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Welcome Welcome to sleepless nights Welcome to frustrating builders Welcome to "Christ that was close" Welcome to " How much? Do you think I'm stupid?" Welcome to "Darling, can we move that window 3mm to the left - no - right please?" Welcome to the doctoral thesis on Bathroom Tiling by @Onoff Welcome to one liners by @Nickfromwales Welcome to @Temp's caution Welcome to nerds R Us Welcome to obsession.

A new house AND Virgin Galactic tickets! You're spoiling them!

Hello one and all, just at the beginning of my self build journey,and although do not have anywhere to build yet have stumbled across this forum /resource and am already hooked, so much so I was up late last night reading about oak window ciels and the best way to set timber joists out ?. For the time being I'll be like many I suspect just a voyeur to the blogs but when things start to move I'll most definitely be picking your brains. DANNY

A quick photo update, I will do proper blog posts over the next few days...... The ground works were started back in August, however there was a long delay with the timber frame being manufactured (partly due the the first floor layout changes), which meant that the TF kit wasn't delivered until November the 18th. Last week the house was made wind and watertight. This week the ground floor UFH was laid and the screed poured. We are hoping that the steel for the cantilevered stair will be fabricated and installed over the next 2 weeks.

Had a very nice unexpected surprise this evening. Came home to letter from SSE.... what do they want? Well it was a cheque for just under £1000 to me, three years after the connection was done. Costs incurred were less than the invoiced amount! References all square up to my paperwork. Merry Christmas

Updated plans and 3D renders. My parents are over the moon. WC adjusted to add a cupboard. We might lose the other hall cupboard for a larger dressing room.

After we dismantled the bungalow we were left with 45 to 50 tonnes of mixed concrete, bricks and blocks along with around 10 tonnes of footings that needed digging out and removing from site. We finally found a groundworks company that would bring a concrete crusher to site and crush the mixed rubble from 50mm down to dust and dig out the footings and remove. We asked three companies for quotes which came in at £4320, £2154 and £1390. The only one that would crush on site to the size we wanted, rather than remove everything and bring in crushed concrete, was the cheapest so we went with them. We have seen what some suppliers bring in as crushed concrete and it’s crap. It took a day to crush around 35 tonnes of the best of the rubble and another to break out the footings and remove along with the remainder of the rubble. They were a company we would definitely recommend which was nice to be able to say.

One of Google's Project X moonshots, Malta, uses an idea similar to SunAmps to store heat energy which can be then used to generate power. It takes excess PV or wind energy and converts to heat storage. This stored heat energy is then converted back to electricity when required. As Google is behind this and it has a lot of funding it could really help develop the heat battery storage market. I know they're concentrating on large scale at high and low temperatures but the research and development will help with smaller domestic scale uses. https://venturebeat.com/2018/12/19/alphabets-x-lab-spins-out-molten-salt-energy-storage-project-malta-as-an-independent-company/ https://x.company/projects/malta/

Any halves?

I would move the door in the “shower cupboard” anyway, on the basis that a 2.5m x 1m cupboard is better in wide not deep format. How many people have double wardrobes oriented end-on? For saving space And hence budget without compromising the essential function I think that there is more potential in optimising the master suite to save space rather than the garage. I have not got my head around it yet, but I think I think that the last 3 sqm of the Hall should be better placed inside the master suite, rather than having that door around the corner. The only reason not to do that is to access the big square storage cupboard, which you are talking about abolishing. I think you could get rid of that corridor-like en-suite, and have the en-suite and dressing room orientated north-south, entered off the space where the end of the hall is now, and have the door to the master suite in an end wall level with the wall of the second bedroom. I think the master suite could perhaps lose 0.5m or so off the north end in that configuration, which is worth a number of k on standard area rates. I also wonder about orienting the master bed east-west backing on to the dressing room/ shower, to give a view and direct morning sunlight. Perhaps include 2 sets of double bed sockets. Do you have a plot lined up for your daughter yet? ? F

Döstädning ?

No need, as I won a bottle of champagne in the work raffle today! The balance will sit nicely in the contingency part of my budget spreadsheet.

Very nice! On a similar note I pleaded with HMRC over a penalty for late payment of VAT (I was already on the naughty step) and they relented and agreed to refund the huge penalty they had imposed (5% of VAT due). Maybe it is the Christmas spirit coming from VERY unexpected places :-)

Welcome aboard. I remember being at this point in the journey, many long, sleepless nights ago!

Understood. I guess i have not been frugal enough with mine separating it never came to mind ....also most of it was "dumped on the pile" by various trades. Including discarded lunch in carrier bags and now we have furry friends in there too ... i saw one I would like to think it was a mouse .....but deep down i know it is a ..."pedigree siberian hamster" I think Manuel called it in fawlty towers nice

I like the design. MOdern and rangey. My comments: - The kitchen feels quite shut away to me. Is there an argument for having it more open to the hall? I would want a view through from outside the front door, which I think can be done by aligning the doors. Or making it wider. - The hall feels quite large .. to me perhaps excessively large, and I am not sure how easy it would be to make alternative use of some of that space should you need. * - If you choose to save your 300mm I would consider putting it in the garage as added width. * - Gut feel but would more sliding doors be appropriate and more streamlined for the design? (*) If this is their potential last house, then perhaps give some thought to frail-old-people paraphernalia. Think, for example, how somebody in a wheelchair adapted vehicle such as a people carrier would approach the house from their vehicle. AT ours, the previous owner used to reverse his 4x4 into the 24ft garage, reverse his powered wheelchair out of the car, then come in via the utility room. AN alternative is to have a future design in your head for a car port or canopy extension to the porch in front of the garage that will prevent them getting wet. In our case, I find that I now have a Sholley and a Folding wheelchair kicking around near the front door all the time. We have enough rooms to keep it all under control but no suitably huge cupboard; that type of use case bears thinking about, and that will probably need to be done by you, Possible solutions are including an area in your porch which could also be your potential bike area, have your hall such that there is an alcove somewhere, or making sure that that hall cupboard is the right shape and easily accessible (full width bifold doors?). Ferdinand

All of the above...... And a few bits more most probably Welcome aboard !

Drinks are on you then ? ?

Wow! That looks wonderful; I'm not surprised that your parents are pleased.

Key thing is to keep the waste segregated. Use the grabs for your inert and hard-core.

Thread edited and tidied. The management ?

Looks great. Lots of light. Not surprised that your parents are happy.

If you are relying on that VCL as your air tightness I would question its long term durability. Imagine repeatedly pressurising and depressurising a house ( think decades here) with that thin budget plastic taking the strain. I've used the screwfix green VCL and the quality is quite poor IMO. Good as a VCL but not as an Air tightness layer.

Go the whole hog and run a pair of ducts as the mat and the thermostat wire should really be separated. Also run ducts to wall points for electric towel rails too, and terminate in “dry” areas where a switch can be added if needed.

Prices etc can be followed here ?

I'm amazed you had enough daylight to take photos - it's like permanent twilight here at the moment.

Jan and I (or to be exact Jan) chose and put up some simple manual roller blinds on all of the bedrooms as a temporary measure a few weeks after we moved in. She used to have a fancy curtain sole-trader business for years so she's pretty expert at making posh curtains, blinds, etc. and intended to replace them at some point. However, the truth is that we both like the simple and clean lines, and they work well for bedrooms so we won't get around to replacing them anytime soon. What I misjudged is just how many little jobs need doing between the house being good enough to move into and being "finished" -- and we found the strain of getting to that point of moving in both mentally and physically exhausting. I would recommend to anyone just moving in that one of the first things to do is to have a bloody good break from it, go away on a holiday and both mentally and physically rest and recover. Then do an honest triage of the jobs still to do: those which you need to "properly" and get right first time; those where you can do a simple interim (like fitting roller blinds in our case) and come back to it in few years time if and when you have the energy, and those which quite honestly don't need doing at all for now and can wait until that "if and when" point. Moving in was a mountain that had to climbed again a ticking clock. You now have luxury of being able to change the tempo, and to prioritise and plan the finishing off tail minimising stress and taking the time to be able to enjoy the jobs more as a hobby.

This is a job that we have gone back on in the Lake District Eight years ago the bank simply pulled the plug 40 apartments have been left to Rot ever since All the plaster and first fix has had to been ripped out