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Cripes and I thought star trek was science fiction when all while the local builders merchants have been teleporting stuff all over the district.

Hi. For what it's worth, I've just had an integrated 4kw Viridian Clearline Fusion system put in for £5.3k, all in. I reckon I could have done it cheaper, but the installers are linked to the roofing company, so it took some of the hassle and risk out of it for me. It also saved 32 sq m of slating to off-set the cost. Probably also worth mentioning that the local conservation officer has taken a particular interest in this site, so aesthetics were quite high up the priority list...

Speak to @Onoff he can probably make you a campervan pop up roof for the garage from old yogurt pots and cocktail umbrellas that you can raise when you temporarily need the extra space.

And add in the cost of changing the owners first choice of light fitting, for their second choice when they find they don't like the first one (after you have fitted them of course). That's why I only do estimates, not fixed prices....

Yes that old chestnut. Fire door to go between the house and the adjoined garage. So needs FD30 or preferably FD60 rating. But the house is warm and air tight, the garage, although insulated will be a cold space and draughty (partly due to the building regs requirement for ventilation) So what I want is a good, well insulated, well sealed door that's fire rated. An internal fire door just doesn't cut the mustard. Howdens do some of their exterior doors with a fire rating, but they don't quote U values and it will just be a timber door in a timber frame and I doubt it will have much in the way of sealing so probably hardly any better than an internal fire door. Any suggestions? this seems to be a "gap" in the market.

.... and the warranty is supplied by the "other business arm" of the self same building inspection company that obviously has no vested interest .....

I bonded our bamboo down to OSB upstairs and concrete with UFH downstairs with Sikaflex 95, a modified silicone polymer. It's very, very good indeed, and really makse for a solid feeling floor upstairs, and seems to deaden the sound transmission a bit too. One snag - you'll need to be sitting down when you ask the price..................................

Mass builders here self-certify around 90% of the houses they build, as only one house on any type on a development is usually inspected, and then it'll be inspected by the mass builders tame building inspector, paid by the mass builder. How many inspectors in this situation are going to tell the company paying them that they have to redo some work?

The Build Control Officer (BCO) they have to inspect the work, ensuring your building is built according to the building Regulations (BR), as you progress. You only need the architect to inspect the works if they are offing the structural warranty (they may not be cheap and they may not wish to anyway). You can buy an insurance backed warranty that takes the BCO's inspections and gives you a warranty for the building. The architect will need to prepare the full plans, all the detailed drawings, which includes getting a structural engineer (SE) to do all the structural calculations. The architect is responsible for ensuring that the design meets building regs at this stage, but things can change - see below. These, full plans, are what the BCO will approve, before you start, and then inspect the work at various stages along the way. The architect is only needed, if at all, after the BCO gets stuck in to resolve issues you find with the detailed drawings. Changes which affect the structure and / or any of the building regs will need to be agreed with the BCO as you go along. Hope that helps.

Hello, just a quick introduction from me. Female with an offer accepted on 2 acres of land with a derelict barn on site with planning permission granted. I have lots to learn to guide me through this process of checking this barn is viable before I exchange contracts. Finding a decent builder to guide me through the process of the rebuild and hoping to gain support for all those decisions along the way within this forum. I'm hoping then to be able to help others with my gained knowledge. Julie

Time to start a thread in one of the relevant topics folks .

It would probably be wise when purchasing the plot(s) to get the title split into two at that time so you each buy half the total area (or however you wish to split the plot) since you will be employing solicitors, so there is no confusion that you are both self builders each building one house for yourself on your own plot. The fact you are related and the plots are next door is then irrelevant.

This is the structural warranty and comes either from an architect or more usually through an insurance product linked to the BCO scheme you choose. The architect (B) might not want to provide the warranty because their indemnity does not cover it. There are loads of companies offering structural warranties so hunt around. Make sure you get Architect A to releases the copyright to the drawings before moving to architect B.

Generally not, or at least, all the ones I looked at when I fitted electric UFH to our old bathroom weren't. It may well be that there are sealed, or SELV, versions around now, though. I just took the easier root of fitting the controller/programmer on the wall in the hall, right outside the bathroom door, to avoid any doubt, but having said that, the rules have relaxed slightly on bathroom zones since I fitted ours and technology has undoubtedly moved on. Edited to add: Just had a quick look. Technology has moved on and there are now wireless controls available, so you can indeed fit a battery powered wireless controller in the bathroom, with the LV switching done by a receiver outside the zones.

That makes things much simpler!

Or watch last evenings 'building the dream' where a £5K budget for services ended up costing north of £40K! PS Welcome to the ultimate social network where plumbing gets the most attention and off topic non building is the second most important thing we chew the fat over. Although having said that there isn't much about building that is not covered here one way or another. Two three simple rules: To get an answer you have to ask a question - so keep it tight if you really want an answer as floating idea can cause responses to spiral all over the place The mind is like a parachute it is only useful when its open - so be prepared for the answers to be somewhat out of the box! You don't have to be mad to self build but it helps - the journey is hard, sometimes frustrating, always feels expensive and mostly very rewarding. Good luck

Please! You make me sound like a right bodger.

@MrsB. Read. Network. Read. Worry. Read some more. Go down the pub - forget Rinse Repeat. Ian

Ok update for the day. She's sending it back. ? And has already found another supplier who can get us the flooring she wants here by Friday. He claims he sent out the sample personally so AFAIC he balled up. Even if it will be an interesting battle I agree with @jack's previous comment. He sent the sample which the customer said she wanted. His ordering system should be irrelevant. We ordered what was written on the back of the sample he sent so I can't see how my customer should suffer for it. Let's see how he responds. Tbh this has got very little to do with me as I am just meant to be laying the floor but nobody likes to see an upset customer. She has also asked me to thank you all for your help last night. Ed

By access I should have said, Other trades getting in the way/waiting times for other trades to (for example) board between 1st and 2nd fix, Going blind, you can do a 'good' 4bed TF for £6k , but, I have seen some where upon getting a price the client suddenly decides the lights they now want are over a grand cost difference alone, never mind the extra labour involved.

Just be frank. Say you may not be able to give him the whole project after planning and you would want to own the copyright. Not quite sure how it works might be a grey area but as long as you've discussed it.

That's who I used. Bought their 100W/m2 mats and 6mm tile backer board. They were good quality and stuck down quite well, tiler said that the more expensive mats were not as easy to work with. They are warrantied to a degree but you're not covered for consequential losses if they fail (i.e. replacing tiles etc). The more expensive brands seem to offer this but I'd hope that once they are in and latexed & tiled over, they're unlikely to go wrong. Make sure you get a digital multimeter to test & record the resistance of the mats at each stage of the process (wrapped, unwrapped & installed) and then use the alarm box during install to ensure they're not damaged during latexing or tiling.

The problem is that a material like tile, when it is at room temperature, will still feel a little cold on bare feet because it conducts heat away. It would have to be closer to skin temperature to prevent this, and in a PH such a large heated surface would massively overheat the whole building. So you can heat it using an efficient wet system, but if all you want is five minutes of warmth whilst someone is using the shower, it may well use less energy to just use direct electric heating, rather than cycling on a full CH system- which would have to run for longer due to a slower response time.

Welcome @MrsB

Another vote for getting the drainage sorted before anything else! Before we made an offer on our plot I checked the situation with foul drainage and a water supply. The cheapest mains drainage solution was £14.5k to get the pipe up the lane and connected to the main drain, plus another £1.5k for a pump station and all the associated work on site. When I enquired about a treatment plant the initial answer was a very firm "no" from the Environment Agency, because of the soil being clay. The planners couldn't care less, and had granted a previous planning application when there was no affordable means of getting a drainage scheme on site! We bought the plot for a much reduced price, knowing we'd have to spend a lot to get water and drainage sorted, and I managed to persuade the Environment Agency to allow us to have a treatment plant and grant a licence to discharge it into the stream that runs alongside the plot. That saved a fair bit, as fully installed, with all the on-site drainage pipe, I think the cost came to around £4k,

I have a couple of those ebay ones, one controlling my car charge point and one as part of the water filtration system. They work well, and fit neatly into a standard CU. Good value too, but I've no idea how reliable they may be in the longer term, as ours have only been in for around a year. Seem to keep time well enough though.

Hi and welcome to the forum. Another one here advising to get a drainage solution agreed first. This caused us several weeks of worry when building control rejected what I thought wa a workable drainage system, and for several weeks we had no solution = no building warrant, until a compromise was agreed. Is it a listed barn? If not, a complete new build (probably keeping the look and feel of the original barn) would probably be the better option?

I've slept a lot since then . Looks a good wire, and that's where the consideration must be as that's buried under your expensive tiles. The controllers are all generic so don't matter a jot TBH. Still, I'd heartily recommend going for the intuitive / smart Warmup stat as it is self-learning so will switch on / off according to warm up and cool off delays / overruns so will save you on energy bills.

I've looked at these and they are pretty decent Warm Star eBay Think @Nickfromwales recommended them but can't be sure...! [Just looked and 2m2 is £56 with a touch screen stat)

Welcome MrsB Potentially an interesting build. Are the pre-commencement conditions discharged, and if not do you know the costs for achieving this? As it's a Change of Use from Agricultural there's likely a contamination condition, which may be simple to discharge, unless the site walk-over high lights any contamination risks and then it could start to get costly. How about CIL? Has the local council signed up for the Community Infrastructure Levy, and if so who's responsible for paying it, you or the seller. The Barn may be exempt if it has been used for its lawful purpose for at least 6 months in the last 3 years, but this needs to be understood. If not you may be able to get self-builders exemption, there's a recent post on the forum that links to all the rules. With regards being structurally viable, part of the planning application will likely have included a structural engineers report to confirm this. Most Councils wouldn't allow a Change of Use on a Barn that wasn't structurally capable of the conversion. But, this will have been commissioned by the person that submitted the planning application so may be a little biased.

Welcome. We (OK - I) have an embryonic pre-purchase checklist for plots here, to which your comments would be most welcome as you proceed:

Morning @MrsB. Welcome. Is this too early to nudge you into thinking about one or two things? I am guessing- please forgive me if I'm wrong. You might be some way away from a main sewer. I read the words '...viable...' above. No foul drainage, no house. Get that issue sorted early on in the development. Have a read of this Please don't confuse my status as Admin with expertise. I am not an expert. But my heart was in my mouth the moment I realised that lack of a foul drain would mean no house for us. Don't worry too much; at this stage finding out the exact details in relation to drainage will useful information in preparation for an eventual exchange of contracts. When there's a hiccup, come back to us and we'll all pile in to help. Ian

Welcome Julie. Sounds like an exciting project! If you have any specific questions, head for the relevant sub-forum and hopefully we'll be able to help.

I think one important factor to add to the decisionmaking process is your degree of personal involvement in the build. I am very involved, and so I am doing a good deal of interpretation of the architects submission to the BCO. For example this week I have decided we need a simple table of levels to which everyone (all trades) can refer. The information is available in the drawings, but it's difficult to extract because it's to be found spread over several separate drawings, some from the architect, some from the SE, and (in our case) from the piler. Reading that material with care has been most instructive for a first time self builder like me. No matter who drafts which drawing, there will be a need for coordination. A professional colleague being 'just-down-the-road' could be an asset. But proximity is no substitute for good interpersonal chemistry.

I changed Architects twice, and Structural Engineers three times. Very happy with Architect B (who I paid by the hour) and Structural Engineer C (who was paid an agreed sum for all work done). Since the time when my foundations were dug, I dont think if have had more than a couple of phone calls with Architect B - we are both fine with that. The key player now for me is the person managing my build (not me btw), who I pay by the hour. Call him a builder, or a project manager, he is the guy that tells the workers what needs to get done, how it needs to be done and in what sequence. (Er, I havent done too much physical work on my build). So when you say " ultimately through to completion of the build" - in my view I would not have got much value if I had used an architect for any activity post detailed drawings. To answer your question - I would not have a moments hesitation in switching architects - but carefully consider their role during the actual construction.

Done before myself. Horses for courses remember. Some are good at putting schemes together and getting planning. Others are more technical. Make sure no copyright issues.

Don't know if it makes me proud or sad!!!

Location of trees on the plot (and near the boundary), their size and species is useful to know as they may affect costs of foundations.

Sorry my quote tags are obviously all wrong. How do I edit them? The editor doesn't show them like it did on ebuild.

Services like the National One Call suggested by Redoctober didn't exist when we built our house. Some utility companies like Southern Water have their own online service (not that I've used it).. https://www.southernwater.co.uk/mains-and-sewer-maps It can be tricky getting the direct dial phone number for the right department at utility companies but if you can manage it then it might be worth trying to blag a map if it's urgent... "I'm digging on a site and I've hit a pipe/cable. Any chance I could pop into your office later and pick up a map?" Before you make that call make sure you have a 6 figure map reference and the scale you need. Oh and don't forget to ask where their office is. The Tree Officer at the Council/County Council will be able to tell you but asking him will tip off the planners that you are thinking of cutting down trees and they might suddenly hit you with a TPO that wasn't there before. If the plot is in a conservation area the rules say you have to assume all trees have a TPO on them and act accordingly. If a TPO was imposed before 2012 then the specific details of that TPO might no longer apply due to this legislation, although the actual TPO itself is still in force. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/6076/2127685.pdf Most planning departments have an online database. You can search by Planning Reference Number, Address or by location on a map. Beware that a site may have several files/applications associated with it under different names (eg "Land north of ABC" and "land south of DEF" can refer to the same plot). Online you can usually find all the documents related to an application including objection letters. What will not be online is any "pre application advice" issued to previous owners. If the owner is telling you that it will be easy to get planning permission because he has spoken to the planning officer then ask to see the pre-application advice letters. Not all letters between the planning officer and the previous applicant will be online. Sometimes you can make an appointment at the planning office to see the planning officers paper file which might have more in it. After a year of negotiating with the planners we discovered our planning office had a file I didn't know about that was very helpful to our application - so if can be worth spending time trying to find every letter or note. Depends on the detail you are trying to check. People in the local pub told me that my site had once been auctioned off in the pub itself. The highway agency will be able to tell you if they have adopted a road. If there is any doubt about the ownership or your right of access then raise it with your solicitor. You might have to do a "map search" at the land registry. That involves you marking out an area of land on a map and the LR will tell you which title deeds they have that are in that area. The grass verge between my plot and the tarmac road is quite wide and not shown on my title plan so I asked the Highway Agency and they confirmed it was part of the highway. That means anyone has a right to cross it, including me (which was the point of asking them). Look for soil type. Heavy clay might mean soakaways can't be used. That can give you serious problems because in most areas you can't put rainwater into the sewer anymore. In that case look for any ditches or piped ditches along the boundary as you might be allowed to put rainwater into those (perhaps after you have done some storm surge mitigation). Look for any evidence of surface water pipes or ditches across your plot as neighbours may have a right to discharge into them. Look for any signs of contamination - coloured or oil stains, lots of metal, concrete, asbestos etc. [quote]How to check previous site usages[/quote] Old/historic maps can be found online. Some are free such as Google maps/sat view. The EA have lots of data... http://apps.environment-agency.gov.uk/wiyby/ As does the government.. https://data.gov.uk/data/search for example this looks like it might be useful.. https://data.gov.uk/dataset/historic-landfill1 Local libraries sometimes have really old maps that can only be examined by making a request/appointment.

Standard build up of 190mm joist full fill with a rock wool product plus 40mm of PIR under the rafters gets you there and it also means you have a VCL with the foil. I plan to do 2 layers of 25mm insulation with a cross batten and counter batten which leaves a cold bridge of around 0.064% which I think I can cope with ...