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Blogs

Contemporary Ball Ache

Floor joist installation

So, I’ve spent the last 4 days installing the posi joists and getting a temporary 18mm OSB platform down for the brickies who will start the upstairs blockwork next week.  I was probably naive in thinking that posi joists would be dead straight.  So a lot of time was spent, trying to pull them flat via strong backs and also concrete screws.   unsure about the jointing plates on the upper cord or the restraining straps as these will surely get in the way of sitting the chipboard floorin
Back on the self-build waggon...

After this years extreme heat...

I decided I had to do something to combat the eventual indoor overheating which didn't involve installing air conditioning, this may be needed at some point if temperatures keep rising but i'd rather keep it as a last resort.   I've been using all of the usual tricks in the book, opening everything up when its cooler outside than in, and shutting everything up during the day, which worked as well as it could, the bungalow is pretty well insulated so this strategy worked in the most par
North Yorkshire New Build

Planning approved!

Our planning application was finally approved yesterday!   When we bought the plot it already had planning on it, so our application was a variation to change the design. We submitted it in February 2026 and it was finally approved in October 2026. Annoyingly we just had a long series of stupid delays.   The planning officer didn't even seem to start looking at our application until May-ish. Then she requested a few changes regarding window symmetry and wanted us to
Contemporary Ball Ache

Finally. Some positive progress

So after 6 months of delay due to one shoddy bricklayer and another one who was shoddy with a massive 'I'm the best' ego, it is finally third time lucky and the two guys we waited 6 weeks to start, take pride in their work and are really approachable when you want to ask a question or raise an issue.  Just how it should be. Being behind is a pain though, as it will mean I will be cutting the roof and installing the standing seam roofing most likely in November.  But so long as it doesn't ge
Square Feat

Form factor

This month I've been working to figure out the form factor of the house I will build.  The options were:   2 storey  1.5 storey with dormers 1.5 storey with Veluxes 1.5 storey with mezzanine 1 storey with vaulted ceiling 1 storey with flat ceiling   Local planning vernacular is for 1.5 storey with dormers, which I really don't want to build. The dormers are expensive to construct, feel pokey inside and are tricky to detail for airtightn
The Old Cow Shed

Kitchen installed and bathroom almost done.

Weeks 91 to 105   In May we started in the Bathroom.  It took us almost a month to first fix plumbing inc wet room former, create stud wall behind sink and toilet, plasterboard, tape and joint and then paint.  By mid June David handed the bathroom over to me and I was dry laying the floor tiles out it took me a while as you may remember the plant room floor was the first floor I had ever tiled and I was about to cut larger, heavier, more expensive and diagonal cuts, Oh and it was a wet
The Old Cow Shed

Open plan vaulted kitchen, dinner and lounge plastered.

Weeks 75 to 90     The plasters have finished the open plan vaulted area and it’s given us the boost to get going again in other areas.   At the opposite end of the building is the plant room, this was the first room we started work on to enable the solar to be installed. I’m back in here to tile the floor and since it’s the first floor I have ever tiled I am very happy with it. I have left the service penetrations until all the services are in, we currently have tempora
Contemporary Ball Ache

Heidelberg Easyflow 😂

So after Cemex failed to add micro fibres to our last batch of self compacting concrete and their subsequent lack of interest in sending out a tech chap to look at the plastic shrinkage or help remediate their error, i decided to take my custom elsewhere.  Heidelberg and their ‘Easyflow SCC’ to be precise.     I stood momentarily in shock, ignorantly thinking.  “Maybe it’s magic stuff and it will suddenly turn into the porridge consistency it should be”.  Hence to say.  Said magic never h
Square Feat

Offer and Acceptance

I've now reached the happy place of 'offer and acceptance' for my subject-to-planning offer which in Scottish legal parlance means that we have a bargain and timescale agreed. I wanted 12 months to complete planning, the seller offered 3 and we compromised on 9.  So I now have until April next year to get the planning I am happy with before I have to pay for the plot and take ownership of it.  We've also agreed that if my application is stuck in the planning process through no fault of my own th
North Yorkshire New Build

No three-phase for us!

We were quite keen to get three-phase because it gives us more options for AC installs and solar/battery set ups. We just got our 3-phase quote back and it came in at ~£150k lol. 🤦‍♀️   Annoyingly, three-phase is actually very near to our plot. The issue is that it's some kind of old set up they're not allowed to provision anymore, so they'd have to upgrade a ton of stuff. And since we don't "need" 3-phase we'd have to foot the bill for all those works.   Anyway, moving on!
Contemporary Ball Ache

Ground Bearing Slab (Day ? too many to count)

I love the sunny weather, but sometimes it really is hard work being out there from 8am to 6pm.  Today’s task was supposed to have been finishing the Radon membrane on the garage, laying the XPS 300 insulation and then finishing the remaining slab prep in the house.  As always, I over estimate one’s ability.  Thankfully, I have a good boss who is ok with me taking days off at very short notice.  So I have to get this finished tomorrow.  Install vcl on top of insulation, lay mesh and then finish
Contemporary Ball Ache

Hard graft, but can see the finish

Block and beam?  No!  Ground bearing slabs.  A decision that has given me sleepless nights and resulted in some serious hard graft.  We had 60 ton (that’s what we were told 🤔) of Type 1 MOT delivered and had to then proceed to get into the bays and levelled up, before compacting it.  The brickie was an arse as he should have stopped building and said “get your hardcore in and laid”.  His work was rather shit, so I knocked some of it down to enable me to get a dumper in distribute the piles to ma
Da Bungalow

Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda…

And yes, that title is a nod to the wisdom of the Beverley Knight song.  But it also applies to self building, methinks.   [Health Warning: The following diatribe focuses on the 2% that’s not gone perfectly, and risks massively underplaying the 99% which has gone right.  But maybe that focus is what makes selfbuild what it is, and why for normal people, it just doesn’t add up.]   We are now in, living at no. 11.   Well, not this exact moment in fact.  Right now we are cooking
Contemporary build in north Dorset

Bonus edition - Garden landscaping

Back by popular demand! (Well, one person asked.)   I said the previous blog was my last.  I lied.  This bonus edition focuses our efforts to landscape the garden.   Just before we moved in in February the rear ‘garden’ looked a bit like this:     Fortunately, we’d stayed close enough to the build budget to have some funds still reserved for landscaping.  It turns out that landscaping is expensive - similar costs to groundworks in our experience.  
Little Stud Barn

We're doomed doomed

I seem to use this blog to complain all the time about what goes wrong. And yet, it happened again. The weather was improving so it should have been full steam ahead, but as DIY builders life gets in the way.   This time I became ill, my gall bladder exploded,  started on a Saturday afternoon an by the following Thursday nothing had been improved. Turns out ambulances only come out for heart attacks so we had to make our own way to the hospital. Then the queue was 7
Square Feat

Starting the conversation

I’m totally agnostic but I think there is something in the bible about ‘thoughts becoming flesh’ and the dangers thereof. I’ve seen this concept given a positive spin by motivational gurus and I think there’s something to the idea that by thinking about something enough we can cause things to start to happen. You are just much more likely to make the appropriate choices that will lead you along the required path if your head is already in that space. The next step which creates a very scary mome
South East Cornwall Low Energy build

Slow progress towards a new home

Well, it's been nearly 9 months since we moved in, and I didn't leave a list last time, so here are the parts of the last list that still needed work. As you will see there still remains a lot of stuff to do. You'll soon learn why they're still here 😞    more stone work - still on the list but much reduced rainwater soakaways - still on the list rainwater collection system - decided after deliberating a lot to leave this out for now as it's not a condition backf
Square Feat

Due Dil

I've spent the last few days carrying out some desktop due diligence on the plot I want to buy. I thought I would detail it here in case it helps anyone else on their plot buying journey in Scotland.   I've accessed as much information as I possibly can about the plot from the following sources. Most were free, but two were paid. In total I have spent £9.60 on this.    ScotLIS - Scotland's land registry. You can search the index for free and may glean some information, but
The Fun Irish (House)

Internal Finish - Upstairs!

Decided to buy the materials I need to finish the direct surround of my house before Diesel shortages and goodness knows what else takes hold!  50+m2 of paving blocks, 3 tons of paving grit and a full load of type 2 MOT to spread around the house next month!! I plan to get bound resin for the driveway, either do it myself or pay someone (£150 per square meter though and 50 m2 so 7.5K and thats with me doing all the edging and subbase prep!!).  Still there's a couple of wheelbarro
Square Feat

In the beginning.....

Hey everyone.  I've been a forum member for a number of years as a renovator of properties in Scotland.  I joined with the goal of one day building my own house but as happens to many, this has been postponed and pushed back many times.  In the interim I have really enjoyed reading your blogs and posts and I have learned an enormous amount about self-building.  I am now at the point where my ducks are sufficiently in a row to embark upon my own self-build, which is scary but very exciting. I've
Contemporary Ball Ache

Onwards and upwards

After the debacle of the last builder, who just couldn’t admit his work was rough, I decided to get https://www.tmcoatesjcbplanthire.co.uk/ back in to dig down the oversite ready for the next brickie that we have managed to get on board.  Tim is an absolute legend and goes above and beyond when it comes to excavation tasks!   here is a picture of our site (I’ve demolished the abomination left by the last incumbent)    
Little Stud Barn

wet, wet, wet, cold, wet, cold, slow build anyway, but delayed even more

As a literal self builder everything delays us, but we continue to slog away. There is a field where the footpath is going past our build as the farmer won't  clear the proper one. But, you know you are progressing when the church people on the palm Sunday walk all commented on how much we've done.   Since my last update last summer (remember that - heat) when it looked like this.       It now looks like this       We had a
Da Bungalow

Happy anniversary darling…

Should I even call you darling?   Probably not, but as you (not you specifically, sitting there in your ‘should have been put in the wash weeks ago’ dressing gown, I mean the buildhub fraternity) have been so great a moral support I can’t help feeling some degree of affection.     Anyway, there’s no chance of me drawing breath this week, or any week till we move out of the ice box (AKA rental - and thats the polite version, I now have a dif

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