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Yes, I think that's a major disadvantage with the sleek, pristine modern look. Next house(!) I'll be incorporating a lot of reused materials and going for more of a lived-in vibe.

How do you get rid of the spoil from the wall, do you have special trousers with hidden bags operated by string?

In my bathroom, similar size I used the green vcl from Screwfix (stock code 12869). That's only 300 gauge. Did the ceiling first by laying the vcl on top of the pb: I tried using double sided dpm tape but it was too thick on the one ceiling join - a couple of mm or more, so I ditched it and just used a black duct tape but I folded both edges back on themselves. At the ceiling, that then comes down over the battens where I battened all the walls out. My DPM comes up like this: PIR then between the battens and vcl over the whole wall. Lidl Parside staple gun and No Nonsense spray adhesive. Tbh I just foil taped all my joints: Mine's more a nod to air tightness. I've somewhat shot that in the foot with so many ceiling penetrations; traditional downlighters, body dryer, speakers, occupancy switch. I am working on a plan to reinstate the airtightness around all these fittings but it's convoluted. With hindsight I'd have counterbattened the ceiling and stuck most of this stuff in the void, under the vcl layer. Tbh everything is then plasterboarded and tiled. There ain't much air getting through them walls!

I drank a LOT of wine when building the house...:)

We went for fairly cheap ones, Haeffle - Eclisse didn't have any available that fitted our wall width (CLS) and the Haeffle ones were less than half the cost. There is really just a head rail that the door hangs off, a single support for the wall side and some guide runners for the door where it meets the ground. Did not bother with brushes. We ordered 45mm solid doors. We used blue plasterboard (soundblock) on exterior and green (moisture) on interior, plus tiles in bathroom. Walls are very solid - slight rattle from the doors occasionally but very happy with the overall performance.

Of course use the barrow.. yes ok good plan. Damn pleased that's done tho- prep took 2x time the job did.. most/ hardest was hauling 2/3rd a ton of ballast just down 4m one bucket a time. Very satisfying the mixer'ing tho, & not too hard once ballast next to: I like the tippy out bit best: I had one foot on like a boss.

Ok Yes will note thanks. 30m for an inner.. anyway had to be done/ barrow sorted, & done it. Flippin mess, but no barrows spilt (nearly an OTT full one tho jeepers), some mixes a bit heavy on the ballast, some a bit wet, some a bit ott cement.. but best i could do. What I do have is on my far one (deliberately 1" underfilled to better match level-wise to a full front one) has quite an excess of water on the surface: i can't see anything other than the ballast going to btm & innevitably water 'rises'. Ive mixed pretty well.. but what do I do? front one seems a bit thicker & top level-tapped fairly ok'ish.. but far one I cant cos of the lip. Also what do i do about overnight rain on them? its peeing down right now.

I opted for 4) A lot cheaper and a lot simpler. The main thing is use an unvented cylinder, NOT a thermal store. And buy one with the high area "heat pump" input coil. Also fit a larger volume that you may think necessary, because you will be storing hot water at a lower temperature, so will need more hot water as it is diluted less with cold water than a normal boiler setup. Ours is a Telford Tempest 300 litre version and we heat water to 48 degrees with the heat pump. This was found by experiment to be just about as hot as you can possibly bear to hold your hands in when you have filled the washing up bowl with just hot water. I see no point in heating DHW any hotter than that with the heat pump. This results in the flow temperature from the ASHP reaching about 55 degrees as the cylinder nears it's target temperature. That also leaves plenty of capacity for excess solar PV to heat it further, at the moment my immersion heater thermostat will open at about 75 degrees. The 2 issues with this are it needs G3 unvented cylinder signoff and annual service, and the heat loss to the room will be higher than a SunAmp. But I find the Telford cylinders pretty well insulated, and of course take care to lag all the connecting pipework well. Also, I don't use a buffer tank. When space heating, the ASHP directly feeds the under floor heating, and I rely on the heat pump setting the UFH flow temperature (because that is lower than the blending valve on the UFH manifold can be set to)

Take a look back at the wartime prefabs (pre fabricated houses). They came in kit form, were all identical, and people loved them! There are some, I believe, still around. It is communities that make people happy On the planning side of things there are sites around here that have been held up for years while developers and planners wrangle over "section 106" agreements. Planners say they want x number of affordables, a green space, a contribution to the village hall etc. The developers just say the site is not viable and it goes on and on. As our Local Authority has not met its housing targets they are having to back down and allow developers to get away with building with no planning gain. The community loses out as we are being saddled with soulless estates of identikit houses with no green space or other amenities.

We put out an invitation to tender a few weeks ago and have had all the contractors apart from one ask to be included in the tender. Our architect was quite surprised as they normally get quite a few declining due to current commitments. We're assuming this is down to a slowdown in work but you never know. I'll see what it does the prices in the next month or so.

Remember @Nickfromwales sage advice! Working with solvent weld you only get one chance so assemble sections dry and mark adjacent parts with Sharpie alignment marks. Do the same for depth i.e how far they'll push in. Then, when you apply your solvent it's just push and twist to the alignment mark.

Already happened, how else can you explain building on flood plains, next to beaches and halfway up muddy hillsides.

I often wonder, getting it back to building, what would happen if we all 'thought' differently about the underlying physics and prices. Would be have beautiful ivory towers or carbuncles? Would they be fast to build? Cheap too. How well would they withstand a gale from an unexpected direction. Probably it is a good job that we tend to do what we have, or others have, done. Keeping the status quo is often a good policy. All very exciting what is going to happen.

https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/data/new-construction-orders-lowest-since-2009-03-09-2019/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-49552163?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cg3ndx3dxwvt/construction-industry&link_location=live-reporting-story

We have a black granite with a matt 'leathered' finish. It was a great choice and has not picked up any obvious marks at all in 2 years of heavy use. The leathered finish is created by thousands of tiny scratches so just hides any other marks that may happen.

A friend told us to discount Corian. We went for granite in our kitchen. All ours gets is a wipe down with a damp cloth and it looks the same as when we moved in eighteen months ago, although it is black.

This is an interesting point, thank you. I wonder if you can have a contemporary 'sleek' design that does allow for such marks and scuffs, up to a point. For example, a white worktop indeeed seems asking for annoyance, but some darker materials with a more noisy pattern seems helpful to obscure such problems.

No, you unroll DPC straight on the top of the sub structure blockwork and beams on top. No mortar.

Thanks for the tip! The last kitchen refurb we did, in our old cottage, we went for a wooden worktop. A year down the line, in spite of every care, it has water marks around the sink area and various other marks here and there. The only saving grace is that the grain of the wood hides a lot of these. Being an old cottage also helps because nothing should look "perfect".

31st Jan 202? And all this is just to say, 'here is, or isn't, a cheque, now how shall we proceed to the trade and social aspect'. This is going to last longer than the Neverending Story, 1979 to 2016.

Just NO, NO, NOOOOOOOOO! Against our better judgement and initial dislike for white surfaces, we were talked into a white Corian worktop for where our sink is. Our main request was easy maintenance for this area, but it's a bloody nightmare. EVERYTHING stains it. You can't leave anything steel (eg, baking tins and trays) on it or it gets rust stains that take a long time scouring with baking soda to remove. Tea will mark it quickly if not wiped off. It isn't heat resistant. We have a couple of scratches beside the sink that have turned brown and can't be scrubbed clean (probably needs a harsher abrasive than we've used to date). In short, white Corian is bloody horrible and one of the worst choices we made in the entire house. It didn't even look very good when it was first installed, in my opinion. In contrast, we were required to sign a waiver for the marble we have on the other surface in the kitchen, acknowledging that marble is a soft, porous material and that we won't hold the kitchen company responsible for it not looking perfect with use. Yes, it's etched and has acquired a bit of a patina over the last four years, but it doesn't seem to stain, and it still looks amazing.

Still thinking a tunnel out under the slab would have been easier. Every Tom, Dick and Harry will be making jokes now.

Old boys who built my garden wall told me about using boiled linseed oil for water proofing back in the day, before fancy water proofers. May give this a go (if it ever stops raining) as my local MKM have a massive stock and sell loads. Cheap enough to apply often

If that stack is going to be accessible I would use a 135 tee and then put an access cap on the top so you can do future maintenance.

I would use solvent weld if buried in a wall, but would pressure test well before covering.

I personally like solvent weld, reason, if fitting multiple push fit joints they can twist out of shape and pull apart as you are working on the next stage.

Don’t worry, treat this like a sequel .... or prequel as he bought the bits before he started the bathroom .....

I just had Kevin's Grandest Designs on in the background. I was very pleased to see that the Huf Haus couple from 2003 were still going strong and living in the house.

I wonder if,on a politics forum,it ever kicks off big time with a contentious diy thread?

@MickD How about just feeding an MVHR fresh air inlet to the amp room to push the heat out of the equipment and into the house? 2 birds, one stone. Just feed it in at the bottom and bingo, fresh cool ( CLEAN AND FILTERED ) air input, and as the room would be positively charged you should get near zero dust / infiltration.

You perhaps know But you can hire quite a sophisticated EDM Im setting out all the time But do use a EDM on some jobs They have become more sophisticated and more user friendly and so accurate on awkward turning

This is the kind of hint people do or don’t get. Thank you. Nick, the data is the HUGE amount of effort that went into the last poxy Brexit thread, and that data has now received more input by this one needing the same effort. Read my last. Trolls and other persistent arseholes ‘rock the boat’ and we simply prefer plain sailing on calm waters. This is a volunteer operated forum, run for the benefit of its members, seed funded by the FMG and it’s also continuously maintained by the FMG in ‘our’ spare time. Any dents in the availability we have to give to the forum are frustrating and time-consuming, and these replies are such dents. Any more ridicule will be unwelcome, and the posts that bring such content will be deleted without further notice or explanation. For the benefit of our members, ongoing decisions are not made by any one individual. Behind the scenes we discuss such things at length and move only when we have arrived at an unanimous decision, as per our constitution. We act according to our own guidelines so as to ensure all ‘reviewed items’ are dealt with fairly. Thanks in advance for your cooperation. Mods.

I’m not a mod either but it’s because the previous one turned into a pissing contest of opposing views, and shitloads of reported posts citing racist comments et al, which kept the mods continually busy trying to keep on top of before someone launched a counter attack, and this is a self build forum, not the Daily Mail comments section. Other ‘pointless’ threads as you put it tend to be easy going and report / mod free. None of the mods signed up to moderate political clashes, they are here to oversee self build posts and keep this forum free to use and spam free.

My wife and I have been wanting to self build for years but circumstances have frustrated us so far. It's still on our to-do list but for the moment we're extending our existing house. The builders arrived 6 weeks ago and will be here until November. They're doing most of the work, especially the structural stuff but I'm putting in underfloor heating on the ground floor and a Loxone system to control lighting, heating, security, music etc. Please bear with me as I ask numerous questions, some of which no doubt will be very specific to whatever is taxing my brain at the time.........sorry!! Cheers Rob

If house prices fall, that always leads to the large house builders mothballing sites and stopping building until they can see the market recover. That will reduce demand for materials.