View from the Drive

 

This photo shows the view of the new building from the drive, as you approach the stud.

Sun Pipes

 

The photo shows the sun pipes, which bring the light into the centre of the building.

Lighting the New Building

 

I didn't want the building to be lit up too brightly. This picture shows how it is lit by discrete LED ropelights under the eaves.


The light is soft and subtle and only uses a few watts. It's also angled downwards so that there is no light pollution.

Inside we've used high-energy fluorescent lights that give thirty percent more light and a 20,000 hour life.

The Clock is now Set

 

The clock now shows the right time.

Almost Complete

 

The outside of the building is now almost complete. The roof is on and it is starting to look finished. Inside it's a bit different though.


The next two pictures show the building avoiding the skip and the electrician's Land-Rover.

Slating the Roof

 

This is obviously not the roof of the new building, but the roof of my office.


It was done by the same company, Knappett, and the same man. He was rather proud of the job he did nearly twenty years ago, when he roofed the office. He has every right to be so.

Note that the office roof has no guttering. The water flows into a moat that surrounds the office.


The slates were actually Spanish. I'm not sure why, but the roofers say that they are better and cheaper than any Welsh equivalent. I would have preferred Welsh.


This picture shows the lead being fixed to make sure that the roof is water-tight. Seeing the roofer cut and bend it, he would probably be using the same tools and methods that stretched back two or three thousand years at least.

Lead may be a metal that is slightly poisonous, but we've never really found anything better.


Here, the slates are all placed ready to be fixed by the clock.


This is a general view of the almost complete roof.


The roof is now complete.

The slate roof matches the house. Except that the house roof is nearly two hundred years old.

Inside the New Building

 

This is a couple of views inside the new building, before the slates go on the roof, starting on Monday.



In the second view, the front of the building is to the left.

Weatherproof!

 

Bob Knappett and his gang of roofers started at about nine o'clock this morning and within a few minutes there was a lot of progress.



By four o'oclock in the afternoon the building was completely weatherproof. Another very good days work!


Note that the weather was so good today, that at one point the roofers had their shirts off! And it's late October.

The Clock Close Up

 

This picture shows a close-up of the clock.


This picture was taken from the scaffolding that is being used to put up the felt and tiles for the roof.

On Goes the Clock

 

Progress has been swift this week, and considering they only started on Tuesday, to have the clock up by Friday is very good.



The clock has not been set to the correct time yet!

On Go the Roof Trusses

 

The roof trusses actually arrived on the Wednesday in pouring rain.


As you don't work at heights in the rain unless you have to, the roof only started in earnest on the Thursday in the sunshine.




The next two pictures show the structure of the roof from the inside.




They are now preparing to put the facia and soffits up.

All in a Day's Work

 

The men from Scotts of Thrapston arrived before nine, with the walls of the building on two small trucks.


The unloading was by means of man power. This was probably best, even if some pieces were heavy.


What puzzled me, was that they appeared to layout the building on the ground without any reference to any drawings. I assume it was because everything was properly marked. Very professional!


The walls started to rise after lunch, after fitting the damp course and other small but essential works.


It was then swift process throughout what was a very cold and blowly afternoon.






By three o'clock everything was ready for the last piece of the walls.


And here it goes.


It fits well too!


The last two pictures show complete views of the building.




Obviously, we need a roof. The trusses will be delivered tomorrow.

Drainage Pipes

 

This picture is only here to show where the drainage pipes are, in case someone needs to know, when I'm long gone.


The landscaping of the site has started too.

Complete Slab

 

The slab is now complete.


Note the store in front, which will have a raised floor.

Almost Ready for the Pour

 

These two images show the state of this Saturday.



The slab is almost ready for pouring. It would appear that they are on time for I think Wednesday all being well.

Interestingly, the builders, Durman Stearn, put in a Saturday morning to make sure they hit their targets.

Not the First Building

 

When you excavate anywhere near an old house, you tend to find foundations of older buildings.



These pictures show the remains of a probable early nineteenth century building, that had been demolished to make way for the eyesore.

Starting the Slab

 

The ground is now being prepared for the concrete slab, that will support the new building.

Almost Gone

 

The efficiency with which the building came down, surprised me.




I suspect, that tools and equipment, now available to builders make it much easier to do these jobs. But it still doesn't take away much from the job that was done.

The little stump is the electricity supply. I suspect that the building would cost a lot more, if we'd had to disconnect it.

Coming Down

 

The building has now started to come down.


I don't think anypone will be sad.

A Mobile Phone Problem

 

On the stud, the new offices are so insulated that they keep mobile phone signals out, much to everyones annoyance. So I bought a system from Cell Antenna, that puts an aerial outside and an aerial inside with an amplifier between.


The image shows the outside aerial which is pointed at the nearest mobile phone mast.


The inside aerial is fairly small and discrete.

But the system works very well and was easily installed.

An Eyesore?

 

I'm posting these pictures because they show the less than beautiful side of the stud.




They are scheduled for demolition and replacement.

Water Pipes

 

I've now put in lots and lots of new blue water pipes on the stud.

I've also used various different makes of connector to link it all up. The best I've found so far seem to be the Philmac ones, that I get from Ridgeons in Newmarket.

Their great advantage is that they connect to the pipe much easier than the other makes I've tried and this makes connection in difficult places down holes so much quicker and more reliable.

Space Savers Kitchen

 

The kitchen for the offices is a pre-built one from Space Savers. You just lifted it in, wired it up to the plugs and then fixed it to the wall.


Our kitchen came with a built-in microwave, hob and fridge.

Almost Complete

 

This picture shows the almost complete new offices as dusk approaches on a rather dank winter's day.


Note the disabled ramp.

Nearly Finished

 

The offices are now painted and nearly finished.


We'll all be glad to get in.

Outside Painting

 

The various local planning authorities have said that the building must be painted black or dark brown. Here's the preferred dark brown coat going on over the primer.


Some prefer the primer. Do you?

The Floor Goes In

 

This is the tiled floor that will sit over the under-floor heating.

The building is starting to look good.

Painting Starts

 

The painting of the offices has now started.

Completing the Floor

 

The floor is now dry and ready for tiles.

The first picture shows the reinforcement being laid. The rather odd boxes with blocks on top are the power sockets in the floor.


In this second picture, the final coat of cement is being laid.

The Underfloor Heating

 

The stud office will use underfloor electric central heating.

This might seem a strange choice, but electricity is a very flexible method of power and who knows what method of generation will be used in the future; wind or solar power.

The key to a good underfloor heating system is good insulation underneath.


The wires are laid out here.


The interesting point is that the wires for the floor were laid in well under a day.

Completing the Framework

 

The front of the offices have an oak beam framework, that mimics the original building that has been replaced.

Lifting them into place is not easy and needs a small hand operated fork-lift.




The completed structure is now becoming apparent.

Concrete Breaking

 

The final pieces of old concrete are now being broken up.

Mounting the Beams

 

The beams are now being fixed to the front of the building. It is hard work.




The joints are good though.


You can just see the bolts used to hold the beams up. The holes will be plugged later.

Green Fencing

 

When you put fencing up for stock, be they horses, cattle or sheep, there are a lot of different methods that you can use.

For studs, there are two main types; the traditional post and three-rail and the specialist stud fencing like Keepsafe. As you can see from the picture below we favour the traditional.


So how environmentally friendly is this type of fencing?

Typically, a tonne of wood will create about sixty metres of fencing. Incidentally, if you burned this wood it would produce about 1.8 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

So if you use sustainably grown softwood for your fencing, a typical one hectare field the size of a football field, would fix approximately seven tonnes of carbon dioxide. It sounds a lot, but it is about the same amount of carbon dioxide produced by about 14.5 Imperial Gallons of diesel in a car engine. This would only take my Jaguar just under 600 miles.

I would also estimate that the specialist fences use more energy in their production as steel is involved.

Both types of fencing probably need as much energy to put them up.

It probably illustrates how important energy use is compared to the choice of such things as building materials. Obviously, those building materials can be chosen to save energy.

But it is in care and maintenance that the traditional post and rail wins.

Look at this problem, where a rail was dislodged probably by a deer or some machinery.


The repair kit is shown below.


The specialist wire fencing would need heavy machinery to retension the fence. But perhaps the worst problem is the time it generally takes to get the contractor to come and fix the problem. In that time, the field will often be out of commission.

So although we've used wire fencing before, we won't again.

The Worst View in Suffolk

 

And this is one of the worst views in Suffolk. Note the water tower on the horizon which makes all the difference.

The Best View in Suffolk

 

This is one of the best views in Suffolk from our verandah.

Naughty Foals

 

Foals will always find wasy to be naughty.

They have been pulling the pipe off the tap and creating all sorts of mayhem. So I've moved the tap to behind the upright of the trough.

I hope it works.


Note how the Hozelock fittings are used to connect the trough to the tap. For more details on how to do this, click here.

Stud Signs

 

We've finally got round to putting up new signs for the stud.

They were made by Signtek and are made from an aluminium base.


The signs are attempting to say that this is East Green Farm and Freedom Farm only. The reason is that if you type CB8 9LU into one of those Sat-Nav systems, you end up outside my office. Hopefully, these signs will tell people they are going in the wrong direction.


You'll see from this last photo, that they are discreet.

Insulation

 

The ceiling is of course fully insulated.

Oak Beams

 

These three pictures show the oak beams that will eventually be used on the front of the new offices.

Let's say it is not easy carpentry.

Note how in the third picture, three are needed to set one of the posts to a vertical position.




This last picture shows the beams in their complete form. But they are upside down and facing the wrong way. They will need to be rotated through 180 degrees before they are fixed to the building.

Moving Beams

 

The front of the offices will be clad in heavy oak beams. Did I say heavy?

Bridging a Ditch

 

To complete the fencing and open up all the paddocks, we need to bridge a ditch.

In the picture below we've just laid the plastic pipe that will take the water through the bridge. We got this pipe from Clarkes of Walsham.

These plastic pipes are so much easier to use than the old china ones and cost about £70 a time. You do need to dig the ditch out properly, but there are no joins in the pipe.


Note the scaffold pole used to take the blue water pipe across the ditch. This will be buried in the bridge.

The end walls for the bridge are built with sandbags. Very traditional and again from Clarkes.


Note how they are laid like bricks and also slightly angled inwards so that they are stronger. All the sandbags were transported by the faithful John Deere garden tractor and trailer.

The other end of the bridge has now been started.


The pipe has now been covered by stone, so that the drainage for the bridge is good.


Note that we bought the stone from Buildbase in Haverhill. The driver dropped it directly into the ditch, by just cutting the bottom of the bag it came in. Very easy and civilised.

More sandbags have now been added.


Note that there are still a row or two to go.

The bridge is then filled in with some of the soil dug out from the building of the offices.


What we have tried to do, is minimise the amount of soil and rubble removed from the site. Regulations mean that most of it has to go, as it may well be contaminated.

Topping Out

 

But not really.

However the highest point of the cladding is now finished.

Fitting Out

 

At last, things are happening inside, with the studwork and the wiring going into the building.

The Scaffolding Comes Down

 

The scaffolding came down this morning.

It now looks like a building.

The Roof Goes On

 

The roof has made great progress today.

The first picture shows the tiles ready to go at about nine this morning.


The second shows the status of the roof at the end of the day.


this one shows the detail of the roof from fascia level.

The Roof Starts

 

The roof insulation is now being added. It looks more and more like a building.

How to Recycle a Wheelbarrow

 

I don't know how many wheelbarrows have been used on this job. But it's a lot, as the brickies just leave them filled up with concrete and never clean them out. So they just go in tip.


One of the problems here is the price of wheelbarrows. They are so cheap now, that they are virtually a throw away product.

Perhaps we need a minimum price or how about a wheelbarrow tax.

The Finished Roof Frame

 

The frame of the roof is now almost complete and ready for the tiles. It's now starting to look like a building.

Removing Fence Posts

 

We had a fence by the side of the house that needed to be removed. The fence was typical post and rail, with the posts buried half a metre into the ground. Luckily they were not embedded into concrete.

A few months ago, I made a tool that you could use with a high lift jack to remove fence posts without any great fuss.

As an aside here, just try the normal method of wrapping a chain round the post and then using a tractor to pull the post. This method makes a lot of mess and is very dangerous if the chain breaks.


You start by just dropping the tool over the post.


Note that there are no moving parts in the tool and it doesn't need to be adjusted.

Note too, that the post is in pretty good condition. If the post has broken off at the ground as they often do, then all you need to do is dig a few inches into the ground so that the tool can grip the good part of the post.

The tool is linked to the jack using a shackle with a breaking strain of about a tonne and a half.


Note that the high lift jack is stood on a fence rail to equalise the ground pressure.

The jack is now lifted to pull the post out of the ground.


This pull took about a minute and the post came quickly out of the ground.

Celia did most of the pulling for these posts as it's actually quicker if someone else (me) holds the post vertically. This just shows how powerful the jack/puller combination is.


Note that little damage is done to the ground and in many cases a new post could be driven firmly into the old hole.

The jack can also be used to lift the heavy gate off its hinges.


This picture shows how easy it is to pull a post in a restricted space.


The wall wasn't damaged or even touched.

In the end five fence posts and one gate post were pulled in about half an hour.

The Roof Starts

 

The roof has risen in the last few days.

These pictures show the new roof to the office from both ends.



The building was filled with air bags at this time, so that if anybody fell off the roof, they'd have a soft landing.


Hmm. Not sure about that. I thought Darwinism was supposed to make the species get better. Obviously, there is now a "falling off buildings when you shouldn't" gene.

Ground Workers Get Off It

 

The brickies left a few jobs to do, so Paul and Rick show their bricklaying skills at altitude.

Lizzie Listens

 

Lizzie is listening to the intense discussions between Celia and the carpenters about where to put the staircase to the loft in the office.

No Smoking Signs

 

We now have a ban in the UK on smoking in workplaces.

Fine.

But I've had to spend fifty pounds or so on putting up signs to state the obvious.


If I don't I'll get fined £200 for every non-compliance.

Sounds like a jobsworths charter to me.

Questions :-

1. If we have a line of stables on the stud, like we used to have on the previous stud, do you have to put up signs on every stable door?

2. If you work for someone in their own house and they smoke, do they have to desist?

This could be a nightmare for employers, if the inspectors try to justify their existence and look for small degrees of non-compliance.

Mind My Truss

 

The trusses have now arrived.




They look difficult to handle, but each ways 74 Kg.

The Walls Are Almost Up

 

The walls are now at the height for the addition of the roof trusses.


Note the wet walls caused by all the rain.


This view is from the back of the offices. Note how the stable door has been moved from the end.

Rising Further

 

The building is now at scaffolding level, with the internal block walls in place.


Note the door at this end, which will have to be moved. The step is just too high for a stable.

The Walls are Rising

 

Finally despite all the bad weather the walls have started to rise on the new offices.


You can't really see it, but the services such as drains, phones, water and electricity have now been piped into the building.


Most of the walls are block.

I did think about using Hemcrete, which is made out of hemp and very green as it extracts carbon from the atmosphere. But the bricklayers have said it is a real pain to build with.

Perhaps not yet?

Concrete Surprise

 

This illustrates some of the problems of building on old site. The builders dug through one layer of concrete to find yet another layer.


No wonder buildings are always late.

Smoothing the Trench

 

This picture shows one of the little John Deere garden tractors pulling a ribbed roll to finish off the burying of the water main.

Crushed Concrete

 

Where the water passes through the gateway into a field, we've filled the trench with crushed concrete, rather than the soil we took out. This means that there should be no holes for horses to put their feet in.


Note we used a Bobcat to move the materials about.

I find them great fun, easy-to-drive and pretty safe for the operator. Unless of course you do something stupid!

Inquisitive Horses

 

Horses are suppose to be nervous creatures.


The picture shows several mares and foals being highly nervous, whilst the machine digs a trench for the water.

Foreign Bricks

 

I've just noted that the bricks used on the new buildings were made on the Continent, in possibly Belguim.

If I'd known this, I'd have rejected them.

Why do we have to import something as mundane as a brick? Especially ones that show a lot of salt as they dry out.

Bricks and Salt

 

The bricks on the left are the new brickwork on the stud offices and those on the right are those on the house fifteen years ago.

 
Why has one set got salt on the outside so quickly and the other never has had any?

Could it be that the ones on the house used a recessed joint using a tool called an Excalibur Pointmaster? I used to own the company until I fell foul of a typical insolvency stitch-up which left me with the debts of the company and none of the assets.

But I do have a few Pointmasters that I sell occasionally on eBay.

Preparing to Concrete

 

All laid out and ready for the concrete.

Pipestock.com

 

For all the new water troughs around the stud we needed to get a lot of new blue water pipes put into the ground.

On Tuesday I ordered them on-line from pipestock.com at lunchtime. They came at ten o'clock the next morning.

This is good service and the sort of thing that the Internet is good at. The prices were keen too.

Visible Progress

 

Finally, the offices are starting to emerge from the ground.


In this picture the bricklayers are finishing off the foundation brickwork.


This second picture shows the layout, with the stable for Vague Shot at the far end, then the workshop and nearest to the camera, the offices.

Delivering Bricks

 

This is the third major piece of building that we have commissioned in twenty five years. It is interesting to note that sites are much tidier, safer and I suspect a lot more efficient.


This picture showing the long-awaited bricks being delivered shows how automation cuts out a lot of the dangerous and back breaking work.

Note the glorious weather.

Lizzie Takes Charge

 

Lizzie doing her usual and sitting around checking that the builders are getting everything in line.




The man with his hand up is Russell Davy.

Connecting the Drains

 

This has been a difficult job, as is illustrated by the picture below.


Notice the less than ideal soil full of brick rubble and the pipes with water and electricity crossing where the drains are being run.

Note too the excellent little Hyundai digger called a Rolex.

Fencing

 

These pictures show the machine that bangs in the fence posts.



Interesting, the machine was made by a company called Fairbrother Industries in New Zealand.

It certainly works well and saves all that work with a sledgehammer.


This illustrates how increasingly in agriculture, specialist people are doing the tradition jobs, with machines designed for the task.

Drains

 

The foul outflow from the new offices will be connected to the existing sewage system for the house.



Note how everything is now plastic. It makes things so much easier.

CLA Conference at Writtle

 

Yesterday, I went to the CLA conference called Clean, Green and Viable at Writtle College at Chelmsford.

If you don't know the CLA is the Country Land and Business Association and was formed as the Country Landowners Association in 1907. One of its main functions is to lobby Government on rural affairs on behalf of their members.

I found the conference interesting and I suspect I'll fnd it really valuable in the future. Three speakers stood out; Dr. Bruce Tofield from CRED, Jerry Harrall, a very interesting architect who creates zero carbon buildings and Nick Woolley, who discussed the economics of going green.

Some interesting points arose.

1. English Heritage are constantly being complained about to the CLA about their negative attitude to making Listed buildings more efficient.

2. It is possible to create buildings that are cheaper to build, that do not need any local services such as water, sewage and electricity.

3. The energy price will triple in ten years.

4. Traditional buildings with large amounts of concrete foundations may not be the most effective way to build for the future.

I came away knowing that we all must look at every building and make sure it fits a low-energy model for the future.

Delivering Blocks

 

The building blocks were delivered this morning.


They came on rather a large artic, that had considerable difficulty getting through the lane to the stud.

It may be more economic to use large trucks, but surely for getting into small and difficult spaces, smaller ones are better.

Start of the Drainage

 

The drainage will be difficult in that the fall is not that great.

The first picture shows the first drains being installed.


The second shows how the concrete is being cut for the drains.


The line that was cut was very clean.

It makes you wonder why you so often see a jagged edge, where people have cut concrete to lay drains or cables with a pneumatic drill.

Pouring The Foundations

 

The foundations for the building have now been poured. It took six or more loads of concrete.

Removing the Back Wall

 

This shows the care being taken to remove the wall from the back of the old cart sheds.



They were then stacked carefully behind Lyndsey's office.

Foundations for the New Office

 

This week the builders have started to put the foundations for the new offices into the ground.


Note the depth of these foundations. Are we building a skyscraper? It's just that rules is rules.

Also note Lizzie, the basset hound, doing her personal inspection.


You can see here alongside the old barn, which has no foundations at all. It's only stayed up for several hundred years.

But then what do I know about planning and building?

Heat Pumps and Smart Radiators

 

I went to Norwich to see a company, Econic, about a ground source heat pump for the new offices.

The design looks like it will provide the base level of heat for the offices through underfloor heating and for the house using the existing radiator system. As heat pumps work at a lower temperature than boilers, we are also thinking of using some smart radiators with fans to boost the heat output in the kitchen.

We also intend to use the existing boiler system to boost the heat output on cold days.

A Wall Worth Saving

 

Unfortunately the building being rebuilt to make the new offices doesn't seem to be in tip-top condition.


This picture shows the back wall, that hopefully can be incorporated into the new building. Judhing by the timber used and the state of the rot it was probably built early in the last century.


This shows the back of the wall with the struts that are keeping it vertical. Note the rot at this end.

Foaling Unit - Nearly Complete

 

This picture shows the nearly complete foaling unit.


Note the grass and one or two details still have to be sorted.

The picture shows the inside of one of the boxes in the unit.



Note the wood and steel sliding doors, the camera looking down into the stable and the new roof.

Demolishing the Cart Sheds

 

The new offices are being built on the site of the old cart sheds.




They didn't need much of a push to get them down.

As no-one was really interested in the great pile of fire-wood, it was taken away and burnt.

LED Lights

 

We have used LED lights under the eaves of the foaling unit to light the building.


They are more efficient and hopefully they will last a long time before they need replacement.


The lights are a set of three lights that we bought from Lighting Direct.

As you can see they are specified as being IP64 and are manufactured by JCC with a product number of JC71068.


This picture shows the three lights which are powered by a transformer and can easily be wired into any standard lighting circuit.

As an aside here, I tried to photograph the lights in the dark. Despite the fact they are more than adequate, they were impossible with my simple camera. So if you want to see what they look like, come and see them in action.

Lyndsey's Temporary Office

 

This is Lyndsey's temporary office, whilst the new ones are being built.


About all you can say for it is that it's blue.

New Garage

 

When we built the garage and boiler house for East Green Farm in 1992 or so, we didn't quite finish it off.


So here are the builders putting a proper concrete floor in. Hopefully, all the trouble we've had with nails left behind by the last set of builders will be buried under the concrete.


This is how it looked when the concreting was finished.

Network Cameras

 

All of the cameras in the new building are connected to the stud network so that they can be viewed from anywhere in the locality on any personal computer.


The picture above, captured on my office computer, shows the image from one of the Sony cameras we have installed in a foaling box. This one has full infra-red and has been fitted with a fish-eye lens to get a complete view of the stable.


The camera is shown here. They cost around £200 each and are made to an IP65 specification, which basically means they are waterproof and dustproof. I wouldn't trust them to be steam proof, when you steam clean a stable, but they may well be.

Note how it is angled down and has been modified by removing the cowl.

You will notice that in this case the camera is linked to mains electricity and also connected directly to the computer network that runs around the stables and offices. You can also link them to computers in the office using a radio link if this is more convenient.


This is another view of a camera. Note that here, the cowel has not been cut back.

I think it is true to say that the advantages of this sort of camera over traditionally CCTV cameras will increase in the next few years, as better software and more capable cameras are released into the market.

Foaling Unit - Just Starting

 

This was the foaling unit just after the builders had gutted the inside and laid the floor slab.


A wall has also been removed at the end and the old steel and wood partitions have been taken out for reuse.

New Offices

 

It is proposed to build the new offices for the stud in these old buildings at East Green Farm.


This old barn will continue to be used as a store. It is several hundred years old, has some nice timbers but really has suffered from some rather bad repairs over the centuries.

However, it is anticipated that it will be reskinned, reroofed and fitted with a new pair of doors.


These sheds in the middle will form the basis of the new offices. There will also be a workshop at the end away from the barn.

They will be built to a very high specification. Energy requirements will be minimised.


This shed will be replaced with a stable for a stallion. It can also be used as an isolation box.