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Blue peter style one I made earlier

It is......The cost of having to do the remaining properties to a reasonable / acceptable standard so they pass

The lady doth speak with much wisdom. My previous house was located near the top of a south west facing escarpment and was noticeably windy even in mid summer. I concluded the local condition was caused by the wind accelerating over the top of the ridge as the elevation in the land squeezed the body of moving air. The sailor in me knows how difficult it is to hold even 1m2 against a strong breeze of 30mph. The difference in force between 30mph and 40mph gust is not 33% but 77%. My last neighbour returned from Auz and put up a sail shade and they were always repairing the installation. They gave up when a mid summer gust snapped the main support pole which was good thing because I was waiting for the sail the yank out a few facing bricks. It also incorporates a highly sophisticated automatic pressure relief system known as "toppling over".

Morning all, well after 6 months of cajoling solicitors into doing something we signed the contract for the plot yesterday!! Due to the unknown ownership of the unadopted lane Northern Powergrid won't confirm if they have the necessary legal rights to excavate said lane to lay a new service cable to our plot. They won't set their legal department to task until payment has been received for said connection! So, a bit of a chicken/egg situation. The vendor can't afford to get the plot serviced, we didn't want to pay and then risk the vendor selling to someone else. The compromise we have reached is that a clause was inserted into the contract whereby if we are unsuccessful in obtaining an electrical connection within 6 mths we can walk away. Likewise, once we are satisfied it can be done, 10 days notice is served and we complete on the purchase. We paid a notional £6000 deposit, but this is a solution that was proposed by Lyndsey & I, and is something we are comfortable with. My first quote from NorthernPowergrid was for a single phase connection - they offer max 18kVa and 80A fuse. When I really looked into what we could potentially be running, I concluded that 80A was a bit close to the bone and so submitted a new request for a three phase connection - I plucked a notional 30kVa out of the air, but when I was talking to the engineer he said I could request up to 55kVa so I suspect the fuses in the service head will be for 55kVa rather than my requested 30kVa. So, they have till next Thursday to provide the quote. When I was discussing options with engineer he said it would be a few hundred quid extra to request a three phase connection over a single phase one and that the service cable was the same. I have decided on building a 'kiosk' right near the entrance now which saves on about 30m of service cable being laid - I'm hoping the saving here will actually bring the quote in a bit less than the one I received for a single phase connection (£5900). I will then run SWA from here to the garage and utility room once ready to do so. Why do I feel 80A may be close to the bone - well we have no gas for a start so all electric in the house. We also want a sauna and steamroom (pretentious maybe - but what self builder doesnt have luxuries they aspire to have? - these are ours!) and the generators could be looking a combined 50A ish during use, throw in an induction hob and electric ovens and electric car charger and if it's all on at one then it's close. I know that diversity is applied when working out power requirements and that the likelihood of the perfect storm of everything being on together and blowing the service head fuze is small, but I would rather have too much than too little - it's cheaper to go three phase now rather than retrospectively. On another note we took the kids (6&8) to look at the local infant/junior school (combined). It backs onto our plot which is handy, only 90kids in the entire school - my 8yr old has 90 just in her year at her current school. Safe to say they loved it - I think new kids are rare because they were like celebrities, all the other kids and teachers knew their names. It was an hour of listening to my kids say "we're not allowed to do that at my school". I never realised how restricted they are!! We saw one kid waving a stick in the air - head teacher covered her eyes saying "I hope he doesn't poke someone's eye out" before asking him to be careful. My youngest told me that they get shouted at if they even look at a stick in the wrong way at her school. My eldest couldn't believe they had 5, yes 5 whole football's to play with at this school - she told me there is one at her junior school which the boys get at lunch time and the girls can have during the other breaks. I was gobsmacked - I never realised how bad it is for kids nowadays, when did we stop letting kids be kids and start constraining them with endless rules and regulations. My lasting impression was that this school is like 'freedom' and just let's kids express themselves how they want. Safe to say I need to get a shimmy on now because I think the shine has gone from their current school. (I will say that all the teachers they have had up till now have all been really good and nice, I suspect that it is the shear number of pupils to staff in most schools which necessitate the endless rules and restrictions they put in place - sad really because it takes the fun away) Anyway, that was a long post and this is where we currently stand - a little bit closer to the end goal! Jamie

What exactly does mr wise owl intend to dig the 700mm wide trench with? 600mm is the standard and almost any groundworking firm will have a digger bucket to match that, 700mm sounds like a person that’s very good at drawing pictures but hasn’t had much real world experience of digging trenches. Just my 2 cents.

Here is a celebration breadboard I did this week but cocked up the clamping and on the last cut it moved, pain in the butt, its 295 diameter, - will do another shortly. (The 130 is their total lifespan)

I can do it if you want Jeremy.

FWIW, We've lived in three houses with no foundations at all. Two just had slabs of stone buried around 200mm into the ground, with the stone walls built on that, one had brick walls with the foundations being two courses of corbelled bricks laid directly on to the ground. All three had been standing for well over 100 years with no sign of any problems at all. With one of them I needed to run a new water main inside the house (the old one ran up an outside wall and used to freeze) and only discovered the shallow stone foundation when I dug a hole outside to see how hard it would be to run a pipe in under the timber floor. To say I was a bit surprised to find the foundation was less than a spade's depth down was a bit of an understatement. There's a "London Effect" that I think has led to the belief that deep foundations are needed. The UK is dominated by what happens in London, and London has both horrible clay and suffers badly from high water abstraction that has caused that clay to settle. Consequently there were a lot of repairs to foundations with underpinning, that hit house insurers very hard, so as a consequence the rest of the country now has this view that deep foundations are absolutely necessary, even when it's obvious they are not from the surrounding houses.

Some day for it. Today was one of those special days where suddenly years of work starts to come together in front of your eyes. No machinery here just elbow grease. It was all going so well until the building inspector turned up. A few internal load bearing walls to be finished and then on Monday we have the telehander coming to stay for a couple of weeks, followed by the delivery of the attic trusses on Tuesday.

I think that's what @PeterW meant actually as you can get this: https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/household-appliances/cooking/microwaves/hotpoint-mn-314-ix-h-built-in-microwave-with-grill-stainless-steel-10151127-pdt.html and this: https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/household-appliances/cooking/ovens/hotpoint-class-4-sa4-544-h-ix-electric-oven-stainless-steel-10153540-pdt.html for £473 with the £50 off. Many built in microwaves are combis or have grills. Mine is a combi although I only actually ever use it as a microwave as I have a separate oven too.

the way this thread has gone is exactly why this forum is great, If only I was clever enough to ask first before I start hacking things up myself

I have access to one - I spend a day a week on it. It belongs to a very old friend who cannot use it any longer so I go and help him out.

I'm tempted for a laugh to test my bathroom when it's done!

Nope, don’t over think it, shoot it straight in Tamp a pad stick your laser on it, tamp another pad and laser that one. Level in between you will be finished at 10.30 am.

Hi @Redoctober these are just required for a suspended timber floor to allow ventilation, if you have a normal concrete slab these are not required. Although it is uncommon for a new build to have a timber ground floor across the UK, this was the method of choice for many houses in the Highlands & Islands that were built in the 80's and 90's, whilst down south slabs and beam & block were being utilised. We actually have quite a lot of layers under the joists. A thin slab of concrete, DPC, a layer of fine rock (whacked) and then a deep layer of compacted rotten rock. Therefore what is underneath the joist will never be damp and with ventilation externally and within the sleeper walls the joists will last hopefully a very long time.

And for the avoidance of doubt, it was not one of those currently listed companies. I won't name them, but their name begins with the letter L

I've been told that some building societies/banks ask for it.

Servicing a boiler doesn't mean it's safe. A gas safety certificate can be generated ( £40 initial plus £10 per additional appliance eg £50 if a boiler is the only gas burning appliance £60 if there's a gas hob etc etc ) so I think you need to be more specific. Changing the oil and filter on your car says nothing about whether the brakes are knackered or not . If your saying change of £250 my guy could come from Swansea to do it and still make money !?!

Presumably any prospective buyer would factor in whether or not a boiler had been serviced or not in making their offer. When we sold our last house our heat pump hadn't been 'serviced' officially but I was able to show the buyer all of the checks that formed part of a 'service'. he was happy and the solicitors weren't interested.

Most estate agents exclude any appliance details as they can then not be sued for misrepresentation. Surveyors ignore them too - had a survey on a repo and had to advise the surveyor the flue was missing from the boiler ...! A gas service is as good as the day it was done - I would just ignore them and if a solicitor asks then they can get it done and give them £150 off the price ... it’s not a legal requirement for selling, only for renting.

The original installation cert is 9 years old now, and the annual inspection is over due by around 9 months, and is only identified by a sticker on the boiler. It was the estate agent that advised that the buyers solicitor would almost certainly ask for evidence that the boiler was safe, so as it's over due for a service I thought it worth doing, just for peace of mind. That's the sort of figure that I remember from the old chap that used to do ours, and you're right, it is money for old rope for a relatively modern boiler. He'd spend more time having a chat and a cup of tea than doing anything worthwhile, as apart from the gas pressure check and the flue gas check (which it passed every time) the only other thing he did was a visual inspection plus a check that it fired up when a hot tap was opened or the programmer/thermostat was switched to call for heat.

I pay about £75 for mine and the engineer admitted it's easy money

Whilst I am still researching all the various options of blinds and films et al I have found a temporary solution to my main problem window......3mx 2m £150 job done it works a treat and will not to to waste whatever longer term solution.?

You've hit the nail there on what I was getting at. Madness that the overseeing tester/body allows these temporary measures. An absolute mockery of the system and what it is supposed to achieve. I think it was @PeterStarck's tester remarked it was the lowest they had ever seen? Proving it's all about the attention to detail leading up to the test which I would say only a self builder is interested in achieving properly.

Hi @Thedreamer looking good and progress appears to be going well too. I noticed you have "vents" in the block work at various locations is that because you are having what looks like to me a suspended floor? The reason I ask is simply because our TF and ground floor construction doesn't have them!

It’s also scandalous that the supposedly independent person doing the test wouldn’t notice clearly bodged or temporary arrangements designed to get the house to pass.

You should get it to boot it at any cats that darken your door, but try not to hit the postie

Nope - can be done right at the end but fixing any issues is a nightmare once they are fully plastered. You have to consider that holes into ceiling voids such as downlights will create problems if there isn’t a air barrier above the ceiling. The BRegs standard is woeful anyway - failing it is like leaving a standard window wide open so it’s not acceptable to be failing what is already a poor standard.

The point is, if you build a house properly, you are not relying on the sockets to make a seal. You have an air tight layer around the inside of the house, then a service void inside that sealed envelope before plasterboard etc. It would make no difference if my sockets were removed. I work in plenty of old houses where when you remove a socket, a howling cold gale comes out, it is truly shocking that the wall structure is open to the roof or the floor to let cold air into the building fabric.

Our TF was sarked with 22mm OSB which was also a structural stiffness component (we have a warm loft as part of our living space). Our supplier gave a similar comment about our BM, but in Nov - early Feb (the gap between the TF going up and the roof being slated) this was less of an issue. What more of an issue was the risk from high winds getting under BM overlaps and damaging the fabric which we addressed by adding extra temporary battening on the gables etc., and also going over all overlaps with a tacker where needed. It worked well in the end, with no problems despite some gale force winds, and dusting of snow, and the internals were dry and were a far better working environment than if the build were still open to the elements.

Were putting more effort into this thread than the average mass builder puts into quality control. They just use good painters as thats the bit people get to see.

I was just typing the same response as @Nickfromwales..!! Cost will be to make them compliant - and no, the purchaser won’t ever know they bought a colander until they find out the heating bills...

The properties to be tested should be chosen by the BCO not the developer/builder - yet to see that happen!

Many breather membranes used in TF and roofing are degraded by UV light. Check with manufacturer the maximum exposure, some as little as 3 months, others up to 6 months.

Oh, I agree. But as a matter of principle, I'm even more against local councils ignoring the law when it suits them.

We were advised that our timber frame was OK to stand outside without cladding for around 6 months or so. It came with the wall and roof membrane on, and the latter kept heavy rain out for around 8 weeks whilst our roofer and in-roof PV people worked around some extremely bad weather.

I'm in Kent, if you can plaster, tile, don't mind crap cooking and fat birds then you can move in!

Just a note, about the aesthetics. Each to their own and all that, however... In our area "pre-application advice" is encouraged, many might think it's just a way for the council to make a bit more cash, it probably is, it doesn't speed up the process, no matter what they say, and is not binding. In our case though, perhaps we were lucky and the young planner who came on site was supportive and "implicitly" encouraged a bit more boldness in design, agreed that the location had no real vernacular or singular defining characteristics, the plot is tucked away etc etc.....needless to say the Parish Council hated it...I cared not. I guess the message being really if you don't try something a little bolder - rather like @epsilonGreedy"Some how you have created a 2800 sq ft design without any wow features." You never know. @Ferdinand - Some good advice in that post. I don't know your location but If you have paid for a 'view', you might want a bigger window to take it all in. Internally; You have to live in it (unless you are selling it), can changing the layout it improve the way you want to live. Good Luck with the project.

Given such extortion has the OP considered living off grid? With 4 to 6 kw of solar, some lithium iron storage, dc lighting and a large invertor, life might be tenable for two people. I guess a small generator will be needed for top up over the winter, are these available in an lpg powered config?

Any use? https://www.fixmyroof.co.uk/videos-and-guides/pitched-roof/slate-a-roof/

The roof is finished! Hurrah!! I'm not doing that again. FAR to much like hard work. Actually there is still the porch to slate once it's built but I think I can cope with a couple of m2!

So here's the South roof. The result of 3 days work by me and two friends. If you combined the knowledge of all three of us then I reckon you'd be half way to a pro roofer Actually one of the guys has done a lot of roofing but he's a bit agricultural, took me ages to convince him to use slate and half, he said it was fussy crap Note that we decided to scrap the sticky flashing stuff supplied with the GSE solar trays and instead went for lead. I think it was the right decision in our exposed position. I really don't like the way the flashing trays 'kick' the slates at the sides and top but if you install them to spec then there is nothing you can do about it. But I'm probably being fussy! If you're very observant you'll notice the colour difference on the slates below the solar PV. That's because even with two coats of patina oil as soon as it rained it chucked white residue all over the slates so I decided to clean it off. How did we do?

On the small development of five houses that we went to see, there was evidence that they do fail. The chap who was adding more airtightness tape whilst we were there told me that the house had failed twice, and he was adding more tape in the hope that it would pass on the third test. The remaining four houses were not going to be air tested, according to him, so one can only guess what they were like.

Just as an update to this I rang BuildZone last Monday and clearly no one had acted on the email I sent. He promised to look into it and I subsequently received an email that went like this: Good Morning XXX, Hope you’re well. Just had XXXX on the phone asking about her certificate. From the latest RN it appears as though you’re waiting on the oil/gas cert, are you able to tell me what is outstanding so I can go direct to the client? So he sent that to me, not the surveyor . I replied to that effect and also that I didn't have an oil or gas boiler as I had told them before and can clearly be seen by the photo the surveyor took that is in the report. He replied that he would wait to hear back from the surveyor (just hope he forwarded the email on). I'll give it a week or so and chase again.