Firstly, a very happy new year to all our neighbours-to-be! We hope you've had a good year and are looking forward to the next.
It's been a while since our last update, and we're now ready to start out on the next leg of our long journey (this is the 6th new year since we started our project!) - but we're now at the stage of starting building works. Whilst this is obviously very exciting for us, we realise that it could be a cause of concern for some people, and so we will try to do all we can to ease the process. A big part of that is keeping everyone informed of the plans, so here's what we're currently aiming for;
First step will be to clear the vegetation and put up secure fencing around the boundaries - starting any day now.
Construction of the foundations and groundworks will then follow in a week or two, and should last for 14 weeks - hopefully finishing in late April.
This part of the works has the most potential for noise and mess, as it contains all the digging and concrete work. We will therefore be managing it very closely. The council does allow working on Saturday mornings, but our intention is to limit all works to Mon-Fri during this stage. All deliveries and large vehicles accessing the site will do so between 9:30am and 2:30pm in order to avoid the school traffic.
We will need to suspend some parking bays outside the site when we know vehicles will need access to the site. In a few cases (with the biggest trucks - delivering concrete and removing soil) we'll also need to suspend the bays on opposite side of Farmer Road, to ensure that we're not blocking the street for other vehicles.
From early May we will then start putting up the timber frame - which is hopefully about when it will start to look like a house! It's mainly pre-cut and ready assemble like an Ikea bookshelf, so noisy cutting should be minimal. The walls and roof should be up and weather-tight (including all the windows) within 3 months.
From August we'll mainly be working internally and everything should be much quieter. We will continue to post regular updates to this blog, which will include more details on the later stages in due course.
As ever we welcome any questions or comments you might have. We will always aim to be open and honest, and hope that good communication can help to keep any disruption or stress to a minimum. We'll be on site pretty regularly (keeping an eye on the builders), so looking forward to meeting a few more of our neighbours.
Best wishes,
Alex and Amy