no work today!

We're going to have a big electric bill, but as you can see from the icicles we're retaining some heat cos they're not melting.

Today we went for a walk, the foundations are at a standstill in this snow, it might be possible to do some digging for the drainage but that will wait until tomorrow!

snow photos

This is when the snow had first started.

This is today!
Iain has started wacking the soil down and is going to add hardcore hopefully later today, so that's the porch started just the rest of the house to go :-)

It's snowing

It's snowing!
The digger tyre is fixed, Tim (wonderful man) found a used tyre and fixed it on Sunday for £110.
The third row of blockwork is halfway round, but I think the snow and temperatures may hold that up now.
Next is to level the soil inside, run the wacker over it then top with hardcore, run the wacker over that. Then maybe the temperature will be above 4C so that Iain can finish the blockwork and we can lay the concrete.
There is lots of other work to do as well, such as take the top soil off round the site so it's not as muddy (maybe). Dig the hole for the septic tank. All stuff to do in the digger!
Hopefully the mortgage people will understand if the weather delays us!

The digger

The digger is causing problems yet again!

The rear tyre has split, so call out charge to have someone look at it £40. If it's repairable they'll take it away for a week to 10days, so thats not an option, we can't fill in the blockwork with hardcore without the digger. A new tyre is £245 + call out + vat and I haven't asked yet how long that will take, as it would have to be ordered and things don't move quickly up here.

2nd row

That's the second row nearly half way round.
Once the second row is all the way round, we can start to fill in the middles with hardcore and think about ordering the next lot of concrete.

photos

The channel Iain cut in to drain the water from the trench, but he had to break the ice in it first this morning.

Here's our very muddy site!

The first of the blockwork!

small update

Iain has got all the way round the trenches now with the first row of blockwork, he's now doing the 2 crosspieces in the middle. He says now the first row is done the rain shouldn't be a problem to laying the blocks. So hopefully the blockwork can get finished so the filling in can start!

Rain

Living in Scotland rain was to be expected, but I have to say we expected to have the timber frame up by now. The building warrant took 3 months longer than expected which has been the main delay.
The delay of course has caused mortgage issues, as in it's now been 6 months since we were awarded the mortgage and as we have not completed the foundations they were going to restart the mortgage application from scratch, but they have given us 1 months grace!
So now we are on a deadline to get the foundations finished so a valuer can come and then the first draw down of the mortgage can happen. Only it keeps raining. Iain has had difficulty lining up the blocks as the footings aren't exactly level, thanks to advice from a family member that was solved and he started the blockwork, but we don't know how to work in the rain, with the trenches flooding. Any suggestions would be welcome at this stage!
We also need a porch on the caravan to store the boots and coats, it is very muddy onsite now. We had a nice drive and a gravel path to the caravan but the concrete wagon put great ruts in the drive and so now it's muddy and wet!
At least while it's raining it's not freezing :-)

blockwork started.