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Our planning application was finally approved yesterday! When we bought the plot it already had planning on it, so our application was a variation to change the design. We submitted it in February 2026 and it was finally approved in October 2026. Annoyingly we just had a long series of stupid delays. The planning officer didn't even seem to start looking at our application until May-ish. Then she requested a few changes regarding window symmetry and wanted us to lower the ridge height slightly. We did that. We had to send it back for another round of consultations but she gave us a new deadline of mid-July 2026. That came and went with no contact from her... We then learned our officer was on leave for an unknown amount of time so it was reassigned. It took the new officer so long to look at it that our original one came back from leave and it got reassigned back again! Glad this process is finally over. Next step for us will be to sell our house to fund the build and move into a rental property. At this point we'll be waiting until after Christmas to kick that off.

I decided I had to do something to combat the eventual indoor overheating which didn't involve installing air conditioning, this may be needed at some point if temperatures keep rising but i'd rather keep it as a last resort. I've been using all of the usual tricks in the book, opening everything up when its cooler outside than in, and shutting everything up during the day, which worked as well as it could, the bungalow is pretty well insulated so this strategy worked in the most part, but the prolonged heatwaves we had and tropical nights made it an impossible job to shift the heat. Keeping the internal blinds and curtains shut also helped, but the triple glazed units eventually heat up and then retain that heat for some time. Internally the frames/panes hit around 40C, which all adds to that air temperature over time. I have 6 south facing roof windows, and many years ago decided to get the external awning blinds which made a huge difference to the internal temperature of the windows on a hot day. The 2G ones used to hit well over 70C midday, but with the external blinds that came down to 50C, still hot but a big difference. The newer 3G ones, i currently have one with and one without an external blind, just bought one at the time to see how much difference it made on the newer version of the windows, as you'd expect this is much less of a difference as they are just better overall. Without the external blind the frame/pane hit 55C and with the blind, 47C. This was during the prolonged June heatwave when air temperatures were also very high. I looked into getting some external blinds made for the other windows to bring those internal temperatures down in extreme heat, and maybe just maybe give myself a better nights sleep when it happens, but was shocked at the cost. When I read of the impending El Nino and that chances of more heat next year, I decided that i'd get some external blind material, and make my own. Cue the sewing machine, not something i'm overly familiar with, so with plenty of practice, and all the right bits (as they're for use outside, needed UV stabilised polyester thread, a special needle as its thicker fabric and a special foot for the sewing machine due to the 'stickiness' of the fabric, combined with polyester webbing to strengthen the hems, and finally stainless steel fixings to stop rust), i made some very slow progress but have finally completed my first blind, decided to do the bedroom one first on the back of the bungalow, so its not particularly seen from the street side whilst i get better at the whole process, but on the whole i'm pretty pleased with the outcome. And from the inside the outlook is like this. Very dimmed light inside, but a good view out. Obviously time will tell as to how effective it will be, but im confident it will have a good impact. The two windows on back of bungalow are surrounded by 100mm thick EPS External Wall Insulation, which provided its own unique challenge for fixing. I found these Fischer fixings which I hadn't come across before, and have to say I'm really impressed with them, though they are rather expensive. https://www.fischer.co.uk/en-gb/products/fixation-on-etics-insulation/fixing-in-substrate/thermax-8-and-10/stand-off-installation-thermax-8 So first one down, and concept works, just another 4 to make and fit before next year! Total cost including the Fischer fixings for all the material etc was no more than £300 for all 5 windows. Fabric came from this online shop, in bronze: https://www.fabricuk.com/fabrics/2298-sun-shade-mesh-wide-width.html

Steico is one of only 5 major international companies that use LVL flanges that I'm aware of. They are also the only I-Joist company to make their own web material (incredibly dense fibreboard) - the rest rely on OSB from 3rd party manufacturers. Most other joist manufacturers, including the majority that import into the UK, use finger jointed softwood - and there is nothing wrong with either method! I’ve used JJI finger jointed I-Joists for my extension and never had any issues with the build quality or dimensional accuracy. The only issues I’ve had have come from bad storage, with joists that have been allowed to soak up water and then not been stacked flat to dry. An OSB web is more prone to issues with dampness and swelling and structural weakening than hardboard, but LVL flanges also more prone to mould than softwood. It’s all horses for courses, - whatever type you use, they should be properly stored -flat - and protected from the damp. However, it is also true to say that it is much harder to obtain softwood of the right quality and strength to make flanges; LVL manufacturing always makes for consistent and controllable structural properties whereas softwood is limited by what nature produces. Hence a lot of softwood is steam treated and pressed for straightness, and there is considerably more wastage of raw timber to produce something suitable. Unfortunately, there is also now a lot of engineered timber products available from 'dubious' sources. I was at a TDUK meeting recently where the OPSS basically admitted that 100% of timber imported into the UK from Turkey was 'not compliant' with UK Timber regulations. If you don't know where the timber comes from, you also cannot guarantee the quality. That’s not to say that all engineered timber using sanctioned Russian Timber produced by Chinese mills and imported into the UK via a Turkish trading company will be poor quality. But there is usually a reason why it is much cheaper…

Yeah I've done it. I used a block and mallet on the short sides to put that home and an offcut and mallet to bring the long side into the tongue/groove. It's a fairly satisfying project I found. Easy to cut with a straight edge and a Stanley knife, just score it and snap, jobs a good un. With the UFH I often hear the odd click of a length popping out slightly I assume, but it hasn't been a problem so far and I'm 18 months in. Also dropped SWMBO's favourite ceramic ice bucket on it which exploded into a million bits but the LVT was undamaged. What I found a pain, especially in a big room, was trying to keep the pattern random. So a plank with as many individual designs as possible is a bonus, I was always fighting it trying to randomise it. Worked out nice though I thought.

The reduction in cost of LED lighting is surprising. An item of anecdata from my experience. My house is somebody else's self-build - a nearly finished "reduce a bungalow to trhee walls and a hole in the ground, and rebuild as a house with 150% extra space" done in 2008-2012 to rather better than building regs, but not near-passive, standard. It was 2013 and they ran out of getting their money back so left some things undone. He had a bit of an obsession with ceiling spots, and when we moved in there were 19 in the kitchen, and a total of 63 50W halogen GU10s in the house. I replaced them all with the new £4 Ikea ones as the first thing I did - ie the cost was about £250. It paid for itself in about 2 years. Now 12 years later, most of my Ikea LED GU10 lights have yellowed, and maybe a dozen have gone pop, so I am replacing all the rest. The "Trade Rated" pack of 50 in the LAP brand I picked up from Screwfix (949YY) yesterday came in at £32. How things change. Time will tell if I bought a pup.

The Ecotrus system - why I chose it As promised, here's a few more details on the light gauge steel system that I used, and in particular why I chose it. Unlike Gus, this isn't something I'm familiar with - the vast majority of any previous building work that I've done has been with timber, and if I could have done this conversion using wholly timber, I would have happily done so. My key issue was the span, combined with my desire to do as much of the work myself as possible. Our house is essentially a square box, and it's approx 8600mm from wall plate to wall plate. There are no supporting walls at first floor level and so the existing roof was supported entirely by a typical Fink truss structure. I therefore kept going round the loop of how to bridge the span without needing the conventional approach of two RSJs at loft floor level and probably another at the ridge. I realise I'm not a structural engineer and there are probably a lot of possibilities which simply didn't occur to me here, but I did do a fair amount of research and cycled through considerations such as: Posi-joists: theoretically possible with the span, albeit would have been very deep. I also couldn't find any clear details, despite speaking to a few manufacturers, as how they could sit on the wall plates and be tapered on their top chord to fit within the roof slope. Timber I-joists: again, theoretically possible with the span, albeit right at the upper limit. Simpson Strong-Tie used to have a system to allow you to cut the necessary taper on the I-joists to fit within the roof slope, but it appears to have been discontinued now. Regardless, for the span I needed, this wasn't a particularly cost effective option and still didn't resolve what to do at the ridge. Glulams: as above, and much heavier to move as well. RSJs: probably the most conventional and likely the cheapest option overall. However, not something I felt confident managing or directing on my own, and would have required a crane to get them into position. If I'm honest, the main barrier here was probably my fear factor of operating well outside my comfort zone, plus the difficulty of finding a reliable contractor who was willing to take on the structural steel elements only. Telebeam: similar to EcoTrus, but relatively expensive and still didn't resolve what to do at the ridge. Various other combinations of building supporting walls at first floor level (too disruptive to the rest of my family, who I've been desperately trying to keep onside!) and trying to span between them. In summary, the EcoTrus system was the only one I came across which seemed to offer the required span, the freedom for me to install it myself and was backed up with a design service, structural calculations and LABC/NHBC Stage 1 pre-approval and LABC Partner Authority assessment. To be clear, I'm not saying it was the only option or even the right one, but it solved the problem that was front and centre for me. Being able to say 'I did it' has been a big part of this for me. How does it work? I found the system pretty logical. One day, a lot of steel turns up at your front door - in our case, 117 individual pieces of light gauge steel. The main components are the floor joists, rafters, gusset plates, ceiling joists and the dormer faces/cheeks. The latter are the only bits that turn up semi-assembled: we had three panels which made up the front of the dormer and two further panels for the cheeks. In advance of receiving the steel, you're provided with the assembly drawings and some standard guidance as to how put it together, starting with the floor joists. We removed the bottom three rows of tiles on both sides, fixed ropes to both ends of the joists and then lifted both simultaneously (with the back rope being rigged over a higher part of the scaffold) so that the joist ended up suspended mid-air at roughly loft floor height and in line with the relevant truss bay. Each one was then pulled in and slid through the roof until it was resting on the wall plates on both sides (with 45mm packers already in place). This was by far the most physical bit; each joist only weighed approximately 35kg, but the length made them awkward to handle. We managed it with three people and got them all in within four hours. There are two 250mm C-section joists per truss, fixed back to back through the truss at 600mm centres top and bottom with 5.5mm Tek screws. Then came the rafters; again slid into the right place using the same technique and with two 165mm C-sections either side of each truss. They were connected to the floor joists initially with a 16mm bolt, later reinforced with the same Tek screw pattern through the truss. Starting with the rafters at either end, the idea is that you then pivot each rafter on the 16mm bolt to lift them up to the underside of the existing felt until they are a specified distance above the floor joists. Once fixed, you string a line between them and use that as your reference point for all the remaining rafters. This sounded straightforward, but we ran into issues with our trusses not being true - once I had the rafters at either end fixed into place, it was impossible to get some of the intermediary ones pushed up to the same height because their corresponding trusses and/or the roof battens in that area were sitting lower. Ultimately, I had to strip that side of the roof to get them all in plane, which was fine for me as we had a tin roof scaffold and because I was planning to re-roof anyway, but would have caused a lot more issues if I had wanted to keep the existing tiles. Then you add the gusset plates - effectively reinforcing ribs which replace the need for a ridge beam - to the tops of the rafters and in line with your strings. Next comes the dormer face and cheek panels; I had messed up here and not allowed a sufficient gap in the scaffold to pull them through. The largest one was 2200mm by 3000mm and weighed about 120kg. The scaffolder was really helpful and sent a couple of his team round to adjust the scaffold and then help to haul up the panels, which we did with a scaffold hoist and some ropes to stabilise, effectively sliding them up the back of the house. They sit directly on top of the floor joists, more or less directly over the inner leaf of the back wall of the house. Once in position and squared up, you then install the dormer ceiling joists between the gusset plates and an L-bracket which is pre-fixed to the back of the dormer panels. Notwithstanding the issues with the rafters, it was a straightforward process - quite repetitive (driving Tek screws gets boring very quickly), but logical and sequential in its nature. The below photo shows where we had go to after ten days with two people working full-time (and obviously using the system for the first time). I'm conscious of length, so I'll end this post here and I'll cover the roof windows framing and some of the system idiosyncrasies next time.

I-joist packs should always be stored covered (original wrappings, and on edge (flanges) until use. They should never be laid on flat as shown above. It doesn't matter which manufacturer, their handling and storage instructions will always say the same and incorrect storage may void any warranty claims This is especially important for finger jointed softwood flanges as lateral deflection under pressure can cause the joints to open and reduce the structural integrity; since these are likely to have been forklifted into place the risk is greater. Setting on edge not only helps to prevents physical damage to the flanges and web glues, but it also reduces the risk of structural compromise of the web from water sitting inside. (More of an issue for OSB than Fibreboard, but frowned on for both) https://www.jamesjones.co.uk/assets/uploads/files/technical-info/jji-joist-and-glulam-site-storage.pdf https://www.steico.com/uk/products/construction/i-joists/steicojoist https://forestproductsgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/Nordic-Installation-Guide.pdf Ditto for metal web joists.

4th October marks the first full year of occupation of our new build. The heat pump has recorded 2650kWh for a cost of £703. This is taken straight from the Vaillant app and yes i know that some believe it to be potentially less than accurate. But ours is a very simple system so i am inclined to go with it unless i discover a reason not to. We have no gas supply so that is all of our heating and hot water. Happy with this. Now i need to try to get an accurate idea of what Octopus recorded for everything.

Further update on our VAT reclaim journey... HMRC have written to us (actual letter, not email) querying four invoices, covering about £3k VAT. The invoices are for our lights and our flooring tiles (two invoices for each: deposit and balance). They are asking for more information because the invoices don't specify the goods supplied. They have asked for paper copies of the four invoices, and supporting evidence from the suppliers detailing what the invoices cover, so I have sent the matching orders for each. The good news is that they said they will pay the vast majority and just hold back the the £3k for these invoices. And the day I got the letter the money arrived in our account. So, quite happy with that - 14 weeks or so from claim to payment of the bulk of the claim.

I have discovered that SWMBO's shower arrangements are completely different to mine. I very rarely use the side shower and she NEVER uses the overhead. I would suggest (i.e. I have been informed) that the riser bar is a necessity as whatever height you were to choose, either hair or body washing would be sub-optimal and therefore unacceptable I have a Mira digital and it is awesome. This is the arrangement in our downstairs bathroom. You can just see in the bottom right hand corner where the edge of the controls is. I would disagree with ProDave above as there is a delay between pressing the button and the digital shower kicking in, that delay is sufficient to retract an arm without any dampness , also the digital showers retain their heat settings so no twiddling is required Regards Tet

Hi all, I'm a long-time BuildHub lurker and stealer of others' good tips. I started a loft conversion in April this year and I've been meaning to start a BuildHub diary for a while, partly because I've found the forum enormously useful both prior to and while doing it, and partly because I've ended up learning more about loft conversions than I ever intended to and it may help others in future. This isn't necessarily going to be a 'look what I built' thread (albeit I'll happily pepper it with photos where appropriate). There are plenty of those and, while they're very useful, I think my personal experience on this project is potentially more valuable in documenting the decisions, problems and compromises that happened between the drawing and the finished building. One of the biggest things I've learned is that you can plan a project to death and still have absolutely no idea what you're going to find when you start cutting holes in it. The project We have a detached house, built in 2001 on a typical family housing estate, with a Fink truss roof and the project is a loft conversion with a full-width rear dormer. I wrote and submitted the full plans Building Regulations application myself, mostly because I have been the primary builder and so I wanted to design something that I was comfortable actually building. Just on me briefly - I'm not a professional builder, but it's something I've been doing for a long time and I come from a proud lineage of stubborn people who would rather mess something up themselves and learn from it than pay someone else to do it. It's a dangerous mindset to inherit. The loft conversion structure itself is based on the EcoTrus light gauge steel system, rather than the conventional approach of using steel beams and timber joists. I chose this for a number of reasons, which I'll detail in a later post, but the primary one was because it was a system that I could build largely by myself with minimal heavy plant and additional hands. There was also quite a lot going on around the LSG structure: external wood-fibre insulation, mineral wool, a warm-roof approach but with a ventilation layer, a full-width dormer, new rooflights, new stairs, fire protection, upgraded acoustic performance, ventilation and a new bathroom downstairs. The application therefore became a fairly substantial document covering everything from structure and fire safety through to thermal performance, ventilation, drainage and electrical work. I took several months to put it together and was quite pleased with it when it was done, and it passed inspection without any clarifications. I genuinely thought I'd worked through most of the major construction issues before I'd even got started... The illusion that you can plan everything Glibness aside, I'm not trying to say the planning wasn't worthwhile - it absolutely was. I think it has genuinely saved me enormous amounts of time and money so far. The Building Regulations drawings gave me something to work from. The structural calculations gave me a defined structural solution. The thermal details established how the insulation and airtightness strategy was supposed to work. The roof details dealt with things like ventilation, membranes, flashings and the dormer and the interfaces between them. But the fundamental problem with trying to design an alteration to an existing building to the finest degree is that you don't actually know what you're dealing with until you expose it. I drew multiple scaled CAD illustrations, but ultimately there are parts of the building that haven't been visible since the day it was constructed. A good example of this was the cavity wall and the height offset between the wall plate and the brick outer skin - that relatively small piece of unknown geometry suddenly has consequences for several other things. Where does the fascia go? Where does the soffit finish? How does the gutter sit? How does that affect the external insulation plane? How do the various layers meet? How do you deal with the junction without creating an ugly or unnecessarily complicated detail? Those aren't really Building Regulations questions. They're 'you're standing on a scaffold looking at an actual building, what are you going to do now?' questions. The value of my time Over the last six months, I've often found myself weighing up several possible solutions to an unexpected problem and often spending far too long chasing the neatest or most technically elegant answer, particularly because it is my own house. I'm gradually learning that the perfect solution isn't always worth the extra time and complexity. My time has value too. Sometimes a straightforward solution that works well is better than spending hours trying to make everything perfect. I'd like this diary to cover both sides of the project: what I planned, using my Building Regulations application as the starting point, and what actually happened during construction. I'll cover the EcoTrus structure, insulation, roofing, windows and all the inevitable surprises along the way. If I waffle too much, please tell me! Hopefully, it'll be useful to others considering a loft conversion, and an honest record of what happens when detailed plans meet the reality of an existing house. I've added a few illustrations of the project to date to set the scene.

Nobody with half a brain would consider doing this without moving both the supply pipes to the outside of the footprint of the new extension. Pipe is cheap, get two new supplies run in, they will probably damage the existing pipe whilst digging anyway so better to move them. What does it say in your deeds, do you have a right of passage for this pipe or was it just a handshake type arrangement years ago. The time you talk to a solicitor you could have chucked a couple of hundred quid at the builder and got a new one put in.

So, I’ve spent the last 4 days installing the posi joists and getting a temporary 18mm OSB platform down for the brickies who will start the upstairs blockwork next week. I was probably naive in thinking that posi joists would be dead straight. So a lot of time was spent, trying to pull them flat via strong backs and also concrete screws. unsure about the jointing plates on the upper cord or the restraining straps as these will surely get in the way of sitting the chipboard flooring flat, but that’s how Hampshire Engineering Timber solutions specified it. not sure if anyone can comment on whether that will cause issues fitting the flooring. Here are some pictures. I’m especially chuffed with the site stairs I purchased and collected a couple of weeks back and the temporary scaffolding platform I erected. It made carrying up the 18mm sheets of OSB on my own nice and easy. Without that it would have been impossible. I’ll get it finished tomorrow, before back to work Monday.

Lol. They’ll be used by everyone the second they're installed 🙄. Do this and then add some handrails. It doesn’t cost much and then you’re “safe enough”. Nobody inspects these until someone is seriously injured, then they get inspected to feck I assure you.

So bulk of the tiles are cut - couldn't find my paddle mixer for the adhesive so opted to cut as much as I could and get the bond right.

I think Nick is thinking health and safety. If you are going to be having big guys carrying a load of concrete blocks and mortar up them day in day out you need to consider the risks. Are you moving them inside before that work starts ? Are they attached to the scaffold & did the scaffolders put them in for you ? There are regs around scaffolding I believe, I think it is supposed to be checked and logged as ok on a very regular basis. Probably very often in breach, but if someone has an accident - it is your site and... they could come for you. If you need to modify or add to scaffolding I suspect you should be going back to the scaffold company. One of our carpenters had a friend that fell through a rooflight and ended up in a wheelchair. Inspection: construction platforms from which a person could fall 2 metres or more require inspection before use and at intervals no longer than 7 days, with further inspection after events liable to affect safety. A competent person must make the required report. Tags: a tag system can communicate inspection status, but tags are not themselves a legal requirement and do not replace inspection reports.

Thanks. I've recognized that my difficulty was primarily from the head of the roofing screw catching back of the gutter. No doubt the gutters and brackets are precisely made. With correct screws I expect no difficulty. Thx, ... P.

If you are installing it yourself, Antenna Finder on iOS is excellent, and the developer is very helpful too. You pop your postcode in or let it find your GPS coordinates, and it lists all the transmitters, distance, power, and locations (degrees) and suggests the best one for you.

Same fault here on a Q350 (firmware 1.7.0, SHT30): front display completely dead, green LED on the main PCB lit, and exactly these ten error codes. After a restart both fans ran for about a minute, then the unit switched off the fan for the supply air. It was the outdoor air sensor (ODA, the "top" sensor), more precisely the corroded capacitor next to the SHT30 on its small board. With that sensor plugged in, the communication with the other sensors and the display was disturbed. Quick check, with the unit unplugged from the mains first: unplug the outdoor air sensor at the main PCB. It is one of the two green connectors, on the side where your outdoor air duct is connected. If the display comes back and only SENSOR_ODA ERROR remains, it is that sensor. I only replaced the capacitor (100 nF, ceramic) and coated the spot with conformal lacquer afterwards. All errors have been gone since, and I did not have to replace or rebuild the sensor itself. A more detailed write-up with photos, fault-finding and the repair: https://kreasteve.de/en/comfoair-q350-display-schwarz/ Steven

Be cautious of biting off more than you can chew. I'm 3/4 through a stud dividing wall through the living room. It's only 3.5m long but I'm into my 3rd week. I'm a shift worker too so I imagine I have much more spare time than most although I do have small kids. I'm enjoying it but it's slow as hell. I got pretty much a full day done yesterday and more or less finished skimming both sides to a standard i'm happy with. I had to give 2hrs today to go to screwfix to get bits. Everything takes forever when you're not a pro with a van full of tools and spares, decades of experience and a full 8hr shift to throw at a task. Looking above at your list of things to achieve I'll take the 15 doors. What takes 20mins on you tube is actually about 3hrs in real life for a DIYer. Realistically you'd be doing well to do 3 a week. That's 5 weeks for doors alone. I would pretty much forget the cosmetic things to begin with. 1. Find the cash to throw at a few big things. A. Fabric of the building. Roof, gutters, pointing. B. Insulation, pumped cavity walls, 400mm in the attic. Get it done straight away. C. Wiring/plumbing if that's in the plan. D. Windows and doors. E. Some mechanical ventilation of some sort. 2. Let the dust settle a little with the kids (congrats on the imminent by the way). I sat and watched the LEGO movie 2 nights ago with my 3. Far more fun than messing with plasterboard and the little cliches grow up so fast. 3. Go room by room. Pick what room is to be done first. Probably a bathroom. A. Get a lock for the door and use it when you're not in there. B. Don't tackle anything else in the house until that is finished 4. Repeat until finished in 2040!

Advice I got from my pal, that saved me a couple £k doing up my old house is to keep an eye on fb marketplace. E.g. Somebody might have put in LVT into a kitchen and is giving away enough spares/offcuts to do your entire bathroom for free. Somebody might stock up on decent laminate just to get it vetoed by the Mrs (the dark oak is not quite dark enough and a little too oak!), so the poor sod ends up selling it on fb half price. Of course, this requires some flexibility from SWMBO re the colour & pattern. Tranche, stage, chapter, step, transition state (if you really want to sound like the cool kids) - all the same concept of breaking down a large project into small manageable chunks. Try to think through all your dependencies so you don't have to re-do any work. For your windows my key Q was why you're hiring somebody instead of fitting them yourself (sounds like you have the skills for it). Especially if you have a lot of windows, even if you have to chuck a couple £k into a scaffold, you should still be able to save thousands and release a quarter of your budget. I've been told you don't need a phd to do this, but ask me again in 4 weeks when I've fitted mine. What you're trying to do now is not planning - it's often called a ROM a (Rough Order of Magnitude cost estimate). Stick a finger in the air and use your previous experience to eyeball the extent of damage to your bank account after all is completed. There's benefit in doing this but don't mix it up with planning software, gantts, etc and I wouldn't overthink it. My advice is to go over the scope with a fine comb. Your current thinking is: I've got 4 bathrooms, bathroom cost me £900 last time and took 1 week -> I'll budget 4x900 with contingency -> call it £4k and a month of work. This is good thinking for a ROM. Now think scope and start planning: - I will not need bathroom #4 at any point in the next 5 years -> I can de-prioritise it and don't have to think about it again. Better to use my time & money on higher priority tasks. - Bathroom #3 seems to have a small leak -> I need to investigate asap, as this could lead to a lot more than £1k + 1 week if there's rot underneath the floorboards. -> Re-assess after further investigation. - Bathroom #2 is a straightforward like-for-like replacement, so fair to assume £1k+week -> Put it on your quick & easy wins list. - Bathroom #1 is large and, with a bit of work, can be re-modelled to fit a bath big enough for both you & mrs to comfortably climb into it at the same time🤩, but this requires more work than a straightforward like-for-like. Likely £2k and 2-3 weeks of work -> keep it as low priority for now, because it's a nice to have but you might run out of time & money to do it in the next 2 years. Maybe better to tackle it in year 3 but do it the way you ultimately want it. You get the idea, hopefully.

Almost all my customers either already have, or choose to move over to induction cookers when the heat pump goes in. Nothing forcing them to get rid of the gas hob when receiving the BUS grant, but it makes very little sense on its own.

Permission to be outspoken? That's because they don't know much*. Plumbers dont generally know much about it. The ones who do claim to be expert mostly get the designs done via their merchant who in turn go to their supplier. The ones who rightly don't say they are skilled in it.... are too busy plumbing to go on courses. That leaves the ones who fancy the work and the grants, and can still charge a lot in an overheated market. * I have discussed with plenty. Some bluff and perhaps exaggerate the little they do know, but some honestly say what they know and what they don't. But others talk the buzz words without actually understanding. In such discussions they generally assume I am an ignorant punter, and so I let them do their thing for a while. What I want is them to be able to join the pipes up and commission it. A large part of the builder population also think that Engineers, Architects, Building Inspectors ....and so on.... don't know what they are doing and over/ wrongly design. (ditto me being the ignorant client)

About time too. Handing out free money at £9k a time is insanity given other pressures. Its abundantly clear that the higher the grant goes, the higher the prices go.

Generally, projects have 3 control levers: budget, timelines and scope. People very often focus on the budget and forget about the other 2. For best planning, you need to use all 3 and build in contingencies for all 3. And if you prioritise your requirements well, scope is the easiest one to adjust. Since you're living in the house, have an orderly exit plan from every piece of work that you begin. And follow the 7P principle in everything you do.

You're doing internal doors yourself but budgeting £75k (over a third of your budget!) to pay somebody for externals? Are you planning significant structural work (relocating windows)? Just sayin', £75k is a lot of spondoolicks. Does it really need to be done? I'm not in a too dissimilar position (just moved into a run down, somewhat smaller, house - 135 sq m + garage + half an acre plot with a view of building a workshop or 2), but I'm not doing any budgeting - I'll just tackle 'em as they come because the house keeps throwing up new problems faster than I can deal with them right now. Just have my high-priority hit list and the rest can wait. Instead of trying to eyeball a budget for a massive project with a bucket of unknowns (you'll never get it right - trust me, I've been consulting on massive IT projects for a decade now - never seen an initial budget that didn't make me want to laugh out loud), I would very strongly advise you to do two things: 1) Tranche the works, at least into year 1 and year 2. Maybe into year 1 - summer; Year 1 - winter; Year 2 - summer; Year 2 - winter; Backlog. Good idea to MSCW all your requirements at this stage. After each tranche you, ideally, want to be in a position where you can cancel/long-term pause your works if you get a black swan event (you or Mrs become unemployed, end up in hospital, Mrs gets a bad case of postnatal depression, kids go long term sick, you get into a car or bike crash, Trump decides to invade us just to name a few). Do not plan to start work that you can't exit in an orderly manner. 2) Determine a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for each tranche and each year. The absolute minimum you need to deliver to be able to say that your work during that tranche has been competed and actually improved the house and added value to it (value to you personally or mkt value). In this case if shit hits the fan, you can de-scope the works to the absolute minimum you need to deliver in the given tranche. Also, have you done your full discovery? E.g. Are you 100% confident you wouldn't suddenly need to fork out £40k for removal of lose fill asbestos, crumbling AIB or lagging? Do you have a brand new roof already, 'cause I don't see anything budgeted for roofing works? Boiler's arse is not falling out yet? Another thing to consider is if you have a mortgage or not. If you do, can you spend some of this cash repaying the loan instead and do the works 4-5 years down the line? Otherwise you're essentially paying 5% interest on every pound you spend on your house. We'll probably get hit by a huge inflation over the next 2 years so your 10% padding might even cover the price increases, never mind any unforeseen works. Good luck mate 🤣

But that argument is utter rubbish in reality and has been for a number off years since the grid started to be decarbonised. You can heat any building with a heat pump and it can be the cheapest heating when compared to gas or oil, and emissions lower also. Only things that are important is heat pump is sized correctly and emitters are sized for a low low temperature. Then it's basic science heat out matches heat in. Add a ToU tariff and battery you savings can be huge in cash terms also. In CoP terms a poor performance building can give way better CoP than a high performance one. Example our current average daily temp is around 9 degs, but the heat pump only runs for a 1 to 2 hour stint, gets a CoP of mid 5s while running, but then spends the next 20 odd hours off consuming standby losses, and although small bring the CoP down on a daily basis. A poor performance building would be taking heat all day and keep at a high CoP level all day, as long as the emitters are sized well. A2W need good sizing of heat pump and CH system, A2A needs only the heat pump sized correctly.

It's good to hear that being suggested in a vessel that has been so nerdy on these other matters to beyond what is economic, for so long. It's never that simple of course.... construction, door heights, and such. The reality is that when our oil burner failed during the winter, we could get a new boiler in a week but an ashp would not have been realistic. For a remodelling or upgrade though, I might settle for 50mm of insulation where possible, and ufh or big rads. With solar and batteries. And/or air to air units in some rooms, permeating elsewhere. BUT how many have the knowledge to think it all through? The heat loss is the same whether ashp or boiler so it's well worth considering. We just filled the oil tank. Gulp.

You absolutely technically correct about the space frame! I'll try and reason out my thoughts. I do like your example of the racing car, same applies to certain types of boat construction.. solid timber, ply and plenty glue. You also not wrong and again technically correct. For a bit of context. I was delighted to be invited by @Square Feet to get involved right at the early planning stage of this project. My brief is roughly be the SE. @Square Feet Now referred to as SQ. The brief is fabric first, high levels of thermal performance, eco friendly all on a very tight budget. The house has to be elegant, play to the outstanding views, be functional for example. The budget does not easily allow us to just make the house bigger to solve design issues! Now lots of the materials we are thinking about using are for example hemp, wool based products and internal lime plaster. We need to take cognisance of the fact that some of these don't have the best fire ratings for example. The walls are going to be thick and that introduces structural issues around bracing the building against sideways sway under wind loading. We also have to be very careful to avoid condensation within the walls, could be a disaster if we don't set this up right. SQ and I have had a fair bit of correspondence initially. Then we had a preliminary design meeting for a day, just to meet face to face is very important. Our last meeting was structured so that it included me giving a one to two hour introduction to the basic structural design concepts, call that a "structures lecture". The objective is to allow SQ to see, follow and appreciate the types of things we need to do structurally so we can actually marry up the insulation etc with a structure that is not going to fall down, crack or protest later. The walls are going to be thick. If we want to use say Hemp and achieve as close as we can to passive house standards. The easiest way for me to describe this to SQ was to call it a space frame. It's not entirely correct, technically, but it's probably the easiest way to explain some of the basic concepts to a first time self builder. If I do this it means they have a basic understanding of SE stuff and this enables them to make better informed decisions. It removes some of the uncertainty that self builders encounter, gives them confidence. The house is going to rest on some ground that may have problems. I've plumped for a ground bearing slab at the moment. The slab is thicker than what you may often see. But on balance I feel it will allow me to reinforce locally without complex thickening at the edges or internally where I have point loads. While we use more concrete on the face of it, it makes it more buildable, easier to set out and arguably more carbon efficient, just due to the simplicity. The house is not heavy, single story. The design is very early stage. But I knocked up the detail below, just to explore for myself, not least, how I would fit all the materials together that SQ wants to use. CAUTION! The detail below is a concept to promote discussion, I know it will have flaws in it so do not copy! To explain the above. The inner timbers are vertical load bearing (the roof load). The outer timbers carry the vertical load from the cladding. The cladding vertical load is transferred back to the slab edge as the ply gussets are glue with a structural glue. The inner timbers are clad with structural ply, to resist the in plane wind loads (looking into the page). The glued ply gussets are rigid moment connections, unlike a standard truss used as a wall element. The sheet of more breathable ply on the outside also acts as a stiffening element, but if push comes to shove the ply can act compositely with the vertical timbers. The ply plates turn the wall element into a compound element so the wind suction and internal pressure loads get shared by the inner and outer timbers, then if I need to I can also increase the effective area of the timbers by utilising the ply, the ply turns the timbers into a structural Tee member. But in summary, yes it's not a true space frame, but close. We might say it's a version of the Larsen truss concept.. not really. Most familiar to folk will be the concept of using Posi joists as the vertical wall element or a flat timber truss, like on a flat roof, but as a wall element. But we only have the slab edge so we need to be a bit more crafty. To summarise. Technically you are all correct. I've used loose language. Once SQ and I get into the detailed design then we can come up with a name for this kind of bespoke construction that takes into account the types of materials we want to use and their nuances. But to finish I can tell you all, both SQ and I very much appreciate all your comments, every day is a school day!

Bin fit a new one

I think if nothing else, it serves as a useful tool to validate quotes you receive from a local merchant to make sure that you are not being robbed.

The quote I accepted was < £20 delivery and was nearly a £1000 cheaper than the next merchant quote. It came from a reputable supplier on the South Coast. The quote I received from the local merchant was as follows. Caberdek £12.15 OSB3 £18.55 My aim with all material purchases, is to beat the price specified on my 'Estimators Online' QS. Every time I do that, it hopefully helps in either bringing the build in cheaper or helping to offset those unnecessary costs that you incur along the way. Estimators had flooring at ~ £17 and OSB3 at ~ £27

Thanks everybody. The DNO confirmed that the sloping install inside the meter box is standard for a flush mount. He did say that the installation on the pole would be redone. The ducting is only exposed because we didn't back fill that part of the trench in order for the DNO to gain access to the end of the duct. I think the way they cut the duct we buried and hooked up the hockey stick is poor, as is the connection on the pole. I guess we'll have to finish it off ourselves. I don't really know what we pay for nowadays. I had to pay up front. What is the world coming to? (And other things old people mutter to themselves)

Just thought I'd update. We are using a contractor. The warranty/site insurance providers (Protek/Build Zone) were not keen to say the least for us to take on the demolition, and neither were building control.

I did that in a room about 6x8m. It nearly killed me 😁 To answer OP, no gluing, expansion gap around edges. Used trimmed tile edging to cover the gap.

A follow up on this thread. I bought a fogstar 16kwh DIY kit and Solis 5kw hybrid inverter back in March. Inverter installed and set up fine but the inverter I bought needs a DC supply to operate so without a battery or generating PV it's dead. With a faulty battery that becomes a problem leading me on to..... Fogstar kit went together OK following 3rd party YouTube videos.....the Fogstar documentation isn't the best. I had problems balance charging and after a couple of weeks Fogstar tech agreed I could build and use the battery. Had problems with a couple of cells which Fogstar were reluctant to replace and accounted for the struggle to balance charge them. Not long after I started using the battery there were a couple of instances of the battery collapsing and dropping to 0% charge in front of my eyes. After weeks of back and forth with Fogstar tech and stripping the pack for balance charging a further 2 times, Fogstar took the battery back for 'test and proper set up'. 3 weeks later I got the battery back and 2 days later it collapsed again so went back for a refund. In the months I had the battery Fogstar stopped selling the kits and the cells that go in them so I guess I wasn't the only one with problems. Spoke an installer who sells Fogstar kit on ebay and he convinced me the product is good so I bought a factory assembled battery through him and it's run perfectly for the last 2 months. There's another one on the way to help with the winter load. I'm happy to recommend fogstar kit but just be aware that after sales can be lacking!

Update: the door is insulated and I've added new EPDM seals to the sides and bottom from Seals Direct, who were very helpful. Foil tape is still to do. The bottom of the door had an aged weatherstrip which no longer touched the concrete, and there's 15-20mm from the bottom of the door to the somewhat pitted concrete. The EPDM 'D' strip I bought wasn't thick enough, is the goal to get one that compresses into the concrete or is there something (cement? Something from a tube?) that I can use to fill the texture in the concrete so there's a properly smooth surface to seal against? Top of the door and the frame at the top need a bit of work too - junk in the garage hides the bottom of the door shining across the whole width of the photo, but shine it does: I haven't got data going back before the day I added the insulation, but I'm pleased with how the temperature and humidity are now performing. This is the past week and it's noticeable going into the garage that we're not getting the heat by afternoon or the cold early morning. Temperature on the top chart, relative humidity below. And because I find it useful to track, absolute humidity too

Just a simple programmable timer for DHW - stand alone system. Generally you are better exporting solar, but I do get some periods on Agile where export is almost nothing and if you have excess solar, ideal time to dump in to water Wouldn't advertise you made a profit, as you an the umbrella company are defrauding the tax man.

I dismantled our old 1920s, stick built, timber frame bungalow after we had moved into the new build. Building Control weren't interested, it took us a couple of weeks to do it, after we had had the asbestos removed. We recycled virtually all of it, and it only cost us the price of hiring a concrete crusher for a while. We also took down a couple of single garages, one block built and the other a concrete panel construction. A nearby similar bungalow to ours was knocked down by a local farmer using a telehandler and removed to be burnt at the farm. It took them less than a morning, but I preferred our way of doing it.

If the glue down is fitted correctly it will be fine

I wondered if that’s why the top room was presented as an office - because surely you’d need a fire door otherwise. I liked the cladding design, thought the overhang was clever. Loved that his grandparents got to see it built - no sad GD bits and little jeopardy, made a nice change!

Yes it does. Mine takes about 5-6 degrees out of the house on the hottest days, like this summer. Makes the house bearable and more importantly allows sleep at night.

£10 grand?? 16kwh fogstar battery £1850 on ebay Solis 5kw hybrid inverter incl meter, battery cables and WiFi dongle £700 Install £500-1000. Maybe less with cables already in place??

Interesting that they are both marketed as "flexible" as one is definitely more flexible than the other! C - Cementitious adhesive D - Dispersion adhesive (ready-mixed) R - Reaction resin adhesive (epoxy) 1 or 2 - Standard or improved performance E - Extended open time F - Fast setting T - Reduced slip (non-sag) S1 / S2 - Deformable / highly deformable "S1: Deformable/flexible adhesive capable of transverse deformation between 2.5 mm and 5 mm without cracking the bond. (Note: When written as C2TE S1, the product actually combines all of these properties into a single high-performance adhesive)." What are you fixing, and to what substrate?

Not sure as I "don't do pressfit"..... The two nuts can be pulled towards each other and the pipework below can be kept 'still', if you connect the flexi only a few turns hand tight onto the bath tap first, then finish tightening, and then go back to do the final tighten on the bath connector last. You can balance how much you pull on each spanner until tight, without transferring any rotational force 'down below'. The answer to the question "have I fecked it?", will be answered when the pump kicks in fella. Just suck it up and whack it on, the worst thing that can happen is in that link. Crack on

Ledger board and face fixed hangers to this?

One spanner on nut and second one on the hex above male thread(it's not very big), should stop everything spinning. The olive won't compress on the brass but will seal with jointing compound.

Our original plans were for the rail to run across the niche, but that didn't look right at all. We though that the hose would bother us so we planned to get a simple shower hook to hang below the nook. In reality we never bothered and the nice quality Mira hose hangs nicely and isn't as offensive as we feared. The extended niche was our builder's idea and we love it. It extends the whole length of that wall and has a piece of glass (the same thickness as the shower screen) blocking the gap. (side shot below). We have the same in our main bathroom as well. It avoids corner cut tiles and is simpler to construct than a cutout box, there are no additional corners with added trim with fiddly joins. Both pieces of trim are continous wall to wall. The tile shelf is cut, but eagle-eyed viewers will note that the vertical grout line in the shower area are missing. This removes another potential point of weakness/leakage. In the bathroom the niche is 3m but all the vertical grout lines (actually horizontal, but run up the wall) are outside of the shower Regards Tet

We bought a house once, the builder obviously didn't like to use a tape measure, as the garage was just over a metre longer than it should have been - it was great. Nice sized garage to build a kit car (Dax Rush)

Finished, after a few false starts.