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A very reassuring Welshman will wake up from his mid-afternoon snooze soon.

I think your Avatar makes this point comprehensively moot.

Due to a change in our personal circumstances our build has been a bit chaotic. We have renovated several period properties over the years, but, this in no way prepared us for a complete new build. However, we were delighted & excited that an opportunity arose. We were intending to be true self builders & take on a lot of the work ourselves. We had to go down the route of a very sustainable build to outweigh the planning restriction that we were in an unsustainable location. We worked with an architect who was experienced in this area & chose a build method that would allow us to take on a lot of the work ourselves. Henry retired, closed his business & sold the stock, I was going to give up work for a year or so & it was going to be a big lifetime adventure. Unfortunately, just as we finished the ground works & foundations Henry became ill & we had to halt our build until we knew the outcome. It became clear that we would not be able to proceed as planned, but we were past the point of no return. We decided that the most expedient way to proceed would be to have the structure of the house built in a factory & erected on site. Speed was also important as Henry's prognosis was life shortening and he very much wanted to see the house go up. We contacted several timber frame companies. We decided to go with PYC construction from Wales. Sam & Ben visited us almost straight away as coincidently they were also doing a build not far from us in Leicestershire. They spent a lot of time assessing how they could adapt the system to our already existing foundations, trench fill with beam & block. We will still have the originally proposed 20mm of celotex with a 6cm flo screed. This has worked well & luckily our foundations were accurate to within the 5mm tolerance necessary all round & just needed some adaptations. We have a closed panel, I joist timber frame with 300mm of cellulose insulation & metal webjoist with caberbeck intermediate floor. It took 4 days to erect the main structure & several more visits for the internal stud walls & additional battening for service channels. The lads from PYC worked so hard with long days on site. As they were a long way from home they stayed in the local pub during the construction. They were always on site by 7.30am & worked until at least 6pm everyday. I have only good things to say about them. PYC also installed the velux windows & the vertical battens on the roof & the timber overhangs to front & rear ready to be slated. It is all perfect? No it is not. The soleplate was installed in the wrong place & had to be altered as it would have caused a problem with our stonework. This happened while I was at work & I noticed the next day. PYC corrected it . However, had I not noticed it could have been a disaster. The window openings were not correct for the glazing we had specified & had to be adapted. Some of the panels are out as has been pointed out to us by the chap doing our cedar cladding where he has had to pack out some of the battens. It is 20mm out of level over a 9m run on the front elevation as noticed by our stonemasons. This is the panels, not the foundations. Some of the panels do not meet exactly at the apex & daylight was showing. This has been rectified, made watertight & airtight & an additional false ceiling of OSB has been installed with an additional 300mm of cellulose as a belt & braces job. Again PYC corrected this but, again I noticed this & worked with PYC to find a solution. The left hand side roof panel on the dormer is not sitting properly along its whole length on the wall panel. This will have to be sorted out with battening before we can plasterboard. There are some other small.gaps where the closed panels do not meet, I have stuffed these with rockwool & made the airtight with tape. These were at the angled junctions where the dormer walls meet the slope of the main roof & the first floor. Difficult to get exact. Before boarding out I am going to install some additional internal structural bracing straps where the panels meet so I am absolutely sure there will not be any movement. I am probably just being over cautious but it is a simple & inexpensive job to do at this stage to be absolutely sure. I cannot praise Sam the architectural technician at PYC highly enough. He was always responsive to any issues and PYC addressed any problems quickly & free of charge. On the whole we are happy with PYC & would recommend them with the caveat that, as with any contractor, checking as the construction goes along is vital.

....because we have clay, and lots of it. A soil test was carried out on the site today as MBC need to know what they're building on to do their sums for the foundation. I used a firm called Mini Soil Surveys (South West), run by a chap called Martin Shirley. My selection of which firm to use was detailed and exacting - they were the cheapest. Or should I say, least expensive. Actually, I had no idea what was involved in this other than punching a few holes in the ground and looking at which flavour of mud comes out of it. That's broadly it, but in a much more sophisticated manner and it took a fair amount of time, too, starting at 9.30 and finishing some time around 2.30 in the afternoon, which was much longer than I anticipated. I rang 4 different companies, both in Dorset and a little further afield, with prices ranging from about £1,400 (inc VAT) up to about £3,000. A mini drilling rig (my terminology is probably entirely wrong here, so please excuse my ignorance) gets trundled onto the site and 3 locations, roughly triangulated on the extreme points of where the new build will be, are chosen. At each site, 3 sample cores at increasing depths are taken and then bagged up for lab tests, if thought necessary. Unfortunately, mine are due to a lot of clay coming out in the samples. The main reason for the lab analyses is to find out whether the clay/soil is shrinkable because this could have a major effect on what gets built on it. It will take about 10 days for the lab tests and report to be done, so I just need to wait this out and then let MBC know the results. It's not essential for the client to be there, but Martin was keen for me to attend if possible as, in his experience, other things often come to light that may be relevant to other plans for a site apart from the main build. Although it was a little repetitive towards the end, I did find it interesting and it brought up another job that is time critical and needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later. The urgent task is to deal with a large amount of hedgerow that runs around the existing bungalow and to do it before it all gets going and growing in the spring. I had already planned to get the majority of this chopped down (hopefully next weekend) before birds start nesting, but I need to get another long row, an inner hedge between the bungalow and the hedge that separates the site from the lane, as this can have a significant and negative affect on the clay soil there. It seems that the water demand of hawthorn hedges is enormous and especially so in spring when they get going after their winter dormancy, and by virtue of absorbing so much water from the soil, it causes the clay to shrink massively and the whole lot becomes difficult to build on. Having to put in piles is a possibility. Once the diggers are on site, I can get all the roots grubbed out then. The arboricultural report that was done for our planning submission had recommended retaining the inner hedge to act as sacrificial root protection for the outer hedge during construction, but it looks like it will instead need to go and I'll have to get some other sort of root protection in place to satisfy the PP requirements, but I don't think this is particularly tricky to deal with and it's a better course of action than leaving it and having to put piles in. The final point that came up was something that has no bearing on the house, but possibly could on my sewage plant and rainwater reservoir. Between 2m and 3m depth, the sample had lots of sparkly crystals in it which are some form of sulphate crystals. Very pretty and all that, but it seems that these, when water gets to them, can attack and weaken concrete. Both the sewage plant and rainwater reservoir will be anchored into the ground with concrete at just about that depth so I need to make sure that I specify sulphate resistant concrete to make sure that the tanks stay where they are put for the long term. It's a simple and insignificant difference in cost on the concrete spec, but one that I wouldn't have known to do without the survey. Another day, another load of new stuff learned.

Way back when I cleaned windows to pay my way round my first degree. After a year or two, things were going well. I was beginning to get a lot of top-end customers; including the landed gentry from West Oxfordshire. Think of the biggest, famous estates with big open parkland: the kind of place that you can visit and get lost on the estate. We did parts of his pad, and all his family's local houses. Tucked away, out of sight, pieds a terre with interesting architecture and decor. Very very interesting. A couple of times a year, I'd pop into the estate office and get paid. One year, however, I met His Grace at his (what I called) Passion Pad. and since I needed to be paid, I asked him to pay the bill. I told him how much. He pulled a roll of £20 notes from his back pocket, counted out about half of what I'd asked for, and told me he'd owe me the rest. I won't repeat what I said. That's beside the point. The next customer was the Lord Lieutenants house. Super bloke: one of the best. He sensed instantly that I was furious. So I told him what had happened. "He's frightened you won't come back, Ian". I have recently paid two trades folk in full as soon as the job was done. Between them, they've agreed to do another few grand's worth of work. Months ago. I'm frightened they won't come back. Should'a learned my lesson from all those years ago eh?

Bit hard to zoom out enough as it’s not the largest room. Have zoomed out as much as I can on this phone.

Just beating the kids into submission and ill join the chaos.

It was the reassuring Welshman that asked @newhome to prepare the post for the rest of us. I am just dusting off my books on oil refineries to see if I can find anything quite as complicated to compare it all to. We need to make a schematic, of all this and get the parts labelled so it starts to make some sense. Fab challenge though!

Get a price from bpc in larne for mhrv and see where you stand. I look on the whole heat saving aspect as a bonus. The nice clean fresh air in the house is it's real benefit to me. As far as doing the insulated sheets on the inside, it is a lot of work and money and the payback would be long considering you already have a lot in the cavity. There is a spreadsheet on the forum somewhere that Jeremy done that would let you compare the two options and see how much it would take your u value down compared to the cost and then you could see if it's worthwhile.

@Russell griffiths the main difference between a ground bearing concrete floor slab and a b&b floor is one of thermal efficiency. In winter the temperature below a ground bearing slab will be a lot warmer than the air that will be circulating below a b&b floor

Hi Russel ive B&B Not through choice But due to the likely Heave I had to put one in Now that it is screeded you wouldn’t notice the difference between slab I know that most engineers seem to prefer B&B

+1 to that ..! Mine is fab ...! LABC round here get very mixed reviews ...

Yes, and yes.

My avatar will out live you all and become the thing of legends !

Last Night an ex DJ Saved My Life "There's not a problem that he can't fix 'Cause he knows all the tricksAnd if your pan gives you trouble…" 'Cause away goes trouble down the drain Said away goes trouble down the drain Well alright" It was even by Indeep!

I have a block build, my builders still managed to put 2 pipes on the wrong side of a wall! Looking at the comments I am not alone, I could see that pipes were out of line just by looking, but in the end they just went ahead and cemented them in before fixing them as discussed here. @nickfromwales you are right (as usual ) I didn't have a close enough look at the DPC. I think my guys did cut into the subfloor also and they had a bit more room to maneuver as my cisterns are all concealed so they were coming up inside a bulkhead.

There's no restrictions in either the Building Regs or in the British Standards regarding how steep a fall you can lay a foul drain at (apart from the restrictions governing minimum gradients) Some relevant extracts: First extract is from BS8301:1985 Code of Practice for Building Drainage (now superceded) Second extract is from BS EN 752:2008 Drain & Sewer Systems outside Buildings

One of the advantages of doing a block build is that you can see where the walls on the ground floor are so there ain't no excuse for being that far out from the wall. With a timber frame with a slab type foundation you really have to put the hard yards in and measure and check it and check it again or pipes will be in the wrong position. Never used any kind of solvent weld for these kind of pipes. They are just greased up and pushed fully home.

That's interesting, as the foul drain on the very first house we bought used to regularly block, and the reason we were given by everyone that came out to clear it was that it was too steep. There seem to be other references to having too steep a gradient, too, for the same reason I was told around 35 years ago, although I'm not at all sure of their veracity. I do know that the purpose of a back drop chamber is specifically to avoid having too steep a gradient, though, so there must be something behind it. A quick look around found these, non-definitive, quotes: http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=12674&page=1 the relevant post being a quote allegedly from a government website (which I can't find) that is: Much the same appears on this website, too: http://www.arca53.dsl.pipex.com/index_files/drain7.htm and this one: http://www.drainageconsultantsltd.co.uk/about-drains/drainage-gradients-falls/

How are you going to control the pump? The normal way to do this if you're running the water to a tap is to use a pressure set. The pump is fed from the bottom of the IBCs and has a small accumulator and pressure switch. When a tap opens the pressure drops, turning the pump on. When the tap closes the pressure rises turning the pump off. It makes things pretty simple to use. If you don't want to tap off the bottom of the IBCs, then these pumps will usually draw up from a few metres once primed (some are self priming), so you can use a drop pipe with a crud filter on the end into one of the linked IBCs. This is the sort of pressure set that would do the job: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/IBO-1-WZI250-BOOSTER-SET-WATER-PUMP-small-trailer-PORTABLE-2Ltr-pressure-VESSEL/172665736876?hash=item2833ae0eac:g:D3YAAOSwJ7RYTqZv

i had a Zurich Policy - it's called a Construction Combined Policy - see attachment. Construction_Combined_2014 Policy Doc.pdf

I doubt that you'll get a few months off! They backdated our council tax by around 4 months, and agreed (after a bit of debate) to use our completion date as the date from which the tax became due.

Either her or practical reality if 3mm was not possible. Nothing to do with you .

Any builder who puts a soil pipe THAT far off the wall wants shooting. Simple. I think I'd sleeve the soils as they come up, with some 5" duct / similar, so if I ever had to rework them they'd not get damaged by the kango. A 5" sleeve would also give 10mm wiggle room. When happy, plug the bottom with foam and pour a strong but wet mix of 6mm concrete down to seal it up.

Someone has to ask the VOA to make a valuation and place the house on the council tax register. Building control won't do this when they issue a completion certificate, as they are semi-independent from the council. Often the council tax people at the council will be regularly checking for new properties and keen to get them paying the tax as possible, but it seems that in your case they haven't. I would make an application the the VOA for your house to be valued and put on the register ASAP. The council are bound to backdate the tax payable to when they think the house was habitable, and that may well be a date a fair bit earlier than the completion date. You can make a case for the band you think the house should be in, and I think it's worth doing. I applied to the VOA in this way and sent them evidence, in the form of drawings, showing that our house had very thick walls (the point that @Stones has made above, they reduce the internal floor area) and that the first floor was significantly smaller than the ground floor, as those rooms are in the roof. I also highlighted that the house only had heating on the ground floor (part of the original rating valuation process included noting whether a house had full central heating or not!). There's also a suggestion box on the form for you to say what band you think the house should be in. I put in a band one lower than the one I thought it should be, they put it in the band I really thought it should be in, and wrote to me saying that they had noted my recommendation for the band but they assessment was that it should be in the band above. Worth trying it on, though!

I think they should give us our own forum

So who won? Me or her?

FWIW, and by no means a suggestion of the correct and proper action to take, the very first thing I did when we completed the purchase of our plot, before I submitted our planning application, was to fell all the trees................... I took the view that this was removing a significant risk, and that as the trees were not (at that time) in a Conservation Area, and didn't (yet) have TPOs on them, the worst that could happen would be that a few people had a moan (which they duly did). The fact that some people had a moan led me to believe that if the trees had still been there when we submitted our planning application someone would have slapped a TPO on them, just to but an obstacle in our way.

Ridicule is nothing to be scared of...

Nice tile. Do NOT put a grey grout in....PLEASE! @joe90 A top tip for grouting, after sponging to get the first wipe out of the way, switch to a cheap mop to remove the remainder. A caretakers mop, rather than a fibre mop, is the best as it doesn't drop into the grout lines. Cleans this stuff up ( especially the charcoal / black ) in minutes, whereas with a sponge and bucket you'll be there for hours.

Review of our foundations and TF PM experience. Our project managing experience entering our first self build can be best described as minimal. We had totally renovated a Victorian cottage before starting the self build. The builders we used for that project were a father and son team who were members of the Guild of Master Craftsmen and required no supervision. Their work was exemplary and I acted as a labourer so I was naïve to the ‘real world’ of building. For our new build we used the Isoquick insulated slab system. I found this to be an excellent system but as with all systems it is how it’s installed that makes the difference. We used the, at the time, only UK installer. As it was the first Isoquick system installed in the UK Isoquick sent over a technician from Germany to oversee the insulation installation. That went well and the rest of the installation was done by UK workers who fitted the steel reinforcing and laid the concrete. This is where problems started and we saw poor working practices. Fortunately we were videoing the whole process and we used that as evidence of what we saw. We showed the video to the MD of the company and eventually this resulted in the whole slab being cut up with a diamond road cutter and a new system laid. This is detailed more in my blog. The MD of the company accepted their errors and the work was redone at no cost to us. The timber frame was supplied by a local company that has since ceased trading. The design of the frame is novel in being a portal timber I-beam frame which reduces thermal bridging. The design and structural work of the frame was carried out without problems with a lot of input from us including the slab design. The slab was reasonably flat and the sole plate fitted without problems. There were two knowledgeable TF workers who worked well setting out the frame. Unfortunately the leader of the two fell off a roof and broke his heels, not on our site though. After that things started to go downhill. I noticed poor practices in the racking of the frame which I reported to the MD of the company who sent someone out to ensure the badly fitted racking was removed and new fitted. I noticed the size of the stairwell was incorrect which meant the metal web joists had to be altered. The tall feature window opening in the hall was positioned wrongly which meant removing the racking and fitting new I-beam noggins. The job was taking them longer than they had anticipated so at the end we agreed that I would finish off in return for a reduction in the final bill. All the problems that I mentioned to them were sorted out without issue. I did discover faults after the job was finished such as a large dip in the whole length of the single storey roof and a bow in the side of one of the walls. I think that just being there and watching what was going on cut down on any corner cutting. I think we have been lucky compared to @lizzie and monitoring practices on site is critical. This is unfortunate, but seem to be the norm in the building world these days.

Post up John Hurt (and I bet it did) and the worm popping out, I like that scene.