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Yep, I have everything I need down here - now. It helps that the other house is only 20 m away so if there s anything I need it's easy enough to go and get it. My son stayed last night. He brought a pizza and a bottle of fizz. Had to go back to the old house to cook the Pizza as my oven is not connected down here, but no big deal. By 3 am we had added 4 bottles of my Christmas fizz to the mix. We both slept like logs despite no curtains - and I have done very little today lol

Since my last blog post things have been fairly quiet. Our frame manufacturer, Lakeland Timber Frame, have confirm that our frame is in production and we have a date for erection of mid January. The crane company have visited site to check the narrow access and hairpin bent for themselves, they’ve confirmed that their smallest crane will be able to get onto site, with difficulty! Ss with a start date agree it was time to get the scaffold up. Originally I’d considered buying my own and selling it on after the build, however that option would have cost me £12,000. The alternative was to hire scaffolding and get it erected at a cost of £5,000. After a lot of careful consideration I’ve gone with a local scaffold company. Looking at the size of the scaffold and the shear amount of scaffolding required, ii think I’ve made the right choice. So far they’ve used six wagon loads of scaffolding kit and it’s taken 9 man days to errect. I recon there’s another 2 days to finish it off. The other thing I’ve had on my list of things to do, is get all the very tall Ash trees inspected. This is the sort of thing that tends to be low on my agenda as it’s not really Build related. However it’s just moved up the priority list after a loud thump at 3am yesterday morning. The tree just missed a plastic oil tank and party constructed outbuilding and the site loo, that’s it under the branches on the right. I couldn’t get far enough back to get the whole tree into shot, I recon it about 120 feet tall (long!). If it had fallen the other way it would have flatten on our residential cabin and us! I’ve got about six more of these and they are all going! The tree also took out the overhead power lines and at one stage 65 homes were without power for 6 hours whilst the cables were replaced.

All right, you may laugh. Your hips and knees will go one day.... At least I know that on Monday morning when climbing on to the boards to fit the joists, I will not get a gasp-inducing stab in a hip or knee when crossing from ladder to trestle board. And - best of all - I'll be able to climb down in comfort. @Onoff: any way of motorising this? I have a spare lawnmower engine somewhere.

Thats exactly how I tile the bath panels, so carry on !

I sealed ours with a bit of chicken wire rolled so it would fit in the remaining space (as a vermin barrier) tied a bit of stiff wire to it (so I could pull the plug out if needed at any time) pushed this down the duct, with the wire hanging out, then sealed it with low expansion squirty foam. when the foam had hardened I carefully trimmed any excess away and then used Siga tape or self-amalgamating tape (depending on the size of the duct) to cap the ends neatly. For one 25mm duct with some coax cables coming through I just used self-amalgamating tape, wrapped around the cables first, then stretched and wrapped around the end of the duct and the cables.

Back on the subject of washing...... Consider mounting your washer and dryer higher up if you have the room. Makes it so much easier on the back! You need to design the carcass/units well as it’s subject to a fair amount of vibration if you’ve got your big pants on a 1400 spin Heres mine and I don’t think I could go back to ground mounted.....

I have asked my electrician for a master light switch by the front and back door that shuts down all lighting apart from the external lights. My idea is when all the light are left on I just hit one switch to turn them off when we leave the house. Simple to wire. Does anyone have any other ideas that would be useful to incorporate in to a design? My wife is insisting that we are also having 2 dishwashers side by side, not sure on that one. We live on a farm so dust is always a problem especially on skirting boards I'm thinking a tapered or flush skirting board would be better. I have ruled out a laundry shoot and built in hoover points, but I am sure there are other simple ideas out there that make life easier and or more environmentally friendly.

The problems with restricting it are twofold - you won’t get the full air:foam ratio so your insulation won’t be as insulating, and the chemical force of this stuff expanding is quite impressive ....

Nothing wrong with the technology just the way it had been setup. Suspect it will be the same for @Christine Walker. Just depends on the plumber, can be spot what is wrong. That's why I was looking some pics so the collective could have a gander and give her some ammo to hit him with.

A year ago, I wondered -not for long- whether I should do a summary of this thread. As I say, didn't take me long to decide.

Fairly liquid and a big hose

Reminds me of a mate who like someone on this forum used to hoard and “repurpose” things and when the board went on their old dishwasher he took it into the workshop to turn into a parts washer - bear in mind this was a circa 1980’s dishwasher with an open element....... According to the report, the door opened with such force that it bent the hinges and bowed the sides of the old dishwasher so it wouldn’t close again ... he’d used a mix of paraffin and “something else” to clean some old land rover bits, and put it on a 70c hot wash ...

I know the area well, but from before the M25 was built. One of my school friends got his first job at Rank, back when it was still Movietone, making cinema newsreels. My father used to go fishing in the canal. We lived in Higher Denham, right on the bank of the river Misbourne, and I used to get a (steam) train from Denham Golf Club one stop down to Denham to go to school as a small boy. We moved to Gerrards Cross when I was about 11, and I lost touch with everyone I knew from primary and junior school, until recently, when I've tracked down some of my old school friends on the internet.

Brilliant idea @Tennentslager, her indoors wants to keep her mx5 in my garage but I told her “no room” (mine has to go in as it has no roof!). Better not put mine up top as it drips oil ?. I have a reason to spend the money now to keep SWMBO happy ?

50 pages. A nice even number

Just cut off the back of the trim and it'll sit down a bit better Problem? What problem?

No experience or information beyond the obvious you can find on the net but quite interested. Thinking likely candidate for my second set of batteries once the first lot of LiFePO₄s die.

Have you applied for your blue badge, so you can park it at the builders merchants

It was lucky it failed today. Should be able to get and fit the replacement tomorrow. No guests in tonight but a full house tomorrow and they may have been less than best pleased if there was no hot water.

If you’re really that paranoid there is an incredibly simple design mod using a piece of angled aluminium profile that sits underneath and traps the feet. Simply bolt it into position from underneath. I would also recommend a good deal of wriggle room top, bottom and sides. Further, I designed mine to be 700 deep so I had plenty of room at the back so I wasn’t struggling with pipework.

Your knees weren't (aren't ?) bad enough maybe. The intense juiciness of the stabbing, ice-pick pain is a strength-sapping challenge to self-control. And working alone (ahhhhhhh) all week - a risk just a little too far. OK @lizzie, @Hecateh, @newhome : MTFU

You're damn lucky the oil tank didn't split! That would have been crazy expensive to clean up afterwards. "narrow escape there" !

Really because it's relatively easy to use, stretches a great deal (has to be stretched to make it work), never goes sticky or comes undone with age and can be removed without causing any damage or leaving any residue. Not great for big sealing jobs, but ideal for sealing the ends of smaller cable ducts, or conduit used as ducting.

If they aren't, then invite then over! ?

I think its fill bath half full and then do your stuff. You can leave your clothes on.

With the current rate of progress, unless there's an unexpected problem, this 'blog' might never reach 100 pages. Shame, I did have high hopes of a century......

Well done getting in! We’re in too but it feels a bit like camping, sofas set up in the room that is still waiting for the staircase which was supposed to be last week but now will possibly be this coming week, can’t really get properly set up till that’s done but you seem to be quite comfortable, enjoy!

Do the remote monitors also include the standing charge? I have a suspicion that some may, and this may be a possible reason why they seem to be in error (and I agree, I've also heard lots of tales of them being way out).

Re electricity usage. Forget the silly remote monitor thingy they give you, I keep hearing how in accurate they are (I can't understand why that should be the case). Just take a daily reading from the dial actually on the meter itself and record that, take the reading at the same time each day.

We had a look at the structured underlay such as https://www.roofing-tools.com/Mobile/iso-mat-metal-structured-underlay-c2x23191546 But was told 2 inch air gap if battening out but the underlay which was lucky if 1 inch gap.... work involved with doing 2 inch battening on roof if I was paying somebody I would have done more research into the underlay!!

a nice copper roof would look well -when it turns green .LOL

Thanks everyone. It still doesn't feel real. I am sitting in the lounge and the friends have all just gone. I had 6 people here, including my son, helping and the place felt pretty small with all those people in but new feels plenty big enough. Although my sofas are a bit out of proportion to the space. One thing at least is working. I could get wifi just inside the door of the new house but not in the lounge. I bought a wifi repeater and it is now working fine in the lounge. Which means I should be able to connect the TV to the fire stick as I haven't yet got an aerial. I am thinking of getting a dish and going with free sat. Currently living it up with a Pot Noodle as all my dry food stuff is down here, fridge and freezer stuff still in the old place. Plates and dishes etc down here but cutlery still in the top house (apart from a couple of teaspoons,) and no fresh stuff as I tried to use it all up before moving.

With a zinc roof we had they used a membrane that had a layer of plastic sort of like thick pubic hair bonded to it to the zinc was not in full contact with the membrane.

Does that go for bathrooms too?

Today is the day, I am moving my body! I have been taking car loads of stuff down every day this week and today some friends are coming to carry the beds and sofas down so tonight I will be sleeping under my new roof for the first time. Not even excited any more, I am just so fed up of it all. Electrician and Plumbers were both supposed to be coming this week to do a few bits - surprise, surprise, neither has turned up. The UFH has air in the system; I have had to top the water up twice already. It is running way too hot and doesn't seem to be controlled by the thermostat, with thermostat set at 15 degrees, the temp was up at 24 degrees, so I have just been putting it on for an hour or two each day whilst I have not been living there. Oh and my 'smart' meter says I have used £1.20 of fuel today, that is with nothing running at all and the boiler switched off.

Saw something similar to that and they built a pair of slide out shelves below them for the basket to stand on. Brilliant idea ..!

Yes, we had that in a hotel recently and I have wired (yet to be installed) for exactly this with a small movement sensor just inside the bathroom door that illuminates a row of LED,s under the mirror edge to give a glow in the en suite. ?

An alternative option to PIR for auto light switching is doppler microwave sensors. I replaced the PIR ceiling switch just inside our back door because it was being nuisance triggered through the glazing in the back door (it would randomly trigger on for no obvious reason). The microwave ceiling sensor was a straight swap for the PIR and isn't line-of-sight, so will detect movement in a room even if it's around a corner. Might be an easy fix for your problem. We have PIR or microwave light switches all over the place, in cupboards, the walk in wardrobe, hall, utility room, downstairs WC etc.

Two easy to implement and useful ideas that really work well, both involving MVHR. Firstly, connecting MVHR extract ducts to the toilet cisterns really does remove all odours at source (i.e. in the pan) and is so discreet that it's invisible if you have a built-in cistern, can be done with standard waste pipe fittings and a bit of ingenuity when it comes to adapting these to the MVHR extract ducting. This shows one of our cisterns with the lid off, with the extract pipe on the left: The second idea was to fit an MVHR fresh air supply vent immediately above the kitchen door, on the outside of the kitchen. This acts as a very effective "air curtain" we've found, and is remarkably effective at keeping cooking smells inside the kitchen where they get extracted from the kitchen extract terminal. We're still surprised at how well this works, as you literally take one step through the open doorway and go from cooking smells to no smell at all, and vice versa.

just to make @recoveringacademic feel a bit better - see picture below. I've been sorting out these snags before I plaster board. I missed this one when the professional / full time / chippy put the frame up. Short cuts by others have cost me a lot of time. Next timber frame will be closely inspected as it goes up. Sad that the professionals don't get it right.