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Like all Self builders we found we had a limited number of options for living accommodation during the build, given that we needed to demolish the bungalow to clear the plot for the build. The options were, rent locally or a caravan on site. Renting locally wasn’t an option due to the high rental costs, so we looked at the caravan option. The main problem was access, an 8 feet wide drive with a hairpin bend half way up, a dry stone wall, 80 feet tall trees and limestone outcrop put paid to that idea. A local crane company visited the site to look at the feasibility of craning the caravan over the trees, the narrowness of the road, a road closure and 4 mile diversionary routes for vehicles, a licence from the local authority soon put paid to that idea. Then a brief conversation with a neighbour and a lightbulb moment, we can up with the idea of a timber framed tiny house built in an orchard that formed part of the plot. The day before submission of the planning application a sketch of a small 7 x 5m cabin was added to one of the drawings. Thankfully we got planning approval. The construction of the cabin allowed us to practice our woodworking, insulation and other construction and trade skills. This is where we currently live. This what it looks like on a wet autumn day. Not the power cable over sailing the cabin. Happily the DNO installed taller poles to increase the clearance.

If there's one thing that really gets my back up, it's someone trying to bully or intimidate me. It rarely works, it just makes me angry. If you've been following this blog, you may recall a post some time back in August concerning the high voltage power lines that oversail my plot, sadly very close to our new house. They do, in fact, just about cross directly over the very furthest corner of the garage. Now whilst these lines do not supply my new house and there is no equipment actually on my land, their proximity to the garage means that they are below a safe working distance, according to the regulations of the DNO, who is SSEPD in my area. I had a meeting with the local wayleave officer, let's call him AJ, on 14th August to discuss the situation and how to resolve matters. From the outset, I have stated that I have no issue with the oversailing lines and I'm not asking the DNO to remove them or do anything drastic, I would just like them to be made safe. AJ had a long look around the plot and came up with a rather complex proposal to bury the cables, via a somewhat convoluted route, digging up the lane and digging on the land of 3 different owners. The local linesman came out and had a look a few days later and suggested that the existing poles could simply be replaced by taller ones that would lift the cables up high enough to give safe clearance underneath them. The DNO has issued me with quotes for both sets of work, both expensive, one slightly less so. The lesser of the two evils, raising the poles up, comes to the princely sum of £7,600 + VAT, so not much change out of £9k when all's said and done. If I accept, the raising of the pole height will take some time: the new poles would be more than 10% greater in height than the old ones and so the DNO requires planning approval for this. Then, it seems, they have to put some other sort of submission to another official body that will take another few months, so all told, it will be well into next year before anything happens, if it does. This is the basic outline of what passed. What I haven't mentioned yet is the attitude and approach of AJ in all of this, which is what provoked my opening statement. From the very first telephone conversation that we had back at the beginning of August, he has been highly combative in a passive aggressive kind of way. So, no raising of voices, but very much a 'we're bigger than you and you will do as we say' style. This came to a head on Tuesday evening when AJ rang me at 5.10pm to discuss the quotes that had been sent through. In fact, what he actually wanted to do was rattle my cage because 30 minutes before his call, the local linesman had rung me to discuss the dates for burying my supply cable and had clearly been in the same office, chatting to AJ and saying that the garage had already been constructed. AJ laid it on pretty thick. He said that SSEPD would 'make a contribution' towards the cost of increasing the height of the oversailing lines, and he clearly expected me to be grateful. They were offering to pay 25% of the cost (no VAT to charge to themselves), i.e. in the region of £1,500, but in exchange for this, they wanted an easement. Just as a refresher, the wayleave on my property currently is a voluntary one which I can serve notice on. An easement is a right in perpetuity, well beyond my lifetime, lodged against the deeds of the property. As with all AJ's conversations, there were lots of long and deliberate pauses of the type that some idiots use when they think they are masters of manipulation and want to make the other party feel uncomfortable and force them into filling the silence. I shan't quote chapter and verse on it because it's far too tedious but suffice it to say, he really pissed me off and to the extent that I sent a forthright email to him later that night summarising what he had said and how he had said it. I also requested that he no longer contacted me by phone, but put everything in writing (email) so that I would have an audit trail. Now, it may be that this gets me no further, but I have received a request from AJ's boss this afternoon, requesting a meeting to discuss the points I have raised. I have said that I will meet her, but I want to know in advance exactly what points she wants to discuss and how this will move things on. We shall see. In the meantime, for the record, here's the email I sent that gives more detail on what annoyed me so much. "Dear AJ Further to our telephone conversation late this afternoon, I feel that I need to email with my comments regarding this and my planned actions as a consequence, since I have been left very troubled by both your comments and your tone. When we first met on site on 14th August, I explained to you that throughout the entire process of building my new house, I have used and relied upon professionals and have sought to do everything correctly and legally, as far as I have been able. To this end, the house was designed by a qualified architect who chose the location of the building on the site according to a topographical survey that was produced by a firm of chartered surveyors. Once the build was ready to commence, setting out of the building on site was again carried out by a chartered surveyor and there was no change from the original plans as detailed in the approved planning permission. Unfortunately, it later became evident that the north east corner of the garage of the new house is directly under the power lines that oversail but which do not supply my property . However, I did not realise that these were high tension lines until my scaffolder contacted SSE to establish what type of lines these were and their nature then became clear. As a result, I have made all contractors who have come on site aware of these power lines. The builder who constructed my house and garage was completely aware of the high tension lines and proceeded with the construction of the garage on a day when I wasn’t on site. I am told, however, that this was all done from floor level and inside the garage. Indeed, it is clear that it could not have been achieved in any other way, since there is no scaffolding around the garage to facilitate its construction from the outside. I can confirm that the timber frame of the garage has been completed, but the flat roof surface has not been put on it and I have advised my flat roofer that this is not to be done until such time as it can be completed safely. I have no desire to see anyone injured as a result of working on my site, whether it is due to ignorance or carelessness, and I deeply resent any assertion to the contrary. If I wish to take a risk with my own safety, I am free to do so, but I would not deliberately endanger others. As evidenced by my approach to this build, at no point have I tried to cut corners or take any risks. I have also engaged with you in a co-operative, straight forward and positive manner during our meeting and our conversations. Regrettably, I cannot say the same for you or your approach. I understand that you are paid to represent the interests of your company and, thus, your company’s shareholders. I also understand that a DNO has a public duty to ensure continuing and safe supply of electricity to its customers and have never disputed this, but I find your assertion that my seeking adequate financial compensation for SSE to have permanent rights over my property in the form of an easement will somehow increase everyone’s electricity bill to be an insulting one. Any charges paid by me to SSE are taken into the business as a whole which pays profits to its shareholders by way of distributing electricity and each DNO has an effective monopoly over its distribution area, so I have no choice in whom I deal with. The wayleave that exists over my property is a very old one, dating back to the 1950s, and it is a voluntary wayleave agreement. My husband and I have owned this property since February 2017 and have never received any compensation due through this wayleave, although this would be an insignificant sum, in any event. I understand from the previous owner of the property that no payments have been received in respect of the wayleave as far as they are aware. The wayleave grants permission to the DNO to place its equipment on or over my land and I have no desire to have SSE remove its equipment from my property and have stated this since the outset of our discussions. I have also stated my willingness to offer SSE a far more secure tenure in the form of an easement which gives rights in perpetuity rather than on a voluntary basis as is the current situation. Given the longevity of an easement, its nature is very different from a wayleave, as you know, and despite your assertions to the contrary, it is a valuable difference to the property owner. You kept referring back to the fact that the original wayleave is very old and that the equipment has been in situ for a long time, thus the financial impact on my property is negligible. I do not agree with this statement. It may have been true when the wayleave was first set up but that was over 60 years ago and property values have increased considerably in that time, particularly residential ones. The direct consequence of the oversailing wires is my inability to fully use and enjoy my property, as is my legal right; were the wires not oversailing my property, this would not be the case and I would be free to develop it as I choose. Therefore, there is a direct financial loss to me as a result of your company’s equipment passing over my land. One solution that has been put forward to remove the danger posed by your equipment passing over my land is to increase the height of the existing poles so that the clearance between a person standing on my garage and the overhead lines is greater than the required safe distance. This seems like a very sensible solution and one with which I am in agreement. On 22 August SSE quoted a cost of £7,231.45 + VAT, a total of £8,677.74. I have researched the amount of compensation a property owner might reasonably expect to receive for granting permanent rights to their property by way of an easement to a DNO and I am advised that these are typically between 1% and 2% of the property value, when negotiated by parties familiar with this process. Based on a reasonable estimate, my property is conservatively valued at in the region of £800,000, thus giving a minimum expectation of £8,000 of compensation for granting an easement. You today stated that SSE are prepared to contribute 25% of the cost of increasing the pole height for the overhead lines, i.e. £1,807.86 since SSE will not need to charge themselves VAT on the cost of any works. I also doubt whether the quote provided to me is at cost to SSE and there will be a margin of profit in that so, in effect, the true cost to SSE of this contribution is far below 25% of the cost to me. I believe that this valuation of permanent rights over my property is an extremely poor offer and not one that I am prepared to accept. In the interests of overcoming the issue of SSE’s equipment over my land, I have not sought to profit from the matter in any way; I have only sought to reach a fair and equitable solution and have dealt with you in a very transparent and fair manner. Indeed, I have already agreed to pay the charges for re-routing the power supply to my house and have no issue with this, since it is of direct benefit to me. On the other hand, you, on behalf of your employer, have been guarded and done all that you can to avoid straight answers, instead almost treating the process as though it is a game of poker where he who bluffs the best, gets the best deal. This has included difficult telephone conversations where you deliberately insert long, awkward silences presumably in an attempt to make me feel ill at ease or intimidated, and this has been the case in every conversation I have had with you. In addition to this, you constantly allude to issuing notices and starting other processes, without any explanation of what these are or what the outcome of them is, instead leaving these veiled threats hanging until I continually had to press you for answers to them. When you do finally explain what these other actions are, it seemed to be a circular argument that brings us back to where we began in the conversation and no further forward. Your rang me at 5.10pm this evening and our conversation lasted 37 minutes, in which time all your main objective seemed to be to attempt to intimidate me into accepting the above financial offer, otherwise you would serve me with legal notices and generally make things difficult for me to progress my house build. For the record, I do not appreciate attempts to bully me, no matter how passive aggressive they are, and I think that it is disgraceful behaviour. It has also made me re-think my approach to this situation, since being transparent and fair does not seem to have produced any meaningful progress. Towards the end of our conversation, you stated that you want to continue our dialogue and see if we can reach a resolution. This, however, is not a poker game for me nor is it an enjoyable sport of seeing who will blink first and give in to the other’s proposal. As a result, I have no wish to continue any conversations with you since I feel it is a very stressful waste of my time. Therefore, unless you are prepared to deal with matters in a clear and straightforward way, next week I shall issue formal notice to SSE of withdrawal of the wayleave on our property. Once this is done, I shall instruct a firm of chartered surveyors experienced in negotiating financial compensation agreements with DNOs for the grant of wayleaves and easements and I feel confident that will, in due course, more than adequately cover the costs of any work to the oversailing wires. Please contact me via email only from now on as I want to have a permanent record of precisely how you respond to me."

Having done a large renovation project and turned an old 1770s vintage wreek into a fantastic Home we decided that living in Cheshire was no longer for us, so we sold up and moved, to be closer to family in the Southern Lake District. However the journey was far far from straightforward, we really had no idea what we were looking for, was it to be another renovation project or a self Build? Having viewed around fifty ‘oportunities’ ranging from dilapidated houses, to an old pub, to a closed garden centre, we gave up!! Then about six weeks after ‘giving up’ Debbie had to come clean, she’d not actually given up, but had been searching online and she thought she’d found what we were looking for. So we arranged to view a rather sad looking dormer bungalow on a very wet, cold and overcast March day. Once into the property we both realised this was the one! So we bought it and moved in. Having lived in the property for a year it was clear that this wasn’t a renovation job, so the bungalow had to go. The next step was to decide what to replace it with. Although we had it in mind to downsize we missed the larger rooms of our previous home and. According to my interior designer (Debbie) we needed larger rooms so our furniture would fit.... Living in the old bungalow made it obvious it was the wrong way round, the two bathrooms and the bedrooms had the best views. Also because of the shape of the plot, an L shaped house would make the best of the space and the views. Once we had our requirements clear, a design brief was produced and a local Architect appointed. A series of design options were produced and after some tweaking, final plans drawn and planning permission sought. Prior to the submission of the planning application we walked round our neighbours with the plans, this gave us an opportunity to gauge their response, in most cases it was ‘interest’ and nothing more. Thankfully the planning application went through without any opposition. So here is the design.

Sadly, as @PeterW mentioned, you have to use the Multipanel adhesive to get their warranty. I'm convinced it's just gripfill, but with a higher price tag, as it smells the same, looks the same and behaves the same, which is a pain, but if you follow the Multipanel MIs, and dry fit everything first, you can fit the stuff OK.

I have just been diagnosed with osteopenia (pre curser to osteoarthritis) and I take vitamin D3 (after lots of research).

The stuff Multipanel tell you to use as otherwise you invalidate the warranty...

sand cement screeds and concrete slabs are much more forgiving than anhydrite type screeds and typically need less work to remove laitance prior to tiling. You still need to remove any laitance however there will be a lot less of it compared to anhydrite screeds. The reason for this is that anhydrite screeds contain far more water which is why the laitance is more prevalent. The main issue with power floated slabs is that the power floating process seals the surface of the concrete making the drying process much longer. In fact I would say that 12 months drying time would not be unusual for a power floated slab. The good news is that there are plenty of liquid dpm products that can be applied to the top of the slab to get around this problem however they are not cheap.

I am interested in the huge Agar Grove development of Passive House dwellings in Camden, London. I wonder, is anyone else interested in or connected with it? I will be keeping an eye on it. For those interested, more details here: https://www.hawkinsbrown.com/projects/agar-grove

G,day would there be anybody out there who will be doing an icf build and require bracing im afraid the hire cost has scared the c##p out of me so I’m thinking of buying my own to sell on afterwards another lad on here has shown an interest, so I was wondering if there could be a third interested party to keep the cost down for everyone the product we are looking at is called. Zont bracing, made by a Canadian company. Let us know. Cheers russ.

Having vented my spleen about the DNO and AJ, its wayleave officer, it's time to move on to more interesting things, like the puzzle of getting my roofing done, amongst other things. For my sins, whilst our house is an interesting design and has quite a few twiddly bits, they have proved to be less than straightforward to actually get built. For a start, the house has a combination of pitched and flat roof sections, there will be an in-roof solar PV system up there and the parapet that extends above the level of the ground floor ceiling also needs to be lined. In addition to this, there are the balustrades that need to go on the balconies, leading to a chicken and egg scenario - balcony covering first, or balustrade? Thanks to the helpful comments of both my flat roofers and @Bitpipe I was able to stop the parapets getting covered over before the balustrade went in and thus making life (more) difficult and (more) expensive for myself than necessary. The flat roofing guys suggested that it would be better to get the balustrade installed into the cavity in the parapet, then they could wrap the membrane over and around and seal it against the supports of the glass panels of the balustrade. Before they could get started, though, they had to correct a problem that arose from the architect's plans that had an error in them. My balconies and the drainage plan is such that the water needs to run off to the outer corners. For some reason, however, the architect's plans show the fall of the balconies going inward and to the centre, and that's exactly how MBC constructed the firring pieces on the decks. I guess I should have spotted it earlier, but can only claim that I was working on the assumption that I'm the ignorant one in this building process and that everyone else had it right. Being me, however, I can never entirely accept that I'm wrong and I couldn't figure out how the devil any water was actually going to flow off the balconies unless the architect had some super sneaky clever plan that I wasn't aware of. I rang the architect and it turned out that they didn't have a super sneaky plan and they had indicated the fall incorrectly on the balconies. Bugger! Flat roof guys to the rescue - before they started on the first balcony, I asked them if they could just lift up the firring pieces and reverse them to point the flow to the outer corners. We'd worked out a labour rate for a few other things I needed doing, so it's all being corrected and I won't end up with a pool of water lapping against the centre of the windows onto the deck. I have to add that the flat roofers have been great. They, along with seemingly every other person involved in construction right now, are fully booked for weeks to come and when I first got my quote from them, the earliest they could schedule my job was the end of October. Oh god, I thought, my building will have drowned by then and I'll loose my next MBC slot for the airtest, and so on. Despair. So I wallowed for a few hours and then rang them back and put my best grovelling voice on. It's getting lots of practice at the moment. Anyhow, I asked them whether by splitting the job up into smaller chunks, they could squeeze me in between other jobs. The single largest area that needs doing is the garage but the least important in terms of time constraints as it's outside the thermal and airtight envelope so doesn't need to be done for when MBC return on 8th October. The splendid people at County Flat Roofing Ltd agreed that I was grovelling so nicely and had come to them by recommendation, they would get the decks, parapets and flat roof over the stairwell done for me over the next few weeks. They are currently due back for a couple of days next week and I can get the area over the stairwell done, which will be a great relief as there's an awful lot of water coming in through there right now. My pitched roof sections aren't straight forward, either. Because I'm having an in-roof solar PV system, the PV guys need an eaves course put in so that they have something to rest the trays on. They have also asked that the velux windows are in, but this isn't so much about having the windows in as being able to avoid a clash of flashing (their own and that for the velux). Cue my trusty roofer, Dylan Faber of Dylan Faber Roofing Ltd. His firm is very local to me, just the next small town along, and he has been really helpful already. I met 3 in total, the other two being either arrogant or disinterested, so Dylan got the job. He's more than happy to work around the PV guys and knows what their requirements are. He's also helped to overcome a potential problem with the roof tiles, which were originally going to be Marley Eternit, birkdale for the pitch and vertigo for the cladding on the first floor. It turns out that there's a bit of a lead time on the birkdale for the pitch and the vertigo ones need to be manufactured to order in France. Mince, alors! We're now going to use tiles by SVK that are barely a shade different to the Marley ones - I put the two samples side by side and they are close enough to be the same. Even better, the SVK ones are cheaper and can be used for the vertical cladding as well. Phew, another bump in the road traversed. Next up were the balustrade people. I rang around for prices and to chat about what I needed. Whilst the architect's photoshop concept of the property shows a frameless system for the balustrade, these generally sit in a rail or shoe and that won't work with my parapet. I need to keep the parapet cavity clear to allow airflow through it to keep the cold roof of the balcony suitably ventilated; the shoe or rail would block the cavity and so it was a non-starter. Additionally, the balustrade people advised that it wouldn't meet safety regulations, so that was the end of the frameless sytem. In truth, I much prefer the idea of a hand rail as leaning on the edge of a pane of even toughened glass somehow doesn't appeal. I'm using Balustrade UK Ltd, who are based in Dudley in the West Midlands. They are fabricators and so make most of the components themselves and are very knowledgeable and helpful. I will admit to having a soft spot as I'm Birmingham born and bred as well as working in manufacturing myself, so it's nice to be able to support a British manufacturer and one that's close to my old stamping ground. The final balustrade won't be as elegant or clean looking as a frameless system, without a doubt, but it's a compromise I'm happy to live with to make the whole balcony thing work and keep the build moving along. Finally, MBC need to send someone down for a quick bit of snagging before the glazing arrives on Tuesday. I felt at the time that they left the site a little too quickly after the last session and this was the case. There's nothing major but the reveals of some of the windows don't have the outer membrane continuing into the reveal as they are meant to - this was actually picked up by the glazing installations manager when he came out for a site visit earlier this week. The internal service battens also could do with putting up before the 8th October as although first fix can't start until the airtest has been done, the battens are needed to clip bits of MVHR and things to in order to keep them out of the way for when they do return. All in all, it's been a quiet week. Or at least, quiet on site, but with lots going on in lining up the next load of activity. Next week, all hell breaks loose with lots of trades on site and I need to make sure that everything is properly co-ordinated and happening in the right order if I'm going to successfully pull it off, but it looks okay so far. I just hope the house doesn't suffer too much in the gales that are due at the weekend and that the chemical toilet is still upright on Monday. Brace yourselves, winter is coming.

We've decided to use the JUB ICF block system for our build, it's looking as though it's going to be the first build using the system in the UK. The JUB ICF approach is a little different from most of its competitors in so far as there is no block cutting done on site. This was a major factor in our choice as it should eliminate opening size errors and also the need to infill when cuts are not quite as perfect as they should be. The down side is that it makes the drawing up of plans an iterative process. Our architect is in the process of amending our plans to reflect the JUB ICF wall thickness of 390mm once this is done the plans will get optimized by JUB. The structural calculations will then get done which may result in further changes before we can get a set of plans for building controls. JUB also offer raft and roof solutions. The raft system has a quoted U value of 0.2w/m2K and is quite expensive compared to say "raft therm" from Castle Forms which has a U value of 0.1w/m2K. The JUB roof system looks good with a U value of 0.09w/m2K, again it's relatively costly and we have not decided to go this route or a cheaper more conventional rafter and spray foam option. JUB also do rendering, which appears to be there main business in the UK. The render system and ICF systems have been tested together and is covered by a single warranty. Hopefully not a feature we will need to call on. Being a first will no doubt result in a few issues along the way but it looks as though JUB are keen to get a build under way and will provide support. I've attached the plans for which we have planning permission, these have already changed a little to provide greater strength in the north east corner which has a big glazing area. I'll update this thread as we progress. Build plans JUB-ICF.pdf

Rear first. I'll upload some pics in the morning of the one I did yesterday ?

Yup. Tile the vertical wall all the way up first and then mitre bond the trims on so you can set the mitres perfectly. Then do the two side tiles, then the base tile, leave to set and do the top with stilts to hold it up off the base tile.

Simple the better!

Bear in mind that the holes may have to be offset from the connections on the ASHP, to allow for pretty long large bore flexible hoses. I failed to do this and just used short (300mm long) flexible connections and had a lot of vibration transmitted into the house. When I swapped these out for 900mm long ones, run in a big loop, the problem completely went away. The MIs for the heat pump did specify using long flexis, IIRC they said use 1000mm long ones, but I'd assumed that the shorter the pipe that was outside the better, in terms of lower heat losses. It was an annoying error, as it meant draining the system down to replace the hoses.

About 30mm..!! They sit on feet and can be bolted to the slab.

Yes I found the multi panel stuff like gripfill, shite that skinned too quickly.

Thank you @newhome I missed it on your excellent post about VAT refunds. I suspected they would be eligible because to the lighting element & one has a shaver socket too.?

Great little cabin (and I was going to try and flog you our old caravan)

Hi @Russell griffiths, potentially I could be interested. My quoted hire charges are also significant, I will have to check with Logix that they would be happy for an alternative bracing system to be used. But yes could be a goer.

You can get PCM34 SunAmp Units in the UniQ range, USe that as the buffer tank and DHW pre-heat, that is what I have, ASHP feeds the SunAmp and the UFH takes heat from the same circuit. The DHW is then on the other heat exchanger. No wourry about losses and you can up size as required for DHW pre heat. Cost is higher than a Buffer tank though!

The zont system is part engineered, part diy you get metal brackets that adjust but add 4x2 to make the whole system so no need to ship great big long things about, just a couple of stacking crates of brackets and add your own timber.

Only on Build Hub, folks, only Build Hub.....

You asked about the view, he’s one looking east towards Ingleborough and Yorkshire. This was taken from the garden, below you can just see the chimney of our closest neighbours house.

I often found explaining the options to someone not involved helps clarify the situation and focus the mind on who/what best meets your needs.

Ever build Stixall was what I used on Mermaid panels and you get a good 5-10 mins to apply and position / reposition vs the solvent grip fill types of adhesive / sealants. Gripfill is quite shit to use on anything that takes more than 20 seconds to apply and set into place. I’d avoid GF completely for this job.

I wouldn’t put the sink in the island, we did that in our last house and hated it

Here you go: https://science.wonderhowto.com/how-to/make-permanent-reusable-glow-stick-286139/ Recharges with sunlight. No idea if it actually works, but fun to try.

Two things jump out at me really. First is the sitting room / WC ratio / layout. I would push the wall across and squeeze the WC and its anti room to make the sitting room a bit bigger a small WC could still be accessible to a disabled user and you will appreciate the space in the sitting room also here you have the WC on the opposite side of the room to that in the ensuite above it so making the foul pipe run more complex than it needs to be. Secondly I am not clear what the 1m gap behind the bed in the master bedroom is for.

You could maybe have two separate wardrobe areas bed the bed if the walkway depth is an issue. And make the walk in wardrobe maybe 1600mm deep to get a bit more space in the ensuite if you wanted a larger shower area. or thinking outside the box a little, change the layout to below.

here you go, expertly done in mspaint

Change the door to a sliding door to match the wiw. Both rooms aren't small either. En suite is near enough 8ft sq. The window in the ensuite can you not centralise it??

Hi and welcome Why do you think the ensuite will be small..? You could always change the door to open out as it currently takes up 25% of the room with the swing. Have you tried marking it out on a floor and trying it out..?

It's Miller Homes - so fairly large. They basically want to stick to the template for that particular house type, then move onto the next (as has already been eluded to). Extending it through them wasn't even an option as far as they were concerned.

Just updating with some photo's Here is my bargain basement roller door in place And this was what it was all about, getting the garage / workshop organised.

Fair play to you for being brave and going this route. Somebody has to be the first!!! I hope your getting a very good discount to balance out the risk of problems that will surely arise. This is definitely a build that you need to document well in a blog with lots of pics and show how you get on warts and all.

God knows why the plumber told you the other switch was the immersion! I have a similar switch on my heating system and the heating doesn’t work if it’s switched off. On the up side your heating has been off all summer when you really didn’t want it on (albeit you thought it was your immersion) and you now know a lot more about your heating system. Suggest you get the label machine out while it’s still all fresh in your mind!

That's the kiddie !!

I found a few things out about Multipanel adhesive. Firstly, the tubes don't have a very long shelf life, so make sure the ones you get are all in date. I had a couple of duff tubes that had gone hard the first time I bought some, which was a few years ago now. The stuff is solvent based, like gripfill, and I have a strong suspicion it really is gripfill re-branded, but I wasn't going to put that to the test. I found by accident that water-based grab adhesive doesn't bond to the rear of Multipanel at all, as I was using an offcut of the stuff to rest a gun with the Screwfix solvent-free No Nonsense stuff (which is fine for bonding wood to plasterboard etc). Inevitably some of the solvent-free stuff ended up on the offcut of Multipanel and it just fell off when it was set, which is a good indication that it'd be useless for sticking the stuff to a wall with. One problem with using the Multipanel adhesive that I've found is that you don't have much working time at all, especially in warm weather. The solvent starts to evaporate and the stuff starts to skin over within a few tens of seconds, so you really have to have everything ready to go, so you can fit the panels up as quickly as possible after applying the adhesive.

Thought that may be something as its next to a wiring centre... Immersion - find the immersion(s) on the tank and follow the wires back to the wall or a switch !

@Dreadnaught Yes that's the one

Very unlikely !! At worst the heads need replacing - thats a 2 minute job and does not need the valve bodies themselves removing. Time for a new sparky by the sounds of it....

I don't believe any sanding is needed. You may want to confirm whether a sealer/primer is recommended for whatever floor covering you plan to lay.

I had an ACL graft last December, 25 years after a skiing injury that finally caught up with me. The physio has been hard work and so I bought an Aircast ice pack system that wraps around the knee. It compresses and ices the joint and is incredibly good for reducing inflammation without needing drugs. It's not cheap, coming in at around £120 for the whole thing but it's worth it if you have a longer term need.

this one https://earth.nullschool.net/ is quite good as well

People underestimate the impact the wind has on vehicles, I think, even though the sight of high sided lorries on their sides just from high winds isn't that uncommon (had a big curtainsider deliver to me this afternoon, I was his last drop and the driver was not looking forward to his return to base with an empty truck). My first ever commercial flight, and my first ever detachment from the lab I was based at, was to RAF Saxa Vord, right at the Northern tip of Unst, in the Shetlands. The flights were fun, BEA Vickers Viscount from Heathrow to Aberdeen Dyce, another BEA Viscount from Dyce to Sumburgh, then a Loganair Islander up to Unst, landing on what looked at the time to be a brand new runway, constructed by the Royal Engineers (there was a plaque to that effect, but no buildings at all). It was January, so dark when we arrived mid-afternoon, settled into the mess at Saxa Vord then up to do some trials work on one of the radars inside the big "golf ball" on top of the hill the next day. It was a bit windy in the morning, driving up in a Land Rover, but neither of us were prepared for the trip back to the base at the end of the day. The wind had got up a bit, not strong by Shetland standards, but around the 50mph mark. There was a drill for leaving the dome and getting to the Land Rover (which was tied down to rings set into the hardstanding) which involved getting on your knees, tucking a fat rope under your armpit, grabbing it with both hands and when they slid the door open you all shuffled forward on your knees, hanging on to the rope to pull yourself forward, hand over hand. Upon reaching the Land Rover, two people (roped together) opened the rear door and we all piled in. As soon as there were half a dozen of us in the thing they untied the chains holding it down and we drove off down the hill, in the pitch dark, along a narrow lane, with the wind threatening to take the Landy off the hill on every bend. It's the only place I'd ever worked where there are no trees at all and the rain blows horizontally, and often. I have two memories of the place that stand out. The information board in the mess helpfully told us that the nearest railway station was Bergen, Norway, and when I went down to Haroldswick to send my Mother a postcard, I found that it was the most Northerly Post Office in the UK. The really nice lady in the Post Office guessed the postcard was to my mum, so asked me if I'd like a really clear franking stamp, then hand-franked it with a stamp saying that it was posted at the most Northerly Post Office. The hilarious thing was that I wasn't allowed to tell my Mother where I was going, (middle of the Cold War), so she was really shocked to receive it and had to get an atlas out to see where I was. The next postcard she got from me was a month later, when I was working at Akrotiri, in Cyprus, and again she had no idea I was going there. Funny old times back then, we really did think that nuclear Armageddon was coming any minute.

Indeed it is...the lantern light may have added to keep the height of the pyramid down, but yes, the possibilities are endless, not to mention that it can be carried out with minimal disruption to the house...assuming there is access. Well researched F

You could try Craigmile Joinery in Inverurie. This is the company that will be erecting my timberframe in 3 weeks. They also do roofing and k-rend.

Sorry bud we have done everything oursleves inc making the roof trusses so I don't know anybody who I can recommend.

....is how my brother in law accurately described the state of the build now when I Whatsapped him the picture below, taken yesterday afternoon. As you can see, MBC have been at their blitzkrieg style building speed again and this morning I arrived to find my roof all covered in membrane and battens, too, and MBC noticeable by their absence. Actually, it's the silence that you notice as much as anything. There were about 7 in the team over the weekend and when all the nailguns are going it does sound either like gunfire skirmishes or lots of firecrackers going off. Either way, they were true to form and really shifted. This is the view from down the lane and you can see the membrane and battens all in place. Personally, I think that this is an interesting photo because it shows how, despite being a large building, the view of it from the lane is much less prominent than one might expect, due to the angles of the gables and pitched roof. The part that looks like it's covered in tin foil is the garage. Here's a more distant view from down the lane, taken before the membrane went on. Of course, in order to get the roof on, all the posi-joists needed to be put in place and this was being done over the weekend. My neighbours work in construction and have been fascinated by the process of the MBC build, which is all very new to them. It's great having neighbours who view the construction with such enthusiasm because instead of complaining about noise and disturbance about the teams and working late/working weekends, etc. (remember Peter powerfloating the slab till 12.45 am?), they gush about how hard working they are and give me full update reports on what's happened in my absence. Lucky me! And thus, according to my local spy network, there were 9 team members working on Saturday and there were 7 on Sunday. No wonder I came back to an empty site today. I was away from the site on Friday, dropping hubby off at Luton airport at 6.30am and then on to have a brief bit of R&R with a girlfriend in Birmingham before heading back south. On Friday, my temporary staircase was delivered from Howdens and MBC added a couple of extra treads to the bottom to bring it up to the necessary height. For £120 + delivery (and VAT, if applicable), it's a very useful bit of timber to have. Most of the stud walls are up now; there are only 2 that need to be put up when MBC come back, both off the hallway and have been left out for the time being for logistics. This photo is looking from our bedroom into the en suite and through to the main guest bedroom. We had a lucky save on the stud walls, not in financial terms but layouts. The architect had specified that each of the bedrooms should have a partial stud wall just inside the door and centrally located, almost making a corridor as you walk into the room. We were really unconvinced by the idea at the time, but went along with it as it can be hard to accurately imagine these things before the building goes up. When I came to the site on Thursday, however, it was clear that they would have been awful for a couple of reasons. Firstly, having gone to a lot of effort and expense to have bigger rooms, these immediately sliced off 25% to 30% of the room and made you feel like you were being pushed up against the window which, by the time a large bed is in the room, is exactly what would happen. The second reason is that because of the really high vault in the main bedrooms, 4.7m, having a run of about 3 along the floor from the partial stud wall the the window meant the proportions were really off and looked terrible. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained, and these weren't put in and are now a nice load of scrap or surplus timber lying around. The matter of the stud walls does, however, emphasise the value of being on site most days as had I been absent, they would have been put up according to the plan and I'd have regretted it bitterly. There have been many instances like this where what seems like a small, or even trivial, decision or alteration at the time which is quick and easy to deal with because I'm there, could have developed into a big deal or expensive issue at a later time. Coming back to those vaulted ceilings, the ridge height is such that when the scaffolders came back to put the second lift on and make some adjustments earlier in the week, we needed to get a tower in for the guys to reach the top internally. If I can give one bit of advice to anyone starting out, scaffolding is EXPENSIVE!! I know that very little comes cheap when paying others to build a house, but don't underestimate the cost of scaffolding. By the time I'm done, mine will be just over £5k. It isn't the simplest of buildings to scaffold with the balconies and vaults, but even so, it's a significant cost. Once all the internal stuff was getting done, the roof was getting boarded. This is the main, west facing bedroom with half of its roof boarded. And then the same once it was all covered. Finally for this post, the balconies have been made ready for boarding and flat roofing. I have to go back to the architect in the morning to check on the fall of these and the direction of the run-off as it doesn't make sense to me right now. I need to refresh my memory as to what was discussed and answer a couple of queries PDQ as my flat roofing is now imminent. But that's another subject for another post.