Busy Busy Busy!

Its been a busy week!

Now we have the keys to the house, we need to get as much of the heavy work done as possible before we move in on the 20th August.

Whilst I do want this house to be as energy efficient as possible, there are a few more fundamental changes we want to make to the house. Firstly, we are installing a bathroom and velux window into unused "eves storage" (what was in effect a large unused room + airing cupboard and bedroom cupboards) on the first floor between the 2 main bedrooms, and secondly we are removing a non supporting wall dividing the sitting room / dining room on the ground floor, and installing a door between the sitting room and the 3rd bedroom (which is becoming the study).

We have a builder carrying out the building work, but we have me doing the clearance and demolition!! Fun!!! We've got an electrician on board too, and I need to find myself a plasterer.

However we are still waiting on a quote from our plumber, which is fairly fundamental to a bathroom build!!!! The delay has been caused by our interest in alternative energy and our need to replace our hot water cylinder... The plumber has a mate who installs solar / ground source, and because I want to know about it, he will be bringing the guy round on Wednesday to have a look. Whilst we need to get the bathroom started ASAP (and almost sod the green stuff!) to be fair, it would be pointless getting a quote for one thing (single coil cylinder) when I in fact ultimately want another (twin coil cylinder to take an alternative heat source).... so hopefully we'll know by Wednesday how much this will cost us!!!

Funnily enough, whilst driving to the house on a day off last week, I saw a renewable energy company building on the outskirts of the town! They turn out to be one of the largest suppliers of ground sorce heating in the country...! So I dropped in to see them, and had a very informative chat with a lovely lass called Jo about ground and air source heat pumps and solar energy! We are getting a quote, which I'll cover all this in another blog later, however on the solar question she suggested you'd look to pay around £3500 for a solar system, and it will NOT give you the moon on a stick, but will complement any other systems you do have. So that goes to show the door-to-door double glazing approach aimed at old folk truly IS a rip-off!!!

The Building Control Officer is coming out on Wednesday to check the new velux window, and the plans for the new bathroom and any of the other planned works (thank god the non-supporting walls aren't covered!!!!). I'm kind of dreading this - whilst I have been told they're very helpful people, I've also been warned that they WILL pick up on the tinyest, most irrelevant and most insignificant things. As much as I want to do this on the cheap though, I also want to do it right. I have a worry about some of the roof members that had small sections taken out of them but hopefully the replacement support is OK.

I'll update on this, the alternative heating sources, and the potential insulation plans later...