63 replies to this topic

[Zoobeef]

With a little spare time last year I decided it was time to modify the house.

 

I already have a single storey side extension so that could go up to give a bedroom and en-suite. There was a conservatory out the back so given they are sh*t that could come down and a proper 4x4m extension in its place.

 

Budget, modest.

Most of the work done by myself and the FIL (who is 67).

 

The rear extension would have a flat fibreglass roof with orangry lantern.

New flat fibreglass roof on the garage.

Also going to change every window and front and side door, all new internal doors (15 i think) and frames. Full rewire inc the garage getting its own fuse board.

Electric garage door.

Move the boiler and remove all plumbing from the house and replace every radiator and pipework.

Replaster and decorate.

Going from 1 bathroom to 3.

 

Most of the way there now, spent the last 5 days fitting the kitchen. Which isn't easy on your own and your trying to push a 1000mm full height larder cupboard into a 1001mm hole.

 

Whats the best place to host photos now photobucket doesn't work?

[techieboy]

Whats the best place to host photos now photobucket doesn't work?

 

I use either https://postimg.cc/  or  https://vgy.me/

[FLD]

Full rewire inc the garage getting its own fuse board.

Electric garage door.

 

 

You will not regret either of these!  I've just done similar and having a separate fuseboard for the garage / workshop is great.  Compressor is hardwired in to a separate line as it's a hungry bugger.

[techieboy]

Yeah, I need to get somebody out to fit a separate consumer unit in my garage and re-do the sockets and lighting circuits in my garage too. I think mine currently runs off one of the downstairs rings in the main house and the compressor occasionally trips the breaker when it kicks in to recharge the reservoir.

 

Even more important to do it as it's become a mini datacentre with a couple of quite power hungry servers in there.

[FLD]

Whats your main fuse rated at techie?  Are you at risk of blowing that with servers and a compressor going?

[Zoobeef]

This is how the original house looked. Poor match single storey extension done in 1990. Conservatory added a bit later.

The original builders did it by eye I assume as the brickwork slopes down and is half a course out by the time it gets to the rear along with not being perfectly vertical in places.

Doors and windows have been moved quite badly so its a bit of a patchwork quilt.

 

 

[Zoobeef]

Architects are absolutely useless. (Although some we tried weren't actual architects, more those fake pretend ones whatever they are called).

First one did some plans and sent them to planning, missed information so it all got held up. Then when we questioned bits just said ahh get your builder to phone me when he gets to that point.

Namely the rear extension roof angle wouldn't work between the upper window and finishing above garage roof height.

Decided to get some more done given he wouldn't give us proper construction drawings.

Second architect strung us along for 5 months, plans were always "with us on Friday". Never appeared.

Third one just wanted to do some remotely and would be a "Covid fee" if he had to come out to the house. He got fcuked off.

4th actually turned out to be within the family (didnt know he existed, and no-one likes doing family work anyway). So few hundred quid paid and we got something we could use.

 

What the outside would look like

[Zoobeef]

Had issues with brick choice. Original house brick wasn't made and the extension already there didn't match. So which do we use??

In the end I opted for a match to the main house and the lower half of the house would be rendered to hide all the previous crimes.

[Zoobeef]

Started work last june/July I think.

Ripped down the conservatory and flogged it on Facebook. Lucky punter collected that jigsaw.

Dug the foundations, had to Jack hammered through 8 inches of concrete and block paving to get to them.

Rain water pipe on the right got moved (after a small discussion with the old woman next door) to her side of the fence. Its a shared drain and it meant we could build closer to the fence.

If she said no I would have pointed out to her that the fence is actually on my land and to move it, so would have gained the space anyway.

[Zoobeef]

It took 2 x 8t skips to get rid of the soil and rubble.

I got my moneys worth.

[Zoobeef]

Scaffolding turned up for the second story so I spent an evening getting it loaded up with brick and blocks ready for gluing together.

[Zoobeef]

20 bags of cement fit perfectly fine in the Audi (500kg, although I've trumped that with tiles more recently). I think I've bought about 80 bags now.

 

Building inspector turned up and looked at the foundations and said they were fine so I started borrowing cement after mixing. All 5t of it.

I think it would have been more efficient to go do some overtime at work and just get a big cement mixer to pour it. But its done now.

[techieboy]

Does that side road go anywhere Mark? Can't believe the original extension was allowed that close to the road and with that narrow a pavement.

[Zoobeef]

Cut back the fascia on the single storey to find the bricks didnt go higher than the bottom of the fascias, so an extra 3 courses we didn't know we'd need.

 

Got the blockwork started though.

 

Rear extension was taken up to damp proof.

 

For some reason the gas pipe came out the garage teed off into the house to feed the hob and then went back into the garage. The hob is actually adjacent to the garage wall so I cut it back, drilled into the house and sent it directly through.

[Zoobeef]

Does that side road go anywhere Mark? Can't believe the original extension was allowed that close to the road and with that narrow a pavement.

 

Just into what is essentially a car park. That bit of road and the carpark is my street, I'm number 1 and the houses surround the carpark to number 11.

 

The only condition they put on the original extension was that the garage door had to be a roller shutter rather than up and over. 

Looks like I've stolen some pavement but I assume there was a fence there before they built up to the boundary.

[Zoobeef]

Put the hardcore, sand and insulation down out the back. The spec said 75mm insulation but 100mm was cheaper so stuck that in.

 

Then another 4t of concrete

Got the blockwork on the 2nd storey up a chunk too.

[Zoobeef]

Hired a couple of brickies for the day (I think they did 3.5 days in the end)

They build houses every single day and the brickwork would be on show so made sense.

I'd loaded up and was supplying them with tea and gobbo.

 

They didn't use it as fast as I could make it though so got the bifolds mocked up and started the blockwork downstairs.

[Zoobeef]

It was at this point the mrs dad broke his ribs after slipping over next doors fountain doing the brickwork on the right hand side of where the conservatory was.

So I was on my own for a week, old woman was being a doodah saying I had to get another builder in if he was injured. Didnt happen.

So I continued the blockwork on my own. Got some sheet steel and extended the boiler flue and built round it so I didnt have to remove the whole boiler yet and be left with no heating or hot water.

 

Also got the blockwork done on  the other side.

[Zoobeef]

Brickies came for the second day and got up to the point of needed a second lift on the scaffold.

On my own supporting them so barrowing sand round, mixing, taking it up, restocking bricks on the scaffolding had me pretty tired.

 

Also the mixer went down early morning. The fan had melted and the motor overheated. Cooled the motor and then bonded the fan back on and ran it without the finger guard. Its been great since.

 

Scaffolders turned up and put the second lift on.

[Zoobeef]

The issue was they put the scaffolding inside the rear extension to no put any weight on the roof so it meant I couldn't do the rear roof until the side scaffolding came down.

 

Got a company out to measure for the main roof trusses so they could be in the pipeline.

 

Old woman was being a pain in the dick saying the rain was going to damage her fence panels if they weren't slotted between the posts. So we cracked on with that, building both skins of the wall at the same time.

 

Took out and bricked up the rear exit out the garage, it was behind some shelving so I never used it. Just did it in breeze as it'll be rendered at some point.