Week 20 - Internals - 13th Dec

A bit warmer at the start of this week so we've managed to get the screed down in the porch which is good as the forecast is for it to get colder again. The dryliners are also back this week which is good news as they are now quite behind schedule and with the kitchen due the 2nd week of Jan we need them to speed on.

The floor tiles have arrived and there are three crates in front of the house that need unloading into the house. Looks like my workout for the week is scheduled!!! They will look fantastic when laid I think as they have stunning colours in them and quite a few have fossils in. We've found a tiller through a local tile center, he does all of their displays so should make a good job of ours. They are quite large tiles 60cm x 60cm and we have 60 square meters of them!
The scheduling is quite tight now as we want to move in (finished or not) at the end of Jan.

The heating is coming 1st Week of Jan along with the tiller and the Kitchen follows the following week. So we have to be plastered and painted in these areas by then.

The carpenters are also in this week so we have door linings all on and external doors with locks, which we have boarded up to keep the weather out as they are not glazed yet.

Week 19 - 6th Dec - Glass

With the glass going in this week we can start to keep out the cold a little, and hopefully our floor will dry out in time for tilling in the new year. We have a friend who is a director at Evander Glazing and Locks who has done us a great deal on the glass and the guys that are fitting it are excellent and are working through the cold snap all credit to them.

The carpenter has fitted the external doors so we can also get Evander to measure up for the door glass that we need.

Interestingly (or not maybe) the external doors require 14mm glazing units rather than the standard 24mm ones. As these are less thermally efficient the rest of the house has been compensated by Potton to still achieve the required U values.

The dryliners have surcome to the flu this week and so have our bricklayers, who we had booked in this week as the temperatures are due to rise towards the end of the week which had given us a 'window' to get the external brickwork done but best laid plans.......

With luck they will be back next week and we can get moving on the internals again and also screed the porch if the temperatures hold up.

Week 18 - 29th Nov - Drainage

This week the drainage is being put in. Not the sexy bit of the build and not a nice job in the snow but the Trell boys are getting stuck into it, all credit to them.

As we are in the middle of the country side we have a septic tank, which was used for the old property that we demolished. We commissioned a local firm of experts to do the drainage design and also provide an expert opinion that the septic tank was large enough for the new house and still in good working order as building control seemed to be saying we needed to replace it for a new dwelling (Not something we wanted or needed to do). So Trell are joining the foul drainage into the existing septic tank and also routing the storm water round to a 15m squared soak away filled with Aquasole units.
The 2nd fix carpentry items have also arrived this week from Potton so have have stairs, door linings, skirting and doors....well they are all pilled up in various rooms of the house. As there is no heating we have made sure that they are off the ground and well supported on bearers to stop the wood absorbing too much moisture and warping. The doors we have varnished as best we can in the sub zero temperatures!

The day after the delivery and we now have stairs assembled and a front door on.
We made the mistake of using 15mm plasterboard on the internal walls instead of 12.5mm so the door linings that Potton sent are not big enough, opps. Luckily there were some shortages so Potton agreed to re-deliver but with slightly larger ones.

Week 17 - 22nd Nov - Screed

8:30am on Monday and a cement mixer load of screed is delivered to the material store that is our front garden. It's then barrowed into the house and laid level. Another load on Tuesday morning and hey presto we have a floor...well almost, the levels were not quite consistent through the house so they used a bot more than anticipated so the porch is still to be finished off with a manual mix of sharp sand and cement, which I've arranged to be delivered on Thursday.

Trell, the ground workers, are also back on site this week and next to dig in the drainage, electrics and water. The soakway design uses Aquasole units (expensive milk crates!) over a 15m squared area to cope with the large roof area (you are not allowed to use rubble any more).

Just as we are speeding along along comes the snow so no screed in the porch this week and the bricklayers will not be back as mortar will not set when it is too cold. Inside is still pushing on and the dryliners have almost finished upstairs and we have taken out the crash desk where the stairs are going to go so they can dry line the walls in this area.

Our 2nd fix joinery is booked in for next week so more material to find a home for!! but we have space inside now the floor is down.

The carpenters have been in this week and cut in the extra window we decided to have in the play room and it now makes this room really light so I think is was the right decision to get this done sooner rather than later.

Been a busy week this week on Friday we have vans backed up way down the drive with Trell on site, the heating company were back to get the pipes for the ground source heat pump into the house and also Evander, the glazers, in to template up the four glass triangles in the front window.

Lets hope the cold snap does not delay things too much but at least the kids are enjoying the snow and we have enough trades people on site for a good snowball fight!!!

Week 16 - 15th Nov - Underfloor Heating

We have the underfloor heating for downstairs being installed this week and the scaffolding is coming down, so we are dead exited about this.

We've tried to minimise the time between the underfloor going down and the screeding of the floor to avoid risking damaging the underfloor heating pipes, but a few sheets of ply provide protection in the meantime. The screed is due next week and we do not have any other trades in this week so should not really be a problem.

The fireplace has become our only inside downstairs storage inside so it is packed with a bath, wash basins, taps and all sorts!

We visited, what seems a long time ago, The Natural Slate Company Ltd in north London and they had some great floor slates (with a 15% discount for Potton clients) at the cheapest prices we have found in the UK. The had a gorgeous Indian Raja natural slate but it's hard to tell when you just look at showroom samples if an entire floor of them will look great and what the consistency is like. Their warehouse is in Bridlington in Yorkshire and it happens that I'm in the area this week so I'm going to go to the warehouse and see some more of them.

The warehouse of the Natural Slate Co is an amazing place stacked from floor to ceiling with crates of slate. The staff were great and somehow knew where to look for a crate of the Indian Raja slate we liked. They flork lifted a couple of crates down so I could look through them. They looked great so I bought 4 600mm x 600mm slates back in the car to show Elise and put them down in the kitchen to have a look at and we've now ordered 60 square meters to cover the kitchen, utility, sun room and porch.

By the end of the week the scaffolding is down, hurahh. We are slowly taking up more and more of the increasingly muddy drive with materials scaffold boards etc etc. Luckily our neighbor is very understanding but I've had to get the scaffolders to promise to pick everything up at the week end as the screen arrives on Monday.

Week 15 - 8th Nov - Drylining

After the insulation trauma of the last few weeks we can hand back over to the professionals now as the dryliners are starting this week. We have managed to source the plasterboard cheaper than the dryliners from Sheffield Insulation and have ordered in 100 sheets of 125mm square edged plaster board to start with.

To add to the internal acoustic insulation we are going to use acoustic (dbCheck) paster board on the internal walls. The guttering is also being installed this week which is the last trade that require the scaffolding so we have booked for the scaffolding to be removed next week, which is exciting as the house will then emerge from it's construction womb to stand on it's own footings and we will be able to see the finishing line move a step closer.

The soil pipes are also being boxed in this week so we have a couple of chippies onsite doing this and adding further noggins for the plasterboard.

We still have to finish the insulation on the floor this week as the underfloor heating is being laid next week. Most of the floor is done but the hallway where the dryliners are working to cut plasterboard will have to wait until the weekend.

We are using 60mm Ecotherm versal for the floor then adding a polythene membrane on top to act as a vapour membrane. The insulation is easy to cut to size with a saw and membrane is also easy to fit have given ourselves the weekend to get this done.

The dryliners have not quite made the progress we have hoped by the weekend and there is loads of mess to tidy up first before the rest of the floor insulation can be laid. There is quite a bit of plasterboard inside so we have had to shift this either back out side or upstairs. I can see why this is quite hard work as the plasterboard sheets weight a tonne and the dbCheck stuff weighs even more.

But with a little hard graft over the weekend we are now ready for the underfloor heating next week.

Week 14 - 1st Nov - More Insulation

Been hard at the insulation all weekend and we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We have drafted in some help this week to get us finished in time for the dryliners next week so we should be done in time, fingers crossed.

After spending all last week un-rolling the insulation then cutting it up, some bright spark said cut it still rolled up it's much easier, and guess what, it is so we are getting on faster now, although our lungs and eyes are suffering even with masks. It seems that you can only protect either your lungs or your eyes, but not both at the same time with out totally steaming up your glasses and loosing the ability to see!! (Not advisable when balanced up a ladder in the eves)

Elise has been putting up the 25mm acoustic insulation in the internal walls at a great rate of knots with help of the staple gun and this along with the dbcheck plasterboard we are going to use on the internal walls will hopefully provide good sound proofing between the rooms.

Timber construction are back this week to finish off the external weatherboard and to finish off some 1st fix carpentry and the house nearly looks complete now from the outside.  The electrician is also back as are the heating guys who are putting in the wiring for the thermostatic controls so it's packed out inside and with more rain the front of the house is a no go area for cars and vans.

On the recommendation of the electrician, we have photographed the positions of the electrical cables and pipework in the walls so that in the future we can drill the walls and hopefully not hit anything!

It feels like we are making good progress now and lots of sections of the house are coming together so we can look forward to the next phase of the build and start planning the final pieces of the "Self Build Jigsaw".

Week 13 - 25th Oct - Insulation

In order to try and save some money we have decided to have a go at installing the insulation ourselves this week. We had Sheffield Insulations round last week to measure up and provide a quote for the materials as they seemed to have the best prices we could find by scouring the internet. It's half term so we have managed to get both our parents to share looking after the kids so we can get stuck in.

As we have a lot of vaulted areas we have been advised to use Knauf rafter roll 32 to insulate the eves. It is a semi rigid glass fibre product that comes in a roll which you cut to length and push fit into the gaps. It is 85mm thick so we will need two layers on the external eves leaving a 50mm gap between the underside of the roof felt and the insulation to stop moisture transferring from the roof into the insulation.

We also want to have better acoustic insulation internally so we will be insulating the internal walls with a 25mm glass fibre and the downstairs ceiling with 100mm. Add to that the floor insulation and some other board based insulation for the 140mm rafters and you have one heck of a lot of insulation and two rather confused self builders trying to work out what goes where!!!

We've taken all day Monday just to unload the delivery of 82 rolls of rafter roll and get it upstairs and are starting to doubt our wisdom in taking this on!!!

Tuesday - We have started on the landing but it is slow going cutting to size and slotting into place up ladders,. We have masks, gloves and eye protection but it makes your face itch with all the dust and it feels like we have been at the beach all day (Now there is a thought) with the salty wind battering your face. I'm thinking a week is not going to be enough time to get this done.

Wednesday - Elise is by herself today as I've had to visit a client and then get the kids and take them to their next holiday destination of Elise's parents.

Thursday - We've managed to get half of the main bedroom done, yipee. The bits right at the top are nearly impossible to get at and at one point Elise had to pull my legs to get me out of a tight spot! We are both flagging and are still not even halfway yet, maybe this was not such a good idea. To top things off the porta loo people could not get here this week to service the toilet so things are getting wiffee but on the upside there is no need to remove our masks when crossing your legs will just not work any more!!!!

Week 12 - 18th October - Plumbing and Electrics in full flow

The outside is coming on nicely and inside1st fix Electrics and Plumbing will be completed this week. The amount of decisions that are required for the electrics is crazy, so we are lucky to be on site all the time else decisions would be made for us.

Week 11 - 11th Oct - Starting to look like a house

We are starting to feel like a house now. The underfloor heating guys are in this week as well, putting in the upstairs underfloor heating. They attached metal plates to the underside of the floor and drill holes for the pipes to run through. The pipes all run back to a manifold which for the upstairs is in the airing cupboard. Its a time consuming task as there is a lot of drilling so they will be around all week.

Paul the electrician is pulling wires for the electrics and drilling more holes, the joists are quite close together, but he has a special right angled drill that deals with the problem.

We had to get the scaffolders back to do some adjustments so the chimney could be built and some tweaks for the roofers.

The fire place is done and the chimney is up by Wednesday. We are really please with he fireplace it looks great....

We managed to find a reclaimed chimney pot from the local salvage company so we can use the ones we reclaimed from the old house (As they were too short) as planters in the garden.

We have booked Timber Construction to come back on Monday to put up the weather board between the sun room and the house. The roofers have leaded between the sunroom and the house and put a row of the pin tiles on. This will allow Lee and his team to walk up and down the sun room roof whilst there are no tiles on so they can attach the weather board. Then the roofers can finish the sun room roof hopefully towards the end of next week and the whole roof should then be complete.

Week 10 - 4th Oct - Starting on the inside.

We have the roofers, electrician and a team of 6 builders to build the fire place and chimney this week so we should make some good progress this week. The parking is going to get tight but on the up side it's great motivation to get here early and bag a space!

The tiles are going on the roof at a great rate of knots now, once the dorma's and valleys had been done the rest of the roof just flies on. The Velux windows have been slotted into place and the sun room is being battoned for the smaller pin tiles we have decided to have on here and the dorma's. We decided with some advice from the roofers and others that the larger pan tiles would look too big on these smaller roof areas and Sandtoft do a pin tile in the same colour as the pan tiles we are using. It's adding a bit to the cost but should be worth it.

As the dorma windows are already in situ the lead work around the bottom of the windows is harder to get right as normally it would be wrapped under the window then the window placed on top. We will have to find a peiece of timber to put under the window to hide the nails holding the lead up.

Unsurprisingly with six brickies on the job the fireplace is steaming ahead and the bricks look great. We are using white cement with lime to enhance the colour of the bricks and whilst the white cement is more pricey it is again proving worth the additional cost.

Week 9 - 27th Sept - Roof

Finally we are water tight and Elise can stop sweeping water. The felt is finished and tiles are due to be delivered in the next day or two.

Trevor Prior, the chimney and brick work contractor is also weather bound on his current job so will not be with us until next week. At least that give us a bit more time to get the materials for him to site, we are having difficulty finding 50mm thick bricks for the herring bone effect we are after for the fire place.

The site is starting to churn up again now with the arrival of another tele handler for the roofers to move around the tiles, time for the wellies again!

Elise has sourced some 50mm bricks from cumbria and they have been delivered along with the bricks for the chimney and brick plinth and other materials for the fire place, it's getting a bit crowded at the front of the site and with the mud we have stashed materials all over the place

Week 8 20th Sept - Time for the roof.

The Potton frame is now up and timber construction have left for now, until the roof and chimney are complete.

They will then come back and finish the weather board and a couple of other bits of the first fix carpentry.

The roofers have arrived on site and have made a start on felting and battoning the front portion of the roof. Unfortunately my attempt at putting in the noggins (supports) for the valleys are not upto scratch!! The GRP valleys they are using are 12" wide and the noggins have to be out a further 1" either side to allow the battons to be nailed in.  As I only battoned out at five inches, I now need to add another row of battons to reach 7 inches either side of the valley.  Oops.
So I've spent Monday afternoon adding another row of battons on. Just as well I didn't decide to do the house erection myself!!

Trell have been back now to finish the manifold pit for the ground source heat pump. It is essentially two 1.5m wide concrete rings sitting onto of some blocks with all of the pipes coming in from underneath. A concrete lid goes on top which has a man hole in for access.

The pipes have all been connected up and pressure tested with water (no leaks thank goodness) the water will be replaced with a glycol fluid that retains the heat from the ground once it is all hooked up.

Rain Rain go away .....we are battling with the weather and loosing un-surprisingly. It rains, we sweep out the water that is sitting on the upstairs floor then it starts to rain again. A third of the roof is covered but the rain is hampering the progress of the roofers to get it finished.

The roof is almost there by Friday but the roofers did not turn in today so annoyingly we are still not quite water tight and the rain is still coming with more forcast for the week end.....More sweeping!!

We have booked our Electrical Paul Auber (Auber Electrical) to start the 1st fix electrics on 5th October, we are finding that there is generally a 2-4 week lead time for booking in trades so as soon as we have an idea of timing we are booking them in.

Week 7 13th Sept - Frame nearly there.

It's week seven of the project and week four of the frame erection. We are back to 2 guys on site as the majority of the erection is completed, but we are expecting a further guy on Tuesday to assist with the weather boarding. We decided to employ Timber Construction - who erected our frame - to provide the first fix carpentry and to fix the weather board. As first time self builders, we think this was the best option for us as all the trades seem to interact with the other trades at this point (eg roof, weather board,  brick plinth, chimney); getting everyone in at the right time seems to be really important otherwise delays will be suffered.  We were concerned that our lack of knowledge and understanding would have led to delays, all of which will impact upon our eventual moving date.  Timber construction can put on some of the weather board now where it does not require the roof to be up so we ordered the weather board and battons for the corners of the house and for around the windows last week and it has arrived now. The weather board is pre painted but the battons require painting so we have been hard at it all weekend.

The big window frames at the front are in and the dormas are being finished, so the end (of this phase) is in sight.The troublesome sun room trusses are complete although the scaffolding is stopping the trusses be nailed in exactly vertical so will have to remember to do this when we raise the scaffolding this week in preparation for the roofers.
There is quite a bit of space in the roof void above the sun room so we have asked Potton to send us a eaves door so we can access it from the spare bedroom. There is quite a bit of space flooring kicking around so we have gathered it all up and are slotting it together.

We have also decided we would like to add a window in the family room if we can as it feels quite dark so we will have to talk to planning up it should not be an issue.....he says....

The roofing firm has been round to look and have advised what scaffolding changes they need. Also we need to put in noggins (supports) either side of the valley to support the GRP valley. This is not part of the frame erection service so I'm going to give it my best shot....Should be interesting.

Week 6 - 6th Sept 2010 - and Up

The frame is really progressing now, the second floor is being put on. We've set up a time lapse camera which should make interesting viewing once the whole house is up. The big Douglas Fir beams are in position and are sticking out of the frame just waiting for the roof and second floor.

The flooring is down for the first floor and we can start to see the shape of the rooms emerging. Downstairs the only steel is in place, which runs through the kitchen. They just managed to get it into position with the tele-handler from the front of the house. Lee and Ben have been joined by another two chippies, Dave and his apprentice so we should really start motoring (Well after we have had another delivery which is holding them up). There are also two Trell (ground worker) guys on site slogging away with the 750m of piping for our ground source heat pump so the site is  now quite lively with six guys in total and the stereotypical radio blaring out radio two!! .

The hole where the chimney and fire place will go looks massive; it will really be a feature of the living room. We have booked a guy called Trevor Pryor - who is on the Potton list of sub contractors and has done loads of Potton houses, including the show house - to build our chimney so he should know what he is doing.
The scaffolders are also back (asking for tea as usual) and pushing each other over in the mud, that's scaffolders for you!! They are putting in the next lifts for the gable ends and closing off the scaffold, it doesn't take them long to do at all.  We were told that scaffolders have a tendency to be somewhat unreliable but the team we have employed have been great to date.

Finally our sunroom frame has been erected.  We were really excited to see this, and we are chuffed to bit with what we have seen of it so far.  The views across the garden and over the fields are great.  When you are just at the planning stage it is really hard to envisage exactly what a room will look and feel like in real life, but this one has certainly lived up to expectations.

The roof trusses for the sun room are causing a problem and Potton are sending out some timber so they can be made up on site.

The walls of the first floor are up now and the roof trusses are going on. With four guys here it's really flying up. It's amazing now how big it looks, when we stood on the foundations 3 weeks ago we wondered if we should have made it bigger, but now the frame is nearly up you get a true sense of the size and as you come up the drive it looks great.

Week 5 - 30th August - Timber Frame Goes up.

Over the next two weeks the timber frame is emerging out of the ground at a mighty pace. It's so quick to go up the panels (External walls) are just nailed to the sole plates. They are all pre-insulated and have the windows in already, it's almost like a giant lego jigsaw (Sounds easy but I would not want to try it myself) The guys doing it have constructed plenty before so make it look easy and seem to know exactly which bits go where.

The scaffolders have arrived and have put the first level of scaffolding in but the weather has moved in and the site is churning up, the forklift is skidding all over the place and we are sinking up to the top of our wellies in certain areas!! All credit to Lee and Ben they don't seem to stop unless the heavens really open.
The site at the front is getting quite cramped with deliveries from Potton being unloaded and Sand being delivered and moved by dumper round the back for Trell who have now moved onto digging in the 750m of pipe work into the ground for our ground source heating system.
Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP)
We have decided to invest in some green technology for the heating system. Long term (circa 10years) it will payback, unfortunately we did not manage to arrange it in time to qualify for the £1200 grant but this is (hopfully) being replaced the RHI (Renewable Heat Incentive) which will pay an annual amount for "green" systems. This along with the fact that oil is only going to get more expensive made us decide to go for this heating system. We investigated quite a few options but Nu-heat proved the best system for us as they provide both the GSHP and underfloor heating and were the cheapest supplier we found. Hopefully this will make it easier as one contractor will be responsible for both elements and we will not be caught in the middle.

We have to bury 3 lengths of 250m of pipe in the ground 1m apart at a depth of 1.5m where the ground temperature is fairly constant all year round at  about 10 degrees.  The pipes all feed back to a manifold and then two pipes go back to the house one for heated liquid from the land back to the heat pump and one back out. The principle is that the land is a constant temperature at 1 - 1.5m below the surface so as the liquid flows round the loops it heats up then is returned to the heat pump and a heat exchanger heats up the domestic hot water and underfloor heating.
Sand is used to protect the piping from stones and flint in the soil, you need 6 inches below and above the pipe which does not sound much but soon adds up. For this reason we decided to dig trenches rather than did out the whole area to lay the pipes, there are three methods to bury the pipes. 1) Use a special machine that cuts a slice in the soil and pushes the pipe in to 1m depth. 2) Dig out half the area and lay in sand lay the pipe and fill in then do the next area. 3) Dig trenches one by one, lay the sand and pipe in and fill. We opted for the third method as we wanted to go down 1.5m (to make sure of the temperature) and the amount of sand required for method two was 750 tonnes!!!

Week 4 - 23rd August 2010 - Timber Frame Delivery

The timber frame is here!!! The first delivery came at 9am along with the 2 man Erection team (Lee & Ben) and Karen from Potton PR, OK it's going to be a busy day!!

The sole plates that are the first thing required were unfortunately at the bottom of the lorry load so they had to wait until 10am for the rather large forklift to arrive before they could start. It was no bad thing as Trell were finishing off brushing cement into the block and beam. Once the forklift arrived Lee and Ben got cracking on the sole plates which are fixed around the edge of the foundations and on which everything else will sit. It's very important that they are exactly level but Trell had done a sterling job on the block and beam so they did not have to pack underneath much to get it all level. The beams for the block and beam come with a slight curve so that when they are loaded up with blocks they become level!! We had to supply lengths of roofers undercloak (more new language to learn!) that could be packed between the foundation and the sole plates to get it all totally level.
Whilst all this was going on Karen was busy filming and getting our thoughts on the build, so in addition to learning a new language ie. builders speak we had to brush up on our presentation skills.
Karen has ordered a time lapse camera which should make for interesting viewing ans is going to come back tomorrow to get the kids on camera (I guess they must be a bit more photogenic than me!!)

Week 1 - 26th July 2010 - Foundations

Due to the number of trees on our site we decided to get the foundations designed by a local consultancy Hindley Associates) that were on the Potton contractor list. The design required a 1.8m foundation in some areas and a 2.1m depth in areas close to some of the trees, which considering the old house stood for 100years on next to no foundations made us grin but was not un-expected. We would not recommend this company as communications proved difficult after the initial meeting. After sending out 5 tenders we appointed local company Trell Contractors Ltd to dig the foundations and construct the block and beam

oversite.
It only took a few days to dig the foundations and after numerous visits from concrete mixers the footings were complete and the brickies arrived to start the block work. Trell had worked on Potton timber frame houses before and had to ensure the brick layers measured correctly as the measurements are taken from a different point and the tolerances for timber frame are less forgiving than for brick houses.

We had a delay of a week and a half as the beam design did not get signed off and the supplier had a longer than normal leadtime so things came to a stand still for a few days. Typically, as soon as the beams arrived it started to rain, but they still cracked on a good pace and within 4-5days we had a completed block and beam slab. Maxwell and Tilly decided to make a time box, with some pictures and toys etc in and they laid it under the garden room just in case there is a "repeat performance" in the future!!! (Not by us I hasten to add!!)

We used a company called Plandicil to perform a perculation test to establish the size of soak away needed and also to advise on the sizing of the existing septic tank as building control said it may need replacing. Luckily the report from Plandicil concluded that it was sufficient for the size of the house and number of bathrooms.

We timed the Potton erection team to start the day after Trell were due to finished which worked well as the Trell guys were still on site finishing off so the erection team could check the slab. They had to make one small correction to the sun room which was done straight away, but other than that they were spot on.
We decided to leave the rainwater drainage and foul drainage until a later date in the project as there was not enough time to do it before scaffolding was required.

Demolition. W/C 14th June 2010

PRE DEMOLITION
Before knocking the existing house down we had to disconnect the utilities.  Water, oil and BT were simple, but electricity caused our first delay.  It took 8 weeks from when we first contacted EDF to actually getting it disconnected, so it's worth organising well in advance as this delayed our build start date. We decided to build an electrical kiosk to provide an electricity supply for the duration of the build and to supply the office, and we plan to utilise this as our permanent supply when the new house is built as this will avoid having to pay EDF to come back again.

We've had a log cabin office built in the back garden to run the business from, but it also provides a useful base from which we can manage the build.  From watching far too many Grand Designs we realised it would be best to be on-site as much as possible, but rather than live in a caravan on-site, we cheated and decided to rent a house 20mins away! 9 months in a caravan was not something we fancied with two young kids!! (or without come to think of it).

DEMOLITION
We lined up the demolition to start the day after the electricity was finally cut off. We'd used a local chap (Charles Hastings from CH Mini Digger Hire) to dig in the electrics for the office and he gave us a good price to demolish the house so we happily employed him to do the work.. He did a great job. He kept the site very tidy and he also found a local farmer who took the rubble away for nothing. We looked into having a crusher so we could use/sell the crushed rubble, but by the time you'd hired the machine and an operator it was not worth while financially, so to get the rubble removed at nil cost was great.

We stripped the clay pantiles and concrete roof tiles (with the kind help of our next door neighbour) before the demolition started and Charles separated out the wood and metal during demolition. There weren't enough roof tiles for us to re-use, but we found a reclamation yard that gave us 55p each for the clay pantiles and 25p for the concrete tiles so it was well worth the effort. We also managed to recoup about £300 for the metal at the local metal merchant, Mellor Metals (mostly for the copper pipes).

TENDER DOCUMENTS
We have decided to send out at least 5 tenders for each part of the build and, where ever possible, send out to contractors that have been recommended to us. That way we can be sure of getting reliable tradespeople at the most competitive prices. Potton supply a list of previously used contractors in the manual, but recommendations from friends etc are invaluable as they tend to be for local builders.

The tender documents we have sent out have been based loosely upon the example tender documents supplied by Potton in their project management file, but we have used our own format and added more detail..

Stalland House Build

Hi, This blog will all be about the house that we are building, we being myself Kevin Meers, Elise Meers my better half, Maxwell & Tilly our kids.

After purchasing a 3 bed cottage in Norfolk last year and successfully obtaining planning permission for a large extension we soon discovered that  extending was not a cheap business. After consulting a number of builders and a quantity surveyor on pricing up extending the house it soon became clear that they all thought it would be better to start again.

So will after much deliberance, we took the decision to demolish and start again. We had always wanted to build a Potton barn style house and so contacted Potton homes www.potton.co.uk and selected a Belvior barn style house which, with the help of Potton's recommended architects, CHQ we streched and tweaked at bit. We submitted for planning and got permission in April 2010 to proceed. In hindsight it helped us quite a bit that we already had planning to extend the original house in obtaining permission for the new build. We are novice self builders but budget constraints restrict us from employing a main contractor or project manager so we will undertake this ourselves, so with the help of a Potton project management course and a Potton manual we are undertaking this project to end up (with luck) a family home of 2600 sq ft. I'm also sure it will be much more rewarding to have managed it ourselves when we eventually have a completed house (I may eat those word later but there we go!)

My wife, Elise, has given up her job as a forensic accountant to A, spend more time with the Kids and B, project manage the build. I will help out as much as possible whilst running our business Redrose Software Ltd (www.redrosesoftware.co.uk) which writes business system software for footwear and fashion businesses.

I'm writing this blog to provide more detail to out twitter posts http://twitter.com/stallandhouse  which we hope may be of use to other Self builders and to give us a record of our progress, stumbles, frustrations and elations.