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"Ahhhhhhhh, shhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit." The words uttered, or yelled, when youve looked at something, realised its wrong, then realised its never going to be right, ever, then you realise there's only one way to rectify it, then you think "no, wait, maybe XYZ will solve it", and it's right at that moment when the blood just runs cold...........and you finally accept that its F****D, and that's that, end of chat, end of hope. After a bit of loosing it, you come to your senses. The cup goes from half empty back to half full, and then you get a pen out and start to formulate a way through. Soon after starting the recovery action, you realise this is actually the quickest route to the correct, and ( most importantly ) FINAL conclusion. Your blood returns to its normal, or possibly slightly elevated temperature, and then the boots and gloves go on. It's time to get to it. Salute yourself for choosing this route Ian, and so swiftly executing it. You can't get time back on the build, but other recourse can wait. I've been there a few times more than I should, and you want to take a hammer to someone, but you can't. Not because of the law, but more because usually when things are found to be wrong it's too late and the culprit has fled the scene, cash in hand. You can't go after them with said hammer then, as that's pre-meditated murder, but if you club them to death at the scene, upon discovering them DOING something so disrespectful, whilst charging you for it, well that's different as you can plead temporary insanity and maybe get a suspended sentence. Maybe. Moral of the story : Only problem with the above goon hammering is the satisfaction is only very short lived. The satisfaction of doing what you're doing, and the subsequent feeling-proud-of-yourself for pulling all his shite down and starting again will make you smile for the foreseeable future, and beyond. That satisfaction will last forever. Sitting in a home YOU built, smugly sipping a fancy cocktail made from puréed newt, you'll look back and realise it's the best decision you ever made. "I salute you sir, the whole damn country salutes you". Now get back to work. ?

It was all going so well until you mentioned the 6 month bit!!

You can buy audiophile SATA cables, "for to make teh em-pee-freez sownd betters." I **** you not.

I don't fit the trims until I've tiled the wall, leaving the pockets until last. Tiling the vertical wall to the trim is very hard as you don't know exactly how much adhesive you'll have so therefore don't know how far out to set the trim. Also, doing it in that order means any offcuts can be used for the pockets ( less wastage ).

.... to jolt me into reality. Now, I'm glad the wall blew down. Here's why. In case you missed it, here's the backstory. And the analysis of why it happened. But the Loss Adjuster didn't agree (despite being a very nice man) And you might know we parted company amicably enough with our builder. My remaining 8 fingers have been sizzling over the last few days. I worked right over the weekend and looked at what I saw. Hard. Little worrying hints about this that and the other, not quite obviously wrong with the build, but probably wrong with the build. Why was most of the rebar still neatly in its place in the stillage? Is that wall 'out' by more than a country mile? Why is there quite so much shuttering? Why am I noticing and mending quite so many saw cuts in the blocks (they should be perfect)? Why did the pattern of the blocks change mid-course? (Exactly the same error-smell you get when checking a bit of JavaScript or CSS) Peering down corners showed a worrying absence of rebar Why could I see all the way to the bottom of an empty column (no concrete in it yet) of blocks in some corners, but not others? A little bell rang in my mind. What would I have done had I had been similarly worried at work? Ask for a properly constituted Professional Review, that's what. Taking courage in both hands, I rang the Durisol rep, and he came out straight away. The message was not good, not good at all. So bad in fact that I had to struggle to hold back tears. Tears of rage and disappointment. Real, cold rage. So I did what I always do when that happens, did something approaching hard work, and in doing so got really sweaty. Then talked it through. The catalogue of errors are not for telling here. I'll do a full blog about that. Long and the short of it is...... We're taking the house down. I kid you not. Block by block, course by course. We've taken a good 6 feet of it down today, more to come down on Friday. The build restarts on Monday, and ought to be finished Thursday of next week. Know what? I am soooooooo relieved. There were several patches of good work, but lots of bad workmanship. Just bloody laziness and lack of care. Enough to make one suspect that much of it needs ripping out and doing again. And that feels strangely 'dirty', sort of disgusting, revolting even. A careful still and video evidence trail has been created with official written assessments of the work done to date to follow. New blocks ordered and on their way up here. If we had concreted on time, we would never have seen the errors, never seen the cockups, never seen the stuff-it-I-couldn't-careless about building to a line or a plumb line. The blown over wall did us a favour. We would have first realised something was wrong when the cracks started in the corners...... You know the kind of thing. And then where would we have been, bills paid and settling in to a few sunsets on the terrace? Thank God it blew over. So, a quiet pint is in order. Debbie, if you are reading this, we're off down the Patten Arms. Ian

@JSHarris I reckon 80% of people in the industry are shoddy and I can't afford the other 20%

I thought the issue with 1:80 was it is the absolute minimum allowed, so you have to be really careful that nothing happens to allow a bit of pipe to sag. Some say when doing 1:80 under the ground you should concrete it in for that reason. If you have enough room I would go as close to 1:40 as you can. It's not one or the other, it's anywhere in between.

Thanks but if I do too good a job, it'll show up on the shoddy plastering.

Well, that's a good start to the day.... Thanks @Ferdinand. Now, where are the digger keys? Time for a bit of digger therapy. Ian

Any use?

Used them a good few times ? Good kit and no complaints, cheap enough too.

If you use the right hand layout of tiles, how they work out in the pocket shelf? There might be some fussy slivers there, but otherwise it looks good. A border tile or listello trim all round thing might help you to get rid of that tiny sliver if you prefer the left hand layout

We did exactly this and got it all in writing including all the questions we asked. Still didn't help as it was all ignored.

OK this an interim thank you to everyone who has taken time to contribute - I think will need a plumbers dictionary to understand what you all said !!! Only joking - my understanding is improving the more I read. The funniest thing was when my wife read @Alexphd1 suggestion that I self install an ASHP - I am the guy that takes the car to the autoparts store that fits wiper blades for you !!! Not through laziness through incomprehension of anything technical. I will take time and come back with some answers and some more questions - thanks again

ill just leave this next to it...

Ok @Andrew, that's about what we were charged. Ask for the PDF to be unlocked and NOT flattened, or to put it another way, for all layers to enabled and the document to be editable. I suggest that because there will be times when you want to illustrate an idea based on the pdf. If it is cluttered with irrelevant information, it makes that job hard. A locked, flattened document will prevent you from showing only relevant information (or conversely switching irrelevant stuff off) Making sure you can switch layers on and off at will will simplify and clarify the message you want to give. And God knows the building sector needs to learn how to give clear, accurate information to those who need it.

We could start a "Without A Clue" series, mine being bathrooms!

The best thing I have done recently is to fit one of these: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Scaffold-Winch-Electric-Workshop-Garage-Gantry-Hoist-Lifting-125-1000KG-/272134167630?var=&hash=item3f5c75dc4e:m:mefkdAf5bNIRBz5lPNMMv1A (the £50 one that lifts 125kg/250kg) above the loft hatch in my workshop. I made up a "lift" platform from 18mm ply, some eye bolts and chain, and it's brilliant for getting stuff up into the loft storage space. This week I was finishing off the loft hatch and ladder fixings, and instead of using the rather cumbersome pole and twist latch for the loft hatch, I just fitted an eye bolt to the hatch, a couple of big tension springs and a shackle fixed to the springs to fit to the hoist hook. Having extended and rewired the hoist controls, so they now run through the ceiling, I can just press a button and the loft hatch and ladder either lowers or raises, with the springs holding the loft hatch closed.

As detailed in my recent blog entry: ASHP: Heating CoP range between 3.5 and 4, DHW CoP 2.4 (ASHP providing all hot water) I'm paying 12p per kWh for electricity, so DHW is costing 5p/kWh, Heating between 3 and 3.4p /kWh My location is a very exposed, wet marine climate.

we used one of them silverline electric winches for lifting concrete blocks up scaffolding. made life very easy!

I'll just leave this here ...

LOL! That's good enough for me! Stay tuned for the next stage of exciting photo's named "how to tile a roof without a clue"

im a little confused? what is the safety concern? you have the pully at the top, pull the rope from the bottom, tie it off, climb the ladder and retrieve whatever it was that you pulled up..... only advice i would give is to tie a weight (old club hammer head) to the hook end so it comes down by itself and dont try to put your foot in a loop and pull yourself up, (your head will hit the floor) p.s it was very kind of your local chap to lend you his shiny new pully

Very tidy!

Not sure how I did ours but we get the "dishwater loudspeaker" effect out of the half sink. We have to put the sink plug is as our kitchen and living room are open plan. It annoys me everytime I hear it - more so as I spent a hundred quid on marine insulation to deaden the sound of the dishwasher as it's on an island. That works great can't hear it run, then the sodding thing pumps water out and it's ridiculously loud.

Agreed. Our current arrangement is like this, and it makes a hell of a racket when the dishwasher drains.

You will get a visit from a surveyor who will measure the external area of the property and base the CT band on that. You then have a few months to appeal the banding. Building control completion is quite separate. In out last house it was well over a year before we got BC completion as that was waiting on the garage being completed and that didn't even get started until we had moved in.

We paid £625+VAT for ours about a year ago. Local firm, plot only about 20 mins from their office in Cambridgeshire. The plot is in a conservation area.

Part of me wants to publicly name trades people that are incompetent, or that mislead and have poor customer service, primarily as a way of warning others about them. However, the more rational part of me reigns that in most of the time, and I just try hard to bite my tongue, and only warn people off privately. It does seem to be a significant problem, though, as can be seen by reading many of the threads here. I know people will tend to highlight badly done work, or problems with suppliers/trades people/builders etc, and perhaps be reluctant to praise those who do a competent job, but even so there seems to be a fair few here who have been on the receiving end of poor service, or downright shoddy and dangerous work. There aren't that many of us on this forum, and at a rough guess (I've not taken the time to try and gather data) I reckon maybe around 20% or more have experienced unacceptable work or service. Our build went pretty well, but this is the list of things that went wrong: 1. The brickie who was supposed to build the boundary wall on top of our retaining wall repeatedly failed to turn up, and after three missed start dates over a period of a month I had to sack him and get another chap in (who was brilliant). 2. The DNO kept delaying and delaying the work we had already paid for, to move a pole and lay a new underground cable. From the date I paid them to the date they eventually turned up to do the work was around 4 months. 3. Openreach were worse than the DNO, and in the end I only got them to do the work needed when I managed to find a number for the local engineer - their main office was a shambles. 4. The electrician who did our initial site supply installation left things in a dangerous condition, loose connections, a crossed line/neutral, no sleeving on earth wires, a wrongly terminated SWA cable, etc. 5. A labourer I employed on a day rate was permanently pissed. I found several empty half-bottles of vodka in the skip and eventually caught him red-handed, coming out of the site bog whilst slipping a bottle of vodka back in his pocket. He was off site in minutes. 6. Our window supplier were bloody appalling to deal with, and frankly couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery. When the windows arrived they had got the order wrong and had to make a new window, delaying the build by a few weeks. The experience of all the above was one reason why I changed the way I'd planned to tackle the build and took over managing everything myself, with a lot of hands-on work. I felt it was the only way I could be reasonably sure that things would be right. To counter the above, I can say that we did have some really brilliant people on the job. The chaps that did the rendering, plaster boarding out and plastering were very good indeed, as were the electrician we used for first and second fix, the decorator and tiler and the joiner that fitted the doors and stairs. The chap that laid our drive and did all the landscaping work was also outstandingly good.

Site size? 10 hectares? 100 m square? Ian

Go to the makers web site for that info. For example.. https://cdn.plumbnation.co.uk/site/worcester-greenstore-indirect-unvented-cylinders/worcester-greenstore-cylinder-brochure.pdf "Greenstore cylinders. Within the 90-180 models, a 32kW rated coil is utilised, whilst the 210-300 models have a class-leading 39kW rated output coil."

@Andrew Just in case it applies to you?: on any site which is in a Conservation Area or where you have trees covered by a TPO you will also need the survey company to pick up the line of any tree canopies.

@Lesgrandepotato Id take some work clothes with you ? you know, just in case.

Well Nick, (Welsh one) if the contractor gets up and goes off to another job with 30 minutes notice and stays there for three weeks - several times- you get used to making the down time work hard for you. Hence the Piggery thread Perfect little pilot study of all the decisions needed; gives me a good view of what needs to be done and space to make a few mistakes, correct them and then be able to talk to the trades folk with a bit of authority. @Lesgrandepotato, do drop in any time, we can't take down what's already been concreted, and the guys that are sorting me out are Durisol trainers.... They know their oats. And they've just slotted me into their schedule next week because of a cancelled contract. We'll see. Meantime, ah jus' lurv ma digga man! Ahhhhhsum

We paid just shy of £700 for ours which included 45mins each way travel time. We're in Devon.

Anything between about £500 and £1000, depending on how far the surveyor has to travel and how easy it is to access the whole of the site, I would have thought.

Looks ok to me, just make sure the horizontal is tipping down to the trap so any liquid isn't sat in it.

Just thought I'd update this thread with some real life observations now our own SIPS house is in place. Really surprised at the comment above re 1st floor being supported *on* top or inserted into the panels - they should really be using joist hangers so there's no penetrating the structure at all.This is kind of fundamental to take advantage of all that insulation really. Even where we had to have steels in because of some.large spans they've cleverly been terminated without going through the wall (big strong upstands on massive timbers) The only things that go actually through the construction of our SIPs (done by clays) inside to outside (that is to say exposed in the 55mm cavity between the sips and the stone outer wall or under the roof slates) are 2 beams where we have a very large roof window I believe called a cabrio?) which needed that extra support, and ditto on our really large dormers, which would not be a feature in a normal 2 storey. However, even then since we are applying a layer of insulation inside too, nothing in fact will be cold bridging dorectly into the interior of the house. We certainly don't have any of those massive timbers referred to acting as cold bridges. There are large timbers involved but have quite cleverly been designed to be *within* the envelope. As for gaps, so far the only air gaps we have been able to discover were some timy ones between the sole plate/DPC and the thermal blocks it is sat on - and I think they were down to slight irregularities in the blocks/block laying actually. But these were sealed and we've gone over it all ourselves again and silicone the edges above and below the DPC even though it wasn't really necessary. Similarly since we'd bought boxes full of sealant, we sealed all the joins in the panels ( which was pointless to be honest as I saw how they were sealed together but attention to detail seems to be key, and I've tried to provide jobs that everyone in the family can feel part of available for them to do) Where you may see expanding foam used is I watched when they fastened the panels together - talk about thorough... the panels were spline joined, so no big timber cold bridges (the splines also being SIPS themselves), and they "glued" the insides first with low expansion sticky type foam, then the panels were pulled together under a lot of pressure with a device that reminds me of a fence tensioner, so a lot of the foam squeezed out at the joins of course then literally about 100 nails were fired in each edge( I stopped counting at 100. I reckon those house must weight an extra ton from all the nails ?) I was quite genuinely amazed how thorough the guys were - particularly when we got torrential rain and they were literally soaked to the skin through their waterproofs even. Needless to say, there's not been a lot of gap finding to do despite us going over quite literally every mm of join - but I do have to say that the guys were unbelievably thorough, I mean to a degree *way* beyond my expectations and possibly not all firms will be quite so exacting. I also think bridging from big timbers had been thoroughly thought about, because you *could* build it in a simpler faster way for the builder, but have those timbers bridging between the cavity and the interior. I think our checking out of the various firms for a few months paid off. One thing I have noted is that the breather membrane touted as waterproof for up to a few weeks has not stood up to some of the heavy rain we've had amd has definitely let water through... but the roofers started today and being a belt-and-braces type is actually felting over the lats too! So even if we lost a slate at some point in the future there would be 2 layers in fact between the outside and the osb face.

I think there will always be room for negotiation, but will just add a note of caution. An acquaintance recently had a new house built, on land they already owned, going down the main contractor route. Although he and his wife have run their own businesses successfully for years, I don't think he knew much about building work. He trod the fairly common path of getting an architect to design the house and get planning permission, then went to tender for a main contractor to build the whole house. He had quotes in from a few builders and selected one. As there always are when building a house, a few minor things changed as they went along, but nothing that should have had a major impact on price, in my view (I've seen his plans). When they got to the end of the build, the bill from the contractor was £20k more than the quote, on an original build cost of around £120k, IIRC. The reason given was changes in spec from the client plus increased material costs, both of which are in dispute. Needless to say the client was not at all happy, and so is still battling with the contractor over this increase, but I don't think he'll win, as he did not have a firm price contract with the main contractor, he just accepted a quotation. Firm price contracts are fixed in price, fixed price contracts are not fixed in price - variation is allowed for some things, like exchange rates pushing material costs up. Quotes are very often treated as an estimated price, neither a firm or fixed price and a quotation should be a firm price but very rarely is in practice. This last point is where I think a lot of people come unstuck, they believe a quotation is the actual price they will pay at the end, and often it isn't. One thing we found was that very few builders have a properly drawn up and negotiated contract procedure. They give a quote, perhaps with their standard terms of business, and expect to be given the job on that basis, with them having the freedom to adjust the final price as they go along. This is fine as long as the client is kept informed every time something affects the final price, and a good main contractor should do this regularly, so the client knows each week or so what the changed final price will be. Some don't do this, as in the case of my acquaintance, and then the client gets a nasty surprise at the end. We didn't go down the main contractor route, but we did have two main contracts, one firm price contract with the ground works company (roughly £50k in our case) and another firm price contract with the house build company (who built the foundations and weather tight and insulated house frame and a detached garage) that was a bit over £60k. I drew up both contracts, and agreed them with the contractors, with agreed stage payment plans. From the discussions I had with several companies during the tender stage I don't think many usually worked to any form of written contract at all. So, my advice would be to choose a main contractor that has priced realistically for your area and try to agree a firm price contract, rather than accept a quotation. There is always a risk with a firm price contract that the price will be a bit higher, as the contractor will build in some risk contingency to his price, but for you the advantage it that you know what the final price will be. The other down side with a firm price contract is that it limits your options to change things as they go along - each change needs an agreed variation to the contract. Alternatively, agree a fixed price contract, or accept a quotation, and ensure that there is a clause requiring the main contractor to discuss price changes with you on a regular basis.