Mañana

No brickie today. Tomorrow, tomorrow. Always tomorrow.

Lots of timber arrived today, as well as mortar and sand.

Plumbing quote number three came in, and is within 500 of the previous one. That's a very small difference, given the numbers involved. It looks like we're stuck with these figures, and we'll be plumping for the plumber who is able to start soonest. The new guy wants to give us horrible skeletal radiators, but we're not having it.

Tetris 2: the next level

The blocks for the upper walls arrived today and are stacked on the new floor:


I'm hoping it's a minor technicality, but this appears to have necessitated the propping-up of the first floor from below:


Meanwhile, at the back, another mysterious bit of wood has been added to the lintel of the patio doors. I assume they mark something, but what, and on which axis, I've no idea.


At this morning's meeting the builders introduced the possibility of working through part of their August holiday to make up time. No promises though.

Tomorrow: the brickie's return.

Floor pour once more

Who'd be a builder? Today our team braved very inclement weather up on top of the extension to lay the first floor:


Minutes from last week's site meeting state that the project is now two weeks behind, but that the builders are still optimistic about making that up. More information following tomorrow morning's meeting.

Lattice alone

Not much has happened this last few work days. Some odd bits of carpentry have been added to the steelwork:


(That piece of wood sticking out from the eaves on the far left is particularly odd. I don't know what it's for.)

Today they laid the latticework for the first floor:


I'm guessing there'll be other things to be done before blockwork begins.

Finally, our custom window handles arrived and we got yet another plumbing quote. A high one. But don't worry, there'll be another one along in a minute.

Get the lid on

I should have known that big things were up today when the site meeting was attended not only by the site manager, but by the head builder as well. We started with the plumbing, and it's not good news. Our captive plumber has not been able to get the numbers down to a sufficient level so we've released him back into the wild. The firm the builders had in mind is apparently quite eager to have a go, so our project manager will be contacting them next.

We were quite surprised to learn that our kitchen rooflights don't come in a non-opening format but, as the builder said, it will make it easier to clean them, so it's not a big deal. Concerns about the kitchen layout were still on the agenda so we dug out the drawings we got done last July and have passed them on. Hopefully they have enough accurate information for the builders' purposes.

And so to the main event: the floor was due to arrive today. When I got home, sure enough, it was in place, its hollow core proudly on display at the rear:


With the extra scaffolding, things are looking very boxed in at the front, like a proper building site:


The floor is made up of nine slabs:


All we want is for it to be soundproof, but it looks like you could land a plane on this.

Happy ever rafter

We're back from holiday. Yes, very nice, thank you.

The main gist of what happened when we were away is the completion of the ground floor blockwork and the internal walls. The TV room still looks very small:


Still, it means the couch can go under the window which will make cabling of speakers and the like much easier.

Dara reckons the utility room is small as well, but it feels about right to me. This is the walkthrough from the kitchen:


And this is the lintel above the utility room door. We've had quite a bit of new steelwork done in our absence.


The headline work today was the installation of the kitchen rafters:


From the side you can see the gaps where the rooflights will go:


Also new today is the side-passage scaffolding, marking the beginning of work on the first floor.


We expect to have said floor in place by the end of the week. Site meeting tomorrow.

Walled in

As expected, loads of progress on the walls today, with the exterior pretty much finished on three sides:


They've removed that erroneous course of blocks that would have obstructed the patio doors as well.

At the front there's still a big gap, But that may well have more to do with the logistics of site access than anything else.


It'll be internal walls next, I'd say.

When I got home this evening our project manager was standing in the driveway with a plumber he'd captured. We bundled him inside to discuss the project and now he's chained up in the shed running price options for us. It looks like connecting our central heating to the solar panels is going to cost a fortune -- far more than it'd be worth, so we'll likely drop that bit. There are a few other options we have about the plumbing infrastructure but it looks like we'll now be able to get things moving on this front. The builders are still pursuing a plumber as well. If they manage to capture us a second one we can make them fight for the job.

Off the ground

Ten minutes into our meeting there was a knock on the door: the brickie had arrived. He hadn't shown up yesterday due to an ill child: not much you can do when faced with a brickie kiddie sickie.

Anyway, he got busy with it, and this evening we have the side wall, both layers and the cavity insulation in between, at shoulder height.


Progress has also been made on the other walls, though I'm a little concerned at the two courses to the left of the picture which look like they'll be blocking the patio door.

The two layers of blockwork are held together with steel ties like this:


And so today a side passage was born:


As I thought, it's a little wider than the drawings -- 1075mm at the back instead of 1008, but we couldn't have made the extension any wider and still kept the passage a metre wide.

Here you can see at the front where the insulation fits in:


Now that it's taking shape, the front TV room feels very small to me, but then it exists more-or-less by default and there would have been no point sacrificing valuable kitchen space for it.

The meeting this morning was fairly uneventful. The project manager is still chasing a plumber, his preferred candidate having passed the job offer to his brother who is now looking at it. The builders have been asked to continue their search as well. Since plumbing work is due to begin in 4-5 weeks, they'd want to hurry up with this.

Afterwards there was something of a door-related farce when the builders' site manager refused to place an order for the doors until he had a model number, except the joinery doesn't do model numbers. So Dara called them, told them what we wanted, arranged to make up a reference number for the job, and passed this on to the builders for them to order it. All very strange.

So that's where things sit today. The foreman reckoned that we will make up for lost time with the blockwork if the weather stays good. Since there's a whole three weeks allocated just to get the ground floor done, I'd say the saving should be somewhere in the region of two weeks saved, but with the weather you just never know.

Breakthrough

I was expecting blockwork today: the beginning of things being built up. Instead, things were knocked down, namely the section of wall separating our original kitchen from the extension:


You can see here (sort of) the various levels of floor which still have to be put on in the extension -- screed, damp-proof course, radon barrier etc.:


These mystery lintels were the only other additions today:


We'll find out what happened to the brickies at tomorrow morning's site meeting.

Our new Mecchano set

They put the steel together today, like so:


Impressive, isn't it? Here's the view from the front, where you can see the grooves in the crossbeam into which the upper floor of the extension will fit:


Here's where it's integrated into the fabric of the original house, which has necessitated removing the upper courses of blocks from the wall, just under the steel beam:


In other news, our insulation arrived today.


We've never had insulation before.

The kitchen panic is somewhat reduced from the level it was at yesterday. The builders have decided they only need general layout details rather than full specification, which means we'll hold off going to the kitchen people until the walls have been started.

Blockwork has been booked to begin at 9.30 on Tuesday morning. I'm not sure if much is planned for tomorrow, though bolting down the steelwork might be a good idea.