Diary

Day 1

I cleared the site myself with a 13 ton 360 digger. We Sent two loads of concrete to recycling and two loads of inert spoil.
We bored five 150mm diameter holes, 9m deep, two for soakaways, one for a preheat ‘earth tube’, two for the interseasonal store.

Days 2 – 4
I dug the basement hole and sent 35 loads of inert subsoil used to cap off a local landfill site. Philip and I also blinded the oversite.

Day 5
We placed the mesh reinforcement and starter bars for the basement slab.

Day 6
We finished the reinforcing steel, inserted thermocouple probes, and lay 25 cubic metres of concrete to basement floor.

Day 7
We loaded materials out for building the basement walls and put in a land drain around the edge of the slab leading to one of the bore hole soakaways.

Days 8-10
Building blockwork, building in cavity trays, weep holes and reinforcing rods building hollow blocks, fitting insulation and cavity detail to bottom of walls and inner leaf block work.

Day 11
Building blockwork, filled hollow blocks with concrete.

Day 12
Building internal blockwork, back fill arround basement to 1500 up ready for ring beam.

Days 13 & 14
Finish building internal blockwork, Fix steel and pour concrete ring beam.

Days 15 – 20
Building brickwork, put on floor and build in basement window lintels, damp trays and dpc.

Days 20 – 25
Building brickwork and blockwork, build in waste pipes and insulation (300mm fibreglass bats), first base lift scaffold up, steels on ready for floor, building detail projecting course.

Days 25 – 30
Building brickwork and internal blockwork, scaffolding up at first floor level, wait for floor and rain to stop eventually crane floor on, load out blocks and bricks, clean up ground floor rooms.

Days 30 – 35
Building brickwork and external blockwork to first floor, lost a rare day to rain but ordered everything for the roof, sample window arrived almost ready for roof scaffold.

Days 35 – 40
Building brickwork and external blockwork to first floor, lost an even rarer two days to snow and cold, finished blockwork and built the special wall plate detail. Scaffold for roof went up.

Days 40 – 45
Built roof, lifted in sand and plasterboard for first floor works, loft floor deck, and insulation. insulated over the wall plate area as detail, felt and battened roof, practiced dry verge detail, started to tile roof, ordered windows.

Days 45 – 50
Tiled roof, Ridges and hips, front gable- build fixed green oak false frames and basecoat lime render, fit some MHRV ducts, finished first floor and basement internal partitions.

Days 50 – 55
Render, solar panels up and connected, temporary connections to underground iterseasonal thermal store, ventilation ducts in loft, gutters up, scaffold down, fit vapour/air barrier to first floor ceilings, tack seilings.

Days 50 – 58
Tidy site, backfill round house and fit and cover wing insulation (100mm polestyrene), run pipes to “poor mans” bore hole scrape road, rainwater drains and recycling store, foul water drains test and backfill, water main and electric duct, basic landscrape.

Days 58 – 80
Tony takes a holiday, been overworking but he leaves with you a catalogue of his mistakes to mull over, these days are not counted as build days as no work took place

Days 59 to 64
First fix wiring and plumbing, door linings, window reveal linings, fit back door and make a temporary front door
(Day 61 – fit windows)

Days 65 to 69
First fix wiring and plumbing finished, window reveal linings, fit back door and make a temporary front door, window boards, consumer unit, tack g/f ceilings, finish battening basement ceilings, fully ready for plasterer upstairs, start on wiring control centre.

Days 70 to 75
The plasterer Chris plastered the bedroom ceilings,the first stage of the lounge ceiling, walls to bedroom 2 and the airing cupboard. I cleaned the brickwork, fitted glass to the basement lightwell windows, got the rest of the ground floor ready to plaster,tacked basement ceilings, screeded airing cbd floof ready for hot cylinder, fitted some thermocouples and did the air ducts for the basement rooms.It was Philips last week for a while and he has helped more than I can say and finished all the first fix wiring as well as all the two man jobs he will be back after plastering done.

Days 76 to 80
The plasterer Chris plastered the front bedroom 3 (had two days elsware),I painted the airing cupboard & plumbed in hot cylinder, connected loft stores, set out eliptical portion of the lounge ceiling and installed LED feature lights to lounge window reveals.

Days 81 to 85
The plasterer Chris plastered the front bedroom 1 and the bathrooms and landing finishing upstairs. I built elliptical portion of the lounge ceiling and plasterboarded it on my own, started on basement window reveals and fitted external sills.

Days 86 to 90
The plasterer Chris plastered the kitchen, dining room lounge, utility and wc. I helped screed the floors upstairs — carried all the cement up and mixed most of it — fortunately I had put the sand up with the crane, painted the ceilings upstairs and fitted the bath.

Days 91 to 94
The plasterer Chris plastered the stair well and started on the basement rooms, the plastering is now over the hump, we screedeed the ground floor floors, I painted the front bedroom upstairs, knotted and primed the door linings,door stops and architrave, stairs were measured up for manufacture.

Days 95 to 99
The plasterer Chris plastered the big basement room and the lobby, I painted the back bedroom upstairs, I made an oak frint door frame and fitted it and the cavity closers ready for plastering also I did the carcuses of the fitted wardrobes.

Days 100 to 104
The plasterer Chris finished plastering! Philip did the major part of the second fix wiring. We (Mark and I — mostly Mark) hung the doors upstairs, skirtings and architraves, latches and door stops, painting continued with some help now, Friday afternoon I built the porch roof, felt battened and tiled it and dressed down the leadwork.

Days 105 to 109
Decorating continued, I had to replace the solar store as it boiled once too often and tried to self destruct, Tiling started — kitchen, utility and WC floors, I did a load of snagging/finishing off jobs including the porch ceiling and sealing window frames externally. Oak for g/f joinery arrived and was treated.

Days 110 to 114
Fitted the kitchen units in readyness for the worktops to be tenplated, hung utility door and fitted architrave and skirting to k, d/rm and utility, made front door, tilers started on bathrooms.

Days 114 to 119
Tiling continued (subcontractors), Kitchen worktops and splashbacks were fitted, garden and driveway works started and we cleared and dug up the back garden, put up new fence, laid out patio, front garden, front wall footing etc. Encountered a problem with the kitchen floor.

Days 120 to 124
Retiled the ensuite myself (7 hr), laid patio, electric main in and tested electrics, fitted sink and plumbed in g/f wc & basin, water main etc, finished fence, back gate, security lights, tidied round house laid patio.

Days 125 to 129
Front wall, kerb edgings, stairs went in, now finished painting all three bedrooms, grouted ensuite, fixed towel rad n basin, landscaped topsoil, tiled main bathroom Friday pm.

Days 130 to 134
Stairs finished, upstairs painting finished, air handler fitted and connected up temporarily to help finish drying out the basement, kitchen doors went on and all fitted, treated stairs with oil, continued slowly with landscaping plastered stairs soffit, fitted wc + shower door to main bathroom.

Days 135 to 140
Lounge floor laid, basement floating floor laid in two rooms, front wall finished, patio pointed, nook wall built, scalpings laid, leveled to drive and road, mood switches fitted, wc door hung, all brickwork and sand and cement work finished at last, front gardens mulched with manure/wood chippings, air handler commissioned and balanced, central vac tested and commissioned.

Days 141 to 145
Basement doors hung and lounge door, tarmac preps completed, Tuesday closed road and did tarmac, finished landscaping, hoped for water board to turn up before road was done been on that case for 20 weeks now, solar controls and monitoring and mood lighting etc went in, shelved basement store room, finished laying basement room floors

Days 146 to 151
Stairs snagging, front door cladding to face, basement skirtings, roller shutter & windows snagging, lounge unit fitted, finally fitted bidet and tested svps, light fittings & lampshades, tidy loft, chase water board, tidy up, angled stair strings, planted some trees!, dining room door finish lounge skirtings, bathroom lights, bedroom lampshades

Days 152 to 156
Finish basement second fix and painting, on my own now, window snagging, solar control system up, water mains in and only leak was thankfully inside a wc cistern (I did all the plumbing), wardrobe snagging, clean through (Elaine),entry system, moved some furniture in! carpets Monday.

Days 157 to 161
Carpets down, kit out games room, build understair cupboard, start on hanging pictures, cut myself 🙁 , light fittings & snagging, office desk, Michael set up the new data network and switch and the entry system, moved some stuff in back door, porch roof this was built as a cantilevered structure using a a diagonal beam cut into both outside skins with another built into the internal corner resting on it sloping down to the outside corner supporting a trimmer behind the fascia which carries the rafters) , sculpture of tony hanging up his tools, kitchen cbd door handles, final snagging.

Day162 
FINISHED!!!