Spain House Build - Building Started

Whoop. We have concrete. Also have some foundations dug for my garage space and a small driveway down to the garage area. Need to rethink layout a little for the final plan though.

Garage footings built with iron inserted. Note how miserable the weather has been!
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Concrete pour for main house
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Can see the route down to the garage here and the general layout pretty well

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Decent aerial view of the house
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Still slow progress, I met with the builder (actual builder not the developer) 2 weeks ago to discuss leveling the overall plot a little. I don't want it properly level, but just to even a few sections up. He didn't speak English and my Spanish is ropey so interested to see what gets done!
I did ask him when we'd get some walls and he explained an issue with the rain recently where the truck would get bogged down under it's weight in the mud. Things have been dry the last 2 weeks though so last Thursday we got some blocks delivered for the concrete base.
I do need to try and check what the plan is here though because if the base is too high then we're going to end up where the house doesn't end up being at ground level and has a step up to it which we don't want.

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The builder is understandably weary of delivering the expensive YTONG blocks until we have a fence up, so that should hopefully go up this week. I recorded a hike on my Garmin and then sent a link to my Strava so they can install it where i want it. Couldn't think of a better way! +/- 10m doesn't really matter. It's a U shape because the top end has a fence on the neighboring plot.

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Also started having some appointments with kitchen suppliers again. Think we've adjusted layout a little and ended up with similar to this. Although we'll likely move the dishwasher to the island to make it longer. Here it's 2m long but looks a bit small.
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Friday had a decent meeting with the developer to run through things in general. Seems solar systems have improved a lot since we got the initial quote so we should get a better system because of the delays which is decent.
 
Pretty much nothing has happened now for a month. We're meeting the developer on Monday with a local carpenter to discuss possibly a custom built kitchen and also wardrobes/bathrooms. Will be interesting to see the quality difference.

Whilst there i'm aiming to get across the frustration at the lack of progress. I'm struggling to understand why nothing has been done and why we still haven't received a project timeline as promised. The contract terms state a 9 month build time once planning is approved.
Current estimates are around 12 months and whilst annoying (given he'd previously discussed it being 6 months and 9 was just to give him buffer) 12 months to build a house doesn't seem unreasonable. However given the lack of progress i'm concerned how much it's going to continue to slide as nothing happens for a while due to the summer heat. Can't decide whether to discuss financial penalties and whether we can claim all the additional rental payments for anything beyond 12 months in the hope that it gives him a push, but on the flip side don't want to annoy him as there's a few things where we've chosen more expensive fittings than the original contract which he's allowed and don't want to get really tit for tat.
 
Do they get incentivizing drip payments as they reach milestones, or that's independent

[you'll use hob level extractor, with it in island,or one in ceiling
have you considered opening out above sink to make it more spacey eg
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jpaul said:
Do they get incentivizing drip payments as they reach milestones, or that's independent

[you'll use hob level extractor, with it in island,or one in ceiling
have you considered opening out above sink to make it more spacey eg
pKcJbIUhnbjerf31uWrtsts9TLOydu1Vx3cjPmYSzeXwf5NARowUT27NbWUlerkVv60aJJPmmsNElzRKm7DueN1Q4UbD2lRM60cTCxblmhz3xR_QQLp_4-tIXUkuESchvMuRb0Ep
Click to expand...

Ah, we've switched again and put the hob on the same wall as the sink to keep the island completely empty. The cupboards above are shallower than normal wall units so should offer decent amount of space above the sink (i hope!)
 
Whoop. Some progress. Water got connected last week and builders were there on Monday. Comically they were using plastic water deposits rather than mains water so that excuse was clearly codswallop!

We've now got the base walls in, bringing everything level. Seems like a lot of effort when they could've made the ground more level in the first place. I've been assured earth is then going to be backfilled in, because the point where it is highest is the front door and the builder has confirmed that the whole thing will be single level with no steps up to the house

I believe these are then backfilled with concrete
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Imagine cutting these blocks would be a real pain in the ass!

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I also need to think about what to do with this wall. It was obviously once a retaining wall for the various levels, but has collapsed in some areas. Needs to look half decent as it can be seen from the patio/pool area.
I was chatting to a guy who lives just up the road about whether they knew a building who could repair it, but his response was it makes more sense to do it myself. Probably a project for September. First i need to work on ripping out the shrubs which are likely causing some problems.

The overall plot has masses of stones i can use to re-build it. Maybe it's time to buy a quad bike and trailer :D

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Also met the builder at a carpenters on Monday. Quality of a few demo units was very good and i was pretty impressed at the general setup and range of doors etc that were available. The joiner seemed quite happy that we already had 99% of the design planned out and could give him exact measurements of everything too which obviously makes his life easier. He can also make the cabinets out of the same wood as the doors and even make the internal doors from the same wood so that would look good if it all matches.
Same with the front door, so i'm finally getting a wooden front door, not quite as ornate as the very impressive hand carved ones but better than a boring white/black one!

We discussed the wardrobes for our walk in wardrobe too and i think the developer has forgotten he said these weren't included as it was just discussed it was all included with only additional cost for the kitchen :D
 
Yep, nice to see progress, I will suspend all the doom and gloom from experiences around Almeria we saw when my parents retired to Spain, so very relieved to see them back on site for you!

Takes a while to get used to the mañana culture/way of life, but it's fairly standard..
 
Demon said:
Yep, nice to see progress, I will suspend all the doom and gloom from experiences around Almeria we saw when my parents retired to Spain, so very relieved to see them back on site for you!

Takes a while to get used to the mañana culture/way of life, but it's fairly standard..
Click to expand...

Haha i think it's always possible. Especially with bigger developers who just run off with a bucket load of cash. This was one of the reasons for using this developer. His reputation is excellent and has lots of family connections in the village (his 2 brothers are renowned bakers around Spain and i think may even have a royal decree for their panettone!) so it felt quite a safe choice. Still been very stressful though. I don't think he's used to clients wanting to be so involved and so it's a learning experience for both sides. He's used us as guinea pigs to find some suppliers he will use with other clients. Ultimately the idea thing for me would've been to project manage the whole thing because that's the level of control i'd usually want, but with the language barrier and having no connections or knowledge of builder quality i'd have struggled massively.

In a shock turn, the builders have actually been on site 2 weeks in a row :eek:

My current confusion is with the way they've built up the foundations. They've said they'll be building up the ground at the far end so it's all level without steps to the front door (the most built up end of the house), however if they're pouring concrete in here, i don't understand why one end of the house would have a 2ft deep concrete slab, yet the bit closest to where i've taken the photo would barely have any concrete slab. Unless they excavate out a bit. Just seems a big cost in concrete when they could've spent a bit more time on leveling out the ground around it.
Just seems a very unusual method. I'm also struggling not to query things which don't make much sense to me, but since i'm not a builder i need to try and take an approach of trusting the process and now questioning everything.

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They've also laid some blocks for the garage. That bit of land was a lot flatter than where the house is going.

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I'd like to think it's not going to be long until we see some actual walls!
 
Martynt74 said:
why one end of the house would have a 2ft deep concrete slab,
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are they precast concrete planks/panels they will install for floor ?
do they provision something for drainage on that higher side aspect that might receive run off - guess if it rains you'll be able to see where that might be.
 
jpaul said:
are they precast concrete planks/panels they will install for floor ?
do they provision something for drainage on that higher side aspect that might receive run off - guess if it rains you'll be able to see where that might be.
Click to expand...

I have no idea. From what i've seen of other builds they usually just pour concrete into the retaining wall they've built. Just seems a weird thing to do

It's rained loads in the last few months. The bulk of the land drains very well. The only issue is on the part where we will have the drive as it dips down a bit. Nothing too bad though and i can remedy it prior to putting gravel down.

In fact you can see how much it's rained by all the weeds which have sprouted everywhere. Especially within the garage which was plain dirt only a month ago! This is causing some issues with our plans. When we came to the land all of last year, it was very dry/barren and i was fine with it being like that until we got to a point we could landscape properly.
From the above picture, after the rain there is now a lot of heather style long grasses absolutely everywhere which has played havoc with my wifes hay fever, i imagine it can also become quite a fire hazard when we eventually get a summer and it all dries out. If we have any future years like this it could be a real concern.
 
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