Earth-sheltered

This waterproofed wall will be covered up so that it's insulated by the surrounding earth. The builder is standing on top of what will be the kitchen

The store- and shower-rooms are snugly underground. This will be the third bedroom above them.

The gabions forming the retaining wall at the north-eastern end of the building. The stone is from a local quarry and seems to glow a real Devon red when it's wet

This is the hole where the stairs will be. Deciding on a curved stairwell during the difficult middle phase of the design and planning application process was a real boost to our morale. It will be top-lit by a rooflight and there will be LED step lights set into the lovely curve

I knew there'd be lots going on and decided to go down to the site one afternoon in early August. It was quite astonishing what progress had been made, despite July's rain. The house is taking shape and the rooms that will be underground already feel relatively snug.

Onward and upward

The final, defiant roots of the Macrocarpa, grubbed up and shoved ignominiously out of the way

These walls will be waterproofed and then covered by soil; this part of the house is effectively underground. The builder is standing on the ground floor.

In the background, the builders are making the gabion cages

This man was determinedly brushing away the rainwater which was collecting as fast as he could work

We attended a meeting in early July and then went over to see progress on site. Now that the slab was laid and the footings (deep, concrete "slices" cut down into the hillside, to act as anchors and stop the house sliding down), were in place and back-filled, the next step was the back walls, which will be carefully waterproofed. This co-incided with some rotten weather, which delayed proceedings somewhat but as the chief builder said, better to take the time and get it right than risk allowing water in through areas that are going to be effectively underground and inaccessible from now on. We agreed, fervently.
Interestingly, at a design meeting about 2 years ago (yes, this has all been going on a very long time), the structural engineer pointed out that the wonderful ruberoid rubber membrane that is wrapped around the structure would act as a grand sheer layer and there was the possibility that without some very careful design, the whole house would sledge down the hill. Hmmm. He re-drew it so that the membrane is wrapped around the anchors to prevent this. Jolly clever stuff.
The builders improved the shining hour whilst it was raining by making the galvanised wire gabion cages, under a makeshift shelter. The gabions are to support the bank at east and west of the house and will be filled with local stone. We also talked with the foreman about the slope immediately below the house. He agreed that it'll make a good vegetable garden and we'll enlist their help to level a wide terrace and help us to build raised beds. After all the angst about the original well, we realise that we'll end up with a well upsides of the house which can gravity-feed a pond via a rill ( always wanted a rill!). That well will need to be pumped out several times in the next few months, to allow the contaminants to wash out. It will never provide an adequate domestic supply, though.

Waterproofed

This is taken from the window of the site hut, a really good vantage point.

The waterproofing layer with a steel grid, on to which the slab will be poured.


We dropped in to the site en route to collect an anniversary present for ourselves, a framed photograph taken in 1978 by James Ravilious. He spent years taking photos of a dying way of rural life in this bit of North Devon; the villages and their inhabitants: Ashreigny, Dolton, Beaford, Chittlehamholt, Eggesford. His work began in 1972 with the Beaford Archive project and his photographs were one of the reasons why we chose this particular area. If you're interested to see his work, look at www.jamesravilious.com.

Water palaver, c'est fini

Steve checking out well 2

Well 2 is along the indistinct track used for the last 10 years or so only by badgers and foxes, beyond what could be Eeyore's house, in a very damp and boggy place


As we drove into Bideford in early June, to meet the architects, a message came through on my mobile to ring the well specialists, urgently. Surprise! The samples had indeed been mixed up; the water from the second well is fine, soft and slightly acidic (almost exactly the composition of the first well before it was lined) and completely safe to use. It'll mean a longer run of armoured cable but the flow rate (ie re-fill rate) is good and this well will provide us with a plentiful supply of water. Phew. I've promised that I'll leave the rest of the water-supply management to the experts but I'm really glad the quality was re-checked. As a bonus, we can drain the swamp at the bend of the track leading down into the wood, when a trench is dug for the well pipework.
The electrician and the plumber were at the meeting that day; an exhausting but really productive and interesting meeting. So many decisions to be made; such detail to consider. And we agreed a design for the staircase with the architects, after months of discussion. It all seems much more real, now and walking around the site later, in between rain showers, we began to imagine how the rooms will feel. Very exciting.

Well, well, well (or Water, water everywhere, nor any drop...)

We've had yet another roller-coaster few weeks. The well lining has indeed stabilised the shaft but it has reduced the volume of water to 1/9th of previous. We made a site visit in early May and talked to the site foreman, Joe, who'd been monitoring the re-fill rate. Peter did some calculations and worked out that the previous, vast reservoir which would have lasted us for about 4 weeks in drought conditions, has been lost. The re-fill rate from the ground source into the new, plastic-lined shaft has also been drastically reduced, so we can't rely on its refilling fast enough to provide more than a single day's domestic usage at a time. We were very cast down. However, about 100 metres away is another well, so we asked the well specialists to check its flow rate and send a sample for analysis. We knew it was a smaller well so the reserve would be less but it wouldn't need lining... We had the water analysis back last week and it is "unusable", with a pH of 9.6 , high levels of Aluminium, Ammonium and Calcium "off the scale", making it hard enough to fur up pipes in very short order.
This result is astonishing, from a water source within 100m of another which is slightly acidic, soft and un-contaminated. We've asked whether the anaysis returned may have been for a sample from somewhere else entirely, ie a lab mix-up.
There will be an answer (one or two options present themselves) but we will have to wait and see.
We're visiting the site in the second week of June, when we should have made a decision.

Anchoring and waterproofing

This is one of the concrete slices, cut deep across the hillside, to act as anchors, with its permanent shuttering.

The jumbled layers of rock , previously only glimpsed by torhlight, whilst peering down into the cavernous well shaft

By early May, the site had turned into a huge hole in the ground and the builders had created a relatively level plateau on which to work. It was hard to imagine, before we saw the process, how the house will be anchored in place but we are confident that it will stay put, having seen these deep concrete slices. The waterproofing is reassuring; it's a Ruberoid product and needs to be "signed off" by the company as being correctly applied and installed.

Start of Construction

This is just one section of the plastic liner for the well

The perforations should allow a free inflow of water...

These sections of the felled trees started as tidy heaps at the top of the slope.

We met the chosen contractors, a local branch of a national company, Pearce and Co, at the architects' office in early March. There were several loose ends to tie up, not least that the proposed windows weren't up to the high specification we want, so Pearces found another supplier, in Latvia, and their products are excellent. Fingers crossed that they will arrive on time. How many Grand Designs projects have we all watched, where the build is delayed waiting for the glazing?

Pearces started on site in early April; once they'd set up their site hut and storage, their first job was to stabilise the well shaft. It's very close to the new footings and it'd be a shame to have one collapsing into the other, in either direction. A rigid, perforated plastic pipe, about a metre diameter, was lowered down the shaft and a sleeve of porous concrete poured around it. The water had to be pumped out for this work and then the well was allowed to refill. We'll learn tomorrow if the refill rate is sufficient for us to use the well. Such suspense.

The site seems very small, cramped and steep; and we wonder how the contractors will stop everything from rolling down the hill, like the logs have done. Pearces seem unfazed by it, however.

We have a programme of the building work, week by week, right through until the projected completion date at the end of November, so we know that for the next 2 weeks, they will be excavating, constructing foundations and tanking. The next scheduled task is "internal drains and services", followed by laying of the slab. Suddenly, it has gained a real momentum.