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.