Leaderboard

Finished pouring our foundations today, only took 3 weeks and 88 cubic metres of concrete! Felt the need to share... my 6yo and 8yo don't share my enthusiasm for foundations....

Air test today, had one done on the unfinished house to get an idea if anything was wrong before I start plaster boarding. Final test figure 0.28. Which I think is rather spiffing. I would like to thank my team. The wife for support and finance ralf and woody the wonder dogs,for guard duties and @Nickfromwales for the cakes and singing. .

I can now report that a resolution has been sorted and implemented. We now have a working app and smart meter that is working alongside the app. Octopus have finally been able to generate a bill based on our use from the end of Feb til the 16 June. Our use seems a bit excessive as we were hammering the heating earlier in the year and we didn't have insulation. Total units 2328.9 (split between 661.6 @ 5.5p (between hours of (20:30-01:30) and 1667.2 @ 0.146 during other hours. This usage with the standing charge gave us a bill of £306.50 and of course we had credit as we have been paying our £110 a month DD and had the referral credit too of £50 from here. We also have managed to get £250 bill credit due to the compensation for the stress and inconvenience so have a few months payment holiday now due to the credit on our account so we m. This took an almighty amount of time and energy (not the electric kind ?), daily emails before finally heading to Twitter and bombarding the CEO which seemed to get a reaction. I can also say with the warmer weather and nearly all the house insulated and some base coat on the heating has been off and the solar is doing all our hot water and for a number of weeks our use has been between 2 and 5 units a day maximum which is likely with things on outside of solar usage. We will have to see what the imapact of our insulation and things like blinds has on our heating use over winter.

Projector is the only way to go if you have the room. But to have a really good picture you need to bring down the reflected light which destroys the contrast. That means decor with dark colours. Been without my setup for 12 months since starting the self build journey. Here is a picture of the last film I watched before packing up my kit.

Ironically I only tend to shop in charity shops ? aside from my hiking gear which isn't but mainly comes from Outlet stores. I love a bargain and plenty of house renovation stuff was ex display or Facebook/eBay finds. Until we started the house work we had never had bedroom furniture, a new sofa, dining room furniture etc as in our previous home we just got by with hand me down items, stuff from Freecycle or made do with what was in there. That's over 25 years in total of living in stacking boxes, friends freebies and Freecycle. When we bought our sofa in December I had never been shopping ever for a sofa! I'd previously never have contemplated spending this sort of money but we both work full time, have no kids and the mortgage will be paid off by time we are 50. That all said I'm still after the best value I can for what we want and if Ikea did something that fit the bill I've nothing against them.....

Hello everyone. I am pleased to have found this site and hopefully I may be able to contribute to the forum.

The builder must charge you 0% VAT on his work and on the goods he supplies/installs on your build. (He'll be able to recover the VAT on the goods he purchases for your build) If you get anyone else to work on your build, and that work is covered by the planning permission, then they must also zero rate the labour and goods supplied. If you buy any qualifying goods for your build and install yourself or by someone else charging labour only, you can recover the 20% VAT you have paid, at the end of your build.

Hello all Have just joined today. About myself - I'm middle aged (roughly!) and in East Dorset. I've completed renovation work, a large new build extension, just finishing a complete strip-out refurb on a 2 bedroom bungalow, and now I've got a small plot with full planning consent for a 2 bedroom bungalow. The latter will be created by severing land from the parent refurbed bungalow's garden. I have a question regarding typical timescale from advertising the plot for sale to the buyer signing on the dotted line and commencing work. I shall have a look in the section "Building Plots, Land & Renovation Properties" to see if there's anything similar discussed there and add to it or start a topic anew. Cheers, Jon

I struggled to find much info previously before our build, now it's completed, I'd like to share our experiences for those who are in a similar dilemma as myself. Our build has a south east facing pitch at 40 degree, designed to be optimised for solar pv, with 16 in roof panels installed, total of 5.3kwh output, in Stockport, Northwest, by no means the sunniest part of the country. We wanted a storage battery from the start, which plays a catalyst in energy dependency since we only have electricity, which also powers air source heat pump, in the end we decided on Tesla Powerwall, more capacity, better warranty, cheaper tariff (Tesla Power Plant or Tesla Energy Plan if you also drive a Tesla), better app control and more advanced battery tech etc. Some, including ourselves were skeptical about how well our theory would work, whether there would be enough sunshine to even fully charge the battery, never mind export back to the grid to offset cloudy days. The results are staggering. We have 82% energy offset since the system was commissioned (two months approx) including charging EV, and recently we are running 98% self sufficiency, with battery getting full charge by 10am! Selling the rest back to the grid for the same cost as we draw from it, thanks to Tesla's tariff. Of course, on rainy days we draw from the grid, but it's definitely looking like a worthy investment, especially when we experienced our first power cut, battery took over seamlessly, and the only house on the street with lights on! We now only wish to installed more solar pv on the rest of the roof! So far, solar pv + storage battery is working very well, far exceeded our expectations, and it's worth bearing in mind, it is not about the absolute saving on your electricity bills, but more self sufficiency and energy independence. Of course, the longer you have the system running, the more you will save, it is only a matter of time to recoup initial investment.

You have a new design house, the UFH was designed in from the start. An old place, with a 'normal' plumber specifying UFH, it would run the system at a higher temperature.

I paid a local contractor to do the “hard” work, and as a retired (small time) builder did all the windows, plumbing, tiling, kitchen, bathrooms etc like you plan and it worked well. Not sure why you need an architect to oversee the builder? As long as the drawings are correct, your builder understands exactly what you require and your able to keep an eye on him and his work then why?. I was lucky, my builder was brilliant and his team very good, but as the design was mine I kept an eagle on what was done. Regular site meetings are good for both sides in case questions arise. Go for it ?

We have doors! All those months of choosing were worth it. So happy with them! Especially love the magnetic catches ?

Projector central is a good a place to start (https://www.projectorcentral.com/projection-calculator-pro.cfm). Narrow it down to what will fit in your space (and give you as much size as possible) and go from there. I bought a screen from http://www.sapphireav.com/, and it's been great. Richer sounds sell them, but if you live in the same town as the importer's depot the MD will drive it up to your house in his car as a nice surprise.

Forward planning worked here we have wires here for lighting so if we wanted to can add in a independent light over a mirror or a similar style to an illuminated bathroom mirror if we wanted. We aren't going for open shelves for the dust issue. We scrapped the initial ideas for all open.

I love my projector and even though it's only standard HD compared to the 4k telly it's miles better. It's the sheer bigness, see. 4k projectors have come down in price over the last few years though and if you spend enough you can get one with good contrast and brightness. A screen that comes down in front of the television is great because it lets you have a normal sized tv that doesn't dominate the room, but switch into cinema mode when you want to. Then you start dreaming of motorised screens, or how to rig up a contraption to pull the edges of the screen taut and get rid of a wave in the fabric that only you can see

Depends how you are going to use it, if it's only for sit-down immersive viewing with lowered blinds/lighting then go for as large a projector screen as practical. If you are going to use it primarily for viewing TV while doing other suff without dimmed lights go for TV. If you want both then consider TV with projector screen that comes down in front of it. 65" TV now, pre-wire for a potential 10' projector sceeen is plan here.

Had a projector in my last house. 120” screen. The plasma TV never got a look in! there are amazing projectors out there but they are very expensive. caveat: I’ve not done AV research for a while so I’m a little out of touch

I guess I'm trying to get an idea of prices if anyone has had a custom made dressing room/joiners that may be knowledgeable on pricing. Storage is definitely high up on our list as a priority.

+1 to a planning consultant. Permitted Development might get you either.. A single storey rear extension 8m deep. A two storey rear extension 3m deep A single storey side extension up to half the width of the house. I doubt you could add 3000sqf to a 4000sqf house using permitted development rights alone. I wouldn't rush to trade off the barn. That could be very valuable in the future.

You're kidding me, the wife has already designed the inside and knows exactly what is going where!

I now have images of you and Ms Joe90 being like Bernie Ecclestone and Slavica.

No it's on the wall above the wardrobe, or will be! That's my bad sketch.

LSD sell it as singles if you contact them.

What do you call two robbers? . . . . . . A pair of knickers ?

No underpants here only knickers ?

Aren't we all so different in our priorities? I have a lovely antique linen press which cost £350. For £6k I would have a great time sending all my clothes to a charity shop and starting over! We had a junk room at my old house and were feeling cramped and so thought about moving. It suddenly dawned on me that the room represented about £50k of prime real estate, so I gave everything away and got a bigger house back. The value of the stuff must have been £2k max. I've become a lot less attached to 'stuff' now and get huge joy from a great bargain and having no mortgage. (£6k represents about £12k over the mortgage lifetime). Just sayin'...

Don’t forget full length mirror.

Lift the membrane up, the last thing you want is a join in that area, this is the area any pooling water will collect.

? Apologies: hard-of-thinking on Tuesdays

Just to emphasize this: it's worth looking into (15% saving on all the project costs) but there are severe restrictions: the property must be unoccupied for 2 years straight right up to the day the work starts, and all work must be done via a single VAT-registered contractor (as they apply the discount in their bill, there's no claim back) We missed out on this because (a) we thought our house was only unoccupied for 1 year prior to completion (it was actually 2), (b) we had no documented evidence of how long it had been unoccupied (council tax discount etc is the best for this), and (c) we moved into it on completion day, resetting the clock. If you want instant demand-heated hotwater, and not interested in (substantially) improving insulation of the property, an oil combo seems the only sensible choice.

Hi and welcome. I'd suggest looking at an ASHP. I assume you will be addressing insulation and air tightness, so have the opportunity to reduce heat loss. ASHP require lower capital than GSHP and are fairly similar in performance. RHI is running until next March, so you'll need to be quick if you wish to take advantage of it. Are you aware of the possible reduced VAT rate for renovating empty properties? It's worth looking in to it if you are not. You should also be aware of changes to Building Regs for next year that require the heating and hot water system to be designed for "low temp". Even if you start this year, it's definitely worth considering a system boiler and hot water cylinder to future proof your home.

It might be worth looking at planning consultants in the area that know the rules rather than 'warn' the LPA in advance. Do you really want to get rid of the barn or could you get planning permission again to convert and then sell that. The house already seems quite large, if there is a particular reason for almost doubling the size it's worth discussing that with planning expert as well.

We had that experience - a trade was using grinders to trim steel bolts on the frame and a few of the hot sparks hit the inside of a few windows - luckily I intervened early enough to prevent any damage (there are a few microscopic marks) but could have been much worse.

Hmmmmm ? Pies…..or Daddy? Pies…..or Daddy? Pies it is. @Russell griffiths can wash his hands in cold water. 15mm hot and 10mm HRC are both inside the same piece of ( 22mm dia x 25mm wall ) Climaflex from start to finish.

We have a ditch to the front of our property and we want to discharge our mew sewage treatment plant into that. I did a pre-application request with the EA and got a really helpful - “it’s all on the website” reply. We will need a permit as we are within 400m of a SSSI. Talking to providers of STPs their advice has been do it, then do the permit with the EA and it will just be accepted. He couldn’t see an issue with discharge into the ditch.

We have a piped fitch on our side of the road. Highways come and clean it out every few years, I proposed using it for our surface water and the planners consulted the EA. The EA didn't say no. They said there "had been flooding in the past further down the road and wouldn't want to make that worse". So I proposed a rainwater recycling tank with overflow to the ditch and the planners accepted it without going back to the EA. We only use the rainwater tank for garden watering. Theses days they might ask for proper surge attenuation which ours doesn't provide if its full when the storm hits.

The limit is 5m³ discharge a day. As long as you meet the general binding rules, you do not require a permit from EA to discharge from a small treatment plant to a watercourse (in England). https://www.gov.uk/guidance/general-binding-rules-small-sewage-discharge-to-a-surface-water

Looks good to me. Perhaps be prepared to adjust the size of the floor a bit in case their tolerances are off.

Be aware how close you are to the boundaries of your plot and neighbouring buildings; potential complication with eg Party Walls // Party Wall-Fences, and perhaps access to the rest of the plot if the basement dig takes up most of the width.

Yes - exactly what we did. If there are services in the way then they'll be in the way for your foundations. If the basement is full footprint then it acts as the foundation of the house so is cost effective. We applied for planning for the above ground house first and then added the basement on a second application, sailed through.

a basement 'shouldn't' affect planning even though the local council may try. our local planning office suggested that our total living space was disproportionate to the existing building and we should get rid of the basement. when we pointed out that the basement isn't visible so how could it possible be taken in to consideration they backed down. a few others on here have had that experience as well. But....there's never any guarantees when it comes to dealing with the planning office.

If you have the room Two freestanding 50 mil studs with a 20 mil cavity will give excellent acoustics

Presumably @Dreadnaught’s suggestion improves sound isolation by ensuring there is nothing joining either side of the wall?

I'd take the hedge hogs back. We fitted them but now glad to see the back of them. Everything just clings to them. Nice idea but doesn't work in practice.

If your French is up to it, there is a VERY detailed TOP 15 mvhr list on a Belgian DIY site that includes the Salda Smarty. You need to ask for a password to read it - they want to keep commercial activity off the site. They gave it a very good rating - high quality products, excellent documentation and clearly built for cold climates. The downside was a bit noisy and disappointingly expensive. Being rip-off France and Belgium, the price is around 2,700 euros!! It's an absolute bargain at bpc. The website is bricozone.be/vmcdf and the list is titled Quelle VMC-DF choisir ?

Looks really good. The stairs are much bigger than needed. The WC could go back a bit. This would give you a more generous entrance hall. If you don't think you will use the garage much you could just exclude that bit.

Righto, off I go to look at 4k projectors, even though I've spent my projector money on insulation...

I believe that back in the Victorian times they used to make One of the stair rises about an inch higher than the rest. The occupants would quickly get used to it, and would stomp up and down the stairs without noticing it. I believe the idea behind it was that the man with the swag bag would stumble on the stairs and rattle your silver. This would wake you up, and you could come out of your room and shout bounder. I personally like what you are trying to do, so do what you need to get it passed, and then alter it.

I had to chuckle. I did exactly that on a new expensive pair of glazed front doors on my last house. I never owned up, and my mrs always said the front doors were a right pain to clean and felt gritty. I said it must be funny foreign glass as i had imported the doors.?

we worked out the additional cost over a year including the cost of running the ASHP to replenish 400 litres on a 24/7 pump was about £85… used a £20 timer with 15min/hr from 6am-11pm and so it paid for itself in 3 months. That was a commercial building with intermittent usage during the week. £85 buys a lot of pies …