Stair is installed

Just back just back from another weekend of working on the house following only a couple of weeks behind Heidi who also had a solo trip back.

Things have really been moving on in the last month since we were back as a family at Easter. For Heidi's trip saw her getting on with some more painting getting the kitchen completed and finishing off the master bedroom. Distracting her from her work we had the fire place being installed, tilers in putting in the first floor tiles in the study, the joiner working on loft hatches and access ladder installation, and the data engineer was back starting to fit up outlets and cutting holes for speakers in the ceiling. Outside we had the landscapers finalising the pavers and the driveway installers getting started. No surprise Heidi didn't get quite as much painting done as she had hoped!

Driveway taking shape

Bathroom tiles going down

 The week after Heidi was there dad was up on site for us as the stairway people finally got to site. The stair installation went pretty smoothly with no major problems and the main flight is no in place. They are back again this week to start installing newel posts and hand rail.

Oak stair flight in

The same week the GSHP service engineer also finally made it out to us and found the problem with the unit. Turned out to be a loose connection within the unit that was causing all the problems.

Hot on the heels of the stairs going in Tor was back fitting shower trays and doing other bits and pieces to get the other rooms ready to tile. On site were also Bill & Evelyn - Bill wiring up UFH thermostats, central vacuum sockets and MVHR booster switches and Evelyn painting in bathrooms. Thanks mum & dad for all your help. A successful weekends work all round and things are starting to look like to are heading towards completion now.

This week the data engineer is back fitting speaker, CCTV cameras, PIRs for the security system and terminating CAT6 HD cables. The tilers are also back working in the kitchen in preparation for the kitchen units being delivered on 10th May. Outside the drive way works are completing....busy times!

We are back in week as a family to take delivery of the kitchen units and to get them installed, plus more painting. The list of things to do is getting shorter......very slowly.

Plan is still to be finished by the end of August so we are in the last few months of frantic activity, then we can worry about other things!

Landscaping works ongoing

The landscapers have been working away all week with the gate pilars and pavers and are making good progress. By the time Heidi is back next Thursday I expect they will have all the pavers down front and back and the driveway should be under way.

Second coarse on gate pillars

Pavers outside kitchen

Pavers through the pend

With the stairs hopefully starting to go in and tiling starting at the same time its going to be a busy week or two coming up and some very visual progress happening. Its all very exciting as we finally see the house reaching the finishing stages

A busy Easter week

We are less than a week home from our last trip back to Aberdeen and another busy work week on the house. Things are definitely feeling like we are heading into the finishing stretches now and Heidi has been spending a lot of time looking for tiles for various rooms but I think we are finally there now.

We had a very varied work scope during our week back with painting, ground works, plumbing and carpentry on the list of things to do. I started off by getting the shower areas in the shower room and master en suite ready for laying concrete bases and ultimately the shower trays. Things didn't get off to a good start as I put the grinder blade through a water pipe!. Having recovered from this things progressed well with this work and the concrete bases are now laid and are drying out before the shower trays are laid. While I was doing this Heidi and the boys started to give the master bedroom its first of 3 coats of paint. The first 2 coats prime and seal the plaster and the last coat gives the final finish.

Master ensuite shower tray area

Shower room shower tray area

Master bedroom with one coat of paint

On the Sunday Heidi entertained the boys after they complained mightily the day before about being on site. This left me alone on site so I spent the day securing pipe work in the storage room area and re instating the step area there. Something I had pulled up a long time ago so good to see it back down again finally.

We progressed onto our civil works on Monday, digging trenches with a mini digger and laying electrical cables to the driveway gate pillars and water pipe to a couple of external tap locations. The weather thankfully cooperated and we got this work done without any really issues. While I had the digger I also took the opportunity to locate our lost telecoms duct.

Tor with "helpers" on digger

Tuesday was short day with a meeting with the landscaping people to finalise the paving and driveway works that were about to commence. that afternoon we headed down the road to mum & dad's house to drop the boys off and use it as a spring board for driving to Middlesborough the following day to select the granite for our kitchen island and counter tops

The trip to the granite supplier was a long one but well worth the effort. They had some amazing pieces of rock at there factory and we found what is certainly a very different piece of rock. Heidi & I both gravitated to this rock as we wander amongst the multitude of slabs available. Its been great how aligned we are with most of these types of decisions. On our way back up the road we stopped at a tile show room in Glasgow to have a look at some different options. A bit like the granite we had some initial ideas going into the meeting but by the time we left there had been some adjustments in our thinking.

The kitchen island granite

Being child free for a few days we divided and conquered with Heidi heading up the tile hunt in Aberdeen and myself continuing with work on site. First on the list was pouring the concrete for the shower trays, then it was onto fitting up the last of the central vacuum pipe work in the house and making various electrical connection for that and the MVHR system.

Getting the main family bathroom ready for tiling was a priority and this we successfully accomplished with a bit more plumbing and joinery work along the way. The shower tray was also successfully laid, unlike the guest en suite where I had issues due to the space that was left being rather too tight - after a few days of reflecting on it I now have a plan forward for this as well. The other priority was painting the ceiling over the stair area before the stair went in. The access being much easier without the stairs being there. Another successful result here was achieved.

Painting the main hall ceiling

Family bathroom shower tray

On Good Friday our landscapers were back to start their works. The first thing they got going with was the foundations for the gate pillars. This included setting the steel columns I will use to hang the gates off being set into the concrete as well.

Steel column for hanging gates

 They also managed to make a start to the back patio with the granite step being installed outside the kitchen door and the first granite pavers being laid in the same area. Our drive was starting to look like a granite dealers yard by this point with granite lintels, setts and pavers all being on site.

Half the granite in the drive

Work on garage interior started

A quick update after my trip back this week.

Plastering is still going on upstairs, the plaster was not there last week which there was maybe not as much progress as I was expecting. Half the rooms upstairs are now done and things should be heading towards completion by the end of the month. 

Bathroom

Recreation room

Fraser's bedroom

 Stair installation has been delayed due to the last minute design changes but the timing actually works better now with regard to the plastering timing. Hopefully we can now get the hall ceiling painted before the stair goes in. Access will be much easier for this with no stair in place

I started working away on the garage getting insulation in and started to pull some wiring for the electrics. It's amazing how long it can take just to drill holes! not helped by having to go through 200mm of boards to get between upstairs and the main garage. Anyway made good progress but still lots to do out there for completion -  was hoping we wouldn't have to complete the garage for the completion certificate but building control are being a PITA about this and what needs doing in the house

Insulation in garage walls and ceiling

More insulation by garage stairwell

GSHP is now offically needing specialist attention - one final session with technical didn't sort out the problem. Hopefully it's something that can be fixed under warranty.

We have a big work list ready for our trip back as a family but looking forward to it.

2nd fix to start soon

Another long gap between blogs - sorry about that but 2 years into the build and I have been taking it a bit easier for a while as other people continue to work hard on the house.

My last trip back to the house was at the beginning of February but mum & dad have been up a couple of times since then as well to keep us upto date with how things are progressing. My work scope last trip back was finishing off MVHR ducting working that had not been completed last year. This is all now completed so we only need to fit the balancing valves once the plaster skim is completed to have this system completed. I also spent time connecting up central vacuum pipe across the house to hook up all the vertical rises that had only been taken to attic level for 1st fix.

Plaster boarding was still on going at this time but the following week this was completed and the plasterer came on site and started to skim everything with the finishing plaster. This work has been on going for the last 5 weeks and the downstairs was completed a couple weeks ago so hoping things are nearing completion upstairs as well. Will find out next week as I am fitting in a day at the house to coincide with a business trip to Aberdeen.

Lounge

Study

Study wall to storage & toilet

We are back to Aberdeen as a family in a couple weeks time for another session on the house. The good thing now is that everything that is done from this point on is a fairly obvious step towards completion of the build (aiming for end of August at the moment). This also means we now have to start choosing tiles and other finishing for the house. Specifying systems is easy, it must perform a certain task - deciding on what colour to use for floor tiles is not!

Work levels on site are going to be picking up again soon - as are trips to site for myself and Heidi. The week we are over as a family the electrical second fix will start, we are also hoping that our stair installation will commence (some last minute design changes may delay this ) and hopefully the wood burning stove in the living room will be installed. Starting the first week of April our landscaping also will also get going again with the drive way and patio areas being laid. Our home automatic/data 2nd fix should also start in April as should tiling of floors and bathrooms. I believe I can now see a chink of light at the end of the tunnel.

The only negative of the last few weeks has been the GSHP. After saying it was working fine in the last posting it has since quit working as it should. Numerous discussions with technical support has yet to fix the problem and I will have one more attempt this week before getting someone in to fix it. I would get the installer back but he has since quit trading - that 2 renewables companies I have been working with that have gone to the cleaners.

We are in the final stretch now and are looking forward to getting things completed at the end of the summer

Plaster Boarding continuing into 2013

Happy New Year to everyone!

It's been a while since the last update and to be honest things have been only slowly progressing over December.

Plasterboarding continues with the master bedroom and utility room now completed and plaster board on the ceilings in a couple other rooms as well. The GSHP is still working fine and the underfloor heating is starting to dry out the screed, especially in the rooms on the north side of the house.

Master Bedroom

Recreation Room

Kitchen

We did have the electricians back to fit light switch and socket back boxes in the completed rooms so the plaster can get going when he becomes available later in January.

Heidi & I are busy working out what we will do in the bathrooms for floor tiles and shower enclosures and tiles for the floor in the hall, kitchen and utility room. Luckily we are thinking along similar lines although there are one or two areas where we have different opinions. We have been using the lighting design software, Relux Pro, as a 3D visulisation tool which has been really useful to see how colours. We are making good progress and hopefully can finalise soon so we get get the materials delivered when we are all back in Easter.

My next trip over is in 3 weeks. There is plenty of things to be done still to fully complete the various sytems I have been working on having done only what was absolutely necesssary to allow plasterboarding to keep going.

First fix finished

We have finally finished with the first fix work :)

Heidi & I have been busy over the last month with one or other of us at the house for the last 3 weekends working on getting the plumbing finished off. I finally managed to acheive that task last weekend so it is now over to the joiners and plaster to get to the remainder of the rooms plaster boarded and skimmed with plaster.

The GSHP has also now been commissioned and is running the UFH. After switching the system on and running it continiously for only just over 24 hours the house was feeling rather like a sauna so we have put a timer in place to only run the system for 4 hours a day. This seems to be sufficent to keep the temperature comfortable and will allow a slow drying out of the screed. we had a few initial teething problems with insufficent glycol levels in the bore loops but apart from that not too many other problems. I think this is a good demonstartion of how effective the insulation and air tightness in the house is.

 I did have to run a few last un expected cables from the UFH control centres/manifolds to the circulation pump position which was still possible thankfully. A difference in how the UFH supplier thought the GSHP would be set up and reality being the cause of this last minute requirement - at least it was captured in time

To try to remove as much moisture as possible from the house we had been running a industrial de humidifyer but I also manage to get the MVHR system hooked up across the attic areas so that we can extract the moist air this way. The system isn't balanced yet but appears to be doing a fairly decent job so far.

A couple of rooms downstairs have been plaster boarded so far, the loung & dining room. The joiners are only working part time on the plasterbaording and the plaster won't be able to start until January. His work will take an estimated 7 weeks so currently hope to have the plastering done by the end of March next year. This gives us a good break from being on the critical path which is good - still plenty of bits and pieces to plan for and things that can be done but it does take the pressure off a bit - something that I am very happy about. Time to manage the project for a few months rather than doing the actual work.

Will add some pictures soon to try to demonstrate the latest developments