Sunday 23 December 2012

Swimming pool for Christmas!

Foundations complete, all is well, site is tidy, connections are in the right place and everything is ready for the timber frame in January. Plenty of water too for splashing about..



Sunday 16 December 2012

Floods

Flooding and high tides these days... Much water on roads between Freshwater and Gurnard. Surprised to see Kevin and Ken working away laying Thermalite block upstand in between showers. Good lads! They think the work will be finished early next week. Considering the kind of weather we've had it's pretty good going!







Sunday 9 December 2012

Frost

All wrapped up to keep warm.. We went to site today to measure where waste pipes for sink, shower, washing machine and dishwasher (yes!) were going to go through and position the gulleys. We were frozen and could have done with those blankets..





Rainwater harvest

Pipes in readiness to collect all this rain..

North west corner



North east corner



South wall

Top and lower end



Rain

Kevin and Ken carried on working bravely in the rain...



Mud

Mud mud mud... Clay mud being taken away...









Friday 7 December 2012

Old sewer replacement top half

Tricky part...replacing the old sewer. Actually it DID need replacing as we found it was cracked and wobbly...


Graham's mini digger is a wonderful tool, absolutely magical in such a small plot. And all that clay moved effortlessly!
These are the shutterings which will keep our neighbour's house and garden safe
Our neighbour's gas pipe!
Wonderful!

Monday 3 December 2012

Each new day brings fresh opportunities..for crises! There was the chimney: we couldn't place it where it would comply with Building Regulations. It was either too close to an openable window, or too tall, or not over the ridge, or stove would have to be fitted at the bottom of stairs! Eventually we redesigned the bathroom and were able to fit the flue closer to the ridge :) Then we couldn't fit the kitchen stairs without banging our head on the ceiling, the front door wasn't centred in the middle of the elevation and didn't match the stairs, we worked out that the fibreboard would cost over £2'500 (in fact at some point we thought we wouldn't have enough money to complete the full project), the south-east corner protrudes too much and the solar thermal would have cost £6'000+ to install (payback time 45 years.. We won't install it). This morning I spilt my coffee on the computer and have been grumpy all day. Will post photos tomorrow after a good night sleep..