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Had the air tightness test & EPC done this week. Not really ready but had to do it to meet the deadline for the FIT. House nowhere near finished, just plastered, have 2nd fix to do & MVHR not on yet. Air test result was 0.41 & EPC A rated at 99. (Of course if I fit solar thermal at a cost of £4000 it could score 101 & save £64 a year. What nonsense.) Huge relief. My husband would have been so chuffed.

I have had cancer, twice, during our build and lost my late wife to cancer when our kids were teenagers, life is shit sometimes but I have to say having this build has been my therapy in some ways, I struggle at times but get soooo much satisfaction out what I can do. Life is short and it’s not a rehearsal.

Its nice to hear about a B.I.that uses common sense.

Can you imaging being in there ... and dropping a bolt onto the floor ..???! It would take you a week to find it ..

More about them here http://www.gasboilerforums.com/primatic.html The point is you can;t tell just by looking at the cylinder, it has the same number of ports in about the same place. Look in the loft at the number of header tanks, that will tell you the type of cylinder.

Thanks guys. It was all really down to Henry's hard work & attention to detail. He sadly passed away on 5th March. Heartbreaking that he didn't get to see the house finished & move in. However, it stands as a huge achievement for him & it is lovely.

Welcome. You've found the right place for help. Posting plans up is always good and people will dive in with advice. I'm intrigued...an "advocado kitchen" is that a typically Scots thing as in a seperate space for preparing the things well away from proper foodstuffs?

I've been in this rented house for 30 months now having replaced all the old halogens and incandescents with LEDs in the first few months of being here. I don't think I've had any failures. The only “problem” I've had is that I replaced one of the halogen E14 (SES) spots in the kitchen when it blew in the first few weeks I was here with a LED one which was much too narrow beam. Shortly after, I replaced all the kitchen bulbs with wider angle LEDs which have been fine. Not given the lighting any thought since.

Soap Under Direct Supervision : its what cleaning folk do, supervise the saponification of grease stains .......... OR Sustainable Drainage Systems : can't remember which.....

You can get the VAT back on the hard landscaping whether it's in the PP or not. It's in VAT Notice 708 as 'work closely connected to the construction of the building' so @nod you may wish to consider buying the materials for this work and storing them so that you can claim the VAT back even if you aren't in a position to complete the work just now.

Similar to my hubby. Fit, healthy, in the middle of a self build, never been sick apart from having crap knees. Went to the doc with a pain in his side that he thought was due to climbing up and down the scaffold tower. Diagnosed with terminal cancer. Life changes in an instant. Carpe diem.

Thanks Just As we started the build Went to the docs Stiff kneck 51 never been ill cycles everywhere cancer in his spine lunge kidney liver He lived in our dining room while we have been doing the build Just finished two years of imuno theropy Started Chemo yesterday It does make you count your blessings

I work with LEDs. They are sensitive little buggers. Yes it’s normally the driver that will fail but some of the claims about LEDs are to be taken with a bit of salt. They should be a better option for outdoor use though as they are less susceptible to cold temps.

It is not just LED's, ordinary lamps are often rubbish. The amount of times people call me because "the lamps keep blowing" they seem to think there is some kind of an electrical fault with a light fitting that can cause the lamps to blow. Most of the time I just check all the connections are tight, more to humour them than any expectation of finding a fault. So far none of our cheap GU10 LED lamps have failed. These have mostly been the ones that came with the cheap Screwfix downlighters which I highlighted the link to at the time, something like £2.99 for the fire rated downlight with LED lamp. I am sure they were priced wrong.

Well funny you should say that My wife’s brother has multipul cancers and struggles He has his own remote for the side gates and comes in through the French doors Drives his little scooter within inches of the doors He will perhaps be spending what’s left of his life with us very soon I intend paving he area in front of the double doors He can simply drive onto the tiled floor I asked him if he can cope with the 35 mil drop He just laughed But Rules are Rules I would gues most disabled or elderly would choose option 3 I will keep everyone posted As there must be others on here that would like to get there vat back Then make up all There paths and drives etc

Apparently their first attempt at finding us a spare pair to the exchange, they found one that was "dead" and 24 hours later they were back again as that "dead" one was a leased line and they had a very unhappy customer complaining, I know the old twisted pair network is out of the arc, but you really would have thought, 20 years ago when broadband was introduced, from THAT point onwards all NEW cabling installed would have been something very much better. But no they have just carried on with the same rubbish. As far as I know we got the last "good" pair down our road. There was another pair that was spare but tested as dud. Next time someone builds a house (or the guy down the road finishes the one he started before mine) and want's a telephone line, they may have some work to do.

Exactly, BT do not offer a broadband service in the sense that Openreach only guarantee a copper pair for speech quality to a certain standard (SIN5xx for some xx I can't remember, 516?). If it happens to work for broadband as well that's a bonus. If it cuts off everything above 3 kHz that's not their problem. I think it's different with FTTC and, of course, with FTTP.

As per @JSHarris above, this is my understanding of the problem with LEDs, but I understand there can be a problem with some stand alone AC-DC converters giving radio interference, problem is finding good ones. Perhaps this forum could list good ones from personal experience, or list the bad ones to avoid.

There are major reliability problems with some LED lamps and fittings, mainly because they are often not designed to allow the LED lamps to run cool. Worst offenders seem to be those lamps that run directly from the mains supply, as they often have a tiny AC-DC converter internally that is squeezed into a tiny space and consequently runs hot. All our lights in the house are LEDs and none have ever failed, but they are all low voltage LEDs, even the 8 or 9 outside lights, and so none have the problem caused by having a small AC-DC converter squeezed into the lamp itself. The downside is that all the lights have separately mounted power supplies, but at least this arrangement seems to ensure reasonable reliability.

Outside light bulbs are notorious for failing quickly due to the heat/cold cycles and they get moisture in the electronics somehow ..! I put a decent Phillips filament LED in one at my mums about 2 years ago though and it’s still going strong. Was about £6 from memory. Inside I use L-Tac GU-10 and they have been fine.

You sound like my wife I converted everything to Led at the last house £4.50 each I told yes but they last Zillions of hours Wrong Same exsperinance As you We have 120 downlights on our new home The electrician recommended CPC saying he hasn’t had any problems in five years of using the Buying by the box Tgey work out about 80 p each All ok after six months including 6 outside

We were told that the ramp had to be a "permanent structure", and that anything that looked as if it could be easily removed wouldn't be acceptable. A friend in East Yorkshire encountered exactly the same approach from his BCO; his fabricated metal ramp, with a chequer plate top, was rejected. He ended up laying plastic sheeting down and then pouring a proper concrete ramp over his York stone steps to get his completion certificate, Needless to say he carefully broke away the concrete and cleaned up the underlying steps once he'd got his completion certificate...

Yep agree with other "Scottish" contributors - we had to show a ramp and hand rail on our building plans. We had NO intention of having one installed because I knew we had sufficient space in which to gently raise the paving slabs to the height of the door which had a level access threshold fitted. The drains Inspector was the same person who would be doing the final inspection, so we were lucky enough to keep him fully informed and also show him our intentions. At the time the drains were fitted, there was no sign of the ramp and he did enquire about it. This then led onto the conversation about the paving slabs etc. See image for final result which proved to be acceptable.

I probably have more machinery and technical manuals in my sewing area than OH has in the garage. Add in the various hand tools (e.g. the best way to cut open a buttonhole is with a small chisel) and drafting equipment and it's not a soft and fluffy room. He can have the garage, though. No heating in there!

Well, we’re very pleased to report that our full planning permission was granted this afternoon after 13 months, 5 completely different designs and 2 full planning permission applications. It was particularly difficult as our plot is outside the development boundary, i.e. classed as open countryside, so became an NPPF paragraph 131 (para 63 in old money) application.

Let’s face it, a ramp that long may need, for a man “of a certain age”, a little rest and a pee stop half way up. Just need a little picnic bench and my Dad would have been happy to use your ramp all day long.

My inspector would have needed that urinal to prevent himself from peeing his pants through laughing! As @ProDave says no way would that get signed off up here. Good luck to you if it works out though. I can't help thinking that's actually more of a trip hazard that just a step up.

Got the urinal set at the right angle too. Top man!

Our “garage” is going to be my new sewing room plus a dog shower / people shower / outside toilet plus a small shed. Maybe i should put used cotton reels into the floor and varnish over ??

Ah but normal light bulbs were 4 for a pound in the £shop! I actually still have some normal light bulbs that were bought over 3 years ago and were in some of my table lamps in our last but one house, they were taken out the lamps when we moved almost 3 years ago to the cottage and because we had no need for the lamps in such a small house they had been wrapped in newspaper and boxed up all that time, when I recently unpacked the boxes and found them they went back into the lamps and are working fine ?