Ground works week 4

Photos of holes and filled in holes are not very interesting, so the blog has been quiet for a few days. The drive and garage base are now finished with electric/gas ducting going between the garage and the house.

The re-enforced concrete from the barn has been broken up and transported off site, and the hardcore underneath recycled as part of the drive.

Now we move to the next stage which is dealing with sewerage – no mains drainage here. So a large 3m deep hole was dug for this concrete tank.
Sceptic Tank
Not that much shows once it is filled in – looks rather like a submarine. Apparently they went through 4 layers: Topsoil, yellow stony “head”, red mudstone and finally reaching a clay.
Sceptic_tank

Ground Works Week2

Second week of ground works; the drive has now reached the garage area. The garage area has also been cleared and had its hard-core put down. The telephone ducting is also now laid along side the drive.
Ground Works week 2

Groundworks have started

The groundworks team started on Monday with the first challenge getting the digger over the road ditch and into the site. Now at the end of the first week, all the tree stumps are out and the drive is making its way slowly back through the wood from the new entrance on Mill Lane.
Groundworks_Mult2The new drive as viewed to/from the road.

Of course digging up tree roots and moving soil for the hard-core has given up two big piles. The tree roots are stacked in a 4ft pile behind the old greenhouses and there is a 10ft high cone of top-soil and roots next to the old train shed.
Groundworks_Mult1

Tree Felling

After 8 weeks of waiting for the paperwork to be approved, we finally got the go ahead for tree falling last Friday. So down they came this week – see if you can spot the difference.

View from pond - before
View from pond – before

View from pond - after
View from pond – after
View from new Kitchen - before
View from new Kitchen – before
View from new Kitchen - after
View from new Kitchen – after
Drive before felling
Drive before felling
Drive After Felling
Drive After Felling

I know I said the windows had been ordered in the last post – I was wrong. There have been difficulties finding passivhaus windows with a low enough U-value for the corner windows.

What’s happening

Not a lot at the moment, though the groundworks team were ready to start. The final tree felling plan went to Herefordshire council 6 weeks ago. And so everything is waiting on their agreement. They have to make a decision by the 7th August and obviously it is going to take until then. Very frustrating as obviously we want the house weather tight before winter.

On the plus side the windows have been ordered.

Mike has put together a 40 second video of the barn being dismantled – if only it had been so quick in practice.

Barn removal

Disposing of the barn was always going to be one of the big jobs that we were in charge of. So after many weekends emptying it, we put it up for auction on ebay. And yesterday was the D-day – or “Dismantling Day”. Laura and Paul had come up from Cornwall the previous evening and so with help from their friend Paul, we spent the day dismantling it. Plus help from a very-well behaved puppy – Stan. ( Time-lapse movie in a later posting)

Barn roof coming down
Barn roof coming down

First sections down
First sections down

Dismantling front section
Dismantling front section

Will it fit in?
Will it fit in?

All gone!
All gone!
All packed up and ready to go
All packed up and ready to go

And so we thought – getting the lorry out of the field gate which took 30 minutes on arrival only took 10 minutes, but then disaster the lorry got two wheels in the ditch. So many thanks to Kay and Sean who dropped every-thing, brought around their tractor and helped get the lorry out to the road.

And so to-day a chance to layout the house as it will be.

Main part of house marked out
Main part of house marked out