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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.

You are right. He has done some work and it needs to be paid for. Pay for the work that he has done minus the cost of putting the errors right. You might like to consider taking photographs of the work that has been done to correct the original errors. He appears to have forgone the opportunity of correcting his own errors, maybe that's why he did not want to do the cladding. In other words pay what you think it is worth on the basis of evidence.

Here's a picture of the almost complete cladding btw. The two elevations you can't see are also clad - there's three gables similar to the two on the front round the back.

If your not using the joiner in the future, I would just leave the invoice in a folder/tray somewhere. I wouldn't pay an invoice if they have not even provided a bit more detail, how long would it have taken to add a few lines to an email or on the invoice. It also sounds as if they are not hard up or they would be doing your work. I'm sure if they want payment they will be in touch again and prehaps this will allow some more discussion regarding the matter. Photos and evidence and other joiners invoice ready (prehaps ask them to itemise the batten correction work on the new joiner invoice) I do think with other that they should be paid for some work but that needs to be agreed. Did you supply the materials?

But the original joiner didn't want to come back to complete the job so has lost that right. @Andrew has then had to source another crew who have spotted the errors and need paid to put it right. This extra money then comes out of the £800 invoice. As above photos and an explanation of the issue would really help when the arguments start.

Shower more ..? Or is this the purpose of installing the new tray ..?? ? In more seriousness, you should limit what you try and move on your own as a lot of accidents happen when people over exert themselves and it can be long term debilitating or potentially fatal if you are trapped under something heavy.

Do you have to use a beam and block floor? An insulated ground bearing floor or slab foundation would be good if conditions allow.

It is a bit annoying but not a huge sum. The house looks really good by the way.

First time a girl's said that to me! I predict imminent thread drift.

There is an old story. Old bull and young bull in the top field and some good looking galloway cows (choose you preferred breed) in the bottom field. The young bull says.. dad let's run down and "introduce" ourselves to some of them".. the old bull says, no son, let's walk down and we can meet them all. It's best to be tactful when dealing with supplier's, ask firmly what the probem is and try and resolve it, yes be firm but also fair. If you can get to the bottom of the problem this way you build good will and often can jump up from the bottom of the in tray to the top. Also, later, if there is a quality issue you will be remembered as a "good guy" so take a long view, although in the heat of battle often forgotton. No point in wasting too much energy running when it is best just to walk in the long term?

I wouldn't put it as parting ways, bottom line is the guy agreed to do the job and then changed his mind as I presume he had some other work that was better paying or easier for him. I had the hassle of finding someone else to do it. The work to rectify the battens wasn't huge, probably about half a day I'd say, but I don't have any visibility of what the guys who actually did the cladding added to their price for it - I suspect they probably assumed the worst. True. I did supply the materials. I think this is the approach I'll take. I'm not in a hurry to pay the invoice and they certainly aren't hard up. When he gets in touch I'll have a sensible discussion with the guy and I'm sure we'll be able to come to an agreement.

I think the general consensus is you have a cracking house there.

Tortuous times for BRI44. As a general comment Bri has gathered plenty evidence and working though the dispute process which is incredibly frustrating. I do think that BRI has a good chance of success as a lot of the evidence is overwhelming. At some point the builder will probably wake up, count their beans and come to the table with a view to mitigating their losses... which will likely be more than if they had engaged( meaningfully) earlier. If they don't it will probably get worse for them. It looks like there could be some structural safety issues here. If say the HSE were to get involved then the developer may have to answer to them also, and that is not cheep in terms of loss of reputation, just for example. Having the HSE take an investigative interest in your business / or you personally is an experience to be avoided. Food for thought if you were the developer that built BRi's house.

very much so, but I would like to point out that I do less than 2k a year in it, my other car (well hubbys) is much smaller and more economical for commuting, which I only do 2 days per week as I work from home the rest of the time. Living in the back of beyond doesn't make for a lot of planet friendliness, no buses, trains, too far to cycle / walk unless just going out for fun. But, the barn conversion will be different, ASHP, PV, rainwater harvesting and maybe even a windmill, certainly in the future.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but I've done exactly what you've suggested a few times. Pulled up floor boards and laid 18mm OSB down straight onto joists, screwed down. Then tiled straight onto the OSB board with flexible adhesive. I've never had an issue and my bathroom floor has been down 15+ years.

PS We have a small difference in levels at our bathroom door between a stone floor in the bathroom and wood floor outside. It's not been an issue although our step is going up as you leave rather than enter. The step is about 10mm high.

From what I've read you need more like 22mm plywood over joists before tiling. I think 18mm is the minimum for Building Regs. You may also need to beef up the floor joists and add noggins to reduce movement before screwing down plywood on 200mm centres. The ply must be sealed before tiling.

I ran cat6 cables to places I potentially wanted cameras from a central location which I knew I would put my DVR whilst the sparky was doing the 1st fix. A 100m box of cat6 doesn’t cost a great deal! And then I bought a hikvision DVR and have gradually added Poe cameras to the system. No batteries required, no potential issues with WiFi signal and no subscription. The latest cameras hardly ever give false detections/alerts either.

They'll have likely gone over the top of the upstand slightly thus obscuring it. I think you can see some of it exposed around the pipe in the other picture.

If I remember correctly this scale of excavating would be classed as an "Engineering Operation" not covered by Permitted Development meaning planning permission would be required. I might be wrong though. The normal recommendation is that any retaining wall over 1m high should be designed by a Structural Engineer. Unfortunately the Party Wall Act may also come into play if you are digging within 3m (and possibly 6m) of a neighbours house. Try and avoid this if possible as things can get expensive. Keep the neighbours happy.

Welcome. As to shaking of heads, there's more shaking of heads when when members don't research what we've already posted on this forum. So thanks very much for having done a bit of research before posting here. By the way you lost me me as soon as you mentioned bathroom floor height. The only tiling I've ever attempted has been at night if you understand me. I suppose both forms of tiling for me would end with a massive headache. Good luck.

Don't forget to include the cost of getting the kerb dropped in front of the newly created second parking space.

You will have to have trickle vents if you don't have MVHR.

looks fabulous. well done. thank you for the blog and sharing your journey, I have enjoyed reading it and I hope I have learnt something from it!

I don't think deducting the original blokes invoice will wind up the OP, more likely the other way round. I doubt he will have the front to challenge OP. For one he has let him down for two the work wasn't right

Did the OP state there was work needing rectifying during the comms where they both went their separate ways? • If yes, and the chap didn’t return, make the deduction. • If not, pay the invoice, without speaking to them..... ......because winding yourself up is the biggest waste of time and energy and simply not worth it.

I agree. Although you have to give him a chance to rectify first don’t you?

Your invoice should read. 4 units X £200 per unit =£800 Minus 4 units needing fixed from bottom to top X price added on by new joinery crew. = £800 - £xxx.

I've no idea how you would do it, just thought that was what was needed, probably best to speak to an experience builder (not the local pikeys) or structural engineer. I've also no idea about building control and if they need to be involved.

if you are planning on digging out the whole of the front garden for parking then don't forget the retaining wall so the house doesn't join you in the car. The 'want' is lovely except for the breeze blocks on top of the lovely wall.

He’s big He’s black He’s sparkly He’s also fecking heavy but ... he’s in ! ?? Learnt my lesson from the ensuite tray and left a nice gap around the edges - probably get 3 tubes of ct1 down there ! I’s da bad ass boy - you get me !? ??

Looks fantastic.

I was on a building site yesterday and chatted to the site manager. He said they get the show homes up in 4 months. Looking at the quality of this, I can see why they go up so quickly!

I feel so sorry for you having to go through this, I have personally never seen anything quite as bad! While I was reading through my reaction on it all was knock down and rebuild properly. There will be even more that is wrong that you can't see which will all get covered up again through the fixes. I have no idea if this is a possibility or not, i suspect they will really push against it, but I don't see any way of sorting it properly without doing so.

Fart > space suit.

@pocster are you still here, I thought we had got rid of you.

iv never been pulled up by regs on the height of a handle, We generally put them where they look right, or 1m down from the top of the door. knobs will need a longer backset on the latch than a handle so you don't catch your knuckles on the door stop, especially if you need to have fire regs door stop. we recently fitted some unsprung porcelain knobs which required howdens "heavy duty" latches to work even remotely properly. they were hateful things where the knob didn't fit into the cup properly and even if they did no part of the whole setup was round so they ground when you turned them. I highlighted this issue a fair few times but " just fit them and make it work".......guess what came up on the snags (other heavy duty latches are available, we just happened to buy the original latches and hinges from howdens)

Not sure there are regs on handle height in England and Wales. Unsprung are ok but buy decent latches..!

Well done,it looks a great location and the house fits in well

That’s why I suggest using the Post Office for the line as there is no contract after 30 days.

I think your address has to be registered at the Post Office. I must admit I thought you first found a provider e.g BT, Sky etc then THEY instructed Openreach who are separate to BT.

Nope - just register for a new line with BT or use the Post Office and they will sort the rest.

Glued screwed and autographed by uncle Nick as usual . The floor not my Mum .

Do all the ground work. Put in kerbs etc to form the road in. Sewer and rain water runs. Any ducting that you need for electric, water etc. Basically all the dirty work. Sparks and joiners don't like getting dirt on their moccasins. If window sizes upstairs aren't too big to cover in then cover them with polythene and Then you can do first fix joinery. Unless the site is very very secure then I wouldn't put anything in that couldn't be lifted by those who creep about at night.

Breaking through ready for the main bathroom shower tray . Waste has to be a swept 90 - would of preferred a 45 degree bend , but it’s the not going to happen

I’ve just realised... PIR ??‍♂️

Have you got fascia / soffit / gutters / downpipes in? Saves a lot of water running down the walls / into the house. With the big opening, could you cover the top bit just to stop water getting too far in? If you have a chipboard floor it is worth sweeping the water out after a downpour as it won't like being submerged for weeks on end.

I imagine the window manufacturer offers these to persuade builders to commit to an order before the walls are up. In my case window measuring was as-built once we got to roof height which I guess is the slow and steady approach.

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 ?

an RPG character of mine inspired by Thorfinn Skullsplitter from Erik The Viking https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097289/characters/nm0725956?ref_=tt_cl_t13