Windows, doors, boards, heating, screed, more insulation and paint

It's been 2 weeks since my last blog and there has been some pretty big changes in that time. 

We've now got windows and doors fitted (albeit with some paint issues, but I'll explain that later), the weather boarding preparation has started (and a few boards are on), our paint factory has been de-commissioned after the 2nd coat of paint on the boards being complete (with most of them stacked around the outside of the house ready to go on). First fix electrics are done (barring a couple of little bits now the boards are out of the way), we are awaiting the next delivery for Kingspan Kooltherm Insulation for the floor and walls, we have confirmed a date for the underfloor heating to be installed and also for the flowing screed to go on top of it. 

Windows and doors installed!!

A view from the inside

It's hard to believe that the weather during the 3 days prior to this picture whilst the windows and doors were being fitted was awful - wind & rain!

Fliss and I are both delighted with the windows and doors, we're just waiting for the pewter handles to finish them off. The colouring against the Oak, bricks, tiles and the weatherboard is exactly what we were hoping it would look like when we were planning! The delight of them going in has been a little muted because of an issue with the paint finish on them. We ordered pre finished timber windows so we didn't have anything to do on them once they were installed, but there are patches on all the windows which are lighter grey to what they should be. Whilst it is disappointing the resolution has been quickly dealt with and they are going to be re-painted on site.

We had a visit from my niece on the weekend, it was only right she helped out with a bit of sweeping up... it only cost me a packet of buttons! A fair swap I thought as the minimum wage isn't applicable?

Fliss finally gets the saw out to help with some insulation...

As I mentioned all the boards are now painted with 2 coats, which means that we should only have to do a little bit of touching up once they are on the house. It has amazed me as to the amount of preparation required before the boarding even started. Damp proof course was used to close the brick cavity, lead has been dressed around the top and bottom of all windows and doors, timber finishing to frame the windows were fixed, lead has been dressed on the top of the brick work and batten was put on - before it even got close to putting boards on. Upright finishers on the corners and end of boards around doors and then to boarding could start to go on.

Corner posts, lead dressing, window finish frame and first weather board on

Batten and blue skies

Normal skies resume...

This week we've got our next Kingspan delivery coming and we've got the architect coming to do his next certification visit. The under floor heating in being installed early 4th & 5th of March, which gives me just over a week to put the insulation in the floor and the DPC on top so the pipes can go on. Luckily it looks a lot easier than the roof so we should be fine for time... famous last words!

Finally we have decided to go with Flowing screed through Acorn Construction rather than semi dry. It is a bit more expensive, but it has better thermal value for the underfloor heating and it will also have a smoother (more level) finish. I'll come back to that once it has been done!

Thanks for reading, Tim 

Filming a nosey around another house...

We've had a hectic week on the build and filming! Neil Littleworth has been and done the first fix plumbing and GRM Electrical Services have made a start on the first fix electrics. We've had two lots of filming including a presenter catch up with Charlie Luxton (i'll cover the Charlie catch up in the next blog).

As part of "Building the Dream" we had the opportunity to have a nosey around another self built home that is going to be similar in construction to ours. The house is quite a bit bigger than ours will be, with a lot more oak throughout but it is finished in weatherboard and it has given us feel for what ours will be like at the end. Emma showed us around her home, which felt very warm and homely with a country cottage feel throughout. They have used flooring to make the house flow from the entrance into the kitchen/diner/snug looking and this is something we will look at carefully as we decide on the flooring. 

Holly Cottage, New Radnor

Although ours isn't going be a country cottage style, there were some nice features that either reinforced decisions we had made (like galvanised steel guttering) or gave us something to think about. We had been considering oak ledge and brace doors and these look great with pewter iron mongery (although it might not be what we end up with, but i'll talk about that next blog). They also had solid flooring throughout including bedrooms and seeing this in reality, made me realise that maybe Fliss wasn't wrong with the fact that this can work... We are also (after seeing the stone floor tiles) going to look again at tiles in the main living space, because polished concrete is looking too cost prohibitive at the moment. Another potential cost saving option is to use white skirting and architrave? It is something we were looking at, but seeing how they did theirs works quite well against oak.

Following advice of the plumber we decided to do first fix plumbing in a couple of stages so we can progress along with other works. 

 Copper pipes for the bath run through the stud wall timbers to keep them hidden.

 We'll need to box in this section in afterwards

The soil pipe is left part in place to allow clean cuts for plasterboarding

In the next blog I am going tell you about our day with Charlie Luxton and some more ideas along with giving you more of a look at the inside of the house, our plans and some of the changes made.

What a stud...

and I'm not talking about myself or big Tone!

With the help of big Tone (well most of it to be honest), we've managed to get the stud walling in on the ground floor now as well - so we now have some bedrooms, hallway and a shower room shell downstairs along with two bedrooms and a bathrooms upstairs. It's really starting to feel like a house now!

We've built the downstairs stud walls on stilts to support them until we've decided on what we are doing with the flooring. The plan is to run some flowing screed under the walls and finish at the bottom of the stud, but we are undecided on the floor coverings yet.

Building the stud walling has highlighted a problem with one of the external walls being a little bit out of upright. with timber you can often get issues with alignment, but it is just a little more than we would like so we want to deal with it now so it won't cause any longer-term issues with the finishing. We're not entirely sure of the best way of resolving it, but we are on the case of sorting it out.

Over the last week or so MGL building have been back on-site to finish off all the external brickwork on the house. We think it really looks good now and when we have the painted weatherboard on the exterior it really will compliment the oak.

The stud walling means we are now ready for the plumber to come next week. We've also got another bit of filming scheduled for "Building the Dream," but this time not on site - we're going to look around a finished self-build house to help give us some inspiration and ideas for finishing ours!

So back to another weekend of insulation, first fix carpentry and some painting more boards for Fliss, along with a visit to Burton Court wedding fair and then next week a nose around someone elses house, Neil Littleworth is coming to start first fix plumbing and Gareth at GRM Electrical is coming over for a site meeting so we can get ready for first fix electrics to take place!