29th Sep 2012

Meanwhile the walls are still going up in between the rain showers. In the photo below, you can clearly see a 1st floor window on the original house, to the left of the grey blocks. This is effectively in the way as the new wall cuts straight across this window. I need to move the furniture on the inside of this window to allow the builder to carry on with the wall.

In the photo below, the problem with the window can be clearly seen.  To the right of the 2nd window, there is half a brick missing, this is where a long scaffolding pole was supported, which was used to raise the old garage room to keep things as dry for as long as possible. Now it is very much open to the elements, and  as the last few photos have shown, the sky was rarely cloud free.

We seem to have a few challenges at the moment, the next one on the cards is the satellite dish, this has been the subject of many of the builder and my conversations over a coffee. At some point soon, it really is going to have to move. We still don't have any firm plans, but a lot of ideas have been discussed.

A photo from the rear garden, the window positions are clearly defined by the builders frames as the walls are built.

The area used by the builder is fenced off from the rest of the garden, allowing the family to still use it, if we ever get any decent weather that is. He does keep things tidy though and minimizes the impact to normal family life during the building.

24th Sep 2012

Following our discussions with the builder, and his conversations with the local authority we have submitted a planning permission request to raise the roof line. This will allow us to move the window up again so that the internal window ledge is at a more acceptable level. If we are able to raise the roof line from that already agreed, it will also simplify the roof structure.

So to recap, this was drawing is of the original house.

This was the first to be given planning position, with the dropped roof line over the extension.

This is the drawing as we have submitted for approval with the high roof line.

The planning permission process includes a public notification period, we therefore will not have a decision until at least 5 weeks, possibly as long as 8 weeks. It is likely the builder may run out of jobs he can complete before the roof needs to be ordered, which can't be done until we have the decision.

It is a bit late in the game to be going through the planning application stage again, but out plan is to live here for the next 20 years so we are prepared to wait a number of weeks rather than live with a compromise for all that time.

20th Sep 2012

The scaffolding is up now, and the walls are going up slowly but surely. The weather despite the pictures has been very very wet, I only tend to scale the scaffolding when it is dry, hence no wet photos.

The satellite dish in the top right of photo below used to be aimed over the top of the garage. It will need to be moved at some point otherwise it will be in a shower cubical, and whilst no expert, I can not see me getting any decent signal coverage there. It is on the list of jobs, not sure when it will be completed though.

In the photo below, the builders frame for the front window is in place now. This has raised a concern as this window is planned to be a boxed bay window and it is very low on the wall. During the initial planning discussions the roof line was dropped over the extension. When this was done, the front window was effectively slipped down the wall slightly rather than reducing the window height.

We are now considering our options, if possible we would like to raise the extension roof and effectively raise this window position by about 30 cm. We have yet to decide on a way forward. In the photo it is difficult to make out the height the window is from the ground, but its around 40 to 50 cm.