll be a porch to go on the front too.
So by now we had a roof, electricity, windows and doors. Next came heating and plumbing. We decided to go with UFH on the ground and first block and beam floors and just throw in a few rads on the top floor. The thinking was that there would be so much heat going up into the attic space that UFH up there would be overkill. This also saved us some cash. My missus' company supplied a big Oso tank and boiler. With good mains pressure, things boded well for a nice shower! This is the UFH in the lounge.
![](http://thumbsnap.com/sc/febvpKyx.jpg[/img]</a> <a href="http://thumbsnap.com/febvpKyx" Target="_blank">[img]http://thumbsnap.com/sc/febvpKyx.jpg)
We still had no stairs at this point so it was a scary ladder journey from the top floor to the bottom....
We then needed the concrete screed pouring. By now it was mid-December and bloody cold. Conventional screed dries at a rate of a mm or so each day and it became clear that because of the depth of the screed in places to resolve the bowed beams it would be months before we could get the bathrooms in and the kitchen tiled! We ended up going for some Lafarge jobbie that dries faster, but naturally costs more....
Northumbria Water were still at it. Here I am stuck in my own traffic jam...
By now the floors were dry. The house would never be this clean again. Had I known just how much dust was to be left, I'd have probably tried to find a way to cover the floors up to save the hours and hours of hoovering and mopping that followed the plastering...
As the electrics were going in I ran CAT5e to each floor. The plan was to feed an airport express for decent wifi coverage as the block and beam floor would not be wifi friendly and also provide hard wired ethernet ports for the back of the TVs etc. This was a guess because at this point we didn't even know where the phone point would come in and my router end up. I decided to put it all in my office and hope for the best. Thankfully that's where the BT man decided was the best place for the phone cable to come in. Phew.
Now that the timber sheets for the top floor were down I felt especially proud to see the chimney through my office Velux. Sadly due to all the high trees around, the chimney became the only place with a guaranteed line of sight for the satellite and later ended up with a dish attached to it. My wife doesn't appear to have noticed yet. Shhh.
Boarding out began in earnest.
We also paid a visit at this point to F Jones in Cleveland to look at worktops. My wife was set on granite but as we toured the factory looking at granites from all manner of dangerous places (Iran, Afghanistan, oddball Russian places) we came across a marble that my wife fell in love with. Although it's easily marked and not as hardy as granite it was lovely. Sold. We took along a couple of kitchen unit samples - the grey being the island colour and the cream the rest of the units. Our kitchen is from Ellis Furniture and is part of their hand painted range, as sold by my wife's company. If you're interested, get in touch and I'll get you a price.
It was now my birthday and we took a quick trip to the big smoke to visit the Bond in Motion museum. Well worth a visit:
My birthday dinner was at The Wolseley, where my wife was photo-bombed by SrrAlan Sugar. Couldn't resist a discreet phone pic!
Back at the ranch, it was time for another large hole, this time in the back garden:
For the waste treatment plant, which costs as much as a decent old Merc from the bargain barges thread! It also came with a pump that sounded like some kind of outboard motor, but thankfully once it was buried underground was reduced to a muted hum!
Once that was in the ground attention moved the front, where months of building crap was scooped up and some fresh dolomite laid. My neighbours retarded pet hens can also be spotted bravely playing chicken with the JCB. Sadly both of them were to meet a grisly end at the hands of another neighbours' dog a week or two later so I no longer have the joy of them walking into my house every time the front door is left open. If said dog can also set fire to the hideous cheap prefab garage that my neighbour also recently erected (the one that can be seen with lovely orange wood and fibreglass roof) then I'll definitely buy him a new bone.
Finally, on a cold and wet night in January - I was able to pull the car into the drive for the first time with an actual house there!
Lots more to come, but that takes you up to about 3 weeks ago.....
Unfortunately between my iPhoto account and my phone, all the photos from October seem to have gone walkies so there's a bit of a jump from the last update but that kind of 'where the hell did that go' thing goes with the territory for self build. Your life becomes completely dysfunctional as your whole life is crammed into a tiny caravan and you can never find anything, you always look crumpled and your shoes are always muddy. Always.
Each of these photos come with some kind of story or drama. In fact, at every turn we encountered challenges with almost every single element of the build. The beams for the block and beam floor upstairs were bowed, meaning that we had to overcompensate with extra screed upstairs to get the floors flat. There was mains gas connected to the site (someone in the past had put it there) but as the connection had no MPAN number we hit a dead end at attempting to get it made live. In the end we simply reported a gas leak so that someone came out and it finally showed up on 'the system'. The plans didn't make sense and the builder had to change stuff as we went along. A young scrote (aged 9!) climbed on the scaffolding one rainy night and nearly killed himself, but thankfully for him the large pile of bricks he knocked over landed on my stone window cill and not him or his mate. He spent an evening in the company of Durham Police for his trouble and I needed a new cill. So many of these annoying and fiddly things just get resolved and buried as there's no time to dwell on them, so forgive my lack of detail in places.
Anyhow - windows arrived. We wanted timber Georgian sash but the cost was nuts. In the end our builder recommended a guy who supplied very decent UPVC sash style and they turned out well. We actually went for the flat finish in the end as the 'wood grain' looks a bit too much like something pretending to be wood. Most people can't tell that they're plastic without rubbing them:
Roof joists arrived but the challenge remained of how to get them up as we couldn't get a crane on site due to nearby overhead cables....improvisation kicked in:
The water connection was an interesting one - one bloke came out and sprayed on the road where he *thought* the mains was. He was the first of about four or five different contractors - one dug the hole, another one made the connection, another one filled it in and then another bloke came out to sprinkle some grass seeds on the verge!
Found a guy to make my door. Even though we had UPVC windows, we were keen to have timber doors. Top one is the rear door, the one with all the panes in is the front door:
The roof trusses went up fast and the roof itself didn't take long. Once the windows were in and the doors were on, it really started to look like a house. There'll be a porch to go on the front too.
So by now we had a roof, electricity, windows and doors. Next came heating and plumbing. We decided to go with UFH on the ground and first block and beam floors and just throw in a few rads on the top floor. The thinking was that there would be so much heat going up into the attic space that UFH up there would be overkill. This also saved us some cash. My missus' company supplied a big Oso tank and boiler. With good mains pressure, things boded well for a nice shower! This is the UFH in the lounge.
We still had no stairs at this point so it was a scary ladder journey from the top floor to the bottom....
We then needed the concrete screed pouring. By now it was mid-December and bloody cold. Conventional screed dries at a rate of a mm or so each day and it became clear that because of the depth of the screed in places to resolve the bowed beams it would be months before we could get the bathrooms in and the kitchen tiled! We ended up going for some Lafarge jobbie that dries faster, but naturally costs more....
Northumbria Water were still at it. Here I am stuck in my own traffic jam...
By now the floors were dry. The house would never be this clean again. Had I known just how much dust was to be left, I'd have probably tried to find a way to cover the floors up to save the hours and hours of hoovering and mopping that followed the plastering...
As the electrics were going in I ran CAT5e to each floor. The plan was to feed an airport express for decent wifi coverage as the block and beam floor would not be wifi friendly and also provide hard wired ethernet ports for the back of the TVs etc. This was a guess because at this point we didn't even know where the phone point would come in and my router end up. I decided to put it all in my office and hope for the best. Thankfully that's where the BT man decided was the best place for the phone cable to come in. Phew.
Now that the timber sheets for the top floor were down I felt especially proud to see the chimney through my office Velux. Sadly due to all the high trees around, the chimney became the only place with a guaranteed line of sight for the satellite and later ended up with a dish attached to it. My wife doesn't appear to have noticed yet. Shhh.
Boarding out began in earnest.
We also paid a visit at this point to F Jones in Cleveland to look at worktops. My wife was set on granite but as we toured the factory looking at granites from all manner of dangerous places (Iran, Afghanistan, oddball Russian places) we came across a marble that my wife fell in love with. Although it's easily marked and not as hardy as granite it was lovely. Sold. We took along a couple of kitchen unit samples - the grey being the island colour and the cream the rest of the units. Our kitchen is from Ellis Furniture and is part of their hand painted range, as sold by my wife's company. If you're interested, get in touch and I'll get you a price.
It was now my birthday and we took a quick trip to the big smoke to visit the Bond in Motion museum. Well worth a visit:
My birthday dinner was at The Wolseley, where my wife was photo-bombed by SrrAlan Sugar. Couldn't resist a discreet phone pic!
Back at the ranch, it was time for another large hole, this time in the back garden:
For the waste treatment plant, which costs as much as a decent old Merc from the bargain barges thread! It also came with a pump that sounded like some kind of outboard motor, but thankfully once it was buried underground was reduced to a muted hum!
Once that was in the ground attention moved the front, where months of building crap was scooped up and some fresh dolomite laid. My neighbours retarded pet hens can also be spotted bravely playing chicken with the JCB. Sadly both of them were to meet a grisly end at the hands of another neighbours' dog a week or two later so I no longer have the joy of them walking into my house every time the front door is left open. If said dog can also set fire to the hideous cheap prefab garage that my neighbour also recently erected (the one that can be seen with lovely orange wood and fibreglass roof) then I'll definitely buy him a new bone.
Finally, on a cold and wet night in January - I was able to pull the car into the drive for the first time with an actual house there!
Lots more to come, but that takes you up to about 3 weeks ago.....
Gassing Station | Homes, Gardens and DIY | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff