Lock Farm

A Few Pictures.From Summer's End

2009-10-17T21:42:00.000+01:00

The house with first floor walls in place, ready for the beams to go in.

It's almost sculptural.

Not bad weather for building either..

SIPS are quick

2009-09-21T21:32:00.003+01:00

Here's the video of the ground floor being constructed in double quick time.

Ian from Sips @ Clays came down on Friday with a trailer load of timber that the crew could use to set out the soleplate. At the same time Les and Phyllis (my in-laws) arrived in their VW campervan with a plan to stay the weekend and to see the site before the build started. On their journey down though, the gearbox gave up (something about thirty years on one oil fill!). Repairs would take a week, so our busy little site had to find room for a couple of extra guests. The more the merrier!

On Tuesday, the construction crew of Duane, Chris and Phil arrived to beautiful blazing hot sunshine. They cheerfully worked throughout the day, with Les lending a hand. In twelve hours they measured, marked, packed and placed beams around the blockwork that would give an accurate and level base for the sips panels. Happily, the slab and blockwork had given them a good start - less than 10mm difference in 17 metres.

As they were working, we had a call from the lorry driver who we expected to turn up the next morning with the panels to start construction. Rather than drive over night, he had already set out. Could we find somewhere for him to park? Did I say the more the merrier? Of course! So, the campervan was joined overnight by a forty foot artic. We should open a lorry park - we certainly feel popular enough.

The next three days saw Duane, Chris and Phill working fantastically hard in a wonderful late summer as the harvest ran around us. Back wall, sides, interior and front all went up exactly as planned to the thud-thud-thud of nail guns and some enthusiastic singing along with their radio. Each day would end with the compressor being turned off from it's asthmatic bursts of activity, air being let out of the hoses and quiet descending. We'd take it in turns to wander around the house, looking out of windows that hadn't been there hours earlier and pacing out the position of cupboards, stairs and furniture.

The short working week ended with plates built around the top of the ground floor walls ready for joists and first floor deck. Les and Phyllis drove home and we set about tidying the site for the next big push - first floor walls and then the roof. Our feet hadn't touched the ground. At last our house had truly started.

Piles!

2009-08-14T10:58:00.002+01:00

We've been busy the last couple of months, but not blogging. Sorry. We had a great holiday in July - a last little breather before the chaos hits. And boy has it hit.

The house should start to go up next week.

Right now that means we have to co-ordinate all of the bits and pieces needed on site to help the build run smoothly. We also have to pre-order many of the follow on materials and supplies for the house to be made water tight and first fit to begin. Some of these have two month lead times so we're having to anticipate where we're going to be sometime in October. Being new to the game, this is all quite daunting and I'm sure Barry (our builder, who will oversee the rest of the construction) dispairs of us at times. But it's coming together slowly.

In the mean time, I've sorted out a computer with enough space to cope with the four thousand photos we're taking a day (one every ten seconds or so) to give us timelapse video of the build.

Here's the first film, of the site being scraped down to level and the piles going in. Abbey Pynford did a great job and their teams were efficient and friendly - we'd highly recommend them.

It Never Rains But It Pours (or not...)

2009-06-11T14:27:00.003+01:00

We started our building the actual house - or at least broke ground - in the brief spell of glorious weather and this sleepy little site has transformed into a hotbed of activity. Not only are we drowning in lists of people to contact, decisions to be taken and jobs to do (when we've not even started the foundations yet!), but our social calendar has chosen this moment to explode.

We're having a great time. Sleep, after all, is for the weak and foolish.

Friday saw a trip into Cambridge for a night of beer and curry with friends. It reminded me how well situated we are. The train station is ten minutes' on foot through beautiful fields along side the river. What better way to forget work at the end of the week than walking through blissful countryside as the day's heat gives way to fresh evening breezes? Then it's barely more than five minutes into town and a short stagger to the civilised comfort of the Salisbury Arms (many other pubs are available, please see Mill Road for details).

Back in the village (with a hangover.. ouch) the barracks had it's annual open day this weekend. The kids were entertained with a chance to sit in a helicopter and turn knobs and dials until it might never be able to fly again. Dad was entertained by a long display by the Lancaster bomber, Spitfire and Hurricane which took turns to do runs over the old airfield, dive and spin off into the sky. Mum took the opportunity to go riding.

Sunday saw the village beer festival's family day - Pimms for Mum, beer for Dad and more ice-cream for William and Becky. When so many of the local villages have lost their identity to nearby Cambridge and the march of supermarkets and shopping centres, it's great that ours is big enough to have a real sense of community and successful events without quite loosing that close knit feel.

In between these trips we've managed to fit in a visit by Ness' Aunt, cousin Ben and his family, a visit from my Mum & Dad, my birthday and a lot of site preparation. When not socialising, we've been checking plans, marking out locations with upside down paint(*) and hammering in bargeboards to show just where everything should go. The day starts at seven and ends with me watering the plants in the dark as the sun has set. Last minute clearing, chopping, digging and marking seems to be paying off though - I'll post up the video of the site being dug very soon.

* - For painting upside down. Very useful stuff.

Starting the build

2009-05-13T13:03:00.005+01:00

This must mark the beginning of our build - we're knocking down the shed.

It'll be a couple of months before anything shows above ground as we're still completing a few remaining details for the construction. However, by the end of this month we should have a foundation slab to show just how big (or small) the house feels. Very early days, but it's still quite exciting.

SIPs - Genius Idea

2009-04-15T16:14:00.003+01:00

Once we got planning permission, one of the first decisions we had to make was - how are we going to build our house? Only a few years ago the choice was simple, wood or brick. Now there is the option of straw bales, durisol bricks, thin joint blocks, ICF blocks, SIPs and many other even more obscure building materials. For our needs, SIPs (structural insulated panels) seemed to be ideal. They are a sandwich of wood chip board and insulation, a little less than six inches thick and produced in enormous sheets. At the factory, they are cut into sections for your house walls and roof, holes are made for windows and doors and the whole lot are wrapped up and sent on the back of a lorry to the site.

here's an offcut

Once they arrive on site, they're glued and screwed together to make up the entire shell of your new home. From bare slab to complete shell can take as little as a couple of weeks. Whilst the speed is impressive, the most significant feature of SIPs are that you end up with a shell that is consistently and robustly insulated. The few joints that are needed to connect panels are glued and airtight. The result is a home that is easy to heat and easy to keep warm.

in a few years time, SIPs will become a significant force in UK construction

SIPs have been used for decades in Canada and some parts of Europe. Whilst they are relatively new in the UK, the market has been maturing. Early experimental homes have given way to a well established stream of new buildings. The benefit to self-builders is obvious - you can build a top spec, energy efficient house for a sensible cost and at low risk. Developers are beginning to catch on and I'm sure that in a few years time, SIPs will become a significant force in UK construction.

After talking to a number of suppliers, we chose SIPS @ Clays, who have proven to be enthusiastic and experienced. They deliver something like a house a week from their base in Skipton and take pride in the results they achieve. The houses are first drawn up in CAD, then cut and delivered for their construction team to erect. At the moment we're making the final small revisions to the CAD model and in a few weeks they'll begin to cut them up for construction this summer. Between now and then though, we need to prepare the site and lay some foundations.

Pollarding at speed

2009-04-06T22:05:00.002+01:00

Getting things ready for a summer of building - the old willow needed to be trimmed back. It was also an excuse to try out the camera which should help us video the house being built.

For anyone who actually cares - the house will be in place of the derelict sheds you can see to the left of the picture. But bigger.

Homebuilding and Renovating Show

2009-03-22T22:53:00.001Z

This weekend saw the Homebuilding and Renovating Show at the NEC. It was far from our first, and seemed much quieter than it has been before and somewhat smaller. It's hard to tell though as we've been through four distinct phases when it comes to house building shows. This time round we knew who we wanted to see, what we wanted to talk about and what was irrelevant to our build which shrank the whole event down to a manageable size. The first time we ever went to the show, we were still just thinking "Wouldn't it be nice to build our own house", and the array of stands offering different ways to make a home seemed to go on forever.

Between then and now, we also went through the vital phase where we actually decided that we would build our own home and had to begin to research our options properly. Somewhere in a filing cabinet is a heavy stack of brochures from those research missions. Then there was the phase where we had made our basic choices and needed to find the people who could make it all happen.

That said, the credit crisis seemed to have had an impact. There were fewer gizmos and 'bling' house features on display. Only a handful of stands were giving away freebies - and jute bags with your company logo are apparently so last year. Some well known faces from the self build scene were absent. If not subdued, the whole event seemed to be a very calm affair.

More depressingly, the Eco-village showed that you can make anything environmentally friendly (apparently) by adding 'Eco' to the name and painting your stand a nice shade of green. The show itself led the way in that respect, but it's hard to view (amongst other things) a swimming pool as a means to make your house kinder to the planet. At least some of the stalwarts who used to sell slightly suspect whole house vacuum systems have moved on to selling heat recovery ventilation kit instead which has a more convincing benefit to the self builder.

Retrospective Blog 3/3 - Planning Permission

2009-02-20T14:58:00.001Z

We got planning permission. We got planning permission. We got planning permission.

It doesn't get old.

I have to apologise for not posting up perhaps our most significant news of 2008 until a few weeks into 2009. The reason for the delay is that I've not been able to put down in words the combination of delight, relief, vindication, exhaustion, frustration, trepidation and a few other emotions that the news has brought.

The overwhelming feeling is delight. We've been waiting to build our house for quite a few years now and at last it's happening. The process had gone on so long that we'd stopped buying self build magazines and making mental notes about kitchen designs we liked. Now, suddenly, it's time to put the theory into practise and make it all happen.

There seem to be two schools of thought as to how we should describe the last few years. The soap opera view suggests that we have been stressed and dismal, forced into terrible living conditions and dragged ourselves listlessly from day to day, hopeing for salvation. The Grand Designs view is that planning permission happened just like that in the five minutes before the interesting part of the programme gets going.

The reality is that we've had a fine old time living in our caravan, bringing up two small children and getting on with our lives. A few things have been put on hold (such as big holidays), and there has been a slight sense of limbo, but really the move to Lock Farm has coincided with quite a few other changes that have kept us busy and entertained in equal measure. We have learned the valuable lesson of what exactly we need to be comfortable and happy (it turns out, remarkably little). There have been occasional bad moments usually centred around heating or storage space (the former being slightly unpredictable and the latter highlighting how disorganised we can be). On the whole though, living in a muddy field is good fun.

The planning battle has very much been a learning experience. Most of it has been boring and bureaucratic, with short sharp shocks of disappointment. However we didn't go into this expecting instant gratification, or with a picture in our heads of the exact house we wanted to build without compromise. The result is that though we feel we could have done it better - or at least faster, we're very happy with the final decision. There's a lot to be said about our planning system in this country, a good deal of it being deeply critical. However none of that actually matters when there are tenders to be requested, suppliers to choose and the detailed design to complete.

Did I mention we got planning permission?

Retrospective Blog 2/3 - Bonfires' Night

2009-02-10T16:06:00.000Z

When I was young, bonfires' night was always a favourite. We'd have a big old blaze of deadwood and odd remnants of furniture. My Dad would carefully work his way through a box of fireworks which childhood memories recall as a long and spectacular display. We'd frantically wave sparklers around until the sparkle burnt out and the glowing metal bent in our flailing hands. At the time our cooker was a coal fired Aga which spread heat through the kitchen floor and into the room. It was pretty much inevitable that we'd have jacket potatoes that had been slow cooked to perfection. The following day would see me raking through the bonfire ashes, trying to coax it back into life and hunting down the spent rocket shells as trophies of the night's fun.

As I grew up, bonfires' night took a bit of a back seat. We moved house, away from the convenient back garden and the Aga which so suited traditional celebrations. Later I went to college and made do with watching Battersea fireworks display from the roofs of our student digs. It wasn't quite the same.

Then, moving up to Liverpool for my first job, bonfires' night got so much better. The evening would start at Keith's Bar before swaying gently with the crowd to Sefton Park for the big display, making slightly inebriated oohs and aahhs. Then on to one of the old park mansions, run as a commune and putting on it's own display - an enormous bonfire of planks and furniture and a comically small fizzle of fireworks that could barely compete with the heat and light of the blaze behind it. As an adult the occasion had suddenly become less about the explosions and more about gathering together with friends to drink, sing and enjoy the company.

Cambridge only reinforced that. When we bought our first house just in time for November's celebrations, eighty friends packed our garden, trying to strike a balance between singeing themselves by the bonfire and freezing up by the house. Almost without exception every one of them had come with packs of fireworks - it took three of us over two hours to work through the rockets and roman candles. At one in the morning a frantic search was carried out for the last remaining sober driver who could help collect a large unwanted cupboard which was just right for keeping the fire burning bright that little bit longer.

Now we're out on the edge of the fens, with young children of our own and bonfires' night has changed again.

Last year we bought a very small pack of fireworks to see how William and Becky would respond to them. Not too surprisingly William very quickly decided he didn't like the unexpected noises and we called a halt before he could get that idea lodged in his head. This year we thought we'd try again - I'm looking forward to them both being old enough to come along to the fantastically well organised Cambridge City display. After a couple of fireworks, William started to ask what kind was going to come next, and by the end he was asking for 'the sparkly one' or 'the green one'. Even Becky joined in, standing on the window ledge inside the caravan and watching me setting off rockets. We used up a pack and a half of fireworks (this year's and the remnants of the previous year which had been languishing on top of a cupboard) and every one was happy. Especially William's proud/pyromaniac dad.

Retrospective Blog 1/3 - Halloween

2008-11-17T21:54:00.000Z

We planted the seeds, grew two impressively healthy pumpkins after a couple of false starts, hollowed them out and made tasty if rather surprisingly spicy soup. Then I managed to make this with the help of a template from the interwebs (you didn't think I was that artistic did you?).

Not bad for a couple of seeds!

Assassin's Trousers

2008-09-05T14:19:00.002+01:00

We need to find a shop that sells Assassin's Trousers. It's amazing to discover just how noisy a normal pair of trousers can be. Jeans, chinos, it doesn't matter - they’re all equally loud.

If you don’t believe me, try the following experiment. Get a small 18 month old child that is teething (parents of young children might be able to see where this is going). Place said child in a cot where you hope desperately that it will spend an hour or two catching up on the sleep it is so sorely missing. Sit next to child making shushing noises, patting it fitfully and (if you're brave) singing old McDonald until you run out of sensible animals. For this purpose lions are quite normal farmyard animals. However I can't quite decide what noise a gnu makes so that’s where the line gets drawn.

At some point you should find you’re in the enviable position of sitting in silence next to a rumpled ball of sleeping toddler. At last! Enjoy the moment. Soak in the calm after the storm of tears and tantrums and cries of ‘teef’, ‘teef’ with one hand in a dribbly mouth (theirs, not yours).

Now try to stand up. In silence. Without waking the baby.

If your child is like ours, teething sleep is not deep. The slightest noise that suggests that Comforting Parent is about to leave will wake them instantly. Shushing, patting and Old McDonald’s entire menagerie will be required all over again. The fear can keep a sane parent rooted to the spot for hours, wondering if it might be easier to sleep right there next to the bed. Even though it's actually 10am. But no, it’s time to go and let them rest.

It’s only when you're praying for the absolutely silent exit to the safety of the front room (and a stiff drink, 10am be damned) that you’ll discover that everyday sorts of trousers are surprisingly, distressingly noisy. That first moment of straightening your legs in preparation for a tip-toed dance to the exit is a symphony of strange little noises that you never knew simple material could make. One hurried step could return you both back to square one.

That’s where assassin’s trousers come in. They must have them. Trousers for assassins. Surely the need to be able to creep around without a noise must have led to advances in silent trouser technology? Especially if your professional career (and indeed life) depend on it?

So where can I buy a pair? I’m only asking because I've been stuck here next to the cot for three days now and the supply of rusks has run out

Sunshine - in Spots

2008-08-31T16:38:00.000+01:00

I've heard a few people comment on the 'terrible' summer we've had. The flowers, fruit, vegetables and (ahem) nettles disagree. So do I. It's certainly been unpredictable - the barbecues we promised never quite materialised. But in between the unscheduled showers it's been rather good. So long as we've been happy to take opportunities when they come, we've had some lovely days out and about in Cambridgeshire. From Milton Maize Maze to Wimpole Hall, from Denny Abbey to the Big Weekend Parker's Piece, the rain has held off and a good time (and ice-cream) has been had by all. That's ignoring the easy trips to the park, the local paddling pool and up to the river to watch the boats.

All in all, it's been rather a good summer. We could have done without a couple of colds and it would have nice to be building a house but it's hard to worry about these things when you're taking it easy outside.

Here are some late pickings from the garden - potatoes, plums, broccoli, raspberries and eggs. That's pretty much a meal all in itself.

Stud Locator

2008-08-13T23:09:00.004+01:00

We're doing a little bit of re-organisation in the caravan. Will has been in a proper bed for some time and Becky is ready to do the same. They're on holiday with their mum and grandparents in Scotland right now, sharing a bedroom and loving it. They go to bed full of giggles and chatting to each other until sleep overtakes them.

I, on the other hand, am in the caravan with a bunch of 3x2", a saw and a couple of sheets of MDF. Whilst the rest of the family enjoy their holiday I'm moving bedrooms around so that the kids can share a room at home.

To help the job, and in the vague hope that I could avoid drilling through a mains cable, I bought a stud locator. So far with relatively thin caravan walls it appears to work well so I'm happy with my purchase.

Except...

Except when I got it I carefully put it away so the kids wouldn't find it and wreck it. Now I can't find it. I would see if I could buy a stud locator locator, but I'm afraid I might loose it.

Unrelated Note

2008-07-12T22:51:00.002+01:00

We are just watching the Kaiser Chiefs playing T in the Park on TV, with the same stage set as we saw them last year. The small screen does live events like that no justice whatsoever, but is a fantastic reminder of what a stunning gig they played.

I suppose that's not really on topic for a house-builder, gardening, family blog - but staying on topic was never a strong point. Besides, variety is the spice of life.

Good Weather For...

2008-06-22T22:28:00.002+01:00

..strawberries the size of cars! Seriously, they're huge.

If you're waiting for news about our latest planning application, so are we. We've gone past the eight week deadline with no news, which is disconcerting. It shouldn't really have any great significance other than giving us the automatic right to appeal if I understand the rule book correctly. Hopefully we'll find out what's happening next week.

Could This Be It?

2008-04-14T14:21:00.002+01:00

Here's a quick impression of what our house could look like. It's drawn in Google's rather wonderful (and free) Sketchup software. The model is drawn from the plans we submitted to the planning department at the start of April. Now we must wait to see if these new plans are acceptable. We've put a fair amount of effort into discussing them with everyone and we're hopeful that we're on the right lines. Certainly we're pretty pleased with the response so far and we're very happy with the work of Michael, our architect, in turning our wish list into something that could become our home.

Thorough Repurposing

2008-03-30T23:24:00.000+01:00

We had a shed (one of many), about 6' x 4' tucked into a corner by the outside toilet. It had clearly been there a few years and was happily rotting away, roofless and sagging in the bottom.

Today's weather has been fantastic, so I've been busy with a saw and my handy bucket of nails. The shed is a shed no longer, and we have a coldframe to get our seeds off to a good start for the summer. The lid is a door from an old server cabinet. Putting it together was quicker and easier than going out and buying a shiny new one, and a lot more satisfying. If I could conjour up a greenhouse as well I'd be a happy man.

Now we've got to get on with some planting.

William Loves to do Jigsaws

2008-03-11T22:25:00.003Z

Though he gets a little distracted by Balamory (at 1min 5sec), which was on in the background to keep Becky amused whilst he was being busy. The editing is a bit basic, but we love this video.

The Appeal Decision

2008-02-04T17:13:00.000Z

After a very long wait (fourteen months from first submitting our appeal), we have an answer.

Not a good answer.

We cannot build the house as designed - it's as simple as that. Whilst we were braced for bad news, our internal optimists were hoping that this would be the point that we could actually start actually building a house. It would have been a cause for much celebration but instead we had a week of upset, stress and (just to keep us busy) teething and colds for the children. It really was a low point, not only for our self-build but also in our lives.

Still, we're not ones for wallowing in misery, snot and calpol for very long, so now it's time to put all that we've learned into fresh plans.

We've always said that the main goal of the appeal was to clarify where we stood. Even a refusal would leave us with a set of clear and consistent guidelines for planning a house. Getting such guidelines from the local planning department is difficult because as a lone self-builder your project has a very low priority and details get forgotten between the sporadic meetings you can arrange with the planning officer. Our experience was that in having pre-planning meetings we would submit a design, the planner would suggest a change, we'd make the change and submit it, they'd suggest another change and so on. The design became ever more complicated without actually getting to a point where it was likely to receive permission. The lessons learned are that meetings must be regular to keep the end goal fresh in everyone's mind and that if a design has to be changed it must remain simple or change completely rather than accumulating 'tweaks'.

The actual ruling lists twelve points where the appeals officer felt that the concerns of the planners were justified. In the last few years, we've had plenty of time to think about what we wanted from a home and that has changed a little more since we've had children. Living on the site has also given us an insight into how this location works, from light and seasonal weather to views and access. So, we've taken all of these things and re-written our requirements. The end result is two sides of A4 listing the bare minimum we need, things that would be nice to have, things that we want to avoid and some aims to ensure that the new design might get approval.

We'll be taking those requirements to our architect and giving him free reign to come up with a home for us. Suddenly it's exciting again.

The Appeal

2008-01-21T15:17:00.000Z

The memory of our appeal that will probably stick with me the longest occurred when we were all standing on site in the rough place the house would be built. My parents had come round for the day to look after the children and when we arrived for the site visit, had spirited them away to look at the boats and throw small objects at the ducks. The inspection took ages, so they returned just as we were positioning ourselves to work out where the house would sit. William staggered directly towards us, his woolly hat pulled down so low over his head that only his nose and enormous grin showed. With his arms out wide so he wouldn't bump into anything, he joyfully shouted out "Daddy!", gave me a big hug, shook our planning consultant's hand and staggered on to the caravan for a juice. After a long morning of earnest discussion, it was a bright ray of sunlight.

The meeting itself was hard to judge. It started at 10am at the council offices with the usual suspects - the inspector, our planning advisor and architect, the council planner, 'Ness and I in attendance. Surprising by their absence were the actual planning officer who has been in charge of the case, and the conservation officer who can (and did) object to our plans as they are in the curtilage of the barn (never get involved in listed buildings if you want quick results). Surprising by their presence were one of our neighbours who had completely independently decided to come along and support us, and our local councillor who said he wanted to present the case of the parish council (who've basically echoed the planners' objections to our designs).

The meeting lasted three hours, then we spent two and a half hours wandering round the countryside looking at the site from various vantage points. The inspector took reams of notes and then called an end to proceedings. We feel we made a solid case and came across as professional and sincere in our aims. After the event, it's hard not to think of various points we should have made, but that's how these things go. Unfortunately, however good our arguments may have been, it comes down to the interpretation of the local and national Planning Policy documents, and specifically whether the appeals officer thinks our house would 'harm the character of the area'. It'll also depend how critically he considers the various arguments made as the planner was adamant that our house would cause catastrophic damage to the countryside. We will apparently find out in five weeks' time from the meeting, so mid January. The inspector was completely poker faced (as he's meant to be) so we have no idea whether we'll 'win' or not.

In fact, as we've explained to various family and friends, we are not dependent on having the appeal upheld. Our aim has always been to produce a house that best suits the plot and whilst we're fairly convinced that the design we've produced is an excellent match, it's certainly not the only house that would work very well on the plot. So why appeal? Why not just submit a different design if the planners aren't keen on this one? The issue is that we have been told so many things that the planning department don't want to see that it's hard to imagine what they would approve. We have very little confidence that we could come up with any alternative design that would receive any more favour than the current one. We hope that even if the appeal is rejected, we shall at least come away with a set of concrete guidelines that we can use to inform a new design. An appeal should at the very least clear the tables and allow us to come up with a new plan that suits everyone's needs.

Chicken Crisis

2007-12-01T21:18:00.000Z

Dark days indeed. Or at least, dark enough to make our chickens stop laying. Two are moulting and the other two are on a go-slow.

Before we had the hens, we bought very few eggs. Apart from very infrequent baking and an occasional spate of ice-cream making, we probably only got through a dozen or so eggs a year. However after just twelve months of fresh eggs arriving daily on our doorstep we are dependent on them. Omelette, muffins, eggy scramble for the kids, cakes, custard, fried, boiled.. damn, now I'm hungry again.

Anyway, here's the shameful secret. Yesterday we had to
buy some eggs.

Well, we'd not had bacon and egg sarnies for nearly a week.

Impending Doom

2007-09-19T10:57:00.000+01:00

Our planning appeal, which may just see us able to build a house here instead of sitting in the caravan twiddling our thumbs, has been rumbling slowly through the works for nearly twelve months now.

Somewhere deep in a search on the Planning Inspectorate website, there is a page that we have been checking on a daily basis for most of this year. The latest update finally gives us a date for our hearing - and suggests that if we're really lucky we might have a decision by the end of the year.

Appeal accepted	Questionnaire	Statements & representations	Final comments	Site Visit	Decision
Start date: 20 Feb 2007	Due date: 6 Mar 2007	Due date: 3 Apr 2007	Due date: 24 Apr 2007	Date: 4 Dec 2007	Date: Not decided

Cross your fingers for us, please.

Autumn's Coming

2007-09-17T11:13:00.000+01:00

I Can See a Floor In These Plans

2007-09-14T21:18:00.000+01:00

Above, there is clearly visible a floor that isn't there. The not-there floor affords visitors to the caravan a fine view of the ground below. It isn't there because I spent yesterday repeatedly hitting it with a big hammer. The hammer attack was very theraputic, but my mental well being (already under question) wasn't the issue.

The real reason for the vandalism was that our shower has never been entirely water tight. The escaping water has spread into the floor around the bathroom - in particular the hallway. Unfortunately, being made out of MDF the floor soaks up water as though it was in a kitchen towel advert and then starts sagging between the joists. As the job of fixing it was going to be a dirty, fiddly day of grubbing around under the caravan I must confess I put it off. After all, the carpet has been doing a fine job of taking our weight when the floor below it had given up.

A day later and here's the new floor. No more sags, no more unexpected bounciness to your step as you go through the hall. It's going to take a while to get used to it really.

As a welcome side effect, William now believes I'm Bob The Builder.

Retrospective Blog..

2007-09-12T21:37:00.000+01:00

Harvest came and went surprisingly suddenly this year and shortly afterwards we zoomed up to Scotland to visit 'Ness parents so this event went uncommented:

Like any small boy, William loves big tractors (almost as much as train!, train! and hello airplane!). So when the combine came to do the field next to us, I took him out to watch them setting it up. To my great shame in the two years we've been here, I've not managed to say hello to the guys that farm the fields next to us. So I took the opportunity to say hello to Gary (bossman) and Rob (combine driver) whilst William attempted to take the wheel off one of the trailers.

As the combine was about to set off, Gary kindly asked "Does he (William) want to have a ride?". He's only two, and wouldn't remember it so we didn't want to get in their way as they got on with the job. Despite telling him this, Gary was insistent that it wasn't any trouble and stopped Rob. Of course Will would love to sit in any vehicle he can, so we found ourselves climbing into the cab for a ride (glass enclosed and air-conditioned - it wasn't like that when I was a lad).

Rob was wonderful (his grandson is also two, so I suspect he knows) and happily worked his way around the field with two extra passengers. William sat on my lap on his best behaviour - he didn't once ask for the keys - and stared down at the machinery below us. He loved the experience and I couldn't be more grateful for our little trip.

Of course, as predicted, the next day Will had no recollection of where he had been, but I've got the photo to show him when he's older.

Alas Poor Fiat

2007-08-21T21:04:00.000+01:00

It's a sad, sad day on the farm. My Fiat X1/9, that I've had for the last fourteen years and driven the length and breadth of the country, has failed it's MOT. Not just a little bit failed - no handbrake adjustment and off we go this time. Welding is involved.

Or, it would be involved if I could justify it. With two kids, a wife and pickup truck to support, the Fiat was a bit of a guilty pleasure. With 103,000 miles on the clock and nearing it's 20th birthday it owes me nothing and now that I'm facing a big bill to keep it going, it's time to send it on it's way.

So, if anyone wants a winter project and a fun little runaround that is a joy to drive and still suprisingly practical, make me an offer and it's yours. There will be no messing around waiting for over-optimistic values. The best offer I get by September 9th will get the car.

Raspberries

2007-08-16T14:54:00.000+01:00

These raspberries are a late fruiting variety, but it's their first year so some of them seem to be jumping the gun a little. They taste perfect with a little bit of cream or ice-cream.

2007-08-12T21:09:00.000+01:00

We quite often have balloons coming over early in the evening at this time of year, dipping low to get the best view of the Cam as they go by. The roar of the gas burners is quite subtle at first but regular enough to get noticed and cause a mad scramble for the camera and a long lens. This one was obliging enough to be taking a slow breeze directly over our house, so I got a few photos. It'd probably help to have a polariser and lens hood (and be a better photographer), but I'm still quite pleased with the image.

2007-05-14T15:37:00.000+01:00

It looks like the gremlins aren't being fed enough. These are the things that are sorely in need of mending right now :

Push chair	One bent axle
Toaster	Only cooks one side
Video Recorder	Won't wake up
Camera Lens	Out of focus
Cell Phone	Not recovered from bath incident (glug)
Caravan Floor	As straight as a bouncy castle
Car undertray	Hanging loose
Remote car key fob	No response
Son	Projectile vomiting

Of all of these, the most important and most distressing is the last. First Born Son has no symptoms other than the obvious (oh dear me, it's obvious allright), and is suprisingly happy given that his body has learned a whole new trick that's keeping him awake at night.

All of the others are survivable, except for the fact that we can't record Doctor Who. Ever get the feeling that life is getting on top of you?

It's Hard Work Being Green

2007-04-30T17:55:00.000+01:00

Sometimes I'm not sure if some of the energy being put into going green is misplaced.

Standing on the back of our pickup truck gives me an excellent view of the wide open fen landscapes, and early in the summery evenings a view of dedicated joggers doing the loop out of the village and back again. It's also where I have to stand to shovel the half tonne or so of manure out of the truck onto the compost heap. It's very tempting to call over to one of the passing runners and suggest that they could usefully keep fit by helping me dig rather than gasping their way round back to where they started. Certainly after a day of moving compost about, digging over vegetable beds and fighting the good fight against nettles I ache in a way that suggests there might be such a thing as too much exercise. Either that, or I'm unfit.

Our plot isn't that big, but it is hard work to keep on top of all the garden tasks. It puts into context just how much work can be involved in going green. I've read of a few people who've bought enough land to provide a significant portion of their annual food needs, or others who have bought woodland with the aim of being able to grow their own fuel for wood fires. Whilst it fills me with admiration, I can't help but feel that they are going to ache quite a lot. They're also going to be spending plenty of time outdoors when the weather isn't doing the current fresh faced limber up to summer heat.

There again, they'll probably be a lot fitter than I am.

Plumbing - Miserable Work

2007-04-20T14:44:00.001+01:00

After over a year of irritation I finally got round to replacing the mixer tap in the caravan. I'm sure new washers would have drastically improved it, but it had got into the habit of turning itself on when off and off when turned on. Whichever would be the most inconvenient. Not only that, but the arm of the tap had become so stiff that moving it threatened to pull the sink from the kitchen surface. No doubt these problems could have been fixed with a complete disassembly and overhaul, but for a few pounds we could get a brand new tap from our local DIY store that had nice ceramic washers, quarter turn taps and a silky smooth arm. Even if it had worked perfectly, the old tap was a fiddly awkward thing so replacing it was an easy descision to take.

Except then I had to fit the damn thing. Half a day of crouching under kitchen tops, cutting my fingers on tortured copper, getting soaked, covered in grease and rushing to get to the main valve in time reminded me why I hate plumbing so much.

Electrics are fine. Plumbing... less so.

I don't mind wiring (though with the new regulations, it's not so much an option these days). Electrical work can be checked and is either right or wrong. At no point does the current in the wires attempt to force them apart. A simple physical inspection shows you if you've made a good job and then the connections are very unlikely to leak 'just a bit', or slowly get worse with time.

By way of contrast, you can connect up a tap and wait for a few minutes before the joint that you thought was soundly tightened goes bang and geysers water out of the cupboard that made it so hard to reach in the first place. At this point there's no convenient trip switch that switches off the water. Instead you have to do the hundred yard dash to the stopcock whilst the kitchen erupts into mayhem. Then after a bout of mopping up, it's time to make the connection again, wringing its neck with a couple of spanners hoping to find that magic point where it's tight enough but not so tight as to strip a thread or twist itself into collapse.

When we start on our house I'll happily run cables around. Might even plug a few things together if it can be inspected to pass regulations. The plumbing though - that'll be someone else's job.

Fine Tuning

2007-03-01T14:39:00.000Z

The biggest problem I've had with making our biodiesel has been dirty oil. Though our friendly local restaurant is good enough to give us oil that is pretty clean, some of it is less than crystal clear. Leave it a few days to settle, particularly in warm weather, and the bits of fried food and what I assume to be flour sink, leaving a top layer that is clear to the naked eye.

So far I've been pouring that top layer off into our holding tank, from which it is sent through a 5 micron filter. The filter soon clogs up, but as there's no hurry, it can be left to drip through into a drum as slowly as it likes. The end result is a drum of 'clean' oil that can be tipped into the processor and turned into diesel that is good enough to go straight into the car.

However, that leaves a certain amount of oil that never settles. Often it's only a couple of litres in the bottom of a twenty litre drum. Sometimes though, we get given a drum that barely settles out at all. Up to now, the unsettled oil has just been accumulating whilst I've tried to work out what to do with it.

Thanks to Meare Solutions (http://www.mearesolutions.co.uk/) it looks like I've cracked the problem. They sell 32 inch long 'sock filters' which fit neatly inside a tiny space-saver water barrel that was on discount at our local DIY store. The 'sock' can take at least ten litres of dirty oil at a time, allowing the filtered oil to drip into the barrel through the sock wall and leaving a thick layer of 'dry' debris inside the filter. All I need to do is to top it up each morning. By the following day pretty much all of the usable oil has been extracted and the sock can be topped up again. In only a few days I've got through nearly the entire backlog of dirty oil.

The end result is more oil for biodiesel, and conveniently dry waste that can be much more easily disposed of. The only question remaining is how long the socks will last, and whether they can be reused by tipping out the dry waste.

Cough

2007-02-20T15:13:00.000Z

Cough, splutter, hack, hack..

Little jobs here and there, but no energy whatsoever, with all of us gripped by a rather malicious cold. First born son and beautiful daughter are no doubt suffering the same headaches, stiff joints and hot-behind-the-eyeballs symptoms, but have not yet discovered how to tell us the full gory details. We can see the snot without them having to learn to speak. We can see the snot from a long way away. Buy shares in tissues.

Luckily they are both remarkably stoical in the face of illness, and it's only when they want to sleep but can't that they need us to make things better. Dad definitely gets the best part of the deal here, as I'm the only one who can take the full range of prescription drugs without having to consider whether I'm too young or breast feeding. If you have ever breast fed, you'll know just how many innocent products say somewhere on the packet:

"if you are pregnant or breast feeding, please consult your doctor before using this product"

Once you discount those, you're basically left with water and jam, neither of which have been known to have that much effect.

Unfortunately, even prescription drugs don't do much about the very disturbed nights, so I'll write up some of our little victories later.

Rejected... Not Dejected

2007-01-19T14:45:00.000Z

The news I've been hesitating to post about is that, just before Christmas, our latest planning application was rejected. The grounds were simple - the new house would 'dominate' the barn, and will be 'detrimentally prominent' in the landscape. They're points that we dispute, particularly as the design has gone through a number of revisions to fit in with the constraints imposed by the Planning and Conservation departments and the Environment Agency. It's hard not to feel that they'd much rather we didn't live here at all. Certainly it's difficult to imagine any design that would fit all of the demands of the powers that be without being a messy compromise. Is that what informs architecture in the UK?

So now we'll go through our plans and decide if the reasons for our choice of design are sound and defensible. If they are, we'll appeal. Regardless, we'll do what we can to take on board the constraints we face and see if a useful alternative design can be reached.

Watch this space.

Foul Weather..

2007-01-11T11:50:00.000Z

..and rather a lot of it at that.

The weather has been consistently horrible lately, with just regular enough downpours to turn the driveway to mud. Normally the free draining fen soil does a great job of shrugging off rainy days. Now though, as we try to drive in and out of the yard, spinning wheels only help to make the already slippery mush even worse. Despite heavy off-road tyres on the pickup, it's now stuck in four-wheel drive to make progress somewhat more confident. Yet all this is on a site that is almost completely flat. I can only assume that if we were on a hill, at least all the water would have somewhere to go.

This morning we woke to one flapping roof - a corrugated steel lash-up that was quietly rusting on one of the sheds. Armed with a bag of six inch nails and a hammer, I've done the best I can to stop things going too far astray. The repairs aren't pretty, but neither are the sheds.

Slightly more worrying was the wide open door on the chicken coup. Perched on the rail, Ginger was looking out and squawking noisily. None of the chickens had escaped - they just seemed rather annoyed at the sudden loss of privacy. The strong winds were managing to force the door open, so for now a screw is keeping it shut, but I'd better put a proper latch on it soon. I think I'll nominate the cheap rechargable screwdriver I got from Sainsburys as the most used tool on site at the moment - it'd always at hand for a quick fix and though the bits that came with it were rubbish, some new ones allow it to do the job it's needed for with no fuss.

Rather Busy

2007-01-02T14:26:00.000Z

The reason for our silence in the last few weeks is quite simple. We're very proud to introduce Rebecca Grace, born on 8th December and weighing 6lbs 2oz. She's a lovely little girl even if she hasn't yet got the hang of going to sleep when everyone else has. Mother, brother and dad are all well if a little shell-shocked by a busy Christmas visiting family and friends with a new born in tow.

Snail's Pace

2006-11-13T21:22:00.000Z

Here's one of the interlopers that take advantage of the condensation on the bathroom window. The baby snails (and sometimes slugs - ugh) sneak in through the vents and make themselves at home in the cool damp autumn evenings.

The big news for this last week is that we have - at last got our plans registered with the planning department. Now all we can do is wait, answer any questions sent our way and hope that the council will smile on our efforts to produce an acceptable design.

It's hard not to want to jump ahead of ourselves and start looking at all the secondary details that we've found out about whilst designing the house. We'd been planning an environmentally friendly home even before it was such headline news. We hope to have solar hot water, clean and energy efficient heating, a productive garden, natural pond and a healthy environment to live in. The jury is out on a wind turbine, but our location appears to be quite suitable. There are lots of things, big and little that will make this our home and we can't wait to make them real.

Just yet though we have to hold back and see if we will be allowed to put down the bricks and motar. Wish us luck.

How to Keep Warm in Winter

2006-10-17T21:58:00.000+01:00

Here's a little video I've made about the hot air blower we're going to use to keep ourselves warm this winter. It's the first video I've made, so it's rather simple, but I'm pretty pleased with it.

Now that we've sucessfully made biodiesel from the oil we've been collecting, we can use it to run a heater. It's a very sophisticated device, burning the fuel like a little jet engine and using a heat exchanger to warm up nice fresh air. The heater pushes out an enormous volume of hot air and will be connected to warm our bedroom and bathroom. Though it sounds pretty noisy in the video, once it's warmed through it settles down to be much quieter. Adding a silencer and hiding it away under the caravan should let us keep it on throughout the night without disturbing our sleep.

Monkey!

2006-10-12T23:05:00.000+01:00

I was going to put up a picture of the 'repairs' I've done on the shower in the caravan. The plastic it's made out of is old, yellowing and rather brittle. When the caravan was used irregularly for the previous owners' holidays it was certainly up to the job. Now that we've been showering regularly for over a year of continuous occupation, the cracks are showing.

Literally.

The disturbing sign of leakage isn't wet feet or musty smells. Instead the chipboard that the floors are made out of starts to sag where the water has penetrated them and softened the glue. These little dips that bounce as you walk over them act as a map showing where the shower has sprung yet another leak.

So, knowing that plastic like this can only be stripped out and replaced, and that a specially caravan sized shower will no doubt cost way too much, I've botched it. Fibreglass repair tape and resin used to build and repair small boats does a fantastic job of holding the edges together and keeping the water in place. It's not pretty - not even slightly - rough and browning as the resin reacts with daylight. But it works, so I'm happy.

However, having taken a photo to share online, I realised just how ugly it looks. So instead here is a picture of Monkey, one of William's favourite toys who unexpectedly got thrown into the bath and has had to be given a seat to dry out again.

Hyacinths

2006-10-06T22:25:00.000+01:00

If you were watching Gardeners World on BBC tonight, you might have seen a piece on the National Collection of Hyacinths. We're just around the corner from them, so we're bitterly disappointed not to have been asked to feature as the National Collection of Nettles.

The Chickens Have Landed

2006-09-05T20:13:00.000+01:00

The lovely Pam of Fenland Fowl came today and brought us four young bantams.

We have a Maran, a Hamburgh, a Wyandotte and a Leghorn x Legbar cross. So far we've not named them, but they've settled in well and managed to ignore the scrutiny of our cats and William (who was more interested in banging on the coup).

In a few weeks' time they should start to give us multi-coloured eggs - very dark brown from the Maran, blue-green from the Leghorn x legbar cross and brown and white from the Wyandotte and Hamburgh. Now we've just got to look up all of our best recipes. Hopefully some of them will include courgettes as the veggie patch is making a last stand before Autumn and we can't pick them fast enough.

Baby Steps

2006-09-01T12:40:00.000+01:00

No one big piece of news to report on at the moment.

Chickens should arrive... next week.
First batch of biodiesel... next week.
New set of house plans... next week.

I've also got a very uncomfortable sprained muscle in my back, so the ongoing war against nettles is suffering a slight set back.

On the positive side, William brought back his first painting from nursery on Wednesday. He's just like his dad - more paint on the boy than on the paper. My usual approach to painting things is more or less the same, cover yourself in paint and throw yourself at the target.

Can you tell what it is yet?

2006-08-18T22:58:00.000+01:00

Putting this together has been very, very satisfying. It seems I've not quite grown out of meccano. There are a few more bits and pieces to add yet, but once it's finished it'll be a biodiesel reactor.

Add used chip shop oil and a bucket of chemicals, leave for a few hours and (with some luck) out comes diesel. It should be good enough for running the truck and heating the caravan and will cost quite a bit less than normal diesel. Best of all though, it's carbon neutral - recycled fuel made with recycled plumbing.

The Often Forgotten Fifth Teletubby

2006-08-13T22:42:00.000+01:00

The shed roof is (was) corrugated asbestos. Strangely the beams that I thought were holding it up stopped six inches short of the lintels that should have been supporting them. There's no evidence the two ever met, so it seems the roof was holding up the beams, which I'm pretty certain is the wrong way round.

It's taking a while to dismantle it - dressing up like a grubby teletubby soon gets very warm the moment the sun comes out. The other sheds will (hopefully) be taken down by someone else, who can do all the messy work. In the mean time I need to sort this one out, so - after a long cold drink - it's back to the protective gear.

Harvest time

2006-08-05T21:51:00.000+01:00

This time of year is an absolute favourite. We both grew up working on farms and bringing in the harvest was a great job.

The combines are out, running on past sunset until the dew comes down and makes the grain too damp to store. Trailing behind them like lost puppies are the tractors and trailers waiting for the auger to swing up from the side of the combine - ready to unload again.

I couldn't help smiling today as I was walking back from the village and stopped so William could watch the big old combine starting a new field. Even in the face of modern farming techniques and mechanisation everyone helps on the harvest, keeping every tractor, trailer, combine, grain blower and shovel moving. True to form the tractor following the combine was being driven by a skinny teenager, sitting proud in the cab and obviously full of the importance of his job. I bet the radio was on loud.

Now the air is damp with dew and the bats are out chasing insects. The smell of dusty straw is sweet and mist is coming up from the fields. Time for bed.

Chicken House

2006-08-02T23:03:00.000+01:00

Even if we can't build our own house just yet, we can build something for chickens to be proud of (we hope).

We're going to be getting four birds from Fenland Fowl, hopefully to give us some lovely fresh eggs. There's just time to go and buy feeders, drinkers and layers pellets, and then we'll see if the cunning chicken coop design works.

The nettles in the background are making a last stand before the strimmer gets dusted down. Try to ignore them - we do.

Ups and downs

2006-07-28T16:28:00.000+01:00

Today is typical of the ups and downs we've experienced so far at Lock Farm. We spoke to our planning adviser to let him know of the delays and in response he has been refreshingly positive. In the face of setbacks and uncertainty it's easy to get a little weary of the whole process. So it's wonderful that someone is on our side, that they are enthusiastic about our plans and believe we've got an excellent proposal together. Just as I'm sighing in the face of yet another hindrance, he has been reassuringly upbeat that at least we're making some small progress. Of course, he might be lying (we are paying him, after all), but those sort of lies are welcome with open arms if they can keep us going. The alternative is that by the time we return to planning permission we could be so weary of the project ourselves that we aren't able to communicate the effort and enthusiasm that has gone into designing a house suitable for the area, the plot and our needs. After all, we've had this design, or variations on it on paper for eighteen months now so our new home feels 'old' to us before it's even been built.

As an antidote to the friendly and helpful words of our planning adviser, I spent a frustrating hour trying to meet a joiner who could take an initial look at the barn. Frankly, four hundred year old listed timbers intimidate me a little. Whoever helps us rescue the barn is going to have to be good - not just a good carpenter, but able to work in sympathy those parts of the structure that can be saved. They'll also have to be able to work with the council's conservation department who will want assurance that the job is being done correctly. Whilst we're waiting on paperwork, setting out to find a joiner who meets these needs is a welcome distraction.

Unless they don't turn up when you've booked time off work specifically to meet them.

Still waiting

2006-07-27T16:57:00.000+01:00

This isn't quite a blog yet... there's not that much to blog about. Lock Farm is still just a disreputable pile of very second hand buildings and extremely well established nettles. There's a separate post to be written about the garden, but that's really the only thing that's changed.

So far the delay that has held things back since the start of the year is the flood risk analysis - proving to the environment agency that we can survive without waterwings. Most of the time has been spent trying to work out how to prove the site won't flood without doing a full flood analysis. We're not far from the lock that gives Lock Farm it's name, so we have a river at two different levels, flood protection banks and acres of fairly flat floodplane (this is the edge of the fens!). A full flood analysis would cost around ten thousand pounds, which in self-builder's terms is one good kitchen, a double garage or a couple of bathrooms. So, as we'd rather spend money on real things than on paperwork, we've been working on an alternative.

Happily, the alternative turned out to be a set of engineers who appear to be more interested in solving the problem they're given than in doing the job they can charge the most for. We've compromised with the Environment Agency and agreed to build some basic flood protection into the site (actually a low bank along one fence), and in turn they've accepted that a detailed, technically accurate flood analysis is not practical on a small self-build project such as ours. We've saved thousands of pounds, though as usual the trade off is in time.

So finally, our flood protection proposal is with the Environment Agency and we're waiting on a (hopefully) positive outcome that would allow us to return to the planning department with a clean bill of health. Sadly it looks like the wait will be for a while yet, as they're estimating that it will be at least a month before they'll get to our submission thanks to illness and holidays taken by their staff.

It's all progress of a sort, but it would be such a relief to be moving beyond the planning stage to actually building something.

2006-02-23T09:08:00.000Z

The view over Hong Kong

Crunch Time

2006-02-23T09:06:00.000Z

This demonstrates the benefit of driving a big old pickup truck. I was stationary in traffic and this poor Nissan was - um - not. At least, not until it drove into the back of me.

The Nissan was written off. The pickup suffered a bent tow bar. I just need to tie a rope around something solid and straighten it back again some time.

Dark Skies

2006-02-23T09:02:00.001Z

The fens may be flat, but you can see storms coming from a long way away. By the time this one hit I was ready for it, standing in the doorway with the camera shielded from the pouring rain.

This is a very long exposure photo - over ten minutes, which is long enough to see the stars spinning through the sky.