ELECTRICIAN - NOT TOO IMPRESSIVE

I'm afraid i'm not overly impressed with the electricians work. I suppose I did expect the wiring to be set into the brickwork especially considering what he charged but apparantly our bricks were 'too hard' for this. Don't these people have the correct tools or do they just try to get away with as little work as possible?
We also have a light switch which switches the inside light and also the outside 'brick' lights set into the conservatory dwarf walls. This was wired wrong and didn't switch the lights correctly.
I have corrected this and I do feel that I could have done this wiring job as well if not better than the qualified electrician, but of course unqualified people aren't allowed to do new installations and you risk invalidating your household insurance if you decide to do this.

Finished on Target

Did we meet our Easter finish target? Well, yes and no. The conservatory is fully useable, however there are a few finishing touches to be made. These will be completed over the next few weeks.

The electrician arrived as arranged and fitted the electrics (more on that later).

ELECTRICIAN DUE TODAY

We're still on schedule for Easter completion. We have an electrician coming today to do the wiring. It appears that the wiring does not come under part P of the building regs, according to the electrician who is part P registered.
All that's then left to do is the floor, fit the window boards and cover the old house outside wall. With it being a 4 day 'weekend' this shoould be a doddle.

COMPLICATION WITH ELECTRICS

I did believe that the electrics in the conservatory would be a fairly simple job. All we need are a couple of double sockets, a light on the house wall and 2 external lights which have been set into the dwarf wall of the conservatory wired up.
So we contacted a local electrician in the village and he came round to look at the job. Unfortunateley he can't do it as it comes under part P of the building regulations, or rather he can do it but it would then need inspecting and testing by someone else, meaning it would work out more expensive. It appears that if someone is 'Part P' registered or certified, they can do the job and then test their own work. Anyway we now have an electrician who is 'part P registered' coming round to quote for the job on Thursday or Friday.

WEEKLY UPDATE 30 MARCH

Well, we're now back to weekends only working on the conservatory having had 4 days last week to give a long weekend to get the main structure up. This weekend we had Peter, the plumber in to move the radiator under the window and also fit one in the conservatory. This took all of Saturday morning. The rest of the weekend was taken up with knocking out the wall and fixing the new french doors which B&Q managed to deliver on time.

JOBS STILL TO DO

Next weekend we have the plumber coming to move the radiator which is under the window which is being converted into French doors leading from the house to the conservatory. We now have a delivery day of Tuesday this week for the french doors from B&Q so hopefully these will be installed next weekend too.
Other jobs still to complete are wiring of lights and power points, fitting internal window boards, flooring plus we need to tidy the garden up around the coservatory.

HOW EASY WAS THE BUILD?

Having almost completed the build it's time to reflect on how easy (or difficult it was). In all I spent 4 days on building however I don't start too early or work too late so I would say if I had got stuck in, 3 days would have been sufficient time. I wouldn't say that any of the build would be difficult for anyone with reasonable DIY skills however some of the assembly was a bit fiddley and tricky to start with and I just got the hang of doing some jobs when they were almost finished.
The instructions we got from the supplier were reasonably easy to follow, however I found the roof installation instructions a bit hard to follow as it covered all types of roof so I had to search through a bit for the bits relevant to our roof.

WE HAVE A CONSERVATORY

OK, so it still needs guttering installing and there are various bits and pieces of trim to put on, but the conservatory is up, glazed and sealed. We finally got the last piece of glass in at about 6.30pm on Sunday.

FRAMEWORK COMPLETE

Saturday
We finished installing the perimeter walls today and levelled up the whole conservatory. The bricklayer said his dwarf wall would be level and he's not far wrong judging by the almost spot on level of the conservatory walls.
We've also installed all of the roof structure ready for the polycarbonate.
Tomorrow we install the roof, fit the glass and the doors.

PERIMETER ALMOST COMPLETED

As the delivery arrived earlier than expected - breakfast time in fact - we've managed to have most of the day starting the build. We've got the sills all laid out and the perimeter almost completed. There's just one part of the perimeter to put in - it had to wait because there was an old vent cover right where it needs to go, this has been removed and the resulting hole filled.

The perimeter sections were simple to fit, just a case of screwing the sections together in the right order. Fixing of the strips which join each section was a little tricky - there must be a trick to this be we couldn't work it out and it was a bit of a struggle, they're all done now though.

Next job is to fix the last perimeter section and then fix all the frames down to the sill (after checking the level), and then on to the roof

THE CONSERVATORY ARRIVES

The conservatory arrived this morning. We've got 10 sections of perimeter windows, 2 packs of sills etc, 32 pieces of glazing and 7 packages containing the roof and fittings for it. I'm pleased to say that everyting arrived in good condition.

It appears that all of the main parts are fully labeled for easy reference so it's just a case of following the instructions.

ANOTHER WAIT

Well, we've got the dwarf walls built, all covered down to protect the insulation from any rain we have. The conservatory top is due for delivery this Thursday (19 March) and hopefully the french doors (for the house to conservatory) will also be here during the week.
So it looks like all systems go for next weekend, let's just hope we have the same weather as this weekend.

RESTRUCTURING THE GARDEN

As the new conservatory will take up some space which was previously garden we've decided to compensate for this by removing some shrubs and extending the lawned area further down the garden. Whilst we've been waiting for the builder we've removed 5 established shrubs ready for the new lawn area. It wasn't planned but when we measured up for the turf we need 12 square metres, exactly the same as the area of the conservatory.
This area will open up the garden a little and also give extra space for the grandchildren to play when they visit.
The turf was collected last night from a local garden centre, we know it's fresh as we loaded it straight into our van from the delivery lorry.

FRENCH DOORS ORDERED

After much searching we've gone with french doors from B & Q. There's a wide choice of french doors available at different prices and qualities. In the end we've gone for one which is probably not the best quality, bit it is after all going to be an internal door rather than one which leads straight to the outside.
What we'll have is a set of french doors with a side panel, this should be the same width as the existing window and all we'll need do is take out the bricks below the window and fit the doors.
Of course our local B&Q don't have these doors in stock, in fact none of the stores within a reasonable distance have BOTH items in stock although a store about 30 miles in 1 direction has the doors and another about 30 miles in the other direction has the side panels! We have therefore ordered both with our local store and expect delivery within about 2 weeks.

SLOW PROGRESS IN PERSPECTIVE

Following the last post about being frustrated by slow progress, I do, through my work see many people who have had conservatories built by professional companies, and waits of nine to twelve months from order to completion are not uncommon reports I hear. In fact I do recall one of my customers who was still waiting 13 months after placing his order for the various small problems on his conservatory to be completed. This I think does put things into perspective for our build and we're still on target for Easter completion.

FRUSTRATED BY SLOW PROGRESS

Maybe it's my own fault for deciding to stry to dig out the footings myself and delaying the start of building, but we're getting frustrated by the lack of progress. The builder is doing another job at the same time (can't blame him for that in the current climate), so he isn't progressing as fast as I would like.

Anyway, we do now have a floor down as you will see from the pictures, and the bricks are arriving tomorrow so this weekend should see some real progress.

Oh, and today I ordered the conservatory for delivery hopefully on the 19th March, or failing that the 26th.

PLANNING THE NEXT STAGES

If all goes to plan, we'll order the actual conservatory next weekend. It will then be delivered anout 2 weeks later and we should be ready to fit by then.
Other items still to sort out are the french doors which will lead from the house to the conservatory. We will be removing the window which you see in the photo's, extending the opening downwards and fitting french doors.
We need to arrange a plumber as there's a radiator under the window which obviously needs moving, and we also need one fitting in the conservatory.
Finally we need to sort out an electrician for the power sockets and lighting going into the conservatory and the brick lights we're having in the outside wall of the conservatory.
I've probably overlooked something, we'll wait and see.

UP TO DPC LEVEL

Real progress yesterday with the first bricks being laid, we're now up to damp proof course level and everythings looking on target.

The bricklayer is putting a double damp proof course in, one at the same level as the house and one a course higher. Although this seems excessive our garden does gently slope upwards from the house so it will give us extra damp protection.

Having looked at the plans for the dwarf wall. the bricklayer would like to make a slight adjustment to the position of the door. It appears that when people prepare plans they don't consider the brickie and with the current planned position of the conservatory door that side wall would contain a lot of thirds of bricks which isn't ideal. A slight movement of the door of 50mm to one side will mean that the wall contains only full and half bricks.

CONSERVATORY BASE CHOICES

When planning the conservatory, we considered using a modular conservatory base system.

The system we looked into was the Durabase system which features a suspended floor which bolts onto the house and stands on concrete pads. It does remove the need for full scale footings so it would have saved the effort of removing the tonnes of topsoil!

The dwarf walls are built on galvanised steel frames with a genuine clay brick cladding on the outside and plaster on the inside. The brick cladding is already in place and everything is pre-pointed apart from the joins between sections which need the cladding bricks finishing on site. From the adverts and video we saw the system certainly looked very straight-forward, easy and quick to install.

For our size of conservatory (4m x 3m) we were quoted around £2500 for this system onto which we would have had to add a little for the concrete for the pads on which the base stands on, so in our case the cost was higher than having a bricklayer in.

In the end we decided to have a bricklayer to build a 'traditional' wall. He tells me that another advantage of having him do it is that if in the future we decided to have an extension instead of the conservatory, the existing wall could be extended upwards to 2 storeys high as the foundations will meet current building regulations for this.

CONSTRUCTION STARTS AT LAST

This morning Bob, the builder (No Not That Bob The Builder), turned up, together with a mixer lorry to put the concrete in for the foundations. At last some actual construction work has started, and now we've got some of the bricks laid out ready for laying. It's a relief, after so much back-breaking work preparing the ground to at last see some progress on actually building the dwarf wall

FURNITURE BOUGHT

In the past I've been asked to measure for conservatory blinds before the conservatory was finished - even when the base had just been completed. This is impossible, and I always thoughty people were crazy to ask.

Well, I now find myself sort of in this category. Last weekend we visited a local garden centre to buy some compost but came away after buying cane furniture for the conservatory.

So now we've got furniture for the conservatory (before even a brick has been laid) which has gone into storage until we're finished.

The opportunity was really too good to miss as the furniture was reduced to about half RRP although we'll have to wait a couple of months until we can use it.

DIGGING FINISHED

Our builder was here yesterday to complete the digging for the footings and foundations. The picture shows the 2nd load of soil to go away. I estimate that somewhere between 6 and 7 tonnes of soil have been removed from the site
Now we can get started with the building. The target is to have the conservatory fully completed and furnished by Easter.

SOIL AWAY

I'm pleased to say that the soil we have dug out for the base and foundations of the conservatory has now gone - luckily my family are farmers and we managed to have a tractor and trailer for the afternoon yesterday. That's another 3 hours on a spade, moving soil, and there's still more to dig out.
Now await the builder with his mini digger to complete the groudwork - and importantly take away the soil.
I would estimate that the amount of soil we have dug out so far by hand is between 3 and 4 tonnes

THE STORY SO FAR

31 January/ 1 February – Had the builder round to mark out the footings and got started digging the foundations and footings. Brilliant! We discovered trees stumps and roots just below the surface which took ages to remove and then on Sunday the heavens opened and we got lots of snow which curtailed progress – well actually it got us into the house by a warm fire. Still we managed to get 3 big bags of soil dug out and. That’s about 3 cubic metres and I think we only need about 5 cubic metres out.

7 & 8 February – Nice days apart from the frost so a bit hard digging to start with! Still got on really well – almost 6 big (1 cubic yard) bags of soil now removed Early Sunday afternoon we decided it looked like we’re getting there so asked the builder to come round and have a look. BAD NEWS Seems we need to go down at least another foot and more in places– possibly as much soil as we’ve already moved to still dig out and we’re running out of room with all the soil we’ve already moved plus backs and muscles are beginning to ache!

Quick re-think needed here and we decide to let the builder finish the digging out (and disposal of the rest of the soil). Only going to cost about an £250 but I think it’ll be worth it.

FIRST LESSON. I totally underestimated the amount of soil which needed to be removed. I’ve now got to move the bags of soil to get the mini digger in.
I would advise anyone not to underestimate the task of digging the footings

THE CONSERVATORY

We’ve gone for a 4m x 3m lean to conservatory, and we’re getting a local builder in to build the dwarf walls and lay the floor but we’re opting to dig the footings ourselves.
The conservatory has been sourced through Ebay from a company called Trade Price Conservatories in Dorset (cost just over £2000) and we’ve had a quote from the builder for about £1700 so all looking good so far with a total build cost of about £4000

INTRODUCTION

We’ve decided to add a conservatory to our home, but which way to go? Get someone in to do the whole job for around £10000 plus or take the DIY approach (as much as possible) and try to save a bit of money.
After much consideration we decided to take the DIY approach but to get someone in to build the dwarf walls. I believe that this will give us a considerable saving if everything works out to plan.
My background is in window blinds (we have a blind company) so in my time I’ve fitted blinds in hundreds of different conservatories and they don’t look too difficult to build, however I’ve had no previous experience of building anything so I’ll learn as I go along
This blog will chart the progress of the build.