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After 11 days on the job we are now wind and water tight. Plumbers will be in tomorrow, roofer, brickie and electrician beginning of week, definitely moving along at a pace I’m happy with, lots of ordering went on this week to make sure we are ready for the onslaught next week and I may have news about the electricity soon but can’t say much just now, onwards and upwards ?quite an interesting roof in the middle only wish the budget would have run to oak here as it seems a shame to gyproc it all but it will still be an interesting shape

Well my expensive Grohe leak guard system is working. Water supply to house was switched off by the system overnight. I have found the leak in kitchen cupboard under sink. If system had not knocked water off would have been a nice flood by this morning. No plumber until Monday though!

6 month update. Started fitting ducting for the MVHR, my wall build is 3 layers, 140mm, 70mm and 50mm so the ducting fitted well (luck) within the walls. Just need to uncoil the 50m lengths and start dragging it through the build. Then I added the final 50mm timber and insulation before I started the OSB. It took about 2 months to fit about 150 boards, the vapour barrier, double sided tape, airtight tape, it was quite a challenge especially the vaulted ceilings. For the flat roof, fitted the Velux Rooflights then GRP, about 35sqm, 2 layers. Just need to be very organised and keep all tools and materials clean. I might put some Sedum on at a later date. Had some windows and doors delivered and fitted. Kastrup and Internorm. The whole experience disappointing so far. Most of the Kastrup need replacing due to roller marks on glass. Fitting below average. Finally the Tata SSR. Took me ages to set out but once the eaves and verge square it goes on well. 3 roofs to fit. Now half way through the second roof with 7 Velux which fitted well though very heavy, the soft wood frames very prone to damage if not protected. Working out how the EDW flashing kit works around the SSR takes a while, lots of measuring and cutting, creating upstands and folding but the end result is good. About to move the Kwikstage round again. Body struggling though. If anyone wants more detail do ask. Its all quite challenging but still satisfying.

The windows were delivered last Friday. They arrived in three pallets, two of them were lifted off by the lorry's tail lift and a pallet truck. The larger pallet had to have the windows taken off manually. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the offloading as it was all hands on deck. I was however involved in the lifting of the windows, on average the windows were about 75kgs each, but the french doors were double at 150kgs. Here are some of the exterior. And the interior. Facias and soffits have also been fitted around the house. The next job will be fitting the Siberian larch cladding and followed by the slates next month.

I think you may only need to do the inlet bypass. I think you could leave the extract air going through the heat exchanger - it just wouldn't be able to heat the incoming air.

My experience (and i've heard this elsewhere too) is that the quality of service you get from Purple Bricks is almost exclusively mapped to the quality of the individual who is covering your area (I believe they work in a similar fashion to a franchise model). In our case, our local agent did not even turn up to an arranged meeting and then never returned any calls. Others we know had better luck in getting listed but the pictures they got were no better than you could take on a 5+ year old phone. I've seen local houses sitting with PB marketing boards for months, only to be removed and replaced with estate agent boards a month or so later. In the end, we went for a high-street agent we'd used previously, paid a bit more (0.75% commission) but within 3 (working) days of it going on the market, we had 3 notes of interest (a Scottish thing where people lodge an interest and are kept updated on progress) at which time we set a closing date (a date offers should be submitted) a few days later and accepted an offer over the asking price. I think PBs is a great model for selling houses in certain market sectors (I'm not sure it works for the top end of the market), but I'd check for feedback on your local agent before signing up with them.

Expensive, yes, but with that one incident it has probably more than paid for itself and you no longer have to go through life fretting about the money you spent on it..... It worked when it was needed and saved you a lot of money by doing so. Excellent result for you.

The tin ridge is not something I would recomend but it fits in with my other two ridges on my adjacent buildings, I would look at replacing them all with something more durable when they all reach the end of there life,

As posi joists are a bespoke engineered solution i'd have assumed your posi supplier would be specifying and supplying the hangers as part of the package. Don't their drawings spec the hangers, and include a disclaimer against adapting/modifying without consultation.

Moving on apace now and looking great. Will keep my fingers crossed for the electric supply.

@JSHarris I suggest the relevant party consults their lawyer. There are ways around these situations on a short term basis and there are stamp duty specialists that a lawyer will have access to for written advice.

Looks great. Job done.

They could just defer the payment of the stamp duty HM Revenue & Customs requests that stamp duty be paid in the 30 days after contracts are signed in a house purchase, but what happens if you don't? Well, if you pay the tax up to 12 months after the contracts are signed then HMRC will levy a small fee – 10% of the duty - capped at £300.

The seller and the buyer will have to agree how monies will be transferred to pay the additional stamp duty. Funds provided to solicitors as part of a house purchase have to go through money laundering checks so they will have to be clear to the solicitor(s) what is happening and make it clear to them that there is nothing underhand going on here. For the reasons that @Alphonsox gives, it would also be advisable for the loan to be written into a legal agreement, perhaps as a preferential loan which takes precedence in any estate management should the worst happen to the buyer. And, assuming the eventual owner of the sellers house will be the mother, when her house does sell, the additional stamp duty (3%) will be refunded (although there is a limit of, IIRC, 36 months) so some funds could be repaid sooner if that house sells quickly.

It goes both ways, you could be in credit or arrears, but you can't move suppliers until the new "deemed" supplier that Ofgem choose have sorted out the balance to date so that when you then apply to switch there is a known baseline to work from, both in terms of you getting back/paying more to the "deemed" supplier and in getting the energy readings for the switchover day.

I've never done anything like this before so need @Onoff to hurry back and comment .

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tracpipe-Coil-22mm-15m-Flexible-Gas-Pipe/223073915916?hash=item33f03dd40c:g:VasAAOSwhilbVxT~

Maybe the cheapest and safest option would be to install a gas proof membrane.

Love the views.

yes it does.

@Redoctober The material we have around the site is called 'Rotten Rock' it breakdowns and settles to form a very compact surface. When the storage container goes off the site we will take the material around the front and bring up the level up to whatever the gap required is between the ground and DPC. Therefore keeping the ramp height to a minimum. We are going a bit against the norm here with the suspended timber floor and no underfloor heating, but I'm hoping that when insulated the floor will feel warmer than a slab with no underfloor heating and realistically this will probably be sufficient but for all of the very coldest days, which being on the west coast are pretty rare.

£300 is well worth the money to save the hassle of having to clear up after a leak.

Even cheaper here: https://www.tradingdepot.co.uk/grohe-sense-guard-smart-water-controller-22513ln0 Looks like a good device.

@DavidFrancis I have enclosed a drawing of our wall build up. (Hand drawn) Lots of layers. I made the frame myself. Initial frame was 140mm, then fixed 70mm horizontals and finally 50mm verticals at 600 centres to fit the OSB. The GRP roof I fitted myself. Have done one before but still find the whole process a bit of a pain, no matter how organised with multiple buckets, tools, latex gloves, cut matting it is still a messy affair and the conditions have to be dry but the end result is watertight. EPDM is an alternative I will look at next time. Floor, Wall, Roof Build up Jan 2018..pdf

I chose the Grohe device specifically because it senses the whole house water system. It is on the incoming main. I have it on an app so can see status any time anywhere. Its shows me pressure, temp and usage. I set defaults and it will switch system off if system goes outside those parameters. It detects micro leaks as well as pressure drops and with all my pipes running in the roof above 450 of mbc best pumped insulation I wanted to keep an eye on things. You can get those extra little flood sensors to go onto Grohe system but I did not bother. Its now become more widely available (was only via registered installer when I got mine so first fix plumber supplied and fitted). Good price here today - less than I paid. https://www.victorianplumbing.co.uk/grohe-sense-guard-smart-water-controller-22513ln0?campaign=googlebase&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIxPGUwZK_3AIVzJ3tCh2gAQ76EAQYASABEgKTVfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

I think they blur the lines between semi rigid and flexible too - the cheap wire wound plastic film coated stuff can be crushed easily and does attract muck and dust. Proper semi flex you can stand on and not damage and I would go as far as to say it’s more resilient than steel duct.

Right ! 2 coats done . Deliveries delayed so decided to do the gates . finally the installer told me what product they used . Seems to work a treat !!

That sounds sensible as they'd probably tell you to anyway to cover themselves - one expense instead of 2

We are the site of an old gravel extraction quarry after the gravel was extracted the area was back filled with the soil originally stripped off, the thoughts are if any vegetable matter or anything else was buried at the time it may rot down and give off methane. I am wondering if it would be easier to just install a gas membrane instead of a standard dpm rather than have a survey done to tell me that I should probably install a gas proof membrane.

@Cpd Yes I am doing the roof myself, in fact the whole build so far. The Tata does work well, 4.2m sheets just doable but fitting the ridge on the first roof was a challenge as the Sikaflex sealant goes everywhere you don't want it. The eaves and verge details work well. The extended cut is the top pan overlaying a shorter piece underneath which fits next to and then extends up, under and along the window flashing. Cutting the sheets with metal blade circular saw then up stands using folding tools. The Velux apron was not sticking very well possibly due to the intense heat at the moment so will revisit with sealant and possible fixings. Where possible I trimmed the aprons to fit tight underneath the seams. Very impressed with Velux, as long as you follow the instructions. My brother helped me lift the large windows in, 69Kg. 300sq m + to fit, quite the expert now. First roof below.

FYI - There's a few simpler options to measure temperature / humidity. Saw a nice one called "sensorpush". Bit pricey on Amazon currently at £89, had been £50 so try ebay and they are more reasonable there. These connect to your phone with nice graphs etc! Otherwise a standalone unit with a display - search for TP55 or TP65 on Amazon, very reasonable....@ £20 but don't seem to have any way to connect to a computer....

@jamieled, Anytime you can draw a heat-loss path, in these cases down and out through the floor slab and back up to the external air, that does not pass through a dedicated insulation material you are likely to have a significant thermal bridge. It can be mitigated but will always be present to some degree.

Wish my girlfriend was an ankle biting mite

I was amazed at how effective under floor cooling was when I first tried it about three years ago. It had a far greater impact on the house temperature than I expected . I have ours set up automatically, with two thermostats in the hall. One works as a cooling thermostat, and is currently set to turn the underfloor cooling on when the house reaches 22 deg C, and is on the heating system programmer, so set to come on at around 06:00 and off at around 18:00 at the moment. The other is the heating thermostat, run from the same programmer, but set to come on at 20 deg C and turn the underfloor heating on. The ASHP is programmed to deliver a steady 10 deg C in cooling mode and 40 deg C in heating mode, which seems to work very well. In practice the floor surface never gets cooler than about 18 deg C, and the only condensation we get is on the floor heating/cooling manifold, when the system is in cooling more. There's very little of that, so I've just placed a plastic drip tray underneath the manifold and natural evaporation seems to just remove the small quantity of condensate.

Thanks for the kind offers, but it was a hell of a hectic day. I arrived at my late Mother's farm around 11:30 (it's about a 4 hour drive from here), stayed there sorting stuff out and packing the car until about 20:30, then headed straight home, getting back just before 00:30 this morning. I've got to go down again in the next week or so to pick up a Grandfather clock, and may have more time to pop in and see people then, as we've now cleared up 99% of the farm house. If anyone wants a nice small holding down in West Cornwall, it will be on the market soon, minus almost all of the land which has been sold off to local farmers (there's around 3 acres left, but it's pretty good, clear land). Nice range of outbuildings, polytunnel etc, though. Purple Bricks offer several options, one of which includes only paying their fee on completion, but to take that option you have to agree to use their conveyancing service. This means you don't pay the fixed £849 fee until the conveyancing is done, and they charge around £800 for the conveyancing service. We received out first offer, about the asking price with a promised exchange of contracts data yesterday, whilst I was away. I'm going to talk to the PB agent later this morning to take advice on how best to proceed, as we have four more viewings today plus a couple of others that have already viewed and might be prepared to make an offer. Either way I think the house will be sold subject to contract by this weekend, or early next week at the latest, so that will be around a week from first advert going live to house under offer. Time from advert going live to receipt of first acceptable offer was 3 days and 4 hours - probably a bit of a record!

Hi @Thedreamer. Looking great. Pleased to see the fire battens are in place ! ? How are you going to overcome the Part M requirement for level access for one of the exterior doors? At the moment it seems there is quite a distance between the intended finished floor height and the outside ground level.

Bored of the heat now TBH. This is Scotland. No one lives in Scotland to be complaining that it’s too hot!

Neat.

One way to think about it is to take would be that the slab is starting your approved garage, and it just happens that you never finished it but put a mobile home on top. A Council vpcannot enforce completion of a project usually, I think. But this is very much playing the system like a violin, so I would want careful advice from somewhere. F

So they produce a Guide of quite substantial legal extracts that define how they get round the rules.... The key issue would be the provision of the slab which does require PP but you already have this for the garage. So building the slab is for the “garage” then you would have to put the garden room (or caravan...) on top of this. You don’t have PD so couldn’t relocate the slab. And I reckon given the answer you’ve already had from the council about changing the design, you’re going to be in for a fight...!!

From inBrief Under s 29 of the Caravan Sites and Control Development Act 1960, a caravan is any kind of structure built for human habitation which is capable of being moved from one place to another. To be classed as a caravan, the structure must not measure more than 20m in length, 6.8m in width, and the overall height of living accommodation (measured internally from the floor at the lowest level to the ceiling at the highest level) must not be more than 3.05m. Under the Mobile Homes Act 2013, a ‘twin unit caravan’ is a structure designed or adapted for human habitation which: is composed of not more than two sections separately constructed and designed to be assembled on a site by means of bolts, clamps or other devices; and is, when assembled, physically capable of being moved by road from one place to another (whether by being towed, or by being transported on a motor vehicle or trailer). so if you can satisfy the planning officer that your 8m x 6m garden room meets that lot then you are fine however .... the maximum load width for a normal load is 2.9m so you would have show to the council how the building can be separated into not more than 2 sections to be moved.

Looking good...so far everything is exemplary, hope it keeps up until the inevitable disagreement about the size of the fridge ???

@jack I have porcelain tiles throughout

I can't think about flooring at all - too busy concentrating on not scratching the mozzy bites running up my shin:(

first house we sold, close to your old haunt of portpatrick, in stranraer, so glad i managed to get out! started with us doing the full on sell with spiel. it got to a viewing and we had friends round, pram in the hall, babies, toys out, the lot. spiel was, bedroom, kitchen, sitting room, have a wander round upstairs and we'll be in here if you have any questions. they bought.

Just re-reading this and it isn't clear from my last couple of posts that I put in the code to make cooling mode accessible on our ASHP last week. I may have mentioned it on another thread. Having now had another few days with the UFC on during this hot weather, I'm absolutely certain it's having a significant effect on the temperature upstairs, despite all the cooling being downstairs. I reckon downstairs has been sitting at a very comfortable 20-21 deg C for the last few days (ASHP outputting a temperature of 16 deg C during the day - I'm just manually turning it on for most of the day while the sun is up so the PV is powering it). The temperature upstairs at the end of the day has fallen from, I guess, 26-27 deg C a few days ago to maybe 22-23 deg C last night, despite how hot it's been. Doesn't sound like much, but trying to sleep in 22 deg C compared to 26 deg C is a very different experience. In any event, I'm sold on underfloor cooling as a solution for at least knocking the edges off extreme overheating once all the passive design features have been optimised. I think that if we just get external blinds installed on our bedroom windows and install the remote blind we have sitting in the garage for our rooflight, we'll have the problem completely licked for next year.

+1. This thread seems to have gone a right tangent now! FWIW I despise concepts such as Agile - not the working practices behind, more the fact that society seems obsessed with assigning names/brands to things that people have been doing for thousands of years. Someone looks at a bunch of good working practices, flowers it up, gives it and name and then sells it as a whole new concept. Pretty sure you could look at how the Romans were building roads etc. back in the day and find 'examples' or where the concepts within Agile were being applied. Introducing/sharing good workings practices is always a good thing, but why do we need to pretend these are new concepts. As for self builders wanting all the bells and whistles - seems only natural to me. However it would seem to me that self builders are a pragmatic bunch - there's a list of wants and a list of must haves. The list of wants always get pruned upon first contact with budget realities, but the list of must haves seems uncannily similar, airtightness and thermal performance are two common themes throughout this forum. Self builders are a hard working bunch to have got to the point where they can: a. Afford to do a self build. b. Have the determination to actually do so. Demographics is an interesting one. I get the impression it's generally speaking a more mature bunch on here and usually with a higher than average education level. Myself, I'm just a lowly soldier and reasonably young. I do have an engineering degree - unfortunately I've forgotten more than I remember now, a pity because I was a dab hand at CAD/Solidworks etc. back then.....feel positively thick now when I see some of the kids maths homework!!

Also you are welcome to pop in to us near Bude, but do realise life is hectic for you at the moment (when has it never been ?).

If I had read this earlier, I would have said join me for a coffee down Tehidy.

Building a house for profit if you have no experience can be a risky strategy. If you read some of the stories on here it will put you off for life, but mostly people soldier on and get through it because they are building their dream / forever home. I don’t think many people here would embark on a self build for profit unless they had a stack of building experience. I would go back to the drawing board and see what you could do most easily that may make you some cash. That might be a large extension rather than a new build.