Destruction!

Today I have 2 separate contractors on site and it is all feeling very proper so I thought I’d jot a quick blog.

It’s very exciting to have our ground-worker Andy on site and start seeing progress. Actually ground-worker is a bit of a misnomer – Andy is doing a lot more than digging foundations. He’s preparing the original coach house for habitation as well. So far it has been mainly destruction! The garage – a 1980’s recent addition to the coach house – is gone. No mean feat, it has a reinforced concrete ceiling but because of its proximity to the remaining walls it had to be removed by hand (and a very big hammer) with no machinery.

We’ve had floors and ceilings removed, doorways blocked up and new doorways are in the process of being put in. This was the first real nerve-wracking moment as the wall they are going onto bows significantly – both me and Andy were nervous despite the structural engineer having visited and assessed the wall twice, giving it the all clear. So far it hasn’t fallen down so that’s good.

So far my most despised part of the whole process has been arranging utilities. I had no idea what to do and how so have muddled my way through somehow with lots of phone calls where I explain that I am not a large building developer and have no idea what I am doing. The process is painful, expensive and pretty tedious with lots of boring and confusing decisions to be made such as “Will my gas meter be in the ground or on the wall?” “What type of joint will attach my sewerage pipes to the main sewer?” nail-biting stuff.  I can honestly say I have no strong opinions on any of these issues but I’d quite like power, clean water and flushing loos. I have discovered however that the people who work for Northern Powergrid, Yorkshire Water and the National Grid are all very lovely and helpful and don’t laugh at you when you ask them to put what they have just told you in writing please so I can get my builder to translate.   So that’s a relief. It’s also happening a lot sooner than I thought – the electricity people have visited site today and given me a date 4 weeks from now for electricity connection so I may not have my timber frame yet but I will have a meter. I’m just hoping that doesn’t mean I start getting bills!