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So for the larger ground floor room, we got a professional screeding company to come in. They were due to start Monday morning so I took the day off work. For some unknown reason, over the weekend both my wife and I had we had an uneasy feeling they weren't going to turn up, but there was no logical basis for that. By about 0930 I had a suspicion, and sent a text asking roughly what time they thought they would arrive. A few moments later the phone rings and its the owner apologising saying their forced screed mixer broke down on Friday and he'd gone down South for a second hand one but it didn't seem to be working properly when he got it back. He called again a bit later to say he'd found a solution and his guys would be there tomorrow (Tuesday). Cue me ringing work and offering to work on Saturday if I could take Tuesday off too. So, Tuesday and 0830 the guys turn up. I'm pottering about but notice a distinct lack of noise and by 1030 they tell me that they cannot get the mixer to run and away they go. So another day taken off work for nothing..... I'm back to work on the Wednesday but my wife was at home. She rang me to say that the team had turned up at 0715 (!) and had the machine working. By lunchtime they were done, and the result is excellent. When I got home I even texted the owner of the firm to say how pleased we are. Last night, (Friday) I discovered they'd dumped a barrowload excess mix on my topsoil pile out of sight of the house! Now in front of the future garage is a hole I need filled so if they;'d only asked instead of sneaking out of sight with it they could have actually done me a favour - instead I've now got to take a pickaxe to it and break it up then barrow it back to where it can actually serve a purpose. What a shame to let themselves down like that after doing a good job. So..... next objective is to finish the downstairs bathroom.

Finding I don't hate tiling now. It's all sort of coming together now. I'm not panicking for a start! Got half a system of cut a load first. Very little waste so far. Found out the hard way not to use bucket water from a previous mix to knock up fresh adhesive! Got away with it but a bit harder to work with.

Found the British Lead flashing fitting guide and thought it might be of interest to some here. https://www.britishlead.co.uk/basic-fitting-guides

I worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster but even He kneels at the feet of the LA planning officer.

Today, I had my site meeting with the line manager of the local wayleave officer for SSE, to further discuss the situation regarding high voltage wires oversailing my property, all of which I mentioned in a previous post. The meeting went well and AJ's line manager was as different as she could be from AJ and the whole thing was conducted in a civilised manner. The resolution is that OH and I will grant an easement to SSE for the wires to be allowed to pass over our property in perpetuity. In exchange for this, whatever work is necessary to make the wires safe will be carried out by SSE at their cost. The legal work will start almost straight away, and understandably so from SSE's position, as they want to be sure they aren't being messed around and I have no problem with this. I understand that the work may take some time if it does involve seeking planning permission and other administrative matters, but again, this is fine. This has been a very good outcome for what could have been a difficult matter. Happy days.

Follow up: The job was completed last week and @PeterW gets the prize for the best estimate of £600. The original offer was a rough hardcore plot drive assumed to be 20m long x 3m wide and the plot seller offered to include this for an extra £2000 in the sale price. I was temped but declined. The job I commissioned was for 150m2 of leveled hardcore standing including a shaped curved drive to road ramp, parking area outside the garage and preparation of the future internal patio 8m x 6.5m bounded on 3 sides by the l-shaped house and garage. The average scrape back of the topsoil was 125mm and the final make up of the finished drive next year will be 250mm, there was also a 5m x 4m shallow that needed extra filling. My digger man estimated 16 tons of big lumpy 4" clean for the dip plus 40 tons of 2" clean for the whole area. He negotiated with the aggregate supplier for this to be delivered in stages during the job so it would be dropped directly into the scraped area. Final bill was £825+VAT for 3 lorry loads of hardcore plus £450 for the digger + dumper time. A generous split of 50% of the job for the original basic drive gets very close to that £600 estimate. Muck-away was free because a local farmer wanted my top quality turfy topsoil.

What happened to "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's"?

Wacking the sub-base in 50mm layers will almost certainly place more side load on the blocks around the edge than pouring, vibrating, levelling and floating the concrete I reckon. I was surprised how much side load there was when just wacking two layers of MOT 1 for a path; I'd driven in stakes and fitted boards to contain the sub-base, but found they tended to push outwards a bit.

Grout or sealant as it will be hidden behind the plate and the plate mounting panel.

The statute you require is this : ELECTRICITY ACT 1989 creates the following Statutory Instrument by way of Sections 29,30 & 60 ELECTRICITY SAFETY, QUALITY AND CONTINUITY REGULATIONS 2002 Section 25 refers to the interference of any supplier equipment by someone not authorised by the supplier Section 35 then goes on to list the offences namely : persons not complying with the requirements of regulation 25 Connections to installations or other networks; Therefore if you tamper with any supplier equipment including any cabling, meters or connectors then you are committing an offence under this act. The Utilites Act 2000 can also then bring further private prosecution for interference with utility infrastructure.

Old bulk bags fit nicely over a brick or block pack. If you can find it, 2nd hand lorry siding is excellent as tarpaulin.

In the last blog entry I was putting down insulation and the UFH pipework in the smaller of the 2 main downstairs rooms. In the end I decided we would do the smaller (3.5m x 7.5m) sitting room ourselves. So with myself and daughter levelling, wife and friend mixing and super fit farmer friend on the wheelbarrow we mixed the requisite 4 tons of screed and ton of cement and laid it in a day. Fish and chip lunch provided of course to helpers! All in all we didn't to too bad a job. Not as smooth as the pros but more than sufficiently so, and I may just run a very thin layer of self levelling over, more to fill in little voids than anything.

Ikea taps have a 10 year guarantee. You need the receipt so maybe the landlord has it. Failing that it says here that spares are available at their stores. https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/doc/general-document/ikea-kitchen-taps-guarantee-pdf__1364308515798.pdf

You can be very cunning with the 28 day rule, too, as long as you have a group of at least thirteen, preferably 14, people. A small group of flying friends have provided themselves with an airfield, without needing planning permission, by using the 28 day rule. They clubbed together and bought a field, then divided it up into strips, and each member holds the title to one of the strips. They erected a couple of poly tunnel hangars, that are classed as temporary agricultural buildings, to keep their aircraft in. They keep a separate usage log book for each of their airstrips, to make sure that none of them is ever used for more than 28 days in any 12 month rolling period. The strips are used in sequence across the field, with the unused strips being used for rented out grazing (they just move an electric fence). You could, I'm sure, do the same with mobile homes, just move them from one pitch to another every 28 days. The key is to ensure that each pitch is in separate ownership - this trick does not work if one person owns the lot.

You may well be able to add a boost switch using a remote control switch. The Quinetic system (https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Wiring_Accessories_Menu_Index/Quinetic/index.html ) might be an option, all you'd need to add is a 230 VAC relay, driven by the receiver, so that you have dry contacts to switch the MVHR to boost. It'd mean switching the boost on and off, rather than having the timed function, but that's probably OK for a kitchen. The dimmer switches are slightly more convenient to use, as they are "click on, click off" when used with a normal receiver, whereas the ordinary switches can, apparently, "forget" whether they are on or off after a power cut and default to off, even if the switch is apparently on.

Looks like it's 156 for yours too, but it has an additional use as a trace heater power source which isn't mentioned in my manual. This is the section from my manual that shows pretty much the same selections:

Before we get into the events of the day, I have a little quiz question for readers of the blog. - What is the connection between my build in rural north Dorset and a mystical character from the legend of King Arthur? Answer at the end of today's entry. All will become clear. Today was another busy day on site, with 3 main areas of activity - flat roof, pitched roof and windows. Let's start with the windows, as they are (mostly) looking great. Both of the big lift and slide windows in the living room area are in now and quite a bit of the upstairs glazing is in as well. The flat roof guys changed their work order to get the membrane from the balconies and parapet gullies overlapped on the window thresholds so that the windows could be installed on top of them. This will allow the sarnafil membrane to then be folded up slightly against the window frame and give a shield against any water that tries to force its way in under the window frame. There's a bit of debris on top from the window fitting, but you can see how the membrane extends inside from the balcony. This is the west facing bedroom first thing this morning. And here is the west facing lift and slide window, looking west down towards the woods. Note the view of the woods, which are in a slight valley formed by the River Lydden. It is relevant for a later comment. Unfortunately, all didn't go to plan for the window installers today. The final window in the living room area faces south towards my neighbours' cottages and is a four pane fixed window. As the bracket was being screwed into the frame, this happened: The window installers looked very troubled by this, not surpringly. It's the inner pane of glass that has shattered and you can see that it radiates out from an obvious stress point. Stepping aside from the obvious downside of this, the very small amount of my brain devoted to aesthetics allows me to think that in a strange kind of way, it looks rather fetching. Then the far greater logical part of my brain tells the aesthetic side to get a grip as we have a broken window. So, what happened next, I hear you ask. Well, the window was put in situ and fitted along with the other 3 panels and Norrsken have ordered up a replacement pane and internal bead. They are, however, up against the clock on this one, as it can take several weeks for the replacement to arrive and MBC are now due back on 5th November, by which time all my windows must be fully installed and as they need to be in order for the air test to be carried out. Tick, tick, tick. Breakages aside, I'm delighted with the windows. I know that it's possible to go to the ends of the earth in research and expense to seek ever thinner frames and other features and that my windows are certainly not the most minimalist products out there. However, given the expanse of glass compared to the width of the frames, bearing in mind that plasterboard will reduce the visual appearance of these in due course, I think that the frame:glass ratio is more than pleasing enough for me. Also, the profile is very flat, both inside and out, and combined with the washed wood interior finish, I am content. Tomorrow will be very interesting as the installation team have quite the challenge ahead of them when they fit the floor to upper ceiling window that is in front of the stairwell. It's one heck of a piece of glazing, so I think we shall all be holding our breath then. Moving out of the building and up to the roof areas, both roofing teams have worked their socks off today. It was hot work as today's weather was warm/hot, sunny and lovely. Let's start with the flat roof guys, who have been very busy with their protractors getting all the framework in place to make the capping that sits on top of the parapet, ready to receive the membrane that will wrap over it. you may recall that due to the MBC construction methods, I have a cold roof. This means that it needs to be ventilated, and this can be a little tricky when you need to have a membrane on the flat roof and it needs to go over a parapet. Fortunately, I visited the build of @Weebles a little while back now and they had exactly this set up, so being the diligent researcher I am, I did nothing more after that and just shamelessly stole their idea. And their flat roof people. Why re-invent the wheel? From the firring pieces and OSB that I pictured on yesterday's blog entry, more of the membrane went down over the main part of the stairwell roof: The flat roof guys had to put in the upstand that goes up onto the pitch and they've been measuring and sawing as much as they have putting down membrane today. Here's the framework they made ready for OSB to go on top and form the cap over the parapet: As well as forming the cap over the parapet, this area also needs a drain for all the water that will come down from the pitched roof, and this is a hole drilled through the parapet and a drain liner inserted through, then the inside will be coated and sealed with the membrane. Prior to putting the membrane on, the OSB is rollered with a contact adhesive (red), then the membrane is heated to activate the glue. This is where they are bringing in the membrane from the parapet gully to run under the window frame, working ahead of the window installers. In their current allocation of time, I have the flat roof guys for one more day, so I'm not sure how much more we will get done, perhaps the remaining balcony, which would be good, as the balustrades are going in next week. And so onto the pitched roof. The pitched roof team were badly delayed yesterday as the tiles that were coming from Bradfords in Yeovil were supposed to have been on a morning delivery but didn't arrive until 3pm. They made a good start yesterday but have gone at an amazing pace today. They've done all they can on the east/south faces for now, pending the PV installation. This picture was taken just after 2pm and you can see that this side of the roof is still getting a good amount of sun, and had been since sunrise. At the same time as that pitch being tiled, the guys were also working on the long north face of the roof, leaving gaps for both the velux and the MVHR penetrations. This is early afternoon: And by the end of this afternoon, they had got this far: That's about it on the roofing today, but the scaffolding is also being used as a storage area. As the telehandler was on site yesterday, as much heavy stuff as possibly was lifted close to its final position yesterday, and the solar panels are stacked up there now. My panels are black on black (not quite the title of the AC/DC track) and from LG. As these things go, I think they're a nice looking piece of kit: And so now to the question I posed at the start of today's entry. There are a few mystical characters in the legend of King Arthur, but the one I have in mind is the wizard, Merlin. I hope you're enjoying the blog, guys, and wasn't it a lovely day for buzzing a self build in north Dorset?! Let me explain to, by now, confused buildhubbers. I've mentioned that there seems to be a definite airborne interest in my build, mainly stemming from RNAS Yeovilton and up until this week, it was predominantly the Navy Lynx helicopters. I got an upgrade this week and having nearly peed my pants with a very low buzz from a Hercules yesterday, we had an interesting buzz from a Navy Merlin helicopter this afternoon. I need to give this a bit of context, though. The Merlin is a big bugger with its three engines and gives out a very distinct bass thud that doesn't quite make your liver tremble in the way that a chinook does, but it's not lacking in long wave frequencies. So let me take you back to the view that I asked you to make note of earlier, looking west over the field and down towards Bagber Wood. I couldn't hear Ride of the Valkyrie, but there was undoubtedly a whiff of Apocalypse Now as I heard the distant but increasingly loud thud of a helicopter from the direction of the wood, before it rose up from the dip of the valley, over the wood and well and truly buzzed us, flying low and slow over the house. Nice to see you guys, keep up the good work, but honestly, you'll get a better view from the ground. Victor Zulu signing off until tomorrow.

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

Hmmmmm, had mine for two. The eyelets have ripped out along one side and deformed on the other. ?