The building begins

Over this past week-end we have been panicking about details on the cladding and getting the stub walls waterproofed because today the timber frame for a new 14m x 14m building arrives on the back of a flatbed lorry.

During the past month we have cleared a site, laid a floating slab complete with a significant mess steel strengthening, cast stub walls and now, after a week-end of going around and around with a rough hand brush and some Sika Prufe we are almost ready for the timber to arrive and the erection of the framework.

Why Sika Prufe? Well we need a DPM. If we used a plastic sheet DPM we'd end up with a ruck in the corners as it folds up the stub walls. Painting on a DPM basically removes any such rucking and the weakness and failure potential they it presents. Why Sika? Well it was half the price of the Ruberoid version (with apologies to the Aisher family for not choosing Marley...) and I've used Sika products for years and felt that it was a bit more reliable than some of the other products that I've never heard of. Besides, the people at the Builder Centre nearby were very helpful and got it delivered on time but a driver we've known for 15 years.

I'm aiming to do a load of time-lapse movies of construction but I didn't set enough images when putting on the first coat of the Prufe. Anyway, here is a sample.

So what is this building for and how have we go here so far. Well, I'll be adding lots more details as I can (it's a high pressure build so there may not be that much spare) but essentially we have a 5ha site of which 3.5ha is designated as agricultural. Fortunately there were two very dilapidated buildings because we need to build a studio and workshop for our business. The long and the short of it is that we got planning permission for a 190 sq m timber frame building complete with a 36 sq m studio (which has domestic user permission). Took a lot of effort to get it done but I'll provide some more details later.

In the meantime, here are the planning drawings which show what we are aiming at!