NEW home cinema

sorry about saying the last home cinema setup was the last i will upload the new one soon i have changed the subwoofer and i am using 2 pairs of RC80i's and the spendor S5e's we currently own. there is also a new reciever and some other new updates

Multimedia

this is the final home cinema system

sorry there are 3 pairs of speakers

Alternate Appliances

Here is an picture with the alternate appliance scheme

Kitchen

As we haven't blogged in a long time i thought i would fill you in with info on the kitchen we are either going to get a B&Q or moben kitchen.

Appliances

• Miele Gas on Glass Hop 700mm wide
• Miele Teppan Yaki
• Elica Glacier Remote Designer Hood
• Samsung dual-cook oven
• Samsung Built-in Microwave
• Samsung American Style Fridge Freezer
  

No Progress !!

Have been away in Malaysia on business and the reports from the UK is work is still at a stand still.. has been like that for 3 weeks now. I could not get an update from Epsom Builders so called All Foundations directly.. and Andrew Murfin told me that the work was due to start again "imminently" and would take around 2 weeks to complete. Cant wait to get Stage 1 finished and signed off.. so we can proceed to the brick work.

Sign off of the stages

Just found out that my architect does not have the qualifications to sign off the buildstore stages ! Also neother the current builder or the possible replacement has either. I was a bit stuck but called John O'Toole the NHBC solo inspector and he said he could do that so we are back on track again.

Bricks Approved

Had a call from the architect saying that the bricks we submitted have been signed off. This is quite a red/creamy brick - with a handmade look - quite textured. I need to find a concrete slate coloured tile as the one submitted was a red mix and we are not sure we want that. Some samples of the brick above. Not sure what it will look like on our house yet - hopefully we will know in a few months time.

Brick and Tile Match the Sequel

We were told last week that the brick and tile we chose was not approved by Tony Evans the council conservation officer ! Mark suggested we look at a house he is building in Epsom.. and we did and liked the brick. We cant have the tile though because Tony Evans wants plain concrete. Anyway we think we have some options so our architect is going to get these approved. Needless to say we put the previous brick order on hold.

Piling work starts

The piling started on schedule on 5th October in the pouring rain but all seemed to proceed well. Half way through we were told the step had to come back but only 350 mm rather than the previous 500 mm. We can do this by grinding down the piles at the front.

Work Starts !!!

Work finally started again at 9am on Monday 5th October. We all met on site in the pouring rain for the architect to check and finalise the levels. After that we had a short meeting at home to discuss changes needed to the drawings and pricing for stage 1. The architect suggested asking a quantity surveyor to comment on the pricing and provided a recommendation. I later made an appointment to see him.

Later the same day the architect called to say we no longer need a step in the house - so it can all be at the same level - good news - but am confused about why this was such as issue before.

I am expecting a full new set of drawings to be produced this week. Have also asked for these on cad format.

In the meantime my new contractor is away on holiday so nothing will progress on that front for a while.

Also was told we cant have an air source heat pump so we are back to solar panels. More research needed.

Had a chat with Andy Bull who we met at the house renovation show about the network and cabling. Am waiting for some information from him so we can finalise the designs.

Keys

I went to see Epsom Builders today to get the keys to the land and mentioned we had a concern about whether the house would fit in the space available. Mark very kindly offered to send Paul to the site so we could take some quick measurements - and put our minds at rest. We also made some copes for the keys to make site visits easier in future.

Bathrooms

We spend a few ours in Bathstore in Sutton to get a feel for the sort of bathrooms we will be putting into the new house. The highlight will be the master ensuite which will have a minimilistic wet room and a separate large jacuzzi bath and twin sinks. We are not going to fill the space with furtniture and storage but go for a less cluttered look. However we think having some shelf space around the bath for toiletries and decorative items will be nice. Alicia will be having a corner shower with a rain water shower head. The family bathroom upstairs will be a bath and an over bath shower and twin sinks again. On the ground floor we will just have a simple cloakroom - but it does look like quite a large room so we might think about how best to use the extra space.

Kitchens

We visited Magnet in Sutton and met a kitchen designer called Asria to help put our initial kitchen design together. We ended up with a complete design for the kitchen and utiity room. The kitchen came out a lot bigger than we expected - but the utility room was a lot smaller. Just shows how difficult it is to envisage scale when you just work to floor plans. We chose one of the most expensive ranges in Magnet - Java which is a light wood colour with black granite worktops. We have a nice 5 burner gas hob - 900 mm wide, some other more basic neff appliances and a huge american style fridge freezer which will have a built in water filter and ice maker. The whole process took a few hours to get the design done and we had to visit the shop again for pricing. The list price was £45,000 - but rapidly came down to around £25,000 with discounts etc. If VAT is removed and we push a little further we should have the kitchen supplied and fitted for around £20,000 which is expensive but inside the budget.

New Prices

Broke the news to Epsom builders on Thursday that we are going to get alternative quotes for the build so I can ensure I am getting a market competitive price. The situation now is that Epsom will do stage 1 which is the foundations and drainage and I will get some altermative quotes for the rest of the project. We think we can do a fixed price upto stage 4 and then stage 5 will depend on details of the internal finishes which will take time to work out. I am preparing a detailed spec defining all the elements in stages 2, 3 and 4 for pricing. I have Epsom builders to prepare details for Stage 1 - as work is due to start again on 5th October.

Alternative prices ?

I was getting more and more frustrated with constant changes in the build price and confusion over markups of subcontract costs. So I decided to send all the drawings to an alternative builder. His initial reaction was there was potential for some cost savings - but so far I have not received the figures yet. Changing will not be easy especially as we have now just been given the go ahead and the last thing I want is more delays. I might just need to proceed with stage 1 while I pin down the prices for the rest and see if I can change at a later stage. Will post again once I have the alternative quote.

At last a response from the council

After a delay of almost 2 months we received approval from the planning department to start work again !!! I dont have this in writing yet just and email from Mark Wilson from Epsom Builders saying he had spoke to Jacey Yates and have been given a verbal go ahead. Apparantly the tree officer was happy with the revised foundation design providing we made some changes to the surface water drainage at the back of the house. This may involve putting in an additional soakaway. The builders have scheduled the foundation company to come back on site on 28th September. Lets hope we get going this time.

Costings

Have spent all day going through all the various price estimates to analyse the changes. The total project price is actually pretty much the same as when we started. However the problem is it should be around 50K cheaper due to costs which we have removed. I actually worked out 50K costs had been added which almost exactly compensates.. of these 34K were unexpected. Need to have a long discussion with the builders about this and come to an agreement. At the moment there is no signed contract .. so they are taking a risk. However, as the work has started it is now hard to change suppliers.

A day of drama

I had already planned to work from home this afternoon as I had a meeting with the NHBC inspector booked for 3pm.

However I got a call from the architect saying the tree officer had been on site with "all guns blazing" - and said we could not build with 9 metres of the tree trunk. The current plans show the house edge within 6 metres. If this was the case we would not be able to build or would have to very signifiantly reduce the size of the house making the whole project not worthwhile and the land next to worthless. He also said there was a drain running across the land which might need to be diverted and we would need a camera survey to assess whether it was actually used.

Both bits of news came as a shock but I had another read through all the correspondence and it seemed clear that we could build near the tree providing piled foundations were used. I called the architect back and explained this and he said he would speak to the council and get clarification. To cut a long story short it seems the tree officer got it wrong and we can build as designed as long as we take the right precautions. However we need to split the ground floor across two levels so the back of the house is 50 cm higher than the front ! The architect was confident he could work around this without spoling the design. He would need to check the impact on the higher floors. Oh and about the drains.. it is most likely they are disused which means we can probably just ignore them. However this still needs to be checked ofcourse.

The NHBC interview took all of 5 minutes and it seems this is fine and the policy has been activated.

Work Starts at Last

Today we had the water supply fitted and also started on site clearance. At long last some activity on the site.

"Knot" so good!

We recently acknowledged that there is a rare plant growing on our plot "Japanese Knotweed" and from the title, obviously it is causing alot of problems. Japanese Knotweed can grow through practically anything including brick, and there is a risk of the building being destroyed and if not dealt with before the build, it's growing, growing, gone!

The Knotweed has hollow stems with distinct raised nodes giving it the appearance of bamboo, therefore it is easily confused. The builders should be able to take care of the problem so we can start the build as soon as possible. It shouldn't delay the build very much, but its still a problem and it's "Knot" so good.