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In practical terms, for the average self-builder who's employing contractors, what's really changed? There's some fancy bullshit, invented to create jobs for yet more consultants, but the reality seems to be that none of the responsibilities have changed at all, they've just added some fancy titles to things that have always needed to have been done (from a purely self-build perspective). Self-builders get hit by people trying to fleece them for everything from ecological and environmental studies, through archaeological and flood risk assessments, not to mention having to pay to have someone file in a damned energy assessment. Now it seems as if yet another scheme has been dreamt up to relieve self-builders of funds............ Having read this lot of bumf from cover to cover, I really don't think anything has fundamentally changed. As a self-builder, your actual responsibilities remain as they have always been, in that you're responsible for ensuring that your site is secure, that appropriate HS&E signage is in place, that your contractors are briefed as to where responsibilities lie and that you have insurance to cover the risks you don't feel comfortable with taking. You should also check your contractors insurance - all ours happily provided me with copies. For our build, I wrote into the contract for our ground works contractor that they had complete responsibility for the site for the duration of the contract. This included site security as well as the HS&E stuff. On completion of the ground works I took back responsibility for the site, put in place insurance and placed a contract for the foundation and house shell construction. Again, the contract was clear, in that the contractor had responsibility for HS&E, but in this case I retained responsibility for site security, signage etc (only because by then the site could be made secure safely by hand). For all the fitting out works each and every contractor was responsible for their own HS&E. I firmly believe that for the majority of self-builds, CDM2015 has no impact, unless we're daft enough to get scared into paying someone to do something we can do ourselves with no more effort than has always been the case. Self-builders are almost always going to be "domestic clients", in CDM-speak, which means that the responsibility falls where it's always been in these circumstances, the contractor.

The HSE have made it absolutely clear that they have no intention of pursuing domestic clients because it is accepted that most domestic clients do not have the technical skills knowledge or experience to undertake CDM duties. This being the default position for all domestic clients. To maintain the default position, domestic clients should not appoint a principal designer or a principal contractor, otherwise the domestic client takes on CDM duties that he/she is not obligated to do under CDM2015. So the simple advice should be; do nothing - and as you correctly say, the CDM duties will automatically fall on others by default (as defined in CDM2015). Hope that make sense.

Guys, please don't stick your proverbial head in the sand. Domestic builds were previously outwith the scope of CDM2007. As from April 2015, the UK government passed an amendment to the CDM Regulations making them applicable to domestic properties. And why; two reasons: This brings the UK construction industry health and safety law and practices in line with other EU countries. The second, and I personally feel more important and of real concern; the HSE advise that approx. 80% of all construction accidents relate to small building projects. Everyone working on domestic projects (domestic clients, designers and contractors) now has statutory obligation place on them by the HSE to reverse this dreadful trend. Those who make no meaningful attempt to comply with CDM2015 face the real prospect of a custodial sentence (under new sentencing guidelines) in the event of a fatal accident on a domestic construction site. It is worth noting that the HSE track-back all accidents to identify the true underlying cause of an accident. And why? ...because it is widely accepted in health & safety circles that most accidents relate to poor construction design and management. As they say; "don't shoot the messenger".

Hi and welcome .

Hi Ben, welcome and good luck with the project.

Welcome. Finding a plot can certainly be a big challenge, especially if you're constrained to a particular area. It took us about three years to find our plot, plus several hundred miles clocked up driving around looking.

I found the same thing, that Genvex filters were a silly price. I had a batch made by these people: http://jasun.co.uk/ . They were around 1/4 of the cost of the Genvex ones, but look identical. I just emailed them the sizes and types I wanted and they made up five of each for less than £100. I find that the filters can be cleaned with a vacuum cleaner at least once, sometimes twice, before they need replacing, so five sets of filters should last at least five years.

An 8 port and a 4 port in tandem will fit with elbow on the corner - that shouldn't need much engineering to fit it and will be simpler than trying to cross over multiple pipes if they are above each other.

A dog ... https://www.cylinders2go.co.uk/shop/vented-cylinders/indirect-vented-copper-cylinder/telford-1500-x-450-indirect-vented-cylinder £245 inc the VAT...