My 1st House Extension

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The back door has been a nightmare but one I think is now resolved and hopefully now in fabrication. With works halted to the extension waiting for the rear door and rooflight to be installed I have taken the opportunity to start knocking out the upstairs.

To start with I had to remove the old airing cupboard which was located in a small room. This room is to become the main bathroom and ensuite., Split the room in 2 in studwork and close back up again.

 

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I then opened up a doorway between the master bedroom and the to be ensuite.

The plumber then started running the new pipework. All the original had been removed. The "notching" of the joists was something I had hoped to have avoided but it was done while I was out and so I had no say in it. They are 200mm deep and not very big spans so I think they will be fine.

 

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Before the plumber left he piped up the cylinder in the loft. This sits above the bathroom and where the original was located. I formed a timber platform spanning the 2 loadbearing walls which seems to have held up nicely. He also connected the mains and t'd off to give me a garden feed and also a feed to my planned granny annex.

The mains is a bit of a mess but i will tidy it all up when i get round to finishing the garage.

 

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With the 1st fix plumbing complete I turned my attention to closing up the bathrooms. The stud partitioning was lined with ply then all walls lined with tile backer board before installing the shower tray former, decoupling membrane, UFH and levelling the floors ready for tiles to be laid.

Bathroom in progress

Ensuite Progress

 

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Bathrooms have been tiled and nearly finished. They are useable but still need vanity units to be installed 2nd toilet and shower screen but at least i can have a shower and it means we were able to move back in after 11 months (that was supposed to be 8 weeks).

 

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Now that we are moved back in I turned my attention to getting the electrics sorted. I have pulled all of the old wiring out as I have been going and rewired the house so that everything is new. basic lighting and power were temporarily connected to the old system but i was keen to get the new board installed and certified. The electrician was happy with what I had done (he had been consulted during the build) and installed the new consumer unit to liven up the house. A few more circuits on the new board than the old, including an EV charger which we think matched in with the garage and entrance doors nicely.

 

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Roof has been finished and the roof light installed. We are very pleased with this. We used a firm called Cornich. You order on line to your dimensions and it is delivered a few weeks later flat packed ready for you to install. They came recommended and were far cheaper than other systems so win win.

We thought we had gone as big as we could have got away with but if I were to do it again, I would probably go slightly wider. The window as installed is 3.3mx2.3m. It lets in a great amount of light and i think will be a great feature of the room when finished.

 

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Doors finally arrived. These have held up a lot of the build as they were soo delayed. We were close to changing the design as it was causing issues due to the weight of the glass but they eventually turned up as we wanted them and we are so glad we were able to stick with the original plans. All sections of glass move in both directions so you can chose how to use them. With all sections to 1 side it lets in a great bit of air which is keeping me cool while doing the floors.

 

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For the utility I had to block up the old garage side door, install new window, run M&E and line. Its turned out a nice size and we are currently using it as a temporary kitchen until the rest is finished.

 

[kingandy2nd]

Everything is looking great there mate. Really top quality work!

 

[kingandy2nd]

Everything is looking great there mate. Really top quality work!

 

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Its taken some time but i finally got the house fully rewired. Or at least to the point where all circuits were in even if final fittings etc were not there. Electrician came in a connected the new consumer unit. It has something i have been looking forward to as i now don't have a room full of temp electric connections. Electrician will come back to fully test and certify at the very end.

I also had the new boiler installed. I have a bit of a temporary set up while works are ongoing, in that i have to manually switch the boiler on to heat the water and rads when required. So far it is working ok other than the odd occasion where we have forgotten to put it on the night before and then woke up to a cold shower.
The tails on the right are for a water softener (which is now installed and making Mrs P very happy.

With the boiler and CU located in the garage it forced me to get it all cleared out, painted and in some sort of order. I also ran some electrics in there for power and lighting. Working with conduit and singles was actually quite enjoyable and rewarding.

 

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I had a week off working on the house after firing a nail through my finger installing the last batten to a joist. Tiered, rushing and thinking everything was going ok, this was a very strong reminder of how easy it is to go horribly wrong.

Back to work and it was the painful and long task of installing the insulation between the joist to sit below the UFH. I went a little overboard with this. Battens to each joist to support the PIR and keep it flush with the top of the joist, 10mm foam strip to each joist to give an airtight seal between the cut PIR and joist. 100mm PIR boards between each joist followed by the UFH board glued and screwed on top.

I got a bit of a factory floor set up going completing a row of each task per night. very boring but it became quite efficient in the end and gave us a floor that we could finally walk onto.

After the deck was laid, I marked out each of teh UFH zones and started to cut bends and extra routes where required. My new router, a jig i made and a special radius bit made this job fairly easy. Again a few sections a night and by time the weekend came we were done and ready for the pipes to be installed.

 

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After what seemed like a week of back and forth to the local tip, the house looked a lot clearer and i called in the UFH company to run the pipework and connect the manifold.

To prevent cutting excessive runs into the UFH board to route the flow and return for 10 loops back to the manifold in hallway, i dropped conduits under the floor a ran them back to the manifold location. I thought i was being clever by clipping them at certain points to keep the runs organised. When the guy went to install the 1st pipe it got stuck a few meters under the floor. I suddenly had the thought of having to pull up sections of glued and screwed boards from y lovely new floor and felt sick.

After a lot of back and forth and me looking back through old photos to try and locate cable runs and where conduit bends were, i took the plunge and cut an access hole in the floor to allow me to get my head and an arm under the floor. Keeping photos of everything luckily paid off. I managed to miss all cables and get the hole in the right location to let me help the pipes through the conduit. I then got it cleaned up and relaid while pipework continued. About half of the pipe runs encountered this problem so i got really lucky on this.

The pipes were then connected to the manifold, filled and pressure tested.

It all held up which will now allow the top layer of ply to be installed to give a complete floor structure.

I will wire the UFH control box, actuators and stats as a hospital job when i get some time between other larger items.