7.  This could have been the week to forget - but it got better

28 September 2012

Well this is the sort of week that ‘Grand Design’ thrives on. Suffice to say, Kevin would have had a field day. 

This week was all about relationships and decisions!  Or should I say: decisions and then relationships.  But sorry, I’m not going to divulge the details, that’s why we haven’t taken part in the TV programme – I’ll just leave it all to your imaginations to enjoy and pick at.  It was the kitchen that created the upheaval.  We are still in one piece and moving on.  

So more about the rest of the week.

Tuesday

Our meeting with the architects at the beginning of the week was good and we were able to tick off and sign off most elements which made the architects feel good, and pleased us that another stage was coming to an end.

External Cladding

The external cladding of the house is to be fraké timber, a west African hardwood that ages like cedar in that it turns a silvery colour.  To see the timber click on the link below.

http://www.russwood.co.uk/cladding/product.php?ID=14&Prod=sustainable-hardwood-cladding

We chose this because after it has weathered it will fit in well with the local lias limestone which most of the old cottages are built from.  Our modern house will not look too out of place in spite of the overall ‘style’ being more contemporary.  The architect has suggested we use it vertically rather than horizontally as is it stains less this way round which was definitely a concern.  The staining under sills can be very unbecoming and was one of the reasons for our original nervousness of using this material. 

Windows

We have spent many weeks developing the window specification, with the aim of achieving a very good u-value (low heat loss); preventing too much solar gain (an increase in unwanted internal heat); slim frames for the aesthetic qualities that we want; well designed door ironmongery – a fetish of mine; and the overall cost not being too expensive.  The last item, needless to say, being the most difficult to achieve!  It is very easy when one is looking for elegance and high performance to blow the budget. 

After many comings and goings, and now on about Revision16, we are getting to something approaching our specification, and which we are all happy with. 

The large south facing sliding doors for the dining room, and studio, and the curtain wall of glass in the living room are all in effect triple glazed.  But to improve further on this we have found a recent innovation.  This replaces the centre pane with a film called ‘heat mirror’.  This has two significant benefits in that these large doors, (for example for the dining room which has an area of 2.8 meters high by 5 meters wide) will be considerably reduced in weight.  This will mean that we will not need a crane to move them around on site as they can be man-handled.  The other advantage is that the film acts like a mirror in both directions, so from outside the heat from the sun is reflected back out, and from the inside the central heating is reflected back in. The expectancy being that the heat from either source will remain where we want it.  With a house that is so highly insulated one is in danger of being too hot in the summer.  We are also installing external vertical blinds that will help reduce solar gain on very sunny days both in the summer and the winter.

The rest of the house will have double glazed units, but being north facing they will not have the same potential problems as our south facing units so they do not need the same level of super technology.  The company we are getting our windows from can also provide venetian blinds within the double glazed units so there will be none of that horrible dusting needed.  We also plan to have fly screens on the opening windows in the bedrooms so our guests, and us, will be able to sleep comfortably.  That’s the idea.

I’m feeling really chuffed that we have found really nice windows, it’s now down to the architect to design how the cladding and the window frames meet.  We have our views!  He knows them.

Heating and Plumbing

Yesterday we visited a heating engineer who will put a scheme together for the house.  As I said in reference to the choice of windows, the house will be very well insulated  so that only 5kw of heat output will be needed to raise the temperature to 21˚F when it is -3˚F  outside. 

So heating is a reverse problem for us – how do we not over heat the house.

We have been thinking that we will use the existing oil fired boiler (there’s no gas in Stony Littleton).  The boiler was installed only 1 year before we moved here – so still ‘as new’.  The guy we visited is suggesting an air source heat pump as the ‘only’ solution.  I’m not sure we are convinced but it will be interesting to see what the scheme really entails and what the benefits really are.  Certainly more expensive to install that’s for sure.  He will have to work hard to convince us, I think.  We don’t want to be ‘green’ just for the sake of it.  We want it to be an economic solution most of all.  With a perfectly sound boiler it seems crazy to fork out a huge capital expense for annual savings, especially when not much heat will be needed.  For us ‘return on investment’ just doesn’t really make sense.  With so little heat being required we are not going to break the bank on the oil we use.

We have approached others to provide their suggestions – so hopefully we will get this sorted quite quickly.  Not before time.   We intend to have under floor heating downstairs and radiators upstairs due to the desire to have carpets under foot in the bedrooms.  Nothing like it really.  Need to keep the tootsies warm.  The bathrooms will have under floor electric heated mats like we had in London.  They make all the difference, the warmth is always needed in a bathroom and tends to be needed much longer than the general heating – especially here as we only  expect to have the central heating on for three months maximum a year at fairly low outputs..  Best to keep the bathroom heating independent.

Insurance and structural warranty

As part of the 'preliminaries' to the building work I took out site insurance (public liability and all that) and the10 year structural warranty on the house that ensures that it is built correctly.  
Also, the Heras fencing which you see surrounding every building site in  the country has been delivered so we will look ‘official’ from this coming Monday.  I might even attach the Health and Safety notices that instruct all visitors ‘to report to the Site Office’.  No sneaking in to peep unannounced allowed!  You have to collect your hard hat and hi-viz jacket.

Drainage and Water Connections

We have had consultations with Wessex Water and discovered that although this property has a septic tank, the mains drainage is in the road.   Also in our favour, when they installed it in the road five years ago they very kindly put a connection on to our land.  So we don’t have to pay anything to connect up to it.  That can be very costly – so there’s a bit more cash in the bank.  Good news.

Overhead Cables

We have again met with Western Power who are responsible for all the cables that cross the land, of which we seem to have more than our fair share of these ugly monsters – including a major transformer almost in the garden. 

Just what you need outside your living room window.

No longer - it's scheduled to go underground.

Along with two others that are less offensive but better kept out of sight!

Soon after we moved here we enquired about the cost to have them put underground.  As you can imagine rather large figures were plucked from somewhere to justify the work.  At the time we put it aside and thought we would have to see whether we could afford it later.  However as time has moved on, and as we have kept firmly in control of the budget, we felt it was more and more important that we did actually do something about them because the view is certainly not enhanced.  We called Western Power in again.  Seth is a nice amenable sort of guy – good looking even – and one I felt would be up for a bit of a challenge.  So after a bit of cajoling and encouraging him to think ‘green’ and to think of a way of helping us achieve a cleaner, greener environment he has come back with a 50% reduction on the price to carry out the work.  Overjoyed.  It will make a huge difference.

Steel fabricators

Early in the week we had a steel fabricator come and meet us to check out  the accessibility of the site.  The steel columns and beams that we will be requiring are quite long.  A real Somerset guy, born and bred a steel worker, knows his trade and very keen.  We like his enthusiasm.   Max has been to the factory and finds it very well equipped.  He rang us today with his quote which is spot on with what we had in the budget.  We feel we have found a perfect partner.  We’ll get a couple of other quotes from other fabricators that Max has visited to, or spoken with, so that we have comparisons, but at least we know we have found someone who is wanting to do the work and will fit in with our schedule. 

As we speak, demolition is on track for Monday November 5^th so we have a lot to do to get ready for the big day.  I’m revising the gantt chart as we are bringing things forward a bit to try and get not only the steel in by Christmas but also the slab and blockwork.  Everyone is gradually receiving their orders so they keep the essential dates clear in their diary for us.  I'll try and scan a copy of the chart for the next blog posting.  Watch this space.  
Then you will be able to track our progress up to Christmas.  That will be laying ourselves open to all sorts of criticism.