Day 126. Basin

I didn't see any of this but at long last the basin is fixed in place. The problem was that the place it was put was thick (wood plus tilings) and the fixings wouldn't reach through. The solution (rout out the space from underneath whilst getting covered in wood dust) was slow and unpleasant and Bob only asked Tim to do it when all other avenues were exhausted.

It works too: hot and cold. Good. Now we need the door hung (its there waiting); the lights in; the tile fixed; and... is that it?

Day 125. Windows!

Today the carpenters come in to put in the windows in the kitchen, at least the triangular frames and windows at the sides, and the rectangular window at the front. They end up having to adjust the steel beam a bit... taking out some bricks that had been re-inserted and moving it a bit. So I guess they are multi-talented and not pure carpenters.

Bob came by to measure up the front window for glass, to chat, to reassure us as to progress, and by-the-way to see if he could pick up the latest cheque. Which conveniently saved us a stamp. He also managed to leave his filofax behind...

Day 122-124. Glass and Turf

Not much going on. We have some new glass - these are the big triangular bits for the ends. I didn't realise that they would be split in two but I guess thats OK. We also have the wooden frame for the rectangular window at the front, but (I think) no glass for that.

We also have invoice number 6, for about 10k.

Meanwhile at the back, over the weekend, I got some turf from the rec where the cricket club are re-doing the square, and patched over some of the worst of the damage. There's lots more turf at the rec. I wonder how long it lasts, rolled up?

Day 120-121. Equivalent VIII

No building today, just a pile of bricks. Or is it? Is it... Art? How would we know? The driver carefully avoided driving over the pavement, so its Good Art.

Day 117-119

I've been a bit behind in updating this; sorry; climate wars tend to take preference. And we went to vist F over the weekend. But that was building-related: we were also looking at kitchens in Ikea.

So: on friday Harry was due to dig the front garden soakaway, which would have involved a big pit in the garden, a somewhat unsatisfactory soakway (there is not space to put it 5m from the kitchen) and a scar for the pipe. Going to bed on thursday I mused to myself "but why not lay piping through the side foundations and join to the rear soakaway, which was built oversized? And lo, on friday, Harry said that was exactly what they had realised they could do. It involved knocking a block or two that had been laid; and a little access lid; but apart from that it will save a lot of hassle and dug up garden (us) and presumably money (Bob). The latter doesn't accrue to us but will presumably give us a happier builder!

So fri, mon and tues turns into laying this pipework. And by tues pm we have a drive with no digger or dumper in it, swept clean.

The nasty white plastic guttering and drainpipes that turned up on friday turned out not to be for us. We are having nice aluminium, in Oxford Blue, we randonly decide (our current paintwork could be considered Cambridge Blue).

Day 116. Building up the blockwork in the rain

A bit of a wet day today. Sadly for the builders not wet enough to impede work (it waited till past 4 to really hammer down).

So we now have the inner and outer courses of blockwork begun and got up to brick level.

The finishing off of the kids room is still stalled though: the basin awaits Tim the carpenter to rout out some wood from inside, in order to allow the bowl pipe to be fitted in properly: a painful necessity and far harder than if done beforehand.

Cameo: just as I was getting up to have breakfast, I look out at the back, and there is E (self-dressed in her long red coat, mis-buttoned) very solemnly watching Pete who is carefully measuring up his level lines. What are you doing? she asks, just as he is reading off the numbers on his tape. Pete (trying to remember the number and answer at the same time): "well you see this bit is 570mm and..." so if the extension is wonky its E's fault!

Day 115. Earth out; soakaway; level lines

We've had Harry, Paul and Pete hard at work all day. Somehow it doesn't look so different from yesterday but quite a lot has really been done.

Harry and Pete mostly excavated the soil in the square inside the foundations down to about concrete level (removing about 1' of soil) with Harry in the digger of course and Paul driving the dumper. I think it all gets dumped up around Bennys Way somewhere...

Meanwhile, Pete was looking at setting up for doing the bricklaying. A bit of digging, and a lot of carefully setting up his level lines and markers.

When I came back home just before 4 they were tidying up. There was a new scar across the back garden which is a drain to the soakaway that will take the new roof drains. At some point there will have to be a soakaway in the front too (why couldn't that have been laid through the foundations to the back?). As Harry points out, this is the last time we'll be able to drive a digger into the back.

Ian and Bob were due on site some time to talk about the pavement and other stuff.

Day 114. Very Big Concrete Lorry

So, Harry does the extra digging by hand, and when I get back at 3 the bl**dy big concrete lorry is there, just finishing disgorging its concrete into our nice trench. So that is good.

But, when the lorry is gone, it becomes clear that it has made rather a mess of the pavement. Partly this is because the pavement is rubbish, its decaying everywhere. But no doubt the lorry has made it rather worse. Harry flattens the worst bit with the digger, and puts down a sheet of ply over another. We need to talk to Ian/Bob about this.

Also, I notice the steel beam is now properly tied into the corner of the house; and the triangular wooden frames for the windows in the kitchen are here.

Day 113. A dangerous tree

Trees are scary things if you're a building inspector. Especially dead ones. All those creeping roots... they can go long distances. Invisibly. And then eat buildings! Far better to waste time and effort and push out yet more CO2 by building excessively deep foundations, because what is waste and effort compared to your jobs worth? Sigh.

From which you may guess that when I got home today we did not have any concrete, we did have an instruction from the BI to make the hole a bit deeper at the far end. And the concrete is booked for *tomorrow* afternoon.

Day 111-112: a nice big 'ole

I'm away these days, but when I get back on friday evening I discover a nice big hole of presumably the correct shape and looking about 1m deep. The building inspector is due monday morning to certify the 'ole, and the concrete is booked for the afternoon.

But its a very wet hole, because its poured with rain since 3:30 today.

Day 109-110. Digger.

Yesterday, excitement at 8 am when a lorry arrives, disgorges a digger, and parks it in front of our house. You may talk of your porsches and jaguars, *we* have a digger, ha ha! But nothing else happens, except Gavin and X poke around a bit.

Today, however, we have action: Harry and an assistant, Jason, arrive. Jason is quite young and gets ordered around by the others to do the menial jobs: as Harry later says (after telling Jason he'll be rodding out the drains tomorrow) "we've all been through that". Soon the house is vibrating to the blows of the digger so we go out for a look: the technique for breaking up concrete driveways is to smash the digger bucket teeth downwards. On the thinner concrete it goes through first time, and can then be ripped up. On the thicker stuff it takes 10-15 blows to get through; but again once through it can be levered up. Impressive.

At the end of the day the concrete is gone, and the first foundation hole is dug, at the back, to about 3' deep. They have found the drainpipe, and there is something about a drain blockage. I try to tell them its probably builders rubble; they try to say its probably sand; one way or another they are going to fix it!

Day 107-8. Plans and soil pipes

No action, but both M and I ended up talking to Ian. Kitchens: we should talk to MFI, sez Bob. But we assume Bob is doing the installation. Draw runners: not much joy there.

The side: agree price (no sigs: just a variation...), and Bob may start tomorrow. Or wednesday. Oh errr.

Discuss soil stacks. Do we need a new one? Leave it with Ian. Also location, and the location of the new boiler, and the stacking or not of the dryer and washine machine.

Day 106. Roof!

Wow, things really moved today. After a few slow days, all of a sudden we have a roof, with a velux window in it. I'm impressed by how fast things can move. We also have a stack of tiles in the driveway, which are presumably for the side extension in due course. They are carefully matched (second hand) to our existing tiles. Interesting point: I would have sworn our tiles were red. But they aren't. They're grey.

I'm also pleased with how much light still comes into what is now the kitchen, but will be the dining room. The big triangluar windows (currently just holes...) and the velux are good.

Meanwhile the plumber has done a bit more to the basin, but didn't have the right size fitting. He *has* fixed our leaking stopcock though: its was 2 seconds work, sez M: it just needed tightening.

Also, they've done some good work clearing up the mess at the back, which had been growing a bit uncontrolled.