Spain House Build - Building Started

Martynt74 said:
:( Sorry to hear that. Glad to hear that things are looking positive and caught early etc. Are you likely to get insurance for short trips/holidays etc or is that also out the window?
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Once I get through the chemo I think it should be fine. Price will likely be higher but not prohibitive.

Plan now will be to probably wait till I hit official retirement age and then get the S1 which covers health insurance for Spain. Not ideal but needs must :)
 
jpaul said:
since it was on the tv last night Ray Winstones discourse on why he moved to Spain (some swearing) - have you refrained from Sky sub/vpn so far ?

England vs Spain​

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Haha we watched the tv remake of that recently which then prompted us to watch the film.

We’ve got a vpn. Mainly for Netflix stuff but also my wife still watches quite a bit of UK telly. Never bothered with Sky though.
 
Progress started! Hopefully the thread can start moving along a little quicker now!

Outline drawn for the Garage. Not sure whether to get them to shift to the left a bit, but ultimately the patio doors wouldn't be blocked by the Olive tree either way
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Actual driveway so we don't have to park at the edge :D
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Area for the house levelled off. They've put some markings for the actual house, but it's a little to the left vs where i had initially thought. Might try and meet them when they're next there to shift it
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More updates! Got these from the developer. So the foundations have started to be dug. This pretty much ensures we can't re-position the house, but with a bit of landscaping it's not a problem. Just need to create a more level platform at the rear of the house as at the moment there's a ~2ft drop 3m from the back door.


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What was the reasoning for placement? Presumably something drove the decision. Easy fix in the grand scheme of things I guess! Exciting times.
 
dlockers said:
What was the reasoning for placement? Presumably something drove the decision. Easy fix in the grand scheme of things I guess! Exciting times.
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Placement as in on the whole plot or the specific placement?

Placement in relation to the whole plot was mainly to keep privacy (it's around the middle between the 2 access roads) and then also it was on the elevated section to ensure no flooding risks vs where we initially wanted it. This spot was also more level than other sections.

Specific placement of the house? I think probably a little bit of mis-communication. We'd met the builders on site and explained the location and direction of the placement. This is 99% the right spot. I think i'd have just shifted it a couple meters. As you say it's not a big issue because we can just backfil the gap. Using my superb Paint skills. The red bit is the house, and the yellow marking is where there's a drop. We just need to rip out the shrub and backfil to create a level section behind the house to pull the car up.

The beauty of the plot size, as you can see is that the house takes up such a small percentage than it's easy to adjust anything!

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Yeah placement of the house. Worth asking them to whack the stuff they dig out there?
 
dlockers said:
Yeah placement of the house. Worth asking them to whack the stuff they dig out there?
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Yeah. Already told the builder to keep everything they excavate as the whole plot is wavey and in time I want to even it up.

Although my other request was it was ok to rip up shrubs but not to rip up any of the old Olive trees and there’s already one ripped out!
 
Josh said:
Such a nice view, very jealous. Looking forward to seeing the next few updates
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Yeah, was genuinely difficult to chose the direction of the house because you could make an argument for all 4 directions! Personally i'd have rotated 90 degrees and faced down the valley towards the big mountains in the distance because the sunset casts them in an amazing pink light. However the size of the plot and general openness means we can just have a few different seating areas (i dread the cost of furniture!)
 
( Need a live web-cam - to record the build )

foundation depth 600mm odd ? perhaps expecting deeper 3ft, but the ground looks solid untouched by any winter rainfall ,

guess pool + sceptic tank will be the big volumes , do they wait to allow good access for house build.
will you do anything with soil to create any kind of peripheral drainage setup.
 
Not much has moved on, but i did head up and get pictures of the entire footings. I think it might be too cold to pour the concrete as it's hitting zero degrees over night. The plus side is we went for tea with the estate agents the other week as we get on well with them and they'd been speaking to the builder the week before who said he's targeting June as a handover date. I'll be surprised if that happens but won't complain! I was assuming October!

Crazy how small a house looks when it's like this. I know it's not the biggest house, but the bedroom barely looks big enough for a double bed!

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What is a shame, and i guess it comes down to the benefit of having a bigger budget and being able to design your own house. My dad has a colleague who lives very close to where i'm building. I've been chatting to him and he designed his house from scratch and engineering these things into the foundations to create an air system to keep a nice constant floor temperature with air flow under the house. No cold feet on tiles for him!
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jpaul said:
( Need a live web-cam - to record the build )

foundation depth 600mm odd ? perhaps expecting deeper 3ft, but the ground looks solid untouched by any winter rainfall ,

guess pool + sceptic tank will be the big volumes , do they wait to allow good access for house build.
will you do anything with soil to create any kind of peripheral drainage setup.
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Missed this. Live web cam would be awesome. I did consider buying a drone. It's 7.5km from my rental house to the building plot if you went in a straight line. However there is also a mountain range in the way so not sure whether it'd make it over that!
www.strava.com

Pink house to La Romana | 7.7 km Walking Route on Strava

Pink house to La Romana is a 7.7 km Walking Route. Discover this route and more at Strava. Visit today!
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There's also the question of what i do with it after because i don't really have an interest in flying it otherwise.

Yeah, foundations are smaller than i'd have expected, but as you say it's very solid ground and i guess with a concrete slab maybe you don't need depth. What is odd is that they've not excavated for the garage/pool/septic tank. I'd have thought they'd do everything together
 
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