28-30 july 2010 up goes the walls

even with our new arrival the work must go on, after all we love our home but it is just a 3 bed house, and now when all our kids are here there is 6 of them, so we are lets say desperate for the 2 new bedrooms in the garage.



what can i say apart from thank god i found CB Groundworks. Recommended by Collier and Catchpole (where I get my materials from) I have found someone who I can work with and together with, who I can trust and have a joke with. He is a dam hard worker and does a gr8 job. 3 days hard work and we have almost completed all the external brickwork. Still got to do the lintel and brickwork over the windows, but the internal blockwork has to be done 1st to provide the strength. also the ground slab still has to be layed, thats next week, so when thats done, up goes the blocks and the brickwork should be done, watch this space.

Thomas 18 July 2010

The building work has slowed down - reason - Thomas, 3lb 14oz, tiny bundle but worth every sleepless night :)))

July 10 - Drainage done

No pics as its a pipe coming through the wall and a little difficult to describe but here goes. Broke through the concrete floor in the down stairs toilet to find the sewer, disconnected the toilet and broke a hole through the side wall. Connected the new length of sewer pipe by a 'flexifit' connector and at the other end a 90 Deg bend to take it up to the new toilet (when fitted). It looks ok, but now got to wait for the inspector and fingers crossed it will be passed together with the brickwork up to DPC. So I guess its watch this space.
12 July, DPC and sewer works approved by Council. Made up a load of concrete at the weekend so filled up to 200mm below DPC between the 2 wall skins with concrete, sloping outwards. Also bedded the sewer pipe in concrete and the hole in the downstairs loo up to screed level. Had the plumber round today, 1st class service and reasonably priced, downstairs loo and sink gone, existing hot and cold feed pipes now extended through wall and capped off ready so at least once the extension is done there is a water supply ready. Now its hardcore time, time to break up my supply of rubble and move it from end of garden to extension area, its raining, its a filthy job, oh joy :(

july 10 finally up to dpc

2 months have past, Christ time flies, saved up like mad and went to Collier and Catchpole, never spent sooooo much money before at a builders yard, brought all the bricks, blocks, sand, cement, lintels, insulation, membranes, dpc etc, so now the bank account is empty and our front drive looks like a building company overspill storage yard. but it was worth it, collier and catchpole were so helpful and ready to give advice to an idiot like me. used reject bricks up to ground level then facing bricks up to dpc on the outside, found out that the garage side does not line up with the rest of the house so the brick courses wont line up but we wont see that bit anyway. got the dpc on and really pleased. borrowed a friends cutting machine and cut the slot into the existing dpc so the new one simply slotted into the existing brickwork. so now its drainage time as got to pick up the sewer from the existing toilet and extend it out into the extension part for the new toilet area. after that Ive got to lay the hardcore down and blind it with sand, should be fun.

may 2010 its concrete time

there was 10 days between digging out the deep trench and filling it in again, i was s****** bricks that the trench would collapse and destroy our neighbours brick paving hence the timber supports (every little helps) anyway, picked up a cement mixer from ebay, had some doubts but in the end a dam fine machine and will save all that hire charges. took delivery of 5t of 20mm ballast and 25 bags of cement, all from a very helpful local company (collier and catchpole) and at a very reasonable price. had a good friend over 4 the day to help (thank god), wanted to make a start before he arrived so knowing it was a 5 to 1 mix i loaded up, ok no one told me i had to put water in the mixer 1st, its a steep learning curve, but managed 2 loads before he arrived, then we started in earnest, 1st load 8.30am and we finished 1.30pm (in time to settle down for the cup final and a bear). each mix was 10 to 2 barrowed around the back and tamped down into the trench. worked out a treat. still got 2t of ballast and 10 bags of cement left over, ideal for the over site. at least that bit is over with. now im skint, got to save up for 240 hard bricks to get me up to dpc and then the building inspector has to come round again to approve the work. im no builder esp brick laying, gave it a try once and condemed it, so i need a local brick layer who will work on a day rate (thats how we are doing the job, bit by bit) once i find someone who will do the job and take delievery of the brick ill carry on, but for now its feet up for a few weeks as we skint.

dam water pipe

nothing goes easy does it, we found a pipe, turned out to be the main water feed pipe to the house, stupid place to put it anyway :( asked a few guys at work, ended up with a 4" plastic pipe cut along length and stuffing it with insulation and plastic bags and duct tape wrapping to hold it in place, we still have water to the house so it must be ok (fingers crossed)

april 2010 dig out that trench

it was time to dig a hole, talk about over the top, lets face it the extension is only 2.8 x 2.5 and single story but the trench had to be 1m deep from ground level and 450mm wide, only just lost the soil so again no skip, broke me spade though :(

april 2010 house extension

dug out over site down 450mm over whole area, saved a few quid by loosing all the soil in the garden, at last we made a start :)

me

ok, 1st time using what they call a blog (whatever that means), all im really after is a place to put my pics and an history of mistake, sorry progress, when transforming our home. lets start at the beginning i guess, we moved into our home 4 years ago, omg what a tip, the gent who lived there b4 us was there since the house was built in the 60's, he was also blind, so you can guess the state as everything was original. out went the green bathroom, wrotten windows and doors etc etc, we found another 20' of garden behind a wall of brambles and discovered that we could not fill in a pond we found until we had built another safer pond for great crested newts that were living in it, so for the first few years its been fun and games, dont get me wrong we love our home, esp now we have 2 little children of our own and a 3rd on the way. the house is not perfect or finished in any way, but we have made a good start. after 4 years its now livable, a new heating system has been installed and we brought next doors kitchen units so its at least semi decent and a vast improvement from what we had (dont ask). so here we are, 4 years later and ready to finish what we started, so in came a builder to quote and out he went again after we found out how much, £34k, what a rip off. we had the plans approved and building regs (good old colchester borough council, money for nothing and lots of it) and we decided to try lots ourselves and do it bit by bit, so this is what i guess will be a history of our house conversion, a simple job to some but a nightmare to us, a builder im not, give me a excel spreadsheet and im a happy piggy but sand and cement no chance, but needs must, we are out of space, 3 bedrooms and 6 kids so its desperate :) the actual job we need, well 1st an extension at the back of the garage to square of the house and to put 2.5m on the back of the garage, the extend the garage roof over the extension, turn it 90deg and so it runs along the back of the house removing the 50yo flat roof we currently have, demolish lots of internal walls to double the size of the kitchen and finally turn the larger garage into 2 bedrooms, simple, oh god help me :)) so here goes ~