Work on this two storey side extension began this morning and, despite the heavy rain, Scott, Elliot and Jed still managed to dig out nearly 13m of trench work to a depth of 1m. The excavated soil more than filled an 8 yard skip, the filling of which proved rather hazardous for Elliot. Rain and mud made the ramp up to the skip extremely slippery, however, he only fell off once and had a nice soft landing... his brother Jed!

The photographs show the site being cleared in preparation for the beginning of works and the trench work. Please click on the thumbnails to view full sized photographs....

The trench work was completed this morning with only one minor collapse which occurred while Scott & Elliot were eating their bacon sandwiches - supplied by a very thoughtful client. Then it was time to pour the concrete foundations.

Scott also toothed out the rear brickwork ready to build a seamless joint into the existing rear wall.

Chester, the clients' dog, was not quite sure what to make of it all! 

Tomorrow Scott will start the footings. Click on the thumbnails to see full sized photo's....

As you can see Elliot continues to work hard mixing the mortar leaving Jed on camera work! Although they worked hard all day they still had time for a sausage sandwich - provided by an extremely nice client!

Scott has nearly completed the footings up to DPC and, after only three days, is ready to start building the extension tomorrow ...

Front and back walls are up to cill level. Jed has been on brick duty, bringing them in from the drive and stacking them ready for Scott to use. The only problem for Jed is that Scott keeps changing his mind about where to place them and most of his time is spent moving bricks from inside to outside the walls and then back again!

The only excitement came when a Delivery man came up the driveway and Chester decided that he was a mortal enemy... don't think there's any need to worry about burglars with Chester around!

So at the end of the first week of S M Berry Building Contractors twelve week home extension project what have they achieved?

The brickwork is all slightly above cill level ready to build off scaffold boards next week. On the rear elevation the toothed brickwork has gone in extremely well as the bricks are good colour matches with those used in the original extension. The angled wall to the front has been built with 45^o Ketley Blue engineering bricks to contrast with the sand faced heathers used in the rest of the build. This, although more time consuming than traditional corner work, adds a nice feature to the front facade and I'm sure you'll agree it's worth the effort.

By the end of next week (of only four days because of Bank Holiday) they should be up to first floor level.

On a lighter note, Chester the dog has been voted 'coolest dog in the world' by both Scott's Sons and if he goes missing there's a good chance he'll be found at home with them!