Building a new house

It's a big day today - the second anniversary of the pouring of the foundations: concrete-pouring day in November 2020 as seen from our neighbours' garden We never wanted to pressurise our builder about the timetable for the build, impatient as we might have been, because we assumed that only bad things could result from such pressure. In his gentle way, he told us to expect the build to take about two years, a year for the construction and a year for the inside. In the event we were very pleased to be able to move in in June of this year, only eighteen months after the start of the build, although many things remained to be done. In recent weeks the pressure from the private building control company has increased, as only a limited amount of time is allowed to complete outstanding items after their 'final' inspection. That deadline was set as tomorrow. Yesterday Pat arrived to complete items relating to window safety, including fitting stops on a couple of upstairs win...

We have two small flat (well slightly sloping) roofs - over the front porch and the dining area. These were designed as green roofs, and having investigated the possibilities, Elizabeth ordered an installation which provides irrigation/drainage, a growing medium and 'mats' of pre-grown sedums, with pebble surrounds. These were very efficiently fitted yesterday, since when it has rained continuously, freeing us of watering responsibilities. The idea is that, once established, the sedums (there are many different varieties in the mix) will grow a few inches, bear insect-attracting flowers, and need little or no maintenance. Some rainfall every few weeks should be enough to keep them happy. the base layer has an eggbox-like structure with capillary matting ..... ..... on top of which go a couple of inches of growing medium ..... ..... and the sedum matting and pebbles (here above the dining area at the back of the house) this is the small area over the front porch ..... ..... cove...

Our specification for the area at the front of the house includes a hard pedestrian path from the front gates to the front porch, given that most of the parking area has to be loose gravel to allow rainwater to reach the roots of our large TPO-protected lime tree in the front boundary. Following the pattern of the hard landscaping to the back and sides of the house, Stef and his team placed granite setts to define the sides of this path, which will have a grey, resin-bound fine gravel finish. This week a Ruthin-based tarmac gang came to lay the foundation level, leaving 15mm for the resin-bound finish to be added. I love the smell of hot tarmadam, Elizabeth less so. The material was carefully barrowed in and levelled by rake, tamper, wacker-plate and roller. In a couple of hours it was done. the A team at work on the levels for the path edges edges completed, with the foundations in for the stone wall and gateposts completion of the side path a new vehicle added to the fleet (and note ...

The cropping of the maize in the field adjoining the garden has led to some new sightings. Yesterday we had a small flock of birds in the garden which we think are quails - happy to be corrected, not least as we are more used to seeing grouse and pheasants around here. not a great image - had to take it through the window Rather easier to identify are the cows which have been introduced into the field for their winter pasture. We are hopeful that our new fence will be rather better at keeping them out of our garden than were the previous arrangements.  

Our heating and hot water system had worked very satisfactorily since its installation in early February, first being used to dry out the house as it was being plastered, then, from the beginning of June, for general duties as we moved in. It has operated very economically, too, not least because it often benefits from the electricity generated by our PV panels. Early last month, however, we noticed an error message on the controller which turned out to be terminal. Our installer contacted Mitsubishi who eventually admitted that they had had a bad batch of our model which had suffered from a 'harmonic' problem - any musical readers may be able to make sense of what was apparently a vibration issue leading to the failure of a valve. At first the suggestion was that a Mitsubishi engineer would come out to fix the fault, but within a couple of days this changed to an offer to provide a new pump unit which would need to be fitted by our installer. With one day to go before the arri...