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General

driveway

Driveway to Darkness - Part 1

After following others journeys into the self build world for years, it looks like I'm finally about to embark on my own after several soft starts. The first major work is to realign the driveway and I've opted for paved over other styles and to do most of it myself. I got a driver & digger to take up the concrete driveway and grass and pile it up and hired a grab truck to take it all away. Less than two days later I was left with a barren front garden! Since then I've been figuring out a fe
layout and catch pit details

The 4 phases from Rainwater to flushing the loo

We use 4 phases from rainwater to flushing the loo with it and they are:   Collecting, separating and storing in bulk tank. Fine filtering and storing in barrel. filling the gravity tank in the loft Filling the cistern   This is not the only system that is possible but one that works with our property limitations. This design and its controls take into account freezing conditions. We use two 12V pumps run from batteries and PV.  
Amenity timber frame.

Amenity Block - Part one

To finish my 22 days on site. I started timber framing, decided to start on the amenity block, as this will initially be for our washing machine and dryer, plus some storage.  My aim was to get water tight -ish. before I had to get home for the weekend.  The poly tunnel (constructed this visit) - is my cutting shed, I set up my chop saw and worked to my cut list.   This was proof of concept on my build plans, and it needed tweaking, the roof to wall junction has been modified and will
Cabin Foundations

Cabin Foundations and the Amenity block.

My dual roles for the first 10 days of the June / July trip was to get ready for concreting.  This breaks down into two slab / raft foundations for the Cabins, 1 slab for the amenity block, and some backfilling of the treatment plant, and while I'm at it, concrete for the Polycarbonate Polly tunnel. another blog to follow.   In my opinion, the structural calculations for the slab rafts were well over engineered. the slabs will be ground bearing (rock) foundation and thinner slab,
Drainage Part1

Drainage Part 1

Wednesday 26th June, I spent most of this day travelling, in my van and my two helpers for the next few weeks.   The trip is 433 miles door to door, the goal before the boss arrives for 9 days was to  get the caravan (home) connected to the treatment plant. plus get ready for concrete. other blogs to follow.   To connect the Static I needed to install the treatment plant, install some of the drainage for the pods, confirm with BC he is happy and basically crack on with
Rainwater

Rainwater harvesting DIY overview

This info relates to a DIY rainwater harvesting system, not a commercial system, and therefore the water must not be drunk!     You should be careful using rainwater not to mix it with mains (Potable) Water as it is not suitable to drink and you could poison your house supply! To be clear birds poo on your roof and then it rains.  However there are ways to elevate the problem in a DIY system so there is no smell or colour problems but it still cannot be drunk!    You should n
Energy meter

The energy meter experiment

I am not sure how well it works yet, but it works in trivial cases i.e. a 40 W lightbulb and my fridge (once I had stopped stray morning light).  I am going to ask my neighbours if I can pop the Photo Diode on their meter as I don't want to stop the one that is already logging mine. What would be good is if others, who have a lot more knowledge and skills than me (I am really just a chancer than fiddles about till it seems to work) could improve and add to it. Things that would be nice
To build again?

Revisiting my blog

Two christmases have passed since I wrote the last entry here and we’re well into another year. The last few weeks have seen us discussing the possibility of another build and I decided to reread this blog in the hope of putting myself off the idea! The land next to us which has planning for 5 houses is beginning to move and the first house will be going up soon, I spent half an hour a couple of weeks ago chatting to the chap who’s going to be building and could feel the excitement brewing in me
Side Extension

Finally got started on the extension!

So after 2 years since the planning permission was granted, and a 2month delay from the builders I'm finally underway on what will be the last major building work on this bungalow.                   Having real trouble finding a joiner who's available to do the roof, so I may end up having to do that myself. The one bit i'm unsure on having never done a lean-to roof before, the wood plate which goes
driveway

June 2022: Patio & Finding an Engineer

While I was uncertain about ever getting to build my new house I decided to hire some plant and build a patio out in the back garden of my existing house. It will allow me to sit out in the morning, absorb the sunshine and ponder things! I found some nice 40x40 concrete flagstones and edged them in and finally grouted them yesterday. They need a cleanup and a wash and I've to fix the drainage in one spot but otherwise it's done! The experience will also come in handy as I'll explain shortly. 
Try again

30th May 2022

Well 6 months on and once again the only progress is paid work. After all the disappointment over the issues we have been pretending that it's not happening.   We came up with a list of options.   Give up totally and clear the site  Return the barn to stables Sell as it is Sell barn and our house so we don't have to watch someone else do what we wanted to do. Hand over to a building company even though we can't really afford to. Try and progress
Static Arrival

The road to a static caravan and services.

The next stage of the setup of the site took place over the last 3 weeks. with some good progress. The trip up North, 433mile from our current rental in the NW of England. I set off on Wednesday morning in the 7.5T truck, and the 2 dogs for company.  I took some materials with me, and had a gut feeling I was overloaded. I had worked out the approx. weight of what  I was taking, but was unsure of the TARE weight of the truck. so I didn't take all I was planning.  Luckily the nice guys from V
Basement

Basement UFH and Screed

I had a few spare minutes on this lovely sunny Sunday evening and decided to spend it writing up a blog post for our basement UFH install and screed.   We have a 250mm reinforced concrete slab sitting on top of 200mm EPS300 in the basement. The slab wasn’t very flat and so we decided to use a cement based liquid screed to give us a nice level base for our finished flooring. So we put down 25mm of PIR to level things out and also to allow the UFH pipes to be stapled to. I did some quick
planning condition

Finally - Planning Condition Submission Accepted!!

There were two obstacles blocking me from proceeding with my build. After finding a professional who could sign off the compliance paperwork (I couldn't afford the Architect) I had a boundary issue which I agreed with a neighbour to resolve and then I had to add a window to the plans and submit them for approval before I could lodge a commencement notice and get going.    Issue 1: When the house was built years ago a hedge was planted at 90 degrees to the house fronts but the land
PV energy use

Working on reducing mains power by best use of PV (without batteries).

Having now had a 5.12kW system running for about 6 months, usage seems to be forming a pattern. It appears we are buying an average of about 11kW a day so 28p times 11 times 365 days means a bill of about £1,200 including vat and daily charge etc (This includes charging the EV but see below). We are trying to improve this without becoming anal about it.   When you consider that our PV system realistically reaches, about 5kW max (due to orientation and roof angle) and about 1kW on a goo
Oak window cill

Oak, oak, oak , it robs me blind but i like my oak

Ordered some Window cills and door linings. Had a quick discussion with the carpenters "What do you want to use for door linings and window Cills" "what are the options" "well , you could use anything- plastic , painted or stained Pine , Cills from stone - but if it was me,m i probably would put oak - you spent a lot of time and effort on the bl%$&y thing so would be a shame to now start penny pinching on the parts that you really can see" "well , i guess oak it is t
Rainfuel

After the dust has settled

Well there has been a lot of comments and generally it seems that I am wasting my time. Thank you posters.😒    However I am struggling to obtain any information on which ways, and what designs, would produce what power. Can anyone point me to technical data that I can hopefully understand so I can see that the idea is dead in the water (so to speak)?   Otherwise, its controlled experiments, which have to be done big scale to try and reduce the errors.(I can see sheets of OSB
Theory

Another type of wind use.

Yes we all agree the challenges regard domestic wind turbines: too small to produce the power or too big to get permission and so on, so let move on...   My wife often comments that it's very windy here and we have been thinking of how to utilise the wind to produce electricity when we came across these ideas:       The first thing to be done is to work out the direction and wind speed on top of our roof to see if this is at all practical. 

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