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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.

If plasterers were musicians, mine would be Elvis (except my plasterer is still alive, obvs!) or some arena-filling brain-melting rock god, because that's how good his plastering is. Others have been trying to coax Ian to work away for the last 3 weeks and they've had to accept failure as he doesn't travel (far). Anyhow, Ian the Plasterer has now left the building apart from a teensy last bit in the hallway that can't be done until the new stairs arrive, so 99% there. The week just gone saw the most challenging part of the plastering, which was the drop down the stairwell and the box section along the floor/upper ceiling run, which isn't one for a person with the slightest touch of vertigo. To get this done, the temporary staircase had to be removed and a compact but tall scaffold hired in to allow access. A youngman board was run across from the landing to the scaffold stage so that the width of the area could be accessed. As the last of the plasterboard was going up, we packed in as many of those pesky offcuts as we possibly could as this was our last chance to dispose of this within the walls of the house. It looked like some random form of plasterboard modern art as it was going up. Clearly, you can see that the stairs have been removed. Also moved temporarily was the UFH manifold that's been sitting comfortably under the stairs, as we didn't want any damage to come to that whilst Ian the Plasterer was doing his thing. Here's a not very good shot of the boarded stairwell and a peek at the edge of the PB lifter putting the board onto the hallway ceiling. The stairs are now on the floor in the lounge. Whether they will return to their original position depends on how long the permanent staircase takes to arrive, which is unknown right now as I need to have a chat with a couple of people about a couple of things, but I should be ordering it early next week. In the meantime, here's the stairway to nowhere. Back to the plastering, things are looking very different now that it's all done and drying out. The building instantly feels more solid and less like a construction site. The utility room is all done now and I intend to get in there next week with Jeremy's trust paint sprayer and then emulsion. There isn't that much going in the way of units going into the utility - just 4 in total. It will house a fridge, freezer and washing machine, then the units will continue along the same wall and have a work surface running above them. I've deliberately kept it less full as it's useful to have some empty space for all the things that fill up dumping grounds voids that most households naturally have. This is the other end of the utility, going through to the garage. Lying on the utility floor there, you can see my Howdens primed MDF doors, which are destined for upstairs and one between the utility and the main house. I hope to get started on painting these soon. The doors for most of the downstairs are currently in production over in the Netherlands, due to arrive around the 5th April, and these will be fully finished so no need to paint or anything, just add hardware and hang. After some research and a little back and forth, it turns out that the Netherlands is a great place to go for over-height doors. This is because what we consider to be over-height is entirely standard to them and you can get pretty much any size up to 2300 with no bother at all. Very handy for those large doorways of mine downstairs. We've planned to have low level lights in the hallway for some time now and I've copied ones that can be put in flush with the plasterboard and then plastered in (thanks, Barney12!). It sounded like a good idea so I ordered them and they arrived a few days later. Cue panic on my part as they appeared enormous and were way deeper than I was expecting. I had to measure them several times and be convinced that they wouldn't come out of the wall behind them. As it was, only a screwdriver point did that. The lights weigh a tonne - they are moulded plaster of Paris and very odd looking things, but look good once they go in. Here's the side view of the light that needs to be lost in the cavity of the stud wall. What a whopper! And here they are once they've been plastered in. Finishing off on the plastering, here's a view of the bottom part of the scaffold tower that I've hired for the occasion. Even though the stairwell is plastered, I've kept the tower as I need to paint the stairwell and the prep for this means masking the long window, so I need the extra height for this. Ian the Plasterer was cursing the weather that day as the sun was beating in and that long window faces almost due south. He was bemoaning the fact that you could see every single ripple in the plasterboard and even the slightest imperfection stuck out like a sore thumb. Overly critical of his own work as he is, he was very relieved when it was pointed out to him that there will be a brise soleil in front of that window eventually, which will smooth out his ripples in a jiffy. The last bit of plastering is a slight change of plan in the bathroom. Originally, the slanted wall opposite the door was going to be tiled all the way to the top and the MVHR extract hidden with a false panel covered by a tile. After some discussion, it was decided that this would look horrible as the side walls are only going to be tiled part way up. We still needed a work around for where the wall protrudes to house the cistern for the wall mounted loo and decided that continuing the theme of niches in the bathroom, a large portrait-style one above the loo would look good. I suggested that the MVHR outlet could then come down via the 'ceiling' of the niche, but a further move was made and it will be on the right hand side of the niche wall, above the bath, and so be virtually invisible (once the vents are covered!). As ever, a sharp bit of plastering from Ian. Plenty more has been going on inside, but let's step outside for a breath of air as it was busy there, too. The next set of groundworks have started. These comprise the surface water and foul water drainage, the driveway between the garage and the lane and the hard standing to the side of the garage. In addition, the surface water will now all be diverted to the pond, which overcomes the potential issue of how to deal with this on our heavy clay site. I've swapped groundworkers for this stage of the works. Sadly, my previous groundworker came through with a ridiculously inflated quote for the drainage work and as I already had another firm waiting in the wings as I have to install a dropped curb between my drive and the lane, I decided to use them for all the work as they were far more reasonable. I'm afraid there are no thrilling photos of the groundworks as it looks very similar to how the site has looked since the onset of winter - wet and boggy, with a few trenches here and there. However, I'm delighted that the drainage works are progressing, albeit with being called off for a few days due to the awful storms we've been having, as it means that as soon as they are done we can press on with the cladding and get the building properly watertight. As well as the groundworks, the balustrades for the balconies started going in last week. The east balcony is completed and the supports and railings are in on the west with the glass to follow shortly. There was a problem with a couple of panels not being the right size so I'm waiting on those, then the guys will be back to finish the installation. When I first ordered the balustrade, I had a minor panic shortly afterwards. I had requested that all the metal work should be powder coated in RAL 7016 to match the windows and be close to the colour of the slate. The panic was due to my wondering whether I should have gone for brushed steel or something a bit brighter. Come the day, however, the darker shade of anthracite grey was the right choice as it blends seamlessly with the windows and slate cladding on the upper storey, so much so that standing in the lane, the railings disappear and only the glass is obvious. Phew! Here's the balustrade viewed from the balcony. The same from the top of a pile of wood chippings in what will be the garden: And, finally, from the lane. The building looks very austere at the moment, but once the stone cladding goes on, it will be transformed again. It's a bit chilly outside, so let's go back indoors. Work has been continuing on the kitchen and the laminate worktop is in situ now, as well as the sink. Photos on that to follow next week once the clamps are off. I had been pondering the support post for the overhang on the island worksurface, and how to overcome my dislike for most of the ready made options out there. I really didn't want a metal post as it would look incongruous against everything else in the kitchen and so in one of those late night flashes of inspiration that occasionally come along, I decided to ask Harry the Carpenter to clad some timber with the laminate splashback to make a post that matched the underside of the breakfast bar part of the island. Harry did his thing, and I'm pleased with the result. Much as with the balustrade against the slates, it largely disappears into the background of the recess under the walnut worktop. I've been busy sanding and painting and all things decorating. The snug has now had its 2 coats of vinyl emulsion and I'm working my way through the prep for painting my ready-primed MDF skirting and architrave. I hate prep. Tedious, boring, and there's no way to get out of it. However, it will be worth it once all the 'woodwork' is all white and pristine. One thing that has become apparent since I painted the snug is the difference a paint base makes. The neutral colour that I'm using everywhere is called Borrowash, from Brewer's Albany paint range. In the snug and low traffic areas, I'm using standard vinyl emulsion but for the hallway and lounge, I'm using durable vinyl. All in the same shade, just a different base. So what, you may ask. Well, here's the thing. They come out different colours. I chose the colour on the basis of the standard vinyl - this is how it appears in the colour chart and sample pots, and it's a warm grey/beige, more beige than grey. The durable version, however, is much cooler and more grey than beige. I painted the lounge first with the durable stuff and a little while back did one of the bedrooms with the standard emulsion. I commented at the time how the light made them appear to be different colours except, as I now know, they really are different. It's not a problem as I like them both and they aren't next to each other in the same room, but it's worth bearing in mind if you plan to use the same colour in different bases. Here's the snug all painted up, looking out to the hallway. And another of the same. Finally, as I started the blog with Elvis, it seems appropriate to finish it with a bit of a light show. Team Blackmore worked hard on the ceiling feature in the lounge but up until now, it's been uncertain just how well (or not) it would work out with lights. Patience isn't always a virtue and so some LED strip lights on the feature were temporarily rigged up. All I can say is that Team Blackmore had a smile on its face when it saw this. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the ceiling lights. p.s. I was on site to do a clean up today whilst it was nice and quiet there. There had been plenty of cursing during the week as work on the en suite shower for the master bedroom finally started. Foul things were coming out of both ends of the plumber the day after his curry night and the recalcitrant shower wasn't doing much to improve his mood. I noticed this today, written on a piece of board in the base of the shower recess.

You call that a rant? Really? Ed, you have too positive an attitude - still - to have a proper rant: a proper juicy, spittle filled rant; one thats as unpleasant to write as it is to read; one thats as cathartic to write as it as as crotch-gripping for the reader who has to read it peeping between the fingers of the other hand. Look at all the things you do right: all the videos you publish freely, giving those who haven't got a clue (like me) just enough courage to have a go for ourselves, the guts to work at the day job Monday to Saturday and then spend evenings and Sunday on the house. Need a proper rant? Send me a copy before you publish the next one and I'll sex it up for ya. Proper job. Free of charge. ?

Yep! My first 2 houses had bathrooms that were a vision in avocado. Lovely ?

Looking good. Nice to see you’ve used the Tornado plaster lights. Should have asked Nick for a commission payment Oh and I can verify he has an arse like a sewer ?

You taught him well that is all I can say!

Summer of 2017 - photos of the paddock near the stable. Our daughter wanted wild flowers for her wedding but she then brought the day forward from June to May due to another family wedding clashing. The flowers looked beautiful on the original wedding day but were not out on the wet and wild day she actually got married on.

Have you done a search in the council planning portal for that house? Have they got the records of the house that is on that site?

I thought volume was used as a limiting factor, rather than footprint, but maybe I have that wrong. Presumably easy to look up the relevant planing policy on the local authority's website.

You should be able to add up all the ground floor areas of the building or 1.5 times the orgininal ( what it was in 1954 or as built if after) house. We are in London GB + AONB and both us and our neighbours have used one or other of these routes.

Assuming that the building has permission as a dwelling (or you are able to prove that it has been lived in as a dwelling for the required number of years to enable you to get permission, you would then need to know if permitted development rights have been removed. All green belt land round here, or New Forest National park land, has permitted development rights removed as far as I can tell so anything we do, has to have permission. Lots of questions for you and no answers unfortunately:

You don't tell us much about the building. The important thing is, is it lived in as a dwelling presently and has been used as that for a number of years. If yes, then even if it does not have planning for use as a dwelling you should be able to get a certificate of lawful development to confirm residential status. If it has only been used e.g as a workshop, store, agricultural building then you need change of use first which may or may not be possible.,

How long is a piece of string? Tell us what research you have already done for yourself.

Be interested to hear how well you get on with them. My limited experience so far has been that the couple of high voltage COB type LEDs I've bought have run cooler, but they are still relatively new, and have only been around for a year or two, AFAIK.

Were primatic tanks ever made with sprayed foam insulation? IIRC they stopped making them in the late 1970's, but I can't remember when tanks first started being supplied with green sprayed foam. I thought the green foam was a much later thing, introduced to show that the insulation was CFC free. With a separate header it sounds to me like it's a normal indirect cylinder.

You might be thinking of CFLs. The unusual form factor ones were expensive and very slow to start (and dim anyway). Slow start isn't a natural feature of LEDs. Most of our lights are LED now and we've had a fair number of failures; mainly early ones and mainly ones with unsuitable forms like GU10. Can't think of a failure with externally powered ones. I'd say G9 is an unsuitable form for LED conversion, very likely to overheat.

Some of our LEDs have failed or started flashing. Probably 5% Crompton have been very good at replacing them under-warrenty

When we put the downlighters in here a good few years ago LEDs were eye wateringly expensive and weren’t as good as they are now. The cheaper ones (still mega bucks at the time) seemed to take ages to get bright enough, so you could go to have a pee and the bathroom would still be relatively dark by the time you had finished. Despite this the OH still wanted them but the regs the house was built under said that we didn’t need LEDs so I overruled him and all the internal downlighters started off with halogen lamps fitted. Over the years as the halogen ones have blown I have replaced them with LEDs. I would say they’ve been pretty reliable. I tend to keep a couple of boxes of 10 here, bought when they are on offer, and a box of 10 has always been under a tenner. I haven’t bothered replacing all the halogens in one go as there are loads of them and I actually don’t keep any of the downlighters on for very long. I have a set of 5 outside and they’ve been in for about 7 years and have never failed.

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.

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.

They are exactly the same model by Scheppach .

3rd Draft arrived this afternoon - I think we are there!!

Those electric wall-hanging pseudo stoves are quite acceptable imo. Or go against tired convention and put something else there - interesting sculpture, long lasting plant arrangement, or rotate it like the Fourth Plinth. A mirror at the back works well. Perhaps with some nice candles in front? Ideas here: https://www.housebeautiful.com/design-inspiration/home-makeovers/g2260/non-working-fireplace-ideas/ Ferdinand

By day.

We had wbs in our plans but didn't bother for various reasons. Got this before Christmas and love it. Kicks out a decent heat and each side will last 6 hours. Ours has a double burner, we normally put in half a litre in each side after dinner and it lasts until 10. Lovely to look at and decent heat for the whe front of the house. We don't really need the heat but it is nice having super cosy on a cold night.

I haven't been keeping up with Mr Luxton's blog, thanks for that, will check it. Just took a quick look - looks like he's blowing the cavity with EPS bead, which is what I was going to do (or use cellulose). I took a look at the prices for the Steico products - they make a wall joist. Might be worth talking to them about whether this could be used. I took a look at their price list at http://www.steico.com/fileadmin/steico/content/pdf/Marketing/UK/Price_List/STEICO_pricelist_int_i.pdf From my calculation it looks like around £3.5-4k for the i-beams. Thanks so much for your input @bissoejosh

This our 44mm2 tiny home, built at a cost of £30k

We put a bio ethanol fireplace in ours. Looks great, convenient, no smell, kicks out a fair bit more heat than expected and does heat the room up to borderline uncomfortable if the UFH has already been on. Probably does work out expensive as I just bought the ethanol from Amazon. However it’s only used as a feature when we have company. Dont believe any any of the fuel consumption claims, 1L lasts about 1hr30 in ours at full whack.

If you can find a way to source bioethanol fuel (legally) from a country where there is no requirement to add noxious compounds to it to stop people drinking it then there will be zero smell or fumes from it at all. If you want to test this out (very expensively!) then distil vodka at a distillation vapour temperature of 78 deg C (no higher, or water will go over as well). Ideally use a two stage still, with a reflux column below the main vapour outlet and hold the vapour outlet as close to 78 deg C as you can. That way the entire ethanol content will distil out, leaving just water behind. This is completely legal, as duty will have been paid on the vodka. Try this in the stove and you will find that the fuel has practically no smell at all (a bit like vodka, which is really just diluted bioethanol, in a ratio of about 40% ethanol, 60% water, by volume, usually). There will be no fumes at all at any stage of the combustion process, either, all that will be released is water and CO2. It's a great shame we son't have more enlightened laws, like those in New Zealand, where home production of distilled bioethanol is completely legal. The stuff is so very easy to make, and can use waste fermentable material (essentially anything that has sugars in it) so there's no practical problems at all with homebrew bioethanol, any more than there is with home brew diesel production (which is perfectly legal, a friend down the road runs his Landrover on it, using waste vegetable oil he collects from the local chippy and Chinese restaurants). Edited to add: I seem to remember that you can buy litre bottles of pure ethanol from French supermarkets and DIY stores, sold as a cleaning solvent - I recall bringing some back from a holiday years ago, so that might be the way to get odourless fuel.

Whether you get any smell or not depends on the ethanol additives. We have a UK problem with ethanol, in that it cannot be sold without either attracting the same duty as alcoholic drinks or by being "denatured" with chemicals that make it taste horrible, to dissuade people from drinking it. This is undoubtedly where any smell comes from, because pure ethanol doesn't smell at all when it burns, it just gives off CO2 and water, nothing else. I could suggest a very easy way around this, using the cheapest form of homebrew possible, plus an easy DIY distillation method that would give very pure ethanol, but that would be illegal..................... However, I know EXACTLY how I'd get fuel if I had a biofuel stove, and it wouldn't involve buying the stuff, with chemicals added to it.......................

For info/inspiration here's something that I'm just in the process of finishing up - my garden shoffice (half shed, half office) Wall construction was (inside to out) - - 11mm OSB - Multifoil insulation (I was curious to see how well it worked..) - 4x2 stud filled with 100mm Knauf Ekoroll - 9mm OSB - Breather membrane - Horizontal batterns - Vertical cladding (gravel boards "good" side facing out) (there should be more air gaps and such, but it's a shed at the end of the day...!) Roof is EPDM on 18mm OSB, 4x2s @ 600 centers, mix of ekoroll and celotex, 11mm OSB internal finish Floor is 18mm OSB on 6x2s @ ~400 centers. Ekoroll supported by breather membrane looped over the joists Costs add up surprisingly quickly but saved money by sourcing all the joists from a nearby bungalow that was being scalped and turned into a house - the builder said it's a shame as it all treated, slow grown, dead straight wood but because it isn't graded he has to burn it or skip it. All the joist wood cost me £20 + labour for denailing etc. Smallest 9000btu ASHP for heating Still needs some finishing touches and another coat of paint/stain (Cuprinol Shades) but otherwise it's probably very close to what you're trying to achieve.

I don't know, especially as they are not so different. It could be that Newtonian stuff is easy to see, energy stuff is not. Purely as an aside, we have a card machine at work and it accepts contactless payment. Many people do not trust it and will put their card in the slot and punch in the PIN. I have christened contactless payment as "Voodoo", as it is black magic and not to be trusted.

Sadly I can't, as it seems to be a very variable and fluctuating market, so there's no easy way to tell if something that was sold a month ago and that was OK would be the same as ostensibly the same item, sold by the same supplier later. I bought several apparently different makes of LED driver and found that around 70% of them were probably fakes, in terms of not actually complying with the marked approval.

I took one of these constant current drivers apart to see how good the RF screening was and to check as to whether there was any conducted RF suppression. Draw your own conclusions from these photos: First point to note is that the case carries the double box symbol that indicates that it's double insulated. However, it has two single insulated mains conductors coming out of the case, so it clearly isn't compliant with the Class II regs. That tends to cast suspicion on the other approval marks, in my view, so I suspect that, like many such devices, the CE mark is fake (to carry that mark the unit should comply with the LV Directive and the EMC Directive, and it doesn't seem to comply with either). There's a tiny suppression capacitor on the "DC" output (which looks nothing like DC, it's a high frequency pulse train at a hundred kHz or so, with barely rounded edges). There are no suppression components on the incoming AC side, so RF can easily be conducted via the incoming wires, too, which may then act as an antenna. There's no form of screening to prevent or reduce radiated RF emitted by the circuit from passing through the case.

Another consideration if you are retro fitting is the rating. Look at the lumen out put and beam angle, not just the wattage. I tend to stay with branded and avoid the cheaper stuff. Our purchasing manager in work is a notorious Scrooge and proudly told me he had bought loads of led lamps from alibaba for his home for pennies. A week later he asked me to have a look at his kitchen lighting as the lights wouldn’t turn off. Turns out that when operated by the intermediate switch, a small voltage remained (possibly induced -big house, long run) which was enough to power a dim light from the led. Swapped out for branded (still cheap ones) and normal operation restored.