Northfield House Renovation

Today a number of workers were on-site and cracking on with removing the remaining floor and tidying bricks. The suspended timber floor from the breakfast room has been taken up and the joists and sleeper walls removed. Breakfast room floor You can see the holes in the wall for the air vents. The skirting board shows what will be the finished floor height. There was a good 650mm depth of space below the floor to allow for ventilation. There is a damp problem in two corners which will need to be addressed. At least the damp course is doing its job as you can see a clear line between the damp and dry brick courses. The fireplace with the hearth removed. The area where the kitchen, utility and conservatory stood has now been cleared. This will be leveled out ready to receive the hard-core layer. As the finished floor level is somewhat higher than the ground level, the builders will not be required to dig out much of the soil except for leveling. Looking ba...

Monday 19th August Not much happening today, just one labourer cleaning the bricks. When I visited the site early morning, I did notice water leaking considerably from the mains lead pipe. The workers were not able to turn the water off from the mains stop valve on the street. Eventually one of the workers managed to crimp the lead pipe to stop the flow of water. At midday, I met up with the contractor who returned last night from his holidays and we just went over the work required and the steps involved. Tuesday 20th August All the demolition has now been completed it seems and the ground is being cleared of existing the floor to get down to the soil. Side Access The paving stones from the side access have been removed and stacked on the side. The existing floor from the utility and kitchen has been broken and removed. The chimney from the kitchen side has been removed exposing how the chimney connects to the stack above. All the overgrown plants have been...

The builders were on-site this morning and were going to continue clearing the site. The weather is looking quite grim and there is rain expected all day so not sure how much progress they will make. The kitchen has also been knocked down now but it seems rain halted proceeding much like the second day at Lord's in the Ashes. Bricks piled up for later use. We also had a response back from the builder controller about the depth of the foundations. Unfortunately, due to the eucalyptus tree at the front of the property, the foundations would need to be 2.1m below ground level. Having the tree removed would only require a depth of 1m. Now we're faced with the dilemma of losing this quite lovely looking tree that provides some privacy to the property or paying more than double for the foundation - having already costing more than we budgeted. Previous Next

We've been away for two weeks, but I've now decided on a company to carry out the groundworks and take me up to DPC. I did consider hiring someone with a digger to clear the site and dig the foundations which would have saved me a good amount of money but as we've already lost a lot of time and with family commitments I decided to give the entire groundworks to someone else.  This is a list of the tasks I'm expecting the contractor to have completed: Demolition of all out buildings. Demolition of utility and kitchen saving the bricks Remove all waste Dig footings 600mm wide and 1000mm deep. Remove spoil. Dig oversite down to required level and remove spoil including internal breakfast and dining rooms and hallway. - Dining room doesn’t require digging as it has a suspended floor with a 650mm void. Supply and lay concrete foundations Supply and lay concrete blocks up to DPC Supply and lay all internal drainage Supply and lay all storm and foul drainage. Re...

We have a problem in that the existing location of the gas meter is on the back wall of the utility room which is required to be demolished. That means the meter has to be moved but we're not 100% sure where its final location will be. Having phoned up our energy supplier they informed us that this work is carried out by Wales and West Utilities. So after speaking with someone, they arranged for a surveyor to visit and provide a quote to move the meter. [INSERT GAS METER PHOTO] I had also called up the building control department to inform them that we will be commencing work soon and would like a visit from the assigned inspector in the next 48 hours. Two days later I received a phone call and an appointment was made for the afternoon. The same day, in the morning the surveyor from Wales and West Utilities arrived and after a discussion I reluctantly agreed on having the meter moved to the front just before the garage. We can't build over where the mains gas pipe will be...

When we purchased the house, it had a stair lift fitted which had been removed and placed in the garage. Stair Lift Those things are incredibly heavy. We contacted a scrap metal collector and they took the stair lift, washing machine, tumble dryer and other metallic items. The demolition of the sheds continues and has progressed to the garage. Some of the backs have been removed revealing the brick wall from the neighbouring house. The kitchen was also collected which is pleasing as it means it doesn't end up in landfill and will be reused by someone. Kitchen The above photo shows the corner where the kitchen sink used to be. Previous Next

As we require calculations for steel beams to take the weight of the building when we remove walls, we had to shop around to find a structural engineer. Having found one, I sent the plans but requested a visit to the site so that they could understand what we were trying to achieve and also see the structure at first hand instead of relying on drawings. In the meantime, while inviting builders to price for the groundworks I've started to demolish the sheds. Looking from the back, there is a workshop followed by a small storage shed, followed by the garage with the white door opened. The first task was to start removing the workshop. workshop Once the roof was removed, the front of the workshop didn't take long to knock down. The roof timbers and side wall took a lot more effort. The partition between the workshop and small storage shed has also been removed here, as well as the door. Previous Next