Recent works have brought the house up to first floor level and we are now waiting for the arrival of all the stone lintels window heads and stone arches for the front of the house, we have made the design similar to the other houses in the road with a Victorian string course running horizontal across the front. We have ordered a name/date stone for the front but Mel said I can't name it after anything to do with west ham,(we will see about that)

Here comes the rain.

The rain is finally here and so slows down progress, not much brickwork done this week, if any.

onwards and upwards..

The bricklayers are at Sudbury in force, 5 brickies and 2 labourers and because the weather has been mild it has been non stop, 10 degrees and overcast, perfect weather to lay bricks. I wont write too much as i know you only look at the pictures....

i mislaid my camera so these were taken with my phone, more to follow. front views and one from the rear.

drains and floors.

Now the bricks are up to a level damp course, as the house is built on a gradient rising from fron to back, the drainage both rainwater and foul have been put in.

the next step is to lay the beam and block floor, a straight forward job, the beams come in standard sizes, so can be bought and cut down to size before you take delivery. They are simply layed from front to back in verticle lines with concrete blocks dropped in-between.
The last pictures are of Mel and me standing at our front door.

More activity at sudders and the good dry weather is most welcome, the groundworks are complete all bar the drainage and the bricklayers have had 4 days very unseasonal warm sunny days and have bricked up to DPC level.
The ground workers are due back to install water and drainage to the existing pipework left by the previous building (RAF contact hall).

The next month should see the walls go up very quickly weather permitting, although this morning has been one of the coldest yet, so im hoping the frost stays away.

sick of the sight of diggers...

At long last some things are starting to happen at sudbury, lots and lots of digging and the laying of 200 metres of pipes and ductwork for the heating system. We are installing a ground source heat pump at the rear of the garden to collect air and pump an antifreeze around 200 metres of pipe, this will create energy turned into heat in a boiler in the kitchen. (all free)

 

The ground workers have started laying the foundations and steel ground beams for the base, we estimate the end of sept beginning of oct all foundations and services will be out of the ground ready to start building upwards.

june 10th update.

update on the photos, site now cleared and ready for footings, had to serve a party wall agreement on neighbours either side. Should start foundations at the end of june, thats if both sides sign the agreement and return it, and dont do anything stupid like get even more surveyors involved and hold it up even more.
So far its been four months of red tape with council/architects/engineers/surveyors/estate agents, and no doubt next is the neighbours, it a wonder that anything ever gets done in this fucking country.

Another week of clearing the site, jacob and Alex doing all the manual labour and me sitting in an excavator with a concrete breaker (pecker) on the front smashing up as much concrete as possible, as these peckers are expensive £100.00 per day on top of the hire of a digger excavator, still a lot better than doing it with a kango. Managed to get 20 ton of rubble taken away by a grab lorry, a much quicker and more economical way of clearing a site, with skips from £120.00 up to £180. each depending on size, a grab lorry takes 3 skip loads for £150.00

two more grab lorry loads to go we think, so another 2 weeks of part time clearing then a final push with an excavator to get the rubble pushed to the front of site.

here are pictures of Jacob and Alex doing their best YMCA impression. And one of the site on its own.

Hi and welcome to the sudbury erection, for those who were led to this blog by mistake because of the name (sorry wrong kind of site) the photo's on the right are the front and rear views of the site where two victorian style houses are going to be built by me, with the help of various contractors and friends, i havnt got a time limit for the build so as not to put myself under any presure you will not see the words " i want to be in by christmas" i have no idea why people say that, maybe Kevin McCloud makes people say it on grand designs just to make it interesting. It will be finished when its finished, budgets and weather permitting.

For self builders who are managing their own projects, and read all the various books and web sites in order to get an idea of how much this will cost i hope i will be able to help to keep costs down and show you that it is possible to knock thousands of the estimates that these books and web pages estimate.

Here is a photo of the building originally on the site, it was an RAF meeting place called contact hall built in the 1950's.