We've got a blue roof!

It was quite a surprise to see the very blue roof as we rounded the corner by Stondon Church. The colour is due to the plastic (?) insulating film that covers the roof before the tiles are fixed. With the battens almost complete I would expect the tiler to start laying tiles on Tuesday. (The tiles can be seen in foreground - wrapped up in plastic)

Pete and Lee (the chippies) have now finished the bay after Malcolm and Graham made and delivered the metal supports for the roof in the bay. The strengthening bars have also been fitted in the lounge roof - a vertical rod drops from the ridge and is connected to a horizontal bar that is attached to the roof timbers just above the walls at either side on the room. Jan has decided that she doesn't like this (I have some sympathy with this view too) so we'll be looking to clad it in wood and make a feature of it.

In addition to the progress on the roof, the electrician - Andrew - has made good progress too. We now have cables here, there, and everywhere. The other development during the week is the fixing of the flooring in the roof space. Now that the floor is down, the size of this room can be more accurately seen - it measures 21 foot by 12 foot at its widest, reduced to some degree by the sloping roof timbers. Nevertheless, it will make an excellent study/guest bedroom when the roof windows are fitted.

When we arrived at site yesterday afternoon we found the hasp and lock on the garage door had been butchered. I assumed that it was one of the new builders to the site but a call from Roy advised that the electrician had turned up at site on Saturday morning to find the garage doors wide open. Obviously there had been a break-in during Friday night/Saturday morning, but nothing appears to be missing from the garage. Fortunately there wasn't much of value there anyway - a petrol strimmer, Black & Decker workmate, a pair of aluminum step ladders, and a lot of old toot. Nevertheless its an annoyance and will require some thought as to how the garage can be made secure. This type of break-in is quite common in the area - several of our neighbours have suffered garage break-ins. However, it appears that the sought after items are power tools - and we had none in the garage. I would quite like to have seen the look on their faces when they finally got into the garage to find nothing there. Mind you, I'd also like to stick them head first down the portable toilet! I guess it wouldn't be "politically correct" to suggest who is most likely to be responsible for these garage crimes. Incidentally, did I mention that I'm opposed to more travellers sites.

I've spent today clearing up again - builders are messy buggers - even when it makes life more difficult to do their job, they still don't seem to want to clear up. The scaffold was littered with bricks - whole and half, assorted bits of timber, nails, et al - quite an obstacle course to get round. No wonder there are so many building site accidents. Still, its all tidy for now - until work gets under way tomorrow of course.

Jan & Rog

Somewhere for the jackdaws? No chance!

Not a particularly productive week - some steps forward and a few back unfortunately. Due to the sensible decision to use steel supports in the bay, we had a delay because Malcolm and Graham (steel fabricators) were very busy and couldn't fit our work in. This resulted in Pete and Lee (the chippies) running out of work by Tuesday night once the fascia boards had been fitted, and then going off site with the bay roof unfinished. Nevertheless, Dean the brickie and his team descended on the site on Wednesday and finished off nearly everything, including our chimney - and grand it looks too complete with red ornamental bricks at the top. We added a jackdaw cowl (not in the picture above) because the other cottages at Brookvale seem to have been a particular attraction to these chattering birds who do seem to enjoy perching on the chimney pot and pooping down the flue!

On a more positive note, the building inspector has been along and passed the roof timbers so next week will see the roofer arrive and start tiling. The steels for the bay will be with us on Tuesday and then Pete and Lee will return to finish off the bay roof timbers. Jan and I have spent a couple of days staining the fascia boards in Light Oak Sadolin - ready for the guttering.

We're now looking to start getting the services laid on so its back to the frustrations of dealing with EDF and British Gas - costly and slow seems to be a fair summary. We did have a slight scare when Roy (project manager) investigated the foul waste connection and was a little concerned that there would not be enough "fall" in the pipe from our house to the connection with the existing sewer by number 5 Brookvale. However, we discovered that the foul waste is about 1.5 metres below ground level at that point so no problem for us to get the correct fall (1 in 40) from about 20 metres away. However, we have to dig to find the end of the connection that has already been laid to our site for two reasons - firstly because no-one knows exactly where it is, and secondly because it was not installed correctly and has to be re-done with additional strengthening where if passes under the driveway (it needs a little concrete hat for that bit!).

The electrician (Andrew) has been instructed on first fix and will start his work on Monday 28th September - basically laying in trunking, etc.

So with the weather still apparently holding we should have a roof by the end of September.

Jan & Rog

So, its open eaves then

Another week of good weather and excellent progress.

Pete Brooks (chippy) went of to Majorca last Sunday but his son, Lee spent the first part of the week finishing off the remaining roof timbers. Roy told me that Dean the brickie would return on Wednesday but when I popped to site in the early evening I was rather disappointed to see the external walls hadn't grown at all so I assumed Dean had been unable to make it. However, as I drove past the opening where the front door will be I noticed new blockwork - sure enough Dean had nearly finished the internal walls in just one day! By Thursday night the internal walls were finished, and the window sills had been laid.

.

On Thursday evening Roy had arranged for Ian of Manor Roofing to meet us to discuss the roofing. "Hello Dean" says Ian - it seems they all know each other and work well together. Ian told us that he would start the tiling next Wednesday (16th) and this meant that we needed the roof structure and details to be finished, so Pete and Lee will be back Monday to do this. However, first of all Dean needed to infill between the roof timbers so on Friday he set about this. Needless to say by 4 p.m. he had finished - and lovely it looks too (second picture). Dean has also built up another 8 courses of the chimney, but needs the roofer to detail around the chimney before he can complete this.

Jan and I have spent the day staining the fascia boards and tails of the roof timbers in light oak stain, and we'll be back tomorrow to apply a second coat so that everything is ready for the chippy on Monday.

Next on Roy's list is getting the main services to site, and playing the games that companies such as EDF seem unable to avoid. Having told us that we could have a meter at the top of the drive (to save a considerable sum of money) they are now saying that the meter and the consumer unit have to be within 6 feet of each other. This means that the meter will have to be at the house so Roy has a cunning plan......

The other slight delay at the moment is with the steels that are needed for strengthening the roof. Our structural engineer has said that we need a rod that joins the main roof truss at ceiling height, and another that drops down from the ridge timber to join the lateral steel. These are being made by Malcolm and Graham at Chapel Farm about 1 mile from Brookvale but due to pressure of work they are a tad delayed. We hope to get these steels and the ones required for the bay on Monday. Needless to say, everyone knows Malcolm and Graham!

Next on the list are the windows and doors, and for this we're using another local firm A J Joinery who will make oak frames with double glazed units. Another minefield here - current insulation standards demand that the windows and doors meet a U value of less than 2. Quite how we will know this on our bespoke build, no-one seems to know. However, another cunning plan has been devised to meet the building regs.

Jan & Rog

All trussed up - It looks almost like a house at last!

As you can see, our chippy - Pete Brooks - and his son Lee have made really good progress on the roof trusses. The crane duly arrived on Tuesday but at one stage we thought the wind would be too strong. Current health and safety rules have to be enforced by the crane driver and if he thinks it would be dangerous to lift the trusses because of the strength of the wind, then they don't get lifted. Fortunately the wind stayed at a level just below that "dangerous" point but the odd gust caused the trusses to swing about rather more than desirable. All the pre-made trusses were fitted by Wednesday, and then the remaining timbers were hand cut to fit. We do seem to have one problem by the rear bay in that the wooden pillar supports are not sufficient to carry the weight of the bay roof. So its back to the drawing board and the need (probably) for some steel inserts from the bay wall to the roof.

Now that the roof timbers are in place we can see the effect that the full height ceiling in the lounge will create - it really does give a very airy feel to the whole room. (Well it would, wouldn't it, with no roof on!!) We're pleased too just how big the area in the roof now appears, for even though the walls are sloping, there's plenty of space for our study come guest room.

It seems we have another little bit of confusion regarding finishing off the eaves. We had wanted as much roof overhang as we could get and after hearing that it was fiddly to have open eaves, decided that we would have a soffit board. However, the wall height and the pre-cut roof timbers are not compatible for fitting a soffit board and having a decent roof overhang. We have therefore opted to have open eaves that will allow us the degree of roof overhang we want. The down side is that we will have to get Dean and his bricklaying team to build up the walls in between the roof timbers - a bit of a time-consuming job. Once again we have issues with the drawings not matching our requirements and I've also discovered that we will need some more soft red bricks too. It seems such a waste as we've all sorts of other bricks coming out of our ears - engineering reds, cream facing bricks, plus left-overs from the garage build (before we bought the land). However. Roy our project manager is absolutely right - anything other than the soft reds wouldn't look right.

Pete Brooks is away on holiday next week but his son Lee will continue on Monday / Tuesday to complete all he can. Seems like we'll need a tiler quite soon now.

I've got a site meeting on Monday with Steve building surveyor and Roy. Hopefully we can sort out the remaining little niggles and keep the momentum of the build going.

-----------

Well, that's another month gone - I know because another invoice for the chemical toilet has just arrived!

Jan & Rog