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Morning To introduce ourselves, we have just received planning permission to demolish our residential bungalow and replace with a house, we hope to do this in around 2 years time. At this stage its all about discharging our conditions, research and planning. I have picked up lots of helpful information from this forum already - thank you.

Literally cannot leave you two alone for even 5 minutes. NEVER seal the inside. If the instructions say to, STILL DO NOT DO IT. The 30mm or so where the wall channel meets the tray is where the money is. You seal that with CT1 first, and whilst wet apply the wall channel ( with a freshly applied line of CT1 on the back from top to very bottom ) and fix it in place so all wet on wet with the sealant. Wipe off either side of the channel to remove excess. Seal outside of glass to finish. Lost count of the number of leak damaged houses I’ve been called to to sort out jobs where the tray / wall junction was sealed AFTER fitting the wall channel, with zero sealant between the tray and the tiles. School boy error to the max. Most instructions aren’t worth shit though.

Use the lower seal and ditch the flimsy upper one. Set the top metal part ( sieve ) in with some clear silicone ( I prefer clear CT1 / clear Stixall etc as it doesn't degrade like silicone does ) and clear the excess off immediately with baby wipes, lots of them, used once and discarded. Cutting off cured products afterwards risks scratching the metal and is a bit clumsy.

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.

Thanks everyone. Once again BuildHub comes up trumps with no-nonsense advice. ?

If you silicone the foam washer, it’ll spread and splay out as you tighten up. ?. Either dry fit it, or don’t fit it, but not both. Correct. Dry fit the whole thing and don’t over tighten. Should be fine without any help as that’s a good kit with the essential good rubber ‘under / bottom seal’. ?

QS estimate for excavating, retaining walls, tanking, foundations, and basement floor is £39k. The ground floor (block and beam, screed, insulation) adds on £13k to that. Basement is a 3 sided box dug out of a slope, total retaining wall is 17m. Only 7m of that needs tanking as the rest is garage. Of course this may not be accurate and I won't know until I get proper quotes. Hopefully will be able to get firm prices in a month or so.

Sadly not, the groundworks company doesn't do foundations, and the basement company doesn't do foundations-alone. I'm sure I can get more quotes, for example I asked a quote from a timber frame company that will do foundations so perhaps from them I can untangle it. Let's share our notes, shall we? ?

I only mentioned the issue I had with condensation as in the original post they stated that it was too be sited in a cold loft. Was more of a warning to be careful with the room extract ducts as these aren't usually insulated. Never had any issues with the insulated ducts leaving the unit heading to the tile vents.

I think @epsilonGreedy will actually ask every question to do with fitting this roof as he does it effectively putting me out of a job...Should of been a plasterer...

Just cast them level and solid. Drill and resin fix to suit later on. Some form of U channel to take chunky wooden posts.

My first thought was why would you want your house to look like a multistoreycar park ? my second though was, where are they going to put the insulation ?

Going by my shower screen, I would definitely follow nicks advice and not do the inside... it just traps water then goes green when it can’t escape. Im now going to have to remove my screen and redo it.

Just watched this week's episode with the family. We all hated it. I didn't mind the concrete boxes too much, can't imagine them being most people's choice, but the interior was not to our liking at all. Funnily enough one of the owners said that the utility room was their favourite and it was nice. The kitchen was way too dark despite there being lots of windows elsewhere. I couldn't understand the bare metal stair replacing the original stair and the architect saying that they wanted to lean into the dark narrow hall and make it even darker. Painting the front of the house black was a shocker. This is why we have so many conservation areas and planning laws. The week before was OK, although again why paint the bricks.

Yup. Biggest bug bear of mine with those is the gap which crud gets into. Agreed. To be honest, if you follow the path that water would take, if it got under the top fitting, you’ll see it cannot leak out if the bottom seal is robust. The use of a sealant is more about keeping things from moving about tbh.

For me the plastic top seal seems to leave the metal of the waste a bit high. With silicon you can get it nearer flush.

You can get 6" skirting.

Thank you. Joe90 We won our appeal last week...so hopefully no more fighting for us - although my friend tells me that the planners will watch our project like hawks now! ?

I would put ct1 between the frame and the wall/ tray, and follow 21ABCD

I always found the Franke and Blanco kits to work well without any other sealants .

And https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://cdn.buildresources.co.uk/sites/967/docs/Specification/WPA_FR/WPA_FR5.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiNubL0-s_sAhXMiFwKHQyNA4cQFjABegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw2vqil7kXtdyEaWCPy-E-Ko&cshid=1603636566093 "Below 18 metres For any building where the upper floor level is less than 18m above external ground level:• The faces less than 1000mm from boundary must meet class Euroclass B-s3, d2 or better.• Where faces are more than 1000mm from boundary there is no requirement for flame retardant treatment, except for assembly or recreation buildings of more than one storey...continues."

Summary here appears to agree with interpretations above.. https://www.woodcampus.co.uk/approved-doc-b-fire-safety-2019/ "For any building other than a recreation or assembly building of 18m in height or lower: No provision Unless any wall is less than 1000 mm from a boundary, when the cladding must be FR treated as a minimum to Euroclass B-s3, d2"

yes, 6.5 fir brown 5.5 fir red yes again, I know what you mean above pulling tight with screws but these fixings are in shear force and screws are not designed fir that re the previous thread about not using screws in joist hangers, these are the nails to use. https://www.toolstation.com/masonry-nail/p77559?store

Bottom ones shouldn’t need anything other than your absence unless cheap rock hard ( plastic ) rubber?

Taking this to next level plumber on the job I'm currently on ditches top seal and replaces bottom one for a pte? Plastic one. Also silicone both sides. Guy I normal use ditches top one and uses silicone both sides

Ok so that drawing helps. Do they also do one for the walk on units as a 3-5 degree slope on walk on glazing is going to drop it 50mm per metre run ..? Can the walk on be laid “flat”..? I think you can build a gully around each of the kerbs with 80mm PIR, and use this to your advantage in creating drainage channels across the roof to your roof drains. The remaining roof could be a second layer of 80mm on top, and the whole lot sheathed in OSB and GRP’d with a double layup around all the point areas and gullies to create one large waterproof structure. I’d be talking to two people : - the rooflight manufacturer to see what the options are with the walk on units and the kerbs / minimum clearance. I’m assuming the 150mm is “splash proofing” which if you are decking the whole area becomes irrelevant to you as there will be no rain splash. - your building control officer as to what they will accept as minimum insulation, and even if spray insulation is acceptable as an alternative as it’s not being used in its certified method. Putting £2-3k worth of spray foam in place and then finding it has to come out would be a significant issue to overcome. I wish you good luck with this one.

Must plumbers I know, ditch the sealing washers as they normally degrade and just use silicone and cut away the excess.

I’m with @joe90, just let go to what has gone on. You will make yourself ill if you don’t. If you are up for making a door - and we’ve seen some of your woodwork so you’re perfectly capable - then the frame can be made to fit and as strong as possible. It will essentially be self supporting so what’s behind is irrelevant. One question - have you now got building control sign off on this as it stands ..?? Just thinking about that door and the steps.

On the ducting stuff, there may be something in Jeremy's blog at mayfly.eu, as he seems to have everything everywhere eg I believe he has electrical power in 3 separate places in his garden. But I am not aware that he has listed everything in one place. When I put ducts in I usually use the blue water pipe with nylon rope as a pre-installed draw string. As said above, you suck one or two through with a hoover and a moving plug such as a cloth. On occasion I have put an empty duct in the same trench as the one in use just in case the first goes tits-up, and the prices of the pipe are such that it uses a larger quantity up. The possible reason for two is because some clown will always forget to tie another one on the other end at some point in the future. But you choose your level of redundancy. F

Is there any reason why you can't just concrete in two or three fenceposts closer, and put your datum points on those? It would need a real survey of the exact locations when set up, but should help after that. Concrete fence posts exist that come with bolt holes already in them for a mount. No one knows where the permanent structure is apart from your surveyor having surveyed it; he can surely survey a semi-permanent structure created on site. That's probably what I would try and do, and I'm interested to know any reason why not. Don't you just need a slightly out-of-the-immediate way-but-close-by place on your plot that will not be disturbed during the build? F /ministry of innocent questions

Or no nails a bit of 6mm ply to the underside of the lintel if it looks a bit rough. This instead of using the header supplied with the frame kit.

Overall it went swimmingly well, couple of minor issues but soon resolved and need to return to sort out a handle issue but John Knight Glass were, IMO really great and for final sign off we wait for contact over next couple weeks when someone else comes to site to check everything with us so enough time to raise any snagging issues hopefully. Despite some panic on the canal bridge when the trailer was about 8 inches off the floor, everyone held their breath when the glass got over successfully. The other option being discussed was asking CRT who were dredging at the time to transport them to us. Although that didn't happen, I'd of been quite pleased to see that ? The windows we picked were the aluclad UPVV studio KF320 windows and KS430 sliding door and we are more than happy with them. A couple from work in progress. It was nice as the sun was setting getting some pictures of the house today, finally with the windows.

Today was the penultimate of 6 gas monitoring check as part of our phase 2 contamination survey. They dug 6 bore holes of 3 m deep and then left 2 with gas monitors in situ. I noticed today though that the one on the left has some dying plants around it, which is slightly worrying as it used to look like the other one. But, at their last check they have not found any gas at all in their holes, mainly because where they are looking is subsoil where a building used to be rather than in the field 100m away where the slurry pit was. The ex slurry pit is not in the curtilage of the barn conversion so they couldn't look there, phew. They also took soil samples, which we won't get the results of until after all the monitoring has finished. I'm hoping to get the report by the end of November. Then I need to discharge the planning condition. I don't know how to do this yet, so I shall have to be investigating that. Over the last week I have been visiting plumbing / electrical / builders merchants to find out about trade accounts and discounts. They were all pretty keen to get the business, although a couple of them were rather patronising and said to get my builder to talk to them, the perils of being a female of the species. The Electric Center said that you can get grants for fitting car chargers, if you have them installed by certified madmen, sorry I think that was meant to say electricians. Has anyone elase heard about this. Do others get trade accounts to get supplies and how does this work with the VAT. Despite not being able to start we have pulled down the metal sheeting that was protecting one side of the barn, it wasn't fixed and was just held in place by lengths of wood just to keep it a bit dryer. We currently store lots of wood, big tools (tractors etc) in the barn so we decided to take the collapsed roof off of the old bike shed and put a new one on to use that. Well the roof was removed weeks ago and HID has not lost interest in putting a new one on. This is rather worrying when he is supposed to be converting the whole barn. I'm still compiling the list of requirements to send of for estimating, starting from scratch means that we can have sockets, plumbing etc where ever we want it, but when given the choice I'm finding it difficult to think now about how we will use the rooms once we move in. I've been hearing quite a few 'not so good' things about warranties and how difficult it is to claim on one, with HID supposedly doing all the work when he isn't qualified I would be very surprised if it was worth anything. The plan is for this to be our last home, famous last words, but who knows what will happen. With a tight budget I only want to buy what is essential so I have some money left for the inside, so no decision made on that yet. What I must sort out for the new year is insurance, although our barn is pretty much ignored at the moment I suspect that once we put a fence around it to say building site then there will be more interest and potentially some unwanted visitors. There is a local auction on Monday where we are considering buying a dumper and some other equipment, all depends on the price and what others will pay of course. As I think of things I've been adding them to a project plan, this is now getting huge, but it does at least mean I will remember to get things done. Before we start though I will need to get it all in a sensible order, after all installing windows really can't be done when there are no walls. Right, back to my electricity plan, how many sockets can one house need, probably never enough.

my ASHP runs at 48’ (best temp for efficiency), buffer stat set at 30’. Buffer has coil fed from ASHP. UFH, runs at 24’, (blended down at manifold). Antifreeze in ASHP and inhibitor in UFH. What inefficiency?.

Re Tata Steel & Greencoat PLX - can attest to my recent experience of Tata Steel and a massive hike in price. However, my quotation went up over double just for the supply (and then not even with the fascia and guttering included) with Tata telling me I needed lots of special fabrication at what I thought were pretty extortionate rates. I didn't receive much in the way of reciprocal communication when I went back to tell them I confirmed all my details with one of their regional technical managers who confirmed I didn't need any special fabrication way back when.. communication was certainly not their strong point for me. I went with the Lindab Greencoat PLX although you can also buy the SSAB Greencoat PLX (the Greencoat coating and the steel are made by SSAB which is basically Swedish Steel) - same product but strangely seem to be available with slightly different RAL colours depending on which brand you go for. I installed the Greencoat PLX roof myself but first obstained some installation quotations. I received a range of prices between about 33k down to just under 10k for essentially the same job of aout 126sqm - confusing. I got all my materials for the Lindab Greencoat PLX version from The Metal Roof Company who couldn't have been more helpful. They put me in touch with a couple of other companies so I could hire the tools and machinery and get a proper materials estimate. If you're looking for a local installer, then the Metal Roofing company will usually put you in touch with properly qualified installers that they know and work with. Worth a phone call. Re Oil canning - having looked around at a lot of installations and also from the Lindab technical info on this roofing system some oil canning is a natural feature of this product. Having handled it myself I'm not surprise. I had pans that were 8m long that are basically formed from something like 0.7mm mild steel with a width of 600mm. The steel is naturally stressed when it goes through the forming machinery which does create a 'texture' along those bends. You can reduce oil canning and pillowing by reducing the width of the pans and also from careful forming. You then also have the natural tendency of the expansion and contraction of the metal through weather. Having a mat colour definitely helps to reduce its visibility and someone, probably one of the roofing people I spoke to along the way, suggested lighter colours also mask the oil canning effect a bit more, who knows. When I laid my longest pans onto my large curved roof area - approx 76sqm - there was some oil canning visible as the pans self curved. Much of this didn't show when I removed the shiny plastic cover but as we've been through the summer with very hot days, the material has pillowed a little bit and is more visible when the sun hits it at certain angles. Oil canning was was a big worry for me, especially because I've seen to pretty bad examples on roofs, cladding and fascias in our region, but now that I've seen it on my roof I'm okay with it because it adds some texture.

I watched the new episode last night. Really didn't like it, the new extensions looked like they had been added a few decades ago.

I'd agree with the point made by @lizzie. I know of two self-builds where the directly employed project manager caused significant problems and cost over-runs. I'm sure there are really good PMs around, as I had meetings with two either of which I'd have happily used, had our circumstances not changed. It's really important to track down previous customers of any PM and see what they have to say. One of the people I spoke to I heard about from another person who'd used him and recommended him, and a personal recommendation counts for a lot, in my view.

Great advice. Although I guess there are also risks with all of the routes I mentioned, rather than that route being riskier? Or would you disagree with that, and think a private PM managing individual trades is riskier? We were leaning towards e) as you did, but wondering if b) or c) might actually be best *if* we like the main contractor and can think to trust them with PH-level TF and to finish to the quality level we'd expect after seeing some of their work. b) is potentially interested as it's closest to us doing it ourselves. Wokingham, Berkshire. Our planning application is here: http://publicaccess.wokingham.gov.uk/AniteIM.WebSearch/ExternalEntryPoint.aspx?SEARCH_TYPE=1&DOC_CLASS_CODE=PL&FOLDER1_REF=191468 . Any thoughts/questions/feedback is more than welcome..

Be very careful who you choose if you go down private PM route (your option e may be closest)........your context is exactly ours MBC house, renting 10 mins away, no experience etc etc. Go and talk to previous clients face to face...ones where the job is finished not part way through ideally as then they can give you an honest opinion without needing to keep anyone on side to finish the job. I wont go into the nightmare we ended up in as everyone on here is bored with it. Suffice to say I have things that are still not right and never can be now plus a huge cost over run due in no small part to errors and mistakes mainly caused by lack of proper supervision and knowledge from those who were in charge during the construction process. That large cost over run was on top of the many tens of thousands paid for management fees. On a nicer note where are you building? Tell us a bit about it.

Don't get me started on pheasants... Some may recall that we had this cheeky sod banging his beak repeatedly at our front door last year: Well, he's back... I'm getting fed up with opening the door and chasing him away. It seems that he can see his own reflection, assumes it's a rival, and then sets about head butting the window. The bugger's far too dim to realise that he's not banging his head on another cock pheasant, so every time I shoo him away he comes back for another go ten minutes later. Not only that, but he's crapping all over our front steps.

gives more of an idea on the planters ....just ignore world war 3 going on around them LOL

Ha ha , I had just been for new tyres last week and it reminded me of the unit that the tyre company operates from!

Look on the bright side, you'll soon have a half Welsh sibling to assist in your DIY endeavours! ?