Still Moving In

We are now living full-time at No12 and in the process of moving everything across from No 10 except that there is not enough room for all the clutter we accumulated over 28 years in York. And not yet enough shelves, so the floor is covered with boxes and frankly it looked better before we moved in. So no photos of the inside until we have it sorted.

The photo-voltaics are generating electricity and the Heat Recovery system recovering heat

However the front is looking great with the drive finished and the patio wall is well underway at the back. Peter is doing the fencing and decking himself and planning to have it done by next weekend's Passivhaus Open Day. Margot will be hosting a number of visitors while Peter is off sea kayaking in Anglesey (well, only if he gets it all done in time).

Moving In

We did a presentation as part of St Nick's Ecohomes weekend with Peter, Phil Bixby, the architect, and Steve Kent, the Builder, giving our different perspectives. We then invited anyone interested  - plus the immediate neighbours who had suffered months of disruption - to have a look around before we spoilt it by moving our clutter in. About 20 came by, even without refreshments being on  offer. Next month there is the national passivhaus event, Margot and Phil will be 'at home' here but I am off to Anglesey sea kayaking. 

So, for now we can show you a photo of the ground floor empty but without the protective floor covering.








Thabks for the flowers Steve !


















 So  now we have full possession of the house - we just have to negotiate our way round the works that continue on the driveway, patio and along both sides. But nearly done, and then the harris fencing can come down and it will look like a real home.

Practical Completion

22nd September 2017 and the house is ours!

We decided to accept partial completion so we could get on with moving in  and letting number 10. The works to the front drive, including a floodwater attenuation sump, remain to be done as well as the fencing and rear patio decking, which Peter will do himself. He has also been inside on evenings and weekends finishing the flooring to the attic space.

We have power and light inside and hot water, though we still need it to be fine tuned and we need to be given instruction on how to work the Heat Recovery system. The carpet fitters have been in so its a great opportunity to take photos of how clean and spacious it looks before we move all our 'stuff' in. We missed the chance to de-clutter before moving out of number 10 but nothing is allowed to go next door unless it is clearly useful and wanted - which means masses of un-sorted boxes going into storage until we get a chance to go sift through them. Its amazing how much stuff can accumulate unnoticed over 28 years.

We have allowed 3 weeks for final completion during which time we will be busy fitting shelves, curtain rails and fighting over who has more wardrobe space. Then we think about the house-warming party

Scaffold Down

At last the scaffold has come down and we can see what the house will look like - also Jason and Peter can get on with the bike shed, the most important bit.

We think it looks great

Meanwhile, back at No 10 we are frantically boxing up 30 years of accumulated 'stuff' trying to keep one step ahead of Derek and Clive painting the rooms we need to do before we offer it for letting. Tomorrow the man from the Removals is going to tell us how much it will cost to move things 20 yards down the road (just the big stuff - like baby grand pianos for example - we have had offers from friends and family to help with the rest).

And then the drive and patio. And then the house warming party!

Completion in site

No photos as its all but finished and we have dates for the scaffolding coming down and the final handover. You can then see the finished product. The inside will be ready before the outside so we are negotiating early access to help get around the log-jam of having to get No 10 ready for letting. We have to do some redecoration but need to clear out 30 years of accumulated 'stuff' first but nowhere to put it.

Tomorrow the Heat Recovery guy finishes and will give us a tutorial on how to make it work. The electricity is on with water to follow soon. This weekend once the builders have gone we will be in doing some minor finishing touches to save a bit of money - the flooring in the attic room, the curtain rails and curtains.

Later in September we will be starring in an Eco-homes event at our local Environmental Resource Centre www.stnicks.org.uk hopefully with the architect and builder too and in November there is special Passivhaus open event. Before then we will behaving a house warming party for family and friends but also for all the long-suffering neighbours who have had the road blocked by builders wagons and excavations

Nearly there?

Lots of progress and we now have our own set of keys so we can sneak in and take a look around when the builders go home. We don't want to get in the way as the finish line is in sight.

Outside the rendering to the sides and rear has been completed as well as the half of the front that will be covered with timber slats. The other half, brick now as the tiles were prohibitively expensive (and quite honestly we like it in brick better), is within inches of the eaves and looking really good. Jason is an ace bricklayer when he is not supervising all the other trades. The interior is coming on too with Peter laying the floor, hanging the cupboards and doors. The electrician has nearly finished and the bathrooms are fitted out and tiled.

We have decided to keep the paintwork off-white throughout as we have so much in the way of wall hangings and pictures we decided to hang them all first and then see if any extra colour was needed. Maybe not as the white and all the timber looks good already.

We blocked the road again as the mains electricity was connected and the meter goes in on Friday. Yesterday I got a letter from British Gas telling me their prices were going up! Since they will be paying us maybe I should warn them that our prices are going up too, though I am not sure it works like that. Our current 'green' supplier cant do Passivhaus installations though we could switch back as soon as we move in. But since they wont be getting any money from us I doubt if they will want us.

Next week the heat recovery system goes in.

Apart from making decisions we have been busy on the garden which we are doing ourselves We have laid the turf and once the scaffold is down we can start on the fencing and patio

Catching Up - again!

Its been a while since I posted anything. It’s not that the builders have not been beavering away but first fixing is not very photogenic. Lots of wiring, plumbing and noggins have been going in, never to be seen again. Because of this we have been summonsed regularly by Peter the Joiner or Bob the Plumber to make sure everything was going where it should or to agree a minor change because what was planned didn’t quite work.

Much worse for us we are having to make final decisions about finishes – colours and textures of tiles, flooring, banisters, doors – which means going out to  Tile Depot or Howdens and finally making our minds up. We are trying to keep a balance between simple and modern as the house probably needs and not wanting it to be too bland. On the other hand we have so much in the way of pictures, bookshelves and trinkets from foreign parts no one will see the decorations anyway!

Most noticeable of the changes have been the bathrooms and kitchen with the kitchen in particular looking very much like the finished product and thankfully looking just as we wanted it. You can never be quite sure until it is actually there.

We will be finishing off the loft space ourselves though it is intended to act as a study (no longer separate studies! How will that work?) but already, now it is fully plastered out, it looks like a great space.

In fact, all the rooms are looking quite spacious and - prompted by the cost of storage of baby grand pianos - we are re-considering if in fact we can fit it in the living area, at least until our aspiring Liberace has enough space to take it off us.

On Monday the painter comes in, so more decisions this weekend, but it will really begin to look OK. We have also had a quote for the Juliet balconies - more than we expected but, as the old saying goes - 'don't spoil the ship for a happorth of tar' (translation available on Wikipedia for those not from  a nautical background)

Catching Up

That last post sat in the outbox for a while so lots of progress has been made since then -

• the staircases are in - no more climbing up ladders (though Jason had previously relented and let Margot have a look around. She of course clambered up to the attic like a squirrel)
• Peter the joiner has been busy putting in extra battens for me to hang our shelves on and the plumber to hang his WC and WHB. What looks neat and tidy on the architects drawing can suddenly get tricky when, say, the ventilation duct or soil pipe needs to go where the toilet was shown or the kitchen designer forgot that the waste pipe from the washing machine would get in the way of the fancy corner cupboard we had got so excited about in the showroom.
•  
• However with a bit of give and take it all gets resolved and its now ready for the plasterboard to go up internally
• Outside the roof has been finished with clay pantiles - round the edges of the solar panels at the rear and all over the front slope. I like the dormer over the stairs - I always prefer gable ends with big overhangs.
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• The external boarding is up ready for a coat of white render to the sides and rear (very mediterranean) but with tiles to the front
• Today we saw the solar panel suppliers van back so they must be installing the internal works - the panels are all electric so the water is heated via an immersion heater to a storage tank in a cupboard in the second bedroom.
• Oh,yes - we have a front door. Must be about ready for the first air test.

Meanwhile, when we have a sunny day I get on with the rear garden. The lawn area is ready for turf but we have decided to make the seating area in the veg plot a bit bigger and finish it with decking, like the patio, which I will do myself as soon as the scaffolding comes down. I have also made a new shed out of pallets and timber out of the skip. Even though we are paying the builder serious money to build our new home I can't shake the habits of a lifetime and see all that good stuff go to waste - its a parallel universe but I seem to be able to inhabit both simultaneously.

First Fix

The house is now house shaped and weatherproof, which leaves the external finishes - roof and walls - and the internal finishes. So the pressure was on for us to finally make up our minds on the detailed fixtures and fittings so the first fix plumber and electrician could get on with installing all the pipework and cabling needed before the plasterboard is put in.

First visit was back to Howdens for the kitchen.We had already agreed the layout but we need to make some adjustments and agree the internal features so back to Andy and his 3D design software for the last minute tweaks. Everything is apparently in stock so the actual purchase can wait but the joiner and the plumber both need to know what goes where so they can get on with their first fix.

Next an 8 o'clock meeting at PlumbCenter's showroom with the plumber. Turns out what looks neat and tidy on the architects drawing doesn't quite turn out so easy in practice. Pipes need space and one trade gets in the way of another and its only about now that these clashes raise their ugly head. Thankfully it can be made to  work with a bit of give and take and the bathrooms are going to be pretty much what we envisaged. We lose a bit of storage but we can live with that - and it saves some money too! I actually quite enjoy helping to resolve these issues, just like the old days when I had to work for a living.

Next I get to get on site and  take a look around. There is still no staircase as they needed to leave a space to get the windows in but its great to actually see the upper floors. We were not entirely sure whether we would want to use the upper (attic) floor as a study as it only has velux rooflights but in fact it is a lovely space - and  not being able to look out of the window will help avoid too may distractions. We went around  with Peter the joiner  to discuss where the shelving and storage would go so he could put extra noggins in and then with the electrical and  plumbing subcontractors. We seem to have ironed out the remaining issues, plus a few new ones due to the Heating and Ventilation ducting having gone in,

Jason nearly got himself into trouble by suggesting the site wasn't suitable for a lady but we managed to wriggle out of that one as I was the only on with steel soled boots. However he got all the offcuts cleared up pretty prompt and last Friday Margot was given the grand tour.

Thankfully she was OK  with the decisions we had made on her behalf so this week the plumber, electrician and joiner will all be onsite not to mention the roofers - the tiles for the front slope are  delivered and ready to go up. I however am down south dog-sitting for my sister so well out of it - except I have just had a call from Jason setting up a site meeting for Friday morning. Nothing serious I hope

Panels and Windows

Once the battens were in place the solar panels went in really quickly with a team of roofing subcontractors on site for just a couple of days.

 And then this week the windows arrived. Monday brought the four sliding doors for the two bedrooms and the ground floor to maximise the light to these south-facing rooms. They came perched on the back of a small truck and it was a nail-biting half-hour as the tele-porter transferred them onto the site. 

Today we got the smaller windows for the north facing rooms and by tonight they were all in place. Everything triple-glazed of course.

 

 

A week off

With nothing major scheduled until the 2nd June I was happy to leave Jason to get on with things while I went off to Somerset to help John Grimshaw build a cycle path from Weston-super-Mare to Brean Down including the world's biggest bird-hide. This was to protect the nesting redshanks from being traumatized by hordes of lycra clad cyclists passing by. And, no I didn't forget to take my spirit level, that's how the artist designed it.

Interestingly, it was made of larch which is what we will have to the front of our house so let's see how our builders get on.

Back today and the timber frame company are here putting in the door they forget to leave in the attic room (Kevin McCloud eat your heart out!), the outside battens are on, the internal membrane to make it airtight is in and the fitters are here preparing for the solar panels which are due to arrive later today,  These will not only collect the sun's rays but will also keep off the rain, avoiding the need for roof tiles on the south facing slope.

Stealth house

Its beginning to look even more like the house Phil designed with the pitched roof going on and even the dormer over the stairwell.

And then just today its been cloaked in a black breathable membrane - a bit like a gore-tex anorak - that makes it look like a stealth fighter plane. 

The joiner has set up shop on our drive and the roof battens are going on top ready for the solar PV panels that will make up the whole of the rear south-facing roof and supply all our electricity needs. Due on site 3rd May.

In the meantime I get on with the landscaping. The pond is back in shape, albeit smaller, and full of frog spawn. The retaining wall is finished and I am now levelling what will be a lawn fit for Wimbledon, albeit smaller. The aim is to have the landscaping ready at the same time as the house so the house-warming party can spread out into the garden.