The Big Freeze

All river traffic ground to a halt in Bristol and so did work in Devon, too but only for a day or so. The ever resourceful site foreman, Joe, thawed out the water pipes and portaloo cistern that we foolishly left full of water after a New Year's Eve visit to the site (you'd think we'd know better, wouldn't you?) and kept the men occupied with inside work. He has a 4wd pickup and ferried the workforce up and down the icy lane. The big ship above is the Thekla, formerly home to Viv Stanshall and now a music venue. This photo was taken from the terrace of our flat.

At a site meeting in mid January, we were distracted from the business in hand by the arrival on site of the new windows as well as the oak flooring. It was difficult to concentrate with this going on just outside the site hut windows. However, we accomplished a huge amount at the meeting and I learned what a "floating floor" is.

The builders seemed genuinely pleased to be installing glazed windows that actually fit the holes and by the end of the winter's afternoon, they had several of the big gable ends done. Just before the meeting started, an earnest chap from the blinds company turned up unexpectedly. He was much more experienced than the greenhorn who'd assured us that the company could fit the pleated blinds within the window reveals. They cannot. We will see what can be done when we go down next week.

This northward gable end being glazed has filled this room with a flood of sharp light, even on a January afternoon.

The steel channel which will invisbly support the glass balustrade has been fitted along the edge of the gallery. Good job Joe Ford checked the measurements as the end of the glass would have fouled the handle of the sliding door to the balcony.

Another photo I almost didn't include. Peter has had a clear vision of what the shower enclosure should look like, right from the start (in fact the whole room's been planned around two gorgeous glass bowls we bought 4 years ago) and we ordered the shower screens and tray on line, to create the finish we wanted. What we didn't appreciate (that'll teach us to read the teeny tiny print) was that the screens are designed to be fitted in a wet room. Our en suite is not a wet room and will have an oak floor. It's taken the combined ingenuity of the whole team, including Peter and me, to work out how to adapt the component parts and avoid water escaping under the floorboards. Fingers crossed.

This shows the treated timber battens on to which the oak cladding will be fixed. The dark hole is where all the services such as electricity, telephone and water pumped from the well will enter and leave the house. The ducting was put in place as the walls were built and waterproofed.

Peter standing on the vegetable terrace. looking over the olive grove. Yes, I know, it doesn't look very promising but wait and see...

One of the longest running conundrums has been how we can stop the gravel on the drive migrating to the bottom of the slope. We've researched it exhaustively and had decided on a grid network filled with gravel. Then the planning permission was checked and the answer is that we can't do anything that may affect the oak tree roots. It's back to raking the gravel back up the slope.

Taking the rough with the smooth (apologies to Dr Andrew Stanway)

Just for a moment, I was considering harnessing this to run a turbine...Sadly, it's a seasonal stream only and runs (or trickles) along at the foot of our valley. And anyway, we'll have enough renewable energy generation with the solar PV and maybe, in due course, an elegant helical wind turbine.

These are the solar thermal panels, which will heat our hot water throughout the summer months. Each panel has its own small photovoltaic panel but we haven't worked out what these are for, exactly. No doubt all will become clear.

The photovoltaic array is actually very beautiful, especially against the blue-grey slate, sleek with rain. Arranging for the cables, carrying DC current, to snake invisibly through the roof construction and down to the far side of the ground floor was quite a triumph of design and engineering. The inverter, which does what it says on the tin, will be in what we're reluctantly concluding will be the "plant room", rather than the dry-store room we'd envisaged. It will be full of machinery and clever electrical stuff as well as the hot water cylinder which is made of stainless steel because the well water is slightly acidic (as I may have mentioned, that's what makes it taste nice) and would eventually corrode a conventional cylinder.

It was quite a pivotal moment, deciding the exact orientation of the bath and where the taps will go. Who'd have thought it'd be such a science?

Hmm. I wasn't sure whether to include this picture but we hope it'll be a historical record of a classic piece of the (temporary) triumph of engineering over aesthetics. This rectangular piece of deal, bolted inelegantly to the junction of three structural timbers, came as a complete shock to us and up with it we will not put. There has to be a better way and anyway, the roof stayed up fine for 6 weeks without this and several more just like it. What felt like a desecration of the simple elegance of the structure reduced me to tears.

Phew. It's been mostly positive over the last weeks and this view of the gallery from the living room is to show not just the magical effect of painting a space but also the interesting geometric shapes that were mentioned earlier in the blog. Those of you with an eye for architectural detail will spot the very end of the ridge beam of the entrance lobby and the beam supporting it, that caused us so much angst. Actually, it's all more interesting than disastrous, thank goodness. The structure looks almost ecclesiastical, which we like very much. We're not sure why the far end of the gallery hasn't been painted yet but the plasterwork is splendid.

More positives: the stair skeleton in place. Getting it into the house was a huge job and some of the welding had to be done in situ, to keep the weight down. This massive steel structure will be plasterboarded and painted to match the walls, so all that will be visible will be the floating stair treads. Maybe it was because it wasn't finished but when we climbed the stairs for the first time, some of the treads had a most disconcerting "shiver". More work in progress.

"And just here we'd like a gentle, wildflower slope...". It seems incredible that over the next few weeks we'll be making decisions on the landscaping and what will be the best surface for the sloping entrance leading from the front gate. Any suggestions/advice welcome.

The hedges all around the boundary of the site have become completely overgrown or the trees and bushes have just rotted away, leaving sad gaps. They've probably been declining for the better part of 40 year,s with only those bounding the lane being slashed annually by machine. It'd be lovely to have the time and skill to replant and to lay these neglected hedges ourselves, however we plan to meet a local hedger at the next site meeting to discuss what should be done. The hedge-laying has to be done by the end of February, before the sap starts to rise, apparently.

This is the view of our gateway, the entrance to the site. Just one end of the eastward gable is visible, which is pretty much how it was when the old house was there. The hedge to the left of the oak tree, with the site hut visible, needs replanting. We'll use quick-set, native species. Another big decision will be what sort of gate we want.

In the beginning was a hole

We've been given a CD of photos taken by the contractors, which is a great record of work that we missed. This is Joe, the site manager, at the bottom of pumped-out Well 1.

The perforated pipe. Oh well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Having stabilised the well shaft, excavation of the earth-sheltered rooms can begin.

This is the formwork, waterproofing membrane and the steel reinforcing for the slab.

Sunshine for the big pour and it continued sunny and dry, thank goodness.

The front face of each gabion is arranged in neat courses. Behind this, the cage is filled with clean stone just packed in, randomly.

"Beam and block" construction on the first floor, for added thermal mass.

The timber frame going up.

The only way to move these massive glazed units into place.

So much happening

Welcome to Greenwood. It's nearly weather-tight and there has been huge progress. We were feeling rather overwhelmed by it all and then the stair plans arrived and blew our minds entirely; in a good way, I hasten to add. We've been repeating what we want until it has felt like a mantra and suddenly, there it is, realised in 3-D and colour. There will be a steel frame set up and from this will be hung the inner end of the oak treads. They won't touch the outer curve and will appear to float. The steelwork wil be concealed within a plastered wall. It is exactly what we'd planned and will be fabricated by a firm in Barnstaple.

Building sites are always bewildering and cluttered. This will eventually be a generous, oak -floored gallery opening out from the entrance lobby. It will have a glass balustrade, giving a view down into the living room. The glass will run along to the top of the stairwell, too, shown guarded by a steel fence, to the right. The view southwards, from the sliding door to the balcony should be spectacular as well. And the correct door slides open, the one on the left, not the one opening into the void!

This photo also shows the conjunction of roof structures that exercised us so mightily just a few weeks ago. It'll be fine.

First fix electrics are well under way and here the kitchen wiring is being planned in detail. So many decisoions to make just for this one area.









Slating is nearing completion and the fixings for the solar photovoltaic panels are in place. This will generate about 1.8Kwh in daylight hours and will provide most of our electricity needs. We'll put more panels on the south-facing pitch of the garage we intend to build once the house is finished. We could put more, free-standing ones on the slope below the house, but we'll see whether we need them and also, what technological developments arrive in the next few years. At the moment, we both rather fancy a helical wind-generator, such as the one on the new Colston Hall extension in Bristol.

A rather more prosaic and traditional energy technology here. We've always intended to have a woodburner and because the house is so well insulated, we won't need any supplementary heating. In the beginning, we'd planned under-floor heating; a warm water system, heated by a ground source heat-pump. However, the mechanical engineer convinced us that this would be uneccessary, so we spent the money on photovoltaics instead. And as anyone who's ever used a log fire knows, you are warmed twice at least, in the cutting and carting the logs, before they reach the fire. Yeah, right. Me. I'm inclined to pay someone else to do that bit. We'll build a wood-store in a sunny spot against the north-west boundary hedge.

And here is just some of the insulation material, stacked on the scaffolding and waiting to be tucked under the roofing felt, which will be boarded on the inside. This scaffolding is near the apex of the double-height living room and will stay in place until the painting is finished

I only noticed that this picture appears twice one I'd finished writing this post and I'm not confident that I can remove it without the whole thing disappearing.

Window problems (as always with grand designs)

What a beautiful, tranquil scene. However, a few days before this photo was taken, we'd discovered that several (possibly all) of the triangular windows that frame the sliding doors or fill the gable ends were the wrong shape and size. It has meant re-ordering them from the manufacturers in Latvia and a significant delay to some of the work, both inside and out. Those of you who watch the TV Grand Designs will be familiar with this point in most of the projects filmed. Tedious.

This is our bedroom, in a photo taken a couple of weeks earlier than the one above. It shows the sliding door unit still shrouded in heavy duty polythene. The triangular spaces will eventually be filled with correctly fitting, triple-glazing.
The roof has been heavily felted and battened and the slating is about to begin.



This view, from the west, shows where there will be a large triangle of glazing in the gable end. The yellow pipe crossing the photo is leading from Well 1. We've asked that it should be pumped out several times and if the contaminants are reduced sufficiently, we'll use the water for the garden in due course.




This is bedroom 3 and it, too, has a glazed gable end that will have to wait. It's at the north side of the house so we've put two Velux windows in here. The rectangular window below is a mandatory fire exit from this part of the house; we hadn't planned to have a window at this level.




This photo, from within our bedroom, shows a further problem that was revealed once the polythene was removed from the sliding doors. Only one side slides open; the other is fixed. From the drawings, we'd assured ourselves that the sliding door would be the one on the right, so that we can lie in bed and watch the sun come up, or stroll out and have breakfast on the balcony. Hah! The opening door is on the left, so not only would we have to squeeze past the end of the bath (did I mention the beautiful bath we have planned for this room?) but we'd have to leave the table at the other end of the balcony, obstructing our view across the valley. Smallish points, really, in the greater scheme of things. However, as there is a big order going in to the company, we've asked them to replace this unit. It won't add to the inevitable delay.

Let there be light

Why would we block this view (in this case, from the utility room)?

Hmm, so that's how it's done

The Berlin wall

We took our eye off the ball on this one

When the place was first designed, the site was perceived, accurately, as very tight and precipitously steep. Thus, the high walls at the front of the south-facing terrace were planned to stop people falling off and tumbling down the hillside, head over heels.
Since the work has started, it's become very clear that the ground can be "sculpted" by determined men with big digger-type machines. The builders have levelled a useful area around the house to give themselves room to work and to stand the scaffolding. Once we realised that the ground can safely be levelled, we decided to do away with these walls, to extend the terrace a bit and to open up the view from the ground floor again.
The terrace won't be load-bearing, so it shouldn't need sturdy foundations and we plan to make a 45 degree slope down to the next terrace. On this slope we'll plant grass and wild-flowers. The soil will be poor quality, mostly stony brash, which will suit wild flowers.

Sewage is so sexy!

No, not an alien space craft

Left hand down a bit

Nearly there

And then you jump on it, like this

This is another of the newly levelled terraces, created for the burying of the sewage treatment plant. The old septic tank was deemed too small for a modern 3 bedroom house, so we decided to put this beast at the other side of the site, accessible across our own land, rather than via the neighbour's private drive. It is an active system, using aerobic breakdown by bacteria, to give a clear (but bacteria-laden) outflow, which will discharge into the stream at the boundary. We had to apply for a "Licence to Discharge" from the Environment Agency.