Substantial breasts

Heard back from the planners yesterday.  No real concerns over our last sketch - except that they don't like the 'substantial' chimney breast, which they think obstructs the openness of the interior, and they'd like to see some elevations.  Back to the sketching board.

Also met the architect and structural engineer on site this morning.  The good news is .... well the bad news is our walls are pretty unsound, and the neighbour's tree against our back wall is a willow, and our soil is probably clay, which together give the worst combination for subsidence or heave and structural damage.  The options?  We could take out that willow, and probably another one in the centre of our neighbour's courtyard ('cos they can affect buildings up to 40m away!), then wait 6-12 months for the ground to regain it's natural moisture content before building - but of course to remove the trees requires our neighbour's consent, and he's already being awkward on removing one, never mind two.  Or we could pay more for a piled foundation below the raft to get below the willow roots - then the bl**dy trees can stay there.  If that's the answer, then the rogue fence can be put in it's correct position, and we'll have those few metres of our garden back.

Mind you, if we're not on clay it's not such a problem, so first we have to dig some deep trial pits, probably inside the barn, to establish our soil type.

We also need a proper survey inside and out to determine proposed floor levels, then to dig some holes inside the perimeter to find out whether the stone walls are founded deep enough (probably not is my guess).  It might even be sensible to remove up to a metre of the soil from inside the barn at this stage, since it has to be done anyway.

So it looks like we need to get a digger in - and it can take out our willow stump while it's there.  That will probably be in January now, maybe even February, after the levels survey and planning application have been done and whilst we're waiting for approval - assuming we can get that in by end Jan.

You can see how the weeks slip by on these projects.