Category Archives: Groundworks

Outbuildings: Week 38, Day 5

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Outbuildings: Week 38, Day 5

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.

Outbuildings: Week 38, Day 4

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Outbuildings: Week 38, Day 4

The main build team are firmly in ‘finishing up’ mode, having completed the drainage works yesterday. The rainwater attenuation pond is now completed and the area to the East of that has been re-levelled and profiled into the GrassGuard blocks bounding the block-paved parking area.

Completed rainwater attenuation pond, looking East towards the inlet

Next up was starting the ramped driveway approach connecting the block-paved parking area to the driveway by the House, forming a foundation layer with relatively large-sized stones on top of a heavy landscape fabric, consolidated with a mechanical roller.

The air-to-air heat pump has now been fully commissioned and is working to heat the Workshop and Utility Room to a ‘background’ level of 18C. Some of the plumbing team were back on-site hooking up the connections to the Workshop sink and installing some of the pipe insulation.