11. 5th November 2012  We start on site

Monday
The CamPlant boys arrived at 8:30 and fired up the machinery.  All day there has been the sounds of demolition and destruction.  Two machines in full power, one knocking down and the other grinding up anything that will form good hardstanding.

By midday half the house was down and by 4pm the only piece remaining was the site office, the wc and the coal bunker that now houses my tumble drier.

Max has been separating anything that can be reclaimed either as useful timber or fire wood for the future. 

The timber forms one pile, the other pile is concrete which will be reduced to rubble – then we will have a clean site for setting out the new house.  What a milestone in the calendar.  I’m not sure whether less than two years ago (Jan 2011) when we first decided this building lark was for us, we really believed it would happen.

We are houseless.  No turning back.

Things are from this point on serious.

Stephan making sure he knows exactly which direction Max wants him to go

Demolition underway

The sun decided to shine on us for our first day, after waking up to snow the day before!
Stephan was able to pick off the timbers with great accuracy.

Stephan could very delicately remove the timber

It very soon became a pile of rubble

All the blocks were crushed and ground down into suitable hardcore to provide a good standing for the lorries that will be coming to the site

Any unwanted combustible material was burnt.
Best bonfire in the village.

The site office being reduced to the minimum size needed on the site.
The last bit of wall being struck off with great delicacy. 

The site office and wc

Hardcore from the bungalow providing substantial access around the site

Congratulating each other on a job well done

Jake contemplating the view with a well deserved cuppa

All that was left the following morning

Good news about the windows.  We had a call from the window fabricators, as promised, and they are going to commence drawing up all the windows in line with the architect’s specifications and measurements. This was then followed up by a call on Thursday to say that they had had a conversation with another company who are prepared to fabricate the windows as specified and supply them through our fabricators.  We just have to wait and see that the price remains within budget.  It will be 2 or 3 weeks before we know the score.  But it looks hopeful.

Wednesday

The site is now clear, house gone, different materials sorted and dispersed, the hard stuff crushed and used as hardcore to provide a hard-standing for all the lorries coming to the site,  The glass has been removed and will be taken to the recycling plant.. Much wood has been reclaimed, metal work is to be taken for scrap and the reward shared between us and Stephan, anything combustible and without use has been burnt on a grand bonfire.

The timber we have kept is really good quality – the roof joists and beams are in excellent condition, and Max has already made shelves for the container unit so that we can store his tools and equipment securely – and he can find what he needs without having to empty the store each time. 

We have also built a wind break on the weather side of the caravan awning, so that if we have torrential rain and storms, it is less likely to take flight and fly away towards Islington. If it did, I might try and hang on tight.  No, no, not really, I like it here.

Because the site is now all clear we are in a position to create the starting level – shown on the architect’s drawings as the Excavation level and plot where the house sits on the site.  We have 4 posts which were originally positioned when I decided to reorientate the house by 9˚ if you remember.  From these points we can plot the outline accurately.

Having set the key reference points, Stephan moved in with his big machine and used his tripod leveler to beep at him to signal that he was scraping the ground at the correct level needed to create the required ‘excavation level’.

There are two excavation levels one corresponds to the entrance hall, the snug, my office, and Max’s studio, the lower level corresponds to the kitchen, dining and living room. 

From the excavation level we then dig ‘down’ for the foundations and then build ‘up’ to create the slab and finished floor level and the rest of the house.

Levels from now on are critical, so are right angles and verticals, not to forget those all important Pythagoras diagonals.  I will be watching dimensions like a hawk.

On Wednesday we received the results of the Radon test that all new buildings have to have done.  Radon is a colourless, odourless radioactive gas. It is formed by the radioactive decay of the small amounts of uranium that occur naturally in all rocks and soils.
Although not entirely necessary, we have been advised that Building Regulations require us to include a slightly thicker dpm. They would I suppose.  Health and Safety ticking all the boxes.  OK, so not a bad result, and little to complain about really.

Friday

Today the surveyor came to plot the gridlines for us.  

First lines marking out the footings

Our very serious surveyor plotting the gps coordinates that mark accurately the buildings location on the site

As he marked the lines, Max rapidly made the profile boards that are the markers you see on any building site – 2 uprights with a horizontal board across.  The surveyor positioned a nail on the top of the horizontal board to mark the grid.  A aligns with A; B with B, letters in the north south direction, numbers east west direction.  Then we stretch a line of string between the corresponding letters or numbers and we sprayed the lines so we have a grid painted on the ground of the site.  The grid lines basically indicate the centre of key walls or lines of steel columns in our case.  They also indicate the centre of the footings so that we can mark the trenches for Stephan.  Some of the trenches need to be 900mm wide, some 600mm and the steel pads 1200mm.  The trenches are of different depths so we need to mark this out for Stephan also.

A long day, but we completed the task.

Next week we will be digging the footings, meeting the building control inspector who will either give us the green light to pour the concrete, or demand a whole lot of amendments, additions, before he allows us to carry on.  All being well, the concrete will be poured Wednesday or Thursday and the surveyor will come back the same day to position the holding down bolts (exactly) for the 19 steel columns.  Actually we are unable to pour the concrete in one session as the footings are too complicated for that.   Max and I have been planning the sequence of pours this evening.  We think we can do most of it in one day, with a second pour to connect all the separate lengths early the following week.  We will have to make a number of drainage channels with special shuttering and lintels, which will need time without pressure.  Next week is going to be one of the most demanding for us.

I hope to take some photos tomorrow to show all the lines that Max and I have drawn on the site this weekend to plot the footings prior to Stephan digging them out tomorrow.
If all goes to plan you should see photos of some of the concrete footings in place by next weekend. . . . .   Weather looks pretty good.