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Great !! So fascia comes in 5m lengths so no joins .... Assuming he is putting brick corbels at each end you don’t need any end caps or joiners either. Taking just one supplier, and there are others, then this is what I get it to. Fascia board at 225mm (average for a board depth) http://www.angelplastics.co.uk/Category/25/16mm-White-Maxi-Fascia-Board 3 off - £90 9mm vented soffit board http://www.angelplastics.co.uk/Category/94/9mm-White-Vented-Soffits 3 off £60 Plastic head pins to fit (60mm) http://www.angelplastics.co.uk/Category/504/Polytop-Fixings 1 off £7.20 Guttering (Don’t scrimp and get decent stuff like BM or Terrain..!!) http://www.angelplastics.co.uk/Category/806/Black-Crescent-Gutters 4 off gutter 4m 4 off running outlet 18 off bracket 8 off stop ends All in £180 Downpipes http://www.angelplastics.co.uk/Category/854/68mm-Black-Pipe 4 off downpipe 4m 8 off 112 elbow 4 off shoe 4 off joiner (terrain needs these..) 12 off bracket All in £204 That’s a total of £560 inc VAT delivered for all the bits for decent (not top end but not cheap crap) fascia, gutter and downpipes. Get him to beat that... and it’s a day to fit all that lot too for someone with a labourer and one skilled.

We have been following this series via catch up tv. Well worth a watch. We've watched all the Kevin McCloud programs Whilst most we enjoyed Some of the budgets and overspends didn’t feel relevant to us. Now the building the dream series seems very relevant to us all on here. Each one that we have watched so far are looking to be as near passive and airtight as possible. All are on a tight budget. All are struggling to keep costs down. Starting to sound like a forum post. Well worth a look at

On a separate note I’ve got to say that sailing course brickwork is first class - very neat and tidy ..!

Is this a planning condition to use an agreed tile ..? If so it should have been signed off as pre commencement condition. If the planners have agreed your materials and that included your Marley tile then the conservation officer needs to get back in their box ... The council cannot go back on its decision unless it believes it was misled by you such as providing a tile that was not what you said it was. And it can take up to 8 weeks to get conditions signed off so be aware of a potential delay !!

Chance meetings, research and no fear of being nosy have stood me in good stead for many years and it's proving no different with getting a house built. The 'dig deep' thing was bothering me, mainly the thought of having to go down 2m over the entire footprint of the build and the cost of all that muckaway, as well as the risk of it all turning into a giant, muddy swimming pool during the process. I will freely admit that up until about 10 days ago, the thought of having to get piling included in the build struck terror into me due to what I perceived as the potential cost and complexity involved, all down to my own ignorance about piling. As a new comer to the world of self building, the only thing I'd really picked up on in the past was hearing about remedial work to houses that were falling down and the huge amounts of cash involved. I'd already had a mooch around this site to see what I could see on the matter of piles and had a look at @recoveringacademic's blog and his comments and rapidly lost my fear but not my trepidation over costs. I also had a visit to the build site of another BH member who has been very helpful and encouraging. It was a spontaneous visit as I was really, truly just passing by his site on the way to my own, but his structural engineer was there at the time so I stood quietly by and ear-wigged, as you do, and then one thing led to another and we started chatting about my site and my clay dilemma. The upshot is that the SEs were really helpful guys and I'm engaging them to design a piling system to support my MBC build and overcome the risk of both lateral and vertical movement that my site is very vulnerable to. I'm also having them design the drainage system while they're at it. They will liaise with the architect, building control and the timber frame company and make sure that my build not only gets out of the ground but stays in the same place once it's done. I've never had an issue with professional fees as long as they are ones that are genuine and add value to a project. In this case, it will be money very well spent and a huge weight off my mind. How best to approach the drainage plan had been vexing me for the last few weeks, particularly as my clay soil means that soakaways don't function. One thing that I think may be worth mentioning is the combination of the passive slab and a piling system. The soil beneath the building is not just highly shrinkable clay, but also very dessicated thanks to the long term presence of a few trees and a super thirsty hawthorn hedge. Although these are all now gone, their long term potential affect on the soil will remain for a long time. In particular, the risk of heave. The piling system will keep the building in place, but does nothing to stop the swelling of the clay directly underneath from pushing up and breaking the floor of the new structure. The SE started to talk about a suspended floor to mitigate against this. However, a few days ago I read a BH discussion where @JSHarris mentioned the issue of an airgap under a passive slab having a detrimental affect on the insulation of a slab so was able to say with some confidence that I wanted the slab to rest on the ground, and my reasons why. The SE was fine with this and all the gubbins under the floor will now include a layer that is a honeycomb structure with the face of the cells resting on the ground so that if it does expand, it has somewhere to expand into without damaging the slab. The helical piles are part of an impressive system - no piling mat, no excavation if you don't need it (I need some to make sure that the floor level of the house is level with the ground), super quick to install and little vibration. This will save a huge amount of time and money compared with digging deep and a far more elegant solution with the dangers of heave solved as well. In all, the cost of the SE and the piling won't cost me any more and it may be somewhat cheaper. The time element is important, too, as the lesser amount of excavation will be much speedier and keep me on track for the main part of the build to take place from end of May onwards, assuming everything else is ready. The cherry on the cake was put in place this morning with full discharge of all the pre-commencement planning conditions. All in all, a good week.

What a great start and an even better solution. Self build seems to be a long list of daunting operations that one has to corral into an orderly list, you then need to read the “for dummies” before deciding if your going to learn to be the expert or if its something you can safely outsource. Reading the posts on this forum really sheds some light on the many mysteries of a self build and often shines a bloody big spotlight at potential problem areas. Thank god for BH ...... learning every day.

Just measured my DTD152, nom 135mm.

There was a glass out of shot for the Cobras! Tbh I'd think swigging from 600ml bottle a bit uncouth!

You should always try and future proof. I've put in 25mm galv conduit in the wall to my cooker. It's just got the 6mm T&E in there at the mo:

I believe some (Bosch?) induction hobs are intelligent in that that they limit the draw to circa 13A so you can plug them into a normal socket but you can have all 4 "rings" going at once.

wonder how it will look in 3 years time.....

It depends how good your fabric is. If you only need a tea light for 3 minutes AM and PM to heat the whole house, then the extra rooms cost 3p a year each to heat, and buggering about with doors and temperatures (and complicated control gear) is as useful for your welfare as counting nose-hairs on a live walrus by plucking them out one by one with tweezers. If otoh your house is more like mine ie probably at about 2010 Regs Level then there may well be fewer losses (ie more than nearly zero) by a slightly more traditional heating strategy. I tend to use a practice somewhere between the two. (It is Saturday and I enjoyed a large Jack Daniels with my after dinner coffee, and I deny all responsibility for things I may say).

I have another two loos I'll have you know! Both working as well!

I bet an Elizabethan Dovecote hasn't got a magazine loading loo roll holder! (Mind you, nor have I yet...)

Presumably he wants the length along the axis of the motor/bit, so that he can use it in tight spaces.

I do agree with the idea of God is in the detail. Particularly in relation to how things join. I mean it's all about trades meeting trades, as much about planes meeting planes. It is important to draw sections through tricky bits and how planes, materials meet. You cannot rely on one trade solving an issue with another, unless they are sharp. You should (or the architect should) should have an awareness of tricky/clumsy areas. Do a sketch or detail drawing or it'll rear it's head sooner or later...Material to material, plane to plane, structural member penetrating planes, services affecting everything...you need to be aware of the three dimensional issue or it'll compromise you and probably cost you or at worst, look awful.

It delivers warm air up to, IIRC, 50C through the MVHR part of the Genvex Combi. As we designed the house ourselves we knew all the details about orientation, glazing, plumbing etc so it wasn't too difficult to collect all the data about the house. It's other areas of data such weather data which is interesting because there are different sources for that and it can have quite a large affect on the results.

For conventional construction, it's a good idea to keep it warm enough to keep away dampness. Wet materials have a poorer U value, hence the "paradox" of needing less energy to heat a house for 24 hours with timed thermostats (vs. a conventional controller switching the system off overnight and during the day).

The number on the thermostat is pretty irrelevant. Set the room/s to what you feel comfortable with for different times of the day/week. I tend to only heat the part of the house that I live in, no heating upstairs. My heating is totally off now and probably won't come back on till November/December (it was on more than normal as I was away a month and signs of damp appeared, I have also fixed a leak in the from room). As for heating all or part of the house, the less wall area to volume area that is heated the better. So imagine a room in the centre of the house that is at 20°C surrounded by a room that is at 10°C that is then surrounded by the outside world at 0°C. That outer room is, in effect, part of the insulation. Not quite as simple as that, but you get the idea.

just as an outsider who is actually a builder. I don’t think you have been unfair in any of your comments on here. As as long as it all has been factual (I can’t see why any of it wouldn’t be) you have merely sought help where you could to try and get yourself out of a financial predicament. His workmanship looks good and you have said as much many times. If he dislikes anyone after reading this place it would be us lot a long time before he had a reason to hold it against you.

By the sounds of it, the listed building has got what are called plain tiles. You wanted to fit much larger tiles. I think Marley do an imitation plain tile which are larger, but still look like plain tiles and might suit. Your marley rep or roofing retailer might have a board they can lend you showing plain v imitation plain tiles. Rest both boards on the roof and ask the conservation officer to site stand on the floor and tell the difference.

I've just received my completion certificate for the extension that was built here (praise be!!!) but it hasn't been without its challenges as we didn't 'follow the rules'. I will note the issues I had below just to provide some hopefully useful info to others about the mess you can get in if you don't follow process. We didn't set out to deliberately ignore process but it ended up being the case. The background was that we purchased the plot (in Scotland) complete with planning permission and building warrant for this house. The PP and building warrant covered 2 houses one of which was already built and sold, and the builder sold us the 2nd plot complete with foundations. Once we bought it my husband wanted to change the house style slightly which included adding an extra single storey room at the back of the house, but the planners told him that they wouldn't allow it even though it would be allowed under permitted development once the house was built. So we made some changes to the internal layout only and the building warrant covering both houses was swapped into my husband's name. The timber frame company was asked to design the house to make it easy to add the extension at a later date so for example French doors were put in that could be moved to the new external access later, and a double door sized insulated 'panel' was put in that allowed a new internal door to be added easily later as it just required blocks to be removed and the panel removed. When the groundworks were being done my husband got the foundations for the new room laid and these were used as a 'patio' initially. The plan was that the main house would be signed off and then we would apply for a warrant for the extension. When my husband got sick he decided that he would get the extension built no matter what despite the main build not being signed off, and no attempt at reasoning with him would change his mind. He told me to apply for the warrant retrospectively later on but I’m sure he didn’t envisage that this would cause me as many issues as it turned out. So builders came out and added the single storey room at the back of the house . The only part of the build that he had no input to. His intention was that the racing simulator would be housed in it but that's still sitting in the garage ....... After he died and I finally got my head around completing the outstanding elements of the main build to allow the completion certificate to be issued I admitted to the council that there was an extra room here. I was told to submit a new warrant application which I did but it was then refused (although they still took the 500 quid) as there was already a warrant in place that wasn't satisfied and there couldn't be 2 warrants running. The council decided to make it an amendment to the existing warrant and although both this house and next door had SER certificates and form Qs issued for the main builds I was asked to obtain a new SER certificate from scratch for my house to factor in the new room. I tried to engage the original structural engineer who had provided the SER certificate and Form Q but he had left the scheme / industry and couldn't be located. I was then advised by a local SE to engage the SE who had been engaged by the timber frame company as at least they wouldn't be starting from scratch. However the SE said that the SER scheme didn't allow them to do what the council was asking. I've included some of the emails below as they tell the story better than I could articulate it. Here is the email the council sent me stating that the SE certificate was only required for my own house: It is worth pointing out that you only require a new SER certificate for your house including the extension and not the neighbouring plot. The neighbouring plot will be dealt with separately. The SE said that this was not possible and asked the council to 'turn a blind eye to the extension' in order to allow the main house to be signed off. The council said that they were unable to do this so here is the email the SE sent to the SER scheme. We have been approached by a Client wishing us to take over the SER from another SER Engineer. The original SER Engineer is no longer on the system seems to have left the engineering trade. Normally we would seek confirmation from the original SER Engineer that they were happy for us to take over the responsibility for their SER before we accept the appointment. In this case this is not possible. The matter is further complicated by the following facts; . There are 2 houses on the site covered by the same warrant reference. House 1 is built and awaiting a completion certificate. This cannot be provided until the form Q for the full SER has been provided to building control. The Form Q needs to be signed by the original SER Engineer. House 2 carried out additional works and applied for a warrant during construction. Their warrant application needs an amended SER to cover the additional works. . The amended SER needs to be an amendment of the original SER if it is all covered under the original Warrant. . The changes to the house include the introduction of a sunroom to the rear of the property. . Our understanding is that if we took on the SER we would; Need to take responsibility for both houses as there should only be one SER per warrant application; We would need carry out site investigations to determine how to design the foundations as there is no available information. This will mean carrying out investigations in House 1 which is complete and house 2; And we would need to carry out a full review of the designs for both houses amending the SER to suit the changes. Both houses have different kit suppliers and different calculations to be reviewed. It has been suggested by the Council that a new SER could be carried out for House 2 only. We believe this would be contrary to the SER system but any advice on this would be appreciated. We are happy to take on the project but we need to be in line with your recommendations. And the SER scheme's reply: We have considered your query and you are correct in saying that to provide a certificate which covers the design of house 2 only would be contrary to the requirements of the scheme as they are currently written. The Scheme Guide says in 4.6.15: 4.6.15 In exceptional circumstances this may not be possible (e.g. if for any reason the Certifier of the initial stages of the work is no longer available). In this eventuality the Certifier of the later works must not sign the relevant design certificate(s) unless and until they have satisfied themselves of the adequacy of all of the preceding stages of the work and the mutual compatibility of the various stages of the works. We realise that this requirement is particularly onerous in situations such as you have described and we are in dialogue with Building Standards Division to see if they would accept a revised form of wording. Until we hear back from BSD we are unable to offer any further advice. I do apologise for the delay in response to this query. The council repeatedly told me that the only needed an SER for my house and not next door, but also that the SER scheme was 'not very flexible'. My neighbours were also less than impressed that the SE wanted to dig up their foundations as their garden has all been landscaped etc. and they've lived there since 2008. And the costs mentioned to prepare 2 SER certificates for 2 large houses from scratch weren’t insignificant either. Weeks passed with no news from the SER scheme (I doubt these things ever resolve quickly), and the council threatened to cancel the warrant if things didn't resolve soon. I was left caught in the middle of a paperwork nightmare with seemingly no way of influencing the outcome. If I had found BH while this was going on I might have at least felt supported but it was just me caught in the middle of a nightmare at the time. Then suddenly out of the blue the council phoned me and said that they would treat the extension as a separate warrant (which is what the SE asked them to do from the get go). Here is their email to me. Further to our telephone conversation we have reviewed the file and feel that we can justify that the original warrant openings into where the extension is built was covered by the original engineer and therefore can issue completion on xx/xx/xxxxxx once the snagging items including the 2nd drain are completed. This leaves the extension which has been applied for as an amendment xx/xxxxx/xxx can be changed to a new warrant application (ALTEXT) For which we require a SER certificate to cover the extension only. I spoke to XXX who says that this should be able to be done by the end of the year for which we extend the application deadline too. The other issue is that the warrant XX/XXXXX/XXXXX is due to expire at the end of the month, unless the drain test can be arranged before then, we will require a further extension of £100 fee. So suddenly I had a way forward and by some miracle was able to get a plumber out to carry out the second drain test (the only thing still outstanding) within the 7 day deadline and the main house was finally signed off. Then the SER certificate for the extension was finally issued (but the SE company forgot to sign it hence the comment in the email below) and the council came and carried out the completion inspection and only required some minor things to be done as per the email below. Further to the inspection this morning I note the following: 1. The roof construction differs from the submitted drawings as it has traditional sarking boards and a breather membrane in lieu of OSB and roof ventilators. 2. The windows are not fitted with trickle vents – I appreciate the rest of the house has a whole house ventilation system, however there is no evidence this is connected to the sun room, therefore trickle vents will need to be fitted retrospectively. 3. There is an additional step to the patio door landing. 4. The signed SER is required. If you confirm by email that you are happy for me to amend the drawings to take account of items 1 and 3 I will do this for you and if we receive the signed SER certificate that will enable us to approve and issue the building warrant. Upon receipt of this you will need to apply for the completion certificate and I will need to check the trickle vents have been installed. So they even offered to make the changes on the drawings for me which was great. I think they just wanted to see the back of me in truth! . So all a bit of a saga and a warning not to step outside of process too much, or at least understand the possible consequences of doing so! I can imagine my hubby looking down saying it was 'character building'!

I think many of us probably turn our heating off completely for between 5 and 9 months each year. Last year mine was off from about April to September. I think others with more insulation do it March to October. This spring was a little unusual :-o . I run my main thermostat downstairs at about 21, and upstairs at about 18 in my room and 20 in mum’s via TRVs. Bathroom underfloor on for a bit in the morning for warm tootsies, and the other bedroom upstairs relies on open doors or gaps thereunder unless someone is coming to stay. For most of the time all this is on a few longish time clock periods per day say 4 hours morning, lunchtime and evening to allow the ufh temp to be low. When it goes below zero I either put it on 247, or turn the flow temperature up, or some combination of the two. Others differ markedly. Ferdinand

We had the house party last weekend during Nightmare Heatinggate Yes a building warrant is like building regs, nothing to do with the PP. When I say cancel they threatened to refuse the amendment to the warrant to cover the extension, and every warrant has an expiry date so they could have refused to extend the building warrant further (see attachment). Either of those things would have left me no way of getting a completion certificate unless I had knocked the extension down. This was actually something I considered doing at one stage. Sledgehammer was poised!

I hope not! I do want the house watertight. Pretty sure he's not - He's not one for reading and he hates the internet except where he has to use it.

Happy to say I got call back and it was a perfectly pleasant conversation. He's going to reply to my email but is perfectly happy that the road will take construction vehicles and is rated to 60t. What he did say is that if a truck went over an edge or corner and damaged it, then that wouldn't be normal use - which I can't argue with. So I'll be double checking the width of the road (is there a minimum?) and I just have to make sure nothing is dropped on it from exiting vehicles - which I'm more than happy to do.

Ok so that’s good news ..! Just for absolute clarity I didn’t include screws or plugs but they shouldn’t come to more than £2.....

Right - I've (kind of) pulled myself together and I have got the beginnings of a plan. Needs a ot more detail, a lot more planning BUT I CAN AND I WILL Bare bones Get property watertight and put project on hold Get this house sale ready - not a huge amount to do, just a couple of room to decorate, guttering to clean and some trim missing in bathroom Get this house sold House sit for a friend - or stay with her more likely - she has a house in France and is away from June to September, whilst I get the new house ready.

I hear you! To think it was 3 years to the day pretty much my bathroom looked like this:

It's 3 actually, one over the wall hung wc. Slight faux pas there as I brought the wc boxing in a bit high for this tile layout! Just dawned on me actually that SWMBO possibly wants the pockets done in mosaics. So is that just the rear of the pocket or the sides too? I'll have to ask her but she does dither! Other than multi tooling out that bit where the lhs Cobra is sitting I might just go with a two tile high pocket rather than 3. Make that FOUR pockets as there's the bfo one alongside the bath!

sometimes I like to watch my old videos just to remind myself how far I have actually come ( I build other peoples houses a lot quicker than I build my own) God, I have aged...... (shhh onoff, I am fully aware of the weight) this video is called Channel update 12/7/2015

After messing around for a few days looking at options it basically came down to a cost and time issue. I didn't want to spend more money as over budget in a number of places! () and putting cost implications to one side all of the options were going to take time and therefore delays. So I took a pragmatic approach to this.... ( see pics) The slating is now done and the roof looks great, just got to find the time to get the fascias and soffits finished now.

This is what they are talking about. https://goo.gl/images/BF2tey

Interesting. When we ordered ours a few years ago the only options were painted inside.

We had a small sample window to look at when we were researching windows. It was visible to me, not offensive but you knew it was there. Have you got a local showroom you can go and visit?

A bump in the Sunamp road..... Communication received from AndyT as of the last 24hrs. Quote from an email..... "A hold has been put on the PCM34 due to a corrosion issue with the type of metal used and the hot salt and I should add that this has not been the case with the PCM58. I am sure that you understand that we must allow the chemists to investigate why this has happened and come up with a solution. When I know more, I will naturally let you know however in the mean time you might want to consider a plan B." @le-cerveau, are you aware of this yet? The above information is all thats known for now, so please, no deluge of questions here as @AndyT has promised to update on the situation as and when he is in a position to do so. Thanks in advance.

The smoke alarms were going ballistic at one point!! I was just told ‘we’ve proved your smoke alarms work, more beer please’

I reset it all to factory apart from a couple of settings but the one that is interesting is the HP as thats the hours run. Apart from the 25 mins on Sunday night when we used the power of an empty tango can and some cold water to “influence” the pump into starting, the remaining time is purely from the controller. I will be really chuffed if it all works as planned as it’s been a bit of a challenge without knowing if the system was actually wired up properly in the first place ...!

I sometimes think we should have a "useful tips before you submit a planning application" sticky here. On it would be things like, before you submit an application, or seek planning advice, do the following: - Fill in any ponds that might possibly contain Great Crested Newts - Remove the roof from any structure on site that might possibly house bats - Remove any indication of there ever having been oil tanks or any other form of hazardous substance from the site. - Fell all and any trees that you think might possibly restrict what you want to do. - Run a bulldozer over the site to scrape the topsoil clear and remove any evidence of there ever having been a trace of anything of ecological value there. - If you suspect there could be archaeology, dig down to a depth as deep as your foundations will be over any area you may have to excavate as a part of the build. - grub up and remove any old hedges that might be in the way, lest they contain nesting birds, dormice etc that could impact your application adversely. (the above was written tongue-in-cheek, but I'd suggest that doing all, or some, of it would save a lot of self-builders a great deal of money...................)

Couldn't possibly comment...... Wanna buy some soil.....??

Its this stuff that puts you off the whole thing. Its such a waste of money and it seems these people don't look at each site on an individual basis. The chap who did the walk over even said it was a waste of time. The guy at the Enviro dept even said that it was really to update their records!! oh good, really pleased I can help you with that at my cost! Its a residential woodland garden for goodness sake....sorry for the rant!