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Hi All I'm not sure if this is common knowledge or has been posted before. The National Library of Scotland has available for online viewing historic maps covering all of Britain. Just type in your place name or postcode etc and it will zoom into the area and show you the available old OS plans for the area. These are also available for sale in print. If you have a look be prepared to lose a couple of hours looking at every place you have ever lived as it is quite compelling. https://maps.nls.uk/geo/find/#zoom=5&lat=56.0000&lon=-4.0000&layers=102&b=1&point=0,0

Quite a lot done in the last couple of months but nothing worth photographing. (Sometimes it's the little things that make the most impact.) many many traumas along the way - budget - what budget, but I am getting there.... Stud walls all done; UFH piping installed; (including screed in lower ground and battens, insulation, spreader plates and overboarding on entry level; first fix plumbing and electricity; door frames; insulation; insulation; insulation; (luckily my handyman says he is immune to the fibreglass and it doesn't bother him but I insisted, and he agreed, he goggled and masked when crawling in the confined loft space) AND today I got S.T.A.I.R.S woo hoo - starting to look like a house.

So, picked up most plumbing bits from screwfix, and the rest of the bits arrived today (brass tube and pvc tube). So it's all a bit heath robinson and now looks like this:- It now consists of 1" - 22mm adapter, 22-15mm internal reducer, non-return valve from the fill loop flexi-pipe, shut off valve, flexi pipe to pvc tube. Most important thing is it works! Had a bit of the glycol solution left over, diluted it a little, and have added 2 litres or so to the loops. Pressure gone from 0.7bar to 1.2bar. Result!! Saved me over £200 on a callout.

I built a pallet shed too. Mine was a bit bigger - 4.5m by 2.5m. I got the doors off Ebay for £12 and the roofing sheets came from there too for £90. Decking boards were £100 if I remember correctly. There was a huge window inside that came from a skip - it was south facing so let in lots of light and heat. It was at a place I was renting so sadly I don't have access to it since we moved.

Yes that would be a decent saving.

You may want to consider demolition of the existing building. This will free up some potential design restraints, make the construction simpler and you will be able to reclaim the VAT.

Still working out how to broach it with her. Basically these guys have have done more than twice the work for less than half the money - What do I say to her to persuade her it would be good to give me some money back eerrrr???????? I've also got a really good electrician, by personal recommendation, who is prepared to go the extra mile. Happy to pass on his details if yours don't work out. I've also used 'ratedpeople' - personally have had better results from my builder but I think that's more the luck of the draw than one being better or worse. I have heard from some trades that have tried both that they prefer 'mybuilder' because they only pay if they get shortlisted whereas with others they have to pay to get put forward, without any guarantee that the client is even interested.

Well done, it is about time you had some good luck.

Premier Guarantee still have the self build application form available via their own website. We took ours direct with them didnt use a broker or third party. Maybe its just that company they have withdrawn from not the market as a whole. I would contact them direct and see what they say. I looked through an old link it seems... no self build now on their web site sorry.

I'm going to build one of these so they can get parcels over the house and into the back garden...

My site insurance covers self erected scaffolding. I also had mine all signed off by HSE before anyone was allowed on it. I got stung by HSE for working at heights, prohibition notices all round, resulting in so much scaffolding and their sign off.

Firstly, for all you lot waiting with baited breath for my next blog update, my apologies! Since the house was opened up for guests I've needed a bit of time to switch off from what was a very full time project for the last few years. When we first opened to guests the house was missing its decking. I had gone through various ideas for the design of this, and in the end decided that less was more, and made it a fairly minimal affair, just somewhere to allow access to the big sliding door and give space to sit and enjoy a cuppa or glass of whatever, whilst looking out over the views to the loch and the sunsets. Due to the big change in height, I decided to make the seating integral and do dual duty as part of the step down as well. This has worked pretty well, I think, with the advantage of dropping the height of the decking and preventing the handrail from obscuring the view from inside the house. There's still some tidying up to do- paths around the house, and some cladding trim to finish off the decking itself- but it's a big improvement on how the place looked a few weeks ago.

Just read your reviews - excellent. That must be a great satisfaction. Delighted that your guests all agree with the Hive Mind.

Correct on both counts @newhome.!!

In a word no! It’s Impossible to compare a one page response with the tender document. I’ve got this horrible feeling your going to be disappointed in the tendering process, this is not IT. Most builders have more than enough work to even bother pricing tenders

The other problem you might encounter is the tender returns won’t reflect the tender documents. I recently send out a tender document and drawings for a basement, in return I get two nill responses, a very detailed and very costly proposal and a one page A4 costing broken down into four headings. In the end I managed the job myself using subcontractors and came in £10k lower than the lowest price. Ps... Just to put the savings into context, the lowest quote was £50k and the highest £150k. Round here your lucky to get anyone to do a quote, they’ll happily work on a day rate and are bombed out with work!

I might yet...

That will be a very nice house when it's complete. What about coming to an arrangement with the architect over his costs. When your QS comes back with the costings split them into your 2 phases. If your architect can bring it in at the costings for phase 1 with a +- X% then he gets his money. You will have to come to some sort of deal about what the penalties will be if he doesn't.

I'm sure you've done the sums, but if your QS has not provided you with any figures yet, how can you know you have enough to get the weatherproof structure up? Perhaps you just have lots of funds sitting there (including a 20-30% contingency), in which case many here will be envious Did you use a £ per m2 to estimate what it would take to get to that point?

Has it been empty for 2 years?

@recoveringacademic .. cheers, " In the words of DH Lawrence, each flow is related to every other flow. That's to say, no matter where you choose to start, the process of starting somewhere inevitably makes you look at its precedents. In terms that I suspect you might feel comfortable, where you can, choose a code library, or content development network if possible. But do write some psuedo-code first, and then run it past us. " BRILLIANT

Welcome to the club where even the clued-up find themselves clueless at some stage or other. There are some who haven't got the emotional intelligence to admit it...... The direct answer to your question is - somewhere . In the words of DH Lawrence, each flow is related to every other flow. That's to say, no matter where you choose to start, the process of starting somewhere inevitably makes you look at its precedents. In terms that I suspect you might feel comfortable, where you can, choose a code library, or content development network if possible. But do write some psuedo-code first, and then run it past us. I chose to think of things from under the ground upwards. I started thinking about soft and smelly stuff and worked upwards from there. It worked for us. Good luck, and welcome!

Being a mere dreamer of building our own property I had previously been a regular visitor to the eBuild forum and was disappointed by it's closure, so whilst doing a recent t'interweb search for Larsen trusses, I was really pleased to find this forum and offer my sincere thanks to all involved in achieving the resurrection. My previous eBuild name was Eyefor and I had asked many questions and gathered very welcome advice on planning procedures, Architects, build methods etc - all of which were asked on the basis of "soon, we would find a plot" but having looked for over 10 years in our area we were near to giving up and buying a ready built. Our son and his partner then showed an interest in a fairly local farmhouse that had adjacent (but definitely separate) barns having both agricultural and industrial (B1) uses classification that gave us concerns for the long term future of his property, should he buy it. Long story short... They bought the farmhouse in September 2017 and in October 2017 we completed on the 5 barns (total 11,000+ Sq ft) plus 2.9 acres of paddocks without planning permissions but to us, it was a no-lose basis because, although they might make us a nice dwelling, our primary reason for buying them was to protect our son and his partners interest. Earlier this year, using (superb) planning specialists we submitted applications under permitted development Class Q for change of use to a dwelling on a 2000 sq ft agricultural barn and prior approval for a dwelling under class PA for the 4800 sq ft main barn. Both were approved in July. Lots to think about and lots to do in the forthcoming months (and years) but I will be regularly visiting the forum in search of ideas (and help!).

That video is missing the 2 ft of gutters that it's usually sitting in when you need to do that.

You are correct, I forgot to make any more updates. It was only the interior, and that is now looking like a shed, full of "stuff" It's standing up very well and no leaks. Far more sturdy than the shop bought shed I wired for a customer recently, made of something not much stronger than cardboard.

Thanks. Very pleased to find you again. A great forum. Now you can see for yourself ^^^^^ "Really hope you like them" (American for couldn't give a f***)! Not in contact with other members because until recently I was just a "lurker" / dreamer. Now it's for real....

Thanks to the recent discussion about render ( @gravelld's concern about the quality of his render) I have been given the courage to think about mine. Yesterday Gary wrote this ' .... Regarding the thickness As long as every inch is covered you will be fine .... ' here Taking a bit of scaffolding down today to get ready for our flat roof I saw this ... Little holes that I couldn't see when I was working a bit higher up...... And of course that means that I have about a million little holes to fill. Just need to find them now, that's all. Oh the joys of full on DIY self build. Thanks Gary. Appreciate it.

My new windows are side guided and they look great as side hung but great to clean with the slide bit.

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Welcome! 500m2 is a very big house! There are quite a few IT folk on here who are managing their own builds. @ultramods had a similar decision to make re going with the architect oversight or doing it himself and he chose the latter. There is a thread here that discusses the pros and cons. There are people on here who have run into trouble using the architect or a professional PM because they haven’t done a great job, or who have run into trouble doing it themselves for various reasons. My personal view is that if you have a project management background you could do it yourself but you must have the time to do a decent job, and you must be prepared to learn at a rapid speed as building is quite different from IT. The other issue is finding trades. Seems to be a common issue wherever you are just now. This site is amazingly helpful if you run into trouble. There is always someone on hand to give great advice on almost anything or offer virtual tea and sympathy when things don’t go quite to plan. Have a good trawl through this site. There are countless posts here where you will learn a lot. Here’s one from just the other day.

Tilt turn are good on upper floors as they can be cleaned from the inside. Downside is they will clash with curtains or blinds. To clean outward opening windows from the inside you need either top hung reversible or side guided, where the hinge slides towards the middle of the window to allow cleaning.

Welcome. Can you put up a sketch of the plans to see how much work is involved to get a better understanding of the amount of work your looking to do. As with every major renovation there will always be a risk to what you will find when you start to peel away the old house. How old is the current house?? There is nothing wrong with how you intend to phase the build. You are basically treating it like most here would treat a timber frame build. You let someone else do the major work and then you take the reins and bring it home. Nothing wrong with that approach. In terms of the build are you going brick/block or timber or something else?? As far as all the trades go have you these all lined up ready to go?? Has your mate the QS given you a costing of the build and a rough time scale??

Side hung upstairs because they are for fire escape. Downstairs I have 2 different types of top hung. The front of the house is half the window opens from the top to make it look more like a country cottage and the back the full window opens to match the French doors and back door which are fully glazed.

On a very simple level product used in flat roofing has to cope with temps varying from say -10 C to perhaps 80+C and the foam/facings have to be formulated to cope with this. Flooring, cavity wall and 'general purpose' PIR products will never be subject to this temp variation. (Individual manufacturers may be able to offer more detailed info on the make up their products). Bottom line is the products are optimised for the application they are made for - hence swapping products/applications or using second grade product may lead to problems.

+1 to asking if BCO is involved. That'll shiver the timbers if they're doing this "off the radar". Stop them now and tell them if the soil doesn't come out you'll be taking action against them for damages. Get photos, lots of them, and put your foot down. Are you on ok talking terms with them? The soil CANNOT stay in there. Idiots. If the top is then open to the elements it should be capped and lead flashed to promote natural run-off for any rainwater.

Have you tried Protek?

Random link but it's basically a trim/bead that gets attached to the wall before rendering. Sometimes plastic, sometimes steel though you want st/st ideally not galvanised. The render goes on then tapers out at the bead like the base of a bell. The profile is slightly tapered down on the underside. This is just above the dpc. As well as shedding water and preventing it getting under the render it strengthens the edge of the render as a whole helping protect against knocks and scrapes. I feel your pain! The very original bit of my place is rendered straight across the dpc. Later bits, like the garage have had a bit of 2"x1" nailed on at dpc level to render down to and form a taper. Its a classic short cut / bodge. Looks pretty if you can get the batten off without pulling the formed bell off but weak as Hell in the long run! Might just work if a super strong mix laden with adhesive. The damp wall in the bathroom was due to a bridged dpc. For that matter the ffl inside was slightly above the inner leaf dpc! A "bit" of digging a couple of years back sorted that!

Side hung may provide better means of escape- hence the use upstairs. But as Dave says top hung is more weather proof. If you really can't decide, then put the hinges on the longest edge, as that's going to put less strain on them.

Surprised T&T was more expensive - added about £20 per window on mine. I also swapped the traditional outer sashes for a single middle opener with T&T hinges. Looks good and how many times to you open both outer sashes ..??

They can't do that. The permitted development limit applies to the original building and does not get added to once you have extended. Any further extension wouldneed planning permission. Regardless of planning, they WILL need building control, even for a permitted development extension. A site layout sketch would help understanding. So this is not your house or house extension wall. Either way, make sure building control know what is going on. THEY will have something to say about them filling the gap with soil and will take an interest in that drain they appear to be building over.

We need pictures, lots of pictures of these barns. Always fancied a barn conversion not sure now though going through this self build.

How important is it to have the survey linked to GPS/OS datum? I've had the topographical survey done and I spec'd that it should be linked to GPS datum. However the guys said that they couldn't get a GPS signal and they've just presented us with unlinked files (.dwg and PDF versions). I fully believe that they struggled to find a signal as we're in a valley with dreadful EVERYTHING when it comes to communications (and my dog's GPS tracker thingy is useless out here).

I did my homework on this subject and I agree about warranties, you don’t need one and I don’t have one. If you sell within ten years ( which I don’t plan to do ) you can get an insurance against claims which I have been told costs less than the warranty !!!!

It'll be Rat City under that decking by now!

Lucky your weren’t on a ramp when it happened. But yes it’s time for a new track I’m afraid. Oh the joys of owning plant ........