Grab lorry arrives and remaing soil excavated from the site (Tuesday).

Today a grab lorry arrived first thing and took away all the hardcore and soil which the builder had left out the back. He spent the rest of the day excavating and clearing the site, so that the footings can be dug tomorrow.

Here are a few pictures from the end of the day. The site is now cleared and tomorrow the footings can be dug. Finally!

If you look really hard you can see the grabber

Week 4: Skip is taken away and soil moved off site. Building inspector arrives and approves the drainage (Monday).

Today, the filled skip was taken away, and the builder spent the day moving yet more soil out the back, adding to our already enormous pile of hardcore and concrete waste. Tomorrow, a grab lorry will come to remove it all. Joe spent Sunday making a few changes to the builder's plumbing. Because our toilet was leaking, he has had to change the angle of the exit pipe, as well as adding an extra loop to prevent any backwash in the event of ever having a loft conversion done. He also added an air vent.

Joe also plumbed in the bath and upstairs sink as it was soaking the external wall. So this now joins into the soil pipe (top left).

The building inspector arrived today to inspect the new drainage. He discussed the proposed footing depth etc. He seemed happy enough with the drains and will return once the footings have been dug.

Air vent added and angle of exit pipe changed

Handsink and bath pipe added (top left)

Soil pile slowly going down...

Skip arrives and is filled (Friday)

A skip arrived first thing this morning, and was parked up round the back, next to our enormous pile of rubble. Because of the weather conditions (torrential rain) the builders spent the morning filling the skip with the conservatory. The hardcore waste will be taken away by a grab lorry on Monday. No digging today.

Drainage continues and rodding eye pipework installed (Thursday)

Today the builders dug the trench and laid the pipe for the rodding eye. This just gives us an access point in our patio in the event of a blockage. It turns out that we don't collect waste from anyone else (i.e we are the start of the line and join into our neighbours; but our neighbours on the other side don't run into us).

Once the pipes were in, they covered them in pea shingle. This allows the pipes to still move once the cement is poured.

Tomorrow the building inspector is coming to check their work. And the best news ever: the skip is finally arriving!

Some pics from today:

Drainage begins (Wednesday)

Today they started on the drainage. They replaced and re-routed our cast iron soil stack, which felt like our house was being knocked down. Then they had to re-route the bath, shower and hand basin, as well as the kitchen sink, washing machine and dishwasher. Some of it is a bit temporary as Joe will redo the plumbing once the shell is up. But the soil stack and main drainage is all underground so needed to be done.

The builder also knocked back through and put a junction on which we can connect into, when we fit a downstairs toilet.

Instead of having a manhole in the kitchen, we will have a rodding eye in the patio (basically an access point in case we ever need quick access to unblock).

Some pics from today. Note the pile of earth in the garden is growing by the day.....!

New soil stack and pipes

All a little bit temporary so we csn run water tonight!

New soil stack coming out of wall. Tomorrow he will chop off foam

The remains of our cast iron soil pipe. Farewell, you never gave us any problems :-(

The end of the day

Pipework explanation

Demolition of existing footings (Tuesday)

Worker No. 1 has done his back in, so Stuart spent the morning using the jack hammer to smash out the old footings from the conservatory. They are about 50cm deep. So we now have an even bigger pile of concrete in our garden. I hope the skip lorry turns up soon. Tomorrow is drainage day apparently: pipes from bath/shower/dishwasher will be re-routed, and soil stack replaced and moved. Chiara and I will be making ourselves scarce!

Joe spent the evening taking the toilet off the wall. Because it is a wall hung loo it is a bit tricky to get it off.

Old footings dug out

The existing soil stack which will be replaced

Pipework from goodness knows where!

The end of the day

Week 3: Digger arrives (Monday)

This morning I signed for a digger.

They spent the day digging the foundations and using the jack hammer to smash out the old footings for the conservatory. We now have an enormous pile of soil and rock in our garden. Hopefully all will be gone by the end of the week as our garden is starting to look like a landfill site.

A few pics from today:

The digger arrives

Parked up for the night

A hard day's work