Yesterday, we arrived back on site. It was great to be back, a warm sunny day, and the internet connection is now live!

We’re only here for a week, but there are a few key things that need to happen before we return at the end of June for the bulk of the work. First up, the surveyor returned and put marking pins in the ground to show where the walls need to be built. These can’t be moved until the stone wall is up!

Pins as far as the eye can see

This showed up a little problem – one of the foundations was slightly too narrow.

The foundations need to be wider than the walls for logistical purposes in placing the stones. Due to an error in marking up one of the plans on our part, the back wall of the utility room hadn’t been marked as cob (the light earth walls will be thinner than the cob, and so have narrower foundations). Luckily, this was not a big deal to fix and a bit of digging, filling, and compacting and we were set.

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Luckily Coll didn’t have any such problems on his building site. Obviously it’s better managed. 🙂

Coll sets out marking pins and digs foundations on Owl the Digga Man’s building site.

The next job is to put service pipes in the ground to allow things in and out of the house, under the walls. This is a mix of pipes that will take waste water to the sewage treatment plant and pipes that will act as conduits for the phone cable, electricity cable, and mains water pipe. We’re using clay pipes, though unfortunately all clay pipe couplers use some sort of plastic.

(Almost) ready for doing the washing up. This will connect to the kitchen sink waste pipe.