Building control?

Sense prevails! Building Control have agreed that we don't need to excavate any further, below the level of the rock the existing cottage sits on, which is great news and saves us from sending more material off-site. It also avoids the potential damage that undermining the existing house could cause.

As a result, and due to all the trenches for footings being finished last week, the larger of the two diggers has been taken offsite. Hopefully steelwork for reinforcement of the retaining walls will arrive tomorrow in time for the steel fixers to assemble ready for a concrete pour before the end of the week.

We'd prefer not to have to use steel or concrete (due to embedded energy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_energy) in both materials, especially concrete thanks to the temperatures required to produce it) but there are no sustainable alternatives that provide adequate strength for the foundations and retaining walls - and that are acceptable to Building Control. Kind of ironic when you consider that the Cottage has been standing for 103 years on rock with no foundations whatsoever!

Once we are out of the ground, we'll be using thermalite blocks which comprise approximately 80% PFA (pulverised fuel ash, a by-product from coal fired power stations) to reduce the amount of natural resources used in each block. So not all the concrete will be 'bad'!

Rock bottom

Looks as if peak lorry day was Friday, with only a few loads yesterday and one today.

Meanwhile we've quite literally hit rock bottom (or maybe it should be top!). Turns out that the cottage is built on rock (Good to see that somebody has read their New Testament) as the builders have hit it adjacent to where the old 'summer room' was. Hopefully this means less foundations, and therefore concrete, as long as we can agree this with the Building Control Officer.

Elsewhere huge trenches are being dug for the retaining wall foundations - again the rock is proving helpful here as the excavations are incredibly stable as a result. It would be nice to think we can simplify the retaining walls accordingly but this is something we'll have to discuss with Building Control and our Structural Engineer.

Portaloo still hasn't appeared...

Eighteen

That's the number of lorry loads that left site yesterday! And they'll be back on Monday and probably Tuesday.

Meanwhile, we had the first of what will probably be many bonfires today to get rid of some of the wood debris that's not suitable for using on the woodburning stove.

Also found out some of the history behind the goat skeleton - apparently the previous owner decided he would 'let nature take it's course' rather than bury it when one of his goats died. I'm still planning on giving the bones a burial.

Day two

I was greeted by a hive of activity as I left for work this morning (which reminds me that I must let the builder know about the wasps nest in the porch roof before he demolishes it!). Two huge 'muck away' lorries, Dave the digger driver, and the electrician were all on site bright and early. C stopped counting after lorry number 7 had taken another load of spoil away. They'll be back again tomorrow as there's still a huge mound outside.

Meanwhile the annexe has been partially demolished. I was suprised to see that it was a cavity wall construction, considering how cold a room it was. But then the roof was nothing more than clay tiles over a few timbers and 10mm of polystyrene, so I think that's where all the heat was lost!

The weather forecast remains good for the days ahead which is a godsend - the scale of excavation would be awful (and probably quite dangerous) if it was like the Somme out there.

Added panes of glass and roof tiles to the piles of reclaimed materials.

Out of the blue

We'd resigned ourselves to starting the build next year, due to our preferred builders not being available till then. Things have changed!

In the last few days we've signed the contract with another builder who has had several projects cancelled and as of today has his groundworkers available. So I got home after work today to find that our garden has disappeared to be replaced by two blue JCBs and a huge pile of earth! They're not hanging about, especially as the weather forecast is good for the next couple of weeks.

Inline with our eco ethos we're keeping as much material as possible - with piles of bricks, flagstones, paving slabs and top soil already set-aside in the garden for reuse later. A large amount of clay and other spoil will end up being removed offsite but there's not much we can do with the house backing into the hill.

At long last the build is underway!

Shallow Grave

Thanks to a dry weekend we've been able to start clearing nettles and brambles off the new bit of land (must think of a name for it...).

It's proven heavy going, so think we'll clear the top bit first so that we've got a usable area and the remainder will be a longer term project!

Amidst the first patch of nettles we stumbled across a few bones, no real suprise till the collection got bigger and bigger, all arrayed in a line across the ground and ending in a skull! I'm no expert but it looks like the body wasn't buried, just dumped in the weeds. Thankfully it's not a case for the police as the skull, complete with horns, must be the remains of a goat or sheep. Hope it's the only body we find!

Once we've cleared some more ground we'll have to dig a hole and give the remains a deeper resting place - all good stuff for the soil.

Another 1/3

We made some significant progress this week.

Hillside is set in 1/3 of an acre - not a vast garden but large enough to allow space for the extension works plus various trees (including the coppiced hazels and the huge 100 yearold chestnut) and still leave space for other plants once we get around to developing a plan.

So you might wonder why we'd want more space...! After several months of negotiation, and 'processing' by our solicitor's, as of Tuesday we are now the proud owners of another 1/3 of an acre now that we have bought the piece of land next-door.

Covered in a mixture of long grass, brambles, nettles and assorted saplings it'll take a bit of clearing to make it usable. But for what? Well, it'd be great to grow some of our own veg, fruit trees and extend the area of hazel etc to coppice for fuel. It's technically agricultural land and not garden (unless we can get the planners to agree to change of use) so it'll probably end up as the 'working' part of the garden, with the original 1/3 being the more 'ornamental' bit.

As for clearing it, I think we've a bit of work to do. We now own a petrol strimmer which will help but there'll still be a lot of back-breaking work involved. I've read up on the best ways to clear ground of nettles and brambles and it seems that goats and pigs are the best option - unless you want to apply a weedkiller such as Roundup, which goes against our organic principles. With no plans currently to introduce livestock I think we'll have to clear it by hand...once it stops raining.

Here's to a winter of looking through seed catalogues choosing interesting veg to grow, I think it'd make Dad proud!