Monday 18 June
Up early to be ready for the builders’ arrival from 8 am onwards. 9am no sign of anyone. 10am still no sign of anyone. Texted the man in charge to confirm the guys are coming today. The answer is yes. They should be here already.
With urgent errands in town, I have no choice but to go out and leave the house key in an envelope stuck to the front door so the builders can let themselves in if they arrive while I’m away. Hope no one else lets themselves in with the key while I’m out!!
Back home at noon. The house key is still in the envelope on the front door. The good news is that I haven’t been robbed. The bad news is that there’s still no sign of the builders.
Text the man in charge again - what’s going on?
Reply a short while later - there’s been a communication problem. The guys will be with me around one o’clock....which they were.
It seems that the team have been working this morning at No 33. Right house number, but wrong street, wrong town! What are the chances of two jobs going on at properties with the same house number but in completely different places? But now the lines of communication have been ironed out, the men are hard at work again.
By the end of the afternoon, they have taken down the fence posts and panels along the boundary on the line of the extension’s side wall and dug the footings for the foundations right up to the boundary line.
The little bird nesting box and a wall mounted water feature have been carefully removed and stored for reuse when the project is finished.
I said farewell to the clematis Armandii which has been growing over the pergola for a decade or so, which has had to be removed to make way for the extension. The foliage starts piling up on the deck, but fortunately no bird’s nests. The house looks very bare now and the neighbour's lean-to conservatory and windows are in full view...It’s sad to see the clematis go, but I’ll replace it with other climbing plants when the building work is over.
By late afternoon, the skip is full and the most of the deck is still covered in vegetation. But with nowhere to put it, there’s not much more they can do today other than order another skip.
Building Control are coming tomorrow afternoon to inspect the footings. The concrete for the foundations will be poured on Wednesday or Thursday, depending on when they can get a truck.
While all this was going on, the original door to the cupboard under the stairs was collected by the successful bidder in an eBay auction, who gave me half a dozen free range eggs from her own hens. Isn’t that nice?
Tuesday 19 June
I had been told to expect the Building Inspector between 1 o'clock and 3 o'clock in the afternoon, so went out in the morning in order to be home in time to let him in.
Back at home by 12.15pm to find a note on the front door to say that the Building Inspector had called at noon and there was no answer. Please ring the Council to arrange another inspection. How frustrating is that?
Phoned as requested, explained what had happened and asked for the Inspector to visit the following morning. I was told that the Inspector would ring to confirm expected time of arrival. Spent the rest of the afternoon waiting for a call, to no avail.
So...a day without any action on site at all. The only event relating to the house project was an email from the builder with a revised contract sum analysis and invoice for the deposit, which I was too tired to deal with. It can wait until tomorrow.
Wednesday 20 June
Phoned the Council again to confirm that the Building Inspector will be coming to site today. They can't contact him as he's out on site, but have left a voice mail message asking him to ring me with an ETA. The call eventually comes mid- morning and he says he'll be here late morning.
When the Building Inspector arrives, we go into the garden to look at the footings. He asks what was there before, so I told him just paving, plants, fence posts and panels. I have to confirm that the roots he can see in poking out of the sides of the footings are those of the clematis, the remains of which are now piled up on the deck and some ferns, which I have to point out to him now in pots in the garden, ready to replant when the building work is over. He also asks about the big plant at the bottom of the garden. When I tell him its bamboo, he's satisfied that no trees have been removed and there are no trees in my garden, so that box is ticked.
The ground in the bottom of the trench looks stable, so that's another box ticked. We lift the inspection cover over the drains, and he's happy that the drain pipes are above the bottom of the trench, that that's OK too.
All looking good until he starts talking about the depth of the trench, which the depth shown on the Building Regs Full Plans Approval. But he thinks it needs to be deeper...as deep as the foundations of the two storey house! Another six inches should do it, he says. My heart sinks.....All the soil is being dug out by hand, and barrowed through the house by hand to the skip on the road outside. The guys are not going to be happy. But I'm not in a position to argue. The good news is that he's happy to sign off this stage of the build with photos to show the extra depth of the footings, rather than another site visit.
As soon as he goes, I email the builder to tell him the good news and the bad news, and to remind him that we need another skip.
Later in the afternoon, there's a text from the builder asking how did it go with the Building Inspector and telling me that the concrete is coming tomorrow to pour the foundations. I text him back at once, reminding him of the email I sent earlier and saying he needs to cancel the concrete and get a skip quick! It seems he hadn't been to the office so hadn't picked up emails. However, the skip is ordered for Friday and the guys will come back then to carry on digging....
My last act of the day on the house project front is to transfer the 10% deposit into the builders bank account. Gulp.... This is where it start's getting serious!
Thursday 21 June
No action on the house front. My mission is today is to save a space on the street for the skip truck coming tomorrow to back up to the full skip and swap it out for an empty one.
Space saved - Mission accomplished!
Another use for those old recycling boxes......
Friday 22 June
And right on cue, the skip truck arrives...the full skip is removed and an empty now one sits in its place.....and no cars were harmed in the process, even though the space is very tight!
Later in the day, there's a phone call from the building firm's co-director (the man is charge is having a holiday so I'm liaising with his partner who also does a lot of the work on site and translates to his Polish employees). The guys will be around tomorrow - Saturday - to get rid of the remains of the old clematis Armandii, finish digging the footings to the Building Control officer's requirements and take away the spoil, ready for the concrete to be pumped in.
As I'll be away for the weekend, he calls round later to pick up a house key and tells me he hopes to get the Building Control Officer back on site on Monday, so that he can order the concrete and bricks to arrive later next week. Time to go and look at brick samples on Monday.....
Saturday 23 June
The guys arrive before I leave on a weekend away visiting family and friends. I've left them a few beers for when they've finished digging out in the heat. When I return on Sunday evening it's all finished, ready for the Building Control Officer to inspect.
This is the first time I have seen the foundations of my house exposed (and probably the last) so here's what they look like, for the record!
So...here we are at the end of Week 3 of what was supposed to be a 10 week build and the guys have only been on site for a grand total of 3.5 out of 15 working delays due to problems getting a skip and the Building Inspector wanting the footings to be dug deeper than shown on the approved plan. I think my original estimate of 14-16 weeks is looking a much more likely scenario now.
Up early to be ready for the builders’ arrival from 8 am onwards. 9am no sign of anyone. 10am still no sign of anyone. Texted the man in charge to confirm the guys are coming today. The answer is yes. They should be here already.
With urgent errands in town, I have no choice but to go out and leave the house key in an envelope stuck to the front door so the builders can let themselves in if they arrive while I’m away. Hope no one else lets themselves in with the key while I’m out!!
Back home at noon. The house key is still in the envelope on the front door. The good news is that I haven’t been robbed. The bad news is that there’s still no sign of the builders.
Text the man in charge again - what’s going on?
Reply a short while later - there’s been a communication problem. The guys will be with me around one o’clock....which they were.
It seems that the team have been working this morning at No 33. Right house number, but wrong street, wrong town! What are the chances of two jobs going on at properties with the same house number but in completely different places? But now the lines of communication have been ironed out, the men are hard at work again.
By the end of the afternoon, they have taken down the fence posts and panels along the boundary on the line of the extension’s side wall and dug the footings for the foundations right up to the boundary line.
The little bird nesting box and a wall mounted water feature have been carefully removed and stored for reuse when the project is finished.
I said farewell to the clematis Armandii which has been growing over the pergola for a decade or so, which has had to be removed to make way for the extension. The foliage starts piling up on the deck, but fortunately no bird’s nests. The house looks very bare now and the neighbour's lean-to conservatory and windows are in full view...It’s sad to see the clematis go, but I’ll replace it with other climbing plants when the building work is over.
 |
| BEFORE |
 |
| AFTER |
Building Control are coming tomorrow afternoon to inspect the footings. The concrete for the foundations will be poured on Wednesday or Thursday, depending on when they can get a truck.
While all this was going on, the original door to the cupboard under the stairs was collected by the successful bidder in an eBay auction, who gave me half a dozen free range eggs from her own hens. Isn’t that nice?
Tuesday 19 June
I had been told to expect the Building Inspector between 1 o'clock and 3 o'clock in the afternoon, so went out in the morning in order to be home in time to let him in.
Back at home by 12.15pm to find a note on the front door to say that the Building Inspector had called at noon and there was no answer. Please ring the Council to arrange another inspection. How frustrating is that?
Phoned as requested, explained what had happened and asked for the Inspector to visit the following morning. I was told that the Inspector would ring to confirm expected time of arrival. Spent the rest of the afternoon waiting for a call, to no avail.
So...a day without any action on site at all. The only event relating to the house project was an email from the builder with a revised contract sum analysis and invoice for the deposit, which I was too tired to deal with. It can wait until tomorrow.
Wednesday 20 June
Phoned the Council again to confirm that the Building Inspector will be coming to site today. They can't contact him as he's out on site, but have left a voice mail message asking him to ring me with an ETA. The call eventually comes mid- morning and he says he'll be here late morning.
When the Building Inspector arrives, we go into the garden to look at the footings. He asks what was there before, so I told him just paving, plants, fence posts and panels. I have to confirm that the roots he can see in poking out of the sides of the footings are those of the clematis, the remains of which are now piled up on the deck and some ferns, which I have to point out to him now in pots in the garden, ready to replant when the building work is over. He also asks about the big plant at the bottom of the garden. When I tell him its bamboo, he's satisfied that no trees have been removed and there are no trees in my garden, so that box is ticked.
The ground in the bottom of the trench looks stable, so that's another box ticked. We lift the inspection cover over the drains, and he's happy that the drain pipes are above the bottom of the trench, that that's OK too.
All looking good until he starts talking about the depth of the trench, which the depth shown on the Building Regs Full Plans Approval. But he thinks it needs to be deeper...as deep as the foundations of the two storey house! Another six inches should do it, he says. My heart sinks.....All the soil is being dug out by hand, and barrowed through the house by hand to the skip on the road outside. The guys are not going to be happy. But I'm not in a position to argue. The good news is that he's happy to sign off this stage of the build with photos to show the extra depth of the footings, rather than another site visit.
As soon as he goes, I email the builder to tell him the good news and the bad news, and to remind him that we need another skip.
Later in the afternoon, there's a text from the builder asking how did it go with the Building Inspector and telling me that the concrete is coming tomorrow to pour the foundations. I text him back at once, reminding him of the email I sent earlier and saying he needs to cancel the concrete and get a skip quick! It seems he hadn't been to the office so hadn't picked up emails. However, the skip is ordered for Friday and the guys will come back then to carry on digging....
My last act of the day on the house project front is to transfer the 10% deposit into the builders bank account. Gulp.... This is where it start's getting serious!
Thursday 21 June
No action on the house front. My mission is today is to save a space on the street for the skip truck coming tomorrow to back up to the full skip and swap it out for an empty one.
Space saved - Mission accomplished!
Another use for those old recycling boxes......
Friday 22 June
And right on cue, the skip truck arrives...the full skip is removed and an empty now one sits in its place.....and no cars were harmed in the process, even though the space is very tight!
Later in the day, there's a phone call from the building firm's co-director (the man is charge is having a holiday so I'm liaising with his partner who also does a lot of the work on site and translates to his Polish employees). The guys will be around tomorrow - Saturday - to get rid of the remains of the old clematis Armandii, finish digging the footings to the Building Control officer's requirements and take away the spoil, ready for the concrete to be pumped in.
As I'll be away for the weekend, he calls round later to pick up a house key and tells me he hopes to get the Building Control Officer back on site on Monday, so that he can order the concrete and bricks to arrive later next week. Time to go and look at brick samples on Monday.....
Saturday 23 June
The guys arrive before I leave on a weekend away visiting family and friends. I've left them a few beers for when they've finished digging out in the heat. When I return on Sunday evening it's all finished, ready for the Building Control Officer to inspect.
This is the first time I have seen the foundations of my house exposed (and probably the last) so here's what they look like, for the record!
So...here we are at the end of Week 3 of what was supposed to be a 10 week build and the guys have only been on site for a grand total of 3.5 out of 15 working delays due to problems getting a skip and the Building Inspector wanting the footings to be dug deeper than shown on the approved plan. I think my original estimate of 14-16 weeks is looking a much more likely scenario now.
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