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One of the home build rules of thumb is to make provision for things you're not 100% sure you'll need but will a pain to retrofit later, or just for peace of mind. By way of example, before we laid the driveway in Jan 2018 we ran ducting under the entrances to facilitate driveway lighting at a later date (as it's resin bound stone, I never want to have to cut into it.) Then when commissioning the power to the garage we realised that the SWA between garage and kiosk had been damaged at some point in the driveway construction so we were able to pull a new run using the existing duct. Ducting is your friend

Hi, we have just installed temp builder supply with DNO UK power networks for the first step of our build! This is how it went and the cost explained. 1.UK power networks cost - £2257 to bring the electricity from the pavement. 2. DIY digging - breaking up the concrete with Hilti 1000 (bought from ebay £350, planning to sell again after the build). Hiring the generator to power Hilti £48. Digging the trench 600mm deep. 3. Made box for casting the concrete base - using cheap pine floor boards from selco. Place the pipe (supplied by DNO) for the connection (right), also the short pipe (left) so we can place the earthing rod through to the ground. Pore the concrete mix (ready mix type, 3 bags) and waited a day to set. Material for above £38 from selco. 4. Screwed down the GRP box bought from ebay (£320 + VAT, but we could sell this on ebay for £180, so the real cost would be £160) UK network specify larger GRP box than this, but they confirmed that this size (W750xD450xH1250) is fine. 5. DNO came and installed the power cable though. They came 3 times - day1= digging only. day2= make connection, day3= filling back and make concrete surface (including our side as well, kindly) 6. We got SSE to install the meter (free), and electrician to install the consumer box and a socket. (installation £250) Toolstation - MK consumer box £58, double socket £12 Screwfix – eatrhing rod £2.50 Screwfix - Earth Rod to Lug Clamp 3/8" £1.80 We have put large MK consumer unit as this will be moved to the house once it built. I would not recommend SSE, as they did not turn up twice and wasted our time...! They are now installing 2nd Gen smart meter, which is much better than 1st one, you can move supplier and smart meter would work with the new supplier.

If you are after the slimline sliding door, try the Spanish company Cortizo. The sliding door system called Cortizo cor vision looked good on architect's house I visited. https://www.cortizo.com/en/sistemas/ver/55/cor-vision-sliding.html I have been quoted recently £450 per sq m (+VAT) from https://doors-direct.co.uk/

Did you work for Bentley in a former life ...?? Why not install it as a truth panel so future generations can see how it all began ..? and then just move on to another project and call this one .... ...finished.....??

That depends on the units and the sophistication of the programmer, not the ASHP itself. For example, @readiescards and I have both installed the IVT units which are rebadged Mitsubishi heat pumps. They come with no controls at all and are pretty binary in operation in that they just dump heat like a boiler does into the circuit. There are connections on the board for the Mitsubishi controller but I’m not sure anyone has ever tried as the correct controller is around £400. Most heatpumps can be put into either an S Plan, W Plan or Y Plan config without too much hassle. They need a call for heat and a set temperature. I have configured this by setting the bottom stat on the DHW to 45c, and the stat on the UFH buffer to 35c. Hit either of these and the ASHP stops. This means in “heating” mode it may well cycle but it’s not that bad tbh. It’s a straight factor of power output tbh - that rise needs around 10.5kw of heat and it’s a 9kw ASHP so given it was 8c outside I’d expect it to be able to go flat out with no de-icing and 70 mins or so would be the target. I do need to find some cheap clip on pipe stats though - anyone got a decent source..?

It's that disembodied hand again - are you the Munsters (or that might be the Addams)? Here's hoping that it doesn't goose the postman. That reminds me of one of my favourite plumbing-sounding words: Prebend. A prebendary is not something done to you before you get an invoice from the Council. It is: Having made the obligatory extend-onoff's-thread contribution, I can begin my day. F

My bank never calls me. They're afraid that I will ask them for money to spend on the build. ?

I agree with the above Unlikely that your blocks would be stolen Being near a main road makes you a harder target than the middle of nowhere for thief’s

The darker something is the more imperfections that'll show. Get a nice bright white on that and you'll lose even more imperfections that you see at present.

Thanks for all the positive comments. ? It’s nice to have something to feel good about (momentarily) whilst we feel bad about lack of progress elsewhere. All plastered now. It’s not bad at all. The eagle eyed (like HWMBO) might say it’s not quite circular. But it’s good enough for me. Going to take a while before we paint. The 6mm Flexi plasterboard needs PVA prior to plaster so will take longer to dry out. Off hired the tower scaffold. Will get it back for painting. Will get a higher platform to avoid the step ladder issue ? Meanwhile back to mist coating with my Aldi sprayer. Bring on the long weekend......

I see that you can buy second hand concrete sectional garages,complete with doors, for 99p on eBay, buyer to dismantle and remove!

i only paid £1200 for each of our shipping containers and that included delivery, you’ll need it for longer than four weeks! We’ve had ours for three years so far! We painted ours Army Olive Green Drab and hid then in some bushes. People park in front of them and don’t notice them until we point them out!

Lots of experience in having a leak I suppose... Cess pool wouldn't take it at the moment anyway!

If you needed additional help I would be happy to lend a hand.

Well did the bungalow throughout. It is so much quicker than traditional way. Didn't have to mask down either as windows still yet to be changed. I think I should have diluted a bit more as while the cup to test viscosity was provided it just said 100 DIN/sec. Whats that mean? However I can probably go round with the pole sander over everything. It will have still saved me time even after that. I set plank runs up in rooms to do ceilings and high level walls. All in all an OK piece of kit for the money, saved me some time BUT would likely pay a professional in future if the money was right (£250 for standard ish sized house I hear, mist coat all around plus extra coat on ceilings)

Donations to my PayPal account would work for me... ?

Looking through our invoice, we have a 5300 x 2100mm sliding door - 1 element fixed, 1 sliding. It is an Internorm timber aluminium HS330, triple glazed in a bespoke textured finish (not standard RAL). The cost was £9850+vat including fitting, before discount I think (which we did ok on, but the order was about £75k). This was through Spectrum Architectural, whom I would 100% recommend. I have no connection with them other than being a happy customer and I can say their before and after sales service is top notch. They also only take 50% on order, with 45% on delivery to the UK and the remaining 5% on completion of the job. If you do call them, ask to speak with Nick and say Andrew Webster sent you

Yes, I think that's what they call it. I put up a Jacksons fence in 1993 and when I moved sixteen years later it was as good as new. The gate posts here sit in water when the water table is high so it's a good test for their treatment.

only another 18 pages to go before the century is reached - must be a worthy target?

I think you could get it for £22.5k but you may have to mess about with just using their approved installer. Yours are coming out at about £1,000 per m2 and you should be able to get similar for £700. You u values look a bit crap too. Get a proper window schedule done and use this to shop around. You don't need to get all from one supplier, so you could have doors from one and windows from another. Have you tried IdealCombi?

And level (or laser) or taught string line, or all three. Check every single block for line and level.... Twice or three times.

I'd want it in gold leaf for that price.

Office 365 Home - £40. The main attraction for me personally is 1TB cloud storage for each of six accounts. Much cheaper than anything else available. Also stackable, so buying two gives two years (plus £5 discount voucher), 3 - £10 discount voucher. https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/microsoft-office-365-home-mcafee-6-device-1tb-cloud-storage-60-mins-skype-per-month-for-pc-mac-now-only-3999-argos-free-cc-3216072 I have just bought one last week using my home use program discount but I paid more ?

Probably the one you need after hauling 150kg upstairs without the trolley. Never used one of these but have seen a Xerox copier carried on one many many years ago. Non-electric version with 3 wheels per side in a rotary frame / configuration, when you hit the stair the wheel assembly rotates to simulate a walking movement.

Not trusting anyone to even set mine up. Holding out for a hero (or a bonny tiler, I’m not fussed).

We used one at work to move a large safe, the stairs had a half landing just to make it more interesting. It all went very smoothly. The biggest hassle was carrying out the job method statement, the risk assessment and the structural engineers calculations on the safe working load of the stairs.

@JSHarris I have used one of these in the last few weeks to shift a few fairly heavy comms racks (non-standard) up several flights of stairs. I have to say I was a little dubious of it but it worked really well and was fairly easy to use once carrying the load on its wheels.

There is an argument for filling post holes with rammed gravel round the posts to stop rotting (Yanks like it, I understand), rather than deliberately seeking to rot the post as quickly as possible by setting it in concrete, but that probably comes under something that would confuse this thread unecessarily ?. F

Double sided taped along vapour barrier join ; with single sided tape over edge 1 room done !

Nobody dies from that

Maybe they are 'invisible' - Strong gusts of air pumped up at the sides in proximity sensors are tripped, to blow anyone back on to the stairs if they start to fall. That would be proper GD tech!!!

Yep, we're furiously agreeing. I and @ProDave are just clarifying why that argument wouldn't apply to these NexGen heaters.

Some people are incredably gullible. On one occasion I was visiting my MIL and she complained her computer was slow, would I have a look, I ran Malwarebytes on it, and I think it gave up counting when it had found in excess of 2000 "threats" on the computer. When I asked what has she been doing the reply was "people keep sending me emails saying I have won some money so of course I click on the link" Some people you just can't help.

The efficiency claims are pure hype. All electrical heating is practically 100% efficient. The main advantage this product has is that it's very thin (0.5 mm).

Have a read of how PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) works here for starters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy And, for details of how digital email signatures work, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_signature As @Ed Davies writes, though, there is resistance from our government to using encryption, as they view it as being a threat to national security. In essence encryption stops, or makes very difficult, the ability of the state to read electronic communication (at the moment it's pretty easy to read email traffic). They argue that encouraging the use of encrypted, secure, messaging allows terrorists to communicate without the state being able to listen in. This ignores the fact that terrorists are generally pretty switched on when it comes to secure comms (there are several secure messaging apps readily available), so are almost certainly already using encrypted communications anyway. The reality is that discouraging the widespread use of encryption, so keeping email traffic in plain text, without any effective means of authentication, allows email scams and phishing attacks to flourish, something that arguably causes as much public harm as terrorism.

There'd be a certain irony if a cricket ball went through the oval window.....

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 Sorry, I didn't think my comment needed the “/sarcasm” tag. Indeed you can't send money by email but with digital signatures you can verify that an email updating bank details, or whatever, is valid. In less technically-backward countries (e.g, Austria, Estonia, Switzerland and, I think, the Netherlands) use of digital signatures with keys signed by government entities is pretty routine. Here the government just tries to ban secure cryptography. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQGzBAEBCgAdFiEEklM8otTd5M2cZSSDAHFYLlN5hIEFAly2U6kACgkQAHFYLlN5 hIF8ogv+Ne9TMHtLrEWAoAj9PLEiTy29wmEbjZpo0zntuQEuI9nU19VennDG/fe8 UQeaTtCh1Q7UWt7RbZSJqXyjN0s/pWhtZ76crQnAn0maFud4EPjGe7B57XqBlFoh PNkoL0PD8d72YDS0xHiKi2HooY4PKBWCoruuXAPO4RgcEb8e3/0Sc/m88SHwK4yS vPgDha2DCLHqz3tfyVuAkajPcsEsiboOBwiykB+P+BQu2aGqaxtTqwee595oBxih 0Mkrxo2oyOMVhxzYLN20RYh30q6IeZXB8/ClaCX6Kp55Er2g9OimYslvW/N2ACdB gaMSYBCrWuXB67lLgMtNGOrxCgrXp37hwBtQx9fQIcU1vMfTX5R4ZU+dg54E/5/x oXsqqKEbvr3LVA0X0+VfL25HThoP1tlS5N3/OMIMn/wzif9EaRD5nSPEm5rtVpaR WFrBHZNHb9XFhUOsVxYshxQTCti6RY3iByaqDo3OPnKKb8YJZj4L2XcEpiFmjDcu GDsysJFO =hpOA -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Nationwide free detailed advertising on TV, over 11,000 hits on the website and just ONE confirmed sale. That sums it up, that the plots are over priced. I don't know what the answer to making plots available for self build is, but this is certainly not it. Unfortunately. What price do large developers pay for a plot? Certainly not £250K each. If schemes like this cannot deliver affordable plots then perhaps it is time that planning law changed and demands that say for every 100 houses granted permission to the mass developers, one must be sold at the same plot price for self build? Sadly this seems to be turning into a prime example of "never underestimate how badly something can be run if left to local government"

I don’t know why everything has to ‘fit in’ as if the style houses were built in a few hundred years ago is the only style that is acceptable in certain areas. Are our minds so closed that we cannot accept new innovative designs too? How do new designs become classic styles if they are not allowed to be built?

Sadly for fans of the latest tech, having sensibly-priced access to mains gas usually means you should use it for heating. An old fashioned gas boiler and unvented cylinder. You just won't use very much of it.

Not really. My "plant room" houses the mvhr and a circulating pump and some controls for the ASHP. These could easily have gone in any convenient cupboard space anywhere in the house.

I don’t have a plant room per se, but a large cupboard (think double wardrobe) in the cloakroom with fuse board, timers, buffer tank, pumps and also washing machine ironing board and all that crap you don’t want to see round the house ?

The highest risk is during any “hot works”. Usual risk mitigation is to make sure any hot works are stopped a minimum of 2 hours before leaving site and to have appropriate fire extinguishers to hand.

Sad isn't it? Though I tend to compromise and let it cool to around the high 20s since this is moderately quick and losing that last 7°C or so takes quite a long time. What a bunch of sad old farts. I must admit that you can get a bit too anal about this. Bare with this seeming non-sequitur: Jan and I have a massage every two weeks turn and turn about (and before Clive starts chipping in with his dirty innuendos, this is a straight Swedish-style massage and no funny stuff). Even before we add our ASHP, our monthly energy bill is almost exactly the same as our massage bill, and under half our council tax.

Well, it’s been a month since my last blog update. We've witnessed out first concrete pour and now have floor joists so we are all set to build the next floor. The bracing plan we have from JUB looks like we have the potential to pour the second floor and gables in a single pour. This is a decision I'm only too happy to leave to the builders who continue to impress us with their ability to get on with a job regardless. In my last blog we had got on really quickly and had the ground floor pretty much ready for a concrete pour. We needed to wait as there was no rebar on site for the cantilever lintels for the first floor. Our structural engineers had provided a revised structural plan toward the end of February, but it did not have a bar schedule. One was requested and sent through quickly. So far so good, we had the second lot of blocks scheduled for delivery on the 24th March. The original schedule allowed the pour and joists to be in place prior to the block delivery. At the same time as this was progressing the pricing for the next phase was finalised and we gave agreement to proceed. A hiccup with the joist delivery delayed work on site. On a small site the second block delivery pretty much took up all the available space. ICF blocks and a cramped working site are not good news. The ICF is pretty dense but it’s easily damaged when it gets in the way. We ended up playing shuffle the blocks to get the remaining work done and for the first pour. Our builders did a splendid job and just took it all in their stride they were careful with the blocks and didn't complain about the site restrictions once. We had been warned that pours are not for the feint hearted, thankfully in the end ours went pretty well. The only real surprise was the bottom courses of blocks on one side of the build started to move outward on the raft. Fortunately it was spotted and the pour was suspended while Mike and the other lads added some more shuttering. With the new shuttering in place the pour continued and was completed without incident. Apparently it's unusual for the bottom row of blocks to move, but given they are not keyed into the raft and are subject to the greatest concrete pressure it's not entirely surprising. The blocks on the second floor will be keyed into the existing blocks so they should not suffer. With the pour done it was time to get the ledger beams in place to take the first floor joists. Our structural plans had the ledger beams fixed by bolts at 500 centres with the joists at 400 centres. Sounds OK but in practice it’s not ideal as it means you get clashes of beams and bolts, so the plan was revised and the bolts put in at 400 centres so they would not clash with the joist. Ledger beams in place the joist went in pretty quickly, transforming the house. Once you get past the ground floor you need to get scaffold in place for an ICF, not to build from but to prevent possible accidents if someone were to fall through the blocks from the inside. Our builder wanted us to arrange the scaffold, not sure if this is the norm, I suspect it’s liability related. We have used a local firm ROM Scaffold. Their guys arrived on Wednesday and pretty much had completed their work on the Thursday. The scaffold will also allow for our window installation and rendering. Looking forward to getting the next floor up and starting work on the roof.

For the record, that is not F

Watched it last night. The editorial bias was close to obscene. Doubt we'll watch GD again. I can stand on a bridge over the M6 and watch cars crash any day.

Many thanks, that's really useful to know. If the truth be told, moving our old 70kg Sunamp PV down the stairs on a sack truck scared me ***tless, as I was bloody terrified that it was just going to roll away over the edge. The idea of having to shift 150kg down the stairs just fills me with dread. Pulling stuff up, with a tirfor and timber sled was hard work, but not anywhere near as scary as going down with the sack trolley (yes, I was stupid to try it, but once over the first step, going down, I was past the point of no return).

Plumbers scorching timbers is a major source of site fires. Example image here: https://buyersask.com/plumbing/burnt-wood-near-plumbing-fittings/ but I totally disagree with their "not of major concern" point. @Nickfromwales and I have both done "time" on cruise ships (not together, heavens could you imagine sharing a cabin with his arse ). Their adherence to hot works rules is a MASSIVE focus. Its sadly lacking in general construction IMHO.