Leaderboard

Last night was my first night sleeping in my new house, finally! Got 1 bedroom mostly finished. Ikea wardrobes, painted, blind and floor installed. Just enough to call it a home! Lots more to do but it saves rent and commuting time. I plan to take it easy for the next fortnight as the last two years have been creeping up on me. Small projects for the short term. Getting internal doors installed (by someone else!) currently. Put some acoustic insulation around the linings and cut it back. I like the look of the wood/oak veneer. Been chasing documentation for the BER (SAP) assessor. It adds up to quite a lot. Doors, Windows, Heating systems, section plans, U value calcs. Think I have all of it now - hopefully they'll issue a BER Cert soon! My airtightness commission went sideways, lots of leaks. So one of my snags is to put air tightness tape around all the ducts to the MVHR unit and outdoors and also between it and the manifolds. The testing unit is very sensitive (even dropping it puts it out of commission for two weeks!) so I've a bit of work to do before I call them back. The Renson Endura Delta 330 has a few levels of ventilation and they upped the minimums from 50m3/hr to 127. Will see with single occupancy if I adjust this down a bit. I can monitor the unit with an app only, there's no display. I noticed when I ran the supersayer gas heater for a few hours to warm the house (as the gas bottles had been unused for the last two years) the CO2 levels hit the roof and it went to max flow rate to clear it out. Anyway, I plan to use the Air to air system more going forward and that won't cause the same issue. Had two floods to deal with. I've a japanese bath I was trying out. We'd filled the bath with a little water to check for leaks a few weeks ago and it drained fine. The bath is on a platform to allow for a trap to be installed below it. The drain for the bath just fits into a grill so it's open and can potentially overflow which is what happened after I fully filled it, used it and two days later pulled the plug! Luckily I put the plug back in and used towels to keep the water in the bathroom as it's tanked / is a wetroom so no damage was caused to the rest of the house. There is a seat in the bath so I was trying to get the most comfortable position and removed the seat. I'll probably put it back as it's a short bath and my back didn't like the sitting position on the floor of that bath all scrunched up. The seat means you only get heat around your hips so will have to have a think about it more at some stage. Or get a bigger bath! The second incident was with the washing machine last night. The discharge pipe isn't big enough for the tumble dryer, air to air condensate and the washing machine so I got an adapter that taps into the side of the pipe with a spigot for the washing machine discharge. This didn't seal/hold so it spilled everywhere. I think I'll go back to basics, replace that section of pipe and glue on a y bend to create two parallel discharge pipes and this way I can get everything connected at once and no risk of floods! My car charger won't reach the car as it's about a meter short but that's due to a big hole I've to backfill with MOT. The dust is everywhere but at least with the internal doors I can mitigate this a bit going forward! So not finished yet but I have a doorbell, hot water, heating and an amazing house to walk around in and rest a bit before finishing the final list of projects and call it a day!

This day has been on my mind for months. We really struggled to find a company that would visit the site and confirm whether we could get a static down the lane. In the end we took an educated guess and purchased a 2023 37x13 unit from a private seller. So at 1100hrs today, the wife of the driver (Greg Caravan Haulage) appeared in the driveway telling me I needed to go and cut some low hanging branches. We got the static on site relatively easy, but then it got bogged down twice whilst reversing it over the type 3 MOT. We had to Jack it up and then finally decided that sheets of 18mm shuttering ply under the wheels might be the way forward. In a nutshell , if we’d done that from the start we’d have got it done much quicker. It’s in position and I just need to get it levelled and on blocks now. A bit too stressful for my liking, but relieved. I’ve been more concerned about getting the static on site, than building the house.

Hello all, Whilst I've been on the site a while, I thought I would introduce myself and the new exciting (to me) project that we are at the very early stages of. After the fun and games of the purchase process, we are now the proud owners of a barn in Cornwall and today, we have also received our class Q notice. The barn now has permission to convert, a secondary class Q and we are in the midst of a redesign to go back for full planning permission under betterment. As you can see from the photos, a fair bit of work is needed.. But we feel very lucky to be in this position. Current status is that the previous tenants (Rams) have been evicted and we are moving on to getting utilities to the site! I will probably start a blog if I find the time! May the fun begin!

@Nickfromwales @marshian Advice taken, many thanks.

3 months after commissioning the new and improved Mk2 Pre Filter box it was time to change the filter material. The muslin seems to be doing a grand job and the increase in useable filter surface area is being fully exploited by dust and flies.

Been a while and I was just randomly passing through when I noticed a few recent posts on this thread. Current update is we gained our Completion Cert in July (almost exactly 10 years to the day since buying the land), and the interior is nearing completion with just the kitchen to finish. Fully offgrid, we haven't paid a utility bill in 9 years. Living our dream and still pinching myself, tbh.

Starlink is live. Only lying on the garden floor and partly obscured by hazel trees in this temporary location but 324meg download and 31 upload. Not too shabby

Self-cleaning is a bit of an overstatement by Lindab although the debris does end up in a neat pile in front of it. My only criticism of it is you need three bits. The downpipe, a shoe and the self cleaning trap. Four bits in my case as I also used one of those rubber boots. The plus side was I was able to use a single run of downpipe as the shoe and trap added length.

Aero barrier have been and gone. initial air changes per hours was 1.7 builders did an excellent job and AB guys were impressed. after their magic mist was finished, they got it down to 0.2.

Hi All, Based in the South East, in a seaside town called Whitstable, which falls under Canterbury City Council. Back in 2022, I purchased a commercial barn with the dream of converting it into a home. When I first bought it, I (naively!) thought the planning process would be fairly straightforward under permitted development rights. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, the barn was considered to be curtilage listed, which meant a much longer and more complicated route through planning. After a couple of years of back-and-forth emails, refusals, research, and learning far more about the planning system than I ever thought I would, I’m happy to say we finally got permission granted this May for the change of use from a commercial workshop to a residential dwelling. This will be a self-build project, and I’m just starting to look into materials and suppliers with the hope of kicking things off before the end of the year. That said, there are still a few more surveys and bits of planning bureaucracy to sort through first. No doubt I’ll be here soon asking for advice (and probably pulling my hair out along the way), but I’m really looking forward to learning from everyone and sharing progress as things move forward. Thanks for having me, Leon

This all sounds like a storm in a teacup, it's not ideal.. But pissing your builder off in the final stretch is even worse Let him do more work, wait for next payment to be requested... Then link payment to site tidy up. Going to council or the police is a one way street to a loooot more stress.

Hi all, Aspring self-builder in the Borders. Fan of the Barcelona Pavilion and Brutalism (sorry if that offends anyone!), hoping to build something along those lines. My background is in science, so I'm thinking in terms of energy, water efficiency, passive thermal management... Also interested in using as many commodity items as possible to keep costs down and simplify maintainance. I like vindaloos and minimalism, hence the name. Thanks admin for approving my account!

Having been involved with leisure club and centres, as soon as a swimming pool is involved, the job becomes a lot harder. Whoever designs for you, will need to know their materials as they need to be corrosion resistant and able to handle relatively high temperatures and humidity at 100% all year around. Air handling (HVAC) has to be considered at the start, not when it becomes a problem. Do you really want, what I assume, is an expensive car next to a pond of chlorine?

I'm sorry but this comment feels off. You (and we) are getting huge amounts of input from this forum. It's by asking questions and getting others inputs that we learn......the answer may not always be what we were expecting but that doesn't mean it's wrong. So rightly or wrongly I am offended for @Nickfromwales And as to the question at hand good luck with your project. From our perspective there is no way that we'd let anyone near site (knowingly) that didn't know what bits to bring. Maybe because I haven't had my second coffee yet, but right now, not feeling like I'll bother to share any experience (as hands on self builders, mid project) with you right now.

Thank you all for your advice, I spoke to the architect today and he has agreed that block and beam isn’t required. To be fair to him, he hadn’t finalised all the drawings as there have been some too’ing and throwing between him and SE and he did state it required a re-design. If I hadn’t of come on here and sort advice I’d of probably let it go. Maybe the architect may have changed it regardless but at least I was forearmed. thank you all again. i am sure i will have many more questions to come considering i am very early in to the project 🙂

Update again my appeal was granted. YAY ! 7 months start to finish

I love problem solving and you cannot beat the feeling of doing so via improvisation. Getting on site in the next 3-4 weeks is going to be a big relief. Having to travel 1hr each way has been a real drag and I think that even though we are moving into a static caravan. It will be into a static caravan that we own on our land and the place we will call home. Living in rented for two years, has felt like living in limbo.

I have always done the same on all property renovations. A tupperware box, usually with a small Teddybear, Some photos, with names of the family, and a note telling the finder a bit about us. I also put our first Dogs collar and tag, around the trunk of a Silver Birch tree that we planted, to remember him. When we sold, the leather had been enveloped into the growth of the trunk, with just the name tag sticking out. The people who we sold the house to, who remained friends, told us that the name tag recently got enveloped by the trunk. They have not done any major alterations. So the tupperware box is still inside One of the stud walls. We also built in secret, letterbox sized connections, between the Two of the bedrooms. There children had both these rooms, and we were told they were delighted when the found the secret connection between the rooms. It took them over Two years before they discovered them. We told them about the box in the wall, but have refused to tell them where it is.

That’s a great thing to keep, ties the old use for the building to the new house. A whisky miniature, packet of shortbread, some pictures of the land as it was, and of us standing on it the day we completed buying it, a print out of the BBC News front page, a wee drawing my other half did with a note, and my favourite joke.

A principal role of the project manager is surely to deal with the unexpected - for example, when a key team member is ill and out of action. But what happens when the project manager is laid-up? Following an ‘incident’ (all my own fault), I have spent the past week unexpectedly in hospital. That was definitely not in the plan. Fortunately I am home again now but largely ‘confined to barracks’ for the next month or so. At the moment I cannot even visit the plot, although I hope to be able to make the occasional visit over the coming weeks. As you can imagine this is deeply frustrating. Worse still is the realisation that my lack of hands-on project management has made absolutely no difference to the pace of progress (well actually, it may have increased without my involvement, tbh). Curious. The main thrust over the past two weeks has been carpentry, ventilation ducting, boarding-out and plastering. And fortunately we have two excellent chippies and a great team of plasterers in. We really have been very lucky with our trades; here’s hoping it continues through the remainder of the project. Mrs P. has been magnificent during this period too, keeping the show on the road by constantly stocking drinks and snacks, regular runs to Screwfix, keeping the site tidy, as well as fixing all the internal acoustic insulation. Not to forget planting all our new trees! All while running back and forth to the hospital 20 miles away to keep the Project Manager sane and stocked with essentials (edible food mainly). So, great progress has been made despite (or because of) the absent PM, and we continue on plan. Ventilation ducting and caprentry I had some wild idea that Mrs P. and I might fit the MVHR ducting but the least said about that the better. Fortunately, as noted in the previous blog, our chippies Chris and Alan stepped in to run the ducts very neatly to all the rooms. Even though it’s a new build we’ve found it tricky to work out how to run the 14 semi-rigid 75mm ventilation ducts from the MVHR to all the rooms whilst avoiding obvious ‘boxing in’ sections around and across rooms, which would have detracted from our desired clean lines. Partly that’s because it’s single storey and most of the ceilings are vaulted right up to the insulated roof. If we did another build (Mrs P: “We’re not!”), I’d definitely look to use those open web joists to good effect for ducting. But in the event it’s been left to Chris and Alan to ‘magic away’ all the ducting behind invisible false walls, whilst impacting the overall room sizes as little as possible. And a splendid job they have made of it. The ducting plan requires seven supply and seven extract ducts attached radially to two 8-port manifolds close to MVHR unit itself. We chose to site the manifolds 3m away from the MVHR unit in a void above the kitchen alcove which will hold our built-in ovens, connecting the manifolds to the MVHR unit with 160mm rigid steel spiral ducts, which themselves needed to be hidden away behind a false wall in the utility room. Acoustic insulation As noted above, Mrs P. is an absolute whizz at fitting this. I'd like to think that she's enjoyed it but, um, I'm not brave enough to ask. Anyway, it's going in to every stud wall as soon as there's board on one side to fit it against: Boarding-out and plastering The main thrust over the two weeks has been the room by room boarding-out and plaster skimming. 12.5mm board to the walls, and 37.5mm insulated plasterboard to the ceilings. The plastering team - Dan, Sam and Brandon - have been great. Particularly pleasing is that they are alert to problems and think about the finished product, raising any questions or concerns so that they can be resolved rather than simply plastering over them, so to speak. For example, questioning whether a pendant right by a wall rather than centrally in the room was what we wanted (it wasn’t, the cable had been dropped in the wrong place). We are now about 2/3rds of the way through the plastering and it's making an amazing transformation - turning a house frame into something that begins to feel like a home. Tree-planting Remember all those trees delivered in the last blog? Well Mrs P. got them all planted with the help of our landscape man Ashley, and they are really looking great. Focus for the next two weeks ...Will be on completing the plastering and then our floor tiler Steve should be making a start on the 170m2 of porcelain floor tiles. We thought about using engineered wood in some rooms but in the end we decided to have the same limestone effect tile all the way through and will use rugs to provide additional interest. Eight pallets of tiles are due to be delivered next Tuesday. Dashboard: Contractor days on site this fortnight: 42 Contractor days on site since build start: 353 Budget: No real change - still over budget but potentially using a little less of the contingency than previously. The benefit of an absent PM possibly 😉 Plan: Still on track to move in by Easter 2026. Issues and worries closed this fortnight: N/A Current top issues and worries: A fortnight ago I said "Nothing too pressing - it'll be something we haven’t thought of, probably." Well that was prescient! Current top issue: getting myself back fully fit - otherwise, how will the project manage without me?!

I grew up in England, but now live in the Netherlands, where my partner and I have a fixer-upper from the 1960s. One big task we recently completed was installing MVHR (previously it only had natural ventilation, which let in sounds in summer and cold in winter). This forum was a great resource during planning and installation, so I would like to thank everyone who has written here on that subject! Although I speak Dutch, and there are some great forums here which cover these same topics, it's much easier for me to quickly read posts in English. And MVHR is one thing that's not so different between countries, as the system we bought is one that's available in the UK too. I joined originally so I could answer a question in a thread which I would have found greatly useful (about compatibility between different brands semi-flex ducting and fittings), but there have also been times when I needed a sanity-check or could add my 2p's worth to a thread. So here I am!

Hi everyone! My wife Helen and I are embarking on a self build off grid renovation project in Dumfries and Galloway. Any useful tips and advice always welcome! Nick and Helen

Zero cutting of anything! Whoa! I am referring to setting the tray on the deck, with the CT / OB 1 under it, and then you pull the tray away from each wall of multi board by about 5mm, and then pump the gap full of CT1. You then push the tray back to the wall, displacing the excess CT1 and wipe the excess away (baby wipes, lots of them, are your friend here). Check for level, and leave to cure for 48hrs.

The plan for the two weeks just gone was to complete the plastering and start the floor tiling. No issues with the first part, our team of plasterers have done a great job, see below. The floor tiles arrived more or less on schedule, and the tilers Steve and Kev turned up as planned. However, when they checked the floor humidity to confirm it was ready to tile, the meter showed it was slightly over the required level. I am a little unclear of the actual moisture numbers but their meter was showing an amber bar when they really need it to be green to be sure it is safe to tile. The screed has been down for 63 days in an airtight house but that screed was 65mm thick on average so it was perhaps unsurprising it was borderline with the 1 day per mm drying time not quite being met. (I have also seen a suggestion it should be 1 day per mm up to 50mm and 2 days per mm over, which would be 80 days!) Also, of course it has been pretty humid outside throughout that period and the plastering has necessarily added more water inside the house. No doubt that vapour control layer has been doing its job too preventing internal moisture getting into the structure. To mitigate this we have had the UFH heating running very low but the plaster was drying too fast when we tried increasing the UFH temperature. We have also had the windows open a lot of the time and for the past week we’ve been running the MVHR system to ventilate the house. But despite that, the floor is not quite dry enough. Of course, the plan is all very tight and was meant to be: floor tiling last week and next, spray paint w/c 17 November, then 2nd fix electric and plumbing is booked from w/c 24 November. So what to do? Disruptive as it must be for the floor tilers, they were very good about it and suggested seeing if we could get the decorator in a week early and then they’d work long days to try to get the tiling done by the 24th or thereabouts. I called the decorator (another Steve) and after he had made a few calls he confirmed that he could indeed come in next week, Monday to Thursday. So that’s the revised plan. Hopefully by Thursday the floor will be dry enough to start tiling. If not well… that’s a bridge to be crossed later. Plastering Despite the frustration of the (admittedly tight) plan being disrupted, we are taking comfort from the fact that the boarding out and skimming is all complete. Dan, Sam and Brandon, our team of local plasterers have done a brilliant job for us and we’d be really happy to recommend them to anyone needing a plastering team in the Dorset, Wilts, Somerset border area (PM me if you want their details). Brandon, Sam and Dan: Cladding The end of last week also saw the return of our chippies Alan and Chris who made a start on the timber cladding. We’re using Brimstone Ash from Vastern and Alan and Chris made a start with the soffits first. Focus for the next two weeks Spray painting throughout. Floor tiling Cladding (we are going to need some more a scaffolding for the high cladding, so that is hopefully coming next week). Dashboard: Contractor days on site this fortnight: 29 Contractor days on site since build start: 382 Budget: No change - still a bit over budget but within contingency. Plan: Still on track to move in by Easter 2026. Issues and worries closed this fortnight: None Current top issues and worries: Unsurprisingly: Will the floor be dry enough to tile?!

You don't mention the size, but is sounds substantial. Having watched my plank like neighbours building without construction drawings, I can only say you need a proper architect/designer/structural specifier. I don't say builders can never design, but well builders can almost never design. A camel is a horse designed by a builder etc. There is always far more to achieving a good building than might meet the eye. Having a rough idea or a planning drawing is not going to cut it. Aesthetics are important to achieve something that doesn't look like a wart on the landscape. There are many technical aspects from opening sizes, positions etc to provide good light, to insulation, to ventilation, to acoustics, to services like power, lighting, heating, drainage, water supply. Structural engineering. Also layout and ergonomics. And many choices to make. The end result comes from the planning and thought put into it. Thinking it out now means lines on paper and is easily changed, building without construction plans will see you missing things and blundering around, knocking things down again, or producing the most hideous object. In building, if it is worth doing - it is worth doing well. The building will last for decades or centuries. In a few years time you will wish you had spent the money getting it right when prices were low.

You need to cough up and pay for an SE / Designer who knows about this stuff. Try and find a designer that can hold your hand and walk you through the things that need to be considered, how you design the different bits so they fit together and work. They will also help you put together the different work packages so you pay a fair price. The design and execution is much harder than you are probaby aware of. I have this on my website from Ruskin but is is worth a revisit. “There is hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone are that person’s lawful prey. It’s unwise to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money — that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot — it can’t be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”

Just popping back to this now we have the heating on. I'm pleased to say the replacement of these sections of pipe has made the system much quieter. Not silent but not intrusive like it was before

Just to tie this up..... My DNO came out, they poked about, took some measurements and concluded they could change the tap on my transformer. This involved some backfeeding via links to other transformers and de-energizing my transformer, but there was no supply interruption and the change was seamless. Took a week or so to happen. They called to say they had done it. He mentioned they actually found a fault when they did the work which might have been making the spikes worse. Now my normal voltage is high 230's to low 240's and I don't think i've seen over 250. The only question now is: will this allow me to export more!

There’s no particular reason for UFH pipes to fail under normal use. Every house I’ve lived in with rads have had leaks. Other than the obvious benefits an often overlooked benefit of UFH is the practicality of no rads on the walls so it makes room layout better. I’ve also simplified our heating system so there’s nothing overly complex about it. We’ve done the wall of South facing full height glass, big West facing picture window, and big full height picture window in a small bedroom. There’s no doubt it has some impact in the hot summer days and on cold dull days (especially the bedroom) and less glass would have been better from a performance point of view. But houses are a compromise between aesthetics, performance, and how they make you feel and I’d rather have the view and live with the minor downsides. That said the heating has only really started to come on in the last week. Had we built the house with a performance at any cost perspective we’d barely need heating at all. Interestingly, despite us running the house relatively cool, all our friends, who live in old cold stone buildings, find it too hot.

Don't go near CEF or any of the other big boys, seek out a small indy wholesaler- or just go to Screwfix...

Agreed the first priority, but if you have great views and have maximised glazing (it happens - me for example) solar gain can still be an issue, especially on a no wind day. So active cooling is great over and above that. First what complex controls - some do this but they are not needed. My heat pump for example runs as a single zone fully open system, all UFH in the house and a fan coil in an insulated summer house. Effectively one valve in the system a diverter to cylinder or heating system. During winter it runs pure weather compensation all driven by ASHP controller with no external controls. Only thing to go wrong are the heat pump or diverter valve. In summer exactly the same almost, but now it runs in Weather Compensation mode but at a fixed temperature, no more controls in the system. Heat pump just senses return water and reacts when it sees return water getting above a preset temperature. It works well, it's not Aircon, but let's the house recover from solar gains quickly and more importantly limits the ultimate temp the house reaches, so it remains comfortable. Only control in the system outside of the heat pump, is to switch from cool to heat, I used a light switch to give heat pump volt free contacts an open or closed signal. Pipe life. During heating the pipes may see 36 degrees water and during cooling the target flow temp is 14, during a compressor cycle this temp can dip to nearer 12 degs. So neither temperature is going to shorten the expected life span of the pipes or valve. Similar the pipes out of the floor, a mix of copper and Hep2O are all in the normal and expected range of operation and a mile away from the max and min allowed. Do not expect any issues there either. The system as configured with no zone valves on the manifold or in the system, which makes it more reliable than a normal system, as there are no pins to stick on the manifold from valves being in a closed position over the summer. Or pumps or mixer valves locked for the same reason - as I don't have any of those either. So for clarity system is ASHP Diverter valve controlled by ASHP DHW Cylinder UFH manifold UFH pipes Fan coil teed into main system flow and return. A 50L volumiser on the return piping to extend cycle time of compressor. A zero volt switch to select heat or cool.

Dear forum members, Our house is complete and we have been resident for three months. I thought to post some pictures and I offer to answer any questions people might have. I don't put ourselves on a pedestal as being any better than other projects, only to say that we have done it. Our primary decisions: We chose a RIBA architect given the importance of the initial concept The layout is somewhat novel, having an H footprint with a single storey 'extension' to reduce the mass of the main house for planning purposes and to help project the rear of the house beyond the shade of the ridge line We chose timber frame (we have built with timber frame, brick and block and ICF in the past) because of speed of construction, and thermal performance We selected MBC from a shortlist of three TF suppliers, and chose MBC's insulated slab We are very pleased to have chosen a large solar array (9KW) and Tesla battery. We have used no grid electricity since commissioning. We have a Valliant ASHP with UFH but haven't had need to heat the house yet We have MVHR which works very well with our air tightness of 0.89 We have no fireplace or chimney We project managed ourselves, and were onsite every day and I did a lot of carpentry / general work alongside the proper trades Project timing: groundwork prep Dec 24, slab Jan 25, frame erection February, windows March, resident 4th July, finished end of August.

Are you building via your business or another company setup to solely to build house? Not sure how that works as the company is a different entity to yourself in the tax world. The company would build for you, the client. But company needs to a building company not consultants as way of an example. Suspect it will be way more complex than it needs to be and possibly cost you more.

After a dry summer and minimal progress, we are getting a roof on at last... in foul weather. Fortunately the cladder doesn't mess about and has hired in this very serious kit. Hence 350m2 on plan was clad in 2 days. Huge crane with panel clamp, big mewp and don't forget the forklift off to the right.

It will feel overwhelming and you’ll have to pace yourself because everything takes so long. Money flows out at a rate - but at least you won’t have rent to pay with the static. We’ve friends who are self building from a caravan. They put a yurt up May-October every year (4years and counting!) and that doubles their living space for half the year. Might be an idea? On a tight budget you’ll need to do tons yourself - almost every job is doable but work out where you need skills and look for those people early (that was groundworks, plasterers and tilers for us). The pad by the bed is an excellent tip - so many nights waking 3am when there’s something forgotten or needs answering. It is a scary ride but also amazingly fulfilling. But you do have to pace yourself - I’d say it’s really difficult because you’ll want to move it forward all the time but try and schedule normal stuff in every so often. I’m having my first day off work/off site for many weeks today (catching up on build hub 😆) and the mental break being away from site feels amazing. And it’s only 9am! Keep a diary and you might even want to blog here. Realising how far we’ve come is more important to me than what’s still left to be done. I often flick back to pictures from a year before (founds in, timber frame was going up) when I’m feeling fed up - just to remind myself we’re getting there (on painting, 2nd fix and floor laying now). Good luck!

You will have many more stressful days like that. just think how that plywood saved the day, then every time you have a day like this planned think what could go wrong, and what would save the day, whatever you think will save the day make sure you have it ready. it could be an extra man on concrete pour day or that stack of 4x2 that you found free on Facebook, get it all ready you will find the majority of lads are used to solving problems.

Normal wood shrinkage cracks - nothing to worry over.

Environment Solar energy is going to power the world much sooner than you think Solar electricity is growing rapidly, but can it really dominate the global energy system? Here is what it will take for us to power the planet on sunshine By Madeleine Cuff 23 October 2025 The future of solar is looking bright fuyu liu/Shutterstock Is solar power going to take over the world? The past few years have seen a frankly astounding acceleration in the rate of its deployment, with total generation capacity doubling between 2022 and 2024 to supply a full 7 per cent of the world’s electricity. Just how high can that figure go? The first six months of 2025 saw wind and solar together pass a historic milestone, generating more power than coal for the first time and making renewables the world’s leading source of electricity. The driving force behind this “crucial turning point” in the energy transition, as the UK-based think tank Ember described it, was the growth of solar. It accounted for 83 per cent of the total increase in the world’s electricity demand in 2025, Ember’s analysis indicates, and has been the largest source of new electricity globally for three years in a row. Solar’s secret weapon? How cheap it is. It is the world’s lowest-cost electricity, with the cost of installing a solar system dropping in price by 90 per cent over the past 15 years. “Right now, silicon panels themselves are the same cost as plywood,” says Sam Stranks at the University of Cambridge. In other words, we have a plentiful and cheap source of electricity that can be built quickly, almost anywhere in the world. Is it fanciful to imagine that solar could one day power everything? At the most fundamental level, the supply of solar energy to Earth is almost limitless. Even once you factor in the efficiency rates of modern solar panels, supplying all of the world’s energy needs with the sun’s power would require around 450,000 square kilometres of land, a 2021 report from the UK think tank Carbon Tracker estimated. That’s just 0.3 per cent of global land area. Kingsmill Bond, one of the report authors and now at Ember, says that, while there are “trade-offs” when it comes to land use – solar may compete with agriculture, for example – “for most countries, there is plenty of space to deploy these technologies”. A new generation of panels The question, then, is what is stopping solar power from taking over the global electricity supply entirely? The first issue is that of efficiency. Silicon photovoltaic panels, which make up the bulk of the global solar market, currently convert about 20 per cent of the sun’s energy into electricity. By comparison, hydropower plants convert 90 per cent of the potential energy into electricity, wind turbines about 50 per cent and fossil fuel plants 30 to 40 per cent. In real terms, this means you need many more solar panels to provide the same amount of power that you could harvest from other sources. That’s why solar firms and scientists are hard at work trying to unlock more efficiency gains from solar panels, in the hope that an efficiency boost will deliver a double win for solar: even lower system costs and less demand for land. However, crystalline silicon panels are nearing the limits of the efficiencies they can achieve, with best-in-class cells now at about 25 per cent efficiency. “The practical limit for crystalline silicon is probably about 28 per cent,” says Jenny Nelson at Imperial College London. Pushing efficiencies above that will require a shift to what is known as a tandem solar cell, which introduces a second semiconductor to increase the amount of energy a cell can extract from the solar spectrum. Tandem silicon-perovskite cells are seen as the most promising option, with a theoretical efficiency limit of about 50 per cent. Real-world tandem panels won’t achieve anything like that level of efficiency, but could reach 35 to 37 per cent efficiency, says Stranks. After years of research, the first tandem silicon-perovskite solar panels are just starting to enter commercial production, and they need to be tested by industry to see how long they maintain their performance under real-world conditions. But Stranks is optimistic about their potential. He estimates that in 10 years’ time, they will become the dominant technology on the market. “On the face of it, they wouldn’t actually look that different from the roof or on the street, but they are producing 50 per cent more power than today’s panels,” says Stranks. “It’s a big change.” Not only would greater efficiency cut costs even further, but it could also unlock new deployment opportunities, says Stranks. For example, high-efficiency panels could enable solar roofs on electric cars, allowing their batteries to charge during the day. The stored power could then either be used for transport or discharged to the home for use during the evening, he suggests. Solving storage Such innovation could help to untangle one of the other major issues with solar power – its fickleness. The sun, of course, doesn’t shine all the time. For countries in the “sun belt”, including India, Mexico and many African nations, this is less of a problem, as the sun shines almost all year round and batteries can be used to store excess energy during the day for use in the hours after dark. This solar-plus-storage set-up is becoming increasingly cost-effective, with the cost of lithium-ion batteries dropping 40 per cent in the past two years alone, according to BloombergNEF. “Ultimately, the only advantage that fossil fuels have over sunshine as a source for electricity is their storability,” says Bond. “And, suddenly, that storability issue has been solved for 90 per cent of the time by a single technology, which is the battery.” But for countries further north, where winter days are short and grey, it is a different story. “[Solar] is an unbelievably, amazingly good energy source, with zero pollution, rapid payback of energy investment – it just ticks every single box,” says Andrew Blakers at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. “Unless you live in northern Europe, north-east Asia or the north-east United States, where you have plenty of sun in summer and not much in winter, [solar] is simply the best.” For countries that suffer long, dark winters, wind power can step in to fill much of the gap, says Blakers. But energy storage solutions that can bank power for weeks or months at a time will also be needed. Such “interseasonal storage” is still in its infancy, with few solutions operating at commercial scale. But pumped hydro, hydrogen and compressed air storage could all provide an answer to this conundrum. Blakers’s prediction? “Batteries take care of the short term, pumped hydro takes care of the long term.” Political headaches If anything, efficiency and storage are the easy problems to solve. “I think the bottlenecks probably lie in politics, consistency in policy, regulation, vested interests of other industries,” says Nelson. The climate-sceptic Trump administration in the US is a case in point. Earlier this month, federal officials cancelled a huge proposed solar project in Nevada that would have been one of the largest schemes in the world, just the latest in a series of actions to curtail solar funding programmes and block projects. But Bond believes the transition to renewable power is now all but unstoppable given its economic advantages over traditional generation sources. “Incumbents can hold back the tide for solar in individual countries and individual projects and individual years,” he says. “The current Trump administration is doing its very best to slow down the current deployment of renewables. But all it really means is that they then fall behind in the global race to deploy superior technology.” Blakers agrees, adding that solar energy may be the only way to meet fast-growing power demand from AI data centres. “Even in the US, it’s difficult to see solar being turned off even by a determined federal government, because many states like it, and it’s by far the quickest way to get large amounts of energy,” he says. The other major bottleneck for clean energy is logistical. Existing electricity networks need to be rewired to cope with huge, fluctuating supplies of electricity coming from new areas. A more flexible grid, which can cope with surges in generation and even tweak power demand in response, will help to maximise the use of green power. But delivering these grids of the future costs money. In the UK alone, energy companies plan to spend £77 billion over the next five years refitting the transmission network to cope with the shift to wind and solar. In lower-income nations, where grid networks aren’t yet so comprehensive, countries can move more quickly to build renewable-friendly infrastructure from the get-go, allowing renewables to penetrate further into grid supply. The 10 so-called BRICS nations – Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates – now collectively account for more than half of the world’s electricity generation from solar, according to Ember. A wider challenge for countries is to electrify greater chunks of their energy demand, from heating to transport. Such progress is crucial to cut fossil fuel use in other parts of the global economy. As Nelson puts it: “If we want to decarbonise the planet, then we need to electrify first.” Here too, lower-income nations are racing ahead of higher-income ones. China’s share of electricity in final energy consumption hit 32 per cent in 2023, far outstripping the 24 per cent electrification rate of the US and richer European nations, says Ember. A solar future? Despite the success this year, the technical, logistical and political challenges outlined above may slow the rollout of solar in some countries in the short term. Earlier this month, the International Energy Agency predicted that renewable power will more than double by the end of the decade, but is set to fall short of an international goal to triple capacity by the same date. The agency said policy changes in the US and the challenges of integrating solar into grid systems were headwinds to the expansion in renewables capacity. But energy market experts are confident that, by mid-century and beyond, solar will dominate global energy supply. “By the end of this century, it is pretty clear that we will be getting all of our electricity from renewable sources, of which the vast majority will be solar,” says Bond, estimating that as much as 80 per cent of the world’s electricity supply will be generated by solar by 2100. Added to that, at least 80 per cent of the world’s total energy demand will be electrified, he expects. Roadblocks from politics, energy storage and infrastructure will all be cleared out of the way to usher in the green power revolution. “The human condition is to turn energy into stuff,” says Bond. “We use energy for everything. And now, suddenly, we found this cheap, universal energy source – of course, we are going to figure it out.”

I did it @Nickfromwales! not sure if it's exactly how you were suggesting but it feels pretty solid. I even added diagonal bracing on the brackets for extra sturdiness. I'm a belt and braces type of cowboy.

Mechanically removing the worst of it is the 1st step, eg a Stanley blade / scraper, and a plastic removal tool (Amazon jobby) will get you so far. Then you’ll need to try Multisolve from CT1 which you spray on and leave for a while, then rub more into the sealant to remove it; it emulsifies silicone etc and cleans the remnants off pretty well ahead of new works. Use a traditional cotton dish cloth for the cleaning phase. Good luck, it’s a pig of a job.

With the proposed falls are you simply inviting trouble. Any blockages from autumn leaves etc could lead to water accumulation at the house interface. Possibly water in the house. You would never slope a patio towards the house, so why would you do that with a roof? I would be sloping away from the house, simple and safe.

need a brushcutter, not a grass trimmer.

Greetings from South Oxfordshire. We are waiting to exchange on a very tired (actually unliveable), 1960s bungalow. It needs gutting and extending at the very least. We are also considering demolition and building to the Passive House "Classic" standard, especially if we can get planning permission for a 1½ storey home. It's likely to be all-electric, so "Plus" might be achievable. We're not too bothered about certification, except as a means to achieve those ends. I have renovated a couple of Victorian properties and read a lot over the years, including quite a bit on this site, but have never attempted anything of this magnitude. Apologies in advance for stupid questions!

Hello! My partner and I are just starting out on our project after buying a derelict cottage in Ireland. I hope it's ok to post questions about it here, I know the laws/codes can be quite different in Ireland, but there's not many resources like this forum. We're total novices at building, but want to do as much as we can ourselves and to learn while doing it. We've had a little input from architects and a builder who will hopefully be working with us. Obviously we'll be getting an engineer involved eventually. Our starting point is a mostly untouched vernacular 3 room Irish Cottage. With countless layers of lime plaster on the walls and no plumbing of any kind. Sometime in the 70s the outside was concrete rendered, a limited electrical install was added, and the remains of the old thatched roof was covered over with asbestos cement boards. Close to the house is a small traditional stone shed. The whole area is criss crossed with beautiful dry stone walls. Our current plan is to restore the cottage in an authentic traditional way, with breathable lime plaster. But have a new well insulated roof, door, and windows. Then link it to the barn with a flat roof extension. The stone barn will be fully enveloped in a new building which extends out the other side to create a spare bedroom and ensuite bathrooms. Here's a few photos. I'm sure I'll have lots of specific questions as we go!

+1 to most of that: We had power floated the garden room and it worked well we have an acceptable surface in there BUT the main house was not because: 1. It was very hot over 30OC 2. Much bigger roughly 3 times the area of the garden room. 3. Not enough people, we had 5 working all the time, but only two of us had the experience on the garden room. 4. We didn't have a long enough floating bar - our hire people let us down on that, the long bar was not available, so we needed more passes which took more time than we had given the drying rate. In the end about 70% of it was more than acceptable but 100% is the only answer unless you want level changes in your floor areas. It was a disappointing day but we knew the risks and accounted for failure in the plans - eg levels. As an idea of the cost of failure the flooring cost for us is about £18K more than it would have been had we succeeded which might put the £32K somewhat into perspective for you. All in all my advice is not to try it yourself, look at the balance of costs and get a few more quotes.

You will find that the planners will be ambivalent. They will consult highways who will say that this is a private track and as long as the vehicle movements from it do not impact their highway network they will have no comment to make. Environmental health may flag up the refuse situation but will basically say the occupants will have to store their bins within so many metres of the highway for collection otherwise it will not be picked up. Apart from that they are unlikely to be interested. They aren't the problem. It will be Part B of the Building Regulations which sets out access for firefighting that is. Fire appliances only carry so much hose so need to get close to the building in the first instance. They want to get hose access to all parts of the building within 45m of their appliance. It is Building Control therefore that you will need to convince that your fire mitigation proposals will still meet the requirement which is: 1) The building shall be designed and constructed so as to provide reasonable facilities to assist firefighters in the protection of life. 2) Reasonable provision shall be made within the site of the building to enable fire appliances to gain access to the building. The problem these days is that competition between local authorities and the private sector means finding someone to consult with prior to making an application is not easy. Why would a private BC contractor spend time with you going through proposals only for you to engage the local authority and visa versa. I fear you will not get a definitive answer with respect to building control until you are a way down this route (excuse the pun). Have a good look at requirement B5 and see how close you can get to the guidance as you may have to take a calculated risk on gaining BC approval. Finally, remember that post Grenfell and now with the new Building Safety Act there is not much appetite out there for regulators to take risks on interpretation of these sort of life critical matters on your behalf.....

Like this I guess.

We got our final building regs sign off approval today so that’s us technically finished. Yay. Feeling quite relieved. It’s taken just over 4 years from when we first set foot on the land till now. What a ride. 😂 Thanks all. Buildhub has been awesome.