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If they tried that with me I would flip. Especially given that most of us here probably know more about the critical measurements of our houses than anyone else and probably even did a lot of the design. I remember going into a place like this with a CAD drawing, the guy started to tell me how it may not be 100% accurate, I told him it was and told him it would be more accurate than any measurements he would ever get. He said it was their policy to do it themselves and I told him it was my policy not to let someone disrespect me by implying I cannot measure a room properly.

I disagree with that ... it’s no harder than taper edge boards with a tape and skim finish. In some instances it’s easier as you can create clean edges with a router and bearing bit - especially on corners. Right .... depends is the answer ..! Firstly it is very heavy - it needs two people to manage boards and you also need a board lifter to do ceilings. You can’t do it on your own ..! One of the benefits is that you don’t need to join on a stud - you use JointStik to bond the edges together, this is a cross between D4 glue and Gripfill and comes with a custom nozzle that puts a bead on the edge of the board. These joints are strong, but you need to leave them to dry properly before you do anything else. There are two ways to fit Fermacell to timber, either using the correct screws or by using crown staples. Screws hold better when the timber is uneven but leave a larger hole to fill. Staples are quick and easy and leave a very small gap to fill - very easy to do but if there is stress on a board they may move with only staples. Fermacell is very easy to repair though. If you cut a hole in the wrong place with a hole saw, or even cut an access hole, you can just glue it back in place, filler in the gap, sand and it’s done - you can’t tell it’s been removed. It is also surprisingly easy to cut. Fermacell sell a knife designed for the job and it works on the the score and snap method and is very good. It leaves a slight ragged edge but this takes filler really well so isn’t a problem. When it comes to filling all the screw holes or edges, you will need their filler. It’s much better than anything else and sands to a fine finish too. It’s better put on with a wide spatula or trowel, and it goes a long way. FST - or fine surface treatment - is the oddest product I’ve ever used ..!! Fermacell show it being applied with a squeegee, I use a 12” plastering trowel and you can do a 5m wall in probably 15 minutes. You put the thinnest coat possible on - the boards change from light grey to a slightly darker grey and that’s it ..! A quick sand over with a 120grit sanding board and you can be painting less than an hour after applying. The wall will look like it’s full of filler and screws etc, but a coat of paint and it’s all gone and you have a perfect flat wall. I’ve gone from a stud wall to ready for paint in 24 hours - that’s impossible with board and skim, and pushing it with TE/taping. The downsides are that the dust will destroy any power tool that you use to cut it. Circular saws or jigsaws create a lot of dust, routers are magic for cutting holes for back boxes or making perfect corners but all of them will die in a ditch with the dust. Buy cheap Titan ones and keep going back for the warranty claims ..! Fermacell is very good for perfect square and flat surfaces - anywhere that you want curves or anything that needs blended angles then you possibly need to look at something else or look at how to get skim coats applied to certain sections. I priced a job recently that would have been £4K in Fermacell, and was just less than £2k in plasterboard and skim in terms of materials. When it came down to it, the labour costs were double for the board and skim as there was a lot of curve and detail work but the whole lot came out about the same price in total. If you can DIY and have square rooms etc then you can get a very good finish with Fermacell that is comparable to a skimmed plaster finish with no wet trade delays.

Bang on schedule the raft components arrived on Monday morning. We knew it would be quite a big volume of material on a small site and getting it unloaded and put somewhere it would not get damaged or need moving was s little tricky. JUB insisted on sending the raft on pallets. Our builder was not that impressed with this as unloading the lory requires a folk lift which is something we don't have on site. So we had to hire a set of folks for the digger. With the raft safely stored at the back of the plot the work to prepare the site progressed. The drainage had been marked in the site setting out exercise along with electrical and water ducting. Trying to keep raft punctures to a minimum but also allow for future needs was a concern. In the end we kept it to a minimum with electrical conduit for the rain and foul water pumps and two for water. Along with the raft we received a letter from our neighbours complaining that I had put our water meter box on their garden wall. In retrospect a valid complaint, it was one of those decisions made in expediency without enough thought. Our water supplier Portsmouth Water will now only make new connection when an above ground water meter box is installed. I duly bought the one box they permit (so much for choice), water pipe and water conduit. Not having a house on which to mount the box, I made the required connections and left the box mobile so it could be put in place in due course. At which point I called in the Portsmouth Water, regrettably they said they could not make the connection until the box was in situ. Having explained our situation and the need to get water on the site it was suggested I could mount the box on the wall by our property. At this stage I should have thought about it rather than simply get on with it, my mistake entirely. The wall it outside my boundary, by millimetres true , but still NOT ours. Our neighbours were not impressed so Monday was spent moving the box and apologising to my neighbours. I shuttered and cast concrete into the wall footings and backfilled with type 1 MOT to repair the wall. Having done this I then putting in two concrete posts 200mm inside our boundary and mounting the water meter box on them. This is what I should have done in the first place. Slightly different subject, the Groundbreaker Water box, this is the only box that Portsmouth Water will connect to. At around the £150 mark it's a pretty hideous piece of kit both aesthetically and in product design terms for installation. Given their current monopoly and the fact that all new connections will require one it made me consider looking into producing an alternative. A swift kicking from the boss and I was reminded to get on with the house...maybe later once the house is done. . With the drainage in place the MOT type 1 sub base was spread over the raft area, levelled and compacted. Our builders ICF-homes did this with considerable care and we ended up with a good surface to spread the sand layer which was again compacted before putting down the membrane. Our structural engineers had specified a Radon barrier, we ended up using a standard plastic DPM as Radon is not a problem in our area. The DPM gets glued to the side of the raft sealing it and providing some additional protection for the polystyrene. . With the membrane down the work of setting out the raft. The perimeter is all keyed together It took a while to get the corners located precisely but once this was done the raft slotted together very well with a really solid interlock. The raft was then completed by adding the rebar, four layers around the perimeter. All in all a lot of steel, Pat and I spent most of Saturday morning helping get the rebar in place and wire tying it to make is solid before the concrete pour. Our raft is now complete and this week the surface water drainage will go in. Along with the problem with the water meter box our neighbours also bought up the "Party Wall act". Doing a self build is nothing if not educational. The act came into law following problems with basement excavations in London. It dictates that excavations in close proximity to your neighbours 0-6M have to be notified and agreed. In our case we were within notifiable distance, but fortunately were not excavating to a notifiable depth. Our builders were not familiar with the act and no mention had been made by building controls. The act did effect our other neighbours and I contacted them letting them know what work has been done. Fortunately all the excavations were made and backfilled without incident. Hoping for a less eventful week to allow us to regroup before our first block delivery next Monday. As this is the first build for JUB in the UK the factory are sending someone on site to assist with the build and wall bracing. It's very positive to see the house taking shape, we have our EPC which suggests we should require in the region of 68wats/K to heat the house which is great, but we still only come out as a "B" energy rating! the rating system is bonkers.

More slates going down 2hrs work on house today

25mm MDPE to 22mm copper - but use a length of 22mm Hep2O. Then go to a 22x22x15 tee, run into an end cap on the 22mm and run 15mm into an isolator. Then connect the washing machine and job done.

Just thought he might want local isolation by the machine.

Why use copper? Washing machine hoses are 3/4 bsp female so just get a... 25mm 3/4bsp adapter

One of these: https://www.screwfix.com/p/jg-speedfit-ug603b-mdpe-copper-adaptor-25mm-x-15mm/25716? Bit of 15mm copper pipe Then one of these: https://www.screwfix.com/p/pegler-washing-machine-valve-15mm-x-/25555? ?

Here's a Wikipedia article on LEED's parent non-profit US company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Green_Building_Council And on LEED itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadership_in_Energy_and_Environmental_Design

So I had some spare time this morning and did the bare bones of a "floorboard" oak door frame Here is the detail of "that join" near the bottom: We are now "evaluating" it before deciding whether to continue, and waiting for the joiner to visit and see if he ha any better ideas.

You must be right, I can only apologise again. Mind you there are a lot of insane people around .

I'll do that, I agree... Well, that settles it then. Did a drawing to try and get my head round it..... You assume some intelligence on my part Pete. I'll try this with a spare bit of batten : it'll go click when I do that

You mean waste some? Well, I'm shocked. My outrage is not at you Dave, its at my particularly stupid stupidity.

Nice work, that is the sort of thing that I like to do, but lets face it, you only get that where someone pays a lot of attention to doing a design for you, or you do it yourself and take the time and care. Bearing in mine infill panels can cost upward of £50 (probably more on some materials) on some finishes it is in your best interest budget wise not to waste money on bits of chipboard with a nice finish on them. My brother got a kitchen from Wren, it's a nice kitchen, but the design was done by them in house, I was not overly impressed with some of the corner cutting - rather than make best use of space lots of bits of infill and panels stuck on here and there. Luckily he had a really good joiner, who was able to work with the units and parts he had to make a better version than what Wren had designed. He modified units superbly to fit around things and hid a boiler that was not even on the original plan to be hidden as they somehow ended up with an extra door. It is rare to get a joiner that good, I would class him as more of a high end shop fitter type.

I think in the days before online design, someone with experience could knock up a design more accurately and much more quickly than a layman. They also knew what was available in a way that we didn't before easy access to online stores. You could walk round a showroom all day without being confident that you could remember everything you had seen. Or visit 3 showrooms and have very little idea what you had seen where. (Or I could anyway lol) Now, visit a website, do your own plan, sit on it for a day or 2, week or 2 or even a month or 2, tweaking it as often as you want. I had 3 designs done, (Wickes, Ikea and Sheffield Kitchens) all of them just asked what I wanted and put it in. I got no suggestions of how to make better use of the space - or even the things that I was already considering - mainly around future proofing IE drawers and pull out units instead of cupboards so nothing is left at the back and high cupboards having bifold doors because I'm fed up of banging my head. Wren's was the first place I visited. I had looked round one in Bristol when I was at my sister's and thought they looked great. His attitude meant I left there knowing that it was the last place I would buy a kitchen.

Exactly mirrors my experience with a kitchen supplier. He refused to accept that my CAD drawings were accurate, I insisted that they were, and anyway, I wasn't asking them to fit the thing, just supply the units. Had some friends around the weekend before last, who have recently had a kitchen fitted. They remarked that we had no infill panels anywhere, and I just said that I'd designed the finished dimensions of the kitchen, allowing for the thickness of plasterboard and skim, such that the units would all fit exactly (in fact there's a ~2mm gap, which is hidden by the splashbacks, but I reckon 2mm is "good enough for government work").

Suspended timber floor, 300mm Frsmetherm 35 between joists (JJI I beam) then UFH then engineered oak floor. Walls, 200mm Frametherm 34 between frame studs, and 100mm wood fibre cladding then render. Same for the roof but tiles not render. U values all around 0.14, just about passable for a Passive House perhaps. 3G windows and good airtightness and mvhr. We are in a valley, the ones they mention in the weather forecast "could be colder in some sheltered Highland Glens" That is us. In winter with no wind it gets cold, record low this year was -14, and not above zero in the day, but the cold spell only lasted 3 weeks this year. The winter has been mild this year, nothing compared to last year. As they pointed out on the weather yesterday, this time last year we were dealing with the "beast from the East" and struggling to stay warm in the caravan. This year I am wondering how long before we need the lawnmower. I hope those heating costs will go down. Once the sun room is done, that should be a good heat collector on sunny winter days. With it just boarded up at the moment the kitchen / diner does not get any solar gain until very late in the day.

Diy kitchens have a great online design tool. Not easy to find though - no direct link from their website. They do standard units at 300, 400,500, ... right up to 1200. with lots of solutions for different drawer types and pullouts as well as standard cupboards. They also have cupboards only (I think) at 150, 350 and 450mm. The also have fitting for tray storage, bottles, towels etc at 100 and 150mm, so there is really no need to stick to 600mm. They also have loads of ideas of things you may not have thought of (corner solutions, bins, pull out ironing board, quadrants etc.) Although they are not made to measure they make all the cabinets to order at the site in Pontefract and their showroom is well worth a visit (Free tea, coffee and cakes) and it's close to M1, M62 and A1. Their customer service is great and everything comes very well packed. Here is the link https://planner.diy-kitchens.com/

That depends on insulation and air tightness. It has cost less than £200 to keep my entire house at 20 degrees all winter., As long as you get a modern inverter driven ASHP noise will not be an issue. Ours is behind the garage but a small window in the lounge looks out towards it, and we never hear it indoors.

Habito are about the best on the market In terms of impact and fixing to Also cost Don’t forget to allow 35 % extra for labour

At ~20 years old the chances are that the 10µF 63 V electrolytic capacitor, between the relays, may have dried out and caused ripple on the supply. I had this happen on an old time switch about 4 or 5 years ago, and just replacing the capacitor fixed it. The life of capacitors like this is around 10 years or so, so it's done pretty well to last this long.

it does, see two posts up, if nail is lost another is easily found ?

We put a run of 6x600mm Ikea wardrobes in each bedroom (two singles, two doubles) and got the joiner to frame around them in MDF to give the 'built in' look. They do a nice variety of doors and interior accessories (drawers, shoe racks, baskets etc..) - way cheaper than something bespoke - joiner agreed that it was way less than he could do it for in MDF or conti-board.

Well! Got it working but not sure how/why. After messing around I finally removed the main devolo plug from the extension lead. As it can't be plugged directly into the socket (the socket is installed up side down) I plugged it into ANOTHER extension lead on it's own. WORKS! (I think ).

Yes. But not for everyone. They are perfect for self builders (the full-on type) who are in control of everything: well nearly - the sparky comes in to do xyz - so short of giving her the exactly correct spec screws yourself, you have to accept some 'screw diversity' (Sincere apologies - you can take the pedant out of the self build, but not out of his turn of phrase) And this, this is the real danger, specially when you aren't looking The BarStewards just nick them...... Worse - people see your lying around, and guess what: they get nicked. I have now washed my WERA bit set three or four times now. It stays in my left hand work trouser pocket permanently. Its too big to gum up the washing machine, too small to leave lying around. Too expensive to keep buying.