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Wife and daughter have been out sofa shopping today. Bit premature I thought. Amongst other things, I still need to do the Bath surround/Boxing in, and we all know how long that takes. ?

Yesterday was the moment of truth, and we had our first airtightness test (will do no. 2 on completion). No tears were shed, and I think I should be pleased with 0.84 ach on a 270 sq m build. Can't help the urge to hunt down and fill the offending leaks though!

I was pleased to find this site after ebuild as there is much useful info on here. My wife and I run a small company designing and building out one off spec builds in the local area. I started as carpenter and worked all over the world in heavy structural carpentry, my wife started in commercial design and moved over to residential design when we met, not a qualified architect she designs our new build and conversions as well as high end kitchens, furniture, fits out etc. She also does 3D renders for private clients with some clever software that cost more that my motorbike!! We are both pretty creative and love what we do ..except dealing with solicitors. We do everything in house often even acquisition but always, design , planning, build, marketing and selling, about 1 house a year. We are just about to start building our own house in our free time/running alongside another development nearby. This house is very modern Class Q and is total departure from what we do day to day for the open market. A resource like Buildhub is very useful for us to help research new products and system we have not used before. You never stop learning! My area of expertise is timber engineering /cut roofing /complex structural and TF so hope I may be of use at some point. We are TRADA members so have access to a LOT of info in this field. (We are heavily involved in the Timber frame sector and are launching a related startup business this year (tourism).) I can assure you I am better at building houses than I am at spelling but will try my best. I look forward to learning what I can fro the site.

There's no Celotex or PUR foam anywhere in our build. The roof insulation is cellulose. effectively ground up old newspapers treated and blown in under pressure with a blower machine. Celoetex and all PIR/PUR foams are poor acoustically and have a low decrement delay, and I wouldn't use either in the walls and roof of a house, personally.

These last few months, and probably for the next 12 at least, my life consists of going to work, coming home and working on the house then going to bed - then going to work... and repeat. Pretty much everything else has come to a halt. Very few social calls and even my hair isn't getting cut as often! . #metoo! Lol. I'm with you brother! I'm now not working either so at house practically every day now! Two bedrooms (plaster and paint) and 2.5 bathrooms to go, something I'll be pestering @Nickfromwalesabout soon when I can face it!

I’d just make your own. Toolstation do cheap plastic dustsheets for £1, and if you just double wrap the insulation and tape on the back your BCO will be none the wiser ...

Put a static van on the site and tell them you are living in it

If it's less than the specified period between purchase and sale of first house your good to go. Plans change as you've found out. The way you've financed doesn't exclude you.

I went from this: To filling the edge splits with compound and localised painting over that and the old felt: To painting a bit of the roof: Then a bit more, then the whole roof even buying a 20kg drum. (I used Cromapol last time). Probably done £500 over a few years. And it still leaks. Oddly, my leaks are confined generally to the edges (touch wood). It's a 3/4" plywood deck under mine. I reckon OSB would have long since fallen through. This and the mirror image other side might have to be my next project but I want to sort the roof slope (raise), insulate the dormers better at the same time and maybe do fibreglass or EPDM. (Quite fancy a go at how @Barney12 did his hidden gutters). £££ & time!

When I fitted air con in my last place the unit in the loft had a folded galv tray under the unit with a drain pipe that went to the outside, any condensation or water drips would exit out the pipe very effectively. So maybe we should start thinking about these under any wet equipment.

Has this duct got the finish paving on top yet ? if not dig it back up and lay 2 new ducts it’s only 20m so materials will not come to a lot and you could get it dug out and back filled in a morning with a small excavator. 2 new ducts no water leakage. If you brought a 100m coil you could run 3 just as a spare.

We have 253mm (PS10) Posijoists at 400mm centres over a wider span than this and the floor is rock-solid. I suspect that you have mid-span deflections that are greater than predicted for some reason, possibly the way the end-restraints are arranged on the joists, possibly because the static load is higher than anticipated, perhaps the joists were not pre-cambered during manufacture to the dead load deflection (a common failing), or maybe the floor boards were not secured as well as they might be. I doubt it's the latter and strongly suspect that it's either the lack of dead load pre-camber or greater freedom at the end attachments (like using joist hangers rather than fixing both members of the Posijoist securely to the structure). Having them at 600mm centres will have exacerbated the problem.

600 and 400 are chalk and cheese. I did a job for a customer where the TF company specified 600mm centres. 1 runs of strong-back, 22mm p5 deck, glued and gas nailed, and still the dynamic deflection was horrendous. Fitted wardrobe doors seen moving etc. The deflection for static loading and dynamic loading are what you need to translate, as obviously it's the walking around / other activity aka dynamic that's causing issue. Can the company that specified them answer your questions ?

I just fug a trench 1 bucket wide (2ft) about 300mm deeper than the pipe, filled it with stones, laid the perforated pipe, more stones around it and over it, some plastic sheeting then the soil. Npthing over complicated.

Fecal transplants? You heard right! Basically there's a school of thought that you can take a healthy, skinny persons gut bacteria and introduce it to an obese person. Generally to try and cure IBS like diseases or even hard to shift c.diff infections.There's a big underground movement for this that quite literally involves poo, a liquidizer, piping bag etc and bending over to take the medicine! Of course there's risks and it's sometimes done between family members as in "you know where they've been" hopefully. It can apparently work and avoid life changing surgery: https://www.everydayhealth.com/ulcerative-colitis/one-familys-personal-experience-with-fecal-transplants.aspx The downside is that although it can cure one thing it can cause other issues: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-31168511 I've even read it could get to the stage where we in the West pay 3rd world "donors". Brown gold was the term used. Anyone with gut/skin problems give this Kimchi a go. All I can say is it worked for me! https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/gb/groceries/yutaka-korean-kimchi-215g?langId=44&storeId=10151&krypto=WsBabqNuFOluUEEIn80yOqfZrPZDEwZU8OJar81ugGJaSIVAgRzfUaKwKzynPm47jn17WlSVXdeLASw1sNEYxxE39SL8gTRIkbCy89nKO%2BZZU0WkvKDU%2BUQ%2FyZw8jkBZKPHmJR5ptj2JgavtqaVoKfDgtvb4IR42yaeG7uxoJgg%3D&ddkey=https%3Agb%2Fgroceries%2Fyutaka-korean-kimchi-215g

I went to one leaking copper cylinder when young and keen ? and grabbed the cold feed pipe to show how bad the corrosion was, and that it was there that it was leaking from. As I put my hand on the pipe it pushes into the cylinder and the entire contents ( 115l or so ) emptied into the room in the wink of an eye. It presently disappeared into the floor void and all I could hear is the kid downstairs saying "mummy, the tellys gone off". Every drop went down the back of the telly, dvd, sky box etc. Another top day at work. They went through their own insurance after I took a photo of the knackered Union as I pointed to the hole in the living room ceiling where it was evident it had been leaking for years before I got there. Still got the old pulse racing though. ?

I have been a bit busy over the last few weeks having finished first fix, plumbing and electrics. Plumbing went okay, although one of the AAV's had a small leak so the pressure test on the foul drain kept failing. Once replaced it held 50mm of water without problem. Had a major with the electrician who walked off the job at the end of first fix as he got a major contract for 10 houses. As we had no formal written contract we were stuck. As all the cables were in, none of the electricians would entertain the work other than as a final testing and inspection. After a bit of negotiation with the building control officer and we can go down that route. Upside is that i have saved a couple of quid as all i have paid for are materials so the final test will be the only labour charge. Plasterboard is about 60% completed and the plasterer is following us room to room. So far we have used 240 sheets including some sound and fire board. we have stuffed rock wool into all the walls and floors and will be pleased when finished as i hate the stuff. Its been a bit of a challenge to board the high points as the plasterboard lifter did not quite reach and i am still working out how to reach the roof of the galleried landing The next issue according to my wife is the colour of the sofa. not sue why when i still have to plumb the plant room

I'll dig out our spec tonight and see if any is relevant to yours and post. SE is probably not as au fait with this tuff so might we be better to be proactive.