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Following on from the last entry we had our final inspection and were on the cusp of getting our completion certificate. A few final documents were uploaded and a certificate was received from building control. We had built a house. A few final jobs were completed following the last blog entry. I order 20 tonnes of gravel from a quarry on Skye and then barrowed it down the access and spread it around the house. I also had enough to put some at the top of the access as well and fill a couple of bulk bags. The last job for the joiner was fitting the downpipes. We used the cast iron effect ones as these provide a bit more of a decorative look compared to the standard glossy pipes. We seeded the ground at the start of lockdown and now after a summer of growing the grass is coming on nicely. The grass seed cost very little money. It cost us around £15 to do all around the house. We are pleased with how the house fits into its surroundings. Our pallet wood shelter was finished and I’m currently building up the wood stocks. I am also storing fresh cut wood for the future years. These old CUPA slates crates are useful for this. As we are now heading into colder times of the year, we have had an opportunity to have a few burns from the stove. I’m really pleased with how well it is performing. The stove is bang in the middle of house surrounded by thick concrete block with a lime render. It heats the entire house and the increase in room temperature can be felt twelve hours or so after the last log goes on. I wouldn’t however recommend fitting a stove in a self-build unless you put some serious planning into how you will actually use it. Even a small stove could easily over power the heating need for a living room. Solar gains produce our base heating, keeping the temperatures to around 20c and the daily electricity usage at 10kw. We don’t have any underflooring heating or radiators. If we reach a long cold spot and need a quick boost, I plan to wheel out an oil electric heater or use the towel heaters. . What’s next. I need to crunch the final numbers. I also need to put a final layer on the access road but might put this off until the winter. Thanks for reading.

Progress has been made intemittently between the various storms. The guttering is getting a thorough testing some days. My friend Jeff has returned to site for a week so we have a chance of getting ahead in the inevitable race against the bad winter weather. Some jobs just go better with more people on site... Like moving hundreds of slates around! The 15 metre long north roof very close to completion. Just the top row left to go, and we'll do this from the other side. It's going to meet the fundimental requirements of keeping the water out and staying attached to the house in storms and I think it looks pretty good. But I would arrange a couple of things a bit differently if I had another roof this size to do. Lessons learned for the garage! When all said and done, it's natural slate so there will be imperfections and differing sizes. (I am noticing similar issues on other natural slate roofs the more I look now!) The trick would appear to be to manage them in the grading process so the right slates can get to the wielder of the hammer at the right time - I think a few trapezium shape slates slipped through and we didn't mix the crates thoroughly enough, and errors inevitably accumulate on such a large length of roof. Small sections are much easier! A lot less distance for errors to catch you out. We just need to remember to attach the top valley section properly before putting more slates on! This turned up on Friday along with another pallet of parts, a lot earlier than expected. (It's virtually unheard of to get deliveries ahead of schedule here and I'm really pleased because it gave me a weekend to deal with the contents.) I now have 6.6kW of solar panels, some GSE integration trays and several piles of electrical parts stashed in the shed. I made up a couple of gauge blocks to set up the battens for the GSC trays. This is the first test before trying to get them to the right height on the roof. It's a lot easier when the whole of the battening assembly moves as one piece. I talked the whole GSE battening thing through with my very helpful BCO and he's comfortable with me doubling up graded 50mm slate battens to suit the GSE spec. I also plan to alternate fixings into the pairs of battens so that loading is shared as evenly as possible. The tray is sitting a little low here. This is when I started to question the measurements in the GSE document - I found that GSE have updated their documentation since I downloaded the first battening plan, and the measurements are all different between the two versions because they take the reference from the other edge of what they term the "reference batten". It took me 2 hours of swearing and cursing before I noticed this. And when I used the latest document measurements, it all works out! The first three trays balanced in place with a lot of G clamps. It seemed a good idea to go down to the eaves with the panels - it creates enough room for the 5th row on the top and allows it to have a meaningful few rows of slates at the top. Otherwise I loose 1.2kW of panel or have to cut nearly every slate top and bottom. The instructions were clear that it is possible to install the trays this way, but were a bit light on exactly how the bottom flashing works on a vented roof. Got to have something to work out in the week in between puzzling through the hard maths problems at work.

Not as nice looking obviously, but what about get them laser cut from say 15mm steel - you could hand bevel the openings etc. and "dress them up" after a coat of paint and incorporated into the other components they would probably look fine. Just an option. Casting is not going to be cheap, £300 a pop is in my mind quite good. I've had dealings with this for architectural steelwork and by the time they make the sand moulds etc. it's not a quick task.

You shouldn’t run them from the CU - split them onto their own consumer units as close to the meter head as possible. Standard CU is not designed to take a full 32A for 5-6 hours continuously. Ideally you should put an isolator in at the meter and then run each off on its own sub main from the henleys.

Bought a better hook as suggested by @Onoff - much better than the supplied one - no chance for straps to come off

That's an improvement on a leaky brick cess pit. they are upgrading from 19th century to 20th.

That’s a standard shit job, you should be aiming for 100% better than that.

I’ve used Robert Sparkes (Preston) on several jobs No nonsense and no silly prices

Try Control Waterjet in Chesterfield. I've used them. 5-axis jetting is the kiddie. Just split your 3D model into pieces and print in bits. Then glue together with mitre bond.

One track mind some people.

While power cycling is an "easy" fix, it makes me nauseous to think of designing a new installation to depend on it. What if SA change the controller (again) betweeen system spec and delivery? What if the controller fails and the replacement unit works in some other way? What if it turns out that this hack causes the life expectancy to be halved? etc. With a barge pole I would not touch it.

You can’t reclaim VAT on any tools at all. If you were to hire a digger with a driver supplied however the invoice could be zero rated.

It's when injustice doesn't persist in our consciousness that we'll have lost it. Building two houses without planning permission , to me at least, is unjust.

There is about £180 million worth of PPE contracts that have been handed to individuals with some sort of link to the tory party. It seems if your sister is a tory lord or you're a mate of Cummings you can restart a dormant company with no trading record in anything and win millions worth of contracts to make PPE. You don't even have to deliver anything.

Thanks. I can't take the credit for the roof on my own. I couldn't have got this far without SWMBO and my daughter grading and sorting slates, and Jeff and Aimiee putting a lot up when I had to be at work or was occupied by nailing up battening.

I think the cement based ones look less hassle than the gypsum / anhydrite ones. No messing if you want to tile or stick down floor finish.

We used Cemfloor - very impressed with it. 50mm thick, dries fast, no laitance, very flat.

Hi AG_YB Nothing wrong in taking insperation from others, after all that is sometimes / often how we all make progress. It's what you do next that is important for you. We all design stuff even if that means choosing the paint, wall paper, a new duvet. Some do it to make a living, some for fun and or for personal satisfaction. But (personally speaking) once something is built you tend to look back and think..I could have just done that bit a wee bit better, or that bit is a howler.. and (not you) if you have not made some of these yet then time is on the "howler's" side. Maybe go back the the Architect (who's design you love) and ask how much it would cost to tweak it just for you? Maybe look at the orientation of the house, the views, how the sun sets and rises, shaddows.. you can make a long list. Also, look at how you are actually going to really use the house once you have been in it for a couple of years and the novelty has worn off? It may cost less than you think? It does no harm to phone them up and just ask. It's ok to get inspiration as Peter W says, just don't rip off other folks stuff whole sale and don't copy their actual detailed drawings. Personally if someone is copying one of my concept designs then it's quite good to be "followed" .. it's the only time I get to be famous. It's a good point you make about seeing something and saying "yes" .. it's a gut feeling and worth trusting, just check your facts.. just for reassurance. There are a few alternatives in terms of the traditional Architect route. If you know what you want or even if you don't then there are other folk that are competant (experienced enough) to deliver what you need. Some are pretty talented and they can also bring a slightly different skill set to the process that may suit you, it's worth exploring... you're not being a cheepskate just sensible and thoughtful. As a point of there are also a number of folk about who started out as Structural Engineers that do the Architectural (creative) side of things and deal with the permissions and so on. The professions cross fertilize as Structural Engineering requires vision, creativity and "inventiveness" also. Design is fun, creative and rewarding. I know few Architect's who incorporate good structural design right at the concept stage as they really enjoy it, they know their stuff, just they can't bear to do the calculations and funnily enough there are a few SE's who "cross the tracks".. to the Architectural side but you get the calculations / SE design as part of the package. AG_YB all the best, try and have as much fun as you can as this will often offset the times that things get a bit stressful.

I think I have settled on the 18mm caber and then the finished flooring ontop. In the joists I am thinking 50mm Kingspan (K12) and 50mm acoustic Rockwool, a few people have recommended acoustic, i didn't realise that it was so useful.

instead of the baffles, maybe to utilise the 50mm kingspan I could batten the sides of the joists put the 50mm kingspan board down and then use 50mm of acoustic Rockwool on top? (As you can tell I'm keen to make full use of any left over materials that I have rather than lose out)

Are you pushing on an open door with us..... Our build is a catalogue of delays. Not to mention disasters. Big and small. Lots of success too though. Self-building is a character test. Surviving it seems to involve a hardening off process. Unless of course you are already involved in the building trade. Most self builders need to become involved in all sorts of new , sometimes local , networks. Why was it for example that your brickie was pulled off your job? I often think that the most important thing about a self-build is the human networks that you know and have access to. What you build and how you build it it is not as important as knowledge of who is going to build it for you and when : or perhaps I should say by when. Self builders already in the trade tend to know the answer to that question. During our build I have come to value the life experience I had before building our house especially in relation to persistence. That skill is hard won. As Peter above says you soon forget the difficult bits and hopefully come to look back at them with a rueful smile. Stick with it and we will help you with the technical bits of your build. Moaning on this site is very useful to all members. It helps us all realise that we are not alone in having annoying problems.

After many years of refurbs I found a new build refreshing, perhaps I was lucky (had a brilliant main contractor for the heavy work) and very little went wrong but I think that was mainly down to meticulous planning on my part. I also had an attitude of “shit happens, so get over it”, which I imparted on my builder and he was grateful that I was realistic (unlike some customers). Funnily enough I have suffered ill health from stress related conditions in the past and people close to me were worried the build would make it worse, but the opposite was true, I got great satisfaction from what I achieved and to this day I am still proud of what I have done. p.S. Edit to add this forum gave me great support for the things I was not sure of, ASHP, MVHR, ETC. thanks guys ?

Hello all, I am an architectural designer. I am converting my 850sqft bungalow in the New Forest. Quite a major architectural change. I already have built a single storey rear PD extension, a natural pond, a timber frame garage, and a lovely barn in the garden. Since June I have been working on the main change to the bungalow by removing the roof and front walls, and adding a new 1st floor. My budget is very tight. Hopefully soon to be completed. I am loving the results. Guy

Hi and welcome to the forum. I considered Sunamp in my build but am glad I changed my mind as there seem to have been quite a few problems with them. There is an alternative coming to market next year called Tepeo which looks to me like a big storage heater with water pipes. https://tepeo.com/technology

Quite possibly, but I have a finished bathroom and en-suite to clean myself up in ?

Im no roofer, but that looks like a right lash up.

Like I didn’t plan that ! ??

@joe90 this isn't my build but I was on the site of a local medium volume builder

I see a sunken bath opportunity...

will you have to build steps to get in the shower!!

That 90 bend looks so much better than your previous efforts. ??

Sorry, I have not been on here recently, hence the delayed reply. No, they were not willing to combine any thing they considered separate.

Well I started my bathroom thread on one forum and (haven't yet) finished it on another. Kudos to those who can plan and budget. I'm easily distr