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I had 212m2 @ 350mm thick and 74m2 @ 250mm thick of Icynene which cost £9950. The 74m2 @ 250mm thick was in the ground floor ceiling. This works out at £107/m3 which is a little less than bissoejosh at £110/m3 but in the same ballpark. The installers had never sprayed a thickness greater than 100mm before so it took them a while to adjust. There was a lot of excess foam which I removed and disposed of. Icynene and the external 15mm OSB3 racking were the only airtightness layer used and we had an air test result of 0.47ACH. The effects of decrement delay and whether it is is important in a build requires a lot of thought. It is very difficult to model decrement delay and the effects of heavy shading by trees, windy weather, micro-climate or the construction of the build with vented air gaps in the structure will all have an effect. We did consider blown cellulose along with other types of insulation but weren't confident all the problems with sagging had been addressed.

There are supposed to be labels on damned near everything now, so why the electrician who wired it didn't label it I don't know. There's also supposed to be a description or diagram of the whole installation somewhere by the consumer unit, although that's a rule that's more often than not ignored. I spent ages going around labeling stuff, so every switch and box has a label on letting anyone who looks at it know what it does. It should be standard practice, especially as labeling machines are pretty cheap and it's a lot easier to label stuff as you go, rather than do it all at the end when you may well have forgotten what some of the things do, or connect to.

Rear tile went on first. Then chrome trims ( cut slowly in the chopsaw between two pieces of sacrificial PAR timber to minimise F.O.D. ). Then the left and right tiles. Leave to set. Then the base tile. Leave to set. Then the head. All tiles colour matched siliconed into place so when I pushed them home the excess silicone squeezed out of the trims / mitres / and gaps between tiles and trims. It gets everywhere but the baby wipes clean up in minutes.

No painting fences or waxing cars just straight in with the crane kick.

Thanks @Michael P and @Nickfromwales it reminded me we had missing bits. There was a little plastic bag tied to each manifold with bits to be fitted on site (manifolds come ready assembled). Sometime between heating being put on and installer coming back to finish everything the little plastic bags of bits dissappeared....best guess is labourer binned them. Installer was going to ask supplier for repacements but I guess forgot, I have emailed supplier today to ask and hopefully when installer comes back to sort the MVHR he can fit them. After all the testing etc of ufh I feel I have some understanding of the system now....only basic but hugely better than before. I am waiting for the electrician to come, he is adamant that the switch he told me is immersion is the immersion I am just as adamant that if I swith it off the UFH stops working, it clearly powers the motorised valves. He also told me that timer that @PeterW identified for me as immersion timer is a timer for a pump for hot water to the taps and is nothing to do with him plumber should have set it up! I have told him manufacturers website clearly identifies it as immersion timer....beggars belief really why would anyone have a timed pump on their taps, do you only want taps to work between certain hours! In desperation I went to the fuse board flipped the trip for the immersion so it is off (for the first time since installation I now beleive) and then put the switch he reckons was immersion on and off. If it was immersion it would have made no difference as off at board but as we have worked out it runs the motorised valves and sure enough the heating goes off when that switch is off. Have told him all this in an email and asked him to come and identify his switches (nothing is marked) and locate the immersion switch correctly. No response as yet. I feel so grateful to all you lovely people on here for all the help so freely given, without this I would still be going round in circles with misinformation and condescension from the installers ...I can almost hear the ‘stupid woman ignore her’ comments from here. I am armed with the the right info now so they better look out and get it sorted.

Well this all looks like it could come together i would be happy to purchase them first, and use them around November time, @willbish comes over to Cirencester to have a look at them in use, I finish up and will comes over to collect them, he then uses them in December ,January and packs them up to send on to @Alexphd1 i love it when a plan comes together doing some rough figures in my head I think we could all save a grand on the hire costs.

Don't mention the black mountains, it will get him excited!!!

OK I'll openly admit this is the second attempt at this tile! First one was about 2.5mm too low. 35mm cheapo cutter cuts clean as a whistle. The chrome fitting ends up anyway 10mm off centre laterally just due to the way I've laid the tiles. Oddly that doesn't overly bother me.

Come out of the corner. You got this, and things are falling into place. No one can have felt more of an idiot than me with my system so you don’t have possession of the stupid badge cos I’ve still got it ?

There is a specialist UK firm where one of the surveyors has written a book on the murky topic of electricity wayleaves. I got a second hand copy for a quid (I have a couple of poles on my land which I want moved) and it's very informative. It's also an excellent cure for insomnia. Search for "Charles Hamer Wayleaves" and you'll find it.

I would not have been so patient. I would have served notice to quit under the existing voluntary agreement. They might have been more willing to enter a sensible dialogue.

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.

Another thinking ahead type post, this time on lighting. As I previously mentioned, I've been trying to firm up on the switches, sockets and all of that kind of thing that I will need to put in but wasn't making much progress. Thinking on it further, though, I believe that my slowness was coming from the fact that I haven't decided on my lighting scheme and other electrickery, so I wouldn't be able to define exactly what I want to switch on and off. As a result, I'm now putting some effort into being specific in what I want from my lights and I dropped into a local LED lighting place that also offers lighting schemes to see how they could enhance what I already had. I must say, I was rather disappointed. I talked through my thoughts functional versus decorative lighting, fun lighting and the styles I like and the guy said that he couldn't really add much to it and it was largely a case of choosing the fittings I wanted. I was a bit deflated, really, as I'm not a shopping kind of girl but I thought that this might be interesting, but hey ho, no great loss other than 20 minutes of time. As a reminder, here's the plan of our ground floor: 1120 - 103DIMS - Bagber Farm Cottage - PROPOSED GROUND FLOOR.PDF The floor to ceiling height is a little higher than standard at 2.7m to ensure that the room doesn't feel oppressive, particularly in the living area. Let's start with the kitchen. Functional lighting - over the island (where the hob is located) and over the rear kitchen wall, where the sink and further work surface areas are. This will simply be LED downlighters. Decorative/functional lighting - over the island, particularly the breakfast bar end, nearest to the utility room. I want to have a pendant light here, picture below. Decorative lighting - I want to have LED strips along the island and base unit plinths, with diffusers as I don't like to see the individual LEDs. Purely personal choice. Also, I want to have uplighters above the kitchen wall units as these make a big visual difference in opening out the dark recesses of the kitchen that can otherwise look gloomy. I'm considering a dropped false panel over the island. I'm having a downdraught extractor and so don't need it for that, but I think it will look good with the lights in it and subtly separate the kitchen area from the dining and living area without having a full vertical barrier between the two. I have had some of these on order from China for a few months now. Unfortunately, the first lot failed to arrive so they have been re-sent and should be here in the next couple of weeks (if not, a full refund is given). I'm going to put them over the breakfast bar area and wherever we decide is the most appropriate place for the dining table. The image isn't great as the darkest units are black, not brown as they appear. I ordered the first lot from DHGate, which hasn't been a great experience, as the user interface isn't up to much. Aliexpress is much better, in my opinion, but I shall wait and see what arrives. I haven't decided on the lighting for the living area yet. My thoughts so far are that it's going to be wall lights and lamps and maybe a few recessed downlighters in the ceiling, centrally located over the main seating area. It's hard to decide before knowing what furniture will go into that part of the room. In the meantime, the hallway will also be wall lights and LED downlighters. What I'm aiming for everywhere is at least 2 different levels of light. The LED downlighters for when you really do need a bright light, but softer indirect lighting for other times, from wall lights or lamps. I'm lighting the stairway with some recessed stair LEDs that I saw in the lighting shop at £35 each. Eek! I'm way too tight to pay that. I got these for the princely sum of $7 each on aliexpress, which is about £5.50, depending on the exchange rate. Much more to my taste. As was suggested elsewhere, I've ordered more of these than I need in case the LEDs can't be replaced and I need to substitute a whole unit if the LED fails - hardly expensive at that price. I've ordered the rectangular ones. I've known for a while how I want to do the downstairs loo - thanks, Pinterest! I really wanted the one where it looks like the loo is floating on a pier heading out to a lake, but hubby vetoed that, so here's the one we will have. Again, I like the soft, diffused light effect. It will have a PIR for the on/off as I really hate pull cords. Nasty things. Finally, the bedrooms have got some wildly high vaults going on (nearly 4.7m at the highest) so, any excuse for a fancy light, I've chosen these, again on order from Aliexpress: For information, as I know you'll be wondering, my total order with Aliexpress is for 15 of the recessed stair lights, 1 of the multi-head pendant and 2 of the branch LED pendants, which came to $616, so probably about £480 by the time I'm done. Delivery was free, except for about 30 cents on the stair lights. Finally, I made a slight internal design change today, concerning some partial stud walls in the bedrooms. I have only been able to make a true judgement on these now that the roof is being formed, but I'll put more details on that in a later post. UPDATE, 24/9/18: More to follow, but I've received the first part of my delivery. This is one of the firefly lights, immediately above, and all the recessed stair downlighters. Pending my payment of the customs charges and duty, the remaining pendant lights will be delivered on Wednesay. Cue drumroll........the customs clearance fee is £11.25 and the import VAT is.......£16.09. All told, £27.34 of fees and VAT to pay, so I'm pretty chuffed at that. The dowlighters look perfectly adequate and the pendant looks okay, too. Very well packaged. More to follow when I've got all the lights in my possession. With photos, of course!

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.

Hi there all, due to the death of my dear Dad we needed to support Mum, and so built her a wood passive-principles place in 2016. I oversaw the build. The main chalet bungalow (that I grew up in) is where we've been living for 2 years, alongside Mum in the garden. Its proved too poor in construction to remedy it, so that decision has been to rebuild. 3 years in the preparation, we're hoping to demolish in April. We're looking at an economical build using Heluz blocks to ensure a passive- build. The economy of these will hopefully offset the huge cost of excavating and piling the sloping site to enable us to add a lower ground level, turning it to a house without looking different in the road. The pre-app has gone through smoothly, now to face the reality of living in a trailer tent, and funding the project. Specifically I'm looking at Kingspan Standing Seam roof and MVHR unit again. Looking forward to reading all your plans and thoughts! Chantal

We didn't ask where the materials came from ...

Make friends with the Coddy or the forklift driver. Think you will find materials rather cheap! labour only might be the way forward for the quotes

Bet you can almost taste the Diamond White!

It's slightly longer than EPS, and a fair bit shorter than blown cellulose. However, it depends very much on what the outer skin of the house is made from. If the outer skin is brick, block or stone, then that will substantially increase the overall decrement delay. It's also a bit site-specific. Our location is such that the house gets sun from sunrise to sunset, so decrement delay has a potentially big impact. It was one reason we opted to use pumped cellulose. If we'd had a stone outer skin than I'd not have been so concerned, and may well have opted for something like PIR insulation.

Not as far as Scotland

That reminds me - I still have the one borrowed from work in my plant room .

My Dymo senses are itching at the moment with the lack of labeling .....

I don’t think you were here when my nightmare heating thread started. Mine got signed off without any labelling, instructions and without anyone checking it. Most of it didn’t work and the UFH in the extension wasn’t even connected up until @Nickfromwales and @PeterW came up to fix it.

As an example, this is our heating and hot water control box, with labels on every relay and LEDs on them so anyone can see at a glance what's on and what's off. Under the centre blanking strip there are three connections from the thermostats, so when the lid's off anyone can see which connection goes where:

If it make you feel better go and have a read through my thread. That one makes your system seem like a walk in the park. I don't think there was a single thing right with it!!

No need to feel stupid, my system isn't labelled and I would be totally guessing what a lot of things are.

They're a clay block very similar to Porotherm. All new Lidl stores are built that way.

Is it a funny camera angle, or has that wiring centre under the mystery switch had the expansion vessel placed so close you can't get the lid off? Was going to say to whip the lid off WITH THE MAINS OFF and post a pic.

Chaps- this piddly 3cm H splashback upvc trim Im glueing on.. shall I leave a gap below to the worktop, fill after with white silicone.. or meet it to the worktop, then add a bead along after? seems a v.important bit this/ fallible area for water ingress. best do it spot-on. Done the last pB last ev/ all electrics (47mm backboxes.. ripped out old ones, ply shims in/ tapped to get my outline on pB, shims undone/ new deeper boxes set in.. & frontplates flush-mounted with longer screws). Soudalled gaps. Just strip of pB along btm & skirting can go over. Splashback & sills doing this wknd. Thanks zoot

Hi Nick. Do you mean mitre bond the corners of the tile trim to get them set perfectly and then use adhesive to hold them in place behind the tile? Edit. Should have read to the end of the thread first. It looks like you basically do away with the grout lines around the tile trims?

For Icynene I was quoted £33m2 @ 300mm for an I-Beam roof. For comparison our best Warmcell quote was £23m2 @ 300mm thickness.

Same here! Like you only a basic understanding but at least I understand enough to know how to operate it and what most of the parts are. I was completely clueless before. Mind you it appears that most of the plumbers I had here were clueless too ?

@Moira Niedzwiecka mine have been included in my claim. I hope they will be accepted. Will let you know.

Watch the film "Karate Kid" 1 & 2 and be ready to attack. ?

Knowledge is power!

i think it depends on how vapour open the outer layers of the build up are. If they allow the wall/roof to dry out easily then polythene on the inside is fine. If they put up a bit more resistance to water vapour then you need to be able to also dry out inwards into the house. My roof build up as specified for the building warrant: Perihelion Roof Buildup.pdf

And what's the decrement delay of spray foam in comparison with EPS or blown cellulose? A useful question @Russell griffiths?

Do not forget that there may be materials left over that they will give you if you take them away. That could happen on one part of the estate before they build another bit, since the materials may arrive as a "house kit". A newbuild Aldi near here gave away 7 pallets of facing bricks last month, due t the cost of landfill or removal.

Why you even paying for this work, I have cables oversailing my site and the DNO installed taller poles free of charge to me.

What about spraying the insulation in like @PeterStarck did with his.

EPS won’t give you the uValue as well as PIR and it doesn’t tape well. PIR provides the vapour membrane too if it’s taped on all the joints. It’s also half the thickness for the same insulation value

I can't add anything to @Ed Davies description, it sums up perfectly what's needed. Pity some of the mass produced house builders can't get their heads around what is, in essence, a pretty straightforward thing to get right. I'm particularly concerned by some of the SIPs builds, where I fear we're going to see a repeat of the Barratt fiasco with their first foray into timber frame and a failure to understand interstitial condensation that caused so many early (1970s/early 80s) homes to have problems.

Look at the difference in roof felts. The old tar black stuff any moisture getting that far condensed and dripped onto whatever was below. The new felt will let that moisture through. That's your breathable membrane. The below link will explain the intelligent membrane better than I will. http://www.greenspec.co.uk/building-design/airtightness-membranes/

They're two different functions which may or may not be combined in a single layer. The vapour control layer goes on the warm side (inside in the UK) to prevent water vapour getting into the wall/floor/roof and condensing there which would make them go black and slimy. There's really a need for two airtight layers. Firstly you need some sort of barrier on the outside (the wind-tight layer) to stop the wind blowing into the insulation and carrying heat away. It should be decent but doesn't need to be completely airtight. Also, for more modern builds you need a properly airtight layer somewhere in the build-up to prevent warm air in the house being lost through draughts. Also, you need some sort of layer on the outside to prevent liquid water which gets past the outer rainscreen or condenses on the back of it from getting into the structure. Typically for timber frame you have a “breathable” membrane on the outside which serves to prevent liquid water getting in but allows water vapour out and also serves as a windtight layer. Then there's a layer on or near the inside which provides airtightness and the vapour barrier. Intelligent membranes go on the inside and are supposed to stop water vapour from the house getting into the wall/roof while, somehow, allowing any water which does get into the wall/roof to evaporate out into the house as water vapour. I don't know any more about them. Anybody?

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.

Having moved into a new build in the past we found that we were able to get the guys on site to do extra stuff like fencing and laying a patio. We went up there just before we moved in and spoke to some of the guys on the site. They used a digger to sort the patio out. Maybe the guys on your site would do the same? It definitely wasn’t arranged through the developer but we subbed their subs, and they came one weekend and did it. You might not get the whole extension done that way but even the prep for the foundations would be a help.

In the words of Will Smith I decided to get jiggy with it. Anything to put of more tiling. WTF did I pick the most visible, awkward corner when I've never tiled a wall in my life? Main bits o/of scrap MDF plus some softwood edging, not sure how long that'll last! 40 & 65mm diamond grit hole saws from eBay. Was going to varnish it but me and my impulsive side... Tile dropped into the holder, jig plate dropped in. I can add holes to this piece for the hose outlet, basin feeds etc or just cut another MDF "tile": One of the smaller ones: For the 65mm dia one found it easier to fill the hole with water rather than pi$$ about trying to squirt it in: Jig plate removed: A quick rinse: The backside: I can do these to order, might take a while : I'll get away with this I reckon. @ProDave, I need to drill more holes in this tile don't I, between the big and small ones? Has anyone seen my cheapo Parkside set of diamond grit edged hole saws? Need a smaller size for the hose outlet!

The timber frame will be substantially built by the middle of next week and I'm thinking through and organising the next stages, so this post is to help crystallise my thoughts and offer them out for anything I have missed that is time-critical. MBC will be working over the weekend and the build will be substantially finished around Tuesday or Wednesday. They are going to leave out a few of the stud walls, the ones that form the walls of the landing, until they return to do the air test, simply because it makes moving around up there much easier. Once the air test is done, they'll put the stud walls in place and blow in the cellulose. I've got a couple of site visits from roofers over the next few days; it's crucial that I get the eaves courses done before the PV installation as it can't happen without them and they are really tight on time slots at the moment. The PV is due on the 26th/27th September, immediately after the glazing which goes in on the 24th/25th. Now that I have a house-shaped object, I have requested a site visit from the glazing installation manager to make sure that I'm clear on everything they need to do their thing. He's coming out next week, so that gives me time to get any alterations to the scaffolding scheduled, as it will be impossible to get them out on the day if there are any problems and I'll miss my installation time slot, which will put everything else back. Running in parallel with this is the garage flat roof and quite a few fiddly bits on the build that need tending to as soon as possible. The garage roof needs its GRP on because it won't be watertight until this happens. Also, there is a flat roof section over the stairwell, next to the main pitched section and it would be good to get this done whilst all the scaffolding is up to that height. Other flat roof sections are the balconies, and then the gutter runs behind the parapets will need lining with GRP or something similar, but I need to look more closely at that. On the subject of balconies, I need to get my balustrades sorted. I haven't started getting quotes yet or even gone beyond sourcing a couple of suppliers. I don't know what the lead times are for these things, but I'm working on them being more than a couple of weeks. Likewise, I need to get quite a bit of aluminium fabrication done for the EPS upstand and to cap the parapets at the top of the ground floor, pretty much all the way around. If anyone has any suggestions for anything other than aluminium, I'm all ears! I currently think that aluminium is a good option as it can be powder coated to the same RAL colour as my window frames and should all blend in nicely, as well as being formed to the exact measurements needed. At some point, I need to get my guttering and downpipes sourced and attached, but the downpipes won't go into final positions until the cladding is on. Again, running in parallel to this lot, I'm thinking about when it's best to get my groundworker back in to dig out the drainage runs, amongst other things. I'm thinking some time around the first weeks of October, mainly because I have to get a trench dug for the service alteration and burial of the electricity cable, which has been booked for 17th October. Other things that need to be dug out for are the sewage treatment plant, the land drain for the output of the plant, the rainwater storage tank, the trenches for the rainwater run-off into the tank, trenches for a brine loop in the field and finally a socking great pond in the field that may then fill up over the winter. I daresay that this isn't a comprehensive list of holes to be dug, but it will do for that couple of weeks. Moving to things to do inside, most of it will happen after the air tightness test, which will happen after the glazing and all doors are in, but also after the inlet and outlet for the MVHR have been put through the roof and sealed. This will also need to be done before the bulk of the roof is tiled. After the air test has been completed, MBC will then blow the cellulose into the frame and re-seal the holes they put in to add the cellulose, and then first fix can start in earnest. I've made a bit of a stab at the lighting, switches and sockets plan but I'm still pondering a few things on that (like, I don't know half of what's out there and what I might like) so I need to get my act together in order to be ready for first fix. So, all of that lot should see me through to the first fix work which is in hand and I can go on to contemplate the joys of sanitaryware and generally making the place look like a habitable house rather than a house-shaped object. One thing is certain - it's going to be a very, very busy time from the end of September onwards so the more I can get planned out now, the better.

There is this post that might be useful