Digging and demolition

Work on the lane is underway and close to being finished. It has seemed very slow progress but there has been a lot more to it than I imagined - so, no surprises there then! The lane is about 300m long and it has a gentle climb to to the top of the hill. The method of attack has been to dig a channel at least 2 feet deep a pipe length at a time with the sewer piper laid in it in a bed of gravel, along with a conduit pipe for Open Reach broadband cable. Along the first section of the lane were some extra hazards including power cables, an unmarked sewer and water mains pipe. At every (slight) bend in the road a man hole has been installed as well as a silt trap. Hopefully when its all finished the road won't wash away and flood at the bottom the next time it rains. About half way up a 20m section of sandstone was encountered so that slowed progress as it had to hammered out by a different digger. A couple of days ago the pipe reached the top of the lane - whoo hoo! Since then, the lane surface and passing places have been scraped ready for the top layer of stone (approx 80 tons) to be laid and rolled flat. It will be like a proper lane rather than a dangerous and muddy track (hopefully). 

Dan the digger (and dog) and Frank have now been joined by a couple of lads taking down the roof on plot 1, carefully removing the dangerous walls and cleaning up the bricks ready to re-use. How exciting.........some actual work on the barns. After waiting so long for something to start happening, it really is underway at last.

My role at the moment is chief watcher and photographer.........No doubt soon enough I'll be joining in with brick cleaning and undergrowth hacking and chopping, but for the moment I'm content with hobbling around and watching.

Trial pits

At last there has been digger activity at the barns. Our builder has caught up with his other projects and is now going to be concentrating on ours. That said, he is not coming back until Monday...........probably. But at least there has been some work done today, and trial pits were the first job on the list. These are needed for the structural engineer to work out how the barns are currently constructed so that he can decide how our converted barns are to be repaired and made structurally sound. I was half expecting to see a heap of rubble and collapsed barn but all was intact except for the mains water pipe for the neighbour which has now been located, broken and repaired - and wasn't in the position marked on his deeds. The pictures below show the extent of the existing foundations, or more like the lack of foundations.

Virtual Barns

Ground floor barn 2 (diagram using Sketchup)

Ground floor barn 2 (diagram using Sketchup)

As we still have no actual barn converting taking place (it's a long story), we have been building some virtual barns. I say 'we' in the royal sense because since I work all day at a computer learning and configuring software, my head would explode if I tried to learn other software in my spare time. This joyful task has therefore been taken on by Mr Barn, somewhat obsessively I would say. Building virtual barns is a good game though, because you can try things out from an interior point of view, checking the rooms from all angles and trying out floor and wall decorating.  For example, it will help us decide which walls we are going to have as plain brick and which will be normal plaster and paint. There is a lot more to do yet as the basic layouts for all the barns have not yet been completed, but it is looking good so far. If only the real barns were so easy to get underway. More pictures of virtual barns will follow, and hopefully in the next couple of weeks there will be pictures of builders on site at the real barns :)

More drilling for coal mines

When reviewing all the planning and mortgage conditions we realised that the drilling for the mining survey had been done in the courtyard rather than the area where one of the barns had collapsed  therefore in the wrong place.The temptation was to just ignore it as the drilling took place actually only about 5 metres away from the proscribed location. However, as much as you can reason that the building collapsed due to poor construction methods (no foundations, thick concrete first floor) and general lack of maintenance over the years including leaking roof and no guttering, if it had been caused by mining we might find ourselves in a difficult position with the coal board. So, to cut a long story shorter, another 30m hole has been drilled, but this time in the right place. We haven't seen the report yet, but fingers crossed they don't find anything. Incidentally, this is one bill we haven't had to pay  - I wish this was the case for a few more of them.

Drilling rig on site (again). This time drilling in the back garden rather than the courtyard.

Once again I can report absolutely no building progress. Hopefully this is all set to change later this week, although with all the delays that we have had I will believe it when I see it. We have a little bit of brick sorting, stacking and cleaning progress which has been done most definitely not by me but by Mr Barn himself.

A nice and tidy log and brick pile.

A nice and tidy log and brick pile.

The battenburg survey

Friends and family regularly ask about our progress with the barns and we rather embarrassingly have none, that is to say physical progress at least. We mumble and mutter about our bat and bird survey and relate our difficulties with co-ordinating our structural engineer, architect, planning officer, builder, mortgage company and solicitor, and frequently find that the only statement that registers is "Battenburg survey! What's that?"

The short answer to  our progress question is that all our planning conditions have now been discharged so we are in the clear for building. Hoorah. A Mexican wave all round. All we need now is the mortgage to be granted, the building insurance to be set up and the builder to appear on site and get cracking. Surely that's not too much to ask after 18 months? (Ironic rhetorical question).

Ecologist Report

The biggest remaining hurdle for planning consent was the bat activity survey and bird nesting check. These took place last weekend at dawn on Sunday and the report was quickly produced on Monday. Thankfully no bats or birds were recorded entering or leaving the buildings although some bat activity was recorded in the vicinity. We have had a tense few weeks keeping the birds out as there are so many holes in the barns; in the roofs, walls, windows and doors. Daily inspections have been made to check for the pesky blighters and when you think you've stopped all the gaps you find that they have somehow got in again. So, then you have to go round doing a fingertip and torchlight search to find the tiniest little holes to bung up with some scrunched up chicken wire or tack up some netting. Talk about stressful, but this herculean effort has paid dividends. I speak as if I've been doing the searching and gap filling, but actually I've mostly just been sharing the stress. The final hurdles are for the planning officer to approve our choice of brick and tile  and for the structural engineer to design the foundations (for any rebuilding that is required). Actually, the final, final hurdle is bringing all the planning and structural stuff together and passing it to the building society so that we can get our mortgage. Then we can heave a collective sigh of relief and get on with the work, or more accurately the builder can get on with the work, although he has already advised us that his original projected start date of last Tuesday has been put back for 3-4 weeks due to delays on his current projects. Aaaaarrrrrggghhh........will this project ever begin................

Swallows are here!

This evening I popped over to the barns on the way home from work to see the progress with the bird prevention screens and to catch up with the news (a biomass boiler man has been on site today). It's been a beautiful day and there was an almost cloudless sky this evening and it was just to well, nice (for want of a better description) to go home.We were just chatting whilst pottering about when the swallows arrived. Most of the screens were ready but not attached to the openings so we ran around pushing the screens shut whilst the swallows whizzed around the courtyard. They are really alarmingly fast and bigger than you think they are, especially when close up. They got into one of the barns and flew around a bit before zipping out again, so we quickly tacked up some barrier screen fabric. I did feel a bit sad about stopping them from getting in, because it was absolutely fascinating last year to capture the baby birds on camera as the parents came in to feed them. I guess all of the swallows that came back were actually born in the barns so I felt especially uncomfortable about keeping them out. Hopefully it will only be for this year as one of our planning conditions is to provide alternative nesting accommodation for swallows. We celebrated (or commiserated) with a fish and chip supper sitting outside the barns watching and listening to the birds. I'm really looking forward to actually living up there, rather than just visiting and talking about it!