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This thread (as great as it is) reminds me of my time spent with a religious community.... I was very intrigued by their way of life and was trying to see if I had any give in my very atheist tendencies...... one day I was standing on top off a hill with the leaders wife and there was a beautiful rainbow...... the lady asked if I knew how a rainbow was created, yes I said and started telling her how A rainbow is a meteorological phenomenon that is caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky. It takes the form of a multicoloured circular arc.... she looked at me like I was daft....... no no no she said and proceeded to explain that God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: .... I looked at her like a stunned mullet. This is all in good faith or good humour ..... whatever ‘I enjoyed thread.

Plus one to that. I've used gas all my life and would never consider electric - until induction. It's quicker than gas It's more controllable than gas - I have never been able to get a proper simmer on gas without moving the pan half off It's much much much much easier to clean It looks so much neater than a gas hob It's safer - it only heats the pan so the surface only gets hot where the pan is and even then it's nowhere near hot enough to burn if just touched. You have time to remove your hand before you are burned It's safer - when you remove the pan it automatically switches off it's safer - handles don't get hot, even metal ones. When I used the same pans I am using now on my gas hob I couldn't pick the pans up with a holder, now there is no problem.

As an update, what we did in the end was as simple as possible, surprise, surprise. We bought some 2.4 x 1.2m 50mm mesh, laid it over some 50 x50mm timbers for support and riddled it by hand. We started in the middle of January and finished a few days ago. We have been doing it every day except when it rained and when there was a bitterly cold wind. I've been shovelling and Wendy riddling. All the larger than 50mm rubble we put in a telehandler bucket and the farmer took it. We started with around 40 tonnes and the farmer took around 11 tonnes. The only good things I can say about the process is that it has saved us a lot of money and kept us fit.

IMO, a key point is to dig / concrete in some datum posts near the perimeter of the site and well outside the area where your groundworks team is going to be using plant; also preferably where you have clear line of sight to the entire slab area. If you have 3 of these to form a reference baseline then you can easily triangulate the corners (and retriangulate as needed) and recover accurate levels if you have a Dumpy or equiv.

The situation regarding all the various "water treatment" units being sold is very like the way that various magic fuel catalyst type products were being sold back when unleaded petrol was introduced, or when 5 star was phased out. There were lots of claims made that putting some type of catalyst, often tin-based beads, into a car fuel tank would magically give better mpg, stop detonation from lower octane fuel, decrease the risk of valve seat damage from using unleaded fuel etc. One by one these units were all proven beyond doubt to have no benefit at all, but that didn't stop a lot of people from believing that they worked wonders. One interesting observation made back then was that the more "reassuringly expensive" a unit was, the more likely people were to strongly believe it worked, even though there was rock-solid evidence that it didn't. Never underestimate the power of the placebo effect, it can be far stronger than any amount of hard evidence! The main issue with the Halcyan claims in this thread is that they are either based on a flawed theory, or they are just meaningless. Pretty much every point made about this product is pseudo-science, most of which has no meaning at all (which is why they can include this stuff in advertising, it's carefully worded gobbledegook). On the other hand, the ion exchange principle is well-proven science. We know exactly how it works and why it works and can calculate the exact ion exchange ratio and then prove that this is correct by analysis. It's so well-proven that a simple home testing kit can show both whether or not an ion exchange unit is working, and measure the reduction in calcium in the water resulting from it.

Welcome to try my coffee anytime....not descaled my machine in over 9 months LOL (and I drink espresso - strong and black and far too many in a day) I think it's a minefield with water systems. My halcyon was the source of much sniggering and derision on site and I'm sure they all thought I was barmy but I'm happy so hey ho. Good luck with whatever you decide on.

Mine's just the standard 165mm blade cordless circular saw. For a cordless tool I've been amazed at how good it is, and I used it a lot when fitting all our oak joinery. One thing I found really useful was to fit a fine tooth blade, I tend to use the 40 tooth blade most of the time, as it gives a clean finish to cuts in hardwood and ply. Another advantage of this saw is that the blade kerf is narrow, so cuts are only a bit over 1mm wide.

As light relief, my favourite asbestos moron story was the St Pauls’ Occupidiots from a few years ago (remember them?). After they were ejected from the grounds of St Paul’s Cathedral they occupied various other places, with consequences such as delaying social housing schemes by their presence, and then broke into and occupied an office building that was halfway through having its asbestos removed. Give them an advanced Darwin Award. They pulled the usual squatter ‘we did not break in’ arguments (no, we had a non-present friend who did it for us), but being sawdust-brained they had published a set of accounts “for transparency” which included one item itemised as “bolt cutters”. I love these people. Ferdinand

A short time ago I came across some stuff on issues that had been encountered with MgO boards. The main problem seems to be chlorides coming from MgO when it gets damp, leading to corrosion of fasteners and failure of the board. A web search will quickly find some evidence that MgO boards do seem to have some issues. Take a read of this, for example: http://www.quitahumedades.com/en/blog-en/tips-and-tricks/worst-construction-scandal-in-decades . In the USA MgO is referred to as "Chinese drywall" and has a pretty dire reputation now. This is the paper on the Danish issues with MgO: MSSCE2016_Word_208.pdf

We currently have an induction hob and will again in the new house. @Hecateh is spot on with the reasons why.

Another vote for induction. SWMBO loves hers......

I like that. You don't even need to put the DC through the microswitches. OK, it's a tiny current so won't affect the contacts but it's still nicer to keep the wiring as separate as possible. House 2 is a normal 2-zone S-plan except that the line (or switched line) which normally goes to the boiler instead goes to a socket with a 12V (or whatever) output wall wart. Wires from that go through to house 1 to the 12V coil of a relay. House 1 wiring is also standard 2-zone S-plan except that the normally-open contacts of the relay are wired in parallel with the valve microswitches. A minor advantage of doing it this way is that the DC supply is only turned on when house 2 is calling for heat.

Induction hob. It's the future!

Consider using Low Voltage ie 12v to connect the two houses. All off the shelf and gets you out of the hassle of having phase issues and so on. The zone valve micro switches will cope with it as it’s low current and you’re talking about running something like bell wire between house 1 and house 2.

Well guys its been a while but today we poured the 100mm slab after fitting the Insulation and UFH Pipes, kit is due on site on 12th March so its all systems go now ! It was a bit dark on site tonight so I couldn't get a photo but there are now loads of others on the website, don't get too bored !! www.stationbrae.uk  

I was thinking of you when I typed that!

Thanks, I don't for one moment doubt that you're happy with the unit. it's the fact that it is not a water softener that bugs me, as they claim that it does soften water when they have said here that it doesn't.

Yes. House 1 (with the boiler in it) wouldn't actually need a wireless transmitter, it could be connected direct to the boiler, of course.

85mm

I won't be selling mine for a while . I tend to go to Axminster Tools because they are fairly local and have a good selection.

I fitted mine before we moved in so have never had the kettle furring up here but the kettle in the garage used during construction furred up. Hard calc will gather on the outside water stuff not on the inside ones which have the benefit of the water going through the system (its on the incoming pipe in the plant room) . I have very shiny chrome bathroom fittings and on on the large pieces I get some ‘soft’water marking its just like a puddle edge or a drop that has ‘set’ its not hard though and wipes off with a microfibre cloth and water no chemical cleaners needed. I dont get that on everything just on the large chrome fixtures every few days or so. The glass shower screen is a dream no white water marking (now if only I could find that leak!). Kettle, coffee machine, washing machine, dishwasher...none have needed descaling here and I used to have to do once a month before. Who knows how bad it would have been without this device but our neighbour on the same water main has to descale, he is very impressed with our water. I have had not one single piece of hard calc in this house which is impressive given the water we have coming down the main. I am not at all scientific all I can say is it works for me, showers and baths are nicer too, shampoo etc much better. I grew up with beautiful soft welsh water and can never hope to replicate that with the foul stuff we get here but this device has improved it no end without question and I am very pleased I fitted it even though every builder on the job laughed at me for it.LOL

Get a wiggle on then. Your ecologist will have applied for a similar licence countless times before , so it's just a copy and paste job plus and bit of tinkering. Our ecologist was among the world's worst information processors - Phone call "I'd been up all night counting bats and GCNs: I was very tired all week and it took a week's work to preparing for your GCN licence" "Does it take you that long to copy and paste then? "Erm wodja mean? "Tell me what the difference is between [xyz] application (available online) and ours: as far as I can see the difference is two diagrams, and one paragraph" Erm..... Silence He applied one month later than he could have, and took 3 months to telI me that our application had been successful. I paid paid half his bill. Silence.

I have a Combimate, where you have to change some magic marbles in once a year. The kettle does not fur up but there is still residue where cold water evaporates such as in the tray of the fridge water dispenser, in spite of the fridge also having a water filter.

It's only been two days that I've had to stop a bit early because the batteries ran out. For the price of that charger I'd probably be better off buying an extra 5 Ah battery which would likely solve the problem. My other option would be to run my mains Makita charger off my 1200 W pure sinewave inverter or off my inverter generator.

That’s all very useful, thanks for your time @JSHarris. I’m now leaning more towards an ion exchange device, as I’d like no limescale at all, rather than just some kind of “soft” limescale (which might still clog up things like our coffee machine, despite Halcyon’s claims). I just need to find somewhere to put it!

I would definitely buy it again. But it depends on your work. I am a carpenter for work so it's very easy for me to just get cordless stuff out of the van. Move from room to room without the need for leads. If I was dedicated to only one site corded would be the obvious option. Like I said it does eat through battery's quite quick hence why I have so many

I have bora on induction. There are people on here who prefer other manufacturers but thats personal preference. I liked Bora best so thats what I had. I had always cooked on gas and insisted I was having gas in new build (domino was what I was going for) then I had experience of induction in rental house. Would not go back to gas if you paid me and that is astonishing coming from someone who was so committed to gas we paid 13k to get mains gas in!. My advice would be try to find some way of living with an induction for a few weeks and see how you like it.

Nah! If they were, they'd have broken up that 11 tonne they gave away with club hammers.

That's what I did. Just as strong, perhaps slightly more resistant to cracking, but most of all quicker to lay, and no faffing around with steel fabric. Our guys used a smooth mould for the front lip, where the door goes, which was a part of the steel shuttering system they used, so there's a ~100mm section with a very smooth finish and a rounded edge at the doorway. The rest of the slab was tamped, levelled and power floated, like the house slab, as I wanted a smooth floor that would be relatively easy to paint later (still haven't got around to it, though).

Have you had an induction hob? I never thought I would be a fan of cooking on electric but I love induction and much easier to clean than gas.

Build your first row of blocks to the level required for the floor. Bridge the opening with a piece of 6x2 braced to 2” square pegs. Lay the DPM over the blinded hardcore, add the rebar if necessary and then pour the floor and tamp it flat. Give it an hour then bull float it flat, leave it to go off. To remove the need for rebar or mesh I tend to use fibres and set the floor at 150mm depth. On your floor that would make the difference between 2.2-3 CuM or so of a C25 mix which will be £75-80. That more than offsets the cost of using RC25 and getting A142 mesh.

I've got 18v Milwaukee stuff and it's been excellent - not just in terms of the tools but also the after service. I had a chuck fail and organised the repair via their online portal (3 year extended warranty).... next day UPS collection, one day repair and next day back to me. No costs incurred and without the tool less than 5 days. That said in the UK it is hard to Ignore Makita for range of tools / value.

Like most things it can be safe if treated with respect. Those garages have been around for decades so fine to use as long as they don’t get damaged, no holes are drilled into them etc. There is still asbestos in the vast majority of older buildings including schools etc. It’s often more dangerous to remove the asbestos than to leave it sleeping. If your nephew wants to use the shed then he can but might be worth sealing any areas that look as if they may have been disturbed. There are specialist products that can be used for this.

heres a thought for you a layer of blocks all round --be particular on them being level to the level you want the FFL then fill it in with the concrete --don,t forget your dpc--you could fit it below the blocks you should be able to use a tamping bar /length of wood ,what ever ,across complete width and 2 people can do it no problem

Have a read of ths Health and Sefety Executive guidance document of dealing with concrete asbestos sheets. http://www.hse.gov.uk/pUbns/guidance/a14.pdf The biggest cost is in disposal.

Vielen Dank (bloody hope i got that one right and haven't just told you your mum's a goat!!)

I was one of those that had no financial worries In that we had saving to cover the whole build But there is still pressure one bit of advice I would give is don’t exspect anyone to care about your build as much as you do The trades will go home at the end of each day and forget about it You won’t You hear plenty of doom and gloom Often not as bad as things sound But more stressful than some of the tv builds If you can catch some of the back episodes of building the dream They will give you a good grounding Far more realistic than Grand Designs

I hope so.... God I hope so. Ian

@Ferdinand I'm going to build a little thunder box down by the drain in the bottom south west corner of the plot and plumb straight into that manhole cover (on the excellent advise of @Russell griffiths in a previous thread). The welfare unit will be at the north of the plot and I don't plan on connecting it to the drains. My thought is if I did the drains first then they would likely get damaged. I don't want to be up to the finished drive level during the construction phase and so I would end up with at least 1 IC protruding from the drive sub base.

If I could start again and offset the price against a large job. I would probably look into dewalt flexvolt because they can offer a lot of power through a single battery. Other than that it's pretty much pick a colour or see who has good offers on. I like blue so I run makita but all the top brands are pretty comparable. Except festool. I dislike how overpriced they are and how arrogant most of there owners tend to be about it..... Imo

Slightly off topic. Is it feasible to buy a comprehensive set of tools for resale at the end of a build? I saw such fine set when I visited @PeterStarck 's lovely build last year. In doing so, my instincts would be go for the most popular quality brand to aid resale. To me, Makita seems to be that based on reading on here over the time since I have been a member. I imagine the buy/sell loss could be modest by this approach but am I right? Is there a thriving second-hand market in Makita tools or are they like cars, depreciating precipitously?

I second the above. I think our topographical survey cost about £450 and proved to be invaluable, as it was used as the base plan for every site drawing, even including the latest landscaping work we've been doing long after the house was finished. That topo survey provided the info needed to work out excavation depth, quantity of spoil that needed to be removed (and hence price) as well as drainage runs etc.

Shoulda’ moved to Mansfield! Now comes with complimentary Tory MP. It’s going up in the world. They had the Top Gear reserve team filming an item about the “Le Mans(field)” Race last week. Not the kudos of Clown Shoes, Delilah, and the Chipmunk, but it is a start. Ferdinand

but it does involve learning about a wide range of things that most people probably aren't thatwell aware of. definitely right there, think it’s one of the hardest things that you have no-one to discuss problems with other than each other because nobody knows what you are talking about. at work I was introduced to a new member of staff and they were told ‘Christine is building a house, ha ha not personally ‘ people at work have no idea how much you have to put into it even with builders on site the buck stops with you and my colleagues had no idea that I was probably spending as much if not more time on the house build than I was at work, that’s why I found build hub a great place to sound off because you are speaking to like minded people.

One reason for introducing E7 was the shift to nuclear power stations in the 1960s and 70s. Nuclear power stations can't shut down when demand drops, they have to be kept running, which created a potential problem for the grid, as there was a low demand during the night. The solution was to encourage people to install night storage heaters and introduce a cheap rate to charge them, so allowing the grid to stay in better balance.

Yes. What matters is your reaction and your joint reaction. Your reaction, hers, and how you both see it. One or other, but not both equally committed: tears at or before bed time. Brass tacks time. Why doom? Not enough money? Welcome to the club. In my direct experience, there's only 2 or maybe three here for whom finance is not an issue (out of 1000 + members) I (we) went from ' Yeah, we'll have money to spare at the end of this ' to doing all of the semi skilled and grunt work. Briefly put, compromises - thousands of them. You might call it waking up to hard reality. Stretched time scales, squeezed budget, infuriating lack of control. Even @JSHarris for all his expertise and deep knowledge got bitten hard a few times. @PeterW above points to the core issue. Leg work: network. With the emphasise on work. I'm four years in to the build. And still this very morning, I have to screw up courage together out there and get on with it. Because I lack control. Am too committed. You will find BH members unequivocally supportive. This is a support network second (online) to none.

IIRC E7 was designed as a way to demand-shift the peak demand, so that power stations could be utilised more efficiently during the overnight dip. From that viewpoint, they would need flexibility for Rates etc to tune to the different demand and generation mix in each area. For example, for darker mornings in the Far North, or Air Conditioning (?) in the Far South, or commuting hours in the Smoke. F

or use these https://www.strongtie.co.uk/products/detail/engineered-restraint-strap/334

if only! Im not ready to share yet its too scary.