A digger, 3rd acre and Gabion maker...

A full on weekend, with lots of help, Gabions, a digger and dumper, a rescue - and when you sandwich a bank holiday BBQ with friends in between (thanks Jay & Em), what more can you want? The weather held up in the main which certainly helped. 

As it was the last long weekend of year, we wanted to get as much done as possible. With help from Arnie, Dad, Mum, Dan (my brother) and a rescue from Ian Godding of Hitrees (thanks Ian!!!!) after a slight indiscretion with the digger (caused by loose soft soil and some rain), we are both really happy with what has been achieved at the end of it. We managed to make, locate and fill a enough Gabions to protect the roadside; back fill soil up to them to level the bottom end of the garden; dig out the back edge of the plot where our home will be; create a couple of new tumps of soil for later in the build & widen the driveway (and the gate post, but that wasn't supposed to happen)! 

Flat packed Gabions, being assembled ready to install by Fliss

As I have already mentioned we decided wire metal Gabion baskets because they were the quickest, easiest and most cost effective solution - but this was the first time I have used Gabions. Cost effective yes, easy and quick no! They we 3.5 mm wire, arrived flat packed, pre-hinged on some sides, with a big roll of wire to tie the other ends. Both mine and Fliss' hands were aching and sore from twisting the wire to lock the sides together (my excuse is office job hands). If you were using them on a flat surface, with uniform stone to fill them with, they would be really simple and very fast to put together - but we weren't. We were spanning an area of approx 7.5 meters this time, with a mixture of large and smaller stone - which was mainly recycled from a fireplace in a cottage that Mum & Dad had in Orleton. The edge where the baskets were being laid wasn't level, which meant using a digger and shovel (well Dad mostly on the shovel) to create as level a base to lay them as possible. The stone used wasn't ideal for this use because it was a bit too big and heavy, proving difficult to get into the baskets without bending them. However, because these weren't going to have a shown face/edge it didn't matter too much, but if we do decide to use them in a more decorative position, it would definitely need to be thought about properly and possibly even going for the thicker wire baskets. 

The stone is much travelled; being hand mauled onto trailers from Orleton to Forty Acres, to Luston and now back to Forty Acres with the assistance of trailers lent from MGL Builders & Roger Mellings Building. Lugging stone is hard graft when you have to hand maul it on and off trailers, into wheel barrows and finally into the Gabions, luckily everyone mucked in and we had a bit of extra help from Dan & Arnie!

During the weekend, with a whistle-stop tutorial on controls, I learnt to operate a digger and by the end of the weekend I was nearly able to ensure the bucket moved the right way first time - even when hopping between digger an dumper.

I tweeted a couple of pics over the weekend www.twitter.com/FortyAcresBuild 

During the next week or so we will be confirming drawings, trying to sort out the best options for insulation. For the next installment I will share some of the plans, until then bye for now!

Tim

A new 30-metre tape, a retaining wall, oh & Building the Dream

This week has seen some exciting developments already happening. We've taken delivery of gabions baskets, I have got a new 30 metre tape measure and we have had confirmation that our meeting on the 13th August has resulted in something very exciting!

Firstly my brand spanking new tape measure, this may seem trivial to some of you (most men though - and of course some women, will understand the excitement of taking delivery of new tools), but I have already put it through it's paces. I have used a full twelve meters of it to give us a real feel for sizes of the building and also the downstairs rooms! Visually when we measured the bedroom sizes it doesn't look big enough to fit a bed in, but again reaching for the tape it is surprising how much space there will be in our little house. 

We have also taken delivery of some Gabion baskets. We need a retaining wall for the bottom end of the garden to enable us to level the plot a little and give us somewhere to put the excess soil from where the building will be positioned. We have already moved quite a lot of soil, but even though Dad said I should have put a retaining wall down the bottom, due to timing we didn't which means we have to dig a bit out and put it in after. After looking at several options including block, sleepers etc, Gabions proved to be the most cost effective option - and because Mum & Dad already had a significant amount of stone available to fill them with, that is what we chose. We sourced them through a company not too far away, Fine Mesh Metals, in Telford. If all goes well we are thinking about using them to retain the soil at the top end? 



The final piece of news this week is pretty big! 

Over the last month we have had some discussions with a TV production company about a show they are due to air later this year. These discussions lead to a planned taster tape on Tuesday 13th of August, with the cameraman due to be with us in the afternoon. Sally from True North rang us a little before he was supposed to arrive to explain that due to a technical hitch (lost car keys), Lee wasn't able to make it to us. We both felt disappointed and I think Sally sensed it. Lee was going to miss out on cakes we had bought (luckily for him, but that is another story), we'd even tidied the Caravan! However, we were keen to do something while we were both here and conducted a video interview over the web. It wasn't ideal because the signal kept dropping out and there was some noise interference, but nonetheless Sally said she would see what she could do with it! I wasn't convinced what we had done would be any good so was concerned that it didn't give us the best chance. A week passed and still no news, a few days more went by and today I decided to make the call to see what was happening? Amazingly, Sally had worked some magic and was able to make a taster tape out of what we had and was just waiting for Channel 4...

When the call came this afternoon, I was feeling a little wary about getting the news. I had convinced myself that too long had passed for anything to happen. Today though we have had confirmation that our project is going to be filmed by True North Productions for a new Channel 4 series called "Building the Dream." It's exciting news for us, ultimately meaning that we will have a unique visual document of the build - from start to finish!

We will be part of the second series (the first series is due to be aired in Autumn) and they will be following our self-build, with filming throughout the process culminating in a 1 hour programme being shown at the end of it all. 

Busy weekend ahead with the digger and dumper ordered and I am sure I'll be measuring something or other!

Until next time, thanks for reading.

Tim

Mortgage payment received... we are off

Today is the most important date for our project thus far... we finally received the 1st instalment of the mortgage payment. An exciting day, reality setting in and of course a screen shot of our temporary bank balance taken before the money starts getting paid out... starting today with the first Instalment to Border Oak for the frame structure.

It has taken several months to finally get the mortgage through and it was Birmingham Midshires who have provided the finance to make the build happen. Applying for a Self Build mortgage wasn't as easy as I expected, in fact quite stressful at times and took a lot more time than anticipated!

As we progressed through the 2 stages of the process for the mortgage application, stage 1 was relatively straight forward; are we suitable and do the numbers for affordability stack up? Stage 2; do the valuations and projected numbers stack up? This wasn't quite so straight forward and here is why. Collies are a national company (part of Lloyds Banking Group) and were instructed to value the property and land by the Mortgage Company. The valuation cost just under £500.00. The valuer had no preparation and didn't know what he was valuing prior to arrival. He was here for a whole 20 mins, looked at the plot and the plans asked a couple of questions, hit me with a bombshell and left. I can't say I enjoyed the experience and it was quite clear the valuer had no real understanding of local area pricing. The bombshell was that he told me "the land is over valued" & "it won't be worth that much after it is built." As you can imagine I was left reeling with that comment so I looked again at the local pricing and experts in our area to validate what I thought. During this time but heard nothing form the Mortgage company for 2 weeks. The concern I had was not that my valuation was "over egged", but that one person could scupper our dream with little regard to our ambition. It made absolutely no difference to him whether it happened or not. After chasing (myself and also the Mortgage Adviser), the valuer hadn't even completed the forms correctly. After a bit of kerfuffle the valuation feedback happened quite quickly. Alas, once we received the valuation back, prior to the mortgage offer being made, the numbers were exactly as we had told the valuer in the first place. No need to worry after all...

Prior to raising the mortgage through Birmingham Midshires, we originally spoke to Handlesbanken, Hereford branch, but they saw the project as too "risky." I am not entirely sure how they made this decision as I felt I was very thorough with the numbers, planning and expectations, but nonetheless it didn't happen. I hope to go back to them at them at the end to show them what we have achieved!

Based on my experience, I would recommend using a Mortgage adviser/specialist who has knowledge and expertise in self-build to help with the paperwork and "oil the wheels" along as they say. There will be a fee involved, but for the right person/advice this will be worth the money.  

We hope to have the house structure with roof on before the end of the year, with the second draw down on the mortgage after the roof structure is complete... The base is due to start in approx 5 weeks, with the frame being ready in approx 12 weeks!

So there it is, we are officially off the mark and I have managed to get the word kerfuffle into the blog - and relatively in context. 

Thanks for reading, Tim

Building our dream...

Welcome and thank you for taking the time to show interest in my blog!

The purpose of this blog is to document a significant journey in our lives (Tim & Fliss) as we embark upon our self build dream in the beautiful Herefordshire countryside. 

Project managing my way through the build, hopefully, I can provide insight into the highs and lows of a self build, what is happening and when and how we are feeling throughout.

I also hope to share with you some of the skills I learn along the way and the companies and trades that will be making the build possible. 

I will also be tweeting @fortyacresbuild for those on twitter!

A little bit about me...

My name is Tim Benson, I am 34 years young and I run our local family garage business, Oldfields Garage Services Ltd in Leominster. I have two wonderful children aged 11 & 10 who live with there mum in South Wales. 

After starting my working life in the motortrade at the Hereford VW dealership, I gained a HND from Hereford Tech College and a Degree in Business Administration from Cardiff University. I then went back to work again in an IT company that went bankrupt, a cosmetic surgery company, Glamorgan and Swansea Universities and now I'm back home where I was brought up in Leominster. I am a keen sports fan, playing (well trying to) football twice a week and watching as much as Fliss will allow in between soaps and stuff you learn from. 

My partner in crime, Fliss, is a Hairdresser @ Renaissence in Leominster and will be helping me through it all, keeping me sane, putting up with my grumps and keeping me in check!!