Leaderboard

I thought this might be useful for people looking for fitted wardrobes. Most of our bedrooms have wardrobes with the same doors as the our room doors, but our bedroom had a dressing room that needed fitted furniture. I see this all the time in various show homes but didn't know where to buy it. As we struggled to find it we did get quotes from a couple of people - Sharp's and someone the builder knew. These were roughly £11,000 and £10,000. I just wasn't prepared to pay this, basically it is 4 double wardrobes, 2 singles and 2 chests of drawers (I changed it to 3 when I built it). No way was I paying over £1000 per item, it is ridiculous. Anyway I had found two companies on line that allow you to order fitted furniture cut to size. I was a bit concerned about using these as I wasn't sure about the quality and particularly I was worried about getting the measurements wrong. In the end I just decided to get on with it and the builder's joiners fitted them. They look great and they cost around £6000 compared to the £10000+ quotes I had, still not cheap but a lot more reasonable. That's about £4500 for the cabinetry and then the fitting, I could have done most of it myself but simply don't have time. The company I used was https://www.diyhomefit.co.uk The other one I found was https://www.larkandlarks.co.uk The second would have been a little cheaper but I just felt better about the first and they were a little more flexible. They also had 2400mm tall wardrobes that I thought would fill the space better. It is very heavy, the drawers and wardrobe backs are all 18mm board. The handles still have to be fitted and I decided to get some kind of granite top to finish it off nicely.

@newhome The tap seemed enormous without any stuff near it!! just hated it. Now I love it! haha. Mods- I'll pop a few pics up quick [these] then delete..

Update (paid work sudden influx/ hence delay to posts apologies.. not done a huge lot since either!) Good suggestions chaps- went with the board idea up quick after tiles whacked on underside.. seemed the way: so tiled the trickier kitchen side.

The only bit you’ve missed is the part where you wake up a 2am, do half an hours research on Buildhub, then go back to bed to dream a bit more about valves!

We've got one wardrobe with a sloping ceiling, and we've had trouble finding a solution to hanging clothes in there until we saw this https://zebedee.co Looks like a great solution. Just thought others on here might find it interesting.

Well We finally have the plant room up and running Just a couple of things I would do differently I mixed up the motorised valves and eventually realised that the UFH only came on with the upstairs rads I supposed working when tired in semi darkness contributed The second was I really should have tiled the floor first Instead of having to cut around the tank It would have taken me an hour to put four rows of tiles down prior to the tank going in Oh and one small leak in the cieling above A T junction had failed I’d had it under 3 bar pressure for weeks prior to plastering Only warped when the heating was running for several days Everything happing now I’ve done most of the skirting and Arks and I’m half way through the doors and wardrobes I will start fitting my Nolte kitchen in two weeks and I’ve a friend coming to help me fit the stairs at the end of October

Yep that's the way I feel about wholesalers and avoid for that reason. BES, screwey's, Toolstation, CPC, Shop4Electrical, TLC direct etc provide most of my needs in a much more predictable and timely fashion.

Seriously go to the start of this thread and see how much you where all over place trying to figure out basic stuff and then look at that pic. Leaps and bounds. Well done for sticking at it.

I've been sticking at it for about 27 years now...

Few repairs and plenty of tanking and I rekon it will be ok.

Leave em up! Can't you tell we're all impressed?

Ah thanks guys.. I recently had two cover shots too for Guitarist (I make for the best ampmaker, may well be in Europe- Rift, as well as other makers): 2 more Mods then I'll whip 'em off.. back to proper building-!

I still have an old (as in late 1960s) Vox AC30, and it still works! I reckon you've done a bloody marvellous job, and this thread is a brilliant inspiration for others.

That smaller waste halfway along the wall is from the bath. Will check that too.

This bit - if the downpipe is spraying water all around when it is in full flow, could it not be getting in here?

I have been dealing with similar issues on the property I am currently renovating. If it was mine I would do all the things you say above, plus maybe look at the leadwork between the extension and the wall as it looks to me as if there is a gap there. An overflowing cistern will dump thousands of litres where it shouldn't be if left untreated for a long time. It may dry out a fair bit now you have sorted that. Can you run a dehum inside to dry it out a bit and see if your remedial work does the trick? ETA - also is the soil pipe leaking? It looks from the wall staining as though it might be.

I looked at these for a project and BCO wanted 250l per person space - so for a 2 bed he wanted 750 litres, 3 bed 1000 litres etc. If you want some good advice, try these guys who I have used before and are very good and will give you advice on what to buy. MPC Services

FWIW, I once lifted the lid and pulled the pump up on our system in Scotland, just out of curiosity, so I could see what was in there and how easy it would be to fix if it went wrong. The pump was hanging on a chain, with a length of flexible hose that was around 2" in diameter connecting it to the outlet via a bayonet connector with two levers to disconnect it. It looked easy enough to change, just a matter of turning the power off, disconnecting and lifting the pump out, opening the watertight cable connector and disconnecting the cable, then doing the reverse to drop a new pump in. We never had any problems with blockages at all, although we did take care to treat it just like a septic tank, and not put anything down the drains that wouldn't break up or dissolve.

Regardless of the pump set up / capability I would try and avoid putting anything down the toilet that is not human waste or toilet paper. Sanitary products, baby wipes, contraceptives etc do not break down and will not do your treatment plant any good at all.

I fitted one with a 3" pump to avoid issues with solids. The tanks are fairly cheap so bigger is better, but make sure you backfill with concrete. Our neighbours have a dual pump system and they often have breakdowns, whereas a single pump is far simpler, but also bad news if it fails. If in the event of a failure you could pump to a nearby drain with the replacement pump you would save a load in call out charges.

Depends on the usage, but my inclination would be to try and over-size the tank, or keep a spare pump that can be swapped over quickly. The tank size really depends on how long you want the system to collect waste in the event of a pump failure. Two people probably generate around 300 to 400 litres per day of waste water, I think, so if you think you'd be able to swap the pump over within 24 hours if one failed, then you could probably get away with a tank of around this capacity. The other advantage of a larger tank is that the pump wouldn't turn on and off as frequently, as they operate with a float switch. a larger tank will take longer to fill to the point where the float switch turns the pump on, so in theory the pump should last longer, as it's probably stops and starts that cause the most wear.

Just fit a pump station, like these: https://www.jtpumps.co.uk/packaged-sewage-pumping-stations-2-c.asp We had one at our house in Scotland, to pump our sewage up to the main sewer in the lane above the house. Worked faultlessly for the five years we lived there.

Looks like it was designed by Escher!

Don't worry too much about thermosyphon; I was just using it as an example of not using electricity. It's not something any real person I know of plans to do.

My (recent) experience of three of the big names in UFH is a complete lack of understanding of anything outside of min regs properties and anything that is not in their current design set. Most have very little understanding of heat load for a whole house, it’s “about the walls and windows”; low temperature flow is “wrong as the house will never reach temperature”; multiple zones “are the future”; and “no-one wants basic controls, they all want apps”.... Everything quoted above is from direct quote requests from a set of plans, wall specs and requirements given for a reasonably well insulated and airtight new build of 82sqm downstairs and 61sqm upstairs. To give an example of pricing of materials only, they range from £2.9k to £4.7k with the most expensive one including £1,400 of controls alone in the price... and they wonder why people go elsewhere ..??

I can't see any means by which the electrical control box on ours can do anything other than enable or disable power to the heating element. There is nothing else that is controllable in the unit itself; ours just has a heating element in the base that's connected to a 3 core power cable, plus a string of temperature sensors fitted vertically into a pocket in the cell to sense the bottom, centre and top cell temperatures. I can confirm that the older Sunamp PV we had worked, in terms of heating hot water on demand, with the power supply to the unit turned off. That suggests that no electrical input is required for the cell to work, in either direction, it just needs control of the charge temperature so as to not cause problems with overheating the PCM.

Thinking outside the box, have you looked at a towable diesel compressor, like the ones used for a jack hammer, these can be picked up relatively cheaply,

Good all I just thought I would write out a Quik post that may help some of the newbies Im just about to set off to site I’ve been up since 5am doing the build spreadsheet Looking back over the last Almost two years There has been parts of the build that have run over Somtimes due to price hikes Useally my over optimistic estimating But looking back through the spreadsheets there are areas were you will pull some if not all of these costs back All be it further down the line Though they are a real body blow at the time For instance we agreed at the beginning there would be no compromise on the kitchen Even with fitting it myself rather quotes were mind blowing But after twelve months of looking My wife has found the kitchen of her dreams for 10k less than the absolute bottom line that we were being quoted for On the day we went to pay the deposit I noticed there was no instant hot water tap included Exstra £1000 My wife got up and said there is no way I’m paying a 1000 for a tap Quik as a flash the salesmen said we will chuck in Quooker tap Free of charge and I bet they are still making plenty So all is not lost when things run over or fall behind

I had a little column at the bottom that was titled Florida fund. Each change I made in any other section above had an immediate effect on this so I was able to see how good we where really doing. It was also a great driver in pushing me on when things hit the fan in that not only was I going to end up with a house that I was also getting a once in a life time holiday out of it as well. At the end on the build we had saved enough to be able to do 3 weeks in Orlando seeing everything that we wanted and more. The only problem is Orlando ain't a once in a lifetime visit. We went this April for 2 weeks and hopefully will go again next Halloween.

Hence the smallest gap possible. You really need to be grouting that joint, as I do for eg, by ramming the side loaded grout float against that gap and forcing the ground in and under / behind as much as possible. Thats where water will be sitting and actively seeking to get behind the tiles, so not a good idea IMO to be just relying on the silicone / other to seal there. My practice is to use the grout, then to scrape back the gout with a plastic item that has a perfect 90o corner on it so zero grout is proud, and rely on that as the main water barrier. The coloured silicone then goes atop as the primary water 'deflector' and that can then be easily and quickly removed and re-applied when it gets tired and grotty. If the silicone is under the tiles and in the grout lines / gaps then good luck getting that out afterwards. @Onoff I think you'd be better off there doing the grout and scraping back as per the above and leave it to dry. Clean off any residue etc and get it spotless, and then apply a thin bead of grey silicone to best match the tile. Not grey CT1 btw. Treat that as a 5 year solution where it may need redoing, but tbh my bath was sealed with a cream silicone, against a travertine tile, and is still holding up like day 1. It gets the black dots of mould on it under the shower wall caddy where soap tends to not get washed away thoroughly, but a squirt of bleach cleaner gets it back to immaculate every time. Regular light cleaning / rinsing down is your friend.

Or having spent all week day and night thinking about valves walk into the plumbers merchants stand at the counter and take a complete brain fart and buy something you have 10 of already. Drive home, start to get out of the car and then sigh and mutter for fcuks sake.

Thanks So do I When doing work for others But like many on here we go into selfbuild mode and loose all sense of planning ahead I was going to bed thinking about motorised valves and waking up thinkinking about motorised valves I carefully labelled each one with a marker pen No little labels that can easily drop off for me Propper job Permanant marker Best laid plans I think the moral would be to put do one job at a time Label it and move on and go to home when you can’t think straight

We went with option 1, we also dropped the floor level a touch 70mm to help with a sense of space

1/2/3 mm doesn't make a massive difference if you are going to run a bead of coloured silicone/ct1 all around at that level. Personally I always put 3mm gap (or whatever spacers im using) and miss the grout from that junction with the floor then silicone it over.

Adam, just off Lulworth Avenue right on the corner of the Hamworthy Park carpark there's what i'm 99% sure is a durisol build going on....blocks going up currently...you might fancy being nosey. Don't allow your love for the concept of icf to get in the way of your hearing what might be legitimate concerns of your architect...he might have little experience of it but correct me if i'm wrong, you have none? Seems you're at a pretty early stage in your design process still, so it might pay to remain open minded.

Thanks! You're spot on.....heating has been off for over an hour and no hot spots. Must be heating pipes as you say....had me worried!

Pop one out from the ceiling and look again with the flir at the empty hole. I suspect something (hot pipes passing through?) is making the ceiling - floor void very warm and it is that warmth coming out that you are seeing.

If you get the insulation and air tightness right you might find your heating requirements are minimal.

Time for the sign to go up?

I think the people around here have sussed that our house was built on a budget as they've seen us slaving away for eight years building it and now another three months dismantling the old bungalow by hand. Wendy says having an eleven year old car in the drive also shows we're not in the GD league.

You know when you are getting old, when you kneel down to do something, then ponder, "what else can I do down here before I get up"

I've noticed that since starting the self build, pretty much everything aches, and realised that it's a shame that by the time most of us can afford to self build, the 20-30 year old body which would have been ideal for it is well beyond that sell by age and a bit knackered ?.

A brief update on my inward leaning gable that I posted about recently. Just to recap, I spotted that the gable section of my west facing bedroom wall was leaning inward at an angle and made it look as though there was a problem with the window, which turned out not to be the case. Over the last couple of days I've been liaising with my timber frame company, MBC, and my window company, Norrsken, to see what needs to be done. I've taken plenty of photos to illustrate the problem and the MBC team will be on site week commencing 22nd October to put things right. They would have come earlier but I have some other things that are scheduled for next week and need to get those done first, so I requested the slightly later date and they were happy to oblige. It's clear enough from all the photos that the problem lies with the timber frame but it's still very reassuring that MBC haven't argued or quibbled over anything and have been positive from the start, agreeing that it does need fixing and setting about organising it. Because of the position of the section that is out of line, the window will first need to be removed. The Norrsken team were due to come back at some point to go through the snag list and they, too, are happy to come back that week so that as well as sorting out the snag list, they can assist with the removal and re-installation of the bedroom window. It has to be said that with the weather that we've had this year, I've had something of a charmed run on the build so far and given how complex and large a project building a house is, I'm amazed at how few problems I've had to date. Even so, I've always been prepared for something going wrong at some point and my view is that it was almost inevitable. What is less predictable is how the parties involved respond to the problem to get it sorted out. In this case, I have been really pleased with the responses. Pretty much as soon as I contacted MBC and brought the issue to their attention, the response has been to get it fixed. At that stage, they couldn't say what caused the fault and until they see it, they can't be sure. What they have been emphatic about, though, is that they will get it sorted and before the next stage of works are due to commence on 5th November. Norrsken also deserve a special mention as they haven't hesitated to co-ordinate and make sure that MBC can do what they need to do whilst the windows are taken care of. All that remains now is to see just how the Leaning Wall of Bagber will be rectified; it doesn't look like any easy job to me and I'll be interested to see how it gets done and greatly relieved once it is done.

Love this...

The positive side is you see the true nature of your neighbors. It took us over 5 years and 3 planning applications and ended up selling our house and plot with full planning and building warrant as we had moved into an other part of our life journey. It was amazing to see and meet so many people who helped us and I always say hello to the people who wanted us to fail. "Wanting to fail" might not be the right words, the house has now been built and every time I pass it a sense of joy comes over me. I was laughed at, I was told to shut up at the first planning hearing, and the end result has given me a reputation and credibility, ok that means nothing to me but has opened many doors without me needing to kick them in to gain entry. What I am trying to say, if you keep to your own moral compass then you have nothing to feel ashamed about, just keep smiling and keep trying to make the world a better place for all. Remember your house will be there long after you are gone, you are gifting a home for future generation.