Lazy Admin

Ok so I have not written for a long time and there is no excuse.  So I had better make up for it now.  So over the last three months the extension has been nearly completed, it has been a tough last month mainly due to how much dust is generated by removing walls and plastering.  Plastering is no joke for dust, it causes so much of it and you cannot get rid of it without cleaning everything in the house, only for it to be covered in dust again the next day.

This exterior shot is about a month old now, so we have completed the garage roof and we have a new drive at the front in a blue brick.

This is the rear decking we have had, it is a lot cheaper to have this done at the same time as the build as we had a carpenter onsite and he did this with our builder Ed, we have had this out the back of the french doors and then around the side of the house so we can make the best use of a bit of land at the back that we would not use otherwise.

We lifted the carpet in our hall to find the original 1930s black and white tiles, now that are pretty dirty and have glue and paint on them so I have to work on how to get them cleaned up but hopefully we will be able to do this and keep this real period feature.

Downstairs we took the wall out of the kitchen as it was and have had a an L shaped open plan kitchen, the front is for cooking and has all the white goods while the rear is an open room with the french doors to the decking and then we will have sofa and TV on one half and a table in the other, its taken a bit from our friends Ad and Bethans house so we nicked the idea from them.

I have had computer cabling installed into all the new rooms with the purpose of using Internet Ready TVs and getting our Virgin TV to play in other rooms, or just to all You Tube or such from the TVs, my thinking is that in the future most of our home will be controlled over IP and we will all need cabling or wireless.

In our bedroom we have had an en suite, so I can stumble out of bed into a shower before work, we went for a open tray and walk in shower.

It has been a good time with all the people working at the house and we have made friends with Ed and some of the other guys, I know in the summer when it is good weather we are going to have a big BBQ for all the people who worked on the house to thank everyone for their hard work.

So now its down to the final touches, electronics, blinds, and furniture and we are on track for finish at Xmas and a big Xmas do for all the family.

Word of warning

Well its been a while since I updated my blog, as you can see from the photo below a lot has happened and we are now up the second floor.

The impressive sight is seeing the brick layers just build this up so quickly, it took from foundations to this about 7 days to complete. Those guys really go for it, a word of recommendation if you have an outside tap use it then you dont have brick dust and crud in your kitchen sink all week!  Apart from that and the drive being blocked with bricks all has been good on the brick laying.

I have now paid my builder twice, once up to damp course and then up to the second floor.  All in its around £22K now.

I did have a slightly worrying issue though, my builder has a 1st Class Degree in Civil Engineering and he noticed on my design for the kitchen wall removal that there was not enough steel and the design I had would likely collapse.  He called the engineers who then admitted they had got it wrong and that Building Control has mentioned they would not pass this work being completed until it was changed.

You pay someone and they get it wrong and know they have and then dont tell anyone until my builder mentioned it, apparently this is common and nothing to worry about but when its your home you do worry.  This is why it is so important you know who your builder is and that you trust them to do a good job because your home is in their hands.

First bricks down

My builder does not mess about, I went out to work and when I got home this was done.

We did have a slight delay as the red bricks that were due for delivery were missed off by the builders merchants so expect this type of problem, it is quite common. It has only put us back a day or so though so its not a problem.

Continuing Neighbour dispute

I received another letter from my neighbour this week, this time they have decided to contest the opinion of my Party Wall Surveyor stating that in their opinion he is incorrect and his decision and that if he does not change his decision they will take legal action. I was somewhat amused and annoyed at this at the same time, amusing in that my neighbour feels she knows more about the Party Wall than a Chartered Surveyor but annoyed that they are still threatening legal action against us with no grounds.

I did note that in their last letter from their solicitor they said all communication from that point was to go via them but this letter was just from my neighbours so I suspect they are on their last attempts to block us now, knowing full well that legally they have no case.

It is amazing the lengths people will go to to get their way in something that is not their business. Suffice to say we are cracking on and ignoring them.

Wheres the pain?

I have to say that so far the whole experience has been pretty good and the mess has been minimal and I have not found any inconvenience really. I would say that having this done in the summer is important, I would not want to see the mud if this was winter and I can understand that the concrete and foundation digging would be more difficult if it was raining.

Even my wife has not been bothered so far with the work which must mean it is all going well!

Foundation Work

I have had a good week of work done this week, all the foundations have been dug and the concrete poured and set so we are ready to go for block and beam and damp course bricks now.

I have to say when Steve works on the mini digger it is an art to behold, he is able to dig the foundations with great accuracy and he made sure that nothing happened to our garden wall. I was chatting with our man Ed and he explained he has a 1st Class Degree in Civil Engineering so building our extension is straight forward work for him and thats always good to know.

Party Wall Act

Excellent news today! I was sure that my extension did not fall under the Party Wall Act but my neighbour has been relentless in their insistence that it did and they had sent a pretty threatening letter from their solicitor regarding this. So I decided I had better get a Party Wall Surveyor in to confirm this, it will cost £100 but I will know for sure.

Well it turns out I was right and the Act does not apply and I did not need to serve notice, which I of course had not as if you serve notice and the Act does not apply you still have to follow the Act as you served the notice.

So now I can build with no fear of a injunction and if my neighbour takes one out they will fail at their own costs.

My advice is neighbours may threaten you, dont be scared and get your facts right, if you are right stand your ground and dont let them bully you.

Neighbours

When you plan for an extension you may find that some of your neighbours will try to block your proposals. Our neighbours that are next to our side plot and about a metre below us tried every trick in the book to block our extension. We saw solicitors letters about rights to light, rights to air, Party Wall Act and any other threat they could make to us.

My suggestion is to talk to your neighbours and see if they are reasonable, if they are then I am sure a talk will enable them to accept your intentions, however if they are unreasonable do not let them threaten you or make you think you cannot build your extension.

We got our planning permission in October 2010 and I have spent the last months arranging a Structural Engineer to design a foundation so that I know my extension will not affect my house or my neighbours, I used a Lab to analyse the soil so that I knew the plasticity and could establish what depth of foundation I would need. In my opinion I went beyond the level required to make sure I have a safe build.

My neighbours are still threatening us with legal action over the Party Wall Act and I believe think they can block our works even though they cannot. The Planning Permission means you can build and they have to over turn that if they want to stop my build.

So my advice is ignore neighbours if they are unreasonable and stay within the rules and carry on.

Trees removed and concrete broken up

Side of our house before work started

Trees

One work of advice, if you have trees that are where you intend to build, just remove them before you start. Dont let Buildings Control see them otherwise you will have to have soil samples to justify that removing them will not cause heave or subsidence. Now I know that this is for your own good but my tree was a Leylandii and these have shallow roots so I knew they would not cause a problem.

But my BC officer saw them and I had to have a Soil Sample from a Lab for £300 and then a structural engineer design a foundation for another £300 all because I left the trees there.

Take heed and remove your trees as soon as you can.

Why upgrade?

I moved to Newcastle Under Lyme about 3 years ago when I moved in with my now wife and having sold my flat in Birmingham started looking for a house. I wanted one we could start a family in when we got married so I wanted four bedrooms if I could in the best bit of Newcastle called Westlands.

After looking around I worked out that a house in Westlands with four bedrooms was going to cost over 250K and I really had a budget of 225K so it looked like I was out of luck. But then I found a house that is about 1 mile from Westlands so really in the same area but just not the posh postcode, it was a 1930 Semi with two bedrooms and a box room, the important part though is it has a huge area of land next to it that would suit a extension.

The other side of the Semi had already been extended so I guessed I would get planning permission so I went and bought the house for 174K and kept the extra 50K I had for an extension.

So its been over a year in the planning, that part of it with the architect and engineers is probably the hardest part, we have got through all of that and I will write about that area next and my advice for you if you are thinking about an extension.