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Thanks for all your help. We were last in the list of applications, but our worry was short lived. My wife read a short and personal speech regarding this being our dream for a long time. No questions from the committee to my wife or I and none either from the committee to the planning officers. Approved unanimously. Really chuffed and a bit dumbfounded it's finally over. The not knowing what the outcome is stressful. You put your life on hold.

The trouble with allowing contingency is that when you don’t need it then it feels like time wasted. I guess it’s a bit of a drawing of breath really, much needed, but one’s natural bent (in my case anyway) is to automatically reach for my spade and start work - thinking not required. Oddly, we aren’t in a rush, in fact, the faster we go the quicker we run out of money unless our house sells, which in this market is looking unlikely. So taking time out is a good thing, it’s just that it feels like I should be making progress regardless. We had allocated this week to a week away, maybe going on a tour of timber cladding suppliers in our campervan (who needs airport security checks when you can be rained on in a muddy field) but other events kicked that into touch. So doing nothing this week should have felt ok. Twitch. In the end I did just two half days to pull up the wooden floorboards. We put them on Facebook as free to good home and after our standard allocation of time wasters a lovely chap turned up and worked hard with me to carefully lift them, remarkably preserving the tongues in the process. The lesson is that I should have bought a pallet breaker as then we’d have done it in one afternoon, instead of two. We did discover a few wasp nests under the floors, one mummified rodent, and an uphill poo pipe - that’ll be fun taking out…. But no other surprises, thankfully. The flow direction is left to right…. But with that and some of the internal doors finding new homes we are pleased with the amount of reuse we have achieved for bits of da bungalow (RIP). Anyway, I promised a demolition summary, so…. We got two quotes for demo companies to do it. One definitely wanted protective scaffolding (we are extremely close to the neighbours) and the other wasn’t clear on that. They were close in price and cheaper of the two was just over £11k and probably scaffolding (undefined). The cheaper one wanted a welfare unit too. The dearer one was willing to do a part demo - he pointed out that if I took the roof off then we wouldn’t need scaffolding and he’d knock £4k off. So despite agonising over which was better we ended up using neither. As part of getting quotes we were told we needed a demolition survey (AKA asbestos check). This cost £350 (zero VAT) and fortunately returned very pleasing results. Steve, our guardian angel, however, pointed out that a demolition company would do it quick but very dirty and with the big machines they’d use the probability of damage to neighbours was significant. Plus about 98% likelihood of really pissing lots of peeps off too. Not good. After some negotiations it was agreed he’d work with me on a day rate and the rest, as they say, is either history or a trauma that therapy will reduce in time, but either way we got da bungalow (RIP) down. To be fair, there remains a small amount of woodwork (floor joists) to pull up which will take me a short day, and there’s concrete to break up and cart away, but the ground worker includes that in his price (partly as there seems to be a local shortage of such stuff), and I’ve three catnic lintels to clean up and sell, but I call it done. Costs: Demolition survey: £350. Demolition notice: Can’t remember, it seems so long ago, but we don’t think there was a charge. Man days: Neighbour (to help get roof tiles off): 1 day at a cost of a lot of tiles (we were robbed!) Steve: 16 days. Expert guidance; lots of hard work; wicked sense of humour but oh, the singing! Me: 25 days - General dogsbodying and everything no one else wanted to do. Why did it always have to be me up the ladder? At least my singing is tuneful. I think. Total man days: 42. The answer to the meaning of life - how appropriate. Materials: Dust masks : ~£30 Gloves: ~£50 Makita reciprocating saw plus blades: £115. Heras fencing: £120 Hard hats and hi vis waistcoats: £22 Angle grinder discs: ~£10 Diesel for umpteen tip runs: £?? - but there was so many it looks like I’m going to be invited to the tip staff meetings from now on. Bath water, washing powder, lecky for washing machine, etc. £?? Total known materials ~£347 6 yard Plasterboard Skip: £396 inc VAT Stuff sold: Scrap (so far, there’s still some copper lurking around) -£292 Roof tiles -£320 Odds and sods sold on faceache -£200 Total sold: -£812 So, if I ignore the cost of my time, it comes out less than £4k. Rather pleased with that, and as the neighbours appear to be ok, it’s a good result all round.

The end of our last blog entry ended thus: Dare I add a what's next list 🙂 ? Well, here goes .... Plastering finished in the open plan area this coming week (by others) Remainder of stone cladding arrives and work begins to get the most inaccessible (high) parts put up before the scaffold gets taken away - this means cladding two 7m x 2m wide walls Plumbing pipework ready for ASHP installation Gabion basket and pad for ASHP to be installed on Mist coat and first coat on plaster (SWMBO is at the ready) Begin fitting upstairs UFH Front door being fitted (January) by others Take 3-4 days off for Xmas ASHP installation (January) by others, that will allow for hot water and the downstairs UFH to be available ... Fit a temporary bathroom ... Fit out utility room as temp kitchen ... ... and this is why - Move out of static van for the month of February (rules is rules!) and decamp to the house The title of the blog may be a little misleading - let me assure you that living in the house for a short while was great. We liked it so much we stayed for 5 weeks instead of the 4 that we had to, as it was warmer than the static van we would be going back to. If you recall the beginning of March was a little frigid, even down here in the South West (the van sits in a valley that collects the cool air very well and so is often 3 to 4 degrees (K and C) cooler than the surrounding area. We can recommend such a short stay in the house before getting stuck into the final push on the interior. It has definitely helped in providing an order of works for us in the coming months before we finally move in properly by highlighting things that may have been overlooked or forgotten in the general melee of all the other things that have been taking place over the previous 6 months. So, back to that list: I've commented on this in a post somewhere else, but in coloured text this is what happened Plastering finished in the open plan area this coming week (by others) This did happen in October Remainder of stone cladding arrives and work begins to get the most inaccessible (high) parts put up before the scaffold gets taken away - this means cladding two 7m x 2m wide walls This also got done before the scaffold was removed in early January - thankfully the temperatures and the rain played ball Plumbing pipework ready for ASHP installation Sorted Gabion basket and pad for ASHP to be installed on Filled and Pad poured Mist coat and first coat on plaster (SWMBO is at the ready) What a job - so much brighter Begin fitting upstairs UFH No, no, no, what were you thinking (but more to come on this below) Front door being fitted (January) by others All done and glad I did not have to lift it up the stairs Take 3-4 days off for Xmas OH, YES and very much enjoyed ASHP installation (January) by others, that will allow for hot water and the downstairs UFH to be available ... All done and worked very well, hence the extra weeks stay Fit a temporary bathroom ... The temporary shower was so good we were going to keep it but then changed design of the bathroom - one of the things from living in the house Fit out utility room as temp kitchen ... This is still in place and being used as part of our welfare unit on site Here are some pictures of the above work And so, we moved in just at the end of January and lived in the house for 5 weeks. During this time we experienced what the house was going to offer us, and, apart from the dust, we were only too happy to be able to stay an extra week when the cold snap came along at the beginning of March and we could delay our return to the static van (AKA tin box). This in spite of a temporary bathroom, kitchen and bedroom facilities. The cat, however, thought differently about the dust, but seemed generally happy with the quality of work While we were in the house during March work carried on with fitting the remaining plasterboard ready for the plasterers to come along in March. This was pretty much all we did - and we're very glad to only have a few more sheets plus some waterproof backerboard to fit. No pictures of this as it is really not that inspiring 🙂 Going into March we created YAL (Yet Another List) 🙂 We've all been there - the ever changing & expanding, rarely static or reducing list. Anyone got onto the LOL yet (the List Of Lists)? This included, in no particular order (that came later), Hassle the SH1T out of the window installation company to investigate and fix the leaks (three fixed windows and a sliding door) that came to light after we did the first lot of plastering the rest of the plastering, the rest of the mist coating and painting, more stone work, moving as much stuff into what we now call the attic (a very large room downstairs as we don't have a real attic) in order to clear all the other rooms, Install the UFH upstairs with plywood cover fit the bathroom, fit the kitchen, fit the utility and cloakroom, electric 2nd fix rainwater soakaways rainwater collection system backfilling concrete lego brick retaining wall Flooring Wood cladding Air tightness test (as I write this, I think "oh, sh1t, I must get that booked in") Fit internal doors Fit en suite Build MY garage A green roof system, because its on the planning application, and may be required for certificate of completion (unless someone can enlighten me as to how to avoid this, and be able to delay the installation) We are focusing on the internal works in order that we can move in, although not necessarily completed on the outside, sometime in the summer months. The first 3 or 4 items have progressed well: <----- This is the "attic" with a garage floor paint that remains a little tacky even 3 weeks later, but it'll eventually get covered with a "proper" floor at some point in the future Despite the window leaks not being fixed yet, we have ploughed on and had all the other plastering done. The window installation company knows the situation and is fully aware that we expect them to repair any further damage caused by the water ingress. (I'll not respond to any comments on this point for my own sanity 🙂 ) Flooring has been ordered, and 2nd fix electrics loosely scheduled in, as well as some of the backfilling, and prepping for the garage foundation. The UFH has started where the floor is available, and in order to be able to install the kitchen (the picture below is not where the kitchen will be - I don't appear to have photoed that - strange. Those who have been reading my blogs will recall from an earlier entry the terrible story of SWMBO's foot. Well today (Apr29) as I write this on a hotel terrace in Oxford she is recovering from her sixth operation, this time a toe fusion, that will take her out of the game for at least 6 weeks, 2 of which she has to spend with the offending appendage raised above her heart for 23 out of 24 hours every day. She won't even be able to climb the walls with frustration. So yours truly will likely be happy to be dispatched to the house each day to GO AND DO SOME WORK!! 🤣 Until next time, which I hope will be the "We've moved in" entry.

Following this link https://www.juliancassell.com/2564/fitting-a-door-lining provided by @MortarThePoint in another post I have fitted my first door lining (of 14). Rather pleased with the result. Hopefully the remainder will be as successful

I had the kitchen company do their final measure prior to manufacture today. The guy remarked that co incidentally 2 measurements from freshly screeded floor to ceiling were millimetre exact at 2366. ' i'll never get that again' says he. So he did another one from a remote point from the first two. 2366mm ! He then said that every wall corner to corner dimension and corner angle was bang on. Sometimes things do go right.

Sorry my view, they are taking the p!ss with mine and your tax money, they don't deserve the trade. And that's my highly editted version.of my real thoughts.

Just buy yourself a Panasonic to suit your heat needs about £3.5k, cylinder2go heat pump cylinder about £1200 from memory. Find a plumber to join it together with a 28mm 3 port diverter valve between cylinder UFH. If only UFH no need for mixer or pump. Expansion vessel and relieve valve after tee from cylinder return and a filling loop and a strainer. That's about all you need. So where these rip off merchants get the prices no idea. I just did myself, I paid £1300 (ASHP), £1000 for cylinder and another £600ish for stuff. Spent a few days installing. Got electrician to do wiring hook up. Zero faff, bought what I wanted, no justification about sizing etc.

My Husband and I have built a Baufritz house and it has been completed just over a year now. We chose a turnkey option although Baufritz are happy to provide just the shell. From start to finish, I can honestly say that that I cannot praise them enough. I designed the house based loosely on another Baufritz house. The architect was happy to take my lead and make the plans work. At every stage, their can-do attitude ensured that any problem was solved swiftly with the minimum fuss. When considering a self build, our biggest worry was the budget getting away. Baufritz gave us an initial price based on a number of questions and options. Once we decided to go ahead and obtained planning permission, we were flown out to Germany to see the factory and chose the internal fittings. The final price is then set depending on our choices which was pretty close to the original figure. That price is agreed and fixed. We paid not a penny more despite materials prices soaring between signing and the build. Baufritz dealt with demolition of our bungalow, groundwork’s and all preparations. They insist on using their own contractors in order to guarantee standards and scheduling. We were given a detailed schedule and they completed it 6 weeks earlier than estimated. As somebody has said, Baufritz are not cheap but you can see where every penny goes. The quality of the materials are top draw. Skirtings and doors are solid oak the quality of workmanship is second to none. Nothing was left to chance and on the rare occasion a hitch arose, everyone, no matter which trade, worked together to deal with the problem. The German work ethic blew me away. Arriving at 7.30am, they would plan what had to be achieved that day and would work until the scheduled tasks were completed, no matter what that time was. Nobody left the site before 5pm. how does the house perform? Without heating, the super insulated rooms and heat recovery system maintains a steady 19-22 degrees. We have an air source heat pump which gets little use. We installed solar panels with battery storage, so once the batteries are charged, surplus power is sold to the grid providing credit to take us through the winter months. Our plan was to build a super insulated, easy to maintain home to take us into our retirement and we are very happy with the result.

This blog post is out of order, I’ve lots of other content yet to post, but thought it important to capture in the moment. I’ve spent the last few days preparing my en-suite floor for tiling. cut out the 22mm p5 chipboard ready for the shower former. plumb the 40mm shower waste to a 50mm solvent weld pipe, which was a smaller size than the 40mm solvent weld adapter I had. Turns out compression fittings are able to go from 40mm solvent weld (42mm OD) to 40mm OD shower waste. add batten and 18mm plywood level with the post joists, prime chipboard with SBR. Lay 12mm tile backerboard (could have got away with 10mm, but went 12mm to match the walls, less waste) on tile adhesive, and screwed at 300 centres. Install 22mm lussostone former on top of the ply, on a bed of tile adhesive. Use a CT1 like mastic for between the joints for waterproofing. Lay electric UFH at 100mm centres, just to take the chill off the tiles, not intended as a means to heat the space. set packers to level, ready for self leveller. Foam gaps. Pour flexible fibre self leveller, trowel to packers, spike roller. (Note, the fibres really gnarl up the roller, need tclean between buckets) Grout flout tile adhesive over the former to the built in falls. Self leveller would ruin this. Dry lay marble tiles and cut to falls. I was using an electroplated marble blade in my grinder, meant to reduce chipping, but went blunt real quick and ended up ruining a couple tiles, switched to a turbo blade that was actually pretty good. In the future i wouldn’t use the electroplated blade. Tonight I’ve just started to tile and really struggled. Because I self levelled the room and not the tray, I built up 7mm up to the edge of the former, but only spread 2mm adhesive over the top wires in the former. That leaves a 5mm deficit, that needs to be made up over the whole former whilst tiling. That’s a lot of adhesive if you add in 3mm adhesive bed going over the rest of the room. I laid 3/4 of the former, but I ripped 2/4 back up again, I was using rapid set adhesive and i wasn’t able to get it to a standard I was happy with, joints out of line, excessive lippage. if I were to do it again (I’ve got 2 more formers to do), i’d sacrifice a dead level room, to reduce build up at the edge of the former. The former is designed with built in falls, and by building up, I’ve destroyed this. I could have also gone 2-3mm lower with the self leveller and still achieved a level floor, given 3mm adhesive would still be applied over the top of the bare UFH in places. what a nightmare!

Pass on the delivery details provided to the delivery driver. If I give you a What3Words address there is a damn good reason - postcode will put you in a 2.5 mile radius of the actual location

We have quite an area of "driveway" and opted for 20mm granite chips. In my view they work much better than any smaller stone, as they do stay in place better. Anything smaller would be too easily distributed I feel - see photo for our set up - Occasionally, / rarely, I will rake them over but other than that, job done.

Weeks 27 to 34 Cladding After securing our planning permission I arranged for a few samples of wood cladding from various trees and from a few different suppliers. I propped them up in the sun and watched for months as they changed colour and silvered off. We made a short list of which we liked, something with a definite grain pattern so not Poplar, not too knotty so not pine, thermally modified wood as it is less prone to shrink and swell and as it’s no longer sappy less interesting to insects and lighter for handling. We also wanted tongue and groove with secret fixings through the tongue and minimal fixings elsewhere if necessary, this often varies by supplier some say screw, some nail very few actually say nail gun as it can damage the brittle wood. We decided Ash was our favourite and got a few quotes from different suppliers, unfortunately when the time came to order prices had increased and we had to rethink as delivery became a big problem. We wanted it delivered by Hi-ab but most said the charge for hi-ab to us would be quite expensive or that they didn’t offer that service or it would be delivered to a hub then onto us and they couldn’t guarantee against damages. Read the delivery small print if you are thinking of having wood cladding. As it’s just me and my husband we weren’t looking forward to manually offloading the wood whilst the driver was waiting to make his next delivery and as no specific time frame for deliveries were available we couldn’t arrange for help offloading. A local company in Somerset could deliver by Hi-ab at a reasonable cost but it would be knotty pine. We really didn’t want pine but as it was cheaper and the delivery method ok we reconsiderd but still couldn’t make that final decision. Then I found Russwood after initially discounting them due to the fact they are in Inverness and we are in Cornwall and at the time I had at least 4 other companies all based lower than Birmingham some much closer to us. I spoke to Russwood and discussed delivery with them and discovered they deliver by Hi-ab on a big double length trailer but arrangements could be made that half of the trailer was left in a local lay by if necessary and our wood came on just the front half. They offered us Thermo Pine but it is slightly different the knots are fewer than on other pine samples we had from other suppliers Russwood describe them as butterfly knots, through the length of the knot rather than across the heart (round knots), you do still get some round knots. The tongue and groove is better designed in that each piece is fully pushed to the next but on the hidden side has room to expand. Most other tongue and groove needed a few millimetres between each plank for expansion which would slow the process down of putting it up and a bit more fiddly in general. Another difference in our wood is the face edges are rounded it gives a slightly more finished wood that could easily be used internally as well. As we we’re saving quite a bit on the Ash price we decided to over order enough that we can use some on the overhang, I don’t think we know yet how much spare wood we will have. A few comments from my husband are that it goes up really nice, screwing in the groove on the tongue with electric screwdriver so most fixings are hidden. It’s all fairly straight and not warped, some damaged pieces by handling but can be sorted into useable lengths over or under windows for example. On a sunny day he is enjoying this job. Cost to date Brought forward £207626 Cladding £5357 Cost to date £212983 I have noticed the Suffolk meet up chats and thought that If anyone is interested I could have an open day once we have done some more cladding and the rendered wall is complete and hopefully solar installation finished. The renderers are due to start soon so I was thinking May or June. It will only be for Build hub members so just PM me and we can all discuss dates that suit a few of us. If nice weather BBQ outside in the Bude sunshine.

The point of £20 billion on carbon capture is probably what pocket does that taxpayers money end up lining. Much the same as how the Covid situation was taken advantage of by the elite class to appropriate our money and to hell with the consequences to public services/health/inflation and the economy in general etc etc

hopefully this will help others not do the same as me....... I have completed our VAT reclaim and one of the invoices they asked for was for our Loxone system. Initially they rejected the Loxone system as it wasn't covered under the VAT reclaim scheme. I argued that it 100% classified as "allowable" under "Intelligent lighting as shown at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/goods-and-services-you-can-claim-for-under-the-vat-diy-scheme#goods-and-services-g-to-i and without the system we wouldn't have any lights. They responded with the fact that the invoice shows "intercom" and "stereo" means that the system is capable of audio which isn't allowed. even if the system isn't being used for those things. So, long story short, buy the Loxone intercom, audio server and stereo extensions and anything else that wouldn't be covered separately so they're on different invoices and don't claim for them allowing you to claim for the other stuff. this mistake cost us about £1k in VAT reclaim.

Fit them yourself, it’s money for old rope, the hardest part is actually lifting them up, another strong mate and your done. i don’t know why people think it’s complicated to fit a few screws in some brackets. the air sealing you will make a better job than the fitters anyway.

We got a Q on a barn and then went for demolish and rebuild, heading into final fix plastering nearly complete. No real problems except getting trades here and recticel door problems

how big do you want to go.

Throw it back over the fence.

Blinds or curtains closed first, UFH or fan coils connected to heat pump second. PV to power heat pump 3rd. It's sunny here and has been for a few weeks. Average temperature yesterday was 9.5 degrees and down to 2 degs overnight. However we have the cooling on and it's been on for the last month (except a few days). Well insulated, quite airtight and lots of glazing. Apart from a brief period 5pm to 7pm house stays pretty stable at 20 to 21 degs. PV pays for the heat pump to run. Generally running the house, ASHP etc paying about 80p a day for electric, don't get paid for export otherwise it would be free.

We have a passive class TF build with external stone cladding 2 storeys with 2 rooms and en-suite in warm loft, so really 3 floors. We have UFH on the ground floor in the poured slab and nothing on the two upper floors. Not having to stick rads on any walls is a real boon for laying out your rooms and planning built-in cupboards and furniture. BTW, all of our wardrobe space is in built-ins / walk-ins, so no VAT, and again keeps living space uncluttered. What we saved on CH costs easily paid for our (self-installed) MVHR. IMO, air-tightness isn't really a major cost as long as you've factored into your design and build rules. It's attention to detail and making sure everyone understands the rules and follows them. When you say "I'm building" this can mean a spectrum from "I am really paying a builder to build it for me" to "I am building it all myself". Where are you on this scale? In our case, we used a specialist sub for the slab and TF, another for the fenestration, and a good local builder for all of the ground-works and stone skin. We also used a couple of his regular and recommended tradesmen for electrics, tiling, slate roof and plaster boarding. I also got a local architect technician to do the plans for the planning application for a few £K. Other than that we did the overall design, project management, procurement, quality assurance, and various trades like plumbing, woodwork, MVHR, CH, so pretty much all internal second fit; also planning and BCont docs and sign off. TBH neither Jan or I realised just how much work this would really entail, and we were exhausted by the time we moved in. Still 8 years later, and we live in a pretty maintenance free house with pretty much no post move in problems or things needing fixing. We have a high quality house and saved a lot on our build costs by doing a lot of the attention-to-detail stuff ourselves. One Q I would ask: Why so much glass? It costs a lot more than TF/blockwork and dumps heat like crazy. I know that it can occasionally help you connect to a stunning view, but if you are overlooking the street or neighbours, then do you really want to connect to them or have them looking into you private space? There's a 1970s/80s estate close to us where the architects loved having full 2-storey wall to ceiling window panels. Maybe 95% of the houses have since bricked in / insulated clad the bottom halves and fitted conventional 2G/3G windows instead. Architects might love it, but IMO occupants usually end up hating it.

Thanks so much for your comments. There appears to be no negotiations at all possible with the neighbour and no way leaves which grants us any rights. The running an overhead line wasn’t going anywhere but we had them out on site with my builder and a field engineer and found a solution by putting up a new pole on a tiny bit of land which is owned by Highways rather than any nearby farmer like all the other poles. We’ve separately been having much joy getting water to the site so have a contractor who is going to do directional digging along a different stretch of road, so for not much cost our contractor can run an additional duct which UKPN can tap into from the new pole and avoids any neighbouring land. Cost will be similar in the end to running the cable underground even if we did get permission. Still a huge amount for utilities - probably £35k all in for both - but the mains water is 135m away and new electric pole around 90m, plus they are upgrading the transformer so we can get an 100A supply. Happy to have a way forward in the end

And suffer the abuse of everyone telling you you're a Festool Fan Boy! I take a pragmatic approach to tools - generally speaking, the greater the accuracy required and the closer the tool is used to the final/finished product, the more I spend on it. So I have everything from Festool down to Machine Mart Clarke tools.

The advertised rate and the actual negotiated rates being so wildly different. Why not just give me your best price? I’m constantly surprised as to who is offering the best price, recently been to two specialist BM for roofing materials. Both were beaten by my local BM for a not insignificant roof area of 282m2. Timber, felt, lathe, trim, nails, tiles, the full kaboodl!!! Same goes for lintels. Why advertise a rate of X when the merchant will immediately give you 40+% off!

From my limited experience I think this could be a key area for you to focus on. A few wider thoughts: You will need to be clear about your niche. How are you going to differentiate yourself from a planning consultant or normal architect? Most new self-builders won't know what they don't know. Human nature makes us fell safer doing what we see others have done so they will naturally gravitate to the norm - ie an architectural firm. Perhaps a survey of Buildhub members to find out their experiences of their journey and where they felt they would have benefitted from some independent help. Have you considered working alongside an architectural firm (or firms) as their self build expert? Taking Mike's point from above you might be able to create a symbiotic relationship with a company that works for both of you. In my experience, and reading of other's experiences, architects get very excited about the design stage but interest drops at an alarming rate as the project approaches the point where a spade hits the ground. You could work alongside them in the early stages then take over as the project develops. In practical terms, although you say only 2-3 clients at any one time, will that give you sufficient income and how are you going to be able to service them? The chances are they will be spread across the UK so you will need to factor in travel and time away which will eat into profits/make you more expensive. Regardless of the route you take, running a small business is as much (if not more...) about marketing and sales - especially in the early years until you have built up a reputation. With a business such as the one you propose you will need to maintain that marketing/sales effort because the likelihood is 99% of your clients will not be repeat customers so you will always be searching out new opportunities. (An alliance with an architect(s) as suggested above might help this issue). Apologies if that all sounds a bit negative but I've worked with a lot of embryonic businesses and these are just some of the realities. Despite the negativity/realism I do like your idea and think that if you can crack the niche and find a simple, powerful way to market to your ideal clients this could be a really good business idea.

Take careful measurements, take them outside and cut to size. Clamp together, with a straight-edge to supplement the evidence of your eyes. Mark sections, drill, bolt up. Check again. Unbolt, take up to the roof, lay sections out and bolt up in situ. At this stage I'd use spiked washers.

Paying more tax isnt going to improve services. Id bet good money on that. Paying more tax just means a bigger transfer of wealth from us, to a select few. Net zero is a dream vehicle by which to do that. The success/output cannot be measured or quantified, so more money will be needed indefintely.

Been hosing that corner like it’s the end of the world . Many times a day since Friday . Yet to reproduce any leak at all ! . Not 100% convinced yet but …… getting there ……

Good evening all, went with the wall starter kits as suggested, they worked a treat thanks.

I went to a local information meeting for 2 more wind farm proposals near here. It was a bit of an eye opener. Yesterday was reasonably windy here (enough to need a reef in the sail) so you would expect wind generation to be reasonable. Yet in spite of that, wind was producing about 11% of our electricity while we were at that meeting. Lets think about that. Wind would need to get up to about 80% of our needs to ever stand a chance of net zero. So we would need 8 times as many wind farms as we have already to achieve that. Now go and stand on a Scottish mountain top. count the wind farms you can see. Imagine having 8 times that number of them. That is not going to be pretty. The wind farms we have are overloading the 2 high voltage pylons south from the Highlands already. If we have 8 times as many we will need at least an additional 10 similar high voltage pylon lines just to shift the power down to the south where it is needed. I am getting more and more angry at the sheep thinking we can build a few more wind farms up here because there is plenty of land and it's windy and it will solve all our problems. No it won't, not unless you completely trash the Scottish mountains so there is no unspoiled landscape left. Enough is enough. Build the bloody things down south where the power is needed. Cotswolds, Chilterns, Downs, etc don't have many do they, lets see them on all those hills before we get lumbered with any more. I am sure all those in favour of building them up here would object to them on the "nice" hills down south.

So That's small beer on a global or country perspective, tax take in 2024 in UK was about 1,100 billion. It makes money by making companies pay to use it or they get hit by more expensive carbon credit penalties. My last reasonably sized project was £2 billion, payback was in between 8 and 10 months. Project life expectancy 15 years. Two ways to look at emissions. London has huge issues with localised population caused by lorries, ships and cars. Removing those sources of pollution from bad areas, fixes those pollution issues at a local level. Makes no difference on a global scale, but people living in that area can breath better and live more healthy. Carbon capture is a just a slightly bigger version the above. If we look after the smaller stuff that effects us, it's a good thing, not a bad one. You putting 400mm of loft insulation in does nothing for emissions on a global scale, but it reduces your emissions, helps your wallet in the long term. Your next door neighbour doesn't bother, but why should it not stop you doing the right thing. Don't look at things as global this, and global that, we can do things we control, doing the right thing gives a cleaner healthy country.

The rust showing is caused because the 2 metal sections have only been tacked together and then painted, leaving the joint open to ingress and unprotected. You need to clean the area with a wire brush on a grinder and then if it's a structural joint, weld it fully, if not structural, seal the joint with a good quality paintable sealer or automotive seam sealer, before painting.

They refer to this as "thermal shocking", but tbh I think I've done this twice in 20 years and doubt it made any difference. Reason being is that the slabs / screeds have never been down and then laid on. Any that have I have just used a decoupling membrane to cheat the risk of cracks migrating through to the finished floor. At 6" of concrete (and assuming some mesh in there, if not 2 layers of?) and the fact it's been down for nearly 2 years means this has done anything it's ever going to do already, and I'd not even bother with expansion gaps at the doorways. As you say, the flow temp will be very low 20's so this will all expand and contract (if ever) at the same rate of knots at the beginning and end of each heating season and life will go on. Your tradespeople are 100% correct to follow the path of due diligence as you'd be the first to complain and sue if the 'cracks began to appear' so they're rightfully covering their arses as would I. Follow their advice and then you have full recourse. Just ask that they use a quality flexible adhesive, and that the slab is thoroughly cleaned / prepped / primed so the adhesive has excellent purchase on the concrete, after that I doubt you have anything to worry about here at all; sounds like you have tilers who GAF too which is reassuring.

Screed laid this morning, all good, no leaks no issues, no pressure increase. Remarkably smooth & uneventful. Big sigh of relief.

Whilst I have a heat pump and think they are good, in the right circumstances, I find it hard to believe for most people, that swapping a gas boiler for a heat pump will reduce bills by much, if anything. I have always believed a heat pump with a SCOP of 3 will deliver similar running costs to a mains gas boiler. You would have to achieve a much better SCOP to achieve a saving and I just don't believe the average retrofit ASHP can achieve that.

The BBC should be banned full stop There miles away from the BBC of thirty years ago Far from impartial

It's telling that the clip @nod shared on the switch to hydrogen is from British Gas. The fossil industries, gas network operators and boiler manufacturers are lobbying hard on this.... naturally, because without it, they're sunk. Consider this, to heat your house by burning green hydrogen will require 5.5 times as much renewable electricity as heating it with a heat pump or twice as much if you heat your house with resistive electrical heating. That's 5.5 times as many wind farms. And as @Mike says, as more people make the switch to electrical heating, the fixed costs of operating the gas network will have to be shared among fewer consumers. For these reasons, hydrogen will be prohibitively expensive. Additionally, the safety issues of having hydrogen in your home are problematic. It has a wider flammable range, is easier to ignite, generates higher overpressures when it explodes and is harder to keep equipment leak tight. Additionally, hydrogen gas hobs release more NOx that natural gas. NOx has been implicated in respiratory diseases. There have been three trials proposed for domestic hydrogen in the UK, Whitby (near Ellesmere Port), Redcar and Fife - notably all disadvantaged areas where consumers might be more attracted by inducements from the vested interests sponsoring the proposed trials - Cadent, Northern Gas Networks, Scottish Gas Networks. Whitby and Redcar have been abandoned largely due to independent academics and engineers stepping in to shine a light on the safety issues and misinformation being provided to the residents. Cadent engaged the engineering company Arup to do the risk assessment for Whitby, to estimate the expected frequency of leaks and explosions. Introducing hydrogen with no additional engineering mitigation measures gave unacceptably high risks, higher than gas. They proposed measures to get the risk down to the same level as gas. They considered this level of risk to be tolerable which is in itself flawed, since legislation here requires risks to be managed to be as low as reasonably practicable - heat pumps are a practicable way to heat your home with less risk of fire and explosion. Some experts challenged other conclusions of the Arup risk assessment. There will be challenges to decarbonising by renewable electrification - grid capacity, curtailment, Dunkelflauten. But solutions are available. There are uses for hydrogen for which, unlike heating, there is no alternative - e.g. making ammonia or methanol and desulphurising fuels in refineries. That's the first priority for green hydrogen. But if science and economics are allowed to prevail over politics and lobbying, we won't be heating our homes with hydrogen. @Wadrian, I don't think you need a gas connection!

But completely different size to all standard plenum and terminal connections. I would stick to standard ventilation stuff for ventilation, rather than trying to bodge because you may save a few pennies.

Home Energy Scotland, £7500 + rural uplift of £2500 if you qualify. Applies for existing properties in Scotland, worth giving them a call. https://www.homeenergyscotland.org/home-energy-scotland-grant-loan?_gl=1*1b7vop5*_gcl_au*MTEwODQ2NDI0OS4xNzQ3ODUzNjkx*_ga*NzE5MDk4NDAuMTc0Nzg1MzY5MQ..*_ga_TKJP6VRNHD*czE3NDc4NTM2ODkkbzEkZzEkdDE3NDc4NTM3MTMkajAkbDAkaDA.

Apply for the CIL exemption using the correct forms if CIL is a thing in your area. Start on any planning conditions that say "Before work starts in site..." or similar. Apply for temporary electric and water connections or whatever you need for the van and site. These can take time.

The cost of extra materials for air tight is not much, for our TF house it was a few rolls of air tight membrane and a lot of air tight tape. The BIG thing is attention to detail at EVERY stage and by EVERY trade to avoid unnecessary holes of any size, anywhere. And then there are avoiding the planned holes. No individual extract fans (which most of the time are just an unwanted 100mm diameter hole in your building) No letter box, no cat flap, no open vented fire with a chimney or a flue, no trickle vents in windows. Instead you have MVHR that does all the ventilation with just one ballanced inlet and outlet and removes the need for all the other uncontrolled holes. And if you fit a stove, have one with ducted air inlet or otherwise known as room sealed. There are additional costs if you want good quality triple glazed windows etc. Our house has typical U values of 1.3 to 1.4 in the walls roof and floor, and even up here in the Highlands we don't have heating upstairs. If you are going to do it. seek detailed advice here, but it really means educating and supervising every trade. Don't just let the electrician and plumber drill holes where they feel like it. Plan it with them and keep an eye to make sure they stick to the plan.

Thorfun, your cabinet is an additional cost (that most go for). Cabinet placement is something that can make or break an installation. They can be moved (within reason) limited by distance from the tank etc.

With an unvented cylinder (UVC) the flow/pressure is related to the pressure of the mains and size of the pipework. Also with a UVC you don't need water above 50 for showering, washing etc. (otherwise you'll just scald yourself, or use lots of cold to mix it down). Using an ASHP to go any higher than 50ish and you'll just be running it VERY inefficiently.

I did ask our LPA during a telephone conversation and they said there is no legal size for the rear garden space, it depends on the overall application. I do know the dropped kerb has to be at least 4.8m in depth and no obstacles within a meter either side. It definitely ticks all the boxes for the dropped kerb. I'm hoping as it would only be for 1 or 2 people depending on which route we take, that the rear garden will be sufficient. It's within walking distance to all amenities and open spaces which will hopefully be taken into account.

Thats great. But assumes that more tax = better services. Problem is, the reality, in the UK, is the opposite. Those increased taxes are not delivering improved services.

Likewise. I have taken action to reduce my tax, by the simple expedient of working less. The incentives to work hard just keep on shrinking. Until recently, I used to run a business, employ people, pay corp tax (more than starbucks(!)). Not a chance id run a business now. You are just a cash cow to be bled dry at every turn. As i said its quite obvious public services and the standard of living are only going one way, while tax goes the other. Irrespective of who is in the chair at any monent. Whilst i cant remove myself from the "system" i sure can reduce my contribution to it. And to add to the sheer stupidity, if i get my income below £31k (likely) then i can have £45k of work done to my house free of charge, a grant, not a loan, to install heat pump, solar and insulation. Earn one penny more, nothing, i have to pay. Guess what im going to do?

I’m just about to build an oak canopy over the front door Staining and going grey is a real problem Osmo UV doesn’t do what it says on the tin Im looking for alternatives I did all our sofits and facias in a would effect Don’t fancy being up a ladder each year

Tried searching for sinusoidal cladding? There are plenty of options.

Reverse / inverted / snail, all called different things by different folk, just where the pipe isn't serpentine; eg it's not just simple up / down / up / down runs with 180o loops at each end. This is easy to implement when pipes are at 150-200mm oc, but at 100mm it's nigh-on impossible to do anything other than inverted.

Especially when the ring and intermediate beams are doing the majority of the work. 175mm is over egged for a domestic residence as the slabs then distribute weight over the area so benefits become nigh on inconsequential over 100mm imho. 280mm for a previous job, and then the guy wanted to put UFH on top in a screed FFS. In a 1.5 story house!! I challenged, with reason, and they reduced to 230mm(!!) iirc, but agreed also to then lift the slab, inset the UFH pipes, and feck the screed off. Saved the client 5 figures in 2 sentences. And I was late to the meeting lol.

A 2 port buffer looks like this - the grey box being the heat pump