latest update

We took the weekend of the 12th and 13th off as we needed some well earned rest as working through each weekend was taking it's toll especially with the state of the wettest summer on record in Ireland hampering our efforts.

Back on site the weekend of the 19th & 20th where we got back to work on the Shed layout - setup the shuttering and backfilled areas around the shed on Saturday the 19th. Sunday the 19th we set about looking at hedging! We had researched the traditional hedging in Ireland and made our lists.

The hedging we want to plant to give good screening as well as wind protection were as follows:
Elaeagnus x ebbinegii (Oleaster) - evergeen - height 6-8ft tall (spaced 1.5 ft apart)
Elaeagnus Pungens 'Maculata' (Variegated Oleaster) - evergeen - hight 6-8ft tall (spaced 1.5 ft)
Taxus Baccata (Yew) - evergreen - height upto 40ft - spaced 2ft
Fuchsia "Riccartonii" - deciduous - height upto 6ft- spaced 1.5 ft
Escallonia 'Macrutha' - Evergreen - height 6-8ft - spaced 1.5 ft
Fagus Sylvatica 'Green Beech' - Deciduous - height 6-8ft - spaced 1 ft
Fagus Sylvatica 'Atropurpurea' Copper Beech - deciduous - height 6-8ft
Native Irish Hazel
Native Irish Gueler Rose
Native Irish Dog Rose

We set about trying to source the above hedging and have totally failed in sourcing them so far. We have been promised a contact name for a supplier of native irish hedging but this has as yet to be fulfilled!!
So on Sunday, when we hoped to get just a few of the above list and start planting the hedging at the back of the site, we felt despondant.

My mother had some slippings growing from her hedging in her back garden and gave them to us. Even though these were not our list we took the chance to plant these so at least there will be some hedge growth to the rear of the site.
Boy it was such hard work digging out the ground for planting. We need better tools or shovels or something that will get through the thick growth and hard ground!!!

We worked out that if at 7-9 euro's per plant - the hedging cost alone to only 3 sides of the perimter will cost us 4,000 euro ... madness.

We will continue our search for planting and scour as many forums, garden centres, tree&shrub nurseries for the best deal so we can get our hedging planted over the next 3 months so this time next year they will have grown some bit and look good around our completed house!!!!

Back to the Site Clearing - Sunday 7th September

Well back on site Sunday to roughly mark the house from our site layout plan.  

Once complete we could then dig out the area to the front and left side of the house for further hardcore to be laid, as well as the back of the site and by the shed to prep for us to move in temporary building while the house is being built.

We moved the final 10 tonnes of hardcore from the site next door to where Chris had continued the digging from the gate into the site.  And levelled it out as much into the site by the gate as we could.  Elaine, my sister, and her husband Sean popped over to check out our work.  Sean decided to have a try of the Dumper check out his big smiling face below!!

 

 

 

Chris did great work digging out the areas we need to place hardcore down next week and then once he completed I moved to the digger to remove the top soil into the dumper so Chris would dump it at the very left side of the site.  There was no way I was getting on the dumper after Friday's incident!!! 

We finally finished - totally knackered!!! But delighted we still did well despite the disappointment of Friday pushing our schedule back seeing as we can only work on site at weekends.    Later in the evening my Aunt Celia and her husband Fred also popped by and it was great to see them, they were so enthusiastic about the site and my sister's house next door. They were in the area checking out a site for their son who has been looking for a site too!!

We crashed onto the couch when we got home, boy what a weekend.  So much more to do.  Chris was took Monday off work too to continue the digging out and clearing of the site all around the house - not sure when the hard core is going to be delivered and when we will spend another few weekends working away on that.  All I know is that it has to be done in the next few weeks as we plan to meet the builder and engineer on site in October to discuss the build spec and the builders schedule, costs etc to start the main house construction.  We will be building the shed ourselves - already ordered the 'bricky' so we'll see how we go as we have never built before!!!!

Saturday 6th Sept - Finally Completing the entrance

Again bright and early Saturday morning we were on site and immediately continued moving the hardcore stone to the entrance.

We did our best and continued this all day - leveling the stone and digging out more of the driveway above the gates into the site.

Chris was great leveling the stone.  Even the rain stayed away, giving better working conditions compared to Friday.  See pics below!

Then the sun came out in the afternoon to cheer us up - it was

 lovely and warm such a change!!  

At the end of day we were delighted as we finished moving 90% of the 40 tonnes of hardcore onto the site entrance and driveway to the gate so roll on Sunday for digging the driveway into the rest of the site up to the back of the site and the rest of the stone.

Extending the Entrance and Moving some of the stone

Friday afternoon, the track was fixed so Chris got back on the digger to finish extending the entrance and making enough room for lorries to enter and turn.

Cold, wet and miserable we continued. Once the entrance was wide enough and straightened out we then set about moving the 4o tons of hardcore stone from the site next door and dumping onto the entrance.

This time I was on the digger and Chris on the dumper... he could handle it way better than I :-) We worked through the afternoon and managed to move piles of stone onto our new extended entrance.

So by evening we had completed the entrance and managed to shift about 10 tons of the stone into piles at the entrance. We were pretty tired and cold so headed home for food around 6pm with the aim of being up bright and early Saturday to complete the moving of the stone and leveling it.

John Barry, Tanya's brother helped out too which was great so Chris & Tanya could head out to get some materials!!!

Washout Friday!

Well Friday 5th September we both took the day off work, hired the digger & dumper, ordered the stone and were on site at 9am! 

Of all days it was a total washout of a day with more rain in one day that you would get in a month! The stone lorries came but our entrance was not wide enough.  So thankfully the site next door let us drop the 2 lorry loads of hardcore on their site!

So our goal for the day was changed to widening the entrance so we can get the stone deliveries as well as the deliveries for the rest of the build over the coming 6-10 months.   Our goal for the weekend was originally to get in all the stone for the entrance, mark out the driveway, the front and back of the house and by the shed by digging these areas out about 1 foot and then lay the stone over the weekend.  This now looked unlikely to happen. 

Chris got on the digger and ploughed away to add another 12ft clearence to the entrance, trees & hedges and old stone wall was removed.  

We had till 2-3pm to complete and let the stone delivery team know we were on track for them to delivery the rest of the load at 4pm.  Chris was on the digger and I was to use the dumper which he would fill and I would empty up the side of the site.  I was nervous on the dumper, combined with the very wet weather and got to work - unfortunately when I drove the dumper upto Chris in the digger I couldn't brake it!!!! Panic!! All I could see was Chris's face of terror as I slowly ploughed into him!!! Cripes I thought I was about to kill him and he thought the same thing too screaming at me to brake, but I could not manage it very well but fortunately I did just in time!!!! This scared the life out of me and that was that for me and the dumper!!! Never ever again it is not a machine for me!!! Thankfully after our 5 minute scare we got back to work and Chris continued to dig away with the digger.  

We were getting there and despite the rain we thought we would be back on track in the afternoon! We broke through another 12ft of the hedging and cleared it out.  I dried out and warmed up in the van and went to the local village shop for lunch.  When I got back and called over to Chris only to discover he jumped out of the digger because the track fell off the digger!!! We had to call the hire shop to get them to come out and fix it. The rain had been so heavy that the entire driveway was sticky and moving was a nightmare.  We waited 1-2 hours for him to come and fix the track on the digger.  We knew then we would not be ready to receive the rest of the stone that day so delayed it to Monday, as Chris also took Monday off work so we would complete the work we need to complete this weekend.

What all the fuss is about!

I just realised that we do not have the plans up.
Well here goes, its only the elevations but should give you some idea of what type of house we are building.
We have changed the finish to a render finish rather than stone so the finish will be in white acrylic render because the stone finish costs were just too high.

The site is a half acre and all the work we are doing is to prep and clear the site. Once we complete this then we can get the builders in to do all main building work - the house!!
The back of the house will south facing on the site where we also plan to have a very large patio area.

For the Windows & Doors - We hope to go for eco therm windows - wood inside and black/charcoal finish on the outside with a charcoal/black door - should look great against the white render finish.

Rain again

Well Saturday was a washout and my plans to complete the shuttering for the Shed did not work out to the original plan!! I was up bright and early and bought more tools .... yet more tools!!!

Here are a few pic's of what did happen on site. I measured up the shuttering. The build next door had some spare floor joists that are ideal to use for the shed shuttering. I suppose I could have dug a standard strip foundation but I always prefer using shuttering and with the "free" shuttering its a no brainer. Anyway it turned out that the hole we dug was just slightly smaller than we thought so I ended up digging out soil just to get the level. Then it started raining so with the clay bassed subsoil I called it a day as it was messing up the hole (any excuse :-)). The joists were over 6 meters long so the van made a good work bench while cutting out the joints.

Well we need to do more digging for the shed next weekend and order stone/gravel as the ground when wet get's too mucky, and also start the full site clearence. So roll on the orders and planning this week so we can do more work next week
Tasks to be done before the weekend:
- 1 - Order Stone/gravel: need it for Friday 5th/Saturday6th Delivery
- 2 - Book Landscape gardner for the landscape plans which the council need!!! Arrange for this Saturday 6th September.
- 3 - Arrange for site clearence to be completed - contact T.'s cousin who does this to check if possible this week or weekend it can be done!
- 4 - Review if need to book digger again this weekend the weekend of the 13th September
- 5 - Contact Solicitor for follow up on latest correspondance in order to finalise details
- 6 - Complete latest financials (personal & bank forms)

Tasks for the next weekend in progress:
Basically I ordered 180 tonnes of hardcore that Tanya and I will lay per the site layout. It's very basic layout :-) but at least you can visualise the our site plan. We have better drawings from the Engineer which we must scan in!

Our initial plan was to use a JCB bucket loader with back hoe to clear the topsoil but between €600 and €800 was too much for three days. Now we are going to use a 3 tonne digger and 3 tonne dump truck that will cost for the pair €300 for three days. I will operate the digger and Tanya will operate the dumper. With both of us on site this weekend we should have a decent enough output to get the work done that we need to get done.

Completing the planned weekend work!

We completed the goal for the weekend and caught up on Saturdays rain delay. Chris was on site from early morning AM to complete the work with the digger and then I joined in at 11.30am. Both of us stayed until 8pm Sunday evening our only break for lunch!!

Chris did an amazing amount of work in the morning completing the entrance and digging the holes for the Gate posts and had one post up when I arrived so we completed the second post and concrete together. Chris worked on the Digger to continue the entrance work and I got to join in too!!!

In the afternoon I was on the digger to prep for the Shed foundation dig-out which Chris leveled out so hopefully we won't have too much rain for when we need to lay the shed foundations!!

Gates are now up and the area for the shed is ready for the foundation laying work to begin!!!

Pictures for Digging out the Shed

Putting in the Gates

Tanya on a digger!

Pictures of us Breaking Through

Breaking through!

Breaking through the site

Today was the day to breakthrough the ditch so we could have an opening to the site! Our plan for day 1 was to breakthrough, put in temporary light steel gates so we could secure the site Saturday evening.

We started 9.30 am with breaking through the ditch and discovered an old stone wall with trees and hedging growing out through it and 4m thick on the inside of the field. The weather forecast was for showers which were to clear up in the afternoon/evening. We had misty rain which did stop at lunch time.

Then in the afternoon the heavens opened and did not stop - just when we were completing the entrance and had hoped to dig and lay concrete for the gate posts. The heavy rain meant we were working in a mud pit so had to finish up at 7.40pm. All in all with the extra work clearing the hedging and old stone wall combined with the heavy rain we could not complete everything we needed to complete sat 23rd!!

Roll on completion of these and if we can also clear area for the shed on Sunday 24th :-)