A day of dry and not-too-cold weather provided a long-overdue opportunity to wash the worst of the building site mud off the BMW i3 and to give it a coat of Autoglym Extra Gloss Protection to try to stop it getting too dirty too quickly again over the Winter.
BMW i3 Outside the GarageBMW i3 Inside the Garage
The outside space works very well for washing the car, with two outside taps (fed from the rainwater harvesting tank) and the permeable block paving draining the water away.
Even with the boot and bonnet open the car still looks small inside the garage, with plenty of room all around for access – and scope to accommodate much larger vehicles. (The i3 is exactly 4m long whereas larger estate cars can easily be 5m – but the garage is more than 6m, at the insistence of the original Architect.) The lighting works well, with four pairs of outdoor-grade Philips LED fittings – each pair being switchable independently. Each light fitting draws 42.9W so that’s 343W if they’re all on – which seems like a huge wattage for LED lights but the illumination level seems about right (and will improve once the walls get painted white).
More tidying-up of the site and completing a few outstanding jobs inside but mostly finishing off the temporary, shallow ramp that provides access to the block-paved parking area. That needed two lorry-loads of recycled aggregate, on top of the larger-sized stone installed yesterday.
Recycled stone ‘ramp’ connecting the block-paved parking area by the Garages to the main driveway
This is ‘temporary’ in as much as nothing more permanent was included in the scope of the build contract. In due course some block paving will be brought further towards the House, but the extent of that paving and the choice of materials is part of the wider landscaping scheme for which the design is not yet confirmed. Overall it’s quite a large, flat area that could probably do with breaking up with some planting – perhaps in containers?
The digger, dumper and roller used for the drainage and driveway works have been off-hired and will be collected early next week.
This marks the end of the main work for the prime contractor but there’s still some subcontract work to complete:
The external staircase is getting a custom-made safety handrail which has been fabricated and galvanised and should be ready to install next week
The plumbing work needs another day or two of work to finish off, again expected next week
There’s about another day left to fully finish the vinyl flooring in the Utility Room and wet-room Shower Room
There are also a few items of work not included in the main build contract:
The wall needs tiling around the shower, before the shower fitting itself can be installed
The window sills need installing on the five square windows around the Courtyard, together with some adjustments to the doors and their seals
The alarm system needs some finishing touches, including installing the radio link to the House system and its monitoring station
The ventilation system needs commissioning (adjusting the fan speeds and vent openings) and the ‘external’ ducts need insulating
The kitchen units need installing in the Utility Room
It’s therefore close to the time when it’s appropriate to suspend these regular daily updates. For now, my thinking is to leave them running until the Architect declares ‘practical completion’ and Building Control are ready to issue their final certificate, which will probably be another week or two. I might delete the daily updates on days when there’s nothing to report.
