4.  A moment of real panic.

The last two weeks have been interesting and quite fast moving.

We haven’t yet heard from the planning office on whether we can build Phase 2 within our permitted development rights I’m afraid.  However I did ring our friendly planning officer for an update on progress.

She was very apologetic for the delay, which was due to a planning hearing that she had been involved in.  She would get back to me within a week or so.  So I am awaiting news any day now.  I’m hoping that my gentle and sympathetic manner on the phone, combined with her embarrassment for the delay will make her feel even more supportive of the scheme.

There’s always ‘hope’.

At the beginning of the month a worry that had been busy in my sub-conscious suddenly came to the surface, and I had a night of tossing and turning wondering what to do. 

The orientation of the house was decided upon way back in the early days of planning the siting of the house.  I did it by ‘standing and pointing’ the compass on my iphone.  Hardly the most accurate method.  At the time I believed someone would check this out, but in fact nobody has. Just a slight oversight.    Now I realised I had been worrying about the accuracy of this method and ‘what if’ when the house was being built I found that the house was pointing not down the valley, but at a less inspiring view. It would be too late and the major attraction and excitement would be an aggravating sore every day.   This is the site in which our house will sit which on a beautiful day like this is a real treat.  It's worth getting right.

Fortunately, the new architects were still at the stage of modelling the house for their own benefit to become fully aware of the scheme.  They were checking the sections, the levels and slope of the land so that they could calculate the difference between cut and fill. They had found that the house was sitting quite high on the slope, higher in fact than we had envisaged, so they were consulting with us and checking whether lowering the floor levels would be an issue.  What a mercy, because it meant that we had an ideal moment for us to check the orientation alongside their query.  

Max was fantastic, he rang a number of land surveyors and happened to find an expert who would be in our area that afternoon who would come and plot the actual location of the new house on the site.  Having done this we were able to see that my orientation of 167’S should actually have been 172’S.

I was ecstatic - it was a good day.  All we had to do was to instruct the architect.  Not easy, they may well throw their hands up in horror, and one can hear those tills jangling with great vigour.

As it happens they have been able to incorporate this into their new drawings and although there have been a few murmurings about ‘we want to avoid a situation where you change your mind . . . .’ they have not complained or added extras to the bill.  As for as we know!

So the architects have almost completed the sections and exact location of the building, the engineer has put forward her suggestions on the foundations and the overall structure, and the quantity surveyor has been assessing the costs of alternatives.

We have always been very keen to be part of the building, where Max assists with the work on site, whilst I project manage and ensure that everything is here ‘just in time’ and the budget is managed so that the cost remains as expected – using any negotiation skills I can muster.

We have prepared ‘self-build' costs and also gone out to tender with a number of timber frame manufacturers for a complete kit.  At first we thought this a highly unlikely route, but as it turned out 5 or 6 companies were very interested and only one company who we approached actually withdrew from tendering.  Of the 6, one was hugely expensive, without offering anything different from the others; one was amazingly cheap, but offered no information or specification for what they had quoted for, so it was a non starter.  The others were all within a very similar price bracket.  One in particular had asked for and worked with the architect’s CAD drawings, gave a very clear specification and so if we choose to go down this route it will be a no brainer of which company to go for.

On Monday we have a key team meeting where we will decide on the method to use, self build or factory made, and then at the same meeting we will decide on the foundations.  Once these two decisions are made, the architects will be able to really start on the main work of detailing everything within the house.  A lot of work, but this is where it really starts getting exciting.  Discussing foundations and which way the walls are going to be detailed is not that thrilling however essential.

I think Max and I are very different clients from most.  And I have to praise the architects, in fact the whole team, for their patience because we tend to question everything and probably are somewhat frustrating to work with.

Do you think this might be a slight understatement? 

But we believe that we must know how the building will work functionally, practically and aesthetically and within our budget.  It is always very easy to take someone’s word for it, and regret not checking that one fully understands the implications.  Max is a great perfectionist in this respect, and it can make life difficult for those that are answerable to the questions!  He makes it work for us at the end of the day because he has so much knowledge about building methods, and anything he doesn’t know he researches so that he does.  Not easy for the architect.

I am looking forward to next week to move forward.  The preparation of the land will start, and the caravan will be brought to site early the following week.

Already there is more to tell that has happened in the last day – but I must send this to you all after rather a long gap, and then start writing the next posting!  Keep watching this space, it is definitely hotting up here.