Some more photos over the last few months. House been rendered, final finish matches existing house and was achieved using a gun with spat the render onto the wall. Nice finish. All outside jobs done now. Lots to do inside. Running tv coax cables, have a labgear distribution amp which is helping me distribute signals all over house. Its a nice piece of kit. Will be able to put a dvd/blueray on and watch it antwhere. Also should enable me to watch sky in any room from my main sky reciever. Wont be able to switch over channels tho. Am gonna also run 2 coax cables to 4 chosen locations from the satelite, this is to future proof so that if sky multi room is cheap in the future i will be able to have 4 locations with independant sky. Will need a octo LNB at the dish if want to connect in the future. Also having cctv linking into the labgear amp with 2 or three cams. Also gonna get a internet tv so i can stream movies of the web through things like lovefilm.com. To get all this done i need a lot of coax, reckon i will go through 200 metres. Got to start planning out the CAT6 im having again feeding to all rooms, also routes for speaker cables. Then the little task of all the elecs. Its gonna be a long job. May as well do it all well while i can.

Busy few weeks with lots of stress but now got a roof on. Started knock throughs on one skin of brickwork and installed the supporting steels. Completed brickwork so the roof could be constructed. Weather was good, got a lucky break in the bad weather so the job wasnt to stressful. Stress arises from the fact that there is always more than one solution but no-one ever knows the correct one. Guess thats my job tho. Planned for velux but decided not to install on front of build because did not state it on my planning drawings and did not want to upset building officer and neighbours. Dont think they would have enhanced my life in anyway. Windows and doors delivered soon. £3150 for 7 windows and 3 doors in a new colours, irish oak.

Latest update

Yet again im lazy with the blog, but gonna throw up some more images. The build is now up to wall plate (just before roof) but i will upload them photos in a day or two. In the mean time here are some photos from a month back *(When the sun used to shine). The first photo is off just after the concrete had been layed (7 inch about £300 of the top of my head)which went in quite easy, pre-prepared a tamp to make sure the concrete was worked flat, and the result isd pretty level. The following images are of the first few courses of face brick on the front skin and Thermalite block (quinn lite very cheap) on internal. Bricks were used on front skin because when the job is finished and the house is rendered the face brick will be showing two courses along bottom of building. You can also see the inrtroduction of cavity insulation resting on tie wires. Catnics (CG90) were used across the top of window openings to support brickwork above, it is advised to put in a temporary support under the catnics centre to stop sagging until the cement above has set. Also notice that temporary scaffold was knocked together to get just above first floor windows. Proper scaffolders were hired after this height, first at a level just above this then the came back to get us up to the top of the build (£550). We can also see DPC (18 inch wide) sitting on top of catnics that would direct water out of the wall via the plastic channels (sorry wrong name) this is to stop water from penertating down the cavity and into the tops of the window reveals. We also tied into the existing building every two courses using 8 inch metal 'L' shaped brackets connected to existing wall via screw and plastic plugs. We also tied in by chopping out the existing brick work at several points up the build (shown on photo). As i mentioned we are now up to the top of the build and the roof is ready to go on. i will upload photos soon.

Back after delay

Sold my other house and completion day is tuesday so fingers crossed everything goes right! This will then free up the money needed to go full pelt over the next few months. This is much the reason for the delay over previous months. Drip feeding money from my monthly wage has limits unfortunatley. Anyway onwards. Since I was last with you (Liz and JonMc) I have lowered the middle section further because when i measured how far down i had to go to allow for Polystyrene insulation ((150mm) only 125 needed but just stuck a bit more in)). So what i thought would be an hour job taking 8 inches or so out but it took more than a day. Was scared of gettin another skip so had to dispose of the soil in inventive ways down by the river. When i had levelled it off to the correct depth then i could lay the 150mm of polystyrene. The top of the layed polystyrene is level with the inner leaf of brick work which will support the concrete slab. Next the blue visqueen was layed into place and joined with tape (special foil tape and black double sided tar like tape). Next the anti crack mesh (A142) was layed into place using broken flag as a 40mm spacer to lift the mesh up slightly. The concrete is ordered and on its way and hopefully wall construction will begin this weekend. Have also ordered more 4inch solid block for outer leaf and lightweight block for the inner leaf. And need to order some insulation cavity slabs for the inside of the wall, it is 85mm and i think its called dritherm cavity slabs. Bye till next time.

Ready for Concrete Floor

Concrete in, ready to lay trench blocks

2 courses of trench block laid on top of concrete strip foundation, would have done three but Building Inspector wanted the cavity to go 225mm below ground level. So 5 courses of concrete brick on outer leaf and 3 on inner. Messed up with the order and didnt order enough concrete brick so had to use the more expensive engineering bricks to finish off. The last course on outside leaf was engineering brick because this is getting very close to where the ground level is and therefore maybe seen when completed. The outer leaf is two courses higher than inner, this is so the re-inforced concrete floor will be able to sit on the lower inner leaf. I have decided to run some Steel Wired Armoured Cable 10mm2 (electric) from Consumer box in main house then underneath the yet to be laid concrete floor then outside into garden then run about 700mm underground to end of garden to provide power to a planned outbuilding in the future, this should save a lot of heart-ache in the future. Also think i am going to run washing machine waste pipe in concrete so this will be hidden too. I have to get my head on materials i will need for the coming months as decisions have to be made regarding, window and door styles, drain routes etc.