CONTACTS/ SUPPLIERS


MAIN CONTRACTOR BLA Contractors


www.blacontractors.co.uk


ARCHITECT Cedric Mitchell


www.about-architects.com


TIMBER FRAME Scotframe (erected by Beechrow Homes) www.scotframe.co.uk 01236 725 077


CRANE HIRE


Marsh Plant Hire www.marshplant.com


BUILDING WARRANTY LABC


www.labc.co.uk


BUILDING CONTROL Building Control Partnership


buildingcontrolpartnership hants.gov.uk


EXTERNAL WINDOWS


& DOORS NorDan


www.nordan.co.uk


ROOF WINDOWS Velux


www.velux.co.uk


BRICKS Imperial


imperialhandmadebricks. co.uk


EXTERNAL RENDER


K-Rend (applied by Town & Country Plastering) www.k-rend.co.uk 01531 579509


CEDAR CLADDING Cedar Direct


www.cedardirect.co.uk


CEDAR TREATMENT Treatex


www.treatex.co.uk


METAL ROOFING Tata Steel (installed by Steel Roof Installers) www.tatasteeleurope.com steelroofinstallersuk.com


INTERNAL GLASS POCKET


DOORS Eclisse


www.eclisse.co.uk


INTERNAL WOODEN DOORS


Adamson Doors www.adamson-doors.co.uk


height incorrectly on the drawings, something their building contractor Ben picked up on. He spotted that the finished building would actually end up taller than specified on the drawings, which would have taken them outside their planning consent. “We had to drop the back end of the house down 250 mm,” explains Ian. However, not every unexpected turn was an unwelcome one. “Some bits went better than expected,” says Ian. They had been led to believe they were building on clay, and on that basis planned for 2.2 metre-deep footings. When digging began, they realised the ground was actually hoggin (i.e. clay, gravel and sand), and got Building Control to inspect the site. They agreed it was unnecessary to go so deep, particularly given the lightweight nature of timber, and agreed 1.2 metres would be sufficient (with the exception of the back end as it sits near a sycamore tree off their boundary). All the services (gas, electric, water and sewage) are new – when the pool pump house was demolished they had to have the gas disconnected as it housed a boiler, but, says Ian, “our builder organised all of that so it was ok,” says Ian. Their biggest frustration was the disjointed manner in which things are connected: “You get a service come in a dig up the pavement then fill it in, then another provider comes and digs it up again – none of it


november/december 2019


is joined up,” Ian explains. “And every time you have a fee. Services aren’t cheap.” Despite starting in February, Ian says they were “incredibly lucky” with the weather and by April they were ready for the timber frame to be delivered and erected, a process whose efficiency thoroughly impressed them. “The walls were up on day one,” explains Ian. “Day two, we had the roof on, and it was pretty much wind and watertight. The guys who put the kit up were onsite for four days in total.” This included the doors and windows. “It’s pretty amazing really, it was exciting to watch!” The company were recommended by Scotframe, who supplied the timber kit, which mean the arrangement of deliveries was taken care of between the two. “I didn’t get involved in that – which was really good,” Ian says. The couple chose Scotframe because their pre-insulated kit included all external doors and windows, the mezzanine floor, plasterboard, internal doorsets and the Velux windows. “You’ve got a fair chunk of the building costs fixed, you know that’s not going to fluctuate,” says Ian. There was one small issue when it came to installing the Velux windows – they’d purchased them with an insulation collar but the holes in the roof cassette weren’t big enough. “It was a bit of a faff, but we didn’t put the collars in, and just used Celotex instead,” Ian


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