mechanical & electrical

Friday

Last year it was 37 C and people were convinced global warming was to blame. This year it’s 17 C with torrential rain and people are convinced global warming is to blame. Makes it tricky for laying bricks, but the guys are cracking on.

The walls of the house will be filled with this insulation. It’s foil backed and gets slotted in between the brick layers. Cozy!

house2016.07.03 - 1 (1).jpg — insulation tower

The site has been so soggy that they’ve built a raft out of pallets for the brickies to stand on while they build. I think it’s a nice feature that we should consider in the landscaping….

house2016.07.03 - 3.jpg — the whole site from the front

The 6mm raked joints take a bit longer to build, but they look lovely in the sun. The bricks look more irregular than we thought which is exactly the style we’re after. The original-many-moons-ago spec called for reclaimed bricks, but they’re bonkers expensive and sized with imperial measurements! Ours were always a compromise, but it’s been a good one. I hope we make as good a decision with the roof tiles. The rainwater notches look great–can’t wait to see the plinth detail bring it to life.

house2016.07.03 - 5.jpg — the whole site from the back

Thursday

Site meeting about 2:00 with Nic, Ben and Justin in our used-to-be-garage which actually makes a nice meeting room. Ben and I met Trevor the M&E guru. We sited boilers, gas spurs and foul drains and discussed the merits of separate manifolds for underfloor heating and towel rails. All good stuff. I’ve got some homework to do this weekend in making some final decisions before the floors are laid and the pipes are literally set in concrete (or below it anyway).

house2016.07.03 - 1 (2).jpg — where would YOU site the gas meter?

But my main homework is to sort the fireplace so we can tell the masons how big to build the hearth. I’m late and it’s not good!

Wednesday

Tuesday

Monday

Lucky 13–now that the awful weather has changed for 30 seconds, we’re seeing progress. The bricklayers have arrived!

The brickies will run the outer walls all the way around the building, then Lee and the ground-guys will lay the DPC. Clearly the DPC is VERY important given the events of last week. Then, I gather it’s all systems go for some serious vertical progress.

In the meantime, Grandma’s yellow rose is still hanging in there, and we’ve got another guest tonight.

Friday

Wandering back from the house over the train bridge, Gareth spotted a lock on the railing. It’s just as atmospheric as the Pont des Arts…. apart from the dog poo.

house20160611 - 4.jpg — will this be the first of many?

house20160611 - 2.jpg — from the back door through to the lamp-post

The guys are finishing off the edges which requires a lot of cutting and mucking in. They’ll be doing this into next week too. Then the edges will be filled in with some of the earth that’s piled up in the back by the current garage. Apparently the brick layers will like their work areas level with no big dips to fall into or step over, and they arrive next week. The bricks are delivered Wednesday, and that will be a big day logistically for a few reasons. We’ve decided to dig the soak-away in the back garden rather than plumb it through the house. This is for the rainwater runoff from the back of the house and the original plan–it’s not going to be too big, only 3m cubed, but it’s landlocked on the other other side of the house. The alternative was to run it under the house and into the ditch, but we’d need a permit and some other permissions for that option as well as an £87 fee to the Council for the change. To get that all dug and sorted in the same week that the bricks arrive is a good puzzle for Nic. He’s thinking about forklift to ferry the bricks around the neighbours to the back of the garden. It’s going to be fiddly!

The garage is a total rock solid bomb shelter. It’s got an unbelievable amount of concrete in there, all because of next door’s conifers. An engineering marvel! The contractor has recommended a concrete floor rather than a thin screed to avoid cracks. I’m not sure when the pour is scheduled, but there is a LOT of steel in there and it’s all ready to go.

Apparently all clients at this stage worry that their house is too small. Lee reckons that sticking a sofa on the blocks will show how big it is and will alleviate all concerns. It’s jolly big enough–we have to remember that our main constraint is budget, so we were never going to go all gargantuan, and it’s about the same size as the previous house. The flip side of a normal, non-huge house is that the garden remains an ok size.

house - 4.jpg

We’re about to choose the hanging tiles. And of course we’re still dithering on the mortar colour.

house2016.06.12 - 3.jpg — hanging tile shortlist

Thursday

Crane Day!

Wednesday

house - 1.jpg — tomorrow’s project arrived

Tuesday

The walk over was very murky tonight. Thunder booming softly from far away.

Today ten tons of hardcore arrived and it was spread out around the garage. More will be dropped on the earth before the beams go down. Lee and the guys added more concrete and reinforcements to the garage and set up the foul drains.