10.  We need all fingers crossed for this coming week please  October 30 - November 3

We have found a very good mate for Max to help him on site and this week together they took the essentials off or out of the house prior to its final demolition.  Jake is the grandson of the guy who owns all the big machinery that is on site ready-in-waiting and together they make a reliable pair.  Stephan has been moving soil and preparing the ground for building sites for years.  He knows all about cutting footings ready for pouring the concrete, so we feel that we are in very good hands.  His grandson Jake is training to become a surveyor, so he will have plenty to practice his skills on here.

The workers in appropriate head gear: Max in orange, Jake in white

All the retrieved elements – good timber joists, roof battens for marking the levels for the footings, and windows for the garden cloches are now neatly stored and covered with tarpaulins in the garden out of the way of the site works. 

Windows for cloches

Fantastic timber joist

The boiler that is that was installed for the bungalow three years ago we put on ebay as its output will be too great for the new house, has been put on ebay.  We sold it the next day to a guy who offered us a good ‘buy now’ price so he’s warm and we’re happy.

The oven that we bought temporarily when we moved here is advertised in the local journal.  One enquiry so far, no sale yet.

The bungalow is cold, wet and dangerous now.  Hard hats have to be worn if you dare to venture in.  It knows it has only a weekend left.  It looks sad.  Tears of rain fall from its remaining beams. 1958 – 2012  

In the stalls

The villagers' view.  Local traffic seems to have increased lately.

Deterioration happens quickly once the weather gets a hold of the interior 

Our bedroom looking somewhat worse for wear.

On Wednesday I worked on the architect’s drain layout alongside a catalogue of parts.  Having consulted Max and worked each junction through I made a list of manholes, risers, covers, drain runs, elbow joints, easy bends and bottle gully traps and went and made friends with one of the suppliers to check that what I was specifying were the right items for the job.  He made a few tweaks, and promised a good price.  No doubt I will check his price against other suppliers so that I’m sure of getting the best deal. I will be placing the order on Wednesday with a few extras on a sale and return basis so we aren’t caught short on site when we need an extra connector or length of pipe.

Drainage - working out the sum of parts

Thursday Max has been studying all the Structural Engineer’s drawings finding the positions where steel meets timber and noting all the different details so that he can order holes pre-drilled in the steel at the correct places so that he doesn’t have to drill them on site. 

All the different ways the steel meets timber that need to be fixed on site.
Max needs to work out where all the pre-drilled holes are to be positioned so that the fabricators do the work for him, rather than drilling the steel on site.  Not easy!

Talking of drills Max has bought himself a very smart DeWalt battery powered drill.  So as not to be out done, I have a pair of swanky DeWalt steel toe cap boots and working gloves.  It’s important to feel comfortable and à la mode on site.  Especially if one is the project manager.  My hard hat is the blue one on the rack.  I’m avoiding having ‘Boss’ painted on the front. 

I have tried to find a simple form of contract to use for all the trades people that we will be appointing.  The shortest I have found is 45 pages!  I can’t quite believe that that could be suitable, even if I had the patience to fill it all in. I don’t think it actually sets the right tone. Most of them will be doing an individual job that will last about a week, some perhaps longer, but certainly nothing that we feel warrants a legal document that everyone has to sign.  It’s not as though they are being contracted for large sums of money stretched over many weeks.   I have therefore decided to write down a set of 6 or 7 key principles which we consider to be important when they provide their particular skill and talent to build the house.  We will show them the sheet and hopefully agree with them that this is a better way to work together on such a personal project.  We want them to have pride in their work, realise that this is why we have chosen them and that we value what they can offer. We want them to feel part of the team that will be responsible for building a spectacular house.  I’m certain that it will have a more positive effect than a legal document that is more of a threat if things go wrong.  Avoiding things going wrong in the first place seems more appropriate for this project.  I meant to show thison the blog, but it's on the other computer so I can't upload it.  Another time.  Perhaps with some reaction.

Friday and Saturday we have been studying the groundworks drawings which appear to have become somewhat mind-boggling.  And we are managing this element?  Is this sensible?  We believe it is.  Next week we’ll be able to give you a firmer answer.  Just keep your fingers crossed please, we need every bit of help we can muster.

Groundworks plan

 Building on a sloping site, especially when the house is not parallel with the slope is mighty difficult to visualise three dimensionally from just a plan.  But this is exactly what we need to be able to do come Monday / Tuesday. 

So, we have broken the architect’s plan down into layers.  One drawing setting out the grid lines, another for the starting levels marked as ‘Excavation Levels’ (Exc LvL).  Another drawing for the ‘Bottom of Footings’ (BOF) another drawing for ‘Top of Footings’ (TOF), and then another drawing for the Blockwork showing where there are 2, 3, 4, or 5 courses of blockwork. (Mostly underground still!!)  By doing this we can actually see the sequence of work and how it all gradually builds up.  We are feeling more comfortable.  Just a few questions have arisen as a result of taking it all apart in this way, but once we have these answers from the architect we will feel ready to GO GO GO.

Setting up the grid lines - using good old Pythagoras

Bottom of Footings - the different levels are colour coded  

Blockwork courses - colour coded

Once Stephan has prepared the initial levels of the site, the surveyor with his total station (completely computerised theodolite) will come to locate any position of the building exactly on the site in relation to 5 or 6 datum positions we set up months ago which the architects have on all their drawings.  He will also help with the setting of the exact positions and levels for the steel columns.  I’m sure there will be more on this to tell you next week.  Will it be good news or bad?  Watch this space. . . .

This week’s work would surely entertain Kevin and his audience.

The caravan stands up to being our home and rest place at various times of the day.  We are already convinced it was the right decision.  We can be on site all the time – which is essential because there is always something that needs our attention.   Living in another place would only mean that we would have to cart everything backwards and forwards.  The evenings can now be quite long, so it is important that they can be utilised well.  Here we can always pop back to the office to get the paper we are missing.  The caravan is small but we keep it quite cosy.  Oh, and we managed to get a couple of special plugs that enable us to get the internet in the caravan through the mains electricity which means that we can even continue to work after dark and in the warm.

Sunday morning 4th November - just opened my bedroom blind and found that the ominous silence after a night of rain had turned into a silent blizzard - BIG flakes.  Do they know up there that we are meant to be starting work on site tomorrow?

Looking on the bright side - the views have a lovely sagey colour to them.
Quite happy being forced to sit and contemplate.

As we sit at our table having our meals in the caravan we look out of the window and think how similar it is to sitting in a train.  The window has the same proportions and with the identical rounded corners.  The main difference is we are not going didlle-di-da, diddle di-da. Instead, we are just sat in a permanent siding looking at the hedge!  At these moments it is quite a relief that time stands still.

If we want to feel like we really are off on holiday, I can pretend to be an air hostess closing the overhead lockers that are EasyJet look-alikes.  Quite fun dreaming.

Max enjoying breakfast in Stony Littleton siding.

Last weekend the village had its cider making day.  Lots of homemade cooking – mostly with apples in some form or another.  Most of the village was there, and Max and I did out turn at helping with the scratting, pressing or just moving apples from one position to another.  The rain came down but no-one seemed to mind.  We came away with 6 demi-johns of rather strange looking brown liquid that we hope turns into something resembling cider.  No doubt Max will nurture it to perfection.  Not my line at all, either the making or the drinking.  The apple crop this year was very poor.  Not many cider apples but lots of dessert apples which are apparently too soft for the best brew.  But we we’ll see.

The site office is bedding down nicely.  Max hopes to close up the gaps so that there aren’t any howling drafts any more.  My back has slightly suffered in this first week.  It’s feeling a bit stiff so I have resorted to wearing my puffa jacket to keep it protected.  It will get better.  We have had a visitation, not from the planning authority, nor HMRC, but from our little fury friends so that the chocolate brownies have been invaded.  Need to do something about these gaps – for a more pressing reason.  Can’t do without the brownies especially when the workers are here next week.  In preparation for the tea and coffee breaks I have set my iphone to alert me at 10:50am and 3:10pm as I am not naturally one to think ‘tea break’ as a matter of course.  But I will have to get into the routine of keeping them all happy.  On Fridays they may even get bacon butties, or special cake.  

I have been trying most of the week to get in touch with the window fabricators to make a couple of changes to the spec.  There is a new chap who has taken over from a really efficient and nice guy who unfortunately left to go back to South Africa.  My frustration has been mounting all week. 

At 4:00pm on Friday afternoon I received the phone call that everyone dreads – the company is in financial trouble – a major contractor has failed to pay them a large sum of money, which means that the aluminium frame suppliers have put a stop on their account.  So our job will not be able to go ahead until they get the money in.  We haven’t actually ordered anything from them so it is not a financial worry – just madly inconvenient and could delay other things.  I’m optimistic it will sort itself out.  Our suppliers are keen to help us resolve the problem

This is the moment for the 'Grand Design' break for adverts.  We have to give you some suspense.  Blogs aren't exciting if they don't have these 'moments'.

We should be able to give you more news on this next week.

The fabricators have suggested ways to help relieve the delay, but we have to wait to hear if it is a real possibility.  We will be working on other contingencies too.  Damnit, I really liked hese windows and we have done so much work getting exactly what we wanted.  There are other suppliers of the same windows we just need our man to help us locate them.