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Yes I'm suggesting after 5pm. His message just now suggests he has 'identified the problem and is sorting it' . I know what the problem is, whoever has done it! The sorting it needs confirming because it's not more layers. I'm quite within my rights to ask for it to be taken off and redone.

We do too, once it has a boat next to our garden it will be even better ? We have managed to keep the garden relatively tidy too though longer term needs landscaping etc.

Not enough screws. Find the joists, go along with 60mm screws every 150mm. If they haven’t glued the joists to the boards, it will squeak ..!

There's a few consultancies that can test the private water supplies - some local authorities don't do it the tests for new supplies, dm me if you need any contacts... and if you ever see a news story of a number of planning officers from different local authorities going missing in the same week, you'll never hear from me again ?

Clearing up my end of the country, so I can stop working on the window surround repair and go out.

You can sleep easy and compare it to the small lake we have on ours! I like this! I think I'm going to get worse when it comes to first and second fix. My dad has always been a perfectionist, although is not in the building trade (he's a mechanic), but he's done many diy jobs and I seem to expect everyone will take pride in their job like he does which is not the case!

Ha... Good question. To be honest I try not to dwell on it given we are where we are! I seem to have got increasingly picky - obsessive in fact - about detail and perfection and I really don't like it. It takes the fun out of everything and makes me feel so anxious. This extension build has really exercised this affliction but to the point now where actually I *expect* things to go 'wrong' (to my picky eyes!), and can almost laugh about it when it does given how predictable it has become. My Dad's the same so it could be result of nature, if not nurture. I hasten to add though that the trades have long gone... this is now me screwing up. For example I haven't done the best job of the final decoration of our new family room - or at least in my mind I haven't. Everyone else thinks it's amazing. I'm not pleased though. That said, having inspected the plaster/paint finish on the rest of the existing house I've realised we've been living in a right state without knowing it and yet for some reason it never bothered me one bit, and doesn't now! A comment in an American decorating column talking about perfection really struck a chord with me - something along the lines of 'you stop focusing/worrying about something when its no longer the newest thing in the room', which when you substitute the right words for the particular situation you're in is really true I think. Back to your question though; I am satisfied that our roof won't leak - or at least no sooner than anyone elses - and that's surely what matters given it's the sole job of the roof. My eye does get drawn to other people's flat roofs - even on drone shots on TV I find myself evaluating any flat roof I can see (and there's some shockers out there!) - so I think there's still a niggle in my mind about how mine stacks up against others. It also pleases me to see a small pool of water on someone elses roof and them seemingly being able to carry on with their lives. I don't regret not getting the whole thing ripped up and replaced. I think! It might be a bit different in my case as I am convinced the fall was just a mistake from a likeable, honest, respectable and otherwise competent builder. I can't bring myself to punish someone for that, but maybe I'm soft and not seeing it wouldn't actually be that happening.

Slightly different price range though

Just route a bullnose on the front of the ply etc if you're carpeting over it. And or route your own bullnose using a bit of softwood and glue and pin to the edge of a chipboard floorboard.

It needs to be with him and you two, alone in the quiet, no distractions, and with the graveyard expression on both of your faces. And just stick to one goal, roof off, and then do it properly via a company that has an insurance policy that covers that type of work. ( and the skills ).

I've basically said we want the fall on the roof, exactly as it was on the plans.

So, progress has continued and after months of walking round looking at drawings I can actually see proper rooms which is all very exciting. My necessity of carrying lip gloss everywhere has been replaced with a tape measure which is now a handbag essential! I've become almost obsessive checking sizes of rooms, window openings and that potential bathroom purchases will fit. My tape measure had that much use it finally broke! One stand out moment was the steels for the 5.5 metre Internorm doors (modelled by the wife) and the corner window. This will be the kitchen dining room and look out up to the canal so will be one of my favourite places. The inside of the bungalow looks like a group of lads have had the worst house party ever and the chimney, naff red fireplace (see previous forum post), 70s bathroom and bedroom have all gone along with some of the windows, though neither of quite made it out of the house yet so it's just piles of rubble. In the absence of a chimney we have gained an impromptu skylight with view of the wasps nest. Internorm did their technical survey earlier this week and we just need to iron out the measurements of the 'triangle bits' above the huge sliders and hopefully will have our window order placed on Tuesday. The lead times mean potentially the windows will pretty much be the last things to go in which to be isn't a bad thing, less chance they will get damaged. Here is some pics. We are spending a rainy Saturday afternoon arguing about knobs.

It's a 3 bed plus office and dressing room which I guess technically could be additional bedrooms! Bungalows always look bigger and people seem to associate them with downsizing but I love bungalows.

We didn't when we moved here but it wasn't a necessity for us as we loved the location anyway. We were considering a boat as an alternative accommodation whilst the building work was happening so apied and got mooring for a 50 foot narrowboat but our finances haven't allowed us to purchase one yet.

Yep, and it's still in the showroom luckily!

Nice bath. You have got to love a bargain.

Thank you everyone. I am going to email now and ask to meet tomorrow.

I don't see that present 70mm as a service void, just an extra insulation later. I would put VCL where architect says, all nicely taped, then 25mm battens for a true service void then plasterboard.

Your roof should have a fall. 1:80 To explain, for every 80cm of travel, it should drop (be lower ) by 1cm. Your roof has no fall. I would make him rip it off and start again, or sling his butt off site. people keep going on about boats lasting forever etc. Now, i am not a boat builder, but i have built 1 grp boat. I started with a mold, and i laid in a couloured gel coat. This was followed by atleast 5 layers of matting. So overall the hull was about 7mm thick. That is not how grp roofs are done. They have no comparison with boats. Your roof might be ply, or osb. They have gone over the joins in the wood with One layer of 100mm wide matting. They have then laid matting (ONE LAYER) over the whole roof. They have then put on a top coat over that (no matting) This give it the colour. IT IS NOTHING LIKE A BLOODY BOAT. Get the crap builder to rip off the whole sodding roof, and start again. Unless he said to you up front "Here is your quote mate. It's very cheap. It will a lot cheaper than any other quotes you get, because i am a bit of a bodger. Don't complain if it don't look like Buck Palace" That is One large roof. Get it done right, or you will regret it forever. If you put your house on the market, and i came to see it. I would be telling you to knock 30k off the price, because i am going to have to rip that crap roof off......... And, forget about boats.

So much has happened and changed since my post. I decided on the insulated raft foundation in the end, to completely eliminate cold bridging, and have ufh pipes laid before the pour. I'll be going with Kore Systems after comparing quotes from Isoquick and AFT (Advanced Foundation Technology), Tanners will design the foundation, Kore will manufacture accordingly. I've replied your message privately.

As for screws you cannot beat these: If the boards are screwed you may be able to just replace the screws with these. Then add more as required. The clever bit is the plain shank. They drill thru the board and the main thread goes into the joist. The plain shank then sits in the drilled hole and the top threads pull the board down tight. https://www.toolstation.com/spax-wirox-t-star-plus-flooring-screw/p31871 Be sure you know where your pipes and cables are though!

Steve is the knowledge roofer I referred to a couple of posts ago! Interestingly, he offers a consulting service for DIY roofers which I may well make use of.

Whats the joist spacing, if you don’t have a ceiling yet I would get him to add a load of noggins and screw the hell out of it. Get your better half half to go upstairs and dance around then you can stand underneath and listen for squeaks.

The pooling is not a problem but the “delaminating” from the trim is wrong, make sure you photograph every area where this has occurred. @SteamyTea will be along in a moment to suggest it’s remedy (that the roofer should do). Don’t know if it’s luck or judgement (hopefully the latter) I have never had that happen on a roof I have done.

So whatever they say goes, even if the rationale is full of holes. Why are we not surprised! ?

Where achitect specified. Normally it would be before service void but since your service void is filled with insulation it should go on the warm side of this. Is the insulation to be checked out for services to run in?

Try Chestnut. The brand, not the tree. Lemon grass oil is used as a wood finish often for internal surfaces of cabinets. I don’t like the smell of tung oil. This time I have forced my iPad not to alter my words. Lemon grass oil does not resist finger marking as well but does not make the house smell of rotting vegetation. I think I bought mine from Axminster tools but I may be wrong on that.

Seems pretty easy actually... There are also various instruction videos from suppliers that show similar techniques.

When I worked fir a major comms company I was pissed off with all the “acronyms” being used, however the one I liked and continue to use is “ work smarter not harder”.

I would make one out of hardboard and baton, (size and thickness) easily liftable without risking damaging your tray (or your Nads).and accurate, not like ol @ToughButterCup ?????(sorry mate).

No sure if i would be of any help, but I can pop over if you need a pair of extra hands.

Neutral and live (permanent) in then neutral and live to the light. You can get them with receivers built into the wall switch. They are "radio" but you can get Wi-Fi equipped ones to control via a phone app. https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/QURW03.html Installation instructions under Technical at the link above. The only thing that would make them better is built in spring clamp instead of screw terminals.

Work out how much higher you need middle step. Baton either end and PIR in the middle, floorboard (off cut of chipboard flooring) rounded front edge, screw down to concrete. Make nosing (round edge ) a good inch out from front of concrete. Do this then Report Back and we will talk you through the bottom step.

Yes - watch the video, it’s about the size of a matchbox. The receiver can be paired with a lot of different switches - the dimmer ones are retractive so don’t “show” they are on, but that is useful in a powercut as all receivers fail safe as off. Terminals are quite small, easier to wire fly leads to them and then use Wagos into the ceiling space to replace a ceiling rose. Also worth remembering which downlight you put it behind too ....... ask me how I know ..!!!

@Ferdinand enjoyed that zoot clip! yes I was skirted-out y'day. I think maybe I need PIR in middle step: concrete ontop of old wall as it is = a big area of cold into the room/ IE anything to reduce this. So just a Q next of making these 2 steps then. The RHS will be visible, so I wonder how to make them? any ideas welcome.

Just looked and the “water testing plus £129” tests for arsenic but as you say the premium £249 appears not to. The “plus conforms to ISO 17025 which from my tinternet search is the water standard required by the authorities “ (you can tell it’s raining hard here and I can’t get on with my landscaping ?‍♂️)

n I, m not going blind --It depends which way you look at the premium test kit on their site one way its listed ==the otherway it is not how much do i trust a testing company that cannot get simple things like this right not a lot time for a snappy email to them

Just to let people know I contacted HMRC and they say a hob with built in extraction is not eligible for the Vat claim or in simple terms Vat must be paid. When I asked why they said because the larger proportion of the cost of the hob is for the cooking part and not the extraction part. I then said how can you permit an Aga which is not used for heating for a vast majority of the time it is used and not the hob as when it is used the extraction is on all the time,her reply was a decision was made and that is it.

and me tempting to start crowd funding for a hit on the local planning officer .LOL I know it would be over subscribed in a day by all the local builders . and enviromental health is not much better , not as though they had an excess of staff before --and to cut them down to 2 days working is a joke -- we really need a salomonella outbreak to go with the corvid been trying to get my water (house supply)tested for 3 months now - and sepa tell me no -go to council All I get is --"we are too involved with corvid " and labs do not have time so as pubs and eating places are now open again water testing should be working again

I know it is just a simple case of measuring and setting the battens to the measurement but I would not want to batten a roof for others to slate, unless they confirmed that it was OK as I went.

https://www.calor.co.uk/gas-bottles/advice/storing

Feck off, watching tv (actually I can do isometric projection or oblique projection, which would you require ?).

That would be useful. I started off thinking about SunAmps when I started but have since decided to walk the well trodden route of UVC/ASHP/UFH. There seem to be a lot of threads on this topic but no 'definitive' schematic. I would have thought there would be a simple ASHP --> UVC & UFH layout out there with all component parts listed but that does not seem to be the case. Surely the setup should be fairly standard regardless of house type, size etc

That membrane is as thin as you're going to get, with Ditra etc deeper again, as they are castellated both topside and underneath. With a wet mix of rapid-set flexi under that membrane you could just keep going over it with a 4"roller as it goes off and keep it as shy as possible. You'd have to mix up for one 1m strip x Xm long at a time and wait until the first sets before going onto the next. Only necessary, as said, where it's uber-critical, so you can relax a little as you move inward away from the doors etc. Depends on the tile size of course.

You will need a soil survey. With ICF you cannot see the concrete so you will not know if it has faults or voids. Type C internal drained cavity membrane with sump and pumps is considered the lowest risk for basement waterproofing.

We had our final inspection yesterday and building control were happy with the house. Just awaiting on an EPC certificate and we should have our completion certificate next week. We had a little tidy up before the inspector arrived so probably the ideal time to upload a few pictures. Landing and upstairs - not posted much here as this was covered in a earlier blog entry. Considering we put in outline planning in 2009 when we were 23 it's been a long time coming and a great relief to know it's nearly all over. I intend to post a couple more entries with the last bits of outside work and one about the costing/finance. Thanks for all those who commented over the years and answered odd queries, much appreciated. The to do list of actual jobs is getting short now. Proper downpipes – ordered Gravel - ordered, coming on Monday

under my sliders 460kg I used strips of xps500 cut to the width of the wall, the door sits directly on this, rock solid stuff £70 a pack has done one slider and two doors. Under the windows I just fitted them straight on top of the icf cavity closers, after Jeremy’s mathematics it looks like there is t that much load, my big windows are 240kg.

Ever since we moved in we have always been asked "is it two bungalows or one?" Weirdly it was designed exactly like the main picture (which was the start of our build as they were doing the footings). I think it was all a bit of a ploy. Roll back to early 70s when it was some sort of large vegetable patch. Planning permission was refused for two bungalows, various amendments and someone designed the bungalow as it is today, one bungalow suspiciously looking like two bungalows separated by a flat roof. I think they planned to build it and then attempt to get it split into two bungalows but it never happened. We have always wanted to somehow 'connect' up the roof and to be honest it's all been a bit vague on how this would be achieved. Mid build architect and builder got together, another £200 for some more beam calcs and over yesterday and today it is all looking a bit more like one bungalow. This pic is from the scaffolding and you can finally see the roof joining with the large flat roof extension. From the canal/bridge it now looks far more connected though this pic doesn't do it much justice (yesterday). And from the garden looking into our kitchen: What we really like is our ensuite, which, in the absence of any external walls will have a nice fixed rooflight on the flat roof just above our toilet/sink vanity unit which will be slightly raised from the ceiling (not the best pic).

Things seem to be happening very quickly and progress has gone really well. The block and beam of the huge extension is coming together now and the focus has been outside, although with the occasional downpour the inside is now half empty with our 1970s bathroom suite finally gone. In the interim I've sold everything inside, the kitchen, boiler, naff internal doors and even the crappy floor tiles we took off. All copper and rads ready for my dad to weigh in. Have now run out of stuff to sell! Here are a couple of pics from this week. The final pic, the bank you can see and the path runs 90 metres from the entrance to the end of our garden from one old railway bridge to the other old railway bridge the other end which is over the canal. The railway at the top of the embankment is no more. It was the line that ran from Whitchurch to Chester and we can clamber up to the top of the embankment which is now an overgrown mess of bramble and ivy, no track any longer. We cleared some of the ivy and when we were clearing the garden of shrubs, bulbs and plants that we knew would get disturbed I literally moved every one by hand and planted it on the bank and we have been lucky that the majority of the plants have taken and had daffs, bluebells and lots of other things flower so it looks quite nice, even the foxgloves that seem to have gone crazy. We do need to sort out some sort of wall or something to replace the rockery' bit which was already there. I dread to think of the cost for such a long length. It's not as high in some places and levels off.