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When I did the drawings for the duct and pipe placements where they were going to come up through the MBC slab, my ground works bloke thought I was nuts, I'm sure. I specified a fixed reference (a steel peg we'd put in the corner of the plot, that was easily accessed and had been very accurately surveyed using a Total Station) and then gave offsets from this for the pipe and duct positions. On the drawing I put a tolerance of +50mm -20mm on the critical vertical pipe locations, and the ground works chap thought I was going completely OTT, and that they would normally stick them within about a foot of where they thought they should go. On the last day they were there, when all the pipes and ducts were poking up out of the ground, I insisted that we measured the locations of all of them to check they were in the right place. One was out by around 30mm, and they were not happy at me getting it moved.............

I found that the waste fitting in the basin for one of ours was a lot longer than it needed to be, and poked down so far as to take up space from the shelf in the unit. My fix was to stick the chrome-plated threaded bit in the lathe (with some masking tape to protect the finish) and turn off about an inch of excess. This worked well, and lifted the trap up so that it's almost tucked up under the unit fascia panel. It may be that they make waste fittings in different lengths for just this reason - ours came supplied with the basin, so I didn't think to have a look around.

Milwaukee are far superior to all the above there on par with Hilti traverse perkins have a kit with three batteries on offer at the moment 250 including a flash light go on utube and look under drill wars Some guy connecting Milwaukee dewalt and makita together and seeing which one burns out Rach to his own it made me chuckle

I've not seen this site before. Looks like it's intended for HMRC staff dealing with VAT reclaims. https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/vat-construction/vconst24000

So! Thanks to you all the cost estimates have been revisited following the suggestions here and we've managed to plug some line items with quotes. We're now in a position whereby we're confident we can continue with the self build without compromising the key elements of the house nor going bankrupt. It ought to allow us to potentially take some knocks on the way if (when!) they occur. It isn't perfect by a long shot, though it feels a lot more realistic than the Quantity Surveyor and will be a good baseline for moving forwards. It'll probably creep up by ~£100/m2 through discretionary spending, but at least that wont be hidden! If anyone wants access to the excel model they're welcome to a redacted copy placed on Google Drive here. It could use some additional functionality for identifying estimates vs quotes vs actual's which I'm sure will be built in in time.

Put the waste pipework in or ducts for it FIRST. .

@FerdinandNo chance, i am as dyslexic as it comes and just typing this much takes me an hour or two...... sorry but i really would not know where a parade goes in a paragraph or what is more or less readable

Does in my deck

You cut the hole in the PB a bit over size so you can wiggle it Or cut it level to start with.

Getting dry lining boxes to stay level during plastering is the issue. I'd go for fitting the metal boxes everywhere, using LE exp foam to retrospectively fix the awkward ones into place. You then have the benefit of the one adjustable toggle whereas the dry lining boxes have zero wiggle room for levelling.

Don't forget a good solid front door so your neighbour can't get in to beat you up when the planning dept make him knock half of his house down

Ah yes, the AA variant. Gotcha. Still well worth pointing out how important it is to confirm the input as 3-32dc is much more common. Oh and an anecdote from me- those Fotek relays are crap. By various means I've had a number of them recently and the failure rate (either DOA or at well under rated load) is near 50%. Baseplate feels like chromed plastic, really light. Those blue labelled ones (and I've seen'em with a couple of different brands) are much more heavily built and I'm yet to have an early life failure.

Or undo, sling and replace with something like this:

I found the Simpson Strongtie workbench kit great. So quick, simple and guaranteed strong joints. Used another kit recently for a set of fitted adult friendly bunk beds in a ski lodge.

A couple more shots of mine albeit a single pan. More to get an idea of the convoluted route I went to bring the soil run within the stud wall depth. My stud wall is odd in that to square the room off the studs vary in depth from 95mm where the soil exits the wall to 150mm down by the Geberit frame. I was sort of lucky as the frame sits over where was an old door way, now blocked up but with the face of the blocks recessed by about 2" from the original wall: You can see here it was all looking good until I had to account for the collar thickness on the fittings. If you use push fit then the distance from centreline will be in excess of 55mm. To gain mm I went solvent weld. (Measure, dry fit & mark, double check before you glue - not for the faint-hearted but I'd do it again). Even with solvent weld the horizontal brown was just that bit too far out past the stud line and immovable where it exited through the wall. Hence the 9mm packing pieces added above: So now my moisture resistant plasterboard & Aquapanel for the wet room corner will "sail" over the soil pipe and be unsupported there - must remember NOT to screw there!

Challenging thought. One long bench will look great, but is it really most useful...... How about several separate dedicated benches. One freestanding heavy one with a big vice. A lower one for machine tools. A classic woodworking bench and an electronics bench with a laminate top set for a good sitting height. Dedicated workstations according to the work in hand.... luxury.

Okay then, it's a common misspelling.

I dont really want to tell you how much over budget we are because it makes me cry......we went for mbc frame and slab option as was a fixed cost but beyond that the whole thing is a nightmare. Budgeted costings we were given now appear to be fairy stories. I had budgeted for high spec bathrooms, kitchen and lighting and I did all that myself on quotes and they are as expected. The rest of it is an absolute joke! I have things not being done corectly the first time round and then having to be done again (not contractors fault or mine its not due to client changing mind etc). Our ground works came in at 52k plus 35k for a retaining wall, we had no problems in the ground so I cannot see where 52k went......we have yet to get services down to the house (they are at the gate inside our property) or drainage and then backfill around the eps....this is another 10k plus so we have over 100k for groundworks and wall and honestly its not that complicated or difficult. We have had a professional project manager on board from purchase of plot, I do all the running around and spend a lot of time finding things we need. I am not able to physically ‘build’ it myself. If are lucky and control very tightly the remainder we will end up on a 180sqm single storey build at £550k excl plot and vat reclaim......thats an eye watering £ps sq m! We had budgeted £375 - £400k after qs costed it at 340k, architect thought 3ish so we thought our budget was reasonable. Its a very simple bungalow!. Yes I feel foolish and very stressed and have no faith in professionals now. Learn from the excellent advice on this forum and do not put too much trust in your professionals where your money is concerned, by the time I realised what was happening we were so far in it was hard to stop a lot of it. I have done what can........oh and we are projected to be six months behind for completion which is another 12k in rent! Sitting in corner sobbing quietly......... Good luck. Liz