our very own traffic lights

These are down to Anglian water laying pipes to the property - water now gushes out of a blue hose in the corner of the plot.
Gas pipes cannot be laid for some months, but there should soon be a temporary electricity supply.
The phone line will come from the telegraph pole that you can see in the picture.

ring beam construction

Keith inspects the re-inforcements & other stuff for the bottom of the house.

the concerete has been poured

You can't see any in this picture - which we took from the opposite side of the brook.
Neither can you see the water pipe at the front - the first "service" to be connected.
You can see where one of the hazels has come out.

We spent Friday looking at lighting, and Saturday drawing up electrical plans.

foundations

When I was very young, a real treat was go go to work with my dad, peer into holes, just like this, look at piles of mud like this, and imagine what they would become.

Now we have our very own deep holes & piles of mud, and our own vision.

What we have to hope is that they don't end up like Lyveden New Beild which is near us!
We took this photo on a walk this week, to remind us to keep on track!


This week has also been spent arranging sewer & electrical connections, and Keith is designing the lighting.
Tomorrow, concrete gets poured.

the site gets cleared

I took this picture today. Behind the camera is the front of the plot.
That will have some trees set in a border (to replace the leylandii we took down) - rowan, holly & red robin, there will be a low hedge of lavender & rosemary to replace the stone wall, and the rest will be car parking.
I am standing roughly where the garage (ie: Keith's workshop) will be. The house will end just about the little piles of rubbish you can see, and the garden then slopes to Denford back brook.
The hazel tree to the right is coming out - a bit of a shame, but it will improve our view, and we will still have 2 hazel trees to feed us & the squirrels.

timeline

No digger pictures at the moment - but we have a site meeting on Monday, so I'll post a picture of how it looks stripped of the garages, the piggery, the mound etc. and all ready for our house!

During May the foundations will be dug, drainage laid and service connections put in - everyone has been very helpful; special thanks to John at Anglian Water & Jaz from BT Openreach so far.

Scaffolding goes up at the beginning of June and the provisional date for our timber frame delivery is the 13th. It takes 2-3 weeks to put the frame up and then services get connected, the roof goes on and brickwork goes on the outside.

We can start work inside, laying the underfloor heating and putting up plasterboard (actually Fermacell), but a lot will have to wait until after the floors are screeded in August.

We have an end date of October, but a lot of internal work won't be finished by then. We do hope to spend Xmas there, and we haven't forgotten the house-warming parties everyone asks us about!

I have posted previously about our journey of finding out how to have a house as environmentally friendly as we could and how difficult some choices can be (try reading the technical appendix of the Green Building Bible!).
We have made the best decisions that we can, and for those who are interested, here is what we have arrived at:

Materials:
Timber frame houses are better for insulating than conventionally built houses (given that we weren't going to build a house from tyres or straw!)
Insulation:
We are having solid insulation panels, these are less "green" in manufacture but more efficient. We shall use recycled insulating materials in any spaces left.
We have lovely windows from Andersen (thanks to our neighbour Leslie for her help with this) that are double-glazed & argon-filled.
Heating:
We have opted for a wood-burning stove with built in thermostat (the Hwam Vivaldi from Fotheringhay Forge) which will provide warmth & interest.
We are using a mechanical heat recovery pump from Villavent to extract warmth & circulate it. And we are getting a central vacuuming system from them as well (one of the joys of the building shows is watching the vacuum pipes at work, really!)
Back-up will be under-floor central heating from Nu-heat.
Fuel will be gas.
We decided that ground-source & air-source pumps were not yet efficient enough to justify the amount of electricity they use. That will probably change in the next few years.
Micro-generation:
We have a south-west & a south-east roof. One will have solar thermal panels, also supplied by Nu-heat to generate hot water.
The other will have photo-voltaic cells from Solar Partner. This is quite a big investment, with what looked like a long pay-back until feed-in tariffs became available. We wait to see how well it works!
Water:
We are not going to re-use grey water. Storage & the need for extra pipes & pumps means it isn't an obvious decision. We shall have rain-water harvesting. Originally we were going to use it only outside, but because of the new water-use regulations will install the pumps & pipes to use it inside the house.
We are having showers that limit water flow, but we hope that they will prove efficient & pleasant, thanks to David & Roxanna at the Bathroom Studio for their help with this.

That's all for now! If you have been, thanks for reading this.

another digger picture!

this is giving a better picture of how the site will look, although there is still a huge piece of concrete to be carted away as well as the stuff that Andy is loading on to the lorry.

This afternoon we look at the timeline and I'll publish that next week. Thanks for all the encouraging messages!

The Bright House begins for real!

Here we are, almost 2 years after seeing the plot, a year from applying for planning permission, finally taking a photo-op with our digger ( although of course, Andy, the operator is doing all the work!)
Those of you who now the plot, from seeing it in real life or photos may be able to spot that the piggery has gone, and just off the left of the picture, so has the garage.
After a lot of discussion (see previous posts) a name has emerged, and has been officially registered: The Bright House (although we don't yet have anywhere for post to be delivered!)
More prosaically, it is now time to make sure that the services are connected.
The ground works are expected to take 4 weeks, with the timber frame going up in June.
We'll keep you posted!