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From memory, the power for our external blinds goes through each window aperture, between the top of the window frame and the overhead reveal. It's held in place by the low-expansion foam that seals around the window, and sealed by airtightness tape. Not sure that's the best way - a conduit through the insulation would probably be better, especially in terms of airtightness - but we weren't sure of where and how we'd need to connect the blind motors, so left it until the windows arrived after the insulation had been installed. I find external power points useful for things like pressure washing, power tools, electric garden tools, temporary lights, stereos and chargers. I wouldn't flood the place with them, but I do think that one in each place around the house where any of these sorts of things would be used is helpful. The one outside the garage gets used a fair bit. We also have one near our front door which can be used for Christmas lights. This is also the time for putting in conduits through the walls for things like: External lighting (including wall lights, but also garden lighting if you haven't left one or more conduits through the slab to run that) External sensors CCTV (including front door intercom if likely to ever be of interest) Taps - I wish we'd put in more of these. We have one on the left side of the house, and another at the back. We could have done with one on the right, at least. Also, if you're having a water softener, consider putting a softened tap to where you wash the car (if you do that at home). A hot tap (which will also be softened if you have a softener) would also be useful. I wish we'd put a hot tap in to rinse the dog. We thought we'd be clever having a shower installed in the mud room, but the amount of dirt that comes off the muddy-puddle-loving dog most days means that it's a lot of effort cleaning up after giving her a rinse. It'd be a lot easier if this could be done outside in an area where a bit of dirt wouldn't matter. Doorbell - I've lost count of the number of people I know who've built houses or done substantial renovations, only to realise that they didn't run a wire for a doorbell! They end with with cheap plasticky doorbells stuck to their lovely new front door frame with double sided adhesive.

Alow mate, got a new billed apenin in a cuppla weeks gunna need a good few cube, bout 40 I rekon then the floor screed, yer loads to do what’s ya best on that, Cubs I asked that uver mob darn the road like and they sed 75 squid a cube what ya rekon fella. This his works best sarf of Watford. Not sure how well it would go down in sunny Yorkshire.

I didn't realise quite how long a while since the last blog entry so time for an update as I'm on an admin day today, not least for the electricity supply which I'll come onto later. So, what's occurring? I'll start at the bottom and work my way up: Groundworks - the groundworkers arrived on site the day after the last May bank holiday, 29th May. They took the roof off back in April to sort out any potential bat issues and now they're back doing the main job. The old concrete garage block came down first. The roof panels have asbestos and have had to be properly disposed of, which has been done at a reasonable price of £650 rather than the c. £1300 I was looking at a couple of weeks ago. All done properly and I have my disposal certificate but without having to resort to sending stuff all the way to Swindon and get charged for 2 tons when it was just over one. A small result; still expensive but less than it could have been. My ground worker arranged this with one of his contacts; PM me for details if anyone local needs the details. The concrete sides of the block are all down but we've left the floor in place as it's a ready made hard-standing for everything that will be arriving on site over the coming months. It's mainly parking, portaloo and site cabin taking it up now. I will need to get some hardcore compacted down going further into the site as I'm not sure it will stand up to all the heavier construction traffic that is due. Demolition of the building will be finished this week, but there's still the old septic tank to be dug out and a bit more concrete from where there were sheds in the past. Next up is digging out for the insulated slab, drainage and services, not to mention the piles. I have my groundworker until the end of next week before he's due on another job, so we should get a fair bit done by then. I reckon the initial excavation will be a little rough until we've established the levels, which seems a bit chicken and egg to me at the moment. How can you mark out how deep you need to go when there's a whole lot of earth in the way? Fortunately, there are some useful markers on the site that I can use as references for the setting out of the perimeter but I will get everything checked out before the piling guy arrives and have any remedial excavation done for that. Speaking of piles....I've ditched the idea of the helical screw piles. Not because they weren't lovely enough, but because they were outrageously expensive compared with other, more traditional systems. The initial design drawn up by my SE would have cost more than £42k for the helical screw piling system which seemed like mad money to me, probably because it is. I had a chat with a contact and he said that very little of this kind of thing is done now, certainly on house projects. When it first came out it was embraced with open arms by the telecoms industry for ease and speed of use, but they have dropped it almost entirely now on cost grounds, and I can see why. My initial quote for CFA (continuous flight augur) piles came in at just over £15k which was far closer to what I was expecting. I reckon that in the end, with SE fees and everything it will come in at around £20k for the piles. As mentioned in a previous entry, the alternative was to dig to at least 2m depth over the entire footprint, which in itself is an expensive exercise due to the cost of muckaway (I estimate an additional 15 tipper loads), so swings and roundabouts, the piles aren't as extreme an option as it first seems. I've used Mini Piling Systems Ltd for the piling system - nice people, easy to deal with, based in Bath, will travel. I should add that because these are mini CFA piles, as long as the ground is dry and reasonably level when they come to put them in (July), there is no need for a piling mat as the rig isn't considered a large one. Moving upwards, the other thing that has slowed is getting drawings from holy trinity of architect, SE and MBC to the sign-off stage. The SE has been very efficient and have turned things around very well. The architect and MBC have been slower, but I'm going to hold back some criticism because were I in the shoes of the architect, I would probably be doing this amount of nit-picking on behalf of my client and I'm sure that I will be glad of it. As ever, just because an architect designs a house and it gets planning permission, that doesn't necessarily mean that it can actually be built. In my case, there have been delays in getting the small details that can be glossed over in the desperation to see physical progress and having something coming out of the ground, and this is what the architect has been pushing back on. They are determined to make sure that the proportions of rooms are consistent with the original design. For instance, the ground floor ceiling height has been raised so that the large open plan downstairs doesn't feel oppressively low due to its large area. As a result, most of the ground floor windows will also need to be increased in height as will the front door. This all has a knock-on effect, hence the delays. There has also been back and forth over the balconies and warm or cold roof construction and the parapet wall around them; we're not quite at the end of this but pending a response from a supplier, we are close. The issue is that the common solutions to ventilating the cold roof would look ugly. Everyone has gone to a lot of effort to make the house as good looking as it can be and it would be a shame to rush through this detail and then sit looking at ugly vents on the balconies for ever more. But, tick, tick, tick, more time passes. By far the biggest issue is that until these details and corresponding drawings are signed off and I pay a stage payment to MBC, my manufacturing countdown doesn't start. Standard time for MBC to get on site is minimum 6 weeks, this time of year more like 8 so I'm realistically looking at end of August or early September. Then there are the windows to go in and roof to go on. I really, really want the build to be weather-tight before the weather breaks in the autumn, as it will. Moving on to making the building work as a home, and for construction to actually take place, I'm sorting out the electricity supply at the moment. There is a live supply to the site as there was an existing dwelling there. Last year I contacted the DNO and had a service alteration done, which basically chopped the wire running into the bungalow and moved it all into a box on the pole with the overhead cable running down it. I rang the supplier at the time and advised them of the changes being made and arranged for one of their bods to come along and collect their meter. Sadly, they didn't turn up for the appointment, so now their meter is buried at the bottom of a pile of builder's rubble in the local landfill site. This put all sorts of twists into their collective knickers and it's taken the best part of a day to sort out how to re-establish the connection. It turns out that what's needed is a temporary building supply and this is always done through the commercial team. I've been quoted up to 12 weeks for the whole thing, but this is if you are applying for an entirely new connection, not just to get a meter installed. Even so, it could take around 4 weeks. We shall see. In the meantime, I've (for the time being) decided on getting my kitchen from DIY Kitchens. I've planned it all out and know what units I want and where, so I'm not going to think about that again for a while. I do, however, need to start thinking about lighting schemes and bathrooms/wetrooms as I've made very few decisions on these. Needless to say, there is a huge amount of other small detail going on but little of which can be done until the final drawings are in. Never a dull moment, though, my groundworker has just called to tell me that they have bent over a water pipe to stem the healthy flow of water that was coming out of it when they went to remove it, despite Wessex Water having sworn faithfully to me in February that the water was all turned off at the meter and that nothing should be coming out of anywhere. Off to make some more calls and demo photos to follow soon. Ta ta for now.

It seems that some councils are saying that the self build exemption from the CIL only applies to new houses and not conversions. This isn't an issue for all conversions because existing floor area can be deducted from the CIL calculation. However if you plan to add a large garage, extension or outbuilding as well then some councils (example Croyden) are trying to hit you with a CIL charge on that extra space. If you find yourself in this position you might find this helpful. Unfortunately you might still need to argue your case as this was settled before it went to court but still... https://www.boyesturner.com/article/boyes-turners-cil-victory-saves-self-builder-client-nearly-80000

Well, a bit more done. I used up all my offcuts of vcl. More of a nod to reducing draughts than anything else. I gave up with attempting true air tightness what with the multiple ceiling penetrations anyway. Everything will be sealed "best as": Maybe I'll pressure test the towel rad piping tomorrow and start getting the Aqua Panels on. Gave in to the call of the mild tonight...well some generic lager anyway.

Opened a new TS catalogue, saw a full page ad for power tools called HiKOKI and thought how much they looked like Hitachi. Figured it was some low end Erbauer / Einhell type rip off until I read the text. Seems Hitachi are rebranding as HiKOKI. Have to wonder why. Apparently they will continue to support the old models in terms of spares etc and batteries will still fit. Makes more sense maybe than Makita with their G Series range that's incompatible with the LXT range.

Not as confused as when SWMBO asked the teen something girl behind the bar for a Pernod & black last year on holiday. She went and asked her couple of years older colleague and so it went on. They eventually discovered a dust covered bottle estimating it was 3 years since anyone has asked for it.

It is the same thing really. Decrement delay is time.K-1, or temperature drop/raise Thermal Inertia is energy.m-2.K-1.s0.5 So you can think of it as as the difference between R-Values and U-Values. You know they are related with R-Value being measured in m2.K.W-1 and U-Value being measured in W.m-2.K Just arithmetic juggling really. The interesting thing is that for any given mass, to get a timeshift, there is a narrow temperature difference band it can work in. Below is a chart that modelled a 1m2 section of wall made from brick. To get a 12 timshift, you need a temperature difference between inside and outside (called the energy forcings) of 1.8°C. To get a more useful 8 hours temperature release the temperature difference will be 1.2°C, which is basically parity with external temperatures once internal energy forcings have been taken into account. For OSB you can have a temperature difference of 19°C and have any absorbed energy released over a period of 8 hours. I have to put in a caveat that this is just working with my house and my temperatures over the last 4 weeks. I am sure those figures above will change when I have more data, and it is just a basic model, does not take into account air changes (they are kind of built in as it is real temperature data) and window area (again kind of built in).

Tread carefully and wear a snorkel.

Yep, under my stairs. All tv and satellite cables enter via a hockey sick built into the foundations which comes up in the under stair cupboard. Still a work in progress but nearly there. The hifi unit is in pieces as I am still awaiting the bluetooth receiver to incorporate into it so the girls can play their music from their phones. Everyting is remote controlled, just out of shot high up on the left is the receiver part of a powermid IR extender set, this re generates IR remote controls and sends them to all the stuff shut in the cupboard. CD storage built into the thickness of the stud wall. The broadband wifi router is up in the ceiling structure of the half landing pretty much right above my head where I was taking the photo from, as near to the centre of the house as possible and seems to give a good wifi signal everywhere. I am only using the built in LAN ports on the router at the moment, but LAN cables is installed to each room and if I need to use more I will install a switch, again mounted high up out of the way. Just out of shot to the right is the tv aerial distribution amplifier. 3 satellite receivers, the Sky HD box is the main one that will link directly to the 2 main tv's via long hdmi cables already built into the walls. The sky mini box above that is essentially there just for satellite radio channels and it's audio links to the hifi. Above that is my "other satellite" receiver for Astra 1 and hotbird for such things as watching F1 live via the German channel RTL on the days when channel 4 are not showing it live here. Network printer sits here out of the way can be accessed by wired or wireless lan from any computer. This is all part of the strategy of keeping "clutter" out of the main rooms, without compromising quality, i.e. I still insist on a half decent hifi and decent speakers in each room, even though the unit itself is hidden away. It has all taken up a lot less space than I thought, so there is still a good amount of useful storage space in the under stair cupboard.

Well ! i got the first Batton up and begin cutting . Not going to happen - hardly scratch the stone went and bought new diamond blades (£40 each !!! ) zooooooooooommmmmm !!!!!!!!

But WHY? Seems crazy to me to throw away decades of brand recognition and introduce a completely new (and imo horrible) brand.

Done a quick 'first draught' of different materials (got to look up more material properties). But if my house was made of brick, it would have had a mean response time of 35 hours over the 11°C mean temperature differences that I have good data for. 35 hours is greater than one day, so not much use. If it was just OSB the mean response time would be 3.8 hours over the same mean 11°C, so a bit more useful. Just got to find some more material data until I can find something that would give 12 hours, which would be best on average, but as this time of year the days are long, gentle overall warming would happen. I shall see if I can get some more data. But as an aside, I have been pretty happy with the temperature inside my house the last 4 weeks or so.

For anyone considering more than 4kW on their solar PV, I received this from my DNO today and it may be helpful. Note that their quoted maximum turnaround time for applications is 65 working days, i.e. around 3 months. To complete an application, and allow me to send the application to our Network Planner, we would require the following information; · Schematic – Please show all live phases, neutral, earth, lockable isolators, the name & size of inverters being used, a clear demarcation between the DNO and customer equipment and the generation itself. · Site Plan – Please provide a google earth image of the site, and mark the meter point · Completed G59 Application Please can you also provide your MPAN for the above application. We will retain your partial application for 10 days from todays date. If we receive no further correspondence from you by this date, we will cancel this application and delete your records. You are, of course, free to make a new application at any time. Microgen.pdf

So watching the lorry negotiate the corner from lane to driveway last week made me pause. Then a chat with our nice new neighbour, and following that an hour's work tonight. Result? a few quid for posts and much more room to turn. Excellent.

And some might say that life at the bath manufacturers would have been extinct as long as the dinosaurs by the time it first sees any water, but I, as your Kentish compadre, could not possibly comment.

So you're from the same area as SWMBO, weird that you have such a GSOH. Mind, I bet you don't have a penchant for skip diving and collecting broken white goods!

Excellent. I'm sure you can tear them off a strip .

Drilling taps into a bath that is designed to be drilled for them is one thing, hacking holes in shower trays is quite another..!!

Stop press.... Just found this... https://www.boyesturner.com/article/boyes-turners-cil-victory-saves-self-builder-client-nearly-80000 You would need to contact them to get details of the case. I note it was "settled" just before it went to court but even so it might be useful.

Pump all the way ..... Get a price from a pump company to supply both pump and concrete and it becomes zero rated for VAT. That could save you quite a chunk on VAT reclaim. Pump grade is very different stuff though - 10mm aggregate and needs to be perfect consistency. You also need a couple of bags of cement to prime the pump and somewhere to wash out the pump which could have up to 1/2cube left in it depending on the machine.

There are loads of special small LED lights for this so no need to use 50mm downlights. Try Amazon or Google for "LED Stair Lights" for examples.

Well thanks to @newhome's sleuthing the Tacwise 140/8mm staples work fine. The odd miss but that was trying to fire into hard ply. Only thing is they're too long a strip to fit the Lidl stapler so have to be snapped in half.

Condition 6 should really be two separate conditions. It's a bit of a catch 22 - You can't start until the condition it's discharged but you can't get it discharged in full until the drains have been finished. They will probably only discharge it "in part". I expect you know the fee is "per request to discharge" not "per condition" so it pay to lump together as many conditions into one request as possible. I would suggest sorting out the paperwork for 3, 6, 7 and 9 if possible and ask/pay for those to be discharged in one go. You only need to worry about Condition 1 if there isn't much of the 3 years left. The rest can probably be discharged in a second go before occupation.

Yes no type one needed.

Not a lot. If they come and say Oi! You ask how far it needs to be moved then move it that far plus a foot. Watch advertising trailers in fields nex5 to the motorway, which I think is still done.

Really, Lizzie? You don't strike me as a sellotape kind of lady, not at all! Get on with those blinds!

A friend of mine just pulled out of a house purchase due to an issue with the 3 acre ‘garden’. Sellers said it was garden, the searches showed that it was agricultural. She put in a request to see if at least some of it could be redefined as garden and it came back as a no, plus they could find no evidence of PP for the existing parking area being approved (that was apparently in the agricultural part too). Council didn’t want to spoil the village look apparently. So they could dig it up and grow potatoes, or keep pigs, but they can’t put up a shed to store the ride on mower. Funny old world.

I have large soffits and down lights (23) in them running all around the front and and garden sides of the house all on pir. The ‘sides’ of the house have low level lighting on pir and I have a back door wall light. I have a wall light at the garage side door, soffit downlights at the front, uplighters in the ground along the driveway wall, 2 wall lights on the gate pillars. Security floodlight back and front too. Double external sockets on the terrace side, umpteen sockets at several points internally in the garage, an ev charging point on the garage side wall. A junction box waiting for garden lighting when landscaping done (and for power supply for potential garden studio).Gate intercom and electric gates, cctv, the list is endless!!! Still a challenge to retro route a power supply for external blinds though........oh and I have two external taps (cold water only). Cat cabled the whole house and sky tv fed to all rooms. I have a ‘data cab’ in my plant room......I never knew I was going to have one of those! Energy saving house ??

We have a muddy field adjacent to our build that I plan to turn into a meadow, the last rays of the sun shine in the bottom corner and that’s where I fancy a quiet place to drink tea/wine and meditate the day . My wife is a councillor and she fancies this quiet place to help people with their issues. I know I will never get planning for a building so I will put wheels on it and tow it with my dumper!. p.s. we have woodlands next to us and an abundance of wildlife including deer and owls and it would make a perfect place to view them.

Ok I can picture the fitting process, thanks for the extra description - no need for a photo unless it also shows how you fitted around services. I assume you had to keep an eye on batten centre distances to ensure this matched plasterboard sheet size? Oh ok I just thought that mixing the raw chemicals onsite in a machine would be cheaper than ready made foam insulation sheet and folks here have complained about the cost of these. I am happy to be persuaded that insulation sheet is the answer as it is more diy friendly (if laborious to cut @recoveringacademic ). I think @PeterStarck is the forum's spray insulation expert.

Will see if I can find a photo but essentially we put a vertical 50x25 batten up the wall and secured with concrete screws. Then took a "slice" of PIR that was 350mm wide and put it up against the first batten and the pushed another batten tight against it and screwed that back to the wall. The friction fit holds it tight and then the boards are screwed over the top. You can also tape the foam to batten joint too for added air tightness. I don't think spraying foam everywhere has any benefit and its eyewatering in price compared to PIR. It also adds another job, and creates a lot of unusable waste.

You could get away with the "caravan" (portable building) exemption and thus be building regs exempt if you did not use the "upstairs" The caravan exemption has a maximum ceiling height and must be single storey, but it doesn't say you can't have a loft space. Just don't use it for sleeping in!!! Whether you can use it all year or 11 months depends on planning, if it has planning as holiday accommodation, then the 11 months may apply. If it has planning as residential then it should be all year. i.e you could probably put one of these on a holiday park that has planning for "holiday caravans" (as long as you don't use the upstairs) but would probably be subject to seasonal use only.

In case it didn't prove good enough there, I have installed a phone and cat5 cable from the stair cupboard to where the coat and shoe cupboard will be in the entrance hall. That will give an alternative location for the router on a shelf high up by the ground floor ceiling. On the subject of hiding stuff, a filing cabinet will be going in this cupboard. By raising one of the dwangs a bit higher, the filing cabinet will recess into the thickness of the wall so it doesn't stick out too far which would otherwise make the coat and shoe cupboard too deep.

We have gone block and block with a full fill 125 cavity dot a dab on the inside If done correctly Just as airtight as wet plaster Sash windows throughout Exteria is finished with two coats of K rend Leaving a 60 mil external reveal 150 on the inside

Get a couple of big industrial dehumidifiers in and it will dry pretty quickly - we had to stop using them in the winter as they were sucking moisture from the plaster too fast !

The easy option is to put all the insulation in the cavity. Go for 150mm and get the beads blown in. Will be better for the brickies as they don't have to put the insulation in. Better for you as you will end up with no gaps in the cavity. Plus you don't need to fork out the cash to get the beads done until way later on in your build. You will on loose 100mm from wall to wall. To get round the bigger reveal you can do a splayed window opening. Easy done with a concrete saw and blocks. Wet plaster the inside. Seals it up much better.

I confused a petrol forecourt nighttime cashier the other day asking for a Marathon bar at 1am.

Great job, I did this at my Dad's home, flint stone walls. With the right discs its not difficult. Why the professionals did not bother just leaves you with inconvenience , no recommendation and continues the complaints about trades people.

Yup, that's me, completely forgot about a doorbell! Not that I think we'll get many visitors being so much in the middle of nowhere, but you never know. Thanks for the list, Jack, really helpful.

I like the idea of an outside hot tap and never saw one before. Good for dogs and washing cars particularly on hot summer days when it's free hot water. Added to my todo list!

Ha, been so busy it’s gone to the bottom of my “to do list “, I will do it this morning and post back ?

Nice legal grey area.... a highway definition is normally extended to the definition “highway maintained at public expense” although there is some case law that identifies a highway being where the public have unfettered right of access ... this is where you get into the realms of private property and trespass however unless the skip is going to cause an obstruction I would not worry too much.

Just make sure you put it in the envelope the right way up :-)

Cheers Looks like Tacwise 140 Series is the size. T'station tomorrow then. I think you should be appointed the forum's "Chief Person Who Finds Obscure Sh!t"

I did exactly that. Managed to get a meter length down the duct & over the 25mm MDPE: Traditional build mind:

Couldn’t agree more . I could of ( indeed would of ) done a better job . Anyway ; flashing ordered - let’s see if I can turn a crap job into a reasonable one ?

new dishwasher will come with a new hose.

Thanks @MikeSharp01 that's interesting....seems my white scum might be 'abnormal' then. Oh well, just another hurdle to get over! Bracing myself now for someone to say 'oh no, you can have an exposed powerfloated slab if it's waterproof concrete..." Great that you have so few imperfections in yours too.....ours has some 'gnarly' areas....we happen to be perfectly happy with this look luckily. If I were passing one thing onto people regarding powerfloats it's that it must be accepted that what you'll end up with is a bit of a lottery. Timing.....heh, all targets be they time, financial or quality seem only to serve as a record of what didnt happen. From the moment the first spade hit the ground i'd say we've dropped an average of a week a month, but from December to March we might as well have gone skiing, I think it was worth maybe 3 dry weeks work. All academic though Mike isn't it.....there's no turning back from these follies...keep the faith and soldier on.