'Twas on a Tuesday evening when the gas man came to call.....

Our own little bit of trench warfare

After an entirely fruitless business trip to Reading on Tuesday I received a call when I was about ½ mile from Brookvale. “You’d better get to site quick then” said Roy the project manager after I explained how close I was. As I rounded the corner to the drive I could see two men and an idle digger peering at a bright yellow pipe with an 18 inch piece missing. The smell of gas was inescapable. Yes – we had found an unknown gas supply that did not appear on any plans held by the gas infrastructure companies. Gary the digger driver taped up the live end of the broken pipe and waited for the emergency gas man to do his stuff. No more digging that day! Just for good measure, one of the neighbours suggested that there were more service pipes further down the drive and directly in our proposed line. Two more days of digging for about 90 metres have failed to find these fortunately, and the trench has now arrived near the house. Its amazing how this has happened when the depth that the gas pipe should be laid is proscribed, and the material in which it must be laid. The pipe that was broken was no more than 8-9 inches in the ground when it should have been 24". The fact that its presence was unknown was even more surprising. Still, its all in a report that Roy was obliged to fill out although I suspect that absolutely nothing will happen as a result.

To our surprise, Murphy & Sons, the company who will connect the gas service, appeared on Thursday and are happy to put the gas pipe in the trench temporarily. However, we have to put the water pipe in first and cover it, but then we can then simply relay the gas pipe at the required depth once the water pipe has been approved by Anglia Water. The live gas feed will be connected at a later stage. Then all we need is EDF, or as my colleague calls them, Extremely Dear Fuel. EDF inevitably have procedures - each with their own timescales. The words “quick” and “soon” do not appear in their vocabulary, whilst terms like 30, 60 and 90 days seem to appear for the most trivial of activities! I suppose we could always build a water-powered generator once we get water to site. Would that be a “green” initiative? Probably not. At least we have the petrol generator.

All the pipes that will take water from the roof to the rainwater harvesting system have now been finished and Gary McGutter is due any day now with his natty one-piece guttering system. Progress has been made inside too with Adrian (sparks) finishing off all the first fix. Bob the chippy has built the framework for the stud partitions for the shower room/utility room and en-suite bathroom. Bob has also been busy putting in the insulation in between the roof timbers. Roy reckons that we won’t need heating, and possibly even no clothes with all the insulation being fitted. I think it unlikely that any form of naturism will be the norm if it does get too hot in the England household – not sure the world is ready for that.

I am looking forward to the windows arriving – apparently due early next week. That will make a difference.

We've got two days off this weekend as we’re off to visit someone else’s building work – Jan’s cousin Carol and husband Paul in Kent who have recently finished an extension. We can swap experiences perhaps?

The Clifton gassers

It ain't cheap being green!

Welcome to the pit. All we want now is Quatermass!

It is proving to be rather expensive, this "green" initiative. The cost of the tank to house the collected rainwater wasn't too bad as it came complete with a very powerful pump, and an electronic control system to monitor the tank's water level and the usage of water. In dry spells, the system will refill the tank to its minimum level from the mains when there's insufficient rainwater from the roof. All clever stuff. Trouble is, nobody tells you that to excavate the hole for the tank and all the drainage channels for each of five guttering downpipes around the house, and the deep soakway, is going to require a very expensive digger, and an army of hangers-on to lay pipes, and argue about whether the correct angle has been achieved for the pipes to ensure reasonable flow to the tank. This all adds up to molto dinaro. I reckon the payback will be many, many years, and long after I join the tank in the hole, which, incidentally, is 4.5 metres deep and 3.5 metres square. One side effect of this dam "hole" is that the majority of the spoil is a very light grey clay, all crumbly when its dry but it turns into a sticky paste as soon as it rains. We have this stuff liberally scattered around the garden now.

We've canned the idea of solar panels now too, as after research it appears that the likely payback is at least 50 years. I sort of figured that by the time I'm 115 I wouldn't really care about the price of electricity anyway.

Last weekend we entertained my family - Jenny & Stewart, Julie & Mark, Gabrielle & Crystal, Denize & Tim - and had a little topping out ceremony. Gill and Peter from 5 Brookvale joined us too, and brought the yew branch (essential in Bedfordshire folklore and which has to be fixed to the highest point of the house) together with a large plate of hot sausage rolls, and most importantly, a bottle of champagne. That made three bottles as we had already been given two bottles by Jenny! A tour of the house and site was followed by a glass or two of bubbly, and then off to the pub for Sunday lunch - very convivial it was too.

And so to the saga of our "hole". Firstly it was dug too deep, but by the time this was realised, the tank had been dropped in and about 1000 litres of water added. The solution was of course simple - call the supplier and order an extension for the neck of the tank as this would bring it to the right height. Extension piece duly arrives and was fitted - eh voila - it was now too tall! No problem, we'll just cut it in half to make it the right length. So lets analysis this brilliant solution :

• take too much out of the hole and charge me for the labour to do so.


• order an extra piece that wasn't really needed and present me with the bill.


• cut the newly ordered bit (that I am expected to pay for) in half and throw half away.


• drive the digger into one section of the (hired by me) Hares fence and leave it as a useless mangled bit of metal.


• drive the digger into the portable toilet causing a 4" split in the side, scratches across the door, all resulting in the door now failing to close.


• don't tell me about these things that I will potentially be charged for - let me find out when I visit at the weekend.

Its not been a good week for matters relating to water and waste as it has now been discovered that the estimated depth of the soil pipe laid to the site by the previous owner is not as deep as specified. This means that we cannot run the soil pipe from the house to the mains as things are because the fall is too slight. Yes, you guessed, the solution is to make us spend more by cutting out two more (higher) courses of brickwork where the soil pipe enters the house so that the correct fall can be created. The only other alternative was to jack up the whole house by 6 inches, which after careful consideration, was relegated to plan B.

On the positive side, we now have lots of insulation between the roof timbers, and the first stud partition has been built at the end of the mezzanine floor. This will give as a very useful storage space for all those things that are used once every 20 years, but which are so valuable they cannot be thrown away.

Due to the magnitude of the task of digging the "hole", Roy didn't get round to digging the service trench, but this will be started next Monday once the man from EDF has been to check out the route that the electricity supply will take. Apparently, the single trench will have the water pipe in the bottom, be covered with gravel, and then the electricity cable goes next -covered by gravel, and lastly, the gas. Given the cost of the supply of the gas and electricity we fully expect a solid gold cable/pipe, wrapped in a platinum casing, suitably engraved with the signature of Monsieur Hulot, or whoever is the CEO of EDF these days.

Monday should see Tony McGutter arrive with his aluminum sheet, magic gutter producing machine, and the installation of the rather necessary link in the water recycling chain.

Jan and I have spent this morning filling up another skip with rubbish, almost to the point where there's no more to find. I was rather amused when I was asked by one of the builders if he could bring some cardboard packaging to Brookvale to put in the skip - no problem says I, and so it duly arrived. By this morning, the aforesaid (Hoover) box was the sole occupant of the skip, whilst almost every other bit of the site, and the house, had various bits of detritus that should have been put in the skip, but there seems to be a mindset that says "drop it on the floor and leave it there". Builders - don't you just love 'em?

We're hopeful that A J Joinery will be delivering and fitting the windows soon as this will make the house secure, and watertight. We've opted to have makeshift front and utility room doors for the time being as the constant flow of tradesmen, in and out,

The Clifton achers

Wee house emerges.....

...from the scaffolding. At last, we can see what our house looks like. Mind you, it still seems a bit "soulless" without its windows, gutters and downpipes, but it won't be long now before they are fitted.

The first picture was taken from the top of the hill and shows how well the house blends into the landscape. (If you didn't know, clicking on the picture enlarges it, and reverts to normal size by clicking the back arrow).

Little has been done during the last week, but we did "entertain" our dear friends Jenny (number one fan of the blog) & David last weekend. Still some way to go before their room is ready to be occupied though! Patience please Jenny.

I almost forgot - the sprinkler lads were back on Monday - scrambling hither and thither, and we now have all their plumbing done for the whole house. All it needs to finish it off is connection to the water supply and the neat little heads that can be fitted once the plasterboard is installed.

We've run into another slight problem, this time with the staircase to the mezzanine floor. It seems that once again we have some discrepancies between the drawing and the actual dimensions of the finished walls. I'm sure its nothing too serious, we'll just have to modify our ideas a little. What we want is a steel backbone to form the basis of the staircase, and then wooden treads fitted onto the steel. The balustrades will be acrylic rather than wood. This should give more of a feeling a spaciousness. I now need to get the stress engineer to do the calculations and then get Malcom and Graham from the steel fabricator's to make the structure.

Its surprising what you have to do now to conform to building regulations. The entrance to the house has to be level to allow for wheelchair access, and the entrance door opening has to provide 775 mm clear opening. This means that the choice of doors is quite restricted because few companies make a 36" wide door in oak. We've found a door we like, but can't find a matching sidelight so we'll probably have to have one made specially - ah well, its only money!

I did meet Tony the "Guttering Man" on Tuesday. Tony's company supplies and fits aluminium guttering. We agreed where all the downpipes will go and he should start on Monday 27th after Roy has installed all the drainage to take the roof rainwater to the harvesting tank. Roy starts the excavations next Monday - digging the service trench, and the rather large hole for the harvesting tank so lots of activity with diggers and dumper trucks. He's also got to find the end of the soil pipe that has already been laid to the site. No-one seems to know exactly where it is!

There was little to do this weekend apart from a bit of clearing up as we're having a "topping out" ceremony on Sunday with my family coming to join in. Pity the windows aren't in yet as the winds blowing through the house. Still, it should keep the bubbly chilled.

Jan & Rog

The messy tilers have finished

As delighted as we are with the finished roof, it seems tilers have the deserved reputation of being messy beggars! From tile dust all over the roof, to cement slurry carelessly thrown on the ground, and more bits of broken tiles in a 30 foot radius than I would have thought possible, they take the biscuit. Still, we were very fortunate with the weather, which with the exception of a shower on Friday, has been very kind to us, or perhaps I should say, to the tilers.

Never mind, the roof looks great and now that the rather vivid blue of the felt has been covered up, the house seems to have mellowed into the background and fits ideally into the surroundings. I can see now why the planners didn't want a house that was any higher - it would have spoilt the view. (That's the only concession to planners I'll ever give).

Another milestone next Tuesday - the (miserable) scaffolders come to take down the scaffolding - be glad to see the back of them and their poles and planks. I've managed to hit my head five times on the protruding scaffold poles - the reason being they are too long for where they are fitted because the scaffolders couldn't be bothered to use shorter ones. (We'll ignore the fact that I wasn't looking where I was going). With the scaffold down, we'll be able to see the house much better, so quite a day to look forward to.

Apart from the roof, more progress has been made inside the house. Bob (one of Roy's men) has been sealing the cavities where the windows and doors will be fitted, and Ian (another of Roy's men who has 72 Chelsea shirts and wears them in turn each day) has been putting fibreglass into the nooks and crannies prior to the fitting of the pukka insulation - Celotex -next week. This arrives as sheets of polystyrene-like material that is cut to fit between the roof timbers. We also had Lee from AJ Joinery come back to double check the window and door sizes. Hopefully, the oak windows will be ready within a couple of weeks - then we can make the house secure.

In order that insulation could start next week we put pressure on the sprinkler systems guys to fit their pipework in the upper part of the house on Friday. After ringing me to say they couldn't find Brookvale, this gaggle of lads scrambled all over the place like a rash, fitted their bright orange pipes, and were gone in no time.

During the week we've also paid very large sums of money for the electricity and gas to be supplied to site (gulp!) and Roy now has the bit between his teeth to start digging the service trench. While we've got the digger on site we'll also dig the very large hole for the rainwater harvesting tank (nearly 8 foot deep) and the trenches needed to run the rainwater from the 5 roof downpipes to the tank. Talking of downpipes, we've decided to fit aluminium guttering and downpipes. This is apparently made on site - a large drum of flat aluminium sheet feeds into a machine with the tool that makes the profile you want - simples! You can even have it in different colours, but ours will be black (Henry Ford would have approved).

Spent a very tiring day today clearing out the garage, demolishing the shed (well, it actually fell apart on its own really), and getting rid of about 50% of the accumulated rubbish that had amassed behind the toilet.

By four this afternoon we had one large builders skip, full to overflowing. Amazingly too, we had the obligatory mattress. Its amazing, your never seem to see a skip without a mattress, do you?

We seem to be going full pelt at the moment - wouldn't mind slowing down a bit, its all rather tiring!

Jan & Rog

We're on the tiles!

The roofers have made steady progress this week, with the front and one side of the roof now tiled. Our hand-made British clay tiles (manufactured in Turkey apparently) are very uneven and give the desired effect of an old roof. The different colours of tile also give a nice mottled effect too. I'm glad that we asked for the bonnet tiles that form the edge of the hips as these look really good. Once the roofers finish this coming week, the scaffolding will be removed to give us a much better view of the house.

Andrew, the electrician, has been adding lots more wiring, and asking very sensible questions about things we haven't thought about, so a number of amendments have been made to lighting, points, etc.

As we are using rainwater harvesting for the washing machine supply, and the toilet cisterns, we've managed to tie this in with the fire sprinkler system. This will mean that the large reservoir tank (captures rainwater from the roof) that needs to be submerged in the garden will have a larger capacity pump that will operate the sprinkler system too. The other option was to have two pumps - one for the rainwater harvesting and the other for the sprinkler. However, if the sprinkler system pump isn't used for years (and hopefully, it will never be used!) then when we came to need it, the pump may not be working. By combining the two we'll be using the common pump all the time so will know its OK.

We've a meeting arranged with the window man Jesse (I don't know how to pronounce his name correctly - should it be Jess with a silent "e", or Jessy as in a big Jessy?). We need to re-measure the windows now that all the openings are finished so that the correct sizes are made. We have to ensure that the glass is Pilkington "K" glass apparently - with 16mm gap between pains and with argon in the gap - to meet building regulations. This glass lets heat in from the outside, but stops the internal heat escaping - clever eh?

The other development is the news that both the gas and electricity infrastructure suppliers have now decided that we can't have our connection at the top of the drive as previously agreed; both have to be run right down to the house. Now despite the fact that we have to dig the trench for the supply pipe/cable to fit in, its going to cost an additional £1000 for each service (mutters rude words to self). However, Gillian (who sold us the plot), has agreed that we can run the service trench by a more direct route across her garden which will make it easier (avoids lots of shrubs and their root systems), so Roy will be getting on with that in a few days - man and mini digger to the fore. At the same time he will dig the hole for the rainwater harvesting reservoir tank - 8 feet deep. As Jan said, deep enough to bury two people (not surprisingly we were easily able to nominate two candidates!)

I've been down and had a clear up today - removing all the broken tiles a tile pieces from the scaffold - just to make life a little safer for the roofers.

One final little snippet - I noticed today that a cast iron bracket, that had been attached to the garage wall by the front doors, was now lying on the ground. I must assume that our nocturnal visitors last weekend are responsible. It therefore seems likely that in the dark, one of the potential thieves walked into this bracket (it was fixed at about the right height). I wonder if its done some facial damage - I do hope so!

Jan & Rog