Leaderboard

Six years ago, we had a casual conversation with an architect friend about the fact that we'd like to build our own home. Taking the resulting vague, non-committal "hmmmmm" as rampant, unbridled enthusiasm, we started looking for plots. First thought - our very own back garden. It was massive, a pain in the arse to garden, and it would be free! Back garden plot Pros: - Free -Less gardening Back Garden Plot Cons: - On a notorious flood plain - Not actually where we wanted to live On balance, we binned that idea. But not before paying the first of many fees to the local council to be denied planning permission. It was at this point that my out-of-control addiction to giving money away to the local council (or anyone, actually) began. Second up was a plot in an outlying village, about 2 miles from the place we actually wanted to live (but couldn't afford). Lovely plot. (someone else's front garden, giving them the classic double whammy of less gardening AND extra money to spend during the leisure time they'd have gained by not gardening) Local village plot Pros: - Nice road in semi-posh village - Little school - Pub - Services on site - South facing Local village plot Cons: - A LOT of trees - some with TPO's - Not free - Still not where we REALLY wanted to live - Quite small This was a tough one. We knew that we'd never get a plot in the dream location, but was it a compromise too far? Whilst we were swithering about plot 2, an unbelievable opportunity came up, right in the centre of our dream location. Dream plot Pros: - Where we REALLY wanted to live Dream plot Cons: - Lots - Who cares? - No money for the rest of time Needless to say, we went for it. So, that's how we ended up with an inaccessible plot, complete with a ransom strip owned by someone else, surrounded by a million overlooking flats in the centre of the medieval town. Next up - how we got access to the plot (hint: expensively) and fulfilled my need to give away some more money to the council.

Electricity: Well, we applied for electricity to be connected in March of this year (It is late August as I write this). Made a couple of calls to see how things were progressing, but never got any call backs. It would have been great to have an electricity supply for the a lot of the work, but in the end I had to buy a generator, which has been a godsend. So come August and we are now living on site in a caravan. I've been in for the last couple of weeks and last night my wife moved in too (we are doing the final move from the old house this week). So a couple of weeks ago we tried to ring Northern Networks new connections office - only to be told repeatedly that they were too busy and were not taking calls! So had to tell a receptionist who was fielding their calls the whole story - but still not allowed to speak to the new connections department. So over 2 days, my wife and I tried several times a day to get through since surely they must put the phone down at least once in 48 hours? Well, according to the receptionist, not. I asked if I could 1speak to some manager who may be able to help - no, we were not allowed! a flat refusal! I got an email from our original contact engineer to the effect that they had not received our acceptance of the quote in March! (in reality, things getting "lost in the post" is vanishingly rare, in my experience, certainly here in the North East, though I know it can be an issue in parts of the South). So I resent a copy - a week or two later we get it back with scrawled "OOT" - and a letter saying We were Out Of Time to reply! - and must start again from the beginning, getting an engineer to check the site etc. etc. By means I'll not disclose, I obtained a managers name in the new connections department and managed to bluff my way past the guard and was actually able to speak to him! He at least seemed to sympathise that 5 months is too long and I got him to promise he would watch to see this latest application didn't get "lost in the post" for 5 months yet again. Either way, I had to reapply - I pointed out to him how silly it was for the engineers to have to look at it from scratchy and could they not just resurrect using the map and details they already have? He agreed, and so after a week and a half another quote came - exactly the same as last time. So I've posted 2 copies of our acceptance in separate post boxes AND emailed both the department, and the person named on the letter, and got read receipts and delivery confirmation emails. Meantime, if we want a shower in the caravan we have to nip out and turn the generator on - which is noisy for our nearest neighbours, and whilst they have not complained, I am very aware of the noise. As at present I got to work around 0430, I really cannot in fairness run the generator, so it makes things pretty difficult. I'm sitting in the new house shell writing this with the generator running so I can use the computer and internet with ear defenders on! We run the genny in the house to try and cut some of the external noise down (with doors/windows open of course). Its not conducive to thought though to be honest. Unfortunately mobile data is so bad here that web sites time out, so this is the only way we can get on the internet from the site. I really wish they'd hurry up with the connection! Water: Curiously, we have had the same lack of response from Northumbrian water. They like to see the service pipe running into the house, but no way could I keep the trench open for 6 months safely so eventually, I filled it back in when they'd done nothing for 3 months (its a mere 1 metre from our boundary to the water main) . Chasing them up again, they were very good and apologised profusely and promised a guy out that week, they also said they quite understood that it was dangerous for me to leave a trench open 6 months on a building site. when the guy came I was at work, so when he turned up and said he needed to inspect the pipe (I've actually even pressure tested it myself) was deep enough and bedded properly she handed him a spade and told him to help himself . Strangely enough it then did not need inspecting - funny that! When they come to connect to it (the end is sticking out of the ground of course) and dig down, they will see the depth and the sand bedding it is in anyway. Openreach have been OK. PlusNet cut our business internet connection off 2 weeks before we moved (and that's a business connection!) and said it would be 3 weeks before they'd switch it on, despite Openreach having connected us up! In the event, they did it a couple of days early, but knocking business accounts off for 3 weeks is simply not good enough - that could destroy some businesses completely. We have ADSL rather than fibre, but actually, since the rest of the village is now on fibre we have it all to ourselves and so far it's pretty reasonable speed-wise (when the generator is no to power the modem of course). As for the house itself, the builder tells me that he should be starting the stonework in 3 weeks now the roof is 90% finished.

They do actually make a thing for this exact purpose,for shuttering carpenters, it is very much like a piece of 3/4 overflow pipe it is placed inside the shuttering and the threaded rod goes through it, leave threaded rod in until fully cured and then remove, you will be left with a very neat 3/4 Diameter hole you can then fill.

You got it. I know you have got all the tools to make such a device because you have injured yourself with them ?

The old iron pipe acts as the slide hammer, yes?

There are some idiots on here! Pity there's no cavity:

Declan, behave yourself , this is serious.... And you Pete...

You could made a simple diy slid hammer using some spare threaded bar and a couple of nuts.

I may be a little late to this party but im going to stick my oar in anyway . 1) why are you pouring so late in the day? if your concrete companies are anything like ours the trucks wont be turning up until 3:30 - 4 if your lucky, ideally you want to be first on the list for the day. 2) how dry are your blocks, I have never worked with durisol but by the looks of them they will suck the life out of the concrete in no time, on that basis the only time you are likely to get a blow out is in the first hour or so, or while the concrete is pumping. if it were me (and i appreciate even the best laid plans can go awry) i would aim to get the lorry and pump there for 8:00, finish the pour by about 11-12, have some lunch and tidy up then undo the bolts with a socket on an impact driver at about 3-4, tap them through with a hammer and then pull them out the rest of the way with some kind of a crowbar. the conduit idea sounds very nice but is also adding a LOT of unnecessary complications IMO Just my 2 cents

Not yet, I'm doing that later. As I told SWMBO, I have to go, even if it is a school night, since I owe them for a couple of pints from the weekend. It's a vicious circle

Yeah right, so great for Christmas lunch for all the extended family, as long as you start at Harvest Festival. These things really should be banned.

It's easy to replace the supplied cable, usually. Neither of our towel rails came with a cable fitted, just terminals and a seal and cable clamp under the cable entry cover where the element is fitted. If doing this, remember to use heat resistant flex, not standard PVC stuff that may go brittle and crack after a while.

Have a break in the supplied cable, say 100mm into the stud wall and inline crimp it to the cable coming from your timer / controller. This one came with a cable transit at cost, but a piece of 15 or 22mm chrome pipe with a pipe collar would do it.

If it's got that many holes in it, he's half way there.

If there is little green area left, perhaps all the bats and badgers and hedgehogs are living in your little plot . A Phase I is quite reasonable price-wise. It is when they ask for a Phase II that you need to worry. I think here I would find several recommendations and ask for quotes for the phase I. You need a focus on - at least - ruling out any landfill risk (think 250m should make you safe there), and making sure no one mentions gas percolation tests without a careful explanation. We had to do these on a larger site, but we were much closer than that. I is a bit of a trigger, and tick-box cultures such as exist in Planning find it easier to require tests to be done rather than accept they are not necessary. I think it would also be worth getting all the Ground Condi tion reports (and Planning Decisions conditioned to requite them) so you can demonstrate that there are places between you and the landfill where tests were not required. Should be an hour or two online. Ferdinand

The purpose of a Phase 1 study is to assess whether or not to do a more thorough survey. By another name, a cost reduction exercise. You may find precisely nothing needs doing. Let's hope so. But why would you want to submit an application for a lead-soaked patch of made ground? Or landfill that leeches cyanurates? I am lucky enough to live on a heart-breakingly beautiful patch of land, that was filled with damson trees. On made ground. (Hear the warning bells "Made Ground") On a row of four workers cottage built to house the families who built the local canal. A tiny hamlet straight off a picture postcard. Our Phase 1 survey found Weak made ground Glacial Till So, we had a Phase 2 study done. Why? How deep was the Made Ground on top of the glacial till? Were there any other issues we needed to know about? As it turned out we had lead to deal with too. Not much, but lead is lead, and I don't want that in my lettuce. Yes, I can. Get several quotes and do it. Just do it. Here's what doing the soil survey 'did' for us.... Enabled us to send two charlatan Would Drainage 'experts' packing when they tried to sell us a drainage system based on an inadequate Percolation Test I knew exactly what was under the ground. Bastards. Helped us dismiss several Piling 'Experts' when they turned up chanting "£22 thousand pounds mate" while deriding the relevance of soil surveys "Buuuut ah'll tell thee what meeert, 'ahve gorra contact as'll do yer wun fer next ter nowt". Bastards Took the wind out of the company we eventually used for piling when I told them we already had the detailed Phase 1 and 2 reports along with a soil profile: the piling company wanted to charge a good deal more (because they needed their agency cut for their 'partner' company) Eventually we paid £6,500 for piles - most companies wanted at least £15k. Bastards. Told the ground workers exactly where to get off in terms of describing exactly where the water table is. Teeth sucking estimates about how dodgy it is 'roun' yer' Bastards Identified exactly where to put our soak away Happy Chappie A soil survey is a risk reduction strategy. It isn't foolproof. But it helps you plan, and it helps weed out the inevitable charlatans (bastards) that home-in on self builders. Just do it. Ian

Quite fancy a kebab but after the huge roast she cooked I'd best not...plus I've had a couple so can't drive! Have a look here: https://www.sparksdirect.co.uk/blog/ip-rating-in-the-bathrooms-bathroom-ip-zoning/

Don't beat about the bush, say what you really think Ed

Don't do what I heard of. A bloke tied the rope to his car, that was big and heavy. Didn't keep the keys in his pocket and didn't tell anyone else in the house not to use the car.......

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.