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We paid what will end up being about 3% of the build cost. 3 stages, survey and prelim drawings; planning application (local RIBA architect, knew planners, edge of conservation area, active town council); building regs drawings, which we pushed them hard on the get the spec we wanted rather than the one they may have done as the norm. No detailed SE calcs, but they made it clear at outset we'd need to source that and likely costs, also outlined in they initial quote other costs (pp and building regs apps etc). Handled NMA as part of package. They also gave us info on local private buiding regs co. and tendered this for us; intro to SAP assesor. Their drawings were then used (provided by them) by the timber frame manufacturer. The gap for us, given that we were/are self managing and were erecting frame, was overlays that combined the SE's (excellent local individual) foundations design with the frame (SE also looked at frame design and steel calcs for his own (and ours!) "peace of mind", all good) and section drawings. All worked out but would have been easier if they had all been on one diagram...certainly for those of us with less "experience".

Illbruck fm 330 is actually as cheap as the nasty rubbish from screwfix if you buy a box of 12 cans. do some google searching and buy a box of it, you will have wished you found it years ago.

I hadn't thought until now, but you are paying £150/m3 for water as well as weakening the concrete and losing the warranty.

And keeping up with the latest regulations and interpretations, and new products, in our own time.

So looks like the jet spray test was a good shout. The coating won't be tough enough to withstand foot traffic. I quite like the raised grain effect it leaves behind, but the finish is too inconsistent to be useable. It's a shame as this is really nice timber.

Don't the modern single block mcb+rcbo units do this, if not why do they have a neutral terminal.

Ask @flanagaj what he paid, then pay more than that. Then you won't have to come here asking questions about basic design stuff, that should be in the drawings already.

@Gus Potter i dont need any project management. I will sort all applications with utilities and highways. All I need is planning and building regs. Plot will be BNG exempt.

Although amended by @Nickfromwales the inverter will have a 13A type plug, to allow it plug directly into a standard wall socket.

Let it be done

They have never been to France then.

Leroy Merlin have the same models here in France too. Lidl are selling an even cheaper 800W version here, though it has mixed reviews: Maybe because UK RCBOs & circuit breakers are still, AFAIK, single pole (i.e. they cut only the live, not the neutral)? European circuit breakers are always double pole, which are safer than single pole under certain conditions*. So switching off the RCBO may leave all circuits with a live potential if the PV panels has been plugged into a reverse-wired socket, while the user thinks it's been isolated? *so, in Europe, there's also no need for isolating switches next to extractor fans, ovens & other fixed appliances.

Erm....expense? A few £10's at most. It's a totally different foam, which will be void of honeycombing etc, so buy cheaper foam if you wish, but "seriously!?".

On balance the chances are that provided you did not add too much water then your founds will be ok. For all. I reported on foundations in a dispute that was about to go to court. It was an extension that had been badly built, BC got involved and asked me to verify as an SE that the founds / concrete stength was ok with the added water.. I got the concrete delivery ticket and eventually found out just how much water had been added to the mix. I then had to back calculate the reduction in concrete stength with the added water and show the founds would still be ok. In this case I could. In laymans terms if you add water it means there is less cement / aggregate per cubic metre. It's like say dense hardwood with lots of cellulose, small cells compared with softwood with larger cells and less cellulose matrix. A hard wood has more "stuff" thus stronger. The same principle roughly applies to concrete. The mechanics work a bit like this. Below is me taking a chart, working out the change in what we call the water to cement ratio and arriving at a reduced concrete strength. And the spot mix ticket looked like this in 2022.

For less than 1.0% you must have got the most basic service which is not for all. Can you let us know just what you got for your 1%?

Two good suggestions there, thank you! I take it you agree it's worth sorting, rather than ignoring. I guess the squirty foam might be easier. Getting the osb off, having already been thoroughly taped up would be difficult. The tape tends to rip the green layer off. Is all expanding foam equal? Not sure whether the expense of the illbruck airtightness foam is necessary, being on the outside of the airtight layer?

Food for thought: Another way of approaching this is to ask. What would it cost you to get a washing machine repair Engineer? Say £50- 60 quid an hour? Ok they have a "down time" that they don't get paid for as they may be at your house for an hour then have to drive to the next job, but someone has to pay for that. Now typical rates for a structural engineer working under the IR35 scheme in the UK are about £350 to £500 a day, equates to £45 - £70 an hour as they get paid for a full 8 hour day. Much depends on experience! Go to a self employed SE/ Architectural Designer like me who has no employees then the rates are about the same except that I have overheads. These are primarily my software, my PI insurance and admin costs. Admin / business generating costs. Admin is admin, I pay an accountant, have to keep records, a secure data base etc.. but quite a lot of time is spent generating business that a contractor under IR 35 does not have to do. Turning now to say a small Architect practice with four or five employees that are innovative, expanding and so on. The overheads shoot up, often dramatically. How long is the string? Well it has no end. This is a summary for sake of conversation. It used to be in the old days that say Architect's, Engineers, Surveyors got a percentage of the build cost. But as the market got more competetive and folk like say MBC timber frame (the list is endless) came along and offered a design service then the main designers.. like Architect's, SE's just shifted part of the design work onto them. Now all that worked ok for a bit.. but now it's got to the stage where the lack of coordination is really causing problems. This is not helped by TV programmes ect that often suggest you can pick builder and design sevices like something off a barber shop menu and it will all be ok at the end of the day. My take: It's vitally important to understand what you designer is offering. Not just in terms of say doing a few drawings but also their understanding of how the design process works practically and how you go about communication to and finding the right builder. . I find that often once I explain this "added value" then many are happy to pay for a service that includes much more than drawings and some structural calculations. In the round once you become a competant designer then the rest is down to communication.. which is a skill in itself. 2% of a build cost for an Architect Take a house extension at 100k.. you won't get much for your two thousand pounds. take a new build at 300k with all the work that goes along with that, dealing with the roads, environments, water board.. all that stuff all for 6.0k. Just maybe but I would not do it as I know I would have to cut corners.. which will come back to bite eveyone. Quite often these days I break down my quotes / estimates into how long I'll spend on each element of the design. I'll maybe say.. two days to survey the site, at £xx amount per hour and so on. I find Clients embrace my transparency. It is very rare that they come back and say my hourly or daily rate is too high. In the round I don't think applying a percentage fee cost works anymore.. you have to be much more streetwise.

We had quotes from £3k to well over £50k for ours… the RIBA architects at the top end were far too interested in telling us how wonderful they were and generally wanted to build the house they wanted, whereas the one we eventually chose (around £4k, which is <1% of build cost) listened, understood and delivered exactly what we wanted. We’d probably have been happy with 2% of build cost, but some were nudging 10% which is surely insane unless it’s a really complicated design 🤷🏻‍♂️

When I weighed it up for my job it worked out marginally cheaper per cube for wagons/volumetric. The part load charge tipped it over the the balance so less than 6 cube volumetric was cheaper because you don’t pay part load on the make-up. My builder called the first load in (volumetric) and the concrete co. Invoiced him rather than me. I saw his rate was a good bit cheaper than mine and paid up tipping the balance to volumetric all the way! Whenever I called it in myself thereafter I got his rate From then on, volumetric was cheaper no matter what the call off!

He'll be dead from worry before the concrete has set! An extra 200mm of concrete will have zero impact here. Mountain vs molehill. I dread to think what'll happen when you have to choose paint

Drill a dozen 6mm holes and pump it full of "PIR in a can", eg Illbruck foam <20 mins per window, job done

In Spain you can buy this in Leroy Merlin, so like walking out of B and Q with a system. And this is an upmarket one for pretty houses. Below this an obv very simple one showing a panel and a plug. Plug and Play it says. 450W

Could you remove the airtight board and fit 25mm celotex? Roof colour looks nice 👍🏻

The cellulose insulation was pumped into pur larsen truss frame last week. The installer noted that at each velux window there is a small-ish gap between the head and foot trimmers and the airtightness board about 25mm. Not possible to pump cellulose into such a shallow void. There is insulation behind the trimmers, of course. The TF company have dismissed the gap as "too small to have any impact"...I'm disinclined to accept that when chasing marginal gains in Passive type builds this is a reasonable thing to ignore. Am I being unreasonable? If not, suggestions for a solution?

What model of fiat would that be, a Panda 4x4?