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No just not true. If like the vast majority of members here you play nice then your posts don't get subjected to any kind of moderation. It's in the terms and conditions that you signed up to when you joined this forum that if you post something which doesn't adhere to these rules then it gets moderated. It's that simple.

regardless of anyone's politico/scientific beliefs, why can't people just tread gently on the planet?

Sorry for the delay since the last blog. Things have been very hectic keeping a track of everything that is going on with the build and holding a job down ! As we approach end of January and move into February there are lots of things going on simultaneously on site including battening the roof in preparation for the roofers, finishing of fitting the smartply in preparation for blowing in the insulation and fitting the windows and doors. The first window goes in on 30th January. Many of the side reveals to the windows have splays to help spread the light from the window. We are using Green Building Store Progressions windows and Green Building Store Ultra doors. The Progression windows are expensive, but the narrow sight-lines give a lovely contemporary look and very little of the frame is visible outside, so it should be as maintenance free as you can get and seems like a good investment. The Ultra doors look very similar to the Progression doors and are of a similar thermal performance but are more cost effective to purchase. From the 12th - 15th February, the Warmcell insulation is blown into the frame. I hadn't realised, but you can do this before all of the windows are fitted, as long as the boarding out is completed inside and out. By 21st February all windows and doors are fitted. A lot of time has gone into ensuring the windows are fitted properly and are as airtight as possible. In parallel, the brick plinth is built. Whilst you won't see all of this once the ground levels are built up, I am really pleased with the quality of the job. Next job is and fitting the Aquapanel in preparation for the rendering. The roofer we had lined up pulled out at the last minute, but we are able to get a local firm with a good reputation to take their place at short notice. We took a lot of trouble selecting the roof tiles and we are particularly looking forward to seeing the tiles laid. The roofers are on site beginning of March after a small delay due to rain to do the counter-battening and lay the tiles. The roof is a pretty simple shape so the roofers make quick progress. We are using plain clay smooth machine-made tiles made by Dreadnought tiles and supplied by Ashbrook Roofing. We found out about them at a self build show we attended and have had great support from both Dreadnought and Ashbrook. We are using two colours - 70% staffordshire blue and 30% blue brindle mixed randomly. Before you know it, the roof is in place. Big Day on 8th March as it is our first Air Test. We'd put 0.3 air changes per hour (ach) @ 50pa into phpp so we were hoping for something similar or better. Results were: 0.08 ach @ 50 pa 0.11 m3/hr/m2 @50 pa Absolutely delighted with the results. Given building regs are 10 m3/hr/m2 @50 pa and Passivhaus standard is 0.6 ach @ 50 pa, this is over 90 times better than building regs and over 7 times better than Passivhaus standards and a great testament to the attention to detail shown by the build team. Flashings between the wood cladding and the render are fitted. These were made by a Herefordshire based fabricator. Work continues fitting the cladding. We are using Douglas Fir, supplied by Ransford which is literally 5 minutes down the road. Once the roof has been laid and the weather allows, the rendering starts. We are using the Weber system, with a base coat applied first followed by a thin silicon based top coat which will be sprayed on. The roof and detailing around the dormer window are completed Once the cladding is complete and before the scaffolding comes down, we need to treat the cladding. The gable ends need a fireproof coating due the proximity of other houses, so it's one coat of primer, two of Envirograf and two of Osmo. The front and back of the house get one coat primer and two of Osmo. It's one of those jobs that costs more and takes longer than expected. We hadn't planned on having to to apply so many coats of product and in my naiveity I thought it would be a layer or two of fireproof coating on each gable. The wood looks a little orange at the moment but that is typical when new and it does weather down nicely which is what I plan to allow the wood to do. Hopefully to osmo will help even out the weathering but I have no plans to keep on applying it. The guttering is attached whilst the scaffolding is still up (Lindab galvanised) The scaffolding on the house comes down and goes up on the garage to allow the roof to be completed on the garage. The second coat of render is sprayed on and the shell of the house is now complete.

Dara, as ever, is on the money here...

Then it sounds like you've read some utter bullshit. I'm less familiar with the NOAA data than the NASA GISS and the UK HadCRU datasets. The GISS and HadCRU datasets take historical meteorological readings of temperatures since the 1800s (different start times for the different datasets) and apply corrections because of known problems with the way measurements were made such as the effects of stations being moved and times of observations being changed, changes to the way water temperatures were measured by ships and so on. They then use this corrected data to work out temperature anomalies (differences from the average temperature in a baseline period) for different areas of the world and thereby come up with temperature anomalies for the whole globe, each of the hemispheres, land and ocean, etc. This corrected data indeed shows a general warming trend over the last 100 years or so. Guess what? If you take out the corrections they apply, just using the raw measurements as input the data shows a somewhat larger increase in temperature.

Hello! I expect I'll be spending some considerable time perusing the halls of this place. I'm just about to make a start on knocking down our existing utility room to build another on a slightly larger floorplan. I've renovated a house and been heavily involved in another, so looking forward to seriously ramping up my knowledge. Like many of you, I have an ongoing dream of self-building some day so I guess this is a bit of a toe dip. The main goal is to do as much as I physically can myself - end to end. So I've submitted my own plans to building control and planning (for a lawful development cert under permitted development) and I'll be working under a Building Notice. I'm a little nervous that it involves knocking down our existing utility room - there's rather no going back at that point! But I've just had my first meeting with Building Control who seemed pleasant and relaxed, and put to bed a few misconceptions floating around the internet so that's given me some confidence.

I’m worried about the heat from the bbq compromising the plastic roof. I am not Onoff so I do not want to make a sliding roof mechanism like the Millenium Stadium.

I needed 35 packs of Rockwool sound slab for acoustic insulation in my partition walls. Ex. VAT Prices obtained: BuilderDepot £25 / per pack http://m.builderdepot.co.uk/rockwool-insulation-td-multirock-100mm-x-600mm-x-1200mm-pk-6.html Wickes £33.33 / per pack Travis Perkins £38.88 per pack The BuilderDepot price had a big discount at 15+ packs. So, that is £500 saved on the BuilderDepot price compared to the original Travis Perkins quote for 30 minutes work.

I'm hoping this site will be both a source of inspiration and a shoulder to cry on over the coming months, if not years. My partner Helen and I purchased a disused Severn Trent Pump House and DSR (Distribution Storage Reservoir - great big concrete water tank) back in February 2018. The half acre plot came with full planning consent to renovate the existing brick Pump House, build a new section to link the Pump House to the concrete water tank and to convert the tank into living accommodation. It was a very contemporary, flat roof design, not really us, so we've spent the last year coming up with a new scheme and starting to clear the site ready for the build, once planning have given their seal of approval. This is the first time Helen and I have taken on a project like this. We've both undertaken extensions and small alterations in our separate lives, before we met, but nothing on this scale. Whilst a slow start, this has given us time to think. I can't count the number of visits we've made to the plot with a picnic in hand, to sit on the grass roof of the tank and get a feel for the place and to imagine what it would be like to live there. We've also had time to look into the history of the site and helped by John Simpson from Severn Trent Reunited - http://www.st-reunited.org.uk, we've been able to find out quite a lot. We've even had the pleasure of meeting the children, who's father worked there and his father before him. Some of the old photos have also been passed on, a lot of which are on the reunited web site, but I'll post some of these as we progress. I've attached a few images of the site, as it was when we purchased it back in 2018. We've since removed the earth banks from two sides of the tank, so I'll upload some more recent shots later. We're both very excited about the build, but realistic about the challenges ahead. We couldn't have wished for a better location and the opportunity this has given us. Happy days! Dave & Helen

@Oz07 We used smart ply propassiv https://www.buildingcentre.co.uk/news/smartply-propassiv-sets-industry-first-standards-for-airtightness which is the airtight version. The joints were all taped. @Russell griffiths Fabricator who did the flashings was ACL Sheet Metal in Hereford. https://www.aclsheetmetal.com/ I would recommend them. If they had any questions they asked, the order was turned round quickly and we were pleased with the quality of the final product.

This any good; https://www.condell-ltd.com/rockwool-rwa45-600x1200x100mm-4ppack-2-88m2

I insisted on this too despite the OH’s attempts to persuade me otherwise. Resistance was futile of course (on his part) ?

I will have no choice as the wife will insist on full tiling or some sort of panel system along with toilet that is wall hung and no small corners where she cannot get to easily to clean . and i think she is right, plenty of space round things --why make it hard to clean when you starting from new

I think anyone considering major PV in the future sometime , should go 3phase if installing a new supply . one could see that all houses may start to be fitted with 3 phase if we really get serious about home generation

Just remember that a lot of the cheap tariffs aren’t available on 3 phase so you may get stuck on a poor power deal. Also worth looking at the cost of a pair of meters and connections in side by side cabinets. Run the house loads from one, use the other to do garage, garden, lights etc.

I've never used this type of system but I do a bit of physics on the side. The forces involved would make me nervous. The equation for the pressure at depth h is... P= g*rho*h Where g is 9.81m/s/s rho is the density, which for concrete is 2400 kg/m^3 h is the depth So the pressure at the bottom of a 1.5m high pour is.. =9.81*2400*1.5 =35,300 N/m^2 Or about 720 lbf per square foot. Double the height and the pressure doubles.

So why are you so busy spreading this counter opinion rather than addressing it? The problem is that there are many thousands of scientists who have looked at climate science (it's probably been reviewed more thoroughly, both formally and informally, than any other branch of science - rightly, because it's important) and broadly accept its results. Sure, many will have quibbles with one aspect or the other but I really think that if there was any fundamental flaw it would have been widely publicised by now. Even if there's some sort of closed shop in the climate science publishing area (which I doubt) anything significant could have got published elsewhere, in some geology and astronomy journal for example, easily enough. An example of outsider review: you mentioned the supposed manipulation of the NOAA dataset. As well as the NASA GISS, HadCRU and Japanese datasets there's also BEST (Berkley Earth) by Richard Muller and co, a physicist who doubted the accuracy of the existing datasets so set up a project to create a new, better, one, funded by the Koch brothers because they thought it would disprove AGW. Here's what he has to say afterwards (in less than 5 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTk8Dhr15Kw

and? they're just stud walls. if there's enough money still to be paid they could be forced to do it. it's not an oversight, it's quite an alarming mistake, i'd be wondering what else may be incorrect.

Post them here and you will get many pairs of eyes and loads of suggestions ?

It's the ones where he stood up before a congressional committee and predicted warming over the coming decades. You know, Al Gore and all that. Lead to the formation of the IPCC and so on. But obviously something somebody seriously researching the subject could easily miss.

Do a slump test. Oh yea what for?? please explain how you think that is going to work in your favour. It wont. Lets look at it. Your concrete plant is 35minutes drive away your pump turns up at £600 for the day you need 22m of concrete to do your first lift first truck turns up and you do a slump test and all is good, so you pour in 7.5m, truck buggers off back to depot second truck turns up 45mins later you do a slump test, oh dear it’s a bit wetter than it said in my spec, I know I will phone up and moan and send it back. So of goes the driver with his slightly too wet concrete, leaving you on the phone having a rant at the man in the batching plant (who couldn’t give a shit by the way) the batching plant will tell you that they don’t have a spare truck available so you will need to wait for the mix to be tipped out and re mixed. The truck returns. This has taken the best part of a couple of hours, so it’s now 12.45 and you have got to get in 2 more truck loads, what I am getting at is if you set out your expectations so high something will fail leaving you in the poo. Learn to deal with what comes your way, brace the crap out of everything, then you can deal with with however the concrete is. Ask for it to come drier than your spec and adjust it on site. I have just put 39m of concrete in a nudura build, just 2 lifts up to 5.3m high. Didnt lose more than a bucket full.

PMSL... wet the sofa, tea up my nose, cake stuck in my craw, coughing fit to cause a hernia. Seen this? or this? or read this? For a calmer take on things, read this ... The height at which the wall collapsed was 4 meters plus. You can (but dont ever try it) pour a complete house. I have seen it done. Its a stupid (and should be ) an unnecessary risk. The pour height issue is one where willies are waved and sales spin weaved..... I have a feeling that a good rule of thumb should be - dont pour more concrete than you are prepared to lose at any single pour. For me, thats about £500 (concrete, plus pump, plus reinstatement). Not all of the concrete poured will come out of any single block burst. Multiple block bursts will almost certainly be the result of negligent or criminal mishandling of the blocks or substandard blocks which should have been identified before placement.. Multiple block bursts are rare, but in our case - a godsend. I kid you not Read on

Another vote for Multipanel, that's what we have. Get it from a builders Merchant, Jewsons stock it, a lot of the "bathroom" showrooms charge very inflated prices for it. Available in loads of colours and patterns.

Is it just grotty where a splashback should be? If it is I would maybe consider using a 100 mm upstand that is the same material as the sink. Do you think 100 mm would be sufficient as that is the only height they do? This is the basin that we will have.

Some, a large minority even then. For a very short time (a few years). They updated their views quickly when new evidence was found. Since then all but a few outliers have been predicting warming. Hansen's predictions from the 1980s have been pretty accurate. None of the predictions of cooling from various alternative views have been realised.

It's this one... https://www.simplylogcabins.co.uk/norland-newark-1-log-cabin-p573

Ps, I am well aware of the difference between a pergola and a pagoda. So pedants, stand by your beds.

you miss the point as long as we accept that generating power form fossil fuels is ok ,then nothing is going to change the other option to stopping global warming is get rid of 2/3 of the worlds population # I know which is a better option

Solar PV is close to that at the moment IF you source the kit carefully AND DIY install it, AND take reasonable measures to self use as much as you can. I am expecting payback from mine in about 6 years. But it is not for everyone and those out at work all day every day can only sensibly self use by putting stuff on timers. The biggest obstacle is the FIT schemes required expensive MCS installers that pushed the price up. We have to get away from that model with non MCS companies offering cheap systems that are viable without a FIT. There is still no sign of the mooted export payment scheme that was supposed to replace FIT's. Batteries will have their day but are not yet imho cheap enough or long lasting enough. It is not wind power that needs storage, but solar PV power so most folk can us it in the evenings. NON FIT solar PV should be a no brainer for business premesis where they use power in the daytime, that is where the big push for cheap, easy to install, no subsidy solar PV should be going. No need for storage. If every industrial unit had most of it's roof covered in solar PV that would make a big impact. And if the infrastructure to supply and install cheap kit evolved, then the domestic market could tap into that as well.

And we as self (green) builders are doing a little bit to help. My father always told me “there is no such thing as right and wrong, there is only opinion!”. Watching the news last night I saw that school girl who has addressed politicians about climate change and told them their future is being taken away, good on her.

Sorry I assumed this was being hand cut to bespoke specifications. Hadn’t realised you were cheating with a flat pack ??

I read it that the "forest" was a planning condition of a previous development, so he has breached that previous planning condition. Surely the enforcement would be a fine and ordered to reinstate the forest. It was a bit daft of the applicant to buy the land without looking at the planning history as most of us would realise the chance of getting planning there is slim, and the council will know given the previous condition they must uphold that otherwise they will open the floodgates to lots of other land in a similar situation if he is seen to "win" in this situation.

Regarding media presentation and public interpretation of surveys and studies - it's long been unacceptable to be illiterate. We make every effort to ensure children and adults can read and write at a functional level and there is generally adult shame if these key skills are inadequate. Furthermore, being 'well read' is seen as a sign of intellectual superiority - especially if you can quote freely from 'the classics' However being mathematically and scientifically illiterate is perfectly acceptable - witness the media giggle over being 'no good at maths' and roll their eyes at 'geeks and nerds'. So sadly, many of those whose job it is to report such findings are incapable of even the most basic critique and we end up firmly in 7/10 cats territory*. * Not to be confused with 7/10 Cats Do Countdown which is without doubt, the pinnacle of UK TV.

They will prosecute under the Forestry Act 1967 for failure to obtain a felling license. Smiled when I read that article as I know the guy who bought the house and who’s commenting..!

Looks smart

You seem to be far, far better aware and educated than the climate scientist I worked with back around 2006. He'd spent a fair part of his career working in the Hadley Centre, climate science had been his PhD subject, and yet, when he tried to explain the complexity of the issues it was fairly clear to me that, even if I spent several years reading up on the subject I wouldn't be in a position to be able to be confident in linking cause and effect. The mathematical models alone dwarfed anything that I had ever used back when I routinely used CFD to try and better understand complex airflow. One thing that was clear was that there are few, if any, hard scientific facts with regard to historical climate. There is a large amount of evidence that provides clues as to what the past climate may have been, such that there is a fair degree of confidence that the estimates (not facts) are reasonably accurate, but it's important to remember that this is all based on modelling, and that always has a degree of uncertainty. Climate science is all about probabilities, rather than certainties, and as I mentioned earlier in this thread, the best we can do is review the models and apply Occam's Razor as to how likely any particular outcome may be to a future reality.

Ive not been able to bloody sweep my floor since you cut my broom handles into rollers! ?

It may well be that your recirculation system is causing the PCM to change phase, I think. Our unit stays pretty cool, the case never feels warm to the touch, and the only place I can feel heat is at the mixer valve (all the other pipes are lagged).

Yes. They flicked on and off pretty much straight away.

they have advanced, i can, unfortunately, remember when mastic came in 25kg tubs and we bedded sash and case windows in this new 'stuff'.

Chop back the reveal plaster, if old window is a bit loose whack some angle brackets on them screwed into reveal, remove these when new windows turn up.

Around here they knock holes in the base so they don't need emptying so often.

Make sure you get ALL of the CIL exemption paperwork sorted before you start any work on site or you may loose the exemption. If in doubt ask.

If you are going doing a Building Control Application you normally send them a full set of plans and other documents with the application. The BCO will look over the plans and write back with a request for any extra info he needs. That might be anything from evidence that soakaways will work (soil percolation test required) to engineering calculations for steel beams (Structural Engineer might be needed to do some sums). Eventually he will agree that what you have submitted is ok and you can start work on site. He will usually want to inspect the bottom of the foundation trenches before you fill them.

You are using slightly confusing terms. "Sign off" is the major end of build event that often triggers a VAT reclaim and at this point you can consider your house complete even if there is incomplete landscaping, some unpainted rooms and the bathroom tiles are still in the box they arrived in. Submission is the technical review of your plans (diagrams) that must be done before starting to dig out the foundations. This is a far shorter review step when compared to the original planning.

Hi - you need your building regulations plans for submission. These will include a layout plan and a drainage plan, and sometimes the topographic survey if it has this information overlaid. Other than that it’s the plans, sections and engineers drawings and calculations. Do you have a main contractor or project manager ..??

You would need full planning permission and a building warrant issued by the council before the lender would lend any funds.

Which country are you building in as England and Wales have separate procedures. I'm not sure about England and Wales, in Scotland you can't rely on building control inspecting each stage and then creating a report that would be suitable for a lender. I had a couple of options, either: 1: Use a warranty company such as Protek to inspect each stage has been completed, they then create a report for the lender. 2: Use Architect (of my choosing, isn't the architect that designed the house) and a surveying company that has been appointed by the lender to inspect each stage. I originally went with option 1, however when I discovered that the inspector would be travelling from England to inspect my house in Aberdeenshire I cancelled as I was worried that this could delay the funds if he struggled to travel to Aberdeenshire over the winter. Instead I went with option 2 and it has been OK so far.

Building control involves multiple on-site inspections at key stages of the build, about 5 to 7 inspections I think. The mortgage company will release funds in stages as the prior stage is approved by building control. I am at step-3. Step-1 was after the foundation trenches were dug and step-2 was after the foundation concrete pour.

Hi and welcome. They will be looking for the Plans Approval in England & Wales, or the Building Warrant issued in Scotland Not an unusual request - its the first part of the Building Regulations process for a House normally - you submit the plans to your chosen provider (Local Authority or Private company) and they will review them before you start. Usually about £4-600 depending on location.