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Having gone through the process of considering then discounting travertine as our floor covering of choice, we eventually settled on a porcelin tile to cover those areas (kitchen, utility and vestibule) that were not having oak flooring laid. Unfortunately for us, the person who we believed was going to be doing our tiling (and does virtually all of the builders tiling), at the last moment refused to undertake the work in our house. Quite why I've not been able to establish, nor has my builder. To say I was put out is an understatement. My builder was none too happy either. Fortunately, he was able to pull a rabbit out of the hat a couple of weeks later, in the form of Tony from Australia, a tiler on an extended visit to Orkney. As neither of us had seen his work, we agreed that he would tile an initial small area and decide whether he would do the whole job on that. We needn't have worried, a really nice and hard working guy, he set about measuring and marking out, discussing patterns and the best way to achieve the look we wanted. As the tiles started to go down, we could see the care he was taking, and we are more than happy with the result. Due to insufficient clearance under both the front and back door we ended up creating mat wells for the door to open over, edging the wells with aluminium trim. Moving into the bathrooms, where we had decided to use the same porcelin tiles, we tiled all the walls to half height, and finished with a simple straight edge aluminium trim. In the picture you can see the bulkheads we created to conceal the cistern and give a finished height of 1000mm, and the frame / surround for our bath. Access to the cistern / basin trap is by a removable tile (held in place with silicone). If for any reason we do need to get to the cistern and the tile breaks, I have 6 boxes left, so a healthy supply of spares. In the utility room, the units and oak worktop were fitted. A 50mm offcut strip from the utility worktop was used to create a handrail on the staircase, as required by building control. One of the key uses of our utility is as our clothes drying area. Readers may recall from earlier entries that we have a section of vaulted ceiling in the utility which now accommodates two clothes pulleys. Each pulley can take a full load of washing which means all washing can be hung up above normal ceiling height,out of the way. I fitted the utility MVHR extract in this space to ensure moist air is drawn away, and can happily report this particular feature to be very effective, drying all washing overnight. Through in the kitchen, plinths were fitted, doors put back, appliances installed and the worktop (quartz) lifted into place. On the island, we decided to go with a quartz splashback, and to finish with oak on top. We're very pleased with the finished look. On the other side of the kitchen, we are still undecided how to finish the splashback, so in the interim have a length of quartz. We may opt for tiles, glass or leave it as it is. We also have to decide how to finish the underside of the overhead units. This was something I flagged at the design stage but I was overruled in the quest for a 'clean look'. We have the option of fitting a piece of pelmet or a piece of shelving matching to the doors / carcuses. I suspect the later would give a better overall finish. Next entry: 2nd / final fix electrics

Just saw this on my PV monitoring - a pair of beauties to remind me of the weekend of 8 and 9 April: It was great to bask in the spring sunshine and warmth on that west facing patio, barbie tongs in one hand and a drink in the other. Moments like this are what make that long 3 year slog of a self-build (from purchase of site to moving in) really worth it, so for those of you who are at the early part of the journey, I say "it all worked out excellent in the end, so persevere".

Like that a lot Jamie!

That looks great ..! Is that a membrane roof ..?

Ah Taytos... best washed down with a Smithwicks, personally. Well done!

And in...

I can confirm that, beyond any doubt, the definition of "business", in law, is exactly as Peter has described. Having read through the SIs (both CDM2007 and CDM2015) several times in the past week or so, my main observation is that CDM2015 is not very well worded. It was clearly written without adequate thought being given to how it might impact on a domestic self-build client, but the conclusion I reached was the same as Peter's. It is the reason I've been making the point that this particular legislation does not place an additional burden on the majority of self-builders, and even for those self-builders that are required to take on a role under CDM2015 (those that do their own design, for example) the responsibilities are no more onerous than applied before CDM2015 came along - in essence the liability remains the same.

No, I don't think this is the correct interpretation of Section 7 (b). Unfortunately CDM Guidance L153 is less than clear. Section 7 (b) is actually referring to the transfer of the client's duties in relation to managing projects in regulations 4(1) to (7) and has nothing to do with the transfer of PD or PC duties.

Think I'm blessed because my build was a modest hut and my expectations were lower...was up today helping a neighbour with his decking and we popped next door for lunch into my Hut. The odd creak or red wine stain matters not a jot, I'm actually very pleased and *forgive me* quite proud of what I've created. It's the quality of the time you spend cooking a meal or having a smoke and a half on the balcony that makes it good? Have some friends around and crack open the fantastic value rioja from Lidl...get in?

We moved in nearly 5 years ago - and I still regularly ask myself that question. The trouble with a self build project is you throw so much energy and emotion into it that at the end its hard to get any perspective. I still get wound up about aspects of the build that didn't work out as well as they might have - even though objectively they are not really very important. A friend of mine who did a big renovation project had lots of grief with the supplyer of his granite worksurface - and even years later he gets wound up about the shape of the flecks in his granite not being quite right. It looks fine - but to him its taken on a disproportionate importance. To give some reassurance to those still in the eye of the storm and worrying about overthinking things - the things I really thought about and researched and stressed over are the things that worked best about my build. The things that wind me up tend to be aspects that I spent a fortune outsourcing to 'experts'. lol - this is like a support group - 'self build anonymous'! My name is Reddal and its been 5 years since I built a house.... Do I get a badge or something? - reddal

Ah but the cold system would not have a PRV... would it...? Mind you a quick peek at Google suggests I'm about 30m lower than the tank, so that makes three bar, I think. So sounds like a reasonable margin for safety.

Well, I don't really know!!! I have not done a PHPP, originally I was going with 300mm of EPS but because of ground conditions, my reluctance to pay over the odds for a structural engineer to design a passive slab and being impressed with the Golcar passive house foundation design I decided to do it this way. I confess to being a bit of a Luddite, I know I am building in a very mild part of the country ( if a bit damp) . There are many on this forum who are whizzes at maths and will know exactly what their U value will be but I firmly believe that micro climate can affect what actual temps you get more than all the maths can evaluate. Jeremy,s build is a good example, because of his very sheltered location it turned out that cooling was a bigger issue than heating. Some will say I am mad but whatever, all I know is my heating will cost far less than A.N.Other house.