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I’m just fitting my windows so I thought I would share this info. If you are after a better quality low expansion foam look at the products made by ILBRUCK I’m using their FM330 and it is on another level compared to the normal crap. Same price as all all the other brands if you buy a box. Thats all.

Possibly have the site nice and clean, build up the shuttering and then put loads of aggregate / hardcore around the shuttering to support it and after the pour spread out the aggregate so that you have a nice clean environment to carry out the rest of your build. I think someone has done it and posted about it before but can’t remember who.....

Answering my own question in case it's helpful to others. 1. Sign up to a virgin broadband 30 day rolling contract, select the earliest available install date during sign-up 2. Wait a couple days and hopefully they'll pull the external cable from the pavement up to the boundary (or throw through the hedge in our case) along with some green ducting 3. Phone up the cancellation line and click through all the menus saying you want to cancel until you get to a human that is motivated not to lose a would be customer 4. You could just cancel now, or Explain your house isn't built / has no electricity, you need to defer the instal for 5 months but you'd like a pre-install survey and have them bring a roll of internal cable for internal prewire 5. If they drop off the internal cable within 14 days you can then call up can cancel under remote selling terms for full refund, Or just leave it with deferred full install for 6+ months time. During the visit they also confirmed that while they normally put the splitter outside for multiroom install, they can bring a single cable into one location and do an internal splitter there which is better for a 1st fix prewire and reducing airtightness penetrations

Neither did I and had 7 years trouble free usage without even an annual service. The next 7 years cost about £500 in adhoc repairs. My current plan is to plumb for either ASHP or LPG, but experience two winters using just those inline electric heaters and get to know the thermal performance of my new build before deciding. One downside of that plan is missing out on reclaiming the VAT.

One thing that shifted me towards considering ASHP is gas boiler servicing contracts. Over 15 years of ownership you can use typical boiler home care contract monthly rates to get an idea of cumulative costs plus if you eliminate a gas connection by all electric cooking then a gas daily standing connection charge goes as well.

Yes, this is pretty much our set up. We have 25 PV panels built in to the roof, with a peak output of 6.25 kW. We divert excess generation from them to heat our hot water, which needs ~6 kWh/day. We find that the PV supplies around 59% of our annual hot water requirement, so we only pay for about 41% of it. Our ASHP is only used to heat and cool our ground floor, but we could use it to heat hot water if we had a hot water tank (we use a Sunamp).

8 x 1mt bend straps burried down into the concrete. Plenty of straps on roof to walls. I am quite exposed here. Don't want to loose it like the One in Slough recently.

Looks great. Make sure everything is well fixed down. We had a shed roof blow off once. Took out neighbours fence.

Insulation all done.,and a quick pick of the outside. 900mm overhang to the roof so I won't get soaked when I'm opening the doors.

Just checked here too: 25-70°C even though instructions say up to 60°C. Suspect the Willis heaters all vary to some degree (pun not intentional!)

+1 You may not need to pay him that much initially. I would ask one to quote to come look at the site and give their opinion on your chances of getting planning permission. Depending on what they say you could hire them to do more work on an application. It might help him if you request a copy of the title plan from the Land Registry website (you need to register but It only costs £3 and they send it by email https://www.gov.uk/search-property-information-land-registry ) markup where you want to build. You might also try getting a copy of the planning file for your family house approved in the 1980s (although there have been a lot of policy changes since then). In my area you would have to look up the planning reference number online and then request an appointment to see the paper files as they may not be available online. Look for any reports the planning officer wrote to the planning committee or letters of advice or reasoning from the planning officer to the land owner. Some of those arguments may still apply. Do you have any buildings that could be converted or converted and enlarged? That might improve your chances.

I would go and find a local planning consultant, best £4000 I’ve ever spent. They will know every loophole and local planning policy off by heart.

There are some nice options that could work well with more contemporary designs as well. We quite like this approach, providing that the cover can fully retract the shutters: https://www.iqoutdoorliving.co.uk/iq-awning-roof/

My container is run off an extension lead from the garage, the plug it’s feed from is on a circuit protected by an RCD. The extension lead is inside a duct so as to protect it.

Where is your drain fella ?. In that back wall you need a glazed panel, so you can see downstairs from the shower. Seriously. Could you use one of your walk on glazing panels.

+1

My Building Control Inspector has confirmed your advice. He recommend leaving DPC where it is i.e. 150mm higher than standard NHBC standards and having two courses of regular facing bricks (F2s) below DPC, this will leave 2 rather 4 blues exposed and hence of less interest to the conversation officer. I mixed up a test mortar batch last night at a 3 to1 sand/mortar ratio but with the mortar component the same 5 to 1 white/grey cement ratio and it produced the same nice sandy/caramel colour once dry.

Just an update, Mid Devon confirmed in writing today that they have not adopted CIL.....Finally I can tick it off the list!

I'd just run a cable to the container on a piece of decent cable suitable for the job, i.e. external grade, etc. etc. and take that into a garage consumer unit in the container, stick a single 6A and a 16A breaker in that, 6A out to your lights and 16A out to your sockets. I'd probably treat the container as a caravan, and therefore earth it with a rod. Having said all of that, I actually wouldn't in practise do any of that, but that is me - I'd run a good quality cable 16A extension cable into my container permanently, and have either a twin 13A socket on the end, or a 16A socket and have a 16A socket to 4 way, and flex my light. Depends how temporary all this will be and who will be using it. My new garage is still fed off a 13A extension cable from my old garage.

+1 to the above. Do not take anything down untill you have written agreement from the planning tossers.

On a previous house I wanted to demolish the barn next to it and rebuild it, Council told me if I did that they would insist it was half the size (due to being close to a road) so I “renovated” it. Re roofed it then replaced wall sections one at a time. The building inspector who was overseeing work on the house (who I got on well with) praised me for beating the planners at their own game. I would ask the planners if they would allow you to replace the existing (by demolishing sand rebuilding), if they say not, do what I did ?

Nice to potentially find the holy grail of expanding foam !

Got it from GH Supplies together with a larger batch of goods. Buying it on its own wouldn't be cost effective I don't think. I'll likely go with Pete's suggestion

...not wishing to muddy the waters just as we were reaching some clarity but even a time-delayed RCD couldn't necessarilly guarantee the expected outcome as with a 60mA earth fault a 30mA RCD has a maximum trip time of 150ms and yet a time-delayed 100mA RCD has a minimum trip time of 130ms. That still leaves a 20ms window within which the time-delayed 100mA could end up beating the non-delayed 30mA potentially leaving the latter untripped. ? In practice I would expect it to work as intended though as non-delayed trip times are usually significantly shorter than what the standards require.

Google says 20 and 30mm PIR is available so you could add a layer of that to the 100mm PIR he already has. Think I'd put it under the 100mm.

I use a very big plasterers stainless trowel - much more comfortable on the hand and you can put decent pressure on too.

@oldkettle Typo, I actually meant 'warped studs' but as it happens the bottom of the posi joists are all over the place as well (3 or 4 mm) @Visti The 10-15mm is the exception - but they're there! And yep, I've been using a plane as well. I haven't got round to filling yet, I have that pleasure to come. Have you used any of the FST yet? For the cutouts I'm using a flat wood bit in the corners and a jigsaw, that works well. Destroyed one saw blade already, I don't suspect the jigsaw is far behind!

Another lesson learned, another part of the self build experience. As they say, it gets sorted in the end! I now go by the mantra "If it can go wrong, it will go wrong"... Except the first part is irrelevant, it will always go wrong! ?

As with @Mr Punter we have a master bathroom and an ensuite shower room next to each other. BC wanted fan in both rooms so we fitted extractors with one way valves/flaps, the pipework from which ran into a t piece in the loft before exiting under eaves. BC seemed happy and I haven't noticed any backdraft issues? Cheers, MM

The only advice I can give is DO NOT knock anything down before you have what you want in writing off the council.

If the volume of blues is an issue can you not just start with the superstructure facing bricks a couple of courses lower.? I’d leave the DPC where it should be.

I suspect this thread could roll on for weeks as there appears to be many ways to skin this particular cat. I think, I now have enough information to make a well informed decision, which will definitely involve increasing the insulation in the floor, reducing cold bridging and attempting to achieve a floor U-value as close to 0.1 as the budget will allow. So, thanks again to everyone who contributed to this thread. I really appreciate the combined expertise and the unselfish time & effort you have all spent.

There is an old derelict log cabin building at the top of our road, a former pub. Not long after it was built in the 70's , the roof, complete with the top 7 rows of logs from the walls blew off. IT was rebuilt with even longer tie down straps.

Another gem I spotted at Christmas Fine if you have a 110V razor and you never want to remove the shaver socket for any reason.

One in the wall to look down on the ground floor hall?

Give her a holiday in Devon, all the farmers still use them.

I did an EICR on a rental property. I had no trouble accessing the consumer unit. A week later I went back to do some repairs and found this: Sorry about the poor picture. In the intervening time the plumber had been and changed the boiler and installed 2 new expansion vessels. the right hand one completely blocking any possibility of getting the cover off the CU