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The chant "Yer wanna get a digger mate!" started in 2014, and I finally got one two years later. The chanters were right. But what I didn't hear was what they were chanting (sniggering) under their breath. "You're gonna get covered in grease". Let's start at the beginning. How much does a digger cost to hire? £70 per day. How much does it cost to transport it to and from your house / plot? £25. All plus VAT. Bang goes £300 / £350 per week. And it rains, or there's a delay, and it sits there leering at you like some hideous demented mechanical giraffe whispering softly in your ear Use Me Use Me If You dare. But you can't because it's hissing down. And suddenly it's Friday, a couple of hundred pounds has flown out of the window, and two of the jobs you had planned haven't been done. And soon you're driving around noting every single digger sitting there idle in a field or on the roadside and NOBODY'S USING IT. It shouldn't be allowed. Diggers are expensive; they should not be left idle. Or rather those ones that are idle should be loaned to you the second the owner decides to have a day off. It's OK, you'll come and fetch it and bring it back when the owner needs it. Anything but let a digger be idle when you haven't got one. And then you do a bit of maths: how many jobs around the site do we need a digger for? And the list gets longer by the week. The children start muttering about dad being on about a digger for Christmas and birthday present all wrapped into one. And then you start noticing things like zero-swing diggers, and that's a 22 tonner, and is that a 2.6 tonne or 2.5 tonne digger? Soon, you know how to tell. The next thing is: JCB or Kubota? Or maybe Volvo? Hmmm. Well Kubota have reliable engines (other companies fit Kubota engines) JCB - well, a bit sloppy round the edges. Looking on Tinternet for prices and maybe the odd trip out -just to look, no more you understand. A budget number bubbles up in your spreadsheet against the Heading Plant and Equipment. Suddenly there's 10K more than planned. But, you can re-sell it at the end of the build. So nett off the cost against the hire cost (minus VAT) and you're in profit (Ha!). The digger duly arrives. And suddenly a whole world opens up. Move that Cherry tree, no problem (that wasn't on the list), shove those steels through your son's windows (after he takes them out) no problem; move two tonnes of stone quickly from one place to then other - well not quite no problem, but you aren't sweating. See a problem, turn the key. Dig your SuDS drainage in less time than you thought. Move that newt hibernacular three meters to the right: done. The dozer blade is awesome (I hate that word: but here it's the right word). And then there's the maintenance schedule. A Kubota has more nipples than a prize sow. And God can they suck grease. And I'm not the best at changing grease cartridges - when I'd finished I knew what the phrase Grease Monkey meant. I will not want to sell it. How on earth am I going to get that past Debbie?

In my introduction I said I looked forward to sharing the highs and lows - well this week has been one full of highs! Monday it was finishing the EPS: Tuesday it was installing the UFH: Wednesday was finishing the steels: Thursday (today) was a BIG day - Concreting Day. First load in by 08:30 Power-floating starting at 11:00 while the last few loads are going in All finished and perfectly smooth by 17:00 I can't imagine there will be many weeks like this one.

+1 to those. I fitted a loft ladder into 350mm of fibre insulated loft space - made a sealed ply box round the side (bigger at the steps side) and insulated that with 100mm of Celotex and then hinged a ply lid onto that, again with 100mm Celotex. Works really well and allows the use of an airtight drop door mounted loft ladder and keeps the warmth in

Some people really are wankpuffins.

Apart from the smoke, CO and CO2 I will only require one temp sensor Sensor cost - Approx £50,000 Sensor Value - Priceless SWMBO can sense temp variations of 0.01 degree and reacts to them within 0.1 of a second. Data logged (Forever) Aggregated Data (this house is freezing)

Hi Michelle from N Ireland. Almost in our new house (she has been saying since last November lol), we are at the décor stage now, so hopefully all the tough decisions have been made (and hopefully the right decisions)

More activity - this is our site after 4 days. 70 tonnes muck away, 40 tonnes stone bought in. And a toilet. It's starting to look like a building site!

I bought a load of Kwikstage for my build. It was certainly a good move, it's been in use for about a year and has proved to be a lot cheaper than hiring would have been. It will only be a few weeks now before I sell some of mine. I will be selling half of it and then the other half I will keep for the foreseable future so if I have any maintenance jobs I will have enough to scaffold one wall of the house at a time. Kwikstage is easy to put up. It's really a 2 man job but I did put a load up single handed though that was harder work. I have also used some borrowed cuplock. Although a completely different system, there's not much to choose between them so I would go for whatever is available. I bpught mine from ebay, but it's often for sale on gumtree etc.

W plan hydraulically separates the flow from the heating and water. Eg when dhw is required the system takes that as number 1 priority. The 3-port diverter valve can ONLY supply one application at any given time ( on purpose / by design ) so the ashp can then toggle between low and high temp modes ( eg it knows it doing heating only so adjusts for that and vice versa for DHW ). The uvc will be heated to 50-55o ( user definable on the ashp ) so you'll not need to go much higher than that tbh with 500 Ltrs. The solar Pv will roof this to over 70o when generating so the ashp will only kick back in when the cyl stat calls for heat ( eg a bath drawn late evening ). Electric immersion can be manually set to stay off until boost is required ( then fed with grid electic ). The buffer is required to stave off short cycling and iirc also helps the ashp defrost by it pulling that water back through the ashp. More to follow when I get the last couple of 600x600 kitchen tiles down edited to add : the boost immersion would be immersion #2, with immersion #1 dedicated for Pv. Most Pv diverters will also have a boost button so in very adverse situations, you'll be able to push 6kw into dhw

My wife's a wonderful woman, brilliant mother, etc, but I just can't her interested in this. I've tried pointing out that there's a reason we got the 8.5kW array, but it just isn't on her radar. I have about as much chance of getting anyone but me to turn off lights in the house. It's a standing joke (me being the only one who doesn't think it's funny) that when I get home from work in winter, sometimes literally every single light in the house is on! I was talked out of occupancy sensors but am now committed to retrofitting them throughout the house in due course.

Usage reduction is automatic when the panels are generating. As I understand it the solar panels generate a slightly higher voltage than the grid, so when they are generating power it flows from there before drawing on the grid. If there is an excess after you have used some, that then flows into the grid due to the higher voltage. That can probably be illustrated using Prof Heinz Wolff, bathtubs on piles of bricks with connecting pipes and jugs of water to use pressure as an analogue for voltage, your ever-loving partner, and a bicycle pump. But you risk a Great Crested Newt infestation of your bathtubs. Ferdinand

hello from Washington west sussex

Welcome back!

Don't exist, I have a wooden draught sealed ladder and above it a well to allow for 450mm loft insulation, 50 mm ventilation gap then 18mm deck, an extra trap over this well sealed all round with 100mm sheet insulation

I've been on the lager, Must go to a Well Known Glasses Place. (Others are available)

In the middle of organising this myself now and the routine seems to be spray mist and base coat, then do 2nd fix electrical and plumbing and then do the finish coat (protecting sockets etc by bagging). Not sure yet when the (pre-primed) skirting and architrave goes on, think this is done after the base coat but obv. before the finish coat as it will need caulked.

Hi John, glad you found us!