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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj9xe09jz4eo https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/sep/04/jackdaw-gasfield-set-to-be-approved-by-ministers-this-month-sources-say Looks like the government is going to approve Jackdaw and Rosebank. We shall be back to 1p kWh gas and probably under £1 liter of petrol before Christmas! /S Well that's what you'd think if you listened to the bosses of those projects. "Chris O'Shea, the boss of British Gas owner Centrica, said any additional domestic gas supply would reduce Britain's reliance on imported fossil fuels, "so it's got to be good"..." But then he tries the pull off the impressive feat of making an argument that he fatally undermined earlier in the same sentence .. "He told the BBC's Today programme: "It wouldn't lower the cost materially, but basic economics would tell you that if you've got a fixed demand for a product and you increase the supply, the price should move." So it won't do anything but basic economics says it will? There is much trumpeting that the gas field will produce, at it's peak, 6% of UK gas output - which opponents point out is only 2% of the UKs actual gas use. It would be really interesting to see exactly what the treasury outcome is in all of this. I know there will be some tax collected but that has to be set against the tax write-offs that this project will enable companies to utilise. I have seen various takes that place the final outcome anywhere from a few billion met revenue for the treasury over the lifetime to a few billion net loss. What would also be interesting would be how much an equivalent saving in gas would cost ie how much would we need to spend driving insulation, heat pumps etc to achieve an equivalent drop in UK gas consumption? IIRC turning down your thermostat reduces your gas consumption by about 10%. So Jackdaw is equivalent to 1 in 5 people turning their thermostat down by 1C.

Just got my reply - apparently the description ‘building materials’ for some of the invoices that contained multiple items from builders merchants was too vague. So they want more detailed descriptions and now I’m back to the end of the queue again.

I wonder why, even with the Sentinel X100 inhibitor, that the system has scaled up so much! Did you top up the inhibitor after each fill/top-up?

Amazon have a 'best price' policy. So that stops the traders selling bellow the Amazon price and also stops genuine bargains. Online trading is not for small sellers any more.

did I type that? sorry. btw that will be a litre of water or so over 25m2 of screed so it will dry in 1 or 2 days. It's one of these strange anomalies, that floorers want the screed to be ultra dry but will then happily paint it with a water based liquid, diluted up to 1:4. I think the instructions say 'allow it to dry'.

ST don't allow building over for new detached structures if the sewer is 300mm dia or more. They may have been more flexible for an extension eating into the working area either side of the pipe. Thames Water for instance will not allow new works over their larger sewers but will allow extensions to existing dwellings. The neighbour may have applied for permission for the extension and have been granted it subject to conditions. The garage could have of course been done on the fly or before any stricter policy has been brought in. You will have some idea as to the depth of the sewer from the neighbour's experience. You could try an application stressing the nature of the building, the depth of the sewer and agreeing to remove the structure if major sewer works are required (and that's pretty unlikely unless it's your works that have caused it).

I can see the merit in what you're trying to propose but I can't see the Amazon concept scaling to things like housebuilding. I imagine what you're offering is a marketplace where vendors will advertise their designs, and then buyers will come along and choose one that seems to get good reviews, they can see pics, talk to people etc before taking the plunge. And your platform takes a cut for connecting buyers and sellers together. The things to keep in mind are that self builds and the trades associated with them tend to be generally hyperlocal, the whole process is also intensely personalised. The people undertaking self builds are doing so because they don't like the identikit designs offered by volume developers, or they don't like the quality - so they're prepared to put up with the cost, hassle, time, effort, blood, sweat, tears and everything else that comes with the process. There is merit in making that process easier but a large part of that pain comes from the regulatory environment which you'd have no control over. The free market generally sorts out everything outside of that.

Sounds very scary. Makes me wonder which contractor has gone missing.

It's only fair to say that we don't know the relative skills or responsibilities of these consultants, and that the second one was not responsible for the main design, and may have had an equally acceptable proposal if they had been. There was not zero cost in stiffening the building with ply or osb, and a wind post might have been a good option IF incorporated from the outset.

Agreed, but it will be treated with the official blue primer and we might even preprime it with diluted unibond (myst remeber to give it tomd to dry) , and it will no longer be a porous, potentially dusty surface, but a very compact and tight surface I've never seen tiles or timber flooring float off the floor as gravity is useful. Might be otherwise with vinyl. I do realise why the floorers want this. Screeding contractors aren't always very skilled. Screed is overworked producing the laitence. Often there are tram lines and dimples, hollows and humps. Often the screed is recent or otherwise damp. Floorers don't know the difference between gypsum screed and concrete. Treating is added business. I'd be cautious too if it was my trade. But I've had this discussion on maybe 30 projects, and I've signed a disclaimer when required. My risk but several £k x 30 on the right side of the margin. My risk, my money. Lucky 30 times? No, it has always been a considered decision on a quality floor. If it was my client's money I'd make the same decision.

Show me please. "Should" is not a requirement. The 'trade' saying it is required doesn't count either. I'm not doing it anyway because it is very hard and would be an utter waste of money.

I'd be surprised. Clay should dig neatly so the concrete goes in efficiently. Also there are usually nasty extras with piling: mobilisation cost, hardstanding, muck arising from some methods, pile caps. Small fruit trees and pines don't need 2m deep trenches. Plus the closest distance does not apply to the whole building so can all be different depths.

Conifers at 10m are unlikely to be an issue but your designer will confirm that formally for the bco.

Ive never had 106 before just an email from local BCO saying in his experience local clay ground unsuitable for soakaway. Severn Trent accepted this. I think my conc was about 900 below ffl. Then 3 course block and 3 brick. For drainage and block and beam flooring etc

Thanks for all your replies - wow! it has certainly sparked much discussion. This response from Mpx is particularly useful as these are all barriers that i'm hoping the venture can help overcome eventually. For now though, my platform concept is simply an online marketplace/showroom for MMC builds - think of it like Amazon for homes. Users can select from a variety of customisable models, all of which have been user-reviewed and quality-assured, etc... Please note this is just the initial offering; I would plan to evolve it over time to help smooth out all the hurdles noted in MPx post. I would be interested in getting your thoughts on the initial Markeplace concept?

The vendor got consent (with S106). It’s on a road with the other back land developments so precedent has been set. Presumably not full fill trenches otherwise doesn’t concrete cost eventually overtake piling? Maybe I am worrying too much about the trench depth.

Did you get consent for storm to sewer easy enough? Our next place has clay ground. Last time I built near there they let me send storm into the combined due to ground conditions. Our site currently has a garage with an existing connection which I'm assuming is into combined. I was chatting to a guy at a firm i did some work for the other week. I think these engineers err on the side of caution now they're not happy with 1 years cycle to restore the ground. This thread is one to watch for me. Our new plot is similar. We have clay ground. There are 5 apple trees I've cut down. 2 on the building line or within it, 3 just outside. I'm pretty confident we're going to go with trench fill foundations. I've gone as deep as 2.2 previously. I will get a plasticity test done on some samples when I have the site cleared. My understanding is 2 holes. 1 near trees with 3 samples at 1m,2m and 3m. Then one away from the trees. Give these results to engineer to see if medium or high plasticity.

My self build journey, to illustrate how things have become harder. First self build 2003. Moving from England to the Highlands. A big motivation of self build Vs just buy a house, was we could buy a building plot and a static caravan for cash without having to sell our old house. If we had gone for the "simple" option of just buy a house we would have been trying to sell and buy at the same time under 2 different house buying legal systems which just sounded like a nightmare. Plus a self lbuild had been on my bucket list for a long time. That first house the only technical design input was from the timber frame company. Total cost of all drawings planning and building warrant £2K No surveys. TF company was paid to build a and watertight shell and we fitted out the inside employing trades as needed. House prices here were rising fast then, and by the time we had finished house value comfortably exceeded build cost. That all worked out well. IF ONLY it was still that simple. A few years later we decided we wanted a smaller house, (done the 5 bedroom thing) and were lucky after some searching to find a plot 2 doors up the road from the first one. The plan had always been start the new build, put the old house on the market and sell it to finish the new build. Our timing was poor. This was post 2008 crash and the market here was dead. The old house was on the market for 2 years and had just 6 viewings. My work as electrician took me all over the place, and I was seeing the same houses everywhere just stuck with a for sale board that had been there well over a year. All the agents and any "helpful" adviser could say if it's not selling, it is over priced, reduce the asking price. That would be all very well if you could reduce your asking price and then reduce the asking price of the house you bought. But self build does not work like that. Try telling a builders merchant house prices have crashed so you want all building materials reduced by a similar amount and ditto tradesmans wages. If we had reduced the price to distress sale levels, we could very well have ended up selling our 5 bedroom house for less than the build cost of the replacement 3 bed house. There was no way I was paying to downsize. Our build ground to a halt with just me doing what I could but held up by bigger things needing doing. Our saviour from this situation came in the form of a lady that wanted to buy the house and run it as a guest house, but could not get the funds to buy it without accounts, so her offer was to rent the house for a few years and then buy it. So we accepted and reluctantly went back to being landlords. That did eventually work out. It ended up being 7 years rental before she finally bought it, and those 7 years of rent, pretty much paid for the completion of the new house. So it worked out financially better just because of that. The actual sale price of the 5 bed house was only £50K more than the build cost of the new 3 bed house. As others have said a self build now likely costs more than the market value unless some house price inflation saves you. As for complications and red tape. The old pay the TF supplier not a lot for all the drawings seemed no longer available. We ended up paying an architecturtal technician and a SE to produce all the drawings that cost us £10K. We didn't have to do any surveys or that nonsense. The only other bits of paper we had to pay for (but not on the first build) were air test, and as built EPC. Building control seemed more stringent on the second build, with the added irritation that we had to keep paying an extra £100 per year to keep renewing the building warrant up to completion. And self build site insurance was a LOT more expensive second time around.

Quite. I agree. Fitter just arrived again this morning, trying to tell me the floor brackets need to go back in. I have said no. Given the panel must itself be straight not warped, if the front edge is not running plumb vertical then it must mean the back edge is not fixed to the wall plumb vertical. Putting a floor bracket in to forcibly push the front of the panel upright so it is in tension cannot be right. It was all fitted once before the floor went down then removed to put the floor down due to missing parts. In refitting it the floor is therefore now about 5mm higher - 2.5 smoothing compound and 2.5 LVT. However fitter decided to fit the small back wall brackets into the same holes in panel and wall - consequently they are twisted downward by about 5mm now. Just lacks due care and attention. Never had a new kitchen fitted. I guess the best way to do it is get your own excellent fitter. Then they are working for you not the kitchen company and if you want to pay them to take twice the time fitting it you can ?

If all it does is hold the panel square, then surely no need to use screws into the panel? But dowels or hidden fixings are the proffessional option. Unfortunately, in my experience, most kitchen fitters (espescially those used by the big boxes), are just that. Politely, they can be classed as unskilled bodgers. Or cack-handed barstools.

It would a lot easier to share the whole report and I prefer in principle, to be open and transparent but in this case need to be discrete. I will try to redact it later. If I am not mistaken, It seems to be mainly a concern about trees rather than soil bearing capacity. The report states (as previous post, site investigations done in January) Groundwater seepage was generally seen at 1.00-1.10m, thought to be mainly a perched water in the granular Head Deposits but also locally out of fissures in the DF where granular Head Deposits were absent.

Thanks for all the comments. The site is a former garden which has been cleared of said former (smallish) trees. It is still bordered on one side by tall conifers within 10m of the nearest foundation. Site of the house is virtually level however the back of the site slopes gradually up from 5-10 degrees. No signs of standing water but ground infiltration test was nil, presumably due to underlying clays (consent has been granted to discharge storm water to sewer). Note tests were done in January.

The worst he can say is “no”, plus it would be a convenient opportunity to mention that you’re looking to build over it “like you have”. Then ask “did it all go well when you reached out to ST?”. Etc. Then let them do the talking.

Are you bonding the floor down? If so, grinding off the laitence is mandatory, if floating then it’s unnecessary. Nothing will stick to laitence, not even liquid DPM, nor acrylic primer, nor tile adhesive, nothing, nil and nada.

You don't need to. For all: The following assumes you are not in the building trade, have all the advantages that that brings. It's intended to appeal to folk on a budget, possibly first time self builders that are willing to learn and invest time. As I've said before, in the old days self building was a great money spinner even if you were a complete idiot. Property prices were achieving a year on year 10% at a minimum increase in value. Thus on a two year build the land just alone would increase in value. The game is changed now. For a while it worked where you could go to a TF company, say Scot frame etc, AFD foundation design were doing a lot of really great stuff, Tanners Structural Design were chipping in etc. for example and others for "work packages" and it still stacked up, the profit was less for the novice self builder but still worth a go. You still got a return from "managing the project" One of the main problems I see at the moment is not just the regulatory stuff (Planning and BC), it's actually the idea that you can put different work packages together without dealing with the interfaces, where the hidden cost lies. We could describe this as "day works", expensive! The "work package" providers are now taking too much cream, there is little left for the self builder, and the risk remains the same. Designers are certainly not helping. Few if any take the time to help you coordinate, some of this is bad practice, but also, there is tendency for folk to think good designers are like washing machine engineers, we are not here to fix your washing machine. In the round all the cream is taken out the project before you get a shout. One fundamental key to a good self build is to not pay too much for the land. A while ago you could buy a nice flat grass plot, easy services and so on. But these now are less attractive as they command a high price. What is attractive is a cracking site, great views, but brown field. In other words maybe a bit contaminated, hard to service for example. if you crack that nut you can get it cheep. The big developers are not interested, your local builder with say 10 men is not interested as they will have to pay for professional advice, they look for the easy route. This puts you in a pretty good negotiating position if you can identify what's wrong with the site and explain to the seller, this is is a good offer I'm making, and here is why. Now just say you could get a 100k plot for 70k by explaining to the seller, you are selling a pig in poke. To do that you need to just bring forward the professional fee advice. It's not going to cost you the full whack, an advisor may give you this advice for under £1.0k. My own view is that it's now time to go back and consider old school stuff, say getting local ground workers in to do the founds, joiners to stick build the TF, slaters for the roof. You buy the materials, you then own them, eases cash flow. I think this can deliver a good bit of profit! In summary I do think self build can be profitable, we just need to go back to old school stuff and the basic laws of business. But adapt with a view to say modular construction. @Square Feet has some thoughts on this in fruition.