Cobbins Self-Build Blog

We’ve had the bricklayers in this week, working on the chimney and inglenook.

We chose the same bricklayers who worked on the Potton showhome at St Neots, Cambridgeshire. The brickwork there is fantastic and I wanted the same builders to do it. They’ve done a great job for us and I’m very happy with it.

We’ve also had the tiler hard at work on the roof. We could have had it easy and gone for normal concrete tiles, but we’ve chosen much smaller, plain clay tiles. The normal tiles would have been cheaper – and less work for the roofer – but Sharon didn’t want anything that looked orange on the roof and so we picked a darker tile, which is already blending in with the roofs on neighbouring houses really well.

The scaffolding’s still up and will be there until the roofer’s finished. Meanwhile I’ve been busy getting quotes and people organised for later on in the build.

Next week, we’ll be finishing the chimney, continuing work on the roof and having the rendererers in.

Wow! The whole timber frame has been finished now and we have a real sense of how the house is going to look.

This week the guys were carrying on with the details and we had the roofer in to make the roof watertight. He put the protective, breathable membrane of the roof which lets air out but doesn’t let water in.

We also had a bricklayer in to build the plinths under the windows. Everything’s coming along really well and we’re well on schedule.

Next week, they’ll be working on the chimney and inglenook. The roof should be tiled and the fireplace finished as well.

This week has involved some really intricate work.

The guys from Potton have been hard at work doing all the detailed fixing of the roof. They’ve been putting in the noggins, bits of wood that go in between the frames and also doing work on the rafters and dormer windows.

The work’s been really intensive although visually, we haven’t noticed a great deal of change. By the end of next week, though, the whole timber frame will be finished and we’ll be able to see the house as it’s going to look.

We’ve decided against the airflow system – it was just too far out of our price range – but we’ll still go ahead with an underfloor heating system.

You can really see what the house will look like now. Last week we could see how big the rooms on the ground floor were, and now we can see the first floor as well.

Upstairs takes shape

I have been popping down there sometimes in my lunch break to have a chat and bring a bag of donuts but Sharon and I like to go and have a look later on in the day.

You can really see how quickly it’s progressing and that’s one of the great things about building a timber frame home. Potton package homes can be watertight in less than ten days!

Another plus point about self-building a timber frame house is that they are extremely well insulated and very energy efficient.

View from the top

We like the idea of building an energy efficient home and so are also looking at an airflow system for the house which works like a fridge in reverse. It will give us underfloor heating and radiators, and because it’s so energy efficient, we get a £1,000 refund from the government.

Next week, we’ll be carrying on with and hopefully finishing the external work.