Quality surveyor and materials

What to do?  I've taken so long researching loads of different ways in which to build our house and it transpires that Harry isn't happy with anything apart from the traditional block and brick  Something that I thought I would never have to go down as surely there are easier, more cost efficient ways?  Does it matter? Well the trouble is I've got one chance of making this house really the way I want it and I'm dangerously close to having a house that goes beyond housing regs but doesn't reach it's true potential.  I just want someone to suggest ideas of what we could do rather than well this is how we've done it and it works so that ok.  Ahhhhh I want to get better and it's more interesting that all of that!  Maybe I should just capitulate but I want this to be all together working and making something interesting.  I set up this blog for me to express my concerns about this huge project and I hope it's going to work!

I woke up at 4:00 am last night just trying to get my head around the discussion Harry, Keith (QS) and I had had in the afternoon.  I hope that the three of plus Phil Neave will be able to sort out the best solution. Having a QS will help and keep us ultimately in our budget.

On a plus note we spent a pleasant Tuesday afternoon cutting the hedge, clearing the wall and pegging out the rough floor plan which was really interesting.  It looked pretty small which is scary as we may need to reduce the design as it's currently 240 sq m and we were always looking to have a 200 sq m house at £1,400 per sq m.  So we either reduce the price or reduce the floor plan.

Final drawings nearly

We had a spate of meeting last week with Harry trying to thrash out details, possible costs and internal layouts.  For me in one way it's going pretty well as the design he has come up with is very pleasing to the eye i.e. not a glass box and certainly fits in well into the garden.  Harry has somehow managed through I suspect a great amount of charm and experience to persuade the conservation officers to build a two storey house rather than their preferred option of a bungalow all in short space of time.

Harry thinks it will be more cost effective to build the whole structure on site and essentially buy the standard materials from the local builders merchants.  I can understand this advantage of flexibility and employing local builders for more of the time but at the same time I really do have concerns which are: -

• Airtightness is more difficult to achieve if there are lots of piecemeal layers rather than a prefabricated structure or monolithic idea.

• Weather dependency as apposed to a SIPS building where you can a achieve a water tight building in a 5 days building from traditional block and brick will take considerably longer and more importantly be at the mercy of the weather.  It's not a good idea to work with cement if it's very cold and if it's raining how do you keep the masses of insulation from getting wet?

My life these things are keeping me thinking at strange times of the day which might be considered a bit sad!!

Anyway we also met up with Phil Neave director of Brilliant Futures www.brilliantfutures.co.uk
He seems a pleasant professional chap who is going to help us achieve the most amount of insulation and airtightness that the design will be let us.  I think this will balance well with Harry's lack of experience in the latest building regs and possible other products on the market.

Things to do today at some point ha ha ha when I find the time, is to re-look at this company
 Natural Building Technologies

Wind farm? Yes we've got a small one at Mill on the Brue