Everything went well this week.  We got the two new man holes in and all the pipe work connected back up.  Wayne joined Stu and me on the Thursday and we made a start on digging out the footings.  We were filling up the skips quicker than we could get them exchanged, which slowed us up a little bit.  We had the footings dug out and ready for inspection by the Building Inspector on the Friday afternoon.  The concrete was provisionally booked for Monday, I liaised with David from EH Smith the builders merchants to have our first delivery of materials on the Tuesday.  All we needed was the thumbs up from the Building Inspector, but we got a thumbs down instead.  Unfortunately due to the conifers and bushes that had been in the garden prior to their clearance, there were a few roots on show in the footings.  The Inspector advised us to dig down another 500mm below the lowest roots, remove the conifers and their stumps that ran near to the footings to the rear of the extension.  We would also have to change from a concrete slab foundation to a block and beam construction.

All this was over and above the original architect’s specification.  So I advised the clients as to why the extra work was required, and I then put in writing the additional costs before proceeding with the work.  The concrete order was put on hold, and David immediately altered our materials delivery.  He also got straight onto the phone to his block and beam supplier to forward our specification and get a price and arrange a delivery time and date.  So within an hour of the Building Inspectors decision, the specification was revised and a new work schedule was put into place, and new delivery dates were scheduled for the following week for our new materials.  All that Stu and I had to do was dig out by hand, another 500mm of earth for the footings as we could no longer get the digger into position.  Oh joy!