21. The weather is doing us a favour

21.             The weather is doing us a favour

It is good that the weather is forcing us to have a month’s gap right now.  We have basically got the building out of the ground and many would consider this the worst phase over and the best to have behind us.

This was the period when the unknown could have easily have happened – ground conditions could have been different from what was predicted, problems could have been thrown up out of the underground, and the weather could have caused all sorts of problems and delays.  We have been let off lightly.  In reality it has gone well, and to plan.  What’s more the budget is pretty much on course.  Some things have been over, but the ground works and preliminaries were wonderfully straightforward and so everything has roughly evened out, in spite of the rather protracted foundations.

Max this weekend made an heroic effort and completed all the last niggling bits of blockwork, so he will feel relieved about that.

When the next 2 or 3 days of good weather is predicted, (and we have a very good private and reliable weather station here in Bath), we will get the Red Baron damp proof membrane out and pour the slab over him.  We’re hoping that it will be possible this week, but we don’t mind if it’s not until the next.

The builders are due to start progressing the building upwards at the beginning of March.  You won’t see much, if anything, happening before then. Instead Max and I will be at our desks completing the works schedule, and arranging all the suppliers to be on toe.  Once we start, there will be little time for decision making, so we aim to have all that done during February.  We have our work cut out; we certainly won’t be able to take many days off if we want to be as ready as we need to be.

We have had a slight distraction this weekend in that the drain to the septic tank must have been crushed by the heavy plant that has been working here recently.  So after a fair amount of rodding and digging we will be calling in Stephan to come to the rescue.  I hope there will be better news by next week.  I realise that I’m not really a born camper.   This week I rather longed for completion!

It’s just one of those moments.  It’s all pretty good really.
Sorry no photos this week.