Extension in Standish, Wigan by Wigan builder - Chris Smith Rear extension (completed) and a 2nd extension above garage with en-suite No deposit was taken & not a penny was asked for until I had the full base in up to D.P.C   Just two of us did the entire build, including the central heating, electrics & painting No room to get my mini JCB in, so a weeks hard graft ahead I think. We dug out to hard ground....then dug out some more, just incase! 12" lower than the existing house foundations, and its only for a single story extension too! Five foot deep by pick, spade & wheel barrow, a good job is built on proper foundations. Mr & Mrs Darby in at the deep end, still smiling though! Me & a clean garden, even though we had dug out 3 skip fulls of spoil, its was still spotless. Really love the barrow service from the concrete lads. The new type of trench block going in....  with handles! Existing drains exposed & new route planned. Simply extended, but with additional rodable access on the sink & soil with gravel back fill. Making good use of the Arbortech saw, a great invention from Australia no less! This is how to convert an outside gully into an interior space, gas sealed with access, not just concreted over like the cowboys do! Hardcore crusher run pressing down to the inside foot of the strip foundations & compacted with a tarmac pole, never put soil back in! Paving flags removed from inside & inner skin being built. A good view of the cavity extension in the house too. I always leave out the side face brickwork until the slab has been poured & tamped, as it makes for a better finish. How many times do you see a cavity wall just carry on where the doors are going? well its wrong! this is the right way to do it! Blinding sand tipped in. Sand layer leveled & compacted. 90mm rigid insullation to the floor & 25mm around the edges. Building regs state that a 100mm thick floor is the minimum requirement, but I always make mine at least 150mm thick plus steel mesh on mushrooms too! Cavity floor weep vents going in. Concrete layed & covered up for the weekend as it was chucking it down! Result, a lovely clean, level & smooth floor. First Payment asked for & received. Brickwork next, joined to the house with stainless steel catnic wall starters as per regs. Ahhh... the sun did eventually come back out. 85mm full fill cavity bats. Insullation straight through into house. Looking good, but wet! Double joists glued & screwed. Cavity tray in & birdsmouth with skew nailing. Wall plate bolted between every joist with DPM back. Gable ends strapped across rafters & trimmers. Insulation right to the top of wall plate, batten stalks in. Heavy duty catnic lintols, with internal insulation. Heavy duty drip felt into gutters & a ply eaves support BAA approved felt ofcourse. You should'nt run lightweight felt straight into the gutter, it just curls up & flutters in the wind, see? We took the scaffolding down every night & used staging for the gutter The top peak of the low pitch tiles were cut off as Velux suggests, in order to achieve a tight flashing. A trouble free cloaked verge ontop of a barge board to match the rest of the house. A perfect, neat & tidy roof. Side view, lovely, 6 weeks in. 100mm Kingspan ready to be foil taped. Pipes to be boxed in & insulated. Prepairing the opening into the house. I cut a bit, then use strong boys as I move along, rather than using needles and wrecking the walls above. A water fed Stihl saw doesnt half make a mess though! I always load up the top of the RSJ with mortar, then squeeze it up into the brickwork above with an accrow prop to get a full bed, no cowboy slate bits bashed in  on my jobs! I hate mess, so even though the windows will be skipped, I still cleaned & polished them before I came home. Kitchen area all covered over, ready for the break through. I take my time & make sure the structure is fully supported & nothing is missed before we take out any walls. The kitchen goes 'under' the gable end, into the rear garage, so there are two RSJs above these props at 90вк carrying everything above, along with the floor joists. You can't have to many supports!& as I removed the existing plaster, I discovered the internal walls were only built from crappy light weight blocks... So we rebuilt the whole corner with solid concrete blocks for extra strength, as this corner is about to hold up a quarter of the house! The correct way to install remedial lintels, load the thing up with mortar, then acrow it up into the brickwork above & squeeze level, then shim up from padstones when dry, easy. A great pic of a pad stone laid onto its side to help spread the point load over the dense concrete block wall underneath it. Everything was pre measured, built & arranged so that on Monday morning, 4mm steel shims can be hammered into this waiting gap, using slate is NOT the way to do this important job. Even though I add mortar accelerator to the mix, the supports were left in place for at least two days setting time, and luckily for us, this was done on Friday morning. Shims are snuggly hammerd home. Knowing the internal walls were light weight block, I fitted a padstone on the other side too, across both walls. To do this properly, I simply took the strain with an under needle using another RSJ. The results were solid and not a hint of a crack aywhere. I needed access to the centeral heating ring for the first fix plumbing and with a modern floor, it can be a pain, but this is the correct way to go about it. I found the pipe run with a metal detector, then set my router to 17mm as the sheets were 18mm. Using 'Trends Routabout' made the job easy. The cut is then flipped over into the plastic insert. Lovely job. Door & window install, latest argon filled double glazed units going in. Starting the dry lining after the first fix electrics were in. Grading in the beads & joints first. Wiring regs state that every junction box must be accessable for servicing, so I put them all behind a panel ready for a 2nd fix later. I thought i'd better 'be' in a few pics, just incase people may doubt that I do every part of my builds! A hand pressurised water spray makes this job neater (and dryer) No mess, no fuss. Pipes checked, sound proofed & boxed in, wiring for wall lights in, ready for a skim. I installed the heating myself by dropping 10mm microbore from the 15mm flow/return Polishing off Down lights over breakfast bar Installing the srtip LED's & driver Designer everything, an excellent build this one AAA+ Breakfast bar with dimable downlighters A very light and airy room if you have to wash up, then wash up in style! Superb kitchen & enertainment area LED mood lighting for the evenings Wow!!!! Chris Smith - local builder & top class tradesman Info@Christhebuilder.com Home Page