Nearer, ever nearer.

Just popped into the house, not expecting much change from our last (brief) visit 2 days ago but in fact, they've got quite a bit done - cleared what will be our bedroom so they can get insulating in there (they've done about 1/3rd of downstairs, I'd say).

And they've started the detailed insulation of the tops of the walls in there.

Can you see the huge pile of insulation behind the studding here? (With Clare for scale!) That's all that's left of the many heaping masses all over the inside and outside of the house a few weeks back!


Also downstairs they've started hacking away at the windows in the stone wall. These nasty uPVC ones will remain pro tem on the outside, but eventually we'll replace with either Crittall or salvaged stained glass.


And the other window that's in the roadside wall (which has a cavity) is getting insulated!

On the way up the stairs we now have some bookshelves (they're by the quarter-turn landing and the last 3 steps up). One day we won't be reaching from a ladder...

Even the upstairs loo is plastered on the inside and all ready for the 'sanitary-ware' as I believe it's called (and which we hope has been ordered).


Clare now has some shelves by her future desk
and we have an insulated roof-hatch!


So, upstairs is all plastered apart from this leetle, tiny corner!

This is where the flue is to go, but the method of ensuring airtightness around it is still uncertain. What is for sure is that we'll need planning permission for the flue because the HETAS guys feel it needs to be 4.5 metres tall above the top of the stove. And therefore 2.5 above the roof. Oh well! We'll go for it at the same time as putting the stove in, I think.

We've gone ahead and ordered the kitchen elements from Ecokitchendesign (in for a penny, in for a pound!)


Out the back the garden is wild! We really need Mum and Dad/Sue and George to come and help tame it some time.
Giant rhubarb like Cornish Gunnera lurks at the top of the garden,

and the garlic is taller than Clare!


Hard to know where we are with money, as there have certainly been variations from the initial agreed work/price - those wall problems early on, the windows are more expensive in the end (just a bit), the gable end rotten so new fascia (and it's oak); the stairs more expensive (lots!), having to sort out the undulating floor upstairs. That's all increase in price - but also the plumbing should be much less as we are not paying for a gas boiler or radiators, in fact the plumbing is v little, some having also transferred to the Solar Boys as we call them (T4 Sustainability is their real name) whose payment is outside the builder's contract, and half of which we've paid already.

Who knows, in other words!


Very exciting to see downstairs start to look a bit like a house, and upstairs really almost ready to move in (ha ha).

Newport, Newport, Newport! (non sequiter, but so good!)

Beginning to feel real...

Last weekend we dashed to Exeter to see C's Ps and their new house. The dash was interrupted by a quick trip to Ikea Bristol, who assured us over the phone that the Varde 12 drawer unit was up and visible in the shop. Not so much! The aggravation of this was reduced by food with my Ps and a planned visit to another kitchen place. Before all this we were really thinking maybe the Ikea unit (cheaper, available stat), but we would really want to see it in the flesh...

So off we went to Taunton, where we met Tim Rigby, the designer of ecokitchensonline, and the chap who makes the kitchens, in his workshop. We should have taken pictures! They make lovely free-standing units, using FSC oak or other local woods and strawboard, with proper wood jointing etc. And recycled coffee cup worktops! We're sorely tempted to get a wide 3 drawer unit for the hob and an under-counter oven housing. We'll see how the quote is!

Clare's parent's new house fed into ours - here's how to do a parquet doorway:


Anyway - when we got back we nipped into the house and our little robot had arrived!

And our upstairs engineered floorboards!

Downstairs, the solar pipes are in (though not connected). Can you see the top of the tank?

And the insulation of downstairs has begun, including keeping a bit of the original wall shaping with a diagonal detail to the walls at the corners that meet the window end of the spare room.


Due to the Exeter visit, and me (Clare) feeling a bit under the weather, and an early site meeting (Weds rather than Fri) we hadn't posted before visiting again.

(Back to Emily writing - we're eating breakfast so swapping about).

The site meeting was a useful one - I'd had a phone-call to chivvy the builders re various issues last week, and we got quite a bit more info. A price for the lovely stairs designed by Gil (lots more than we initially intended but we love these stairs... so have said yes). A first suggested date for window delivery of 16th August, which if it really happens would mean a move-in in the first week of September , which is the week we have both taken off. Seems too good to be true, and it isn't a definite window date, so I'm borrowing a bit of pessimism from Clare for the moment! Clarification of contractors for stove insertion (!) and MVHR doings, and prices for the electrician and plumber.

And when we looked upstairs - lots of progress we can see! It was good we had the meeting on Wed, before the second fix electrics and the plastering of the wall where the kitchen units will go, as we've changed our plans rather... As a result of the timing of the meeting, we did have the right boxes in the right places when we popped in a couple of days later!


An overall pic of the site meeting - pipes visible for the kitchen sink, and you can see where all the wires around the kitchen were before we got them moved. Phew.


Here's the plaster drying on the upstairs loo (the first completed room! Of course, it's the smallest...).

And Torie pondering that fact two days later.


We've also got the beginnings of some lovely bookshelves cut into the wall by the stairs. There'll be two higher up on the other side (in our study!) They will have backs and be plastered out.




After the potential good news about the windows there does of course have to be a downside. The HETAS stove installers say we need a flue of 4.5metres from the top of the stove itself- which means about 2.5m from the roof. This means we need planning permission (well, in fact apparently we always would have needed it whatever the height. Gil presumably assumed we knew this... Anyway, he's on the case now). We're going to go for retrospective, but he'll be discussing with the planners before the fact, and thinks it will be fine. The real issue with the required height is that it'll need to be tied into the ridge or the gable end somehow. Also, apparently we don't yet have a plan for the airtightness round the flue...

Congrats in order, and it's not really quite so bad as C makes out...

The congrats are to our renovating blogger colleague Tony and knitblogger Ruth on their delightful new production - Thomas, born on Wednesday. He looks lovely, and can only be an impetus to your endeavours (well, maybe he could be a little hindrance too - here's hoping for a night-sleeping future for him!)

Back to the mundanities of our meandering house - it is a bit depressing to think that we might not make it in by the end of August, but what the heck, progress really is being made! Upstairs the plumbing is in for our kitchen sink (do you remember? It's a purple/pink unit!) under those lovely big windows.
And most of upstairs is plasterboarded, to be skimmed this coming week.
(That's not a Jedi Knight with light-sabre, that's Darren, on-site builder boss).

Insulation and airtightness is progressing downstairs and should move much more quickly than upstairs - waterproof membrane taped onto wall, build with battens, insulated and whack up the OSB. Tape that then the Intelligent Membrane goes on. They're speeding along at this!

The floor for upstairs arrives on Tuesday (but no stairs up which to carry this - entertaining, I'm sure!) It's Chauncey's FSC Tectonic, which is an engineered board 240mm wide and quite long, in standard/rustic (ie cheaper) oak. Mmmmm. And the kitchen comes in a fortnight (when I do not believe stairs will be any more in evidence, given that we're yet to get a PRICE for our plans! Which are lovely....). Oh, and the kitchen doesn't arrive flatpacked...

Of course, the most important news of this week is that Clare has got her new bike! She was knocked off her beloved carbon fibre one (happily, Clare was not broken and literally landed on her feet) and the insurance is now through. The bike whisperer Mick at Langdale Lightweights has built her a new bike (they've been in cahoots about supersplendidness) and it is beautiful. Even if it's baby-snot green...


And I've got a lovely cabinet for (some of) my yarn in a Betel closing-down sale. The bike is just decoration. In a perfect world I'd have all my yarn in glass-fronted cabinets, as for me it's out-of-sight, out-of-mind. So this will save money!

Frustrated....

So I have to admit that when we took this on, despite having watched lots of Grand Designs (back when we had a TV) and realising that things take longer and go over budget I thought it would probably run to schedule and not be too bad - I should have paid more attention to Grand Designs!

Currently I am feeling a little bit frustrated with the whole thing - whilst there is progress every week - it often feels like it was just a bit more insulation each time (which I am sure the builders would agree with!). And the windows are still a saga - after having been ordered eventually, there is now a possibility that it will be 10 weeks - which is another 8 from now, which puts us mid-september before we move in. Hopefully it won't be that long, but we have ended up in the summer, and therefore coinciding with factory fortnight (factories closing for 2 weeks) which if it happens in this factory will definately delay things.

The progress update this week (there has been some) is that all the insulation and first fix of electrics and plumbing is done upstairs and plasterboarding the whole area has begun. Also the first bit of wall insulation has begun downstairs, after long discussions of how to minimally fix the studwork to the brickwork to avoid cold bridging (builder Chris coming up with the final solution, an extra horizontal piece on the studwork which then only needs 3 or 4 attachments to the brickwork). This means that the solar boys can come back next week to put in all the pipework and the tank, and after that the heat recovery system should go in. We are getting upstairs plastered next week, and the upstairs floor delivered for it to sit for a while and acclimatise before being put in. All this is happening without windows, so we have to hope that the openings are weather tight!?

Whats left still to do: all the insulation downstairs, insulation in the roof, first fix downstairs, staircase, heat recovery system to go in, solar to be sorted, second fix everywhere and windows. Decorating and downstairs floor and any storage will be us apart from tiling in the shower which we think will be better executed around the fittings if the builders do it!
Ready for the second fix we have chosen all our sanitaryware - so hopefully the plumber is ordering the right stuff and there won't be a delay! We are in disucssion with each other about how much extra to get for the kitchen. All we have so far is the double sink unit and aluminium dresser. We have decided which induction hob we would like, and are just working out about a unit to put that in, and what we do about fridge, freezer, cooker, island, etc. We think we have decided on a unit and worktop for the hob, and will probably get that and a decent fridge and freezer before or almost as soon as we move in, and then work up to the other units and cooker once we know if we have any money left (or have earnt some more). We are negotiating about the extractor fan - Emily has done some excellent research finding really quiet, efficient, expensive hoods so we haven't quite agreed on which one yet!

I guess things are progressing - and 8 weeks from now isn't that long - its just that when we move in it will be 12 months after we bought the place, 18 months after we moved to Nottingham, and 32 months after our stuff went into storage!

The walls are going up!

Just a quickie - walls are going up both upstairs and down, which is pretty exciting!

Here's the bathroom studwork done - see that lovely curve?

No? Maybe not - so here the curve is from above!

Upstairs the phenolic foam (the pink stuff) is helping with the insulation round the kitchen windows


And we have some ceiling! (And rather crappy photos)

Clare is going to the site meeting alone on Friday this week - so the pics will be by her, usually better. Look forward to that!

back again

We're rather knackered, so here are some pics of the current progress (getting exciting, but don't mention the windows.... delay in ordering partly at this end and partly at the shop end mean ho hum in terms of completion date).
Here's Clare where the upstairs loo will be

Kitchen windows:

The upstairs ceiling insulated, airtighted and the service void being created

The rooflight all insulated

The beginnings of walls upstairs - by the future stairs, and that loo again

Proper obsessive insulation of the gaps between upstairs and down

They've drawn out our future lovely curved bathroom wall on the floor

There's a door into the shower room

The gable end will have oak cladding; hurray those horrible aerials have gone, you can see the future little square window

And finally some visitors... I survey the garden with Amy
and H+H contemplate the build


We plan to be more coherent next week with our update!

Drier and Warmer

After last weeks rain getting in, despite the weather continuing to be wet, the house is dry again, and warmer as more and more insulation goes in.
Here's a good pic of the insulation in situ before the OSB goes on - really packed in!


The solar thermal (hot water) panels are up on the roof, so in theory we'll have hotwater once we're in:
just awaiting the piping and tank.

We also now have all the window spaces sorted and we've got lintels galore, hurray the walls shouldn't fall down! Here's where the double doors out to the courtyard will go (pretty huge - should be really light!)
And the two bathroom lintels from the courtyard (the left one for the main bathroom, the right the small en-suite shower room)


And the space for the study windows complete with slightly dodgy timbers that will be cut in to sort out

The windows are all ordered (those with good memories may remember the 6-8 week lead time for them to be made, let alone arrive from Poland. Don't think we'll be in by the first week of August, do you?) with corrections to some hinge sides and which should be obscured glass (all those on the west side).

And Gil's done us drawings for a stair we LOVE - if only we can afford it once the contractors price it!

No major surprises from the site meeting this week - a bit of rotten timber around the windows shown above, an asbestos drain pipe that needs to be removed from the garage, that seemed to be all - a week without too many additional costs for the first time!

Clare and Emily looking forward to moving...........

water gets in

Well, a little bit has got into the new house, and quite a bit more into the kitchen of the rental - *properly* flooded, silt everywhere, garden a wreck, favourite cookbooks now have kitchen roll between every page in the hope of rescue... Could have been worse though. At least we don't care about the wallpaper coming off the walls or the vinyl flooring curling up!

In the lovely new house (oh how we can't wait to be in there!) there's a leak from the newly started skylights and from the openings made for the new kitchen windows (each is 170x100cm).. So nothing too worrying really.

One of the big south-facing bedroom window openings is completed on the outside, the other in progress - you can see the blue engineering bricks.

Insulating and making airtight upstairs is continuing apace. You can see the process - PILES of insulation inserted after the bitumen board and outer membrane are positioned between the rafters (and there's fancy phenolic foam insulation you can't see in the top corner) ;
the insulation piles are then boxed in with OSB Then the really posh (=expensive) airtightness membrane (I think it may actually be intelligent...) with equally posh and expensive tape

So there's still the insulated service void to go before the plasterboard...

Having a little rest before being put to work next week are the new hot water tank (green in the corner of this pic) and the flat panel solar thermal (hot water) thingies.

So we'll leave you with two images - more piles of insulation (there's still more outside) and the builders' portaloo in the courtyard

Hope you're drier than us! More after the next site meeting this Friday.

Progress, windows

So - a quick clarifying site meeting today; one of the big south windows in what will be our bedroom has been opened up (it's about 2metres tall now!)

Here's a detail (iphone, I'm afraid) We'll be re-using the lintels (there are 3 very heavy concrete ones) and replacing the bricks up the sides with blue engineering bricks, and the same (soldier style) in front of the lintel.

This pic shows how much taller the windows will be than they currently are - not quite twice as high...

(Here's the windows in the old room - before the false ceiling was removed and here's the window from the inside with no ceiling , with the floor where it will be and giving you an idea of how tall the window will seem in our room!

The inside upstairs showing the small square that will hold the southeast window and the southwest window space .

The blue is EXPENSIVE airtightness tape and the boarding it is on is a fancy one with one side tarry and one just boarding.

Gil is very impressed with the quality of the work, which is of course very encouraging. Exciting!

The scaffolding is up next week, so the remedial roof work and skylights then windows will be getting going. 

A floor at last!

All those giant insulation pads are down in the base and up the sides, and the 'powerfloated concrete' sits on top - we have a floor!

Here's a good overall image - you can see the edge looks paler, that's the side insulation, on top of which will sit the wall insulation, so we'll be inside a whole cocoon of insulation in the end, toasty as anything (that's the plan!)

Here's a detail of the edge of the floor, showing that insulation, and the damp proof membrane (aka thick plastic sheet, it seems).


Just behind the far right of the tower here, you can see the reddish form of the post that will support the glulam beam that supports the joists cut for the stairway.

And here's the garage side of the new brickwork we showed you last week; those lovely Staffordshire engineering bricks. Beautiful work!

And just a quick pick of architect and chief builder in discussion...

The site meeting this week was a big one - we realised that there's a flaw in the planning of the job, in that the windows are yet to be ordered - sensibly, the builders want to form the openings and measure accurately before giving the suppliers the final measurements; however, there is then a 6-8 week lag before they're due to arrive.
What this means is that we can't do the airtightness test* until then, by which time not just the insulation and 2 separate airtightness membranes will be in, but also the internal service void, plasterwork and 2nd fix electrics, plumbing and joinery. NOT ideal, because if the measurement isn't as good as we hope, it will be very difficult to make improvements back at the level of the membranes where the work needs to be, not only because we'll have to take OFF plasterboard and plasterwork and the insulation in the service void, but also because some of the seams will be hidden completely by more solid structures (walls etc). At this point, trying to do the proper way would mean the builders being off-site for 5 weeks, a major issue for them which would be passed on to us. Not really doable while maintaining a decent relationship, which is vital. So this is a point of accepting a potential reduction in overall standard. Unavoidable, but disappointing.

* The airtightness test involves a machine fitting the front doorway, and blowing air in to increase the pressure within the house; it measures how much it has to do to maintain that pressure, which gives a number of airchanges per hour value. This represents how 'leaky' the house is; very important in terms of Passivhaus and AECB (we're aiming to exceed silver) standards, and how warm the house will stay.

PS Clare wants me to make it clear we're BOTH doing these posts - but the photo uploading stuff is on MY laptop, not hers!

So this is Clare and Emily, signing off.....

Walls and Floors

It seems as if there isn't much to show at the house this week - last week had a bank holiday in it. But in fact, there's the concrete shuttering to mend one wall done.
Rebuilding the other wall is also completed (those are Staffordshire engineering bricks where what M-H quite rightly calls the stronggirls were last week)
and the concrete block for the post is done (no pic) and the second glulam beam is in.

And upstairs, supportive battening (to help the mansard roof withstand high winds now it isn't stiffened by lots of internal walls) is all in place, along with some initial copper piping.

And in the courtyard...
and out front masses of MASSIVE bits of insulation for under the concrete slab! This should keep us warm...

On other notes - we found a reclamation yard and bought a basin for the upstairs loo (ex-institution d'you think possibly??) only £10 including the tap.

And Clare's nicked an xray lightbox from work (it was going begging as they are all viewed digitally now) Should be fun to play with!

And finally - we've decided on the downstairs floor (I know it looks premature when there's no subfloor at all, but...) - we're going for reclaimed oak parquet, which we'll clean and lay ourselves. A big project, but we did initially plan to buy a house we could do up ourselves! And it's pretty cheap for a longlasting floor covering, and as green as it gets! It's from the reclamation yard in Nottingham, so we've seen it in the flesh - and in fact are carrying a block around with us to check against other things. But here it is on ebay, if you want a look.

We're also having lots of discussion about kitchen organisation; found this place that does units with recycled yoghurt-pot tops, FSC oak and strawboard rather than MDF- if we can save up enough (!) we might get a wide unit from them with drawers for under the hob. we keep doing to-scale drawings, but of course the solid edges of the space aren't there yet for definite measurement (well, the balcony sliding doors are, but not the upstairs loo which will be the other end of the kitchen run) and the positioning of the windows isn't completely certain until their openings are created!

More after the next site meeting on Friday (just me, Emily, as Clare is working).

2 little problems

Another site meeting today (and we remembered the buns this time. We still haven't managed to bake for them...).

It really is an amazing thing to see the space like this, all dug down to the original floor level (which is a bit varied, and all floored with the old tiles like chocolate bars).

Unfortunately, a couple of problems have cropped up. The first is that in digging out the old concrete some of the inner stone wall to the left of the front door came away, as you can see under the ladder here.
It's not catastrophic, the wall is very thick here and the outer part is still fine, with the headers coming across and supporting what's above, but it does need sorting. Rather than cut away to fit bricks, and potentially cause movement of the old outer stone wall they're going to shutter it and fill with concrete.

A worse problem is in the corner where the damp had already been found. When the place was made into a dwelling rather than a coachhouse, presumably sometime in the thirties or so, the floor level was raised with concrete/similar, and either then or later the garage was formed with a floor level also concrete and higher than the old inner level. Unfortunately, the original wall had several levels of horizontal timber members in some brick courses. The bottom one has rotted away, gone from 4" to less than 2", and hence the wall is drooping.
The plan here is to use acrow props and 'strongboys' (sp?) to prop 2 courses above the upper timber and rebuild below with blue bricks (waterproof). Ultimately, this is better than the previous plan of just tanking internally as it will be better structurally, but it is a pain and obviously an expense in labour and materials.

At the other end, the acrow props that were supporting the bedroom ceiling joists are gone, and a beautiful glulam beam has come instead!

Empty barn!

We popped in yesterday to see what was happening in the coach house (and show C's Ps while they were staying overnight).

Blimey! Nothing left!

Morgan from next door says it has indeed been pretty noisy the last couple of days. Think that'll be this indoor vehicle...

And a little view of the acro-props holding up the joists above hwhat will be our bedroom.



Outside the magnolia is just starting to bloom (so late! But it is one very like the one my Mutti had in her front garden, so my favourite); the daffs are legion, and the garlic field is green and sprouting. Hurray!

The builders are on holiday

So Clare went yesterday and took some pictures. (She would want me to say - it's my camera, with which she is not awfully familiar, and which isn't v good anyway. But who cares - this is a renovation blog, not a photography one!)

We were excited to see the original floor under the old wooden one in the south ground floor room, which will be our bedroom. It slopes down to the east (courtyard side) and has flat bricks/tiles to the west (like under the tarmac in the courtyard), and those chocolate bar type tiles towards the east (like in the stables).
As I think we've said before, this room - which was the habitable one back when it was a coachhouse - has glazed bricks up to the level of the brown line you see. ON this (the west wall) you'll also see evidence of the bricked-up ventilation - on the outside there are rather decorative airbricks.
Here, turning to the right from the last pic, is the old archway from this room into the rest of the building, bricked up for many years. Rather blurry, too! This wall will be knocked down to allow for full insulation of the new floor and the walls.

On the east wall you can see the small 1989 extension with its RSJ supporting the wall above.
And in the south east corner of the room, you can see the old beam and the start of the pitched roof supports, now cut off and supporting instead the frame for the first floor (second floor if you're American) mansard roof.

Elsewhere downstairs, the old roof is visible - the joists and the planks above, anyway. It was an almost flat roof, just curved a bit like an old shepherd's caravan.
And you can see the joys of the old electric system (yup, piping everywhere!)




So - in the next week: on Monday the National Grid will come and remove the gas meter (but they won't cap off the gas outside - oh no, National Grid will have to come and do that on a separate date they are as yet not sharing with us, at a cost of £750 and loads of stress in sorting it).
On Tuesday the asbestos removers will come to take out the downstairs floor tiles (not the low ones, but the ones that look to me like lino) and one board near the front door - that'll be £790 +VAT at 17.5%, oh joy.
At least we've confirmed where the electricity supply runs, so can get the board to come and move the meter outside (instead of where the stairs will be, as it is now). That'll be £560, and again, we've paid - but no idea when it'll be done.

All those Grand Designs where nothing comes in on budget - maybe not so stupid, after all!

But still, it's all progress, and we also have a quote for the solar thermal, and a projected one for adding PV next year (which we're pleased to see can go on the old stable, so we can do that roof as planned ourselves over the next year or so). Pretty exciting!

Ode to Sydney - coffee!

So having just got back from 2 weeks skiing and snowboarding in powder at Whistler (fantastic time, excellent snow but very expensive) we were both suffering from jetlag and in need of coffee. Luckily for us this morning was when we got delivery of our new coffee machine from Best Coffee Beans and got basic barista training and machine set up at the same time.



We got a magister stella commercial machine alongside our la spaziale grinder and now can't wait to add them to our English Rose kitchen where they will look brilliant, and we can actually have one of the brunch parties we have been intending to have since we got back from Oz!?
After our initial training this morning we can both make a pretty good espresso - and after a bit more practice in tamping and milk frothing I think we will be able to rival many of the coffees we had in Sydney (although maybe not all!).

Unable to hold back, we even visited the coach house on our way home from the airport (via watford) yesterday, and lots more has been done. We will visit again later this week (the builders are having a week off for easter) and take some pictures to show the ongoing progress, and fill you in on the saga of getting our gas supply capped off, and the electricity meter moved........

Clare (writing logged in as Emily in order to use flickr)

First site meeting

Well - the meeting went very well. It was VERY exciting to see the space upstairs with all the walls removed - for the first time we can really see how it will be in terms of space and light (in fact, there'll be several more windows and a skylight, so the light'll be even better). Clare says that 1 man (Darren) getting all that done in a week puts our efforts to shame, but I don't think he has another job - plus he knows what he's doing!

Anyway - some pics:






And Darren's opened up the inside of the south wall, the big gable end of Bulwell stone, and you can see the old leading for the pitched roof from this end of the building. (Well, we're endlessly fascinated by such details, even if you aren't!)



Various big things did come up at the meeting - it transpires that in order to have gas upstairs for our cooker, we'd have to have a vented space under the upstairs floor (what we'd call the first floor, but I know in some countries is the 2nd floor, just to confuse us all). This is obviously counter to the whole enterprise - so we made the decision on the spot not to use gas for cooking. We'll be able to use the crappy electric cooker we have in the rental house to start off, and hope to go the induction hob route in the future (when we're less skint).

So we need to get the gas capped off, and we need to do this asap as it affects the ground floor and the changing of the stairs etc. I spent hours on the phone to Scottish Power (our supplier) and various other people they set me on to - until we managed to work out how to arrange it on-line. At which point it became apparent that a different company have to come and remove the gas METER before the second company can come and take the piping back and cap it off outside. This became apparent at the time we really HAD to just set off for our holiday, so I've left it in the hands of my Mum to sort the meter removal and we'll do the rest on-line. (Though our meter details are in cubic feet not metres which may confuse things!)

We've also got to get the electricity meter moved from just inside the front door to just outside. Ho-hum - about £600, it looks like!

Never mind - I'm typing this from Whistler, Canada, and today we get to ski/snowboard where the Olympics have just been and the Paralympics still are! Can't be bad at all, can it?

They've Started!

The builders began the destruction and refurb 2 days ago - we are on our way to actually having a house! Lots more changes (well a few to heating etc) which we will update you with soon, once we are completely clear..............
BUT They've started - we are both really excited and a bit nervous!

Actual plans

We realise that we've been telling all about our proposals without showing our plans - which really might help!Throughout, the north end is the roadside, the south end has the steeply sloping garden, the east has the courtyard.

First up, a plan drawing of the existing groundfloor. The south room was the sitting room, the north was the Sindy/Marie Antoinette bedroom.


Secondly, the existing upstairs - similarly, the south room was another sitting area and the north a bedroom, with a bathroom and small study on the east side.


Next we have Gil's proposals for the ground floor - our bedroom is the south room, the spare room (and cello area!) the north room.


And here are the proposals for upstairs, with the study/knititng/spinning room to the north (could also be a bedroom) and the stove at the end of the kitchen run by the sliding balcony doors. (the balcony itself being imaginary for some time!)


Lastly, some impressions of how the upstairs will look once we're in. (Obviously, less tidy, and with more colour!)


To emphasise the "more colour" - here are a few little pics of the kitchen. As we've said before, we've bought some reconditioned English Rose units from Source Antiques in Bath. These are 1950s kitchen units made by the old Spitfire factories, and now polished and powder-coated to our specifications. Beautiful! (But not subtle).
Double sink unit:
Under-worktop trolley:
And a drinks dresser!:

Plans and limitations

So - we said we'd reviewed things quite a bit recently, and perhaps it would be interesting to talk about how?

We had always planned to have wet underfloor heating (UFH) downstairs, with a hard flooring in the hall and bathrooms, and maybe engineered wood in the bedrooms. We talked about a woodburning stove upstairs for additional space heating, and heated towel rails in the  bath and shower rooms, running off the same system as the UFH. We'd considered using a back boiler on the stove to heat the water, or having an efficient gas condensing boiler, either way to be solar ready.

Gil (architect) would check out with a PHPP (Passive House Planning (Design) Package) consultant what the expected heating load would be (in other words how much energy in the form of heat we would expect to need), and therefore the type of systems that might be most appropriate. Gil was optimistic that our requirements would be pretty low - aiming for AECB silver standard or better (next one up is passive house)

Tom (builder) had always suggested that radiators could be cheaper than the UFH. We really hated the idea of having these, even to the extent of thinking we'd put in the UFH pipes even if we found that we shouldn't need that much heating, as it would then be available for the future.

Gil came back after our VAT panic with a revised plan. Rather than digging out the floor downstairs and putting in concrete slab, then insulation, then screed with pipes, we could have insulation first then concrete slab with no separate screed and no pipes (advantage: increase the internal mass of the building - that is, the heavy structures inside the insulated envelope - and thus slow the changes of temp within the building). No hot towel rails, go with the stove I found (this wonderful Eccostove) and use that to heat the hot water (with solar in the future and back up electric immersion). We wouldn't need a big accumulator tank, just a 210-300L one. And we could use Lexin infra-red panels for top up if we need additional heating (perhaps in the bathroom - these heat the walls etc, ideal, and need only be on for the time the heat is required).

Lots of other cost reducing ideas were also bandied around: changing the support for the wall insulation and plasterboard from Modified Larson Truss to standard studwork (no real cost change found); change the type of insulation used (similarly no real cost saving); use standard plasterboard rather than Fermacell as planned (saves about £1000). We are yet to get a real breakdown of the plumbing costs (Tom got some from the plumber before, but it was the sort of breakdown that didn't really help us much - things grouped perhaps according to order of work, but eg cylinder and showerheads etc -£X; UFH pipes, boiler etc £Y. In other words, opaque combinations and no costs for single items) to see where we are in terms of the water heating.

Initial calculations from the PHPP guy suggest a heat load of less than 2KW (excluding hot water) which is really encouraging - we should be well within the Silver AECB category of efficiency (which is 70% less CO2 emissions than a similar house renovated in a traditional fashion). We may get slightly better, but Passive House (=Passivhaus) standard is out of our reach - still, this is really excellent news for a renovation of a Victorian building, and in itself requires really detailed and thoughtful design and implementation.

Sadly, we won't be able to afford to have our balcony (more important than that sounds, as it is the direct access from the kitchen/living area to the garden) as we don't have enough money! We hope to save for it and do it a year or two after we move in. Less importantly we'll be living with plain concrete underfoot through all of downstairs for the foreseeable future.

But roll on the start of building, and even more - moving in to our lovely house (and seeing some of our stuff for the first time in what will be 2 and a half years!).