26th January 07

By popular request.....
Everybody says ...can we have some exterior piccys of the pad !!!

So I legged it up there this morning and took some more.
I drove past at 7.00am this morning (still dark) to take the dog for a walk, and the decprators were already there working!!!!!!


The first piccy is the view facing east. You can see that the Huf gables are all glass, and in fact most of the front elevation on the ground floor is also glass. So, we have the lounge facing us at ground level and two of the bedrooms at first floor. There will be more earth placed adjacent to the retaining wall and a patio constructed there but at the moment there's a very dodgy slope that will need support if its to stay there.

And then there's the piccy on the right, and that's the front elevation of this Huf Haus. There's a full length garage on the right at basement level and a boot room, hall and one bedroom with ensuite.

At ground floor level , there is a kitchen (which faces east), study/bedroom, kitchen, dining area and lounge which is all open plan. Upstairs there's three beds and two baths. approx 3300 sq ft.

Here's the rear of the house, looking northwards!

So, you will see that we had to orientate the house round this way to maintain privacy for the older house at the back.

Please note my contribution to saving the world...apart from the actual house....Its the solar panels on the roof. These have not actually been placed in yet, but they will right at the end, when they will provide steaming hot water 24/7 at no cost to me!!!!

One problem yet to be overcome is where to put the TV aerial. I did not want it on the house. which unfortunately leaves me with a problem....I was banking on IPTV by the time this was all finished ie TV over broadband.....after all they have it in France.

But it seems that's not yet available for some time and I have yet to tell the wife that she wont be able to see anything on the telly when she switches it on in a months time!!!!

So what do we do.?.any useful suggestions are very welcome, but at the moment, it looks like either an aerial on a telegragh pole at the end of the garden or a sky dish on same said pole. I'm not sure either of these will work that well.You can buy these aerials that you put in a box on the patio which dont look like anything particular but you need a clear line of site through to the satellite and there's that bloody victorian house at the back in the way!!!! I just wish NTL or some other cable company could very quickly dig up this road and connect me up...but that's not going to happen is it!!!

Lastly this is the side of the house which has got the front door, and a balcony over (which serve one of the bedrooms and a bathroom. I can stagger out onto the balcony in the mornings and watch everybody down the road going to work.

The German decorating team leave today....there's back to Germany tonight. Next week some plumbing I think and some tiling.....oh , and some groundworks. Looks great inside!!!!!!

It's taken just 11 weeks to get this...........................from this ....its all pretty impressive

I've just had a chat with the decorators who have been working all weekend!.
I called in at 6pm today....(sunday) and the friendly English speaker said he and his mates would probably finish at 8pm and go and get a shower and bit of shut eye before returning tomorrow to start again (around dawn). I usually catch them as I go by for the dog walk!

This finish inside is simply perfect. It really cannot be faulted!!!!!

The black post and beams are now all painted with special Huf paint, which leaves the white panels to be covered with this special Huf white self coloured plaster. Everything is special Huf specified materials ....Remember even the extension leads that they all use are coloured special Huf green and are stamped with the special Huf logo!!!!

So I raced back to the gaf that we are renting and promptly threw away half the paintings and posters we have....they is no way that we can spoil the look of these perfect white plastered walls with the wide variety of mirrors/coloured prints/paintings...it just wouldn't be right!!!!
In fact I have some real doubts about using any of the furniture we have inside this now perfect environment. I think it should be left clean and empty, perhaps with a single orchid placed strategically in the lounge..........but no, lets fill it up with all our boxes full of trivia and battered furniture that we have collected over the years and make it home!!!!!!

The one thing that is quite worrying is that there is really no storage anywhere....well you can have it if you really want, StilArt, which is a subsudiary of Huf Haus, will provide you with anything you need, hand crafted, expertly constructed, and exactly to your specification. Trouble is its quite expensive.

So we will be moving in on the 15th March with the minimum of storage to place the 127 boxes of crap that were generated from the move from our last house. I have a good idea of where its all going to go.......in the garage which is big enough for a few reasonably sized motors. This should be the place where my TR6 should be residing, but I can guess that it will be standing out in the weather again until all these boxes have been emptied and the contents taken to the tip.

Efforts to try and reduce the amount of rubbish being transported to the new house have been miserably inadequate. I have discarded at least 6 CD's from my collection and thrown away endless tapes (with no titles on) whereas the collection of furry animals that my dear wife has collected over the years remains completely intact. Is there no equality in this world? I have explained it might be more economic to rid ourselves of this pile of junk BEFORE we pay someone to move us.............but no, it looks as if its all coming with us!!!!!

Andy and the ground work team return on Thursday to complete sewer connections and drainage and to think about the large pieces of sandstone to be placed against the house....
















To this:

19th January

Decorating !!!!!


There's decorators and decorators. These guys are good!!!!
They are a subcontracting firm from Germany who do all the Huf Hauses. They paint the posts and beams black first with a strange black paint which is the consistency of thick mastic / fox poo. Then its masking tape everywhere applied with a machine ready for the final coat of a fine white plaster 1.5mm thick over the walls. The finish is so sharp and black/white, it's a machine like finish. And it alters the look of the inside completely. Very bauhaus!!!
There was progress with EDF too !!!!!

I phoned again to check on the start date for the electricity supply (one of my very regular calls to EDF) and the guy at the other end said....... 5th February.
"what this year, 2007 ?.....Are you sure? " I enquired.
Well all this is really too much to hope for.....electricty available before we move in!!!!
I believe it when I see it.
I set up with another firm for the meter to be installed on the 7th February, and then I have to get the Huf electrician to make the connection in the house.

I arranged with Rudiger ( our Huf project manager) for him to release the garage in advance of the handover which is now 1st March, so I can get the kitchen units delivered in the week before. This will enable the kitchen installer to get working immediately the handover has taken place. We'll have to wait for the worktops anyway because they have to template the kitchen after the units are in and then come back 7 days later to fit the worktops.

The idea of meeting our Huf man each week before handover is to sort out any problems as they are identified, and so it does not impact on the move date. So far no problems.......

We are also off the inspect a local quarry.....why is that you ask????? Well in order to support the steep bank either side of the house we need some restraint, so large blocks of sanstone will be placed one on top of another to provide a mass retaining wall. I did visit the quarry last summer and they have sandstone ranging in size from pebbles to several metres high. I have yet to find out how we can transport them and lay them but that will be one of the next challenges. Its all fun!!!!!!

12th January 2007

This sounded really GOOD NEWS!!!!!! ELECTRICITY AT LAST !!!!!

The charming lady at EDF said that the wayleaves Department had now cleared my application and it had been passed to OPERATIONS.!!!!!!

'Fantastic' I said, 'Can you give me their number and I'll give them a call to see when I'll get electricity'

I should have sensed that note of sadness or sympathy in her voice as she said goodbye and wished me luck with the scheduling of the work.

However onwards with the OPERATIONS DEPARTMENT of EDF. Energy.......With that title it really sounds as if they get on with things here!!!!!

' Are you still there Mr Salmon???? Mr Salmon are you there????' The girl from operations who I rang sounded anxious about my health....had Mr Salmon had a heart attack???? Why had I gone quiet???

The reason for this long silence was after she had explained that there would be a further 8 week delay before the works could start. I was just speechless...........

Ok, so middle of March eh???? First request in October and start work middle of March.???

Here is a bit of advice for anybody thinking of building anything, ......as soon as the project is a twinkle in your eye, if the electricity supplier's name has got an E or a D or a F in it.... get that application for electricity in. What I should have done in hindsight was to cover the roof in voltaic cells and go into competetion with EDF. They're just crap.

Just to reiterate and make the point.....in the time its taken EDF Energy to push a few bits of paper around and tell me its 8 weeks hence...we've dug the foundations, laid the groundslab, built the basement, put a house on top, tiled the roof, wired it inside, boilers in and working, floors down and screeded and next week we'll have pictures hanging on the wall.!!!!

Meanwhile the house is gently heating up with the central heating on (the German Plumber came silently in the week and got it all going) he tells me next week he'll turn it up to 40 degrees to blast every last bit of moisture out of the house.

The Germans return Monday to finish the basement and install the bathrooms, then they get their paint brushes out to paint everything top to bottom.

Its the 7th January 2007.

And a happy new year to you all.

We have been away for the Christmas break and so have the Germans. They always take their 2 weeks and start again on the 8th....tomorrow.

The German sub contractors who left the site on tuesday before Christmas managed to 'trip' the electrics to our neighbour's garage and failed to tell anyone. The disastrous consequence was that their freezer defrosted....and this was just before the Christmas break!!!!. We sat there silent and disbelieving that this could have happened as we listened to this message on the answerphone.
Huf got it in the ear (holiday or no holiday) and I said I would speak to Rudiger about it when we meet tomorrow. Our neighbours were fantastic about it...but the damage has been done and I still feel so bad about it ....weeks after the event.

On a brighter side ...on the 2nd January, the gas contractor arrived to make a connection to the gas main. They left a couple of hours later with a brown gas meter box suspended on a acouple of bricks and inside....there was a gas pipe!!!!!!
Next day a guy phoned up asking where the new house was which needed a gas meter. he was standing in another road nearby which the old house (in whose garden I am building) fronts onto. I guided him to the new house but he sounded somewhat releuctant to do any work on this house. He said that his work ticket said it was a house in Chapel Lane and this house was in Dale Road.
Well after a couple of calls to his manager, he reluctantly agreed it was the right house and he would fit the meter...but only as a great favour to me!!!!
Job done and complete.
Well we just have the electricity to go now.............we made the application when the site was still growing weeds and now there's a house on it!!! Over the holidays I spent a few fruitless days on the phone to EDF.....I even got the mobile phone number of the guy who was dealing with the wayleaves..charming chap who got his bit of work out of the way quite quickly, but its the emdless grind of procedure upon procedure that frustrates everyone. There's an air of resignation in my voice now when anybody asks me 'So Bob, how's the electrics coming along then?'.
This house will probably have electrics at some time in the future, but as a precaution I am buying a gas hob rather than electric. (Just in case it never comes)
We finalised the kitchen over the holidays too. Pam insisted on choosing some fancy LED lights that light up the glass shelves on three of the cupboards....cost £600. I supposed I could have walked out of the shop in a temper, but when she offered to pay for them herself....I graciously accepted that solution. Why we want to light up the tins of dogmeat and bonios in a cupboard is beyond me , but hey I could be wrong again.....( I don't think so though).
So the Germans arrive back tomorrow................last run in now, basement finished next week then the painting and tiling.........