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This thread screams nimby to me. Fair play for getting people here on side when a lot of them will have had struggles with their own nimbys.

In at last! Building controls came out and checked the site and have issued a “temporary habitation certificate”. Big sigh of relief especially for a self build where you’ve been the main contractor. Lots of bits and pieces jobs, as you would expect at this stage of the project. Adding stairs to second floor, making lights work, finishing off bathrooms, the last bits of flooring etc… it’s a long list but getting shorter by the day helped by being on site. The stairs are a feature of the build and getting them right was a tricky path between the minimalist look we wanted and compliance with building controls. The main problem we faced was that the kit stairs we used from Fontanot did not have a stock solution for stairs installed in a void rather than from a solid floor. A modified mounting was ordered. When it arrived it was the wrong colour! And of course the colour was not RAL. Getting it re-manufactured was an option but it would have taken a couple of weeks. Fortunately we have a local powder coating firm K and N we have used in the past. They were incredibly helpful, managed to get a powder coating that matched for the manufactures copper-black. Two days later we had our newly powder coated bracket and we could start the installation. Working from a staircase is a little more tricky than working from a solid floor, a case of don’t look down. Again we started from the top of the flight and worked down. On the first flight we supported the assembly with props from the floor. This time we needed to support the second flight from the first flight. The lower stairs are rock solid, all the same we added supports to it to transfer all load to the concrete floor. This being our second installation it went fairly quickly. It proved more difficult to keep the structure square with no walls to gauge from. With the last tread in place and all bolts torqued up we removed the props. The stairs promptly sagged a good 20mm, some of this was due to the temporary supports being to long, but not all of it. After a bit of head scratching it appeared that it was down to flex in the modified bracket. Walking up the stairs showed another problem, the lateral stability was not brilliant. On the lower stair this was taken care of by stabilising brackets attached to the walls, not an option on a staircase with no walls. The stair kit comes with a very heavy duty mid-flight support bracket made to either attach to the floor or the wall behind the stairs. In our case, the wall is a window. The window is however flanked with 150mm of concrete inside the ICF. Plenty of structural strength to stabilise the stairs. More calcs and a design for a suitable structure was drawn up. Luckily for us one of our daughters is an artist blacksmith with more than adequate welding skills, steel was ordered, bracket constructed. We did a test fit before getting it powder coated. All looked good so it was off to the powder coaters. Installing the bracket was a three man job due to it’s weight and the need to get the position spot on. High tensile studs resin fixed into the concrete and left to cure. The stairs had been supported during this process and I must confess I held my breath as the supports were removed. I need not have been worried though, it didn’t move a bit or drop and lateral stability concerns resolved. Result! In addition to the internal staircase we also have an external spiral staircase. We had poured a footing for the stairs when the concrete pumps were being purged after the ICF pours, so the prep was done. Assembling the stairs was very straight forward, a central boss fixed to the concrete, onto which an armature is bolted. The steps then get added. Once all the stairs are on the armature the top platform is added and bolted to the wall. So that the bolts didn’t form a thermal bridge we anchored glass fibre rods into the concrete. The rods were tapped to take 8mm threaded rod. With the platform bolted in place the steps get rotated to form the staircase and are held in place by rods through the stairs. The whole armature is then put under compression by a large nut. All very neat and simple unlike the internal stairs. With the stairs done, it was back to work on the bathrooms. Before the covid outbreak we had stayed at Centre Parcs and rather liked the woodland pictures they use in their showers. After some research Pat found a company Reco Surfaces who manufacture them. We contacted them and decided they were a good option for providing an alternative to the run of the mill shower finishes. Interestingly it reduces the cost if you supply your own image. In hind sight we would have gone for this option, the only reason we didn’t was image size. The resolution needs to be a minimum of 300dpi to avoid pixalation. In our case a three panel screen would require a 48 megapixels image. Sounds a big image, but it’s not exceptional and even available from some phones. In any event we went with stock images. We decided on the images we would use to brighten up the showers and also one for the kitchen splash back. The panels were ordered and arrived in three days, really good support from the guys at Reco. The panels are easy to instal on a flat surface. We put ours on 11mm water resistant MDF. The track saw paid for itself again making accurate cutting of the panels possible. All in all the panels are a great way to add interest to an area, at around the £120 mark for a 2400 by 1200 panel much more affordable than glass. The pictures really don't do them justice they are very eye catching and with the option of using your own images very versatile, a real find. Next on our list was lighting. We’ve installed some lights during the build but not implemented switching or dimming. Lights get pretty complex, not in technical terms, but just what you want ,where and from where do you want to switch it. Lots and lots of decisions very early in the build when you have more important things like walls and roof to do. Our lighting very simple. All our lights originate from a single point allowing the switching to be changed at some later date should we need to or want to go to an automated solution. All lights are wired with a combination of remote controlled dimmers and battery powered touch sensitive wall switches. It’s a simple system that means the lights can get turned on from the wall switches or the remote. The dimmers retain there last level setting so come on at last setting when the wall switches are used.

Sand cement is rough looking. You would have seen it used as a finish on the outside of many a building where it's just rubbed up to give it a sort of smooth finish. In reality it's not but for outside it's fine as it's mixed with sand grains so will never be smooth. Skim is like glass when it goes on as it's just a powdered mix so no fine aggregate. Its this that you paint to give you your final appearance.

Been a while. Had no time. Contrary to the rest of the world, i did not have a minute of rest in 2020 and even 2021 looks similar so far. Finally managed to update the blog... https://tintabernacle.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-ringbeam-is-in-or-above.html Clickbaity headline , but i promise... Shuttering DID burst (even though nothing fatal) and Concrete DID explode (again , nothing fatal) More in the blog . Cheers ? P.S.: @Jeremy Harris , i am still missing you and this place has become less of a fascination for me since you gone, so get your s**t together and help us helpless noobs out ? . @Russell griffiths trying his best to replace you, but he just doesnt have the endless depths of statistical analysis and tables ? (still a big help though) Not to forget the rest of the very patient and knowledgeable Buildhubbers -thank you all !

The covenant is separate to planning permission, It just so happens that it is "the council" in both cases that need to give permission. We had the same issue extending an ex council semi detached house, I naively thought getting planning permission had satisfied the covenant, but when we later sold that house it turned out it had not. That was solved by buying an indemnity policy to cover the covenant issue.

That's such a truism that I'm thinking it would make a good signature line for a self builder. The simple discipline of habitually questioning professionals' (contractors) statements is one step on the road to due diligence . My god I have regretted not following my own advice.

If I did mine again I would dispense with the thin coat. Baumit's base coat (star contact white) is a mesh reinforced NHL render with blended aggregates . Floated up it looked lovely and actually with a mineral paint finish would have been perfect.

Airflow. Your average MVHR unit moves 300cuM/h on boost. The Bora on boost does that on its own. Blowing that into the MVHR will overwhelm the fan unit and you’ll just push air into the bathrooms etc as it will hit the plenums and the MVHR won’t be able to cope. Notwithstanding the grease issue, it’s just a really crap idea to try and blow air into a common extract system.

Yes. It's just tiny cuts and put a heat gun on it and tap tap away until your there. You don't want to cut it too much so baby steps and take your time. Set the flue on the tray and draw around it and mark another circle line 25mm in from the edge. This is your limit. Don't cut past this. Cut the wedges and heat it up and tap it till it's where you want it.

So the silos can be premixed and when it’s blown in the cement can separate from the sand as it’s smaller so you can find the cement drops to the bottom and comes out first. They are supposed to mix it and check the cement content but that never happens.

Pile it up and let it dry out for a couple months before burning. It'll burn far faster and cleaner and not annoy people as much. We're we are we're allowed 4 fires per year... Any more and it can be considered a nuisance.

They use silo not tub mix. Very different products. Yep below ground could be done using a mixer. Wastage can be managed. Company we use will deliver 3 or 4 empty tubs and we used to order a couple on a Monday and same Wednesday, could sometimes get away with a single and they had no issues with that. Mix consistency and colour was perfect, and wrapped with a plastic bag (how they keep the tubs clean) it lasted 3 days.

I have done just that in our warm loft, used I beams fir rafters with 400mm insulation between, osb clad inside and sealed, foldable loft ladder into large loft with floor.

This is one for your engineer to comment on. Do you have a simple / cheaper proposal? Does the joist hanger not provide restraint? You can hire the Hilti / Spit gun to fasten to the steel it is simple to operate. How many joists are we talking?

Put an advert on your local freecycle or gumtree and offer it free for collection as firewood. I hate to see useful fire wood just burned on site. Let "customers" pick over it and only burn what nobody will take.

I couldn't get for this place but is definatley the way forward. Think there's a bit more wastage and bit of waiting time but if you have a dumpy of sand and few cement on site for blockwork to avoid dead starts.

@Dunny1234 consider also the cost in your comarison. Clips that attach to a substrate are fixed £69.00 per 1000 and expansion £59.00 per 400 You use a specific arrangement to offer security (fixed) and thermal expansion of the roof. Thermoseam Clips which are supplied as clip with tube to go through the insulation are more expensive. Ball park on average you will use up to 10/m2, soon adds up! You will also need the correct fixing to go down the tube appropriate to the anchoring material as well as a drive bit to insert in the tube. Note: some distributors will charge for the tube and the stainless clip as separate items. The structural reliance of the rigid insulation is paramount for the life of the building. Someone else may need access to the roof area after the metal is installed

@Dunny1234, you need to stick to your roof manufacturers approved method if you want a warranty. As to which is best, that’s up to you to decide. You need to do your own research and pick which you think is best. Every manufacturer will say his is the best.

very polite Declan ???, most just say “old git” ?

First layer is just sharp sand and cement. Used to straighten any imperfections in the wall. Should be around 15-20mm. Next coat is the skim. Should be only 3-5mm thick and be like glass. If the first coat hasn't got the wall straight then the skim coat never will.

I had sand/cement internal skim with plaster top coat, as smooth as any other plastering!!! And no chance of air leaks and very solid to fix too!.

Apart from design costs I think build cost difference will be so small it’s not worth worrying about. I would build the second option, but I would also do the same with the other corner that is indented.

Is there a section heading/paragraph for the covenants 1 to 12? Or is that 12.16?

There are some rules that covenants have to follow or they can't be enforced. Typically they have to benefit nearby land and that land has to be identifiable. https://www.duttongregory.co.uk/site/blog/personalnews/freehold-restrictive-covenants-part-one 1. The covenant must be for the benefit of the covenantee’s land 2. The covenant was intended to run with the land 3. The party seeking to enforce the covenant must own the benefiting land 4. The benefit of the covenant has passed to the person seeking to enforce it Continues...

Read the terms of the insurance very carefully because some have conditions that invalidate the policy if you contact the beneficiary in any way.

@pocster does not believe in minimising grief. He does it the most difficult way to prove that he can. Deranged. On the Macerator he will be installing a special fan to have the stuff land on when it leaks.

Oil Canning - has many factors to consider the substrate is one, if it's wrong how would your propose to fix the roof to it, the metal generally follows the shape. Also can the metal be fitted avoiding walking over it During installation - think Ridge - think rooflights. the reflectiveness of the metal will draw you eye to any misshapen Panel. It's a function of the viewing distance, you move, your view changes along with the shape of the roof. the installer makes a massive distance width and length of panels, ease of handling to the roof, during transport etc. Colour can impact images are a Stainless steel roof installed by a professional, possible the least forgiving metal being hard, reflective (low reflective here Roofinox Classic) and sharp. Only 0.5mm thick! Finally off-site rolling. If you are using it then make suitable decisions on handling, loading the sheets to the roof and installation. Training is provided but may not give this much food for thought. substrates: some are incompatible with the metal. Take guidance. some substrates such as Hard Metal Board provide structural support with Insulation, a 2 in 1. Note: Roofinox Classic is uncoated. Pictures courtesy of Install Zinc, Chigwell

Can't you just paint it in intumescent paint if it's hidden? That's what I'm doing with all my (many, many) steels.

We do method B.

We used to wire the plasterboard on basically tying it on with wire! Banged in noggins make it easy, glue is a no no unless you wire it

Griggs timber Gloucestershire. I went back and fourth altering things and it was never a problem. My joists where too long for a ridged truck so neede an artic, I told them I could not get an artic on site, so they borrowed a longer ridged and delivered them. Perfect service.

Standard running P-Trap with an appliance connector on the end and straight into the stack. Use a strap boss on the stack and one of these on the trap.

Yes you could fully fill your 200mm with Platinum EPS beads.

It's a strange one for sure - have they done anything that they didn't say they would do when you spoke to them? Are they a one person firm? There's always a balance of your project being the number one thing for you and then the architect having 3/4/5 others the same but it's the nature of the business - one thing I learnt is to never tell a client that their job isn't a priority - it's fine to say you're not working on it at the moment but if you use the wrong language it can upset clients as you are. Without getting into the timeline so much, what you need to do is figure out if they can do what you want from an architect, if you are happy with the concept and want them to continue on with then, have a discussion about the timeline, what your priorities are and whether they can meet them or at least try to reset the expectations

Screed first - if your boards are too low they can pick up moisture from the screed and swell. Can easily scrape snots off a screed floor.

The through coloured stains like hell. Sand :cement:lime, even when left unpainted, looks fine and can weather well if you don't use exposed beads. Here are some garden walls we did 23 years ago.

The drip detail is key - where mine has gone green in winter, it is due to insufficient overhang from the roof above. It's pristine where there are proper cills etc. 50mm recommended for cills, 300mm for soffits.

personally i am going to traditional sand and cement render, painted. Around me there are a ridiculous amount of new builds where the monocouche render looks atrocious.

I have baumit thin coat silicate, it's very nice but this year has developed a few algae patches i will wash and scrub it this year which should clear it, there are products to kill the algae as well. But I think any modern texture finish will attract algae. A few thoughts on renders options: Sand and cement is very likely to crack, my renderer said he now refused to do it any more. Modern renders use mesh reinforcement which isn't used typically used with sand and cement. If you do use sand and cement, you don't have to use acrylic paint, consider the mineral paint option as well. Thin coat looks much better than monocouche. Mono is the stuff which is scraped back to very textured finish and uses exposed plastic beads. I think it looks horrible. Also the deeply textured nature makes it almost impossible to clean. Of the thin coat options you have three in terms of finish, acrylic, silicone and silicate. Acrylic looks plastic and is a cheap finish. Silicone can still be sheeney but less so. Silicate is my pref, it has a mineralic and matt finish. It is more expensive but coverage is vast from a tub so it's not really a big driver of the cost of the job (or shouldn't be). It has the added benefit of being over painatble with a mineral paint rather than others which would need a film based paint which wouldn't look good at all. Also be wary of the texture, the larger grain size changes the look considerably. I used baumit's finest grain af 1mm, I think it was called nanopor fine and it came up really nice. I don't like the typical 2 to 3mm grain texture finishes. Make sure your contractor knows what they are doing, thin coat is a very different method to sand and cement. Ask to see some reference sites if you can.

I've heard nothing but negative things about K rend here in Ireland, seems in a wet climate it's green with algae in a couple years. Even my architect that has it on his house has said not to use it (his western gable wall is green). The issue seems to be the permeability and the open texture of it. The sample cards we saw at shows we're like a rough grit sandpaper that had been painted. We're looking at alternatives for our build.

I’m in the same boat and have also been told that k rend is more likely to be affected by algae. But the 2 people that have said this to me have no theory to back it up so I’m still swaying towards K rend.

Very little difference between most of the through coloured renders Other than the after sales service K Rend are miles ahead of Webber

I did ours in K four years ago and we are surrounded by tree Still looks like the day I did it No need to get wash alga Simply spray Algacide 12-1 with a hand sprayer Let the rain do the rest K tends to be a better colour match than Webber

Can't comment on the choice of render but i do know that a good render job needs attention to details with things like drip beads in the right places. Some render is/isn't approved for use below the dpc etc. Perhaps worth googling for guides.

Hi Simon, so we were mortgage free when a house came on market that was ripe for a replacement new build. via Buildstore their broker was able to access an interest only mortgage from Santander on my existing house that provided money to buy the second property. We then got an Ecology self build mortgage To build the new house. we put our old house on market at Xmas and received an offer quickly, completing just before lockdown, so we’ve been renting until the new build is completed next month. But it meant we paid off the Santander mortgage earlier and we only have had to drawdown about a third of the self build mortgage. Those savings obviously offset by the rental costs. One of our worries had been what happens if the new house was ready and the old house didn't sell. Not a worry now. as you have your plot & PP why not sell your current house. Move into a rental - doesn’t have to be posh, then self build with cash in the bank. Thus avoiding lots of mortgage fees and risks of not selling

We’ve just done our final concrete pour, in fact two pours in one week. From ground floor to gables in two weeks with Easter in the middle is quick, a little too quick to enjoy. We can now get a real sense of how the house will look. Next week we are ready to start work on the roof. Before building the first floor, a temporary floor was laid around the room perimeters using 12mm OSB. This was done to provide a working area to build the blocks from and allow bracing to be put in place without damaging the final floor. 12mm board seemed awfully thin to walk on! . With our builders now familiar with the wall plans the blocks went up very quickly indeed. In practice it takes longer to do the bracing and shuttering than to do the building. Not having to cut blocks on site is a major advantage, not just from an accuracy point of view but it also makes the site much cleaner. Some ICF sites look as though it’s been snowing with polystyrene. As mentioned in out last blog entry we had the option to do a single pour combining the first floor and gables. We’re really glad it was done in two stages, attempting it in one pour would almost certainly caused major bracing issues and risked the block work due to the higher pressures resulting from the depth of concrete. Never thought I would be happy to shell out £1000 on a pump. Having no experience of other build methods it’s not easy to evaluate the pro’s and con’s of each system. For us, the need to use concrete pumps has to be the worst aspect of ICF. It just seems like you’re never quite ready and there’s another dozen details to attend to before it starts. With multiple companies involved for boom pumps and concrete delivery, it’s both expensive and difficult to get people to turn up when you asked for them. Our last pour was scheduled for 11am and the concrete lory finally arrived a 3:30pm...To add to the entertainment the pump has to be vented after use. This involves a set of guys you probably won’t see again and want to be elsewhere dumping large volumes of concrete on your site. After three pours we have somewhere in the region of three tons of set concrete to break up and pay to dispose of. Some of the last lot got dumped on next doors newly block paved drive. Lots and lots of cleaning up. It’s not too much of a surprise that the builders don’t include this in there list of responsibilities. Definitely the Achilles heel of the ICF build method. Enough moaning, it’s been a long couple of weeks with many disturbed nights worrying irrationally about being a lego brick short at the end of the build. We now have a house, no roof, but hey we have to do something next week.

Well it’s been an exhausting and rewarding three weeks. The plastering work started on the 25th February and finished today the 18th March. Keeping ahead of Shaun our plasterer has been a real challenge and has meant we have not had a day off. Our internal doors arrived from Germany intact which was a welcome diversion, we've stored them safely in the garage until we get the painting done. The heat and humidity that goes with plastering has been interesting to say the least in a relatively air tight house. We don’t have our MVHR balanced yet but it’s been a real life saver being able to increase the fan speed and get a surprisingly comfortable working environment. Getting the MVHR up and running early in the build is not something we had planned, but in practice needs to be done as soon as you start making the structure air tight. The filters will be trashed but it’s a small price to pay for comfort. One things for sure getting plaster board up focuses the mind on the details of first fix work right. We had left plenty of wire at the sockets we thought but some were a close call after cables were fixed into place so they didn’t interfere with boarding. The water pipes were more troublesome. Our build uses wall plates (timber bolted to the ICF concrete) that support the joists. The wall plate is 50mm thick and ends just 30mm before the ceiling, so pipes have be bent round a tight curve, too tight. We ended up notching the bottom of the wall plates and even then some were a really tight fit. One other problem we had to overcome was a curved wall. The curve is a “design feature” and like a lot of things looks great on paper but rather more troublesome to turn into reality. The curve has an outside diameter of 1800mm. We took a look at the options and decided against using doubled up 6mm sheets of mdf as the long term stability invariably results in cracking. After a bit of internet research we found a plasterboard product “V-Cut” that looked an ideal solution. The boards are standard plasterboard cut every 10mm with a fine kerf saw. The result is very flexible in one plane, they were rolled into 400mm tubes. When it came to using them however the very fragile nature of the sheets became very apparent. Plaster board is very friable at the best of times, cut into 10mm strips makes it nigh on unusable. For example the plasterboard screw driver would simply pass straight through it. We ended up using the solvent free version of pink grip to hold it in place. The curve is in our hall so it’s exposed to potential knocks and needed additional protection. After discussing it with Shuan we decided to apply rendering mesh with a base coat plaster and then apply a skim over that to complete it. The end result looks and feels durable. It would have been a far better product if the boards were laminated with an additional layer of mesh and paper before they get cut, as it is I would not recommend V-Cut in it’s present form. On the positive side it’s been immensely rewarding seeing the house turn from a building site into something that looks like living space. It’s quite curious how your perception of the space changes, it looked smaller and the ceilings lower before boarding, then got bigger again once plastered. At times it’s been reminiscent of the track laying sequence in “the wrong trousers”, needless to say we’re going to take a couple of days off to recover. Next on the list of things to do is mist coat the plaster to seal it before applying a spray of latex mat white.

Here's the spreadsheet version of the VAT form (which is acceptable to HMRC): VAT Claim Form 431 - Blank - extra sheets added.xls

Scaffold down and windows in...big dose of euphoria....feels like a real milestone. We can now get a sense of the completed project. With the scaffold removed the house now looks far more suited to the plot and we hope our neighbours will be as relieved as we are. The window install went well. Our windows are Velfac and we opted to use an approved installer as it extended the warrantee to six years. It cost a bit more but the standard of install was good with great care being taken. A few grubby hand prints on the render but nothing we could not clean of with soapy water. One aspect of doing your own build that we had not considered, is the fact you start out with something perfect and new. It will slowly age and degrade. It’s akin to the feeling of the first mark on a new car. Pat and I have restored a couple of cars in the past and avoided going the whole hog of a concourse restore as it can spoil your willingness to use and enjoy the car. We just need to keep the same mind set with the build. With a house we can lock, our intention is to let the dust settle. We’ll come back to the project with fresh enthusiasm in October.

With our final concrete pour over last Friday, we breathed a sigh of relief. The worst of the messy work was done and it we could start work on the roof. It was a heck of a week and loads got done, on a very busy and noisy site. Good for us but not for our neighbours. It’s a problem every build faces, maybe worse for a self build where you have known your neighbours for years and been on good terms. We’ve done what we can to keep noise down and not to work antisocial hours, but sometimes you just can’t avoid it. Our last concrete pour should have started at 11am, the concrete lorry didn’t turn up until 3:30pm and as a consequence we were still working on site at 8pm. Then two days of incessant hammer drilling didn’t help. When you already feel like you’ve been put through a mangle, being confronted by an angry neighbour telling you they are at their wits end and that you’ve got to stop is not a good feeling. I think we are now past the worst of the noise but there is plenty of sheet to be cut and nailed down before we return to relative peace. Our plan for the week was for two experienced roofers to start work on Monday and have the roof done by Friday. As always it didn’t quite work out the way. First problem, the steel purlins (the beams that span the roof to support the rafters) were not in place. The sockets for these should be cut in the nice soft ICF and shuttered prior to the last pour, in our case this did not happen as the builders ran out of time preparing for the pour. With the concrete being new and not fully hardened we were told it would be a straight forward process to cut the purlin sockets. Good news as the lifting gear to place them was scheduled for Tuesday. At the same time as the purlin sockets were being cut work was being done to get the pole plates in place to take the floor joist for the loft. Getting the floor in place would make working on the roof much simpler and safer just by reducing the working height. To their credit the roofing team Jimmy and Sam did not sit around but worked with our other builders to get the flooring down on the first floor. To do this all the bracing from the pour needed to come down and the temporary 9mm OSB floor removed along with all the shuttering bits from the pour. Lifting the beams into place on our site is awkward, the front of the house is less than 5M from the pavement making reaching into the site difficult. We had thought we would need a crane to cover the angle and distance rather than a tele handler. Cranes are expensive, over double the cost of a tele handler even if you have an unsupervised lift. After a bit of phoning around we found a HIAB lorry with a massive reach. This turned out to be a very good option, far less disruptive than a crane as it did not block the road. Our beams are all less than 150kg so well within the full reach capability of the lorry. The lorry turned up on time mid day Tuesday, and what a lorry it was. It turned out to be a show vehicle with stunning paint work, apparently it’s been on TV on multiple occasions. There were still two purlin sockets to cut. While work continued on those, the HIAB lifted in the other three beams into place. We only hired the HIAB for half a day and we were running out of time. After a bit of discussion the remaining two beams were lifted onto the gable walls by their sockets, so they could be manhandled into the sockets later. With the purlins in their sockets it was pretty obvious that they needed packing to bring them to the correct levels and set them straight. It had already taken a day and a half to cut them out, so still more work. Our lesson from this is that while it seemed reasonable to cut the sockets after the pour it really is NOT. The sockets are much rougher and cutting their depth with a hammer drill is far from precise, noisy and time consuming. It’s quite surprising just how quickly the concrete hardens of. By close of day on Wednesday we had the floors done ready to start work on the roof. With just two days before the lads headed back north it was agreed they would also work Saturday morning. Just to add to the entertainment we had two very large 2400 x 1200 roof lights each weighing around 200kg scheduled for delivery on Friday. The roof lights sit on OSB sheeting on the rafters not a complex fit but the roof aperture needed to be constructed. Our builder wanted to stick to the schedule, but by late Thursday there was still a lot to be done and we decided to postpone to the next Wednesday. By then we should have a decent chance of being ready and have hired the HIAB again so we can get them into place safely. Work on the roof progressed at a pace and by 11am Saturday we had most of the rafters in place, just one complete section untouched. Our builder does not have any joiners or roofers, so we are now scrambling to find help to finish the roof next week.