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I had a visit yesterday from a member and his wife who, in fairness to them both, must remain nameless. He took a huge weight off my shoulders by explaining how to mark out for the wall plate properly. And when he had explained it, he showed me how. Since he does this job commercially, I am not left wondering whether competence was an issue. I feel like I have had a bag of cement taken off my back. I thought that to ascertain wall plate level, all I needed to do was to measure from the existing level (DPC) to the bottom of the wall plate (rim joist). I had the odd niggling naggling doubt though. What would happen if the subfloor was not level? (It isn't) Ya just can't know what ya don't know. And that's why I spend hours 'wasting time' reading round the subject, hoping to hit a gold mine of information. But 'Tinternet is full of shared ignorance, misinformation and waffle. So, I'll stop waffling for now and post pics and method a bit later today. A big thank you to the big lad from Preston and his wife and his HILTI laser.

Having completed the initial groundworks last year (see Part 15) it was great to get the digger back and be able to spread the remaining sub and top soil over our site. All in all, there has been around 150 hours of digger time to get all of the site landscaped. Other than using stone excavated on site to edge parts of the driveway and round the back of the house, most of the digger time (supplemented for earth moving with a dumper) has been spent on earthworks. At the front of the house, we had formed our terraces last year so 'only' had to cover with top soil. At the rear of the house, a lot more work was required as we had to spread what was still a sizeable amount of subsoil, before we could finish with topsoil. The result of all that work was a barren 'moonscape' of soil. Having considered all of my gardening options, and in particular the exposed nature of our site, I opted to go for a very simple garden scheme - a mix of lawned grass and wildflower meadow. With 2/3 of an acre to seed, I opted for the big guns and got a local farmer in to power harrow and air seed the meadow areas. He also harrowed and raked the lawned areas for me, but they did require good old human input to get an acceptable and stone light (I won't say free) bed on which I could sow lawn seed. I sourced both lawn and meadow seed from a local merchant, opting for a local species rich meadow mix, boosted with some annual and bird/bee wildflower seeds. On those areas which the air seeder couldn't reach, I used an aero broadcast seed sower / "fiddle" sower. For those who haven't used one, it's a very simple yet effective bit of kit. The lawn seed was sown at a rate of around 45g / sq m, and the meadow grass at 3g /sq m (to allow space for the wildflowers to grow) 6 weeks on, the grass has established itself and our site is starting to look rooted in its surroundings. Looking forward to next year to see some colour in the meadow areas. Stone lined entrance - large stone will eventually have a house name sign on it. Driveway, lined with timer (old 75mm posts) and small stones at the corner Meadow area - depending how this looks, the lawn area may be extended back a little to shape the meadow with flowing curved lines. You can see our treatment plant at the bottom right of this photo. A diversion channel filled with stone and small stones around the plant lid are in place to prevent water running onto the lid and flooding the pump chamber. The slope between the two terraces has been sown with wildflower meadow grass, so the terraces are hidden when looking from the road below. if this doesn't work / look quite right, I have the option of converting to lawn grass. How we have finished the space between the two sections of the house. It will of course take time for the grass to get properly established, and no doubt there will be many changes made, but overall things are looking good and the house feels that it should be there / always has been there. Meantime, we are just waiting for the fencer to come and erect two new boundary fences and replace an existing one to enclose the site from the adjacent field and neighbouring site.

Currently working on improving my house. Will be adding cellulose to the loft but first I'm sealing up all tops of stud walls. I'll be foaming and taping all joins for stud walls and taping any other obvious gaps but I'm not sure how to go about sealing around the lighting cables. I don't have any socket cables feeding down to all the bedrooms which makes it a little easier but still how should I go about sealing these holes around the cables? And for that matter to the lights themselves. I have large insulated covers for both of my single bathroom led downlights and the extraction is from a new mvhr unit so no need to worry about wiring to individual extractors anymore Many thanks James

Nice. Miele have an outlet store near Oxford. I do like some of their appliances - wouldn't hesitate to get their washing machines. https://www.miele.co.uk/domestic/outlet-2991.htm

Well done, stunning in every respect.

£25k for an integrated lift might be a bit high. Stiltz quote around £14k which includes all standard site preparation work and all standard installation costs. Don't know exactly what that means though.

So the song goes, and that was the predicted air permeability number which went into our 'As Designed' SAP calcs (though our target was to be sub 2 'as built'). Well, we finally reached the point where we could delay the test no longer (we hope to move in in 3 weeks' time), and with some trepidation I watched as the blower door was fitted and the fan turned on. First thing to happen was the suction pulled the frame out of the door opening. Re-fitted, the fan was turned on again and depressurisation commenced. With inward opening windows I'd have preferred a pressurisation test but the tester wasn't planning on sitting outside in the light rain that was falling. The first run of recorded numbers were rejected by whatever software he entered them into on his laptop, it suggesting he needed to cover four of the eight holes in the fan cowling. He duly did so and re-ran the test. It was clear that the suction was again trying to rip the blower door out of the door frame as air was leaking past it on both sides, but the entered numbers provided a m3/h/m2 score of 1.74 - not bad (and inside my target), but both the tester and I knew it could be better if we could stop air leaking past the blower door frame. Tape was added and we had another go. Again, air was soon rushing in around the blower door, but the recorded numbers gave a score of 1.599 when entered and, as that was comfortably better than the original aspiration, we decided not to try again to seal the leaks round the blower door. Okay, I know this is nowhere near the 0.6ACH (I estimate our test result equates to around 1.23ACH) required for Passiv House, but we were never aiming for that and the complex shape of our chalet bungalow and large dormers never leant themselves to such levels of air tightness. Frankly, I was delighted (and mightily relieved) to have achieved 1.6 but I'm now wondering what it could have been had that blower door sealed properly. Would I be being greedy to get them back for another go? Running it as a pressurised test would pull the frame hard into the door seal after all, and any chance of minor leakage past the windows would be reduced. Would it make much difference? Would I get a lower number and would that have any impact on the 'As Built' SAP score? Or do I just accept that 1.6 is my magic number?

Is it a good sign when your test item breaks the equipment :-) ? Good result.

The test procedure requires them to do both a positive and negative test, then average the two results to get the permeability, so both tests need to be done. No need to go outside either, they just switch the fan. There's often quite a difference between the positive and negative values, because some door and window seals will tighten on a positive test, some will loosen, and vice versa, which is why the procedure requires both tests to be done. Looking at our blower test report, there was a 15% difference between the pressurisation test and the depressurisation test, with the latter giving the lower permeability figure (we have outward opening windows, inward opening doors).

After all the hard work getting it airtight, I'd definitely be having them back for a positive force test of it were me. "What if" is a question you'll be asking youself for a long time otherwise, and curiosity would get the better of me.

Cant help you with the decision side but there is a few used chairlifts on ebay. such as http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Stairlift-/122724588370?hash=item1c92f49b52:g:WWAAAOSwGh5ZyT3f

Without seeing plans it is very hard to comment. When I re-designed our house, bungalow to 2-storey, I deliberately included a proper lift with stairs going round it, but my mum is in a wheelchair so was the only option. (se the plans on my blog) I suspect you don't have that option without destroying the layout of the current house.

Nice bathroom, that's how I'd like ours to look. I was concerned that lkea items may be a waste of money in long term. I'm impressed with Ikea bathroom items but wanted to hear what others thought.

Hi, New member from Swindon here. Many thanks for granting me access to the forum. I'm likely to pay off the mortgage on my current property in North Swindon this year and have some additional cash behind me. My wife and I are looking to step up to a bigger property in the region but the quality and value of new developments by speculative builders hasn't inspired us a great deal (e.g. - 400k for a property with nowhere to store an ironing board and a garden you couldn't swing a cat in). Perhaps a little unimaginatively, my wife and I like the idea of kit designs rather than a bespoke bricks and mortar development. I'm keen to learn more about the basics: costing, project planning, legal aspects, land acquisition (including local council provision for self build) - as well as hearing recommendations regarding kit home manufacturers (timber frame). If you've gone through the kit build process and have experiences or a blog to share, I'm keen to hear. Although there are few benefits to living in Swindon, we do have the National Self-Build and Renovation Centre! p.s. - will do my best to use the search function to look for answers.

Down our way (Hampshire/Surrey borders) not much is negotiable at the moment. Looking at what friends have been through recently, you're lucky enough if you can get anyone to even quote, let alone be open to discussing lower prices. I wouldn't negotiate individual trades down much if their initial quote seems reasonable. The last thing you want is someone cutting corners because a couple of unforeseen issues have popped up and they're losing money on the job. Even with a main contractor, I think it's a false economy trying to squeeze every last penny out of them. Negotiate fairly, but leave something on the table for everyone.