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For anyone who wanted to see end results - here it is (minus the fire cement between bricks)! We ended up paying the stove fitters to widen the fireplace to shift liability. I added steel L bar from front to back as suggested. Very pleased with the results.

Welcome to the forum I would recommend getting the Housebuilder's Bible to give you a decent summary of all the steps included in planning and building your own home. It contains a "Pitfalls" chapter that includes warts and all information and tips on finding, assessing and buying sites; access & services; planning issues; and costs. If you're still up for the challenge after reading that then explore more here and at sites such as Homebuilding & Renovating. Redoctober's blog is excellent at showing all the stages of a build and there are many other Scottish based self-builders around to offer advice.

Welcome to the friendly, helpful club. There is so much to know. After 45 years in the industry I am still learning, including a lot from the members on Buildhub. I suggest you find contributors here who have done something similar, and then absorb knowledge and advice. A blog of the whole process is particularly useful, especially the summaries on completion. My first tip is from recent experience of buying a plot. The lauded Scottish system of buying, with fixed offers and acceptance does not appear to apply to land and conversion sites. Two places that had been on the market for many years with little interest suddenly had 'lots of interest' ,and better offers, exceeding the suggested sum. Moral: you have to study the possibilities very thoroughly, but also don't get too attached. And the second is COST. I think most projects go a long way over budget. The site has to be the right price but also influences the building. Good luck, and ask questions.

Hi @rebeccajane17 - welcome to the forum. This is certainly the place in which to gain a further understanding of the self build process and all that goes with it. From your post it seems you are starting from a very low base knowledge wise, so I suggest you try and break down the areas you wish to "understand" a bit more about, into bite sized chunks if that makes sense. With self building, there are many elements and yes it is important to understand where they all fit together. From a starting point, I suggest the best thing you can do is to continue with your "reading" - be it monthly magazines, blogs on here [Mine might be of use to you?] and online research. With that in mind, start researching the availability of plots in your chosen area, consider the price and then your budgets. How is the project going to be financed? What are your options? Then couple all that with specific questions / reading of past questions on this forum. Good luck.

The Customs Union _was_ the EU solution to allowing trade without borders. It had been working pretty well i think. You will have to ask Brexiteers why we choose to leave the Customs Union as well as the EU.

@Dave Jones has a hatred for heat pumps, but will never quantify his assertions.

they cant. It's not a house until a completion cert is issued.

Mist coat - circa 1 water to 3 paint. Ceilings, walls, anything in the way gets coated. Give it at least 1/2 a day to dry then put a nice even 2nd coat on and leave it for 6 hours before you do a 3rd coat to cover areas that may need it. It's better to spray too thin and do an extra coat than put it on too thick, trust me.

The very light shade needs to be way more Prince. Other than that, looking good.

They came out and measured mine months before I was finished. Didn't pay anything until it was passed. They must just keep the information on file for when it's finally passed by building control.

I don’t think there is a way around this, you need to rip a 4foot square of ceiling down and have a look and draw exactly what you have ended up with. I personally think you have a cock up and a ticking time bomb. Inadequate insulation. Poor ventilation. No vapour barrier. Equals cold roof with condensation, equals roof timbers rotting and early failure. If this is not your fault, then why worry get the ceiling pulled out Monday and start the remedial work. Your builder cannot substitute pir for a glass batt without major re design.

Any vcl in the wall makeup? 9mm on the roof will be crap to walk on even for maintenance. I've 12mm on one of my flat roofs (I didn't do it) and that's a bit springy even at 400mm centres.

I just mixed more water in the first coat

yes, i have just retired as a head teacher and have taught Physics and maths to Alevel and Animal management. Now to put the theory in to practice!

This may help with discussions about part of frame and how to frame out for openings.

I gave everything a mist coat then brought the ceilings to a finish and about 500 down from the tops of the walls

Funnily enough, my conversation with the enforcement officer yesterday did talk about permitted development - it’s hard to see if we still have it or not at the moment. So he said he’d look for me - he actually seemed like a decent guy. I said if we did still have it, I would find numerous “sheds” built quite nicely that all fitted together...

kdj6c3o9e3j74cdjld55o0ihkvhdow39mr That is a titcoin for you.

Of course insulating a building doesn't stop it from freezing or boiling over if the outside conditions are extreme enough for long enough, it only slows the process down. Pedants would point out various items that might make this not true all the time I'm sure.

When you say middle, do you mean ground floor? That's the only floor that has UFH in our house so basement is constant temp and needs no additional heat injected (appliances, people etc generate enough). GF UFH comes on a few times over the winter and second and attic floors have no heating apart from in the bathrooms (electric 150W under tile mats + wet towel rads). Rooms in roof are always warm due to solar gain from the roof and velux, even though there are binds etc. I've noticed that if I go into the spare bedroom on 1st floor it feels cooler as its never occupied but within 15 mins it's as warm as the other bedrooms.

Yes, but one can't take the trade benefits of EU membership without giving up that control. Otherwise, it would undermine the whole point of a customs union. If we could have our cake and eat it, then there would be nothing to stop the UK from undercutting the EU in negotiations with third parties and then importing stuff to the UK from outside the EU more cheaply than one can import it from within the EU and then exporting it to the EU. So for example, let's say Australian wine carries a 2 euro tariff when imported to the EU. The UK leaves the EU and makes a deal such that it can import Australian wine with no tarrifs. Ozzie wine is now cheaper in the UK than in France because we decided not to charge tariffs. Some clever merchant spots this and starts importing Ozzie wine to the UK and then exporting it France. This effectively robs the EU the ability to impose that 2 euro tarriff on Ozzie wine. So it completely undermines the customs union. We could have left the EU but joined EFTA like Iceland Liechtenstein, Norway and Iceland.

After a year delay I finally got around to the submission, the flowery planning application prose won the day. For your amusement...

£500 cheaper than what I paid for a very similar setup. Difference with mine was I specced solar edge optimisers and inverter, which adds a few hundred. So I'd say you've a reasonable deal. Just make sure the inverter can be limited to export 3.78kW in case your DNO doesn't authorise anything more. You can still of course make use of peak production by heating water, washing machines etc.

Under the ridge tiles, unless you are very short of upstand height. Over will look like a right bodge.

it's an interesting idea but with the pour on Tuesday it's all a little late in the day! I'm happy with our choice and there are always low level ufh options later down the line if required. especially as we won't be fitting out the basement for a couple of years due to budget constraints so we'll have time to live in the house and can then decide the best course of action.

Very keen pricing on that - those all black Trina are not usually less than 30p/W Is that all available ex Stock too ..?? A lot of panels are back order to China currently.

Quite, my not putting heating in upstairs was a “leap of faith” and occasionally during very cold weather it requires a little heat from a portable heater, but on the whole still not worth the effort or cost. (Especially in your case @Thorfun with the mesh already down).

Another JFDI, never ever be noticed

Easy to conclude then, that stored hot water would be better all round, vs instantaneous, and maybe an argument still exists to oversize the UVC to harvest enough cheap rate energy to get through a typical 24hrs on a 'single charge'.

I think it will be a shame to break up the United Kingdom, but if that’s what they really want then it will save us subsidising them.

Looks good. I have been impressive by how our rotten rock driveway has done, no pot holes over the five years. If I was self building and looking to acquire a croft, checking for rotten rock would be on my checklist with utilities.

this is what I do and am fortunate to have hillsides of good shale to excavate as required. I did this area last year and it extends 50m to the right (out of photo) where the road goes, all the materials were won from where the digger is and the small cutting to the right of it. took me about 5 days with a dumper and digger but it’s super solid and only cost me the £400 in hire fees plus the fuel and my time.

I keep coming back to this same question myself, for a similar length of drive. We're using a shared entrance at the moment, but wish to put in our own access, however the numbers are off putting, even though I have 200t of hardcore "tucked away" ready. My thinking at the moment is to go with a structural grass drive way for the majority, using grids like these: https://www.ibran.co.uk/products/grass-parking-grids (I've just picked this from a random search, and know nothing of this particular product) The build up suggestion is 50mm - 80mm Type 1, but that doesn't feel enough. I'd be looking at going with 150mm of crushed hardcore (as that is what I have). I've found other similar products that are 60mm deep rather that 40mm, that say they are good for occasional HGVs. If you can get away without an edging, it could be relatively cost effective.

How much land do you have? Access to a small hill? We had just over 100 meters of driveway to construct and faced a similar problem. We quarried rock from a borrow pit close to the house site and this formed our driveway. Saved a lot of money. For us it was having the right geology at the right place, as the rest of our site is clay.

Set up an area where you can stockpile tarnac planings. Then get on the blower to local resurfacing companies or companies operating in your area. Pull up near jobs you see and offer some cash for loads

Nothing until you have nearly finished the build, so plenty of time to consider your options. Don't choose a rounded decorative gravel it just squelches outwards under load. Waiting a year before finishing the drive will allow you to refill any dips that develop. My digger man went down 200mm on the softer parts of the drive and 150mm elsewhere. The first delivery of stone was larger 3" to 4" stuff which went into the dips. The rest was 2" clean limestone. 7 to 10 deliveries of limestone to a self build over a couple of days it quite routine for the industry. With a competent digger operative driving a medium size digger you will be surprised how quickly the drive can be formed to a rural standard with rough edges, Home Counties gated executive estate calibre drives take longer. The mountain of soil created will amaze you. Do you have any SUDS drainage stipulations that mandate a certain driveway permeability? The interface with the public road requires extra thought to prevent gravel being carried out onto the main road which creates a risk of skidding.

Anything downstream from manhole away from the neighbour (flow direction) is adopted, the upstream side isn’t

Putting your numbers into the online trig calculator at http://www.carbidedepot.com/formulas-trigright.asp Using SideA = 65 SideB = 275 I make the pitch of your pyramid to be 13.3 degrees which is good aesthetically speaking because too steep would look a bit toytown. Of more interest the calculated SideC is 282.6mm which is one side of your right angled moulding triangle. The gutter side of your moulding triagle is 275mm i.e. half the length of one side of your plan view. Going back to the online trig page and calculating a new triangle. Using SideA = 275 SideB = 282.6 Which gives us a calculated SideC of 394.3mm (*) which on a hipped roof would be the length of the hip rafter and also the 3rd side of your moulding triangle. Hence 4 triangles measuring 275 x 282.6 x 394.3 should fit together to create your 13.3 degree pitched pyramid. However never trust what you read on the internet so let's test my numbers with a different calculation. The plan view length of one of those hip lengths is derived from an isosceles triangle with two sides measuring 275 which gives a SideC = 388.9mm (**) Viewing the same hip rafter triangle from the side we calculate a new triangle with Using SideA = 65 SideB = 388.9 (**) we get... SideC = 394.3 (*) which matches the original calculated SideC ? The pitch of the hip is 9.5 degrees taken from AngleA in this new triangle. That set off an alarm bell in my head then I realised a hip rafter pitch is always significantly lower than the principal roof pitch.

The BuildHub forum was founded by the Forum Foundation Group (FFG) in 2016, following the closure of a large UK-based self-build forum. The forum has continued to grow significantly and we currently have over 8000 registered users, and that number continues to rise daily. To date, BuildHub has been managed on a private and voluntary basis by a small group of members known as the Forum Management Group (FMG). The FMG looks after BuildHub's day-to-day running, including hosting and maintaining the forum software, moderating member posts, and managing membership applications. The FMG was originally constituted as a Members Association for the purpose of forum governance and ownership. While this was the quickest and easiest way to get the forum up and running, it has the disadvantage of not having an associated legal entity. The absence of a legal entity means that many suppliers will not contract directly with Buildhub. The result is that BuildHub contracts and assets such as forum software licences, server space, and URL ownership remain in the names of FMG members, which places a large legal burden on those members, and also involves risk to BuildHub. To address this ongoing issue, the FMG recently approved motions to: Form a Private Company Limited by Guarantee; and On an agreed date, dissolve the Members Association known as the Forum Management Group, and transfer its assets, including ownership of the forum, to the new company. To this end, Buildhub Forum Management Limited has been formed as a not-for-profit company, limited by guarantee. The company will operate the BuildHub forum website, provide a limited liability structure to own and operate the forum, and ensure that the forum software licences, server space and URL ownership are no longer subject to a single point of failure or irrecoverable circumstances. The company directors are not remunerated, and the costs for operating the forum and its support will be kept to those essential to run and operate the service. The date of handover was 30th April 2021, and this is the formal notification that it has been completed. BuildHub has always operated on a strictly non-commercial basis and will continue to do so. Advertising is not allowed and members may not offer services to other members via the public forum. This policy will remain under the new structure. Similarly, BuildHub intends to continue with its periodic donation funding model. Day-to-day operations will continue to be run by volunteers giving freely of their time and expertise in much the same way as it is now. This group will be known as the Operational Management Committee (OMC). Information about how you can get involved in the running of the forum will be posted shortly. In practice, your experience of using the BuildHub forum should be unchanged. As chair, and on behalf of the members of the now-dissolved Forum Management Group, I would like to express my thanks for your support of BuildHub since its creation. We look forward to the continued growth and improvement of BuildHub under this new and long-term sustainable structure.

+1 Think I would go whole hog and create a "landing" outside the door thats square - so roughly same width as the door. I assume the door opens inwards? If not then you need even bigger.

Have a look at the building regs, they have some good diagrams. Also, a lot of councils provide guidance online with easy to understand diagrams. Most of the building regs make great sense and will stop you hurting yourself or visitors unless of course you have been at the neighbours home brew etc. Just follow the regs in terms of rise of step, going / landings and over time you will appreciate it.

If you will be standing on the step to lock/unlock the door then a depth of 600mm is better as you won't feel like you're about to fall backwards when getting your keys out. Also, think about where the lock is in relation to where you will stand. Ideally you want to be able to stand with the lock directly in front of you so that its easy to reach whether you're left or right handed so you need the step to be wide enough for that.

If it's not the disabled access i think you can do as you want. IMO, you dont want to be stepping out of a door onto a dropped step, so i would aim for your top step to be roughly the same as your internal floor level. 300mm for a step is ok, but 450mm feels much nicer.

Very nice, not sure you need fire cement to point up the bricks, it’s far enough away from the stove (IMO). .....WOT NO PURPLE @Big Jimbo will be miffed ?

Trust me - I swear like a trooper

How long ago that all seems. The architect came back with essentially the same design but with a pitched roof - making the house a chalet bungalow. I had told them that I was happy to remove a bedroom to reduce bulk but they said it wasn't necessary. I really liked the look of the new house - flat roofs were never a choice I was completely happy with but merely to give choice for solar panels. Anyway... Planning went in early November and was accepted by the end of the month with a decision date of 15th January. January came and went, as did February, March and April. We phoned, our agent phoned and emailed. We were told that workload was a real issue for the planning department - oh how we sobbed for their poor little paws, grinding away at their WFH desks, not actually giving us a decision on our planning. In the end, on Tuesday this week, I emailed a complaint to the council complaint email address, copying in my two local councillors and my MP (Sir Chris Chope of the Upskirting fame ?). By Tuesday night I had a response from one of the councillors promising to investigate the next day. My complaint had a bit of background and then ... My questions are therefore: Why bother having a decision deadline if there is no attempt to meet it? How long can we reasonably be expected to wait before a decision is made? What are the consequences of us starting work now due to your inability to make a decision? I believe that we have now reached the point where your silence can be accepted as approval by default. You have failed to reject the application, therefore it is passed. What recompense will you offer for the ridiculous delay? We have requested a telephone call so that we can at least have a discussion about the likelihood of the application being successful – the chance to put things right if the outcome is going to be rejection. We hear nothing. We offer an extension – gratefully accepted but the extension deadline comes and passes with no news. You are playing with peoples lives – it is immoral and a failure of your core duties as a council. Under the freedom of information act, I am now formally requesting a detailed breakdown of: Number of applications made for each calendar year going back to 2017 (and year to date for 2021) The average number of days an application had to wait between submission and acceptance for each of those 5 years and for this part year to date. The number of applications that were decided upon earlier than the deadline date The number of applications that were decided upon later than the deadline date The average number of days late for all late decisions, per year, for each of the 5 years and one part year. The average number of days early for all early decisions, per year, for each of the 5 years and one part year. For all rejected applications: The number of applications from developers The number of applications from self builders / home owners The number of applications that councillors had declared an interest in. For all approved applications: The number of applications from developers The number of applications from self builders / home owners The number of applications that councillors had declared an interest in. The reason for requesting this information is my need to see if all members of the public are treated this badly or if we are a special case. We just want to get on with our lives and we are getting to an age where time is against us and we may not be able to actually build our house due to the delays we have encountered. I knew I was stirring a hornets nest but figured I had little to lose. The response was fast and furious - by Wednesday evening the agent (architect) had received the (non) decision notice... You are hereby advised that the Council has invoked its power under Section 70(a) of the Town & Country Planning Act (1990) to decline to determine your application. In accordance with the legislation, your application is regarded as withdrawn and no further action will be taken in respect of the proposal. There is no right of appeal against the Council invoking its power under Section 70(a). We will arrange for your application fee to be refunded. If you wish to submit a further application for the replacement of this dwelling, you are advised to use the Council’s Pre-application advice service first in order to ensure you are addressing the reasons for the dismissal of the previous appeal. This will involve a significant reduction in the height, bulk, floorspace and footprint of the current proposals in order to comply with green belt policy. So we now have NO planning permission in place for any dwelling on our site. The agent has never heard of the council (he used to work for them) deciding to decline to determine the application. Chope has responded sympathetically (but with no offer of helping to stop the nonsense that goes on in council offices) stating that regardless of the outcome, the council could and should have made the decision months ago. Then to make things even weirder, I get an email from the planning enforcement officer offering to come and speak with me to move things forward. We spoke yesterday and it seems they were worried I was going to start building the house that we got planning permission for in 2017 that expired during the time of waiting for a decision. He totally understood my frustration of course - but advised us to go for pre-planning advice - oh how I laughed! I explained the waiting time for pre-planning advice and the futility of asking for advice from planning officers (we have 50+ years of local government service between Peter and I to know what planners are like). Next step - hornets nest is already angry, probably worth adding to it so the next FOI request will be how many times have the council declined to determine an application and also a SAR to see what they have in their records about me.

That 0.00000001% will niggle you at you for ever ?

Ky jelly is good for dipping bits into but you probably know that already.

Rectorseal... hmm... depends what you have planned for the weekend, but I imagine it will be right up your alley ?

JFDI here, you have the environment on your side. You can get David Attenborough, Greta Thunberg and Joe Biden on your defence team if it ever comes to court. ( I would have added Boris to your team as well but he is very expensive and frankly not very reliable.)