Ducts, tanking, scaffolding and even walls!

It's been a busy couple of weeks on site.  The builders have installed the ducts which will carry electricity, water and BT cables to our house as well as the drains that will take foul and surface water away.  This was a little more difficult than normal due to the steep slope, but thery're now all in place and covered over.

Ducts for electricity (black), water (blue), BT (grey) and drains (brown)

The brick layers are making good progress with the external walls.

A scaffolding loading platform and steps have made accessing the site much easier.  Deliveries will be lifted straight off the lorries onto the high level platform from where they can more easily be moved to wherever they are needed.

With the external walls going up, we can start to picture the views that we will get from the bedroom windows on the ground floor.  In summer this is going to be tree tops, however in winter we'll be able to see through the trees and across the valley to the moors beyond.  We think we'll be able to see over the trees from the first floor and will definately be able to from the second floor office and roof terrace.

Gill surveys the view from the bedroom window

 The tanking system which will stop water from from coming through the retaining wall has been completed.  Any water is drained to the bottom of the cavity wall, where a drain takes it away.

Tanking to retaining wall

 The external walls contain 100mm of rigid polyisocyanurate insulation board which will give really good thermal performance.  All the concrete and blockwork that's been used so far doesn't feel very 'eco', but it will provide excellent thermal mass, helping the house to keep warm in winter and cool in summer.

External walls in progress

The ground floor takes shape

Beam and block ground floor

Electricity Woes

A bit of bad news this week.  We've received the quote for the electricty connection from YEDL and it's a little more than we'd budgeted.  Aparently there is no mains electricity in the road directly opposite our plot and the connection needs to be made 50m further up the street,  This has resulted in it costing about £5000, as opposed to the £1500 that it normally would.  Unfortunately there's very little we can do as there is only one way to get the connection and living without power is not really an option!
Other than this little set-back, work is moving forward well.  The below ground drainage has been installed for both the foul and surface water systems and the ground floor is due to go in this week.  The retaining wall has been built even higher and is now ready to be tanked.

The retaining wall continues to grow

The drains are in and the walls take shape

Retaining walls complete

The retaining walls are now complete and the gabions look fantastic, we hope you'll agree.  It's a shame that it will only be seen from the bathroom windows!  The builders have also made a really nice job of connecting the gabions with the stone retaining wall that runs across the boundary from the neighbours garden (right hand side of photo).

Gabion wall

Concrete retaining wall

Weekend Update

We've just got back from another site visit to check out the progress over the last couple of days.  All the foundations are now complete so we're 'out of the ground' which means we're past the riskiest stage.

The retaining wall is now built to its full height which gives us a good idea of how the slope behind the house will end up.  The gabions are also slowly filling up and have been really nicely faced with stone which has been reclaimed from the site.

Foundations complete

Retaining wall and gabions

Brickwork

We made another site visit yesterday in between the showers to review the brickwork which has just started.  The bricklayer has kindly done a couple of options for the pointing - bucket handle or flush.  The bucket handle pointing creates a deeper recess at the joints and somehow looks too perfect for the type of bricks we have chosen.  We definately prefer the flush pointing where the mortar is finished almost level with the face of the bricks.  Because of the worn corners of the bricks this also changes the visible brick-to-mortar ratio of the finished wall.

Brickwork with flush pointing

The builders have also marked out the internal walls on the ground, ready for the very shiny new digger to start the rest of the foundation trenches on Monday.

Internal walls marked out

From above you can start to see the footprint of the house

Good news

We've just heard that our revised planning application has been approved!  We needed to re-submit our drawings because we have decided not to build the garage and re-arrange the parking spaces and steps.  This now means that there is nothing left outstanding to be agreed with the planners, so one more thing ticked off.

The builders have started the brickwork today which is exciting!  It's the first bit which will still be visible at the end.

The walls are growing.