Wednesday 14 September 2011

How many building shows do you go to?

Well one bit of advice do not go to the Exeter Home building and Renovating Show unless you've been given free tickets and the girls are being looked after by their Uncle!

Usually when I've been to something similar there is something interesting to learn or see but this was just a small uninteresting 'warehouse' half full of trade stands that I've either seen before or completely disinterested in what they had to show.  How many window stands can you have in one exhibition?!  I know a window take many forms but on the whole unless they're amazingly big or have interesting mechanics (note to self now sounding like I'm bordering on geek window enthusiast) there really what's the point?

Ok we're waiting for the Keith the QS to send us the paper that may or may not tell us we've got a chance of building our house for our budget.  It's now getting slightly frustrating as I know I'm going to mentally tear it apart as it's 1) using all the traditional / easiest to get to materials and 2) I'm going to have to spend ages typing it out onto an excel spreadsheet in order to then be able to send to prospective builders in the tending process and play with the other possibilities in our materials research.

I may have possibly said this before but it is rather simple trying to calculated how to build our house.

New material vs old tradition stuff


  • New material is generally more expensive to buy
  • Takes less time to build the house using it
  • Potential to have a really well build house in terms of thermal insulation and air tightness is easier to achieve



  • Tradition stuff can be bought down the road at a local builders merchants
  • It's possible to achieve a very high standard of build but more difficult
  • Most builders know how to use the materials but it will take them considerably more time
  • Therefore more venerable to bad weather patches 

Friday 9 September 2011

Planning in the post

Harry has sent the plans to the planning department in Yeovil so hopefully 8 weeks later from now we may hear something positive ... then again!



Ropewalk House from the south west
I've got to ring up Keith the QS to find out if he has done the provisional working.  It may mean we have to revise our plan and not have the void which would be a shame but there you go.  We're going to the Homes and Renovating show on Sunday for some inspiration which will be even better as the girls are going to be looked after by Uncle Hamish, Gran and Stella.  The only other major consideration is that to me it's not looking like we're going to have much of the south facing roof (which was the point!) to have solar PV however it might be possible to either put them on the flat roof wood shed and or another shed could be positioned near by with a perfect sloped roof.  I'm confident that we don't need planning permission even in a conservation area but knowing this general mood we're have to fight to have them!

Monk's stair is a space saving way of climbing height than traditional stairs
Three bathrooms in one way sound great but lots of cleaning and not a mass of storage (the attic isn't going to be big which is a real shame)