Under building complete

Over the last week the weather has co operated with us and it has been mostly dry but with a cold wind still blowing through. This hasn't stopped the brickies from cracking on with the under building and now the house and garage substructures are built and the retaining wall to the west of the house will be done tomorrow

House & garage under building complete

Retaing wall starting to take shape

Next week the drainage goes in, along with the rainwater harvesting tank & sewage tank, the under building  back filled and hopefully the floor slabs poured before the building contractor has a weeks holiday.

With most of the ground floor walls being SIPs and requiring load bearing under building we can really start to see the lay out of the ground floor stating to take shape.

I have lined the drillers up now to be on site 11th April to complete the drilling of the two bore holes for the ground source heat pump (GSHP) system. This is a week later than originally planned but was a float week in the schedule so no overall impact.

SIP panels are due to start going up on the 18th April which is great timing since we will be back in Aberdeen from the 16th for a couple of weeks after packing everything up here is Stavanger and before flying down to Copenhagen

Under building under way

After a week of inactivity due to the weather, its back to work this week. The erection of the under building being the focus of attention this week and next week. There are only two guys working on site blocking away but they are working at an impressive rate! From just having footings down on Tuesday morning

Footings laid

they had a substantial amount of the external walls completed by Thursday evening.

Under building going up

Gary & Jim hard at it

These guys do everything themselves, they are brickie and gopher all in one!

We can't believe how high these walls are, they are just to the ground floor level. There's a lot of back filling to be done! Its really good though to finally see us getting above the ground. Despite losing a week to the weather we are still much further on than we originally anticipated, in fact we did expect to get started until the end of March.

Long may the good progress last

Snow stops play

After two weeks of good progress the weather has turned wintery again  and there has been no work on site this week. We do have building block and sand now on site for the underbuilding which we will hopefull get started with next week - weather permitting

Good progress during week 2

We have just finished our second week on site and are making good progress. What was only two weeks ago a field is now clearly a building site.

Top soil stripped from site

The foundations were poured on Friday 4th March and the under building will get started next week. Needed to pour an additional 15m3 concrete due to some large soft spots but apart from that haven't come across any major problems yet. Surface water soakaway is in and we have had our engineer out to look at it several times due to some concerns with the high water table in the area. Things look good though and I think it is just due to the fact that we have hard granite only a meter or two below the soil surface and I think the water tends to run over the top of this. This time of year the water table is usually at its highest so most of the time it should only be better. Hope the rain water harvesting tank will act as a good buffer for this sytem as well.

Surface water soak away and field drain

So far we are still pretty much on schedule, its amazing how quickly things seem to be going. Only 6 weeks until the SIPs structure is due to go up but I may see if we can pull this forward a week. Looks like we will be back in Aberdeen for this happening as we transition from Stavanger to Copenhagen and a new job. It will be exciting to see the structure going up.

Looks like I have a driller & GSHP installer lined up again after the company who was going to do the work went out of business (thats the second company who had gone to the wall that we had selected - maybe I am doing something wrong - but thankfully we are not out any money this time round ). Should get our bore holes drilled at the end of March ahead of the structure going up.

Almost time to get started

After a good meeting with AGG on the 4th Feb its been a week of pulling information together for them in preparation of getting started. Its going to be getting cold here in Stavanger in the next week, -10 C again during the day, but looks like the long term forecast for Inverurie is on the positive side of zero which is good news and shoudln't cause us any delays. Busy chasing down water & electricty connection during the week but the ball is rolling. Musn't forget BT!. Burning the candle at night since it is near impossible to get anything done while the boys are up, and doing a bits and pieces here and there while at work ;)

Hoping to be able to come back the week things get kicked off to check that everything  is set out correctly but will in the main be leaving it in Tor's dad's hands to be our eyes and ears on site for us. Thanks dad!.

Off to St Anton skiing next week so only 2 more work days to finalise those last few things. After waiting so long to get going the last few weeks have fairly flown by and its all been a bit of a scramble the last week or so - well that show it feels anyway

Getting ready to start

We now have a builder on board, Alan Grant Grampian, and a start date, 21st Feb. Things are moving foward at last :)  Lots to do and finalise in the next month so its going to be a hectic time but its good to finally have a start date after so long planning.


 Still have to agree the few conditions on the planning permission with the planners but don't expect any issues with that. 2nd stage building warrant application is in but is only need for when we start putting up the SIPS structure. This is currently scheduled for 1st May but we maybe able to start earlier than that if the ground works go well

Tenders back

Tenders should be back now, only 2 weeks late and still without window & door pricing thanks to Nordan's typical Norwegian get it done sometime approach! Good news is that all 7 companies were going to return. Maybe some of them are hungry and back in the real world after many years of flying high and more work than they could handle!. Hoping the pricing is in line with our estimates - this is the one big contract that was difficult to get a good estimate for. SIPs pricing is back now and have us pencilled in for a May 2011 structure erection start. Its going to be a busy summer next year.