Saturday 13 February 2016

Digging in at home

Footings in 
January 2016

In addition to the refitting work on the boat we have an altogether larger project on the go at home.

When we moved into our new home in Aldridge it was in certain knowledge that there was some serious work needed in the kitchen. Acutally, the work wasn't so much in the kitchen as work on the kitchen itself.



The kitchen was an extension from the 1980's and we bought the house we could see that it needed complete replacement because not only was the roof sagging and leaking but it was far too small for our purposes. The redeeming factor was that there was a good sized yard at the back offering potential to build a completely new extension which both replaces the old jerry built construction but offers a kitchen / utility with a footprint of 5.5m x 7.0m.

Plans were submitted, permissions obtained and a suitable builder obtained (Redbrick Construction Ltd).



Work started one week ahead of schedule in early January with the old yard ripped up and footings dug to support the walls. A snag with the cottages is the high water table so no sooner was the trench dug than it filled with water. The process was something akin to digging a trench on the beach in the face of an incoming tide, so we ended up with a very wide foundation into which was poured a huge quantity of concrete, far more than the dribble exposed under the old extension wall.

At least we can be sure that the new extension, which virtually doubles the original footprint of the cottage, is not going to fall down.

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