A Huf site inspection!!! on 30th October

The piccy is a view northwards from the site

Yseterday we had the "pre-pre-basement- unt kellerdecke -delivery- inspection" of the site. In other words Volker came to look the site over in readiness of the team arriving next monday.

We still have some things to sort out according to our German friend. I did manage "Guten tag" to begin with..

1. We have to put some 'Terram' on the sides of the excavation to prevent spalling and to secure the sides of the excavation for men working below........agreed

2. We have to tidy up the bottom of the excavation where material has fallen so the land drain can be put in without difficulty.........well OK agreed

3. We have to have the gravel with 30mm tolerance in readiness for the concrete slab....well OK we have to put another 75mm on top of what is there at the moment ...so OK agreed

4. We have to ensure there is water available and three electric cables rated at 20amps to feed the lighting and the small tools as they work long into the night, preparing the basement so that our Huf Haus can sit happily on top of it. I'll speak to our neighbours about that and get a generator in.....OK agreed

5. We have to dig the strip foundations with a machine with the team on site on Monday morning.......OK Andy and Baz will stand by.....agreed

6. We have to shingle around the land drain they lay and backfill against the basement walls once they are up to strength ( Concrete takes 7 days to reach a certain strength)...OK we expected that...agreed

7. Provide a hard standing of 8m x 8m for the crane to sit on and a hardstanding for their container which they will also need for the house build. ...well we will do some excavating for the driveway and put some Terram down and crushed concrete...and well OK agreed

8. Take some pictures of the site by thursday and e-mail these to Volker in Germany so he can decide whether the men can come on the Monday.....no problems ...agreed

Well thats all OK as far as us Brits are concerned, and Andy and Baz are coming back on Wednesday to finish off the site as agreed.

Volker mentioned that any rubbish or surplus materials from their construction are put on the empty lorries for their return journey to Germany.....now that's neat isn't it???
What they bring over and doesn't go on or in the house is taken back for recycling.

In this week of the Stern report, at least Huf and I are trying to do our bit by recycling materials, building a house with a SAP rating of 95-117 and using MMC ,( modern methods of construction) and a little ol' solar panel thrown in. It would be great if I got a tax incentive to build like this...as it is very expensive ....Mr Brown ....if you're out there!!!!

HUF GET THE MACHINE INTO GEAR !!!!
This picture is not our house , in fact it is Mr Huf's, in Germany and it is very nice !!!!

The letter we received from Huf today says:
'We will start with the building assembly of your HUF house on site on Monday 27th November 2006......please transfer the following amount etc etc..... '

That looks sooner than expected. In fact if they start production of it in the factory on the 13th November, two weeks later they will have built all the elements, the walls, the roof, the vast expanses of glass, and put the letter box in the door, loaded it onto a convoy of HUF lorries and transported it to UK !!!!

This sounds like the German efficiency we've all heard about but few of us have experienced at first hand!!!!

They only need a week to put it up cos they've got to get back to Germany for the Friday evening beer festival.

This all sounds very exciting, now I just need to get my butt into gear to make sure everything is OK this end.

22nd October....site progress and finalising the specification for the house


Well its been raining..............quite a lot over the weekend and consequently the hole is filling up with water.
We just didn't have enough time last week to complete the dig for the retaining wall and lay any land drains from the excavation to the soakaway, so that will have to be done this week. Its very muddy everywhere!!!!
As a temporary measure we'll pump it out and hope the sun comes out !!!!

We've been through all the detailed plans of the house and sent scanned images of the last alterations to Patric in Germany who looks after the fit outs. Everything needs to be agreed by 25th October which is the final, final deadline.....
We opted for a solar package at 6800 Euros to reduce our energy costs and save the planet. I don't think we will be able to get any grant from Government under the 'clear skies initiative' because Huf Haus are not an approved supplier, but that's something to look at this week!!

We've specified exactly where all the points go in the kitchen even though we haven't yet chosen our kitchen nor done the detailed design yet. As we will not be going with one of the Stil Art Huf designed kitchens we will have to have it installed after the handover of the house.

I've also asked for a gas point in the lounge in case we go for one of these flueless gas fires.

Importantly however we have some dates. They don't come with a programme, but in a letter requesting the next payment!!!
It says 'we will commence building of basement on site on Monday 6th November...please transfer XXXXXEuros etc.
The other letter says 'we will begin the production of your Huf Haus on Monday 13th November'
please transfer XXXXX Euros etc.
The house takes around three weeks to assemble in the factory and is then loaded on the trucks ready for the journey to UK. They have 3 houses being assembled in the factory at any one time and the processes are very 'state of the art '.
I haven't seen a revised programme yet, but I guess the house will now go up just before Christmas rather than last week in November, that's providing I can get rid of all this water and it stops raining!!!!!

19th October......The hole gets smaller again!!!!!

After days of excavating soil from my hole and carting it away to some place in Sussex where someone wants to fill a large hole in his land, we now embark on filling my hole up again with gravel from someone who is making a hole is his land. Follow??? I hope so!!!
This is called soil replacement and is brought about by the need to ensure that we have a solid and stable base to our foundations, otherwise the house would not last into the next century. This is something I care deeply about.

So the gravel has come in and the soakaway has been constructed at the lowest end of the site by Baz who is an expert in most things involving construction. The final preparation of the site now needs to be done and I will then telephone Volker from Huf Haus who will come and inspect before sending his team over to construct the basement and retaining wall. He says this will now be week 45, but could be sooner.

I have left Pam to inspect the drawings for the last time. We have 5 days to alter anything and I don't want that 'Oh, didn't I tell you I wanted that extra shaving point in that bathroom, and you didn't do anything about it' scenario. I've been there before , us wise ol' things have to take precautions at this late stage in proceedings. At least I cannot not be blamed for any omissions!!!

The building inspector arrived the other day, in my absence and gave his approval to all the hard work that had been going on. Also, we now have some fencing which is designed to protect the large copper beech ( in the middle of the site) from any wayward excavators as it has a tree preservation order on it.

This week should see the end of this phase of the work.

17th October....Finishing the digging !!!!

Here we are on tuesday, down at the right level over most of the site and just a bit of finishing off to do!!!
We need to leave one metre working space for the basement team and finish the batters to the excavation, then take out the driveway to the right level. After that we will be putting in 400mm of shingle. Volker agreed to use shingle cos there's a bit of water coming through the sandstone into the pit.
The its over to the Huf people to do the rest.
I need to count my pennies for the site works as they are quite a bit over the original cost. Originally it was going to cost around £20,000, but with the extra dig and carting all the material away, it will be a bit more.......
People keep coming up to the site and saying....'well that's a big hole'......I just want to fill it with house as quick as possible now.

We have to check all the plans that arrived last Friday for any final alterations. Where do the electric plugs go? Have we got enough? Where are the light fittings going? Have we left enough room in the lounge to get the dog's bed in?

There's a really big issue about a letter box!! There's been hours of debate about this. Here in the UK we have letter boxes in the front door. Germans have boxes outside.
They refused point blank to put a hole in the front door.....'it would not look nice' they insisted. We could have a stainless steel 'huf designed art form post modernist letter box'which cost 1500 euros, but I just wanted a hole in the house anywhere, where our postman could deposit the daily dose of bills and trash mail without me having to go outside in the cold.
We compromised by putting a hole in the door in the basement at a cost of 350 euros, which Pam (her indoors) insisted was essential. In the interests of maintaining domestic bliss, we will agree that. (But at that cost I would have been quite prepared to venture outside or train Lucca (the dog) to fetch it in.

There's another additional cost with the handrail to the balcony. Originally it was going to be wood. Now it has to be stainless steel because part of it will be exposed to the elements. That will cost 2300 euros extra. I am going to check whether it is gold plated for that money, but I guess we will go with that too.

And there's another swiss blog for a Huf Haus , I've put the the link on my site. We will be able to compare notes as they could be similar, and he's just finished digging his hole!!!!!

Saturday 14th October Excavating for basement

Surveyed in the house position again for Baz to start digging for the basement.

The front face will be 1.9 metres below ground and the back face approx 4.3m because of the slope of the land.

Monday will see the completion of the dig and tuesday 400mm of sub-base arrives as a base for the re-inforced concrete slab.

I had hoped to see the Huf Basement team soon after this part of the work, but their timing depends on Volker being able to revise their programme (as they have changed it). The programme I have been given shows the basement being constructed in Mid October and I will have kept to that programme. Lets see if anything changes next week.

I have concerns about leaving the excavations open for so long.

Friday 13 October......Earthworks now half way!!!!

The earthworks are still current with around 250 cubic metres already gone.

A problem with a water service was solved by South East Water. Excellent, helpful staff!!!!
We now have a service to the new property and the existing service has been shut off.

British Telecom performed well too, with their crew arriving on the agreed day and erecting a new telegraph pole in the road and diverting the service.

Huf arrived to inspect the site and that didn't go so well. Apparently back in March the structural engineers said we would need a thicker sub-base, 400mm instead of the normal 200mm and a geo-fabric on the formation. That would have been fine but nobody bothered to tell the client (me) and my contract with Andy (the ground contractor) is a fixed price based on the original specification.
So now we have variations to the contract straight away!!!!!

Added to which, Huf produced a programme which showed the basement being started in week 48. The programme I have been sent shows the work starting 7 weeks earlier!!! If that remains the case we will not be in until May 07 and we have another 2 months in rented accomodation...not a good prospect!!!!!

October 7th.....Work has started !!!

Andy and Baz arrived today with a large excavator and chain saw! By the end of the day much of the debris and shrubbery on the site already had been attacked.

Monday will see the start of the tree felling and the opening up of the site.

We have to arrange the moving of a telegraph pole in the middle of the site and shut off a water service.

Huf's 'basement' expert ,Volker, arrives on Wednesday to talk through his part of the work. He will bring a team to construct the base slab and basement walls and retaining wall. This is scheduled for later this month and the house itself is scheduled for first week in December.

The site works are scheduled to take two weeks and I am keen to get the basement constructed soon after the excavations have been completed.

Saturday 7th October.... Work Starts

The machine arrived today to start the site clearance and the earthworks.

It is a bright sunny day and is forecast to be the same for a couple of days so progress should be good for the initial work anyway.

I have set the temporary bench marks up on the site and the levels will need to be reduced by up to 2.8 metres. This will allow the construction of the basement, part of which will be exposed on the north side.

We have around 9 large trees to be removed and lots of shrubbery and debris left bt the previous owners. There will be a bonfire here for a few days, but, after we will have a clear site and we can start to plan the landscaping and boundary treatment.