Window lines

Here is the rear of the first floor. You can see the outline of the bathroom window on the left - we have lost about 3 courses of bricks at the bottom of it for the new roof. You can also the master bedroom window - this is now 7 inches wider at the left after we had the outer leaf of brick removed. You can also see the ground floor door/window opening with the CATNIC beam bricked in. Also on the left is the new opening from the extended rear porch into the house.


Plenty more beams waiting to be installed - These are for the first floor windows. I think there is still one more to come as we have the bathroom, master bedroom, en-suite and front bedroom windows.

This is the front elevation - the bedroom window is getting to lintel height.

Geoff is going to order the roof this week, so hopefully it will start going up next week sometime. Hoorah!

Busy(ish) week

Well, I was off work this week to help Sarah look after the kids. The builders have made steady if unspectacular progress this week. Lots of scaffolding and lots of labouring for Pete getting blocks and bricks up the scaffold for Rob to lay them.

The front and rear first floor walls have some definition now with openings for the windows - the one at the back looked huge at first. Also, The extension is tied into the house on top of the beams now so it looks like one house, not two (These were taken yesterday):

The beam for the rear windows/doors is sat on the brickwork and lets you see the size of the opening - although it looks quite low, Pete has 8 inches headroom, and he's 6'2".

This will be our dressing room (or spare bedroom) window. It is offset as the en-suite is tucked in the left hand corner.



The whole thing - you can see the en-suite window on the gable wall and the tying in at the front.

This was mid-day today:
There are two more courses of brick, a damproof membrane and a couple more courses of brick on top of the blockwork on the beams - more piccies tomorrow when it stops raining! The bedroom window has been boarded up as well now - it's like the black hole of Calcutta in there.

First Floor.....

Progress has been slow but steady this week after all. We have been waiting on the structural engineer so Geoff can set the new RSJs and link the outside wall (below) into the existing house. This was as of 5/8/07


This was the 6th:



And at the left hand side here you can see where the new wall needs tying into the existing house. The outside beam is about 6 inches higher than the inside beam which was a touch confusing and also the reason the pillar has a step and we need the engineer. Speaking to Geoff today, he explained that the outside beams are to plan - the joists sit inside the I profile of the beam. The inner beam is lower as the rearmost beam would protrude into the bedroom through the floor otherwise. If the outer beams were lower, the joists would need cutting to fit into the and the floor would be too low.

At least the front of the house is coming on! This is the bay window in the kids playroom. The lintel went in today. They have used blocks above as the small veranda roof (seen just right) will extend right across the bay hiding the blocks. On the extension it will also be a bit higher as the extension is set back 300 mm so to line the front edge up, the roof will go further back and hence further up the wall on the extension.



Fingers crossed the engineer comes tomorrow morning as agreed. Once he verbally okays the pillar for the internal beam, the first floor can go up apace. I'm hoping another week or 2 will see the brickwork for the first floor up and another couple of weeks should see the main roof on but I'm not sure about the single storey roof as it ties into the rear porch which is quite complicated with the two rear pitches being aligned, a turn and a conservatory style 45 degree chamfer for the rear door so the roof has a lot of angles.

Slow week

Not a lot has happened this week. We are waiting for the building inspector to come which is slated for tomorrow. Hopefully he'll be okay with everything, although I suspect he'll want the first beams lowered to match the new beams so the pillar top will be flat - I'm wondering how the final beams will sit on the pillar as it stands as they have to go at right angles to the current pair and that is where the step in the pillar is.

When we finally get the nod from the inspector Geoff can get on building the first floor extension and things should really get going again. Plus with a bit of luck we'll get a sealed house again!

The destruction continues...

Well, we went away for the weekend and look what happened!

Because the joists run across the house, the outside wall here cannot be held up with acro props under the floor joists so Geoff and the boys had to punch holes through the wall just above floor height with these metal bars and prop the bars from the ground.


But the ground floor layout is becoming visible now - just removing these 2 walls has opened everything up ...
quite literally - we have a huge hole in the outside wall, no heating because the radiators haven't been capped off, and are using the immersion heater for hot water as the CH is out of commission so it's a bit cold - but at least it is not raining!! Unfortunately, because of the depth of the beams, they cannot go any higher or they would hit he floor upstairs so they are not level with the previous beams outside - hence the step in the pillar. The building inspector has to come and check everything before the beams are fixed in place, but once that is done the walls can continue for the first floor so the extension shell should go up at pace.