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Just put up a couple of of “HS2 Construction In Progress” signs and then sit back and listen ..! ?

Sorry to hear this @Big Jimbo but In all honesty if your heart is not in it 100% then it will be horrible, it’s bad enough self building when you are still very keen and I have to be honest myself, despite being very pleased with what I have done it’s taken it’s toll on me in various ways. But do stick around eh?

Some of us do our best to lighten it up. Found the best way to learn, and teach, was to make light of difficult situations. Sometimes it can seem cruel. There have been a couple of people in the past, on previous sites (the old place and the other place) that have got in a right pickle, and then vanished. One of them lives near me and I saw her place most days, no work happen for months, but seems work has slowly started. I would call in, but think it now has new owners. The other person fell apart completely, a tragic story. Nice guy, technical education, but overwhelmed. I know my limitations in management, always thought it was the place to be. So set up my own business, because I was good at the technical side. Cost me my holiday home, car, relationship and all my so called friends, but two (and one of the (expletive deleted)ers died last month). Way to high a price to pay, so I take the attitude 'kill the baby at birth". Sorry, that was all about me. Over to you now.

Second that @Big Jimbo change is inevitable don’t fight it but go with it.

I have given up on the thread...a bit like my proposed build for now. The whole thing has worn me down for now. I've given it to a small local agent at a get me out with a few quid price. If it sells, it sells. If it don't then i'll think about starting the build early next year. To be honest, i'd be happy to continue camping out on the dump that currently stands on site, but the Mrs would rather, either get on, or get out. I understands how she feels to be honest. I have defo changed in the last year Covid, and all that. I now have 3 grandchildren, that i didn't have before covid, and another due in a few weeks. When i bought the place 4 years ago, i still had some buzz. Frankly, now, i just feel a bit drained. Don't get me wrong, i should be able to make £300 k clear profit but, none of us have a date stamp behind our ears. We have substantially helped the 3 kids, so i don't feel the need at the moment.

For a laugh, make it airtight as you can, then pressure test it. That would be interesting research.

If you aren’t going to lift the whole floor, stuffing insulation next to the radiator isn’t goi no to solve the problem

+1. As I said earlier in the thread I'd be putting a thick membrane between this and the earth.

Static load as opposed to 1/2 mass X Velocity squared. Lots of proper marine stuff is galvanised, not sure what it is like if in sea for decades.

I may be misunderstanding the intention, but if used as a retaining wall with earth behind, whether vertical or staggered, I would expect the steel will rust. It is galvanised to resist weather wetting, not sitting in wet earth. This is certainly the case with building cladding. Also check out the strength of the Z posts. There are light gauge ones that are designed to deflect in case of vehicle impact, (like the crumple zone on a car) and may not be strong enough for your wall. No opinion on the aesthetics.

Sleepers?

Admin !!!

Get a buffer thrown in with 3 grand cashback. Just teasing about the cashback, I don't know what this sort of install is worth.

@pocster is only after £300k for it.

I liked the initial idea of using these as a retaining wall but after seeing what you have done I am not sure it’s justified using such heavy duty materials..... you could have purchase some standard creosote fence post that will last for 30+ years driven them in and attached a top and bottom rail and then attached your panels, would have been quicker, easier and cheaper (or maybe not as I have not done the sums ? ) if you had taken the whole fence line back a meter or two they would have been a great solution. If your happy with he result then that’s all that matters. I have some areas that need retaining and will keep my eye out for a job lot of these as I think they would be great at retaining a slope.

Is it really 10k fir the ASHP and cylinder with no controls? Doesn't seem right to me. I paid 6k for a 300l pre plumb cylinder and 8.5kW ecodan with FT6 controller. Yeah you've got a 14kW version but a smaller cylinder. I cant see how you get to 10k without the controller?‍♂️ 27k fir plumbing...I would not pay that for something that's easy to do yourself. My build is 270m2, 4 bathrooms/enuites and a Cloak. UFH on ground and first floor, done it all myself. Got my ASHP/cylinder to install at some point. It's all easy but if you haven't the time then I guess you have to pay. 27k seems a hell of a lot though.

As soon as he said it I thought of you...

Oh yeah, i'll stick around. where else would i go ? Need to keep my eye on the walk on glazing untill it gets to the point where it becomes swapable for a piece of used chewing gum, and a 40 win conker.

Sounds like a result.

That'll be the AAs...

Yes the composite ones stay in place better.

It's funny how time, and age changes you. (well it has me) I could have taken a few different paths in life. My 2 mates at primary school became armed robbers. Each ended up with 12 years. My nextdoor neighbour died from sticking too many needles in his arms. The lad a few doors up got refused entry to a nightclub one night. Went home, got a gun, went back to the club. Shot and killed the bouncer. A good pal (crook) was killed at 25. Most of my relatives were in building (now dead) but my dad was not keen in me following that path, which is how i ended up in banking for 12 years. Thats where i met my wife of 32 years. I would'nt change anything except perhaps robbing the bank that i worked at. (everybody else was). I did'nt know at the time, but internal fraud was so easy in the 70's and 80's. I had to laugh, when i found out later that the lad i used to work with dealing in foreign currencies was altering the exchange rates by 0.01%, and skimming £1000 a day in 1980. He owned up to me years later. I used to look after the money of crooks, ex presidents, presidents to be, dictators, and terrorist organisations. Most of them had no clue what i was doing and as Dell boy said "I could have been a millionaire" many times over had i not been so honest. (tough upbringing, but always taught to be honest) (If my parents were still alive, perhaps i would hold that against them.) But i am ok, just a bit sad that the lenders that basically fund the industry seem to be so far behind where we should be as a forward thinking nation. As i have said, if it sells, it sells. If not i'll get cracking with a standard new build in the New Year. In the meantime i shall certainly hang around to offer any help i can, and to annoy a few people like Pocster.

Don't worry, i won't vanish. I think this site is a great resorce, and at times can be fun. I actually think that doing the build might give me the kick up the butt i need, I would rather just sit it out for a while. If i get an offer, i'll take it from there.

Nothing wrong with selling the plot. You have done the sums, thought long and hard on it, and now taken the first step to a solution. But if you vanish from the forum I will miss you. My mother has lived in her house for 35 years, the garden was always her thing. It has hardly changed, when I discuss this with her, even now, she says 'in my mind it is many things, if I pick one design it will be wrong'. So she leaves it as is, and goes out to lunch a lot.

@Big Jimbo all joking aside I do understand your dilemma. To make 300k without sticking a shovel in the ground is nothing to be sniffed at . If you’ve lost the buzz then the build would be torture . After 7 years I still buzz ! But I’m an idiot . Things change , you adapt . Stay frosty ! ?

PS Perimeter insulation before the screed.

You will need to put an expansion joint where the two floors meet when tile

750 is a lot to make up and consolidate properly and I would be fearful of settlement. Therefore a suspended floor is the solution. Whether timber or concrete is up to you and the circumstances. I think I would be inclined to leave the new walls lower to support T and blocks, lots of insulation and screed. ie as you would for an all new house. Timber might be easier though.

Agreed that the steel should not corrode when encased. My preference of a plinth is more for quality control in positioning and knowing it is bolted down tight. Ever tried to put a nut on a damaged thread, 400mm below you, in soggy leaves and cold? I suspect that in a lot of cases, the nut doesn't go on properly if at all. (Hint, leave the nut on top of the bolt to protect the start of the thread) I was also once present when we put very big columns onto epoxy fixed bolts (by others) and the bolts pulled out while turning the spanner (the main contractor was of national standing, but is now no more and the world is a better place). I subsequently found the hardener capsules discarded adjacent. Moral, make it easy for the groundworker to get it right, and easy to tighten the nut: I suspect a less interested party might just have stopped tightening, and the concrete surround would disguise the problem...for a while Have used the plinth detail, developed over 30 years and 300 projects ( and 6,000 plinths????). My point here is that the proposal of a plinth is perfectly good, and it is your Engineer's decision. Re the recent drawings by kxi above. I would always paint the steel in bitumen up to slab level including the underside of the base plate, where the welds may be the weakest part, and some gaps under the plate. Why not? 10 minutes work. The column either has to be on the absolutely exact level of footing or else design to allow 25mm shimming then dry-packing (that also facilitates adjusting the column to vertical) Waterproofing around the column, you just do the best you can by cutting lapping and sticking dpm. If the concrete is dense enough there won't be any significant water absorption anyway, or problem. I can't see that you need to get complex with hydrophilic strips. kxi, is the cat drawing for scale and now a requirement for building reg's? And is that the cat that traditionally leaves footprints in all new concrete slabs?

Hello good people In my dotage (63) I find myself volunteer teaching in a catholic girls school. Blimey - WHAT??!! Anything with maths in it. DT, electronics, astronomy, phys chem biol. Next year I'll be dibbling into Environmental Science A level. Kids (and teachers) ask me stuff. Materials engineering then computing grad, career in various industries, C.Eng, got made redundant when companies closed, wound up repairing gas boilers (nobody makes you redundant if you do that), then to teaching/assessing Corgi/GSR gas operatives, and doing electrical qualifications. So I'll be answering a bit but mostly asking, about Alternative Energies especially for homes, practicalities of insulation, and all that. As far as I can tell from here, there's no way we're going to be able to achieve what Govt has announced. Keeps me off the streets.

Over the last month we've spent most of our time continuing to take parts of the barn apart whilst repairing some bits that need to stay. What's brilliant is that all the fibre cement roofing which contains a small amount of asbestos is gone. The skip company delivered on Friday and collected on Monday and after seeing it all wrapped said it was very good and we didn't need to wrap the skip as well. We've pretty much finished clearing the back sheds, although there is still quite a bit of moving from A to B with no real idea of where it is going to end up, such as 8 farm gates that I will need in the future, but am not sure where to store. I spent a number of days moving rocks, where are the chain gangs when you want them, these are ones that can't be reached by the digger. I also knocked down an internal wall that we don't need, this means that 2 sheds become 2 beds and a bathroom. I also removed a number of broken blocks and HID replaced them with new ones. Then HID started digging out the floors and I got to clear, sweep and drive the digger. I'm also revisiting my plans to measure again, thinking about windows and drainage. In my online plans I've added furniture to see how space works and the best place to put doors. With all the comments about price increases I'm thinking about ordering some items sooner than originally intended. As physical self builders this project is going to be a few years, yet if I wait then we might end up with boarded up holes and no glass, nice and warm I guess. Next month is going to be much of the same as will the following months with a lot of floors to be dug out. The digger cannot break the concrete so we have to use the breaker to start and then lift with the digger. Last month I bought an Aldi wacker as they seemed a good price. It will be a long time before it's needed though. I can see all this clearing is going to lose my interest long before it's done, but doing it ourselves is literally the only way we have any chance of affording this build the ways things are going. Well I guess it's back to the grind. And, thanks for all the help and answers that I have been getting from BH.

I feel for you, i am sick of seeing generic brick boxes being thrown up everywhere while MP`s score points talking about innovation, green issues and improving housing stock. South and West yorkshire - if you are a developer building boxes or a Gypsy you can have as much land as you want, self build? forget it. Can you imagine how far electric cars would have gone if finance companies wouldnt lend on them? mortgage lenders definitely need to come into the 21st century

Agree with much of the previous discussion. My opinion and experience is: Architects and planners seldom consider gutters and downpipes. Rainwater must be got away from the building with the easiest and safest method: Use external gutters, nice and big. Plenty of downpipes. Avoid, internal gutters, syphonic systems, chains, oversail and free drip. These are all gimmicks or solutions to problems that should not exist if the building is designed with rain considered. They bring risk and maintenance issues to the building. So we are left with aesthetics. I agree your sketch with no gutters past windows, multiple dp is the way to go. As Ferdinand says, there are many ideas. Mine are simple, and a formula based on experience. 1. Minimise the effect by matching to the wall and roof colours. 2. Or make it look designed and integrated by matching the glazing bar colour. 3. Or make it look designed by using a completely different colour that is not builders' merchant grey or black 4. Three colours is plenty, so wall, roof, glazing are probably enough. Match or contrast using these colours. I also endorse Lindab: strong, classy and work well, with many colours to choose. The copper effect needs a sticker saying, 'not really copper, please do not steal'. It is expensive but is the finish to your project. If the house is to look old, use cast iron instead, but coloured on the same principle. Get it right and the Architect will take the praise, I bet you. 'Always had that in mind...obvious etc.'

Another vote against concealed RWPs/syphonic/chains/dispersers. Centre them on the windows, use aluminium/copper/imitation cast iron etc. and you'll look at them once when they're put up then never look at them again.

I’ve lived in a building with concealed drain pipes and i would say one thing: don’t do it! The smallest amount of rain, over time, can get in and run down the pipe; they run off in strange ways and you can spend a long time trying to find the leak. In one heavy storm the pipe blocked, ran all the way back up to the top and splurged out at odd angles getting inside the building. (That’s the technical explanation) Looking at the photo the main issue with running one continuous length across the windows is because of the aesthetic and because you would see the drain from inside? What if you just blacked out a strip at the top of your windows with some blackout film on both sides? Something matt like this (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rabbitgoo®-Blackout-Privacy-Protection-Blocking/dp/B077X8HDQ9). From floor level I don’t think you’d spot it, and from inside it might not look too bad..? You could mock up a trial of it and see if it’s bearable before spending too much on other solutions..?

So this isn’t like for like, you need to add the cost of a typical gas boiler, the installation of a gas supply and then the annualised servicing etc of both. That gives you the Total Cost of Ownership. Comparing the two as you have doesn’t work unless you do this as you have compared Capex to Opex. Average life of a heat pump is far in excess of 10-12 years as there is very little to go wrong inside. As they don’t create anything corrosive or products of combustion they also don’t need anything like the servicing of a gas boiler. You can also do it yourself if necessary unlike gas. We’ve done this before .. a heat pump will support as much hot water as you need. Sizing the system is the issue, it’s when installers don’t survey the property and assume the 180 litre hot water tank is “enough” for a 4 bed house. What isn’t understood is that the tank is acting as a buffer for usage in a gas fired house, and the boiler will be kicking in pretty quickly once 2 showers are running. If you don’t believe me, turn a standard boiler set up off (Usual 25kW boiler/210 litre tank) once the tank is at temperature and get 2 showers running. You’ll be out of hot water in about 8-9 minutes. The boiler kicks in and is essentially acting as a 25kW instant hot water heater into the tank. The downside with ASHP (unless you go very big) is they can’t provide the speed of recovery as it’s 25kW vs 12kW, so will need twice as long to recover. That is why you oversize the tank. 400 litre tank is £2-300 at most more than a 210 litre tank so in the scheme of things is negligible. Back to Capex - you’ve paid for it as part of the build so what’s the issue ..? If they U.K. standard for new housing was the same as Southern Ireland and the zero carbon targets then we wouldn’t have this issue moving forward. I guess this was a retrofit under one of the “schemes”..?? A lot of these were done by people who used to fit solar panels, cavity wall insulation before that .... and they are neither heating engineers or specialists. I’d hazard a guess it was poor design that was the issue here not the heat pump. Bit like complaining your Ford Focus can’t beat a Ferrari off the lights ... In the lab yes, on test rigs yes, they have less than 3 years real world data of actual usage and the biggest change is changing the jet on the boiler. Been doing this for 40 years with LPG so it’s a no brainer but .... it’s not as clean as you think it is...!! Burning anything in pure oxygen is fine, it’s 2H + O = H2O plus some nice heat. Then add all the other stuff in air, the nitrogen compounds are still there, just ask TfL about this with their hydrogen buses. Your other issue is the problem of transportation and detection. You add mercaptan to natural gas to make it smell, and the reason is so you can find leaks. Our natural gas network is leaky ... but the volatility of natural gas (the nice methane mix) is much lower than hydrogen. So we will need to work out how to stop that lovely hydrogen leaking out as it’s a tiny molecule not the massive long chain hydrocarbon - welcome to the situation where you “could” use hydrogen in a standard boiler with a new jet and a pressure change, but 80% of the infrastructure to get it there would need updating. Assertion.. Assumption..? Or a blind guess ..?? If you size the heat pump and the radiators to the heat load and heat loss of the building, then any building can be heated with a heat pump. If you don’t believe me then you may want to check what an aircon unit is and how they heat places such as exhibition centres with them and not gas boilers (hint, they are heat pumps) Are they ..? 9kW heat pump with all the bits is change of £4k, cheaper if you buy non-inverter. The £10k you’re usually quoting .? That’s the “MCS Premium” for installation to get RHI and it’s not rocket science to install a heat pump. As a balance, I’ve seen quotes of £3,500 to install a gas boiler into an attic plus £1500 for a new hot water tank so they are comparable in price when you consider any plumber can fit a heat pump, to work on gas you are required to be GSR. On what basis are they “bad for the environment”..?? Burning of fossil fuels is bad for the environment, and you’ve completely missed the “how to create hydrogen” issue as you need energy to split the water in the first place to fuel your hydrogen generation. So you are going to take clean energy I take it (ie no fossil fuel based generation) and then use it to inefficiently split water (which you will have to purify first, possibly even use reverse osmosis) then inefficiently compress the hydrogen (using energy generated from..??) then add the smells etc, and finally transport through an upgraded network to a property where you will inefficiently burn it to produce heat and create combustion products ..? That is environmental impact of a massive scale in terms of creation, storage and transmission of a volatile gas that still hasn’t got a fully proven long term benefit. Just so you can use that lovely box on the wall you have always been told is the only way to heat water...?? Or alternatively I can use a transmission network that currently exists to move electricity from existing generation plants that could be produced from any source, to power a heat pump that creates no emissions without having to change anything in the grid infrastructure. And you call my heat pump bad for the environment ..??

Don't think it is, I posted up the government report on it. Here is a bit from my favourite comic. "One stumbling block any hydrogen energy revolution faces is storage and transport. Hydrogen molecules are so small they can leak out of containers, meaning pipe networks previously used for methane may have to be upgraded before they are fit for hydrogen." And that is before the inefficiencies are taken into account. It is much easier and cheaper to reinforce the local electricity grid than the gas grid. I think people have a desire for hydrogen because it is similar to what we already have, but this is missing the point completely. And if you combust hydrogen in air, you get oxide of nitrogen as well as water. Nitric acid is not nice stuff. Makes sulfuric and carbolic acid seem as mild as soap.

You forget this is a self build forum where people build well insulated houses or recon their existing house to good levels. Not when you consider having mains gas installed into a new build plot (my heat pump was not very expensive) No, I had no gov subsidy. P.S. mine runs very well, cheap to run and very happy with it ? I believe they are not suited to all houses , those that are not insulated and very leaky. Also there are many installers that do not design the installation properly (several on here) which gives them a bad press. RE hydrogen, the jury is still out on that one .

I have a good mate. Johnners. Forgotten more about kitchen fitting and carpentry than I'll ever know. Comes round now and then to 'inspect' mine. "Why dint'cha do this instead " he says pointing at some cockup or other of mine. I've learned that the correct response is, "Because I'm not you ", then to pause and listen. Inevitably a bit of gentle bickering ensues. Because I'm working on the front of the house, sometimes one or two passers-by stop and some join in. Always take Johnners side. Why Ian, why? Both of us have hips, knees, backs, eyes, ears, teeth that have seen better days. Between us there's glasses , hearing aids , truss, knee supports, and general codgerliness aplenty. So, I had this sign made. An attempt to explain and make light of our situation. Bad idea. Next day, I fell off the ladder. Onto SWMBO. Result.

That will be the Redruth to Hayle section then. All the surfers turn off at Newquay, so traffic only does 15 MPH, cause they are all stoned.

Why not just take them from the A442. Or come and get the bent ones from the A30, it is holiday week, do many miles of it are now damaged. Put up a webcam, with sound recording, going to be riot what people speculate about it.

Nice and cool down there today !!

Is there actually going to be any actual above ground rooms. People are starting to think that the basement is where you are kept by the other half. Like a slave, where you are just called up for servicing needs, and when she want's to inject you with a new virus to test.

Our neighbors on the towpath side said they heard a group of walkers debating what was happening. I've got some traffic cones here too ?

Nosey gits! ? Put a fake orange notice up that there's a bypass going through and that the canal's to be drained and filled in.

As Bob Dylan sang. "Some men rob you with a fountain pen, didn't take long to find out, what he was talking about" Or something novel, that makes use of easy to get hold of materials and can be DIYed. I think builders, like many industries, like to make an easy job difficult. Simplify and add novelty. The large builders, who make the majority of 'boxes' that are so criticised on here, have not moved forward at all in 50 years or more. People still think that PVC double glazing is novel FFS. Think about how much money they saved not paying bills, and if you are naughty in prison, you get your food delivered to your table, that is better than we get, it just comes to the door.

I had a semi once

They won't be a toddler for ever. They'll be a surley teenager by the time you're on to the second fix and can give you a hand...

Haven't you drowned in your leaky pit yet?

Have these pillars not disintegrated by time ?