The Brickies' work is done

The bricklayers have now finished their part of the work and it is all looking very good so far.  The walls have been formed for the Snug/TV room - that large opening is for windows which will go full height of the building including our new bedroom above.  As I have mentioned in an earlier post the first floor is going to be formed from Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs)

                 

                                                        

The other big job that is now complete is the inserting of a steel beam that will support the first floor when to new garden room extension is knocked through into the current sitting room.  - exciting as this is going to be a glorious room with such great views of the garden. 

Steel beam from which the joists will be hung next week when the roof goes on

Ground floor plan - not quite the latest tweak but you get the idea.

So next it is the joiners turn and they will arrive on site on Monday for the flat roof of the garden room and the first floor extension.  

In the meantime we have been busy with those decisions again - or at least gathering samples and ideas to help us make some decisions,  This week has been about bathrooms and lighting - important so we get the plumbing and electrics in all the right place. However I have also been enjoying myself with paint colours and floor coverings - a long way off I know!

Tonight I will be back on Ebay - selling this time as we have some things that the builders have removed that might be of use to someone.  The most interesting of these is a explosion proof light fitting from the garage!!!    What! you don't have one of those?   

Good progress and the roof begins

This week there has been a great deal of progress - not all of it readily visible.  The blockwork is almost at ceiling height for the new TV room snug (extension of the original carport).  The extension above this, and over the flat roof of the carport and store rooms, will be built using SIPs (Structural Insulated Panels) which are being fabricated at the moment. This will house a new master bedroom, bathroom and dressing room. That section will be clad in zinc so that the new addition to the house can be differentiated from the original 1960s heart.  

The builders have also been busy blocking up gaps and old air vents at the back of the house in store rooms - progress towards our air tightness!

At the other end of the house the garden room extension is taking shape.  The steel beams have been put in above the large windows and and the roof joists are beginning to be installed.  These are metal web joists which are brilliant for taking all the services through - for example the mechanical ventilation ducting. 

My study area is going to be that section of the room with bookcases across the blockwork wall you can see in this pic and a fitted desk that we are re-using from elsewhere in the house. 

Huge amounts of scaffolding has been put up to enable this work to be done and next week should see this really take shape.  The large windows are on a 10 week delivery schedule so we have to be patient to see those installed. 

All in all a good week with great weather and lovely autumn colour in the garden too!

  

The quest for energy efficiency

This week has been all about energy efficiency and the problems of embracing new technologies and new building specifications.  We had a great meeting with Flixborough Eco Technologies and talked air source heat pumps, solar PV, (both of which we have experienced in our last home) solutions for heating domestic hot water, LED lighting and much more.  Some of these technologies may be included in the project further down the line once we have an idea of the energy costs after living in the renovated house for a while.  My reason for arranging the meeting was to help us understand the heat input requirement for our super insulated, pretty airtight renovation.  We are not aiming at Passive House standards, which in theory mean that you need almost no heat input, but we do want to come close so we recognise that the existing oil boiler will in the short term have to be used.  This will heat radiators when the solar gain and wood burning stove are not sufficient - but..... how many radiators and where do we site them?  All the advice is that the mechanical ventilation won't really move heat around the house so we will need a spread of heat sources throughout.  We know what the projected U values for the windows and insulated walls are so now we can ask our heating engineer to do the relevant calculations.  Then we can look at size and placement of radiators and heated towel rails. 

Interesting article about U values on this website The Greengage

Friends of ours in Canada have recently designed and built a completely off grid, passive house concept cottage and the link here will take you to their website.  It's a fabulous and inspiring place. 

This house is super insulated too and you can see the solar PV and solar thermal panels in the photo - energy generated by the PV is stored in batteries for use as required.  The use of batteries in the UK is quite a new idea and technology is improving all the time.  This was another topic we discussed with Flixborough Eco Technologies. All these things are really interesting but rather expensive solutions, especially when the technology is new - look at how the price of solar PV has come down in 5 years.  So the conclusion from all of this week's discussions is that we stick with the oil boiler and monitor our use of fossil fuel once the build is finished.  Hopefully that tank of oil we have will last us a VERY long time!!

The fabric first approach

This week has gone well and the block work walls are up for the garden room/lounge extension. it's the roof next and the big steel lintels have been delivered  to site. 

The gap in the block work is for the large full height triple glazed windows which will give us lovely views over the garden and over the new pond. The flat roof will have a good overhang to shade the windows from the height of summer sun and we hope to run the rainwater from this single story section of roof, down a rain chain, under the lawn and into the pond.  We are going to let the pond fill over the winter so we don't use our metered tap water - re-use! 

The cavity between the two layers of block work has been filled with Earthwool cavity slab insulation which has good thermal properties and some reasonable environmental claims (made using recycled glass bottles). This is only part of the insulation that the house is going to receive.  The whole house will eventually be wrapped with another outer layer of insulation, and made as airtight as possible, before new rainscreen cladding -  (in part larch wood and part Marley Eternit Equitone facade cladding).  We are taking a fabric first approach to the house and hope that this will mean we need very little heat input from the oil boiler (too new to justify replacing with any renewable technology)  Next week we have a meeting with a consultant who we hope will be able to help us understand what the heat input requirements will be and we anticipate that we will be able to cut down the number of radiators throughout the house - but more on this after the meeting!!

Of course aiming for an airtight house can lead to problems of air quality and condensation issues so to ensure a good air quality throughout the house we will be retrofitting a Heat Recovery and Mechanical Ventilation system by CVC Direct - This needs a bit of thinking about in the existing parts of the house but some careful positioning of vent piping inside fitted wardrobes and storage cupboards means we can get vents into all the places we want them.  Tim at CVC has been great in helping with this and we are just waiting for his latest plans.  

Oh! and after selling our old coffee table and a few other bits and pieces on Ebay my latest Ebay purchase a lovely chair for my office! - Recycle!

Digging holes!

Lots of holes have been dug in the last few days including one that coincided with our water main...not a good combination but quick thinking by the builders, and a plumber on call, got us back on in a couple of hours with not much of a flood.  Anyway now the foundations for the carport extension (TV room/snug) are nearly prepared for concrete.

Whoops! the water main

Foundations nearly ready

   

We then had the brilliant idea that digging a hole in the garden could be just what we needed as wildlife is really important to us and, at present, there is no water feature.  So a pond is emerging and it turns out that our great mini digger driver is a dab hand at ponds so we have left the design very much up to him and a few shouts of "bigger bigger" from the builders - we are loving what they are creating!!

The new wildlife pond takes shape

Finally, not to be outdone, the dog dug a huge hole in one of the borders - after moles or mice I guess.  He was so muddy he had to have a bath - good job the water is back on!!

Progress!

Well this week the weather has once again been quite kind to us so progress has been good on the floor slab for the garden room/lounge extension.  The only wet day sent the builders inside to start building the wall to form the snug/TV room adjacent to the kitchen in the old carport. 

The floor slab takes shape

New block wall to form TV room

We have also been taking some of those decisions I mentioned in an earlier post.  The first has been to settle on the kitchen design.  As you can see we are going for a two tone ivory and charcoal grey for a complete change.  We have left the area above the sink free from wall units so that we can recycle some of the lovely wood from the house as open shelves. We are also using some of the original wooden kitchen doors on the island.  We are lucky enough to have a huge walk in pantry so we don't need loads of storage in the kitchen itself. The kitchen is from Howdens who have done us a great deal in their sale....but it has to be delivered next week so a weekend of clearing space in the garage ahead I think!
The kitchen will be one of the biggest changes in the house as it opens up a series of small rooms - laundry and a corridor to give a light open plan space. 

We have taken delivery of some of our vintage furniture from Ebay (Ercol tables and McIntosh sideboard) and I am now looking out for armchairs.

Another decision this week has been the front door.  We wanted to go with the dark purple to match the feature cladding on the front elevation but can't get a good enough match. We have finally decided to go for a charcoal grey that matches the windows.  This door will also be supplied by Olsen.

A small job I have been attending to is changing over to LED light bulbs - finding ones that are dimmable has been tricky but I have some now - all part of our reduce agenda!  All the new lighting we put into the house will also be LED. 

The joys of mid-century furniture

More decisions to be made over the next few weeks re furniture and furnishings for this updated 60s interior we are trying to create.  Having spent most of my life living in Victorian environments this is exciting!!

Of course mid century is now becoming fashionable and prices are rising in the second hand (pre-loved!!) market.  Manufacturers like Ercol have recreated some of their iconic pieces in their 'Originals' range and, whilst they are certainly gorgeous, they are pretty expensive.  Having got disappointingly little for the antique furniture that went to the saleroom as part of our downsizing exercise we are trying to be careful about how much we spend on this aspect of the project.  So.... at the moment I have placed an offer (as yet not accepted) on Ebay for a vintage Ercol coffee table (Oh if only I had kept that one from my mother's bungalow!!) and John is going to look at a nest of second hand Ercol Pebble tables at Tomlinsons of Wetherby today - Tomlinsons is just off the A1 and is a treasure trove of vintage finds!

Ercol Pebble nest of tables in elm

Next on my list is a long vintage sideboard and there are some great ones on Ebay by manufacturers like McIntosh but I am concerned about delivery and about not seeing them before I buy.  More research to do on this I think as they vary widely in price, condition and location.  There are, however, more and more shops selling vintage so locating one that I could go and look at shouldn't be an impossible task - and maybe Tomlinsons will have something? 

Mid century sideboard

This up-cycling of old furniture fits in well with our Reduce, Re-use, Recycle  mantra and in the house are a number of fitted furniture items that we can re-use.  These include the base of a playtable which will become my desk with a new wood top fitted. Some wooden bookshelves which we will refit into the garden room extension and the bench seating in the breakfast area of the kitchen.  Once this is moved and recovered it should make a great new breakfast area under the window overlooking the garden.

existing 1968 bench seating in the kitchen

So all good!  I am also looking for some 60s inspired furnishing fabrics and there seem to be quite a few good options available here too - like this lovely one by Clarke and Clarke...more decisions to make! 

Henrika in Indigo from the Gustavo collection by Clarke and Clarke

Latest news - John brought home the pebble tables and we bought the sideboard pictured above from House of Twenty on Ebay...result!

Decisions, decisions decisions....

I ended my last post with - 'tomorrow the concrete slab will come up'  Hmmmmm! - optimistic! - as actually the slab was really thick and it took two days of hard, noisy and dusty work to break it up an remove it from site.

The old 20cm thick slab has to go

Anyway, once that was done the lovely weather has meant that progress has been fast and the footings are now in (concrete poured this morning) and tomorrow the blockwork for the new garden room/lounge extension begins.  For this part of the build we are using blockwork - cheaper here, but for the first floor extension over the games room and garage we are using Structural Insulated Panels as they are lighter and will go up quickly - so more on those in a later blog.

Loving the new outside radiator feature! 

  

I headed this post up as Decisions, decisions, decisions and there is a good reason for that because, whilst the builders have been busy with the extension, we have been busy making those decisions.  In a project like this there so many to make!!  This week has been bathroom fittings (almost there with this), kitchen plans (still a bit to go here as we are trying to use some of the wooden doors from the existing kitchen), floor coverings (I'm loving Marmoleum at the moment and will write more about this in future), front door colour (having problems matching the dark purple of the outside feature cladding panel) heating options and Heat Recovery and Ventilation systems.

The last two are connected issues, and giving us a few headaches, because we need to know how much heat input we need for the house once it has been wrapped with insulation and made pretty airtight. The decision we have made is to find an energy consultant to advise us because we don't want to spend money replacing the old 1960s skirting heating with modern radiators if they never come on because the inside temperature stays so warm.  We might also want to put at least one stove into the house as there are two lovely fireplaces. 

The chimneys will have to be blocked up to stop heat escaping so using an inset stove in one, if not both, could be a good option - we are liking the Scan inset stoves like the one below

It could however completely overheat the house so we need that advice.

Well enough from me for now - I must go and make some more of those decisions!