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Good rule of thumb is stamping your foot, if you leave a decent print then could do with more compaction. A stake can still be hammered into compacted ground. The idea is to get rid of any voids and prevent further settlement.

Take the plastic fitting out and cut 1/2” off the end and reintstall.

Phew it's all in, had to come in through the window. Here's some pics of what it looked like before it was moved. We just need to try and sort through it all and get it hacked in. Odd couple of scratches we may need to get magicman to sort and then a worktop but we have a dressing room/walk in wardrobe!

Hi All, I hope you're keeping well! I just wanted to introduce myself 'Joe' to the forum as I have been a long time reader and now hopefully getting closer to starting my own build. The forum is such a great resource for information and the knowledge of the users is simply amazing - I really do appreciate everything I have read here as it has helped me so far on my journey. I am hoping to learn as I go and all being well, I'll be able to help others as I pass through each stage of the build and gain my own knowledge and experiences. The house is a two story house with a connection to single story building for the kitchen, dinning and living area which in total is approx 330m2 sitting on 0.8 of an acre. It will have a ground source heat pump, with underfloor heating on the ground and first floor, mechanical ventilation heat recovery system and a PV solar array with battery. Windows triple glazed throughout. The current SAP report SAP rating: 92 A Environmental: 93 A If I have missed anything I will update the above. All the best, Joe

Easier to do once the roof is on and windows in. No mucking about trying to keep the DPM clean and tear free plus it’s easier to connect the DPC in the walls to the DPM in the floor.

my own opinion is that 50mm of sand is too much as it is difficult to keep it from kicking up, 40 scalpings and 10 sand good, which may be what you have in mind anyway.

Make sure that the living space faces South. Having lived in two houses where it didn't and now one where it does face South I would never live in another house that faced in any other directions. The current house was re jigged to take make lounge face West instead of East. The original, West facing kitchen is now where the lounge was. New build was put on the plot, by the architect, facing North and East! The minute we saw it we said "spin it". He looked a bit taken aback because they all design for the best "street view". Yes we will drive up to the rear of the new house but that is a small price to pay for all the light that comes into the living rooms rather than the hall! (Ours is a bungalow).

Drill all the holes in one go!

One other point is that I have seen it recommended that you wind the studs in anti-clockwise, which seemed a bit counter intuitive to me but I guess it is to prevent the resin being dragged up out of the hole.

Put the DPM above the floor slab.

No problem then. The only issue I see is that the very big stones sticking up might rock, so give them a bash before the scalpings

I have been subconsciously thinking about resin anchors. 3 more bits of advice, for big jobs really. 1. Do not use a diamond drill as they make a beautifully smooth surface. You need a rough face to the hole, as created by an impact bit. 2. If outdoors, fitting foundation bolts for example, then the holes may fill with water. That is when a stick and rag can work, when a puffer will not, but this is not mentioned by Hilti et al. Check that a damp surface is ok for that resin. 3. The resin is very temperature sensitive. After mixing it can go hard in minutes in a hot summer's day. This can be very difficult to control as there are seconds to do the whole thing. Also you may end up using a nozzle for every bolt. The reverse is that it may not be set next day in winter, and there are low temperatures when it should not be used at all. The instructions are usually good on this, so do follow them. I think that now makes 12 points of concern/control. That does not mean that I don't like resin anchors: I do, but instruction and supervision is important, as the consequences of any big anchors failing are worrying,

You could get the MVHR system designed and supplied, and install yourself or by your builder, or Project Manager. They're not difficult to install if they've been designed along with your house. Airflow will do your design free of charge and give you the bill of materials to then take to all their distributors to achieve the best price. There are single units that will easily deal with your size of property, although volume is more important that floor area. I have an Airflow DV1100 for my 421m², 1650m³ property and it's oversized by quite a factor. Airflow class it as a small commercial unit, but it's made to the same standards as their domestic units, is PH Certified with pollen filters etc. I remember Paul also do MVHRs that were more than large enough for my place and I'm sure there are others. If you do want to hand it over to someone else to design and install, then I'd try Mango Projects Ltd. https://mango-projects.co.uk/ I haven't used this company (it's a recent venture), but the people involved were all involved with my build. I see little point in MVHR unless you are targeting better than 3m³/m².h @50Pa air tightness. But if you are, then for building regs you have to have a centralised mechanical ventilation, so it might as well be heat recovering.

That isn't too good. The stone seems lumpy and not especially well graded (finer stuff that fills the gaps all the way through.) Also too rough on the surface, so you should spread fines on it, sand or stone dust. The trouble you then get is that it might be rather thick and will take foot prints. Why does a smooth finish matter? 1. your dpm will puncture when you walk on it or pour the concrete, and might have air pockets left at high stones. 2. all concrete shrinks, and should be allowed to. With this surface it will not move where rough, and cracking is likely. Difficult to tell the scale. What size would you say the biggest stones are, roughly? How big is the floor area? As to strength, I can't imagine you will ever fall through it, but there might be chance of some movement and cracking over many years. as the stone seems to be so variable

Needs to be reasonably level but the blinding is there to level it up

@canalsiderenovation probably standard 1/2 inch BSP thread. swap for a copper fitting and you will save quite a bit of height

That looks like a 15mm compression fitting into the tank, if you loosened the nut and removed the plastic 90’ fitting and replaced it with one of these and a piece of 15mm copper pipe, as long as that red pipe will fit onto 15mm copper. https://www.screwfix.com/p/endex-copper-end-feed-equal-90-street-elbows-15mm-10-pack/38275 might be good if you let your tame (new) plumber have a look (not your old one) he will know and have all the bits.

That's because a decent sparky will only strip enough insulation off as necessary, double back the ends properly maybe, not screw down onto the CPC sleeving instead of the copper etc. A novice doing this could make for potential faults needing finding and sorting after the dead tests. Saying that some "professionals" make a hash!

I'm assuming that is looking from the top. Any idea what thread the tank is? Quite possible you can get a short metal fitting instead of the plastic and save some height

Very much so, not helped by the fact I had to run over 2-3 times to check it was clear the other way. The 'narrows' up to the basin/marina were challenging too as it was one way.

Worth a read.

I did my own design. No rocket science really. I bought some components from BPC and some elsewhere. I would have included rigid silencers in ours as the flexible ones aren't as good I think, my wife can't hear it but I can as our house is very quiet.

Our 'ship' has done well this week, we have been up to Llangollen!

It wasn't so rosy with BPC in my case: the 'design' shows locations of the ports only, nothing more than what I already knew. Only when nagging I got the flow values. They wanted to sell me what they preferred, rather what I wanted (eg 160>125mm reductions and 125mm ducting as they only stock 125mm system) and overcharged by £20 as the 100+vat design fee returned on order, in the words of the sales person couldn't have the vat component refunded... Hopefully your experience can be better, I'm staying away.

+1 As long as you follow the colours and do it right, it is a basic mechanical work. The electricians like to charge professional prices for that though.

Hi, you would need to involve BC if the removal could or would compromise the structure or integrity of the original structure. I.e removing a support beam etc.

Check with your council planning team - in my case the planners flagged demolition of my garage. I'm pretty sure it was out of scope, but it looks like a way of charging some quids for offical explanantion. Still, in grand scheme of things it would be peanuts. As for the destruction job itself BC will not be necessary, but do think about any changes to the main building that will be the result (door, heating, electrics, plumbing, wall insulation etc), something may surprisingly fall under the regs.

Thanks Mark. Yes will leave off, just trying to help with anything I can without being a hindrance! Problem is actually getting some information from him as to when he’ll actually come back!

Nothing to stop you doing it but the sparky may (should) want to check everything is good so maybe connect and push into place but don’t screw them in.

+1 for BPC very easy to deal with.

Purchase the kit through BPC Ventilation and they will provide a layout design also.

If in doubt add more. There are so many weird environmental conditions kicking about now it really does pay to make it beefy. We’ve got a meter of hardcore 20ft round the house to counter heave risk and the blocks are laid pretty much solid as I recall to the full with of the foundations below the b&b floor. They are not expensive to buy or lay.

Huge wall of north-facing glass. Good for sunlight, but going to cost £££ to both build and heat. If they're bi-folds then I suspect you'll need a monster of a steel lintel to support the wall above, if not you may find you need pillars to break up the wall-of-glass effect. Chimneys are at or below ridge height. If you're actually using them that may cause issues with smoke, if not you're better off without them. The drawing is a little hard to read (blurry), but am I correct to think that the ground floor room at the front right (East side) has a "feature fireplace" but no chimney, while the one at the front left has a chimney but no fireplace? My understanding is that if you keep anything above the foundations 20% VAT applies to the whole build. If not it's zero-rated. Given how little is left by this stage assuming that the dark grey areas are the retained walls I'm almost certain that the tax saving will be greater than the value of the walls and foundation retained. Note also that you may have issues with tying the new foundations to the existing ones - not insoluble, but adds cost and headaches. For a major refurbishment of a bungalow like that you may find some difficulty in getting people to quote. We got to the stage of a design a few years ago before the 20% VAT thing and people only being willing to quote for a demolish/rebuild due to the risks of finding something nasty killed off the project. A house over the road tried to do this, and then when they pulled up the floor found out the foundations were grossly inadequate and had to stop work and get permission for a demolish/rebuild. Loads of glass, chimneys, existing walls, no PV, etc. makes me wonder if you may have difficulty getting this through SAP. Not something I've really worried about in our case (we're going for the opposite end of the spectrum), but if I've understood correctly even major refurbishments have to meet a reasonable standard for the whole house. Why is the hair salon pointing at your back garden and the storage pointing at the road with a garage door when you can't fit a car in it? Unless there's a very good reason I'd flip it around and put the utility room in there as well, with an inside door off the kitchen.

A proper Rawlplug puffer is far, far better than blowing out the holes with a compressor or using a vacuum. https://www.screwfix.com/p/rawlplug-hole-cleaning-pump/6995F? You can get a special brush too.

Bit of fun on using up extra resin anchors. Setting up part of the kitchen. The shelf is the top off an old oak sideboard. Will put a false base on it with some lighting to shine down on kitchen worktop and hide the rod /galv band ect. Rods are left over M12's that was used for anchoring structural stuff. Wall is 52.5 mm insulated plasterboard with 30mm of fire protection behind so 80mm of soft stuff. Holes below are test holes to find the studs. Drilled through the lot and about 40mm into the timber studs behind.. they (studs) can take this hole in this case structurally wise. Was going to put some resin in but thought let's try it by just putting a double lock nut on the end of the rod so I can turn the rod with a spanner.. and see if it the shelf will hold a bit of weight by just self tapping /threading it into the timber. It does so far! There is a little flex in it but not putting loads of books etc on the the shelf.

If you calculate the volume, the difference between 1mm and 2m is obviously about double, less the thread, so can be a lot. Buy plenty of glue and mixer nozzles. Yes follow instructions, but no bigger hole than they say. The builder will use the drill bit he has, and you will be off to buy the same amount of glue again. It is worth buying a nice new bit to the 0.5mm. Often the rods are a smaller dia than stated. And it goes off in the tube in a year or so, so don't buy too much either. The glass vials can go wrong too, and the advantage is, I think, only that it is pre-measured. Oh, and you can more easily do them one at a time. I prefer to see the 2 parts mixing to a single colour, and knowing that is one of the many possible errors avoided. On the plus side, I have not known a properly fixed resin anchor to fail, but have seen expansion bolts working loose. Very good point about the grade of steel. If they can't tell you, then don't buy it. If ever wanting lots of stud, it is about half price from specialists on-line. All grades and finishes.

Nope. Two dirty diesels! Nearly new Leaf will be incoming once we have the build done. Maybe a VW ID4 our Hyundai EV6 down the line. I'm doing the ASHP install myself. Though I have plumbers starting on Monday and this may something I delegate to them. A Monoblock with a pre-plumed cylinder is literally two water pipes, data cable and power supply. Can't be that hard, esp with @dpmiller consulting!! Site visit anytime... I'm here 7 days a week 8am-8pm.... all ahead of you

I’ve just done a kitchen in solid oak worktops. To buy new would have been around £2K bought used off eBay, had to do some repair and jointing but worked out very well … cost £150.00 plus a few hours extra time

Your detail drawing above is a pretty standard behind the ingo fixing. Strapping back to the inner blockwork. It’s more a case of using the right window for this. Nordan doesn’t sound like the right option on this occassion.

I am also tired of hearing COVID and brexit as excuses for inflated prices and supply shortages. Yes interest rates are stupidly low, yes there is far too much money around. I import construction machinery from Italy and we can now sell our machines at prices less than two years ago.

A very poorly advertised item on t'internet that didn't mention the make in it but we went to look at it 3 hours away, original invoice was close to £40k. Builder removed items from a swanky house he is working on so presume he had them for free or at a low price and thought he'd take the chance on storing them and selling. Also had some very expensive kitchen appliances that he was told to skip which I guess he will try and flog.

I would be installing a course of blocks on the founds, DPC a treated timber sole plate, then your stick frame. Also a basic concrete or screed floor with DPM. Got somewhere for roof water to go? What length are the roof joists?

I think their choice suits the house design but can understand its not everyone's taste. I once visited an architect designed house that was ultra modern on the outside with large metal windows and modern cladding.... but judging by the interior the owner really wanted a country cottage. It had oak cottage doors and flowery tiles. Can you post some examples from your mood board?

Good luck with the build