.............and the dig just goes on and on!

 Last week I was told that the mammoth excavation would be finished in a couple of weeks. Kevin and Francis who've been doing the digging - Kevin driving the machinery and Francis  doing other stuff  - didn't turn up today and the the digger lies idle.

Then this email (paraphrased) to the  architect's assistant from the engineer was forwarded to me last week:

'Good news that the excavation now appears to be stabilised.

Regarding the basement retaining walls; I think it would be prudent to visit site to determine what now happened with the top of retaining wall seeing as the site and side path climb some 1500 mm in height front to back. At present the contractor is confused as to what the detail will be. Do you wanted a stepped retaining wall along this boundary?

I think an elevation on this side is required to deal with the ground levels.

Let me have your thoughts post site visit.'

The  Church Hall path is now propped up by scaffold poles.

A break in the work for a discussion with the scaffolders. 

  

I think the scaffolding arrangement is to prevent the chalk caving in. Lets hope it works.

What a remarkably deep excavation. My gooseberry bushes can just be seen in the top left corner, hanging on for dear life. Sadly, my blackcurrants didn't survive .

There's something reminiscent of  ' Gladiator' in this photo, except for the footwear . Must be a combination of  chalk, heat, sun , a scaffolding pole held like a spear, and the manly occupation of scaffolding.  

The excavation continues

It's April 11th and the excavation, or 'reduced dig' as it says in the Contract Programme is nearing an end. I wondered why this stage of the build  was so called - the word 'reduced' made me think it was to be less major than it's turned out to be. Almost the entire site is now dug out to a depth of  4.5m /14ft 7ins  from the 'party wall' adjoining the Church Hall path , to the timber fence on the other side. Only a narrow strip of 'garden' is left at the east end of the plot. The party wall is demolished, and the Church Hall side entrance closed . I didn't see  the wall coming down, though it looked very flimsy and probably didn't need much of a push.

As I watched the digger removing more and more chalk, I wondered how much closer it would get to the perimeter. Answer: right up to the very edges. Sadly, the espaliered pear tree (see picture in last blog post) has been a casualty. Though prepared to lose it, I would have preferred to have been told that the digger's maw was approaching,  so that I could at least have supervised  its careful  removal. Sadly, it was torn out and dumped on a heap of chalk . But perhaps it will survive even with the top branch torn off,  severe root and trunk damage, and when it  was, about to break into Spring bud. It couldn't have happened at a worse time. It is now installed in intensive care in Dave and Sarah's garden, and with careful nurturing it might pull through .

Another 'crisis', well, that's a bit of an exaggeration , was when some of the soil next to the fence in the neighbour's garden started to fall into the pit , together with a few small plants and bulbs. I began to get a little anxious that should the neighbours venture too close, they might well tumble into the Pit too. But all is safe now that the workers have stabilised the fence with props and a cross beam.

The excavation is so extensive  because room is needed for all the foundation works , beams, pipes and so on. In addition, there needs to be space all around  so that the builders have room to manoeuvre when all the foundation work is being installed. This is scheduled to begin next week.

It's quite alarming  living so close to the build, where I can see everything that happens either through the back windows of the house, or  through the viewing panel cut into the safety barrier between the back garden and the building site. . Perhaps it's better not to be living right next door to it, but on the other hand, it's easier to spot possible 'emergencies' , like the doomed pear tree and collapsing garden episodes

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The Big Dig

March 14th 2018  CHALK!

As can be seen from the Architects plans, there is to be a basement in the new house. Without a basement, the house would be very much smaller, as may be calculated from the drawings. Not sure how much smaller because of difficulties in understanding the drawings in millimetres,  instead of feet and inches which I can immediately visualise.  I am a little apprehensive about the basement for a number of reasons;  They are very common here in Brighton , but can be dark and also sometimes damp, as everyone knows. However my new basement will be incorporating current technology which ensures, as I understand it,  thorough waterproofing, and a courtyard drain, aided by a pump if necessary.  The west facing front of it will open into a fairly roomy courtyard , which I am already planning as a small Japanese influenced garden. Light will also enter via the open stair well up to the ground floor, so I am trying to be optimistic that the architect knows his light and basement combos  and I won't be risking light deprivation depression if I spend too long in it. On the plus side, the log burner will be located there and I envisage a cosy place to be in the Winter months looking out through the floor to ceiling triple glazed windows to the subtly lit courtyard garden outside.

Anyway, a there's a long time to go before that happens, so back to the dig. It is deep. A thin layer  of topsoil, beneath which is fairly crumbly chalk, and under that, more solid chalk. I've lost count of how many lorry loads of it have been taken away regularly since the dig began. Note how the flint wall of the Church Hall next door echoes the chalk being dug out  for the basement.

Big Chalk Mountain

Getting even bigger

 For those interested in construction machinery. 

 The digger is devouring everything. You can see the soil from the vegetable garden piled up to form the new garden. The espaliered pear tree looks endangered but the prize greengage tree in the corner should be safe. Fingers crossed. 

Update: Fingers crossed failed to be effective. The espaliered pear came a cropper and  was rushed into intensive care in a friend's garden. We hope it manages to survive there. Most sadly, the beautiful greengage plum tree that can be seen in the corner , couldn't be saved. It was too big, and it was the worst time of the year to attempt to move it ;  the blossom had gone and the fruit had begun to appear. But some consolation was that I still had the brochure and recognised the name of our variety.I spoke to the owner of the fruit tree nursery in the Isle of Wight, and he has promised to send me another one to plant in the winter. There won't be room in the tiny garden  so it will be planted in a sunny spot in  the 30 acre wood we have  a few miles south east of Horsham. We hope it will thrive there and that in the not too distant future we can once more enjoy the delicious fruit. All the rich earth from the ex-vegetable garden that we toiled at moving to the back of the site has now been lost to the greedy digger. I think I was very naive/uninformed/over optimistic in thinking I was a match for the digger.

Next photo will show the depth of the finished dig. We can't actually see it because a health and safety barrier has been erected between the building site, and the back garden  to stop us taking selfies right at the edge of the dig.

First Steps March 5th to April 2018

I assume that readers will have read the blog introduction which gives  some idea of the story leading up to the start of the build. The last step in pre-build planning was to find a builder.  Tenders were put out to several likely building companies. I had no idea where to start so the Architect suggested a few he had previously worked with, and one was chosen. I have to say that the main reason was that his tender was the lowest. But he has won awards, though I don't know what for, or who provided them. Too late to do my homework now. But he did take me to look at a couple of other projects he had done, and one in particular caught my fancy, mostly because it was a very thin though very tall building on a relatively small plot.   The tendering process took most of 2016, and the build was due to start in February/March 2017. I then decided, for a couple of reasons, to postpone the build until February/March 2018. Of course, we all know what happened in June 2016. So, new costings had to be done in late 2017,  and naturally costs had risen, but this couldn't  be helped,  had to  be accepted and somehow budgeted for.  

View from a back bedroom window with the garage on the left. The left hand side of the greenhouse marks the east boundary of the plot, and  the greenhouse is in the backgarden of number 79 where I currently live..

2 Polish builders arrive to start demolishing the garage, wearing very little in the way of protective clothing.

A head for heights comes in useful in the demolition business..

Lovely roof tiles removed and left in a broken heap. Sad that none of the roof could be recycled, possibly because it would add costs to prevent breakages , remove bits of concrete, sort, and  deliver to a salvage yard. A pity . I managed to salvage a dozen or so before they disappeared into the demolition lorry, to use in the new tiny back garden of the new house.

The roof  almost gone. The timber is to be recycled by the Brighton Wood Recycling Project so that's good. 

Only the walls to knock down now. The building site foreman indicated to me that a machine would be used to knock the walls inwards. The Polish builders must have said Pah! to that and just used sledgehammers and brute strength. Unfortunately I wasn't at home to take a photo. 

Sarah surveys the empty site. It feels a bit melancholy to say goodbye after almost 15years.

Time to put it all in the lorry and take it away