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If you hire one for the time it will take it will be about £4k..... ?

No, I'm not, and as a scientist with over 40 years experience I'm ducking out - sometimes there is little merit in continuing a debate that is going around in circles and will never reach a meaningful conclusion.

I suppose after the impact of seeing the TF go up within a few weeks, progress on the eye thereafter, was always going to be less so. If that was the only reason, then it would be an element of self building one would have to adjust to. But unfortunately the lack of progress on our build over the last couple of weeks was not just simply down to a trick of the eye! Frustrating yes and in isolation a mere blip, but other things during this period compounded that frustration into real anxiety – so much so, I felt unable to deal with life’s usual problems in the same way. A lot has been mentioned on this forum about the effects that self building can have on ones mental well being. I’m not looking to over egg the pudding but these past 7 days or so, caused me to recognise that as a reality, and also for the need of support from those around you when the going gets difficult. I now understand that what I was fretting about wasn’t really worth doing so but that is easier said than done when in the middle of the “fog”. I feel much happier with things now albeit the build isn’t progressing as quickly has I had hoped. Let me explain - Since my last post, the plan was for the windows and doors to be fitted, followed by the ground floor UFH pipes and manifold to be installed, leaving a couple of days before the weekend break for the liquid screed to be poured. All of which would allow the internals to be started with earnest on Monday. Yes the windows arrived but no front and back doors – they will take a couple more weeks. With no tradesman around I was asked by the fitters where I would like the windows placed in regards to the TF they are to sit on. This is where my lack of understanding came and bit my backside. I instructed them to fit them flush with the outside of the TF – See photograph below. It was the following day when the builders returned to lay the insulation ahead of the UFH that I was told that the position of the windows was incorrect. They should have sat out from the TF to allow the fire batons to be fitted etc. My inexperience caused me to feel physically sick, fearing the worst and not being able to see that the problem was able to be fixed relatively easily. It was my roofer how gave me a “virtual smack around the face” which caused me to see things differently. I contacted the fitters and explained to them that I had made an error. Could they come and correct it for me at my expense? Of course they could and will do so, albeit in a couple of week’s time. My builders then set about laying the insulation and sheeting across the ground floor only to present another “problem” to me – A block from an internal supporting wall was to be removed in order to allow the UFH flow and return pipes to run through from the cylinder to the manifold. They said that now the block had been removed, there was no defence in place for the liquid screed and if poured in its current state, it would just fill up the cavity between the two supporting walls. When I asked him what he would do to correct this he basically said that is someone else’s problem – the guy doing the UFH!! Again, my lack of experience in these matters caused me more concerns and anxiety. [I doubt it but I can’t help thinking that the builders enjoy presenting problems to me knowing that I am not fully experienced to be able to either “shrug” them off or to have an immediate answer.] When the UFH fitter arrived on site, he did just that – shrugged it off as if it was a common issue which he has dealt with on many occasions. He spent 3 long days on site doing the ground floor UFH pipes etc. I’m really pleased with his work. That then left Thursday and Friday free for the liquid screed. Here’s the rub. This plan of attack had been given to the builder some two weeks ago and has been mentioned a couple of times since. Thursday afternoon I get a call to say the screed will not be poured until a week Friday as the company doing it are busy!! This effectively puts back the internal work by a week as I’m not comfortable with tradesmen entering the house whilst the pipes are exposed so to speak. Another hit I have to take on the chin as the alternative would be for me to “jump up and down” and risk losing the builder. As mentioned above, in the scheme of things these issues aren’t fatal, just frustrating but more importantly, it showed me how my inexperience / understanding of things can build up and affect me personally. Something I’m now aware of and also with how to overcome such issues again. Hopefully. Finally, to conclude on a happy note, I have included some photos of the car port which is now complete apart from the door and window. Thanks for reading.

Ya as ProDave said above you'll get an answer to most small issues like what you're encountering within 20 minutes. You're going to start getting a LOT more questions as you manage electricians, plumbers, carpenters, etc. Preparation is often the key to reducing stress. Electricians are one of the worst for asking questions as a lot of what they do is personal preference and usually need an answer instantly. Take the weekend to review every single light switch location, spot light, under counter kitchen lights, hanging lights over dining tables or kitchen islands, power socket, alarm keypad, alarm pir, TV point, HDMi to Sky or cable box, telephone point, data or computer point, where's the wifi point(s), thermostat for heating, any CCTV cables, fire alarm, CO2 alarm, etc. Think about where furniture will go (eg dining table), what way the door opens (don't put the switch behind the door). Do you need power behind a mirror in a WC or ensuite for a light? You probably have most of this on a drawing but now that you've the timber frame up it's important to review this onsite as you'll find improvements or small changes to make. The following weekend take you're time and do the same when nobody is onsite for all the taps, showers, WC's, etc and just be confident in your head where everything is going. Also do it for the heat recovery duct locations if you're having MVHR. Do you want these to line up with spot lights in the ceiling for example? You have to know this in advance before they come and start.

Probably the neatest building site I have seen. Manifold looks very, timber frame with double noggins. Did the architect detail where the windows would go in relation to the frame and external cladding? It is an easy detail to slip up on, but simple enough to remedy. Are you on a deadline which must be stuck to (tenancy ending or whatever)? If not, just award the project another few weeks and give yourself a pat on the back for what looks like a first class job.

I have a spare pump you can have for the price of the collection. It needs priming, but once primed it stays primed. It's the WZI750 on this page: http://www.dambat.com/wzi-pumps.html It's barely been used, I ran it for about a week when I was playing with a two-pump system for the house. I also have a 650 litre (I think) rectangular slimline water storage tank and a float switch to turn the pump on and off if you want it. They are all surplus to my requirements, but are big so will need transport. I can help load up this end. I also have some spare 25mm MDPE and fittings, to go with it. Yours if you want it, no charge. Just PM me or say you want it on here. You have first dibs on it; if you don't want it then anyone else is welcome to it all. Edited to add: Found the info on the water tank, it's this 650 litre one: https://www.directwatertanks.co.uk/industrial-tanks/window-cleaning-water-tanks/650-litres-baffled-window-cleaning-water-tank-upright It has a drain cock already fitted at the base (3/4" BSP IIRC) and an overflow pipe fitted to the rear near the top. There are two holes on the top with pipe fittings, one to fill the tank one to feed water out to a pump. Either could be blocked off if not needed. The float switch cable comes out through a cable gland on the top, and is adjustable so you can set when the pump comes on and off. I had it set to turn the pump on when the tank was about 2/3rds empty and te off again when the tank was full, but it's easily adjustable by sliding a weight along the cable.

Following on from @newhome's post earlier, here's another good news story.... We had our soil survey done today, so it finally feels like we are getting started after two years of buying the plot and getting planning permission for our plot which sits in the curtilage of a listed building. I went out to four or five structural engineers nearby who could do the survey - prices ranged from £620 + we supply the digger and driver to almost £4K!! We went with the £620 one - his response was professional, they were a local firm and our groundworker knew of him and, I have to say, we weren't disappointed in how today went. The groundworker turned up just after 8am, unloaded his little Kubota digger, grubbed up a few bushes to make access easier and was on site within half an hour. The structural engineer turned up as promised at 9am, took his geological map out, looked at the area and said "I expect to hit sandstone at about one and a half metres down" He then said to the digger driver "Dig a hole there...." The groundworker is a bit of a JCB artiste, so we had a hole almost exactly one small bucket wide. We stopped about a metre down so the engineer could have a look and take some photos. After another half a metre there was a clank as we hit the expected solid stone. A few more photos, the engineer looked over what we dug out and said he knew exactly what we had, so need need to go any deeper Another hole dug at the back of the plot (there are some large poplars at the end of the plot) - same process again, dig a metre, stop, have a look and keep digging until the "clank" happens as we hit stone at about one and a half metres down. There are a few roots from the poplars among the mix of soil, light clay and stone, but nothing to worry about. Looking at what comes out of the holes, Structural engineer says no need to take "shear vane tests to estimate safe bearing pressure in clay soils" and no need to spend an extra £250 on further soil testing "if clay soils are apparent" - the bits in quotation marks are what was mentioned in his quote to us. Groundworker fills the holes in. You'd hardly know he had been there. We now wait for the structural engineer's report, but foundations should be fairly straightforward which is a big weight off any self builder's mind - you can plan for everything once you get out of the ground. Had a walk round with the groundworker and found the water - running in a straight line along the pavement a couple of feet from the front of the plot - as expected from the DigDat data that I had got earlier and then spotted the mains sewer (with a manhole we may be able to tap in to) in the middle of the road, again, exactly as expected from the DigDat data. Two more good outcomes..... Meeting the timber frame company on site to look at access later on today - hope that goes as well as this morning has gone. Here are some photos ....... The moment that ground was broken Let's see what we've got here ...... .... and after the second hole was filled in.

Thats a plenty good enough cutter. Anyone bending the rails is pushing down way too hard whilst scribing the tile. Go for it.

I bought one of these and it’s great, best tile cutter I have ever used, screwfix matched an online price as well so got it a bit cheaper.

Actually, I've been told that the stone that broke out might well be marketable as it's splitting so nicely... Anyways. BCO arrived late yesterday and was happy with the trenches, Terry the blockman set levels (three courses of block to the subfloor), and Paul dropped in the mesh and carried out the pour today. Four loads later and it's done. Disappeared the last of the poorly Ash trees along the fenceline too. So blocks are arriving Tuesday and Terry can get up to ground level.

Here are the long awaited photos of that floor. Battens, UFH and start of the biscuit mix And the oak flooring laid More pictures on the blog, look for the entry "Under Floor Heating and Oak flooring"

Hope you guys are enjoying this. Personally I'm voting YES PS battery storage is kinda getting lost, find a room.

Or in direct sunlight for much of the day

Hello, I am Natalie Leslie from the UK, Thank you for accepting my registration. I want to discuss for doors and windows. To find the best way to solve these issues and Hopefully, help for people who face similar problems.

If you've never actually been in the loft then how do you know they're really there? Shrodinger's cat etc...

Oh to dream of only a weeks delay, current job I’m working on is a bit of an awkward one in the first place, yesterday I got informed that the start profiles for the cladding are going to take 2-3 weeks instead of the 2-3 days we had been expecting. This has thrown a massive spanner In the works for a whole load of reasons BUT there is F all I can do about it so we will just have to start other things ahead of time. This is all on top of me trying to work out how to make a stair case out of a limited amount of oak of an evening. Plus I would be asking church mice for loans since the wedding as it’s looking like we might have to take out a second loan to get anywhere near liveable, not finished but liveable, BUT as above there is F all I can do about it so what’s the point in worrying. When I find myself in a pit I turn to progress pictures of the build or in my case videos to remind myself how far we really have come. I also find baz lurhmans- everybody’s free helps to put things in perspective. Your build looks great and you seem to have a decent team around you. Worry about the things you can change, chalk the rest of it up as experience. It’s the only way to stay sane. best of luck with the rest of it. Ed

Re sockets etc. It is surprising how many people say "put them where the architect showed them. Then when you walk around and start marking them out, you soon realise most are not in the best place. Another thing to think carefully about is lighting and light switches. e.g as a matter of course I like to switch the hall light 2 way (from upstairs and down) Most only do that with the landing light, but it saves the irritation of reaching the top of the stairs and realising the hall light is still on. I can't understand why this in not normal practice.

Nail. Head. Thanks.

+1. This forum is not just for blogging, but also those little niggles that hit you out of nowhere in the small hours, or when someone asks you a question you don't feel qualified to answer, and even if you do feel qualified to answer it will help to validate that your understanding is correct. Support and advice is one of the things that BuildHub provides in spades so please ask away any time. Plus all questions asked provide information for others who follow. And one of the first things to deal with on the stress front is to accept that things are going to get a little behind in certain areas. I doubt there is anyone on here who can say that every element of their build ran entirely to plan. Things happen; weather, availability of builders, suppliers letting you down, things simply taking longer than estimated are just a few examples. It just goes with the territory I'm afraid and not something you can afford to be too stressed over as anxiety can eat you alive if you let every little slippage cause you concern. Better to get things right than to rush and compromise. When I first started my build I had a gaant chart detailing the timeline and I pinned it up where everyone could see it. Hubby and the builders looked at me like I was an alien from out of space, but management was my thing and I thought that would help me keep things on track. Well I soon binned that idea as it was clear that my initial approach wasn't going to work. It was hard to adjust my mindset to accept this and it took a while in truth. I wish I had been able to accept it sooner as I could have diverted my energy elsewhere. The second thing to deal with is not to over analyse what anyone says to you before validating the information. I have a tendency to over analyse too and have blown things up to be massive issues in my head, when actually the very next person who looked at it just says 'whatever' and all of my worrying has been for nothing. Just ask on here - someone will know. Better for the mind for sure. On the positive front the build looks great. You have either struck lucky and have ultra neat builders (a rare event indeed) or you are obsessive in clearing the site regularly. I used to go round at the weekends retrieving drinks bottles, sandwich wrappers, general rubbish and 'stuff' left everywhere and it still looked like a mess all the time. Onwards and upwards. Tomorrow is a new day.

Oh ! i always go to court with my bits on show ..... hmmmmmm , perhaps that explains a lot ...

Looking really great, I would call your problems no more than “teething problems” and a good chance for you to understand the cause and effect that so many decisions create on a self build. Thanks for being honest and sharing your dirty laundry so that we can all learn from it. But again it’s looking really top class, well done and good luck.

We had a very long and drawn out problem getting an overhead line taken down. In the end the local OpenReach manager suggested that the only way to get the job sufficiently up their priority list was to "accidentally" break it with the digger jib early one morning and then phone him immediately on his mobile to report it. This worked like a dream, within 30 minutes a crew were out to remove the debris and reconnect the ready and waiting underground line. I was told that jobs like this have such a low priority that OpenReach will never get around to doing them; they will always have higher priority tasks to do on any given day. I'd suggest just disconnecting it and coiling it up. Be aware that there will be up to 50VDC on the line, so best to tape up the ends.

+1!!!! Don't even mention any ambiguity. Start from the angle of having been completely clear and transparent with what you required then let the window company argue their own case.

How about that for forum love - brilliant!!

It could be that they are a fairly small outfit and will not be willing or able to represent or defend themselves, in which case straight to court. You will still need to prove your case with evidence to the satisfaction of the District Judge (or whatever they are now called).

Well that’s progress of sorts I guess. Maybe the judge will look unfavourably on the company given that they have ignored attempts to mediate, especially as you showed willing.

I've just been looking through the costs for a 3 kWp on/off grid charger inverter system, running from a nominal 48 V battery pack. The Sofar system looks to be about best value, in terms of the charger/inverter unit, and 3 kWp is probably OK for a low energy house. The ME300SE charger inverter is around £900 (probably a bit less if purchased with batteries). Choosing 4.8 kWh as a realistic minimum battery capacity, then using the cheapest reasonable quality lithium packs I can find (the Pylontech modules) 4.8 kWh would cost around £1,900. 4.8 kWh of 100 Ah NiFe cells would cost about the same, around £2,000. Both the inverter charger and lithium batteries have a life of around 10 to 15 years, probably closer to 10 years. So a £2800 investment in the inverter/charger and lithium battery pack, assuming that you managed to usefully use around 75% of the total stored capacity all through it's life, and assuming that the charging electricity was "free", from excess generation that's already available, would just about pay for itself, at a unit price of 15p/kWh, after about 15 years, around the time the system would be at the end of its life. The NiFe system batteries would still be as-new after 15 years, so the system would have paid for itself, only needing the investment in a new charger/inverter to give another 15 years life. Electricity delivered over the second 15 year period would be around 1/3 of the current grid price, using the assumptions above. On the face of it, the NiFe system wins hands down, but you will be waiting many years before you see your investment start to pay off.

Data is rarely, if ever, "consensus". I spent most of my career measuring things, and removing all and every source of measurement error. We only published data when i was just that, irrevocable evidence measured and cross-checked against other sources, with due account taken of any and all sources of measurement error, to the point where there was no significant chance of it being incorrect. I've never, ever, published any data professionally that hasn't been peer reviewed and cross checked multiple times. I've taken part in many peer review processes, where the starting point is always the same - you view the results and conclusions presented with deep scepticism until you have collated enough high quality evidence from independent sources, or your own experiments, to demonstrate whether or not the data in the paper being reviewed is valid. Only then does the paper get published, and often only after a fairly lengthy debate amongst the peer reviewers as to whether the conclusions drawn from the data are valid or not. There's nothing quite as tough as a review by a bunch of scientists, who are, by their very nature, sceptical of claims and cynical of conclusions, until such time as they've seen the hard evidence with their own eyes. As a collective group, good scientists are a pretty difficult bunch, as it's rare for them to naturally agree about anything that hasn't been proved to each and every one of them individually. It's one reason that scientists are rarely definitive, but almost always couch any statement with a certain amount of caution, or with caveats. The latter are often ignored by the media, much to our general annoyance, as ignoring important bounds and caveats then gives the general public a completely false view.

Yes and your suggested solution was the creation of a definitive single source of truth for global warming Yes, it is called data, and we have a lot of it. I suggest that education is the way forward, not myths, prejudice and denial of the truth. This is starting to sound like the Woman's Hour joke I heard a couple of years back. Question: "What do 9 out of ten people enjoy?" Answer: "Gang Rape".

That makes it worse!! You are paying £100 a sqm to set the patio table on and a BBQ.

It wasn’t like that all the time of course but you can see why we moved into the house as soon as the kitchen / family room and the downstairs shower room were complete. I can’t say that I got the full caravan experience as I was only there at weekends. My hubby used to drive me back to the rental appartment an hour away on a Sunday night, we’d have a meal and he would use the shower that was luxury compared to the small shower in the caravan with only a limited amount of hot water. I could not have coped with trying to dress for the office and live in the tourer for an extended time in truth.

Oh ! I know the answer to that question without asking .... BOTH !

Hi @PeterStarck Yes I am the only supplier in the UK. I have owned the distribution rights to Ireland for approx 20 years and from September 2016 I purchased the rights for the UK from Nulok Global. I have had no dealings with Nu-Sustainable. Our distribution centre is in Birmingham. If I can be of any help please contact me.

I've learned a lot from our limestone patio. While it looks good, the flat grey grey 600x800 flags should have been sealed immediately after laying (my fault) as they're like sponges. I also used BAL wide joint grout but was not happy with the end result, so ground out the joins that I had done and redone with a few buckets of sweep in Easy Joint which is much easier to use. Biggest issue is that we laid them on sand and cement mortar over a well compacted MOT 1 base. However as they're porous, the downpour followed by hard frost over winter caused a few to pop and start moving. I lifted and re-laid the worst ones with tile adhesive and all is good. Ideally I should have poured a concrete base and bonded them all with tile adhesive but this would have significantly increased the cost. I bonded a few others with waterproof PVA and while they're holding fast, there are shadows where the PVA has leeched up into the limestone so they will need to be replaced or may try and clean with a sealant remover first. Will give them all a good clean with a limestone cleaning product and then seal. Upside is I got the slabs at a very keen rate of £39.99/m2 which is approaching half price - no idea how the merchant got that price and as they have now gone bust, maybe neither did they ... Like all things, you obsess over the detail, kick yourself over the mistakes and then move onto something else and forget about it

Yes, they are importing them from China, but you can buy them direct for a fair bit less. I did get some prices for dry-shipped cells from a similar Chinese supplier a few years ago and they weren't bad, and certainly cheaper than the US/Canadian made ones that are, I believe, still in production. Note that the company linked isn't selling Edison manufactured cells, they are selling Chinese copies and being careful not to use the Edison name in the actual cell description! BTW, buying dry-shipped cells makes a lot of sense, as the electrolyte is easy to obtain and mix up and not being filled reduces the shipping weight a great deal.

Why is it that non-scientists choose to use false principles and grossly inaccurate generalisations to deride, even deliberately insult, those of us that spent many years studying to become scientists? What's worse, some seem to assume that scientists must be trained to have closed minds and be unable to examine and analyse data that doesn't reinforce the hypothesis they are testing, when nothing could be further than the truth. Apart from being very offensive, such thinking flies in the face of the way I, and everyone of my former colleagues, ever worked. Hundreds of times we found data that didn't match our initial hypothesis, and every time that happened our eyes would light up at the thought of the new questions we needed to ask and then test. Finally. I have no idea why the term "social science" is misused, to pretend that social studies are really a science. In my view it is not a science and never has been, at best it's a bunch of untested ideas that someone with more ego than common sense has gathered together and tried to falsely claim as demonstrable fact.

NiFe cells get around the limited cell life problem pretty much completely; they last practically forever in my experience of using them for a decade or more (although don't ever mention that fact on a certain other forum - you'll get kicked off for heresy...). I've personally used 50 + year old NiFe cells that were still at full rated capacity after all those years, and pulled very high current from them to run high speed 35mm cine cameras with no problems (a 10,000 fps 35mm cine camera needs a couple of hundred amps or more to spin up). They are far from perfect though. The have a Peukert number that's lower than that for lead acid, plus a higher self-discharge current and a relatively wide voltage range between discharged and fully charged. They do self balance, like lead acid, though, and only require a simple constant current charger with a voltage/temperature triggered cut off, so battery management is a great deal easier than any lithium ion chemistry. They are massive for their capacity, too, and require watering regularly, but again that's easy to arrange with an automatic cell watering system. All told, as a long life house supply NiFe cells are a very good option, if you can generate enough excess energy to make up for the fairly high round-trip loss because of their Peukert number. If we could still get hold of the really big NiFe cells that were very readily available on the surplus market a few decades ago then I'd use them for sure. However, right now the choice is to make your own (not that hard to do if you can find some old telephone exchange glass cases) or import them from somewhere like China (the Chinese are manufacturing them in large sizes, for standby power, submarines etc).

Meanwhile, back on topic...... Thanks @Ian for a thoughtful, well-evidenced set of posts. I might by accident have a batten on top of an overlap, but the felt isn't part of my airtightness strategy. I'm guessing now that local roofers never use Kloeber Permo as part of the airtightness program for the houses on which they normally work. I am assuming that @PeterW thought that I was using KP for airtightness. Frankly, I'd be surprised (and delighted) if local roofers were involved in any work on airtightness.

The doors on most caravans I've seen are on the sides rather than the ends :-)

Come on now beef it up..... here is one I built about 7 years ago, 750 meters long with each block coming in at +800kg should look good in your neck of the woods. But seriously sandstone comes in all grades, this one was very hard and resistant to the salt erosion as it was right next to the ocean, we were driving over it with a tractor and a ton of stone hundreds of times without a problem.

The main difference is life and efficiency. Peurkert factor for lead acid struggles to get better than about 0.85, that for lithium ion is close to unity, to round trip losses from lithium ion are around virtually non existent, versus 20 to 30% for lead acid. Lead acid cycle life may be as high as 2000 cycles if babied, lithium ion will easily make 20,000 cycles. The conservative life of a Lithium ion system would be around tens years, that for a similar cycled lead acid pack might around 5 years for equivalent capacity reduction. Looking at the pay back from self-consumption, ignoring the standing charge and assuming 0.15p/kWh, then if you could realistically average 80% of the rated storage capacity all the time for self-consumption, you might be able to save around 3.5 to 4 kWH per day for self use, so about 50 to 60p per day energy saving. At £2,800 the basic (and fairly optimistic) payback period might be as short as 5,600 days, or over 15 years, for the very best case. BTW, a 110 Ah 12V leisure batter might do 400 to 500 cycles at the very most, and only store a total of 1.32 kWh, and a usable kWH of only about 70% of that. Used in a household system they would barely last a year, and would only deliver around 1 kWh per day at the very most.

Oops ! A minor slip up on my part !!! They are far better than any handbag ?

If I was a fella I might but I'll stick to buying expensive handbags

Sooner rather than later, eh? You know it makes sense.....?

Perhaps worth pointing out that if you get it wrong your hob might produce a lot of carbon monoxide.