In our previous house, Scotsgrove End, we had a small woodland area which when I first moved to the house had a very dominant, very tall and straight Scots pine tree at its centre. Unfortunately the tree died – we think the top got struck by lightening – and Steve, along with friend Clive, then…

Been a long time since we updated the blog – time has really flown. Always good to look back though and makes you realise how much has actually been achieved in the meantime. Things that I’ve done for the first time since the last post: Prior to learning new stuff, there was also plenty of…

It took a long time – and a lot of perseverance by Jonathan from Passivhaus Homes and the Passivhaus certifier, Naomi from Etude – but finally we received confirmation that we are now officially Passivhaus certified! When the second airtightness test had been done last Autumn (see airtightness and ventilation post), we had naively thought…

Focus has been almost entirely on the garage over the past few months. Meanwhile, in the house skirting boards still need to be fixed, additional coats of paint need to go on, shelves need to be put up, pipes to be boxed in, towel rails fixed in bathrooms, kitchen needs to be finished, utility room…

During February, March and April, it seemed that the unglamorous, fairly invisible but essential jobs just kept going on and on. Steve did his best to make encouraging noises when I showed him photos each time I returned back south, even though I’m sure he was really thinking “what on earth have you been doing…

Not quite sure how it’s got to 3 months since I last posted, and I’ve been trying to remember what I’ve been doing since then. Mostly quite a few jobs that don’t look that impressive in photos! Garage cladding finally finished This has been a bit of a slow burn, given we started it in…

Priority for my visits during the Autumn was getting the garage fully watertight ahead of winter: doors on, cladding completed, soffits fixed. As always though, there was always more than one thing that I needed to focus on, so this went alongside various things going on in and around the house – not least airtightness…

airtightness testing Back in July last year, we had our first airtightness test – you can read all about it, and everything around the Passivhaus requirements in my blog at the time here. Since then, while airtightness hasn’t exactly dominated life, it’s been an ever-present thing – there’s always been another bit of taping to…

Stairs seemed to be another of those slightly mysterious house-building things, that it was never quite clear exactly how we would get them built. There are a few online ‘stair-builder’ websites, but our house (of course) had a slight quirk in the structure, and so it just wasn’t possible to go that route, even if…

Now we were sleeping in the house, with bathrooms, lights and sockets all connected, and – importantly fridge freezer and washing machine installed – spending longer up in Ardnamurchan was much easier. So the end of July saw us heading north for four whole weeks. Key jobs during that time, as well as having some…

I have always just taken internal doors for granted (and skirting boards for that matter, but that’s for another day). Even now – after doing our Scotland doors – I still don’t really pay any attention to all the different elements that make up the doors in our old house. The linings (and how they’re…

As part of our low carbon build (see previous All things carbon blog post in March), when we’ve had options about products, we’ve tried to opt for the lower carbon/environmental impact products wherever we’ve been able to. For the non-construction elements of the build, sourcing unwanted or second hand fixtures and fittings has been a…

After the fairly mammoth efforts of April and May, June was mostly spent away from site, giving my body time to recover a bit! Two key things were due to be done during the 3.5 weeks I was away: slates going on the garage and the plumbing finally all connected up in the house. Both…

It all went on last week! And now back south for a bit of a break. There are advantages and disadvantages of lovely long light Summer evenings: great to be able to get lots done in the light, but having worked an 8am – 4pm day with tradesmen on site, the tendency is to then…

Once the main structure of the garage was up, the focus was on getting it to the stage that the roofer could come and slate. Fortunately at the end of the week, the weather switched to dry and sunny – and whilst on a few days midges were fairly abundant at the beginning and end…

Back up for an exciting 3 weeks of activity, and great to have Steve here for the first part of it. Day 1 was about putting all the walls up and prepping for the telehandler arriving on Day 2. All was remarkably straightforward – walls went up, aligned, without any drama. David then did great…

Monday 15th May was a momentous day, not just because of the garage build but because Graham the tiler appeared (note: Graham is not the total w***** who let us down so badly previously). We did think that perhaps we wouldn’t let Graham go home until all the tiling had been done, but in a…

Just as the house and site were beginning to be clearer, it’s being filled up again. Bathroom kit, doors, kitchen appliances, tiles (which of course we’d hoped would be down by now), door liners, insulation, velux windows and lots of every type of different wood for the garage are now all piling up both inside…

In the ideal world, we’d have built our garage at the start so that we could have used it for storage and as a workshop. However, as well as timing, there was a danger that it would have used up a lot of our house build fund. So we’ve managed to fumble along quite happily…

There seems to be a massive shortage of tilers generally in the UK (along with every other trade for that matter) and in the Fort William area, everyone I asked gave me one name. I first made contact on 2nd December, and despite having good conversations unfortunately he was just too busy to get our…