Faffing Towers

More time goes by. I’m thinking that houses are like icebergs .. 95% of them are underground. Although we are now seeing walls go up we are still working on the groundworks, with another 10 days or so to go.
The piles went in on the South side ~ 4m deep .. and fortunately hit good enough ground. Beams and slabs are being made on-site (steel frames, shuttering and more concrete) to join them to the current foundations. We have also laid the lower slab to the garage. It looks like we’ve got past the problems of the foundations. I’ve appreciated the house being on a (15o) slope has added hugely to the foundations cost in complexity and process.
The services trench between the garage and house was 50% dug (the store is in the way for the rest), filled in, dug again, water/gas/electricity/ethernet laid and filled in again to allow the scaffolding around the LGF (lower ground floor). It’ll need to be dug again (for the third time) for the drainage. We’re seeing the different trades eg groundworks, brickies getting in the way of each other.
The brickies make progress around the house to the point that scaffolding is needed. Their work looks good, but they only work in good weather .. which in the UK means they spend half their time in the pub.
Weather warnings .. heavy rain and floods this week means the brickies are in the pub, the groundworkers are sodden and the site is a quagmire. Ang/I looked at the forecast and booked a flight back to Ibiza for a week.
The windows sourcing seems more settled, we’re getting quotes for the staircase, budgets from electricians and plumbers and started designing/sourcing the kitchen.
In the wet weather I’ve had an almighty techno-faff prototyping a home control system. I now have a number of devices connected to a network, mqtt server and homeassistant on a odroid embedded computer that provides the automation, UI frontend and iphone app.

Foundations hell !! We managed to dig and pour the N side and 2/3rds of the E-W sides and middles in two stages, both involving messy digs. Coming to the S foundation we dug, and dug .. over 2m, then 3m and not finding decent ground. The building control guy (Simon) and the structural warranty guy (Paul) both said consult the structural engineers (Price-Myers) so Sam and Steve were involved. They asked for more trial holes, all equally poor before concluding we needed 14 (mini) piles 220mm dia, 4m deep. We agree a price for this and its booked for a weeks time.
We have similar issues with the garage due to next doors willow tree and poor ground, deep foundations are dug ~2.5m and they’re messy. 84cu m of concrete is poured in … 84!! at the best part of £250/cu m just for garage foundations.
In the digging of the garage foundations we find the incoming water main which is 3/4” copper. I have to crawl into the foundations and dig under a laurel tree to find decent pipe which has a/ been bent by the digging and b/ gone oval with 40 years of ground weight on it. Many hours later I finally get a watertight joint using a 3/4” olive into 22mm copper into 25mm mdpe pipe. These messy joints have to last the future of the house.
On a plus note the blockwork is going up and we are seeing the layout of the LGF (lower ground floor) and the undercroft. The blockwork looks neat and well done (what do I know though).
We also have a reasonable quote for the doors/windows and a design for the roof construction, both big-ticket items.
We go into week 5 with a tidier, less sodden site, first sight of a house emerging and I would guess the foundations costing towards x3 plan.

A week where some of the realities of building arose .. ie minor shit happened that had to be resolved.
The cabins arrived tues/wed, we now have a toilet block – mens and ladies, a canteen/drying room – if folk get wet on a day they’d better have dry clothes for the next els not much will happen, and a site office on top of the canteen. I connected the water up pretty easily, although the hose-pipes swell worryingly when a couple-bar go through them. The electricity was another matter. Each cabin has a 32A plug and the canteen has two good heaters, a water heater, a kettle and microwave – potentially this lot can suck 100A which is the limit of the property supply. 16mm armoured cable (112A) to junction box (100A) to 3 (32A) cabin feeds. Gawd help the elec bill.
Weather has been good to date, but after digging the second stage of the house footings it poured through thurs night turning the site into a quagmire. Footings were tidied up the next morning and the cement lorries srted turning up, As the site is on a 15o slope the first lorry started sliding down towards the footings. They quickly backed out, and had the fill one area of the footings with the digger moving it across to the rest. Footings were successfully poured but whatta mess at the end of the day. Long way to go yet.
Next door has a lovely willow tree 4m from the boundary – blxxdy thing. Immense time has been spent by all and sundry, partic the structural engs designing the garage footings to deal with probably the most water sucking tree around. We got a design wed evng with 2.3m deep footings .. all for a garage. The site engineer then started measuring out on thurs aft to find tree-roots and the site loo in the way of the dig. So, a hasty move and redesign had to be done Friday. This is before we have the hassle of re-siting the drains (after a weeks faff checking for asbestos) and finding and reconnecting the mains water.
I also worked on the house m&e design, chased windows and on the wet Friday had an almighty faff on smart home technology.

A four day week but things are moving nicely. The design has been updated and released from tender status and particularly QSP’s inputs on choice of materials and build methods. The engineer has been laying out the site. The lower ground floor foundations have been dug and ready for concrete to be poured . A steady stream of lorries come and go with materials, sheds and machinery. We’re also getting to know the guys and the feel of how the project will work.

This is day 1 of the website for Faffing Towers. We have demolished the old building and prepared the site for the build to start next tuesday. yeah. I’m in Ibiza for a few days .. and the weather is about as bad as we’ve known it .. so a great faff-time setting the site up