One week to go - maybe

Another few days of pandemonium in Cropredy.  The second burst water main was repaired remarkably quickly, so it wasn't really necessary to close the road meaning that less traffic would use our lane.  The house is on a quiet lane, but sod's law has dictated on many occasions, that as soon as a delivery lorry arrives, traffic suddenly appears and has to try and squeeze around.  This is exacerbated when Red Lion Street is closed.

Another water main patched - 6 feet away from last week's patch!

We now hope to start moving in next Friday (3rd) so the builders have a week to get the house into a state where we can move in.  This has meant that we have made some excellent progress in most areas over the last few days, but we still have one troublesome area.  The joiners have managed to put in a day-and-a-half's work at the beginning of the week but then they disappeared.  Our Project Manager has been chasing them but is failing to get hold of them. As far as we know there were no problems, they seemed to be one of the less irritable trades on site, and we did ply then with ice cream in the hot weather, so we are all at a loss as to why they are not on site.  They had managed to get the skirting boards and architraves done upstairs, but downstairs is far from complete and the carpet fitter is coming on Tuesday!  This is a big problem, so the Project Manager who has had a hard time from us this week, is now tearing his hair out trying to source other joiners for tomorrow (Saturday) and Monday.  Since all the wood is on site we don't need the materials, just the labour.  This sort of unreliability is apparently a common problem in the building trade.  It would certainly not have been tolerated in either of our previous careers.

Today, the bathroom fitters finished the bathrooms.  This is just as well as next week, the main man is off on his holidays.  He will need to come back at some point to fit a splash-back in our en-suite bathroom, but that will not be delivered for a week or two yet.  The cloakroom has been an 'interesting' area to work in.  Not only does the mains water enter the house there and is distributed amongst a plethora of pipework, but it also contains part of Lesley's pet project - Rainwater Harvesting.  This has meant that although the toilet has been connected in the cloakroom, it is not yet bolted down to anything!

In the early days of the project, it was clear that I was especially interested in the technical aspects such as electrics; LED lighting; networks; CCTV and alarms.  Lesley then decided that her key project was going to be Rainwater Harvesting.  This is based around a large tank buried in the garden.  Rainwater from the down-pipes on the house (not the surface) are fed into it.  There is then a pump to feed it back to the house where it is used in two of the toilets, and the washing machine.  We have heeded the advice to leave one toilet on normal mains water just in case we have a problem with the harvesting system.  I can imagine you now asking two obvious questions:
What if we have too much rain? -  this is simply solved by having an overflow pipe in the tank which lets the water escape towards the canal.
What if we don't have enough rain? - the solution here is what further complicates the pipework in the cloakroom.  Apart from having an additional inlet for harvested water, there is extra pipework in the cloakroom to distribute it to our en-suite bathroom, the cloakroom toilet and the washing machine in the kitchen.  Room has to be found within the cloakroom to include an additional 'backup' facility.  A cable back from the tank tells this backup facility that the tank is nearly empty, and this then allows a set amount of mains water to flow into the tank via a nearby down-pipe.  This backup facility will not be fitted until Monday, and until this is done, to allow access, the toilet cannot be fixed in place.
The rainwater tank was delivered earlier in the week, with the excavator still on site, a large hole was dug for it and in the space of an hour was placed in the hole and buried, under what will eventually become our lawn.

Rainwater Tank

Lesley checking for an echo

Guess which is the Site Manager, and the Worker!

Rainwater tank in its hole

Being buried

Only the inspection hatch now visible

Our kitchen fitter was back today to finish fitting the kitchen units.   You may remember that at the beginning of the month, we were given a promise that a hob would be delivered and fitted before the end of the month.  It probably will not surprise you to know that this is not now going to happen.  The manufacturers still have a problem sorting a 'little plastic widget' as the company that supplies it has gone bust!  Our order is still near the top of the list and should be delivered 'soon', so in the kitchen company have loaned us a portable two-ring hob to be going on with.  Our rental property came complete with a tradition 4 ring non-induction hob, so we bought a portable single ring induction hob to experiment with.  It is now our preferred means of cooking, and as such has had a hard life and is showing its age.  We had hoped to consign it to the scrapheap when we move, but it now looks like it will be going with us, but hopefully its days are numbered.

Last weekend we put up 5 of the kitchen LED lights ourselves.  Flushed with success and having agreed beforehand with the electrician, and with slightly fewer people on site today, Lesley and I were able to borrow a couple of ladders and put up the 5 feature LED lights in the two bedrooms ourselves.  Despite there only be 5 lights, each required a similar number of hands to hold various parts of assembly whilst they were wired up and fixed to the beams.  This took us all morning, but we did come away with a sense of achievement and the knowledge that we built part of the house ourselves.  In our capacity as part of the building team, we resisted the temptation to carve our initials in something, but we do wonder if in years to come we will uncover miscellaneous initials, in the fabric of the house.

Kitchen lights - our own work

We had another deliver of sleepers.  No doubt this also coincided with a large amount of traffic in our quiet lane.  We already have some sleepers between the house and the road, but these will be used in the landscaping of the garden to build raised beds around the perimeter of the lawn.  Looking at the plot at the moment this is very hard to imagine, so we have had to resort to computer tools to see what it might (eventually) look like.

Sleeper delivery

"Artist's impression" of the main garden

Whilst activity in the house and garden has been manic, the brickies have been continuing the construction of the garage.  They will be on site tomorrow and should be able to complete the walls and start on the roof.  This hopefully means that the remains of our expensive welsh slate will find its way on to the roof next week.  This could be important as we may need the garage for temporary storage of 'stuff' currently in our rental property.  But only if the garage door is delivered!