Third supporting beam

A month ago we were told we needed another support beam (in addition to the two holding up the rest of the house) and there was a flurry of activity to find one. Teia the builder was about to order one at a cost of £800 and Rob spent a bit of time on Google and ended up sourcing one for £200. As you can see from the photos, Teia was incredibly fast at fitting it (I really must find out how he managed to lift it - this one weighed nearly 100 kilos!). We haven't heard when the steel and glass from Sunfold will be ready for installation but we're more than ready for it now!

Girders and camping

The new steel girder (the correct size this time, hopefully) should be at the house any day now and the boys will be able to put it in relatively quickly. I have no idea how they're going to do it as it weighs a tonne (usually that's an exaggeration, but in this case, I really do think it weighs a tonne). The second support steel that this attaches to will go in this week too. We're waiting to hear back about whether the glass and door manufacturers are OK with our new wall height and can order the glass based on the new measurements, without having to send back another surveyor (which would take time, and cost another £275 or thereabouts). The third beam that needs to go right at the end of the extension is coming as well, but with the builders off soon I'm not sure who's going to install it - and it definitely needs to be in before the glass and framework can be fitted!

The builders are finishing up in one week to go and work on another job, they would've been doing our renovation for ten weeks. It's incredible how much they've achieved - even with all the delays. The house will be 'habitable' but clearly unfinished. We've decided to move in anyway as we can't afford to sit it out for another 12 weeks. The downstairs won't be the warmest of places given that the back of it is being boxed in by thin panels of wood. The bamboo flooring on the ground floor won't be laid until after the extension is finished.

We'll have to "camp" out on the top two floors until Christmas, or even January. The builders will be back for a week after the glass has gone in to finish off what they can and do some snagging. I'm still optimistic about winning the Lottery sometime soon so we can press on with Phase Two (the top floor) in 2009...

Another support beam problem

There must be something in the stars relating to support beams. First, the girder that arrived last week was the wrong size and needs replacing. Secondly, the surveyor from the glass manufacturer has said that we need another support beam for the roof, because our span is too wide. The original sales guy had told us that our span was fine and that we should be OK without a beam.

Not only is this expensive but the walls were built up and finished off to match the angle of the neighbour's roof. The beam sits right across the width of the extension above the folding doors, so it'll help support the weight of our new glass roof. Once it had been boxed in the ceiling height would've been 1.8m high. The brickies had to come back and add more breeze blocks to accommodate the beam, otherwise people over 1.8m tall would have to duck when they went outside. This photo shows where they've added another one and half rows of blocks, which is a pretty fast turnaround considering they'd already packed up all their stuff and gone to the next job. The extra brickwork, the new beam and the installation of the beam has added another £1,200 onto the already non-existent contingency fund...

Supporting beam

Here's what the house looked like on Friday. The downstairs back wall has been demolished and the boys are putting up a temporary wooden enclosure to keep everything secure until the glass and framework can be delivered from Germany.

You might be able to see a massive steel girder in the bottom of the photo. This is the support beam that needs to run the length of the house. Unfortunately it's 5cm too wide and won't slot into the space without making a nasty 'lip' down the length of the room. This would drive Rob and I potty as the whole advantage of having a streamlined look is to avoid unnecessary visual distractions. There's no way round it - the girder has to go back and the correct size one sent instead. Another holdup due to plain ol' human error - the manufacturers didn't read the engineers notes correctly.

On the plus side, the girder can apparently be replaced early next week...

Holding things up

I do love a double entendre, and what better than this photo of the metal pole which is holding up our "support" beam until the engineers solution is implemented. Of course, this fix is also holding things up by a couple of weeks, incase you needed the double entendre spelt out.

Teia suggested getting a second engineer's opinion as the fix we were going to go with was going to be extremely slow and expensive. The new engineer has suggested running a steel across the width of the house, which anchors in the party wall on one side and (somehow) to the external wall, on the other. This will be just as secure/safe/stable as a beam running the entire length of the house, and then we can attach the end of the lonesome hanging beam to this new cross-support. We should have an updated quote in the next few days.

Was quite keen to see this concrete worktop today but the house owners didn't get back to Teia so instead of our original Saturday plan which involved trekking all over London for house related jobs, I ended up at the pub - not just any pub, but what will be the nearest gastropub to our new house in a wee while. It felt good, especially running into a friend who I hadn't seen in ages, London's sometimes good at making you think you live in a village.

Another Corian quote

Another Corian quote has come in and this is a VERY reasonable £2,550 including VAT and installation - it's only £1,000 more than our worktop budget which I think is probably do-able (to heck with the consequences, we can put more appliances on the credit cards!) but Rob is muttering about overspend and what not. So we're off to see what a concrete worktop looks like this weekend, as this will cost about £1,300 which is clearly a much more affordable option. I'm yet to be convinced but a saving of £1,200 could make a significant impact... well, that's how much a Velux would cost to install into our bathroom. Ack. Velux vs amazing worktop? Tough choice. I'm still waiting for some more quotes to come in but it's unlikely any of them can beat £2,550 for Corian or £1,300 for concrete.

Photo above shows the back garden with the extension mapped out (to the edge of the wood) as well as where the wooden deck will go, more or less.

The structural beam situation has added two to three weeks onto the build (and £2,900) but on the plus side we've decided to stick with our original choice on the glass extension company. I must've contacted more than half a dozen companies, and managed to get quotes from three (why the others were so reluctant to get business is beyond me). The cost ranged from £18,000 up to over £30,000 for the exact same specification (ie a roof, a concertina door, double glazed, secure etc etc). Here's a list of the companies I contacted should any UK residents fancying an extension wish to get a quote themselves:

www.amdega.co.uk

www.apropos-conservatories.com

www.b-a-s.co.uk

www.glasspace.com

www.i-d.systems.co.uk

www.portlandconservatories.co.uk

www.solarlux.com

www.sunfoldsystems.co.uk

www.sunparadise.co.uk

Week one completed

This photo shows the progress after two days of work. As you can see all the nasty laminate flooring has been removed, the old kitchen is gone and the outline showing where the new walls are going to be built are on the ground. I'm really impressed with how fast the place is taking shape.

Back to our dilemma about the support beam - it costs £300 to call out an engineer, so not an insignificant sum. His advice was to replace the entire beam with a new I shaped one, as the existing one was a less sturdy C shape. Our original plan RE attaching an extension onto the existing beam wouldn't have given a satisfactory result, from an engineering perspective. The cost of a new beam to run the entire length of the house and install it is in the region of £3,000. Which we hadn't budgeted for.

As previously mentioned, lighting was left off the works schedule so this needs to be paid for out of the contingency fund too. The old advice about doubling your budget is ringing loud in my ears.

The Ikea kitchen arrived, which is a minor miracle given that the truck couldn't get to the house so the poor driver had to carry all the cabinets down our very long drive. He also brought three lengths of counter top that Rob insisted we hadn't ordered. Upon reading our receipt it turns out the counter top was on the order form, even though we'd told the friendly Australian that we definitely didn't want a counter top... he was going from the 3D model we'd made on their website, where we'd put a counter top to show how the kitchen would look. It's the cheapest, nastiest laminate you can imagine so will get us a paltry £70 back when we return it. The question is how, as it won't fit it in our car.

Also, we seem to be missing an entire cabinet... the architects drawings were out by 8cm according to Teia, but an entire cabinet is a 60cm shortfall. I'm sure once all the bits are in place we'll be able to measure exactly what the difference is and sort it out. I'm curious to see who miscalculated the most!

Non supporting beam

Well there had to be some kind of drama so let's hope that this is it
and there won't be any more (ha!). Our builders pulled back some of the
ceiling and discovered a support beam which was running the length of
the house, instead of the width. When the end wall of our house gets
knocked out for the extension, the beam has nothing to grab onto and
therefore the weight of the two stories above it could quite feasibly
come crashing down. Our options according to Anthony-the-Architect are:

1. POST - Though is would mean breaking the existing slab (so it has a
footing) which we should try and avoid, also, it would
visually interrupt the stair
2. CANTILEVERED BRACKET - From the party wall (said bracket would need
to be a considerable size)
3. LENGTHEN STEEL BEAM - Weld new metal and reinforce with flitch plates
/ friction bolts if possible
4. STEEL HANGER - From above, which would require the lintel above to be
bigger
5. INFILL STAIR WALL - Stud wall, this was easy however reduces openness
of space from party-wall-to-party-wall TO party-wall-to-stair-wall

Rob is meeting a structural engineer at the site today to discuss our
options. Whatever the outcome, it will cost something and our already
meagre contingency fund is being chipped away...