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So, after the last entry, we were back to scratch again, having managed to secure an additional piece of land and an alternative access to our plot. Lots of measuring and pacing out later, we were able to basically take what would have been the 2nd floor of the planned house, and put it on the ground floor. The ground floor footprint was made considerably bigger by this, and the overall shape was much less "passive-friendly", but for our tight site, it really was the only option. After a lot of refinements with the architect, he came up with a design that we absolutely loved, gave us privacy from the surrounding buildings, parking AND a little garden. So, some pics at last! Before we got the additional land, we had bought two of the pre-fab 50's garages that back right up to our site and intended to demolish them to gain access. This photos shows a peek of the site through the first panel we removed. There was a massive step up from the ground slab of the garage to the soil level of the site. Looking back, this should have been our first warning of problems to come... The site was a former garden centre, so there was a large timber building (previously a showroom), a play house, a load of slabs, display boxes, plant racks, millions and millions of plastic plant pots everywhere, and 5 world-weary apple trees to get rid of. And a lot of topsoil. Did I mention the topsoil? It was a LOT of work and expense to get rid of all this stuff, as it all counted as "mixed waste" so the disposal fees were enormous. This is when we realised the importance of being on site to supervise. We'd had a holiday booked for months and months before we knew we'd be doing this work, so we briefed the guys doing the clearance (who we trust) who estimated the remaining skip loads. We get back a few days later to discover it had been over double that number and our digger driver had got into a dispute with the skip collection driver over what counted as "waste". So instead of the expected bill from the skip guys of about £2-3000 at the absolute WORST, we came back to a bill of over £10k. This necessitated a somewhat hasty trip to the skip yard and a "full and frank exchange of views" with the owner. After showing us a random picture of some rubbish on his phone and insisting it was from our site, our bill was halved. Left a nasty taste in the mouth though, that's for sure. So, we eventually have a clear site, and now another problem. If you're a gardener, you'll appreciate how lovely this topsoil looks. And it is great quality - this plot has been used for nothing but gardens and grazing since medieval times. Unfortunately, that leaves a rather extensive period of time during which the topsoil has nothing to do, but get deeper, and deeper and deeper. By the time we came to own the plot, the topsoil and subsoil layer was over 2m deep in places. Obviously, (after it was explained to us), you can't build a house on top of topsoil. Things grow in it. Things you don't want under your house. So, it had to go. BUT, we couldn't drop the level of the house by 2m, as the plot is surrounded by other buildings and dropping it down that far would cut out essentially all the sunlight coming into the house. If anything, we wanted it higher than the current level to maximise the light. Two options - piling with a suspended floor or simply replacing all the soil with compacted hardcore. We also (briefly, until we got the quotes in) considered adding a basement. That idea didn't last long. After speaking to Hilliard about piling, he mentioned that each pile would potentially be a partial cold bridge, so that was a little off-putting. But we got quotes anyway - they weren't horrendous, but a lot of piling companies weren't massively keen on the site, surrounded as it is by 3 storey blocks of flats, a listed street frontage, crumbling stone walls and potentially a LOT of angry neighbours. Despite this, it was an option we were considering, until every warranty company we spoke to said that they wouldn't issue a warranty for mortgage purposes if there was any black earth under the footprint of the house. So, many many many many tractors and trailers (and pots of money) later, 1000 tonnes of soil was dug out, and replaced with 1000 tonnes of hardcore. And not any hardcore. Due to our engineer (about which a LOT more could be said), it's all Type 1 MOT. All 1000 tonnes of it. Compacted to within an inch of it's life.

Seems to be coming together well. Currently at about £3300. Ikea units with an oak trim strip made from some oak skirting :-) Picking up the granite tomorrow AM hopefully we will be looking and hopefully pretty bespoke. That'll be £300 and £90 for the acrylic.

Two years on from starting the hut I'm fitting a gravity water system...I have a wash hand basin in the toilet and sink in kitchen both of which have taps. I connected the waste pipe ages ago which drains to the soak away but never go around to providing the taps with the one thing that kinda makes them useful! To be honest the hut isn't in any way uncomfortable to live in. We have a standpipe less than 30m away and just fill up 5l water bottles for drinking and washing. However, I've got some free time and good rioja so why not go and play around up at the hut? I'm putting this tank on some posts made up from small tree trunks, against an outside gable wall. This is case of bursts caused by freezing if I (or a less thoughtful wife or teenager) forget to drain the system between visits in winter. First made a box for the second hand tank someone gave me. The hole at the top is for a garden hose which I'll fill from the standpipe...will know when it's full when the overflow indicates ? Bottom pipe will feed both taps. I'm teeing off just under the taps and connecting to both hot and cold. Whalah we should soon have some slow running water for washing...not much need for that but most handy when brushing teeth. Don't like the toothbrush in a cup thing and not having a tap to wash away the spit.?? I'll post a little photo diary as I progress

So I seem to have done a complete about turn and moved away from timber frame to icf, so re,doing a lot of research. First question icf are available in different insulation widths anything from 50mm to 150mm with obviously different u values, but also you can have a thinner standard block and add additional sheet eps to the outside to increase overall thickness. So the question is what would be the difference between using a thicker block in the first place as opposed to a thinner one and adding additional sheets to the outside? I'm trying to come up with a benefit of adding the extra and all I can think of is bridging all the block joins with a larger sheet May in someway prevent heat loss. Any thoughts. @Stones

Only if you can buy unscented, unthickened, bleach that doesn't contain any additives to delay the breakdown of the solution. Often household bleach contains stuff that you wouldn't want in a drinking water supply, although if you hunt around you can find plain 70% hypochlorite solution bleach. It does degrade fairly quickly though, so ends up more expensive than making up your own stock solution from calcium hypochlorite.

Like the look and thinking behind this...well done old fruit

I've tried to persuade SWMBO on this. Two dishwashers, no cupboards. Take out what you want, use, put in the other. When full, swap over.

What a difference looks great

Another one not bothering with a structural warranty. Not planning to borrow or sell. The previous house had the nhbc warranty, but the cover from that expired last year so proved pointless in the end, but this time around I found the cost had doubled so making it even more of a waste of money. I also found some ridiculous things like the nhbc inspector was telling us to do the exact opposite of the building control inspector, ended up having to pretend to each we had done it "their" way.

Oh yes, I've read them all. I was interested in the various other systems mentioned on page one of this thread and their cost/value from the users prespective.

There are a couple of points here. First there is the cost benefit one, which is hard to pin down, because you may find that the relatively modest cost of additional insulation fitted during the build may reap a greater return through life that it appears from simple calculations. The effect of local conditions can make a marked difference to heat loss and gain, so it often isn't as straightforward as it seems to work out the benefit. We encountered just this problem, by accidentally creating an area where our build is that is warmer than the surrounding area all year around, gets a lot more solar gain that anticipated and loses a lot less heat than expected. Secondly there is the comfort factor. Having more insulation of a type that increases the decrement delay factor makes a big difference to the way the house feels. Houses with a high internal heat capacity and good insulation, plus good airtightness and decent heat recovery ventilation, tend to have a longer thermal time constant, so they heat up more slowly in very hot weather and cool down more slowly in very cold weather. This tends to improve comfort levels a lot. This latter point is not always well-understood, but there is a good article here that explains, in broad terms, how decrement delay affects comfort levels: http://www.greenspec.co.uk/building-design/decrement-delay/ Simply changing from a low decrement delay factor insulation product, like all forms of foam insulation, to one with an equivalent, or better, thermal performance, but with a higher decrement delay, can make a significant difference to the comfort level inside the house, both in winter and summer.

Have a look at the cost benefit of 30mm over vs 50mm. You may find for the .01 it improves the uValue of the walls it has such an extended payback period it will neither offset the cost of the extra material or the longer fixings required over 25 years. You're better looking at the air tightness and controlling the heat loss there as it's a larger impact.

Lap joints currently in construction. The purlins are joined at the trusses, both are notched for longitudinal restraint. 24 lap joints... I'm six in and already cut myself twice and dropped a beam on my toe.

Too much height difference to make up with firring pieces. In order to work the measurement difference for the 2 different pitches you need to know the width of your garage measured between the outside faces of the walls If your garage was say 6 metres wide then the 30 deg pitch roof would need a ridge height that was about 500mm higher than the 22.5 pitch. ian