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House is far from finished, but it is habitable so after 2.5yrs of van life we've upped sticks and occupied the house. Very surreal! Been lurking on this forum since 2018 now I think. The standard of my build is a direct function of the 'knowledge repository' that this forum is and the assistance of various members. Thank you one and all. Now for the next 2.5yrs of my build - garage, landscape, drive....the list is endless, should probably start with getting a shower room functioning though??‍♂️?

Just sharing the experience I've had with some of these things to point over 100m2 of paving (512 off 450x450 saxons). I want to share this because I was sceptical of these tools having read many, many bad reviews on the likes of Sfix, Amaz etc.. So sceptical that I started out doing it with a trowel, tuck pointer and pointing iron like I've always done. But I got fed up with that because this job was way bigger than anything I've tackled before. OK, so I give in and try a gun. I figured one that operated like a sealant gun should have the advantage of some extra pressure to squeeze the mortar so I bought a Cox Solpointing Ultrapoint Gun: I Watched all the video's and followed all the tips such as the mix & additive to use but I just couldn't get decent results. It frequently jammed which was the general criticism I was seeing of all mortar guns. I even sifted the sand to remove any tiny stones as it always seemed to get hung-up on these. Then no amount of pressure on the trigger would 'push through' so the whole thing had to be emptied and cleaned. The enormous pressure often resulted in squeezing all the water out of the mortar and back up the tube! So I gave up and went back to the trowel in disgust. For about a week. During that time I had plenty of time to think about it, while troweling away, and realised that the relatively small nozzle wasn't helping so I had a look again and found some with a wide rectangular slot: Image removed at request of copyright owner. If you want to see it you might find it on the companies web site it is the one with paving slabs. I figure that if I could get it to work it would be worth it so I bought one of these too. This time it went better but I was still getting regular clogging. As before, no amount of pressure would shift it. But I could actually do ah few slabs before having to dismantle it - so I persisted. The usage tips for these made it clear that the mix should be thorough and that was better than just making it sloppy. So I began making the smallest batch of mortar I could in my cement mixer (a 14L bucket of sand 4:1). Leaving this running for a good 30 minutes, with plenty of plasticiser and the mix was super-smooth. Before I'd been doing it in a bucket with a paddle on a cordless drill. This smoother mix helped and I could get maybe 10 slabs done before clogging, so by now I'm thinking it out like crazy because I can see this being a great time saver. What I began to realise is that the clogging was always happening when the joint was shallower than the depth of the slab due to the bedding mortar having splurged up when laying. In this case the mortar was 'grounding out' too soon as it was extruded resulting in it not being able to flow sideways - bunching up directly below the nozzle. In this situation applying more pressure would just compress it until it clogged altogether again. SO the 'trick' was to always apply very little force and to move on quickly if it were to show any resistance because the joint was probably too shallow. I got used to pressing down on the plunger with just my fingers, not the palm of my hand, to limit the pressure. Of course raking all the joints before filling them is obviously a good idea but some would inevitably be missed. Now I could use the gun continuously (only stopping to clean it by plunging in a bucket of water at each fill) and made such a lot of progress that I was mixing batches of 28 Litres (with slightly sharp sand) and having the time to gun it all in (this is with SBR in the mix which makes it go off pretty quick). Still took a couple of weeks but I think it would have bee more than double that without the gun. Of course by the time I'd nearly finished I was even quicker at it! TBH I was quite sad when there was no more left to do ? Anyway, I wanted to relate all this because it could save someone a lot of time, money and effort.

See, there's being a submissive element on a site, and then there's building something completely underground! ? It seems like you've just said that's the solution but not looked at anything else (maybe you have gone through loads of options!) It's hard to say what I'd do differently as I don't know the site or surroundings... or what your brief is... but with your budget and that approach I'd look much more at the three dimensions of the spaces, like it's all on a level and all the ceilings are the same height, why not have rooflights which open up the ceiling volumes, like check out the ceilings on this one https://www.dezeen.com/2016/11/19/henning-stummel-tin-house-shepherds-bush-london-red-weathering-steel-pyramidal-rooms/ - or sink some of the public spaces so you have more height in there... It's all very rational and rigid at the moment (in my opinion) just not sure there's any of your personality in it, does it need to be a total U with 90 degree corners? how does it sit with the existing topography? could you open out the shape into a less rigid form, maybe open up the angle at the garage so you've got more view from the public spaces...

Exciting! Very exciting...... I'm sure this is one we'll all be watching with interest. A couple of ideas, that I've had. The up and down steps to the Doocot will limit it's utility in everyday use. People just don't like steps. Everyone will turn up at your back door. For an entrance I would build a dramatic tunnel with an imposing concrete brutalist entrance. Leading through a dark curved hallway opening out to a expansive view of the garden. I would keep the Doocot but as an elevated office. Dramatically rebuilt half in stone with the jagged appearance of a ruin and the rest of the structure in modern glass and steel. Something like the below style. You would get there through a set of angular stairs behind a "blast" door rising from the main building. I'd be cautious about the lack of privacy of the main bedroom/ensuite from the living area, it doesn't suit everyone. I would push the Pantry into the hill too. A food cave as it were. Perhaps a small sung somewhere would be nice for entertaining as an alternative to the excitement of the main area. What fun it spending other peoples money.

Because I very much doubt you’ll get a SEng to agree to balance the end of a 2.3m long lintel plus the hip rafter load onto a single skin block wall that has no lateral restraint by any sort of return blockwork 300mm return would broadly be a full block return with the overlap of the internal block skin which is the real minimum I would accept with a roof load and that size opening. You need to speak to your engineer and get their view though as they may want a steel portal around the whole opening.

FFS Dave. I don't know how you can be so even-tempered about it. Ducking and Diving is a much practised art in this sector. There's nothing to be lost for Baumit coming out and spending some time with you. Except for f.....ing COVID Arggggghhhh. From the sound of it, the company is German. (Bau = build , mit = with) If that is the case and you don't get any joy with the UK crew, and you need to go German, I'll gladly help.

Very interesting @Gus Potter - we always just use an engineer who provides SER certificates, the only times I've done it with calcs it's been so slow and I'm sure the queries are like Chinese whispers by the time the engineer gets them! Although it might mean the engineer costs marginally more, you do get a discount on the warrant and speed up the process so it depends on what your starting point is...

To add to PeterW's contribution.. sorry.. but to put a further spanner in the works you also need to look at global stability of the walls. The wall panels need to resist horizontal wind loading so that part of it needs consideration.

Would you be allowed something like... Decorative cladding Fire barrier/SUPALUX Ventilated Cavity Panelvent DWD Timber frame Ventilated cavity would allow breathability but would that meet fire regs?

Good comments from all. Hope this bit of background info helps you navigate the fire regs. Have made posts in the past about this but can't find the links etc. In the UK the fire boundary conditions were developed off the back of the fire of the great Fire London. In principle they recognised that is it not accepable for your house to go on fire and set light to your neighbours house. It's ok for your house to burn.. so long as you don't say endanger say the Fire Service personnel and make sure you can escape from the building and so on. Jumping forward in time the fire boundary conditions in the regs were based on the principle that if you build within say 1.0m of the boundary then your wall has to do a number of extra things. The fire tests and specs in the regs are based on you not setting light to your neighbour. The regs and tests don't take into account that your neighbour may set light to your house! The wall as Nod says essentially provides a fire break. Ok that's the easy bit.. please bear with me! Lets take a TF wall as it is harder to deal with cf a solid brick 225mm wall. The first thing (there are other ways of doing this where you split the loads under fire conditions.. too much for now) is that your TF wall needs to stay up. The fire is on the inside. To stay up you protect the timber frame that is the structural element. Could be plaster board on the inside or a material that does two things: 1/ It needs what is called integrity. You may see a material that if it is fixed in a certain way it will give you 60 minutes integrity. Integrity means that say a sheet of plaster board will not split in the middle but also not fail where it is fixed at the edges. You can see if the edge fixings fail the board it will come loose and the flames/ sparks will bypass the sheet. Integrity is lost. 2/ You also see what is call "insulation" Here we look at how much radiant heat will be emitted by the covering / material on the side away from the heat source. Think of this as having an electric fire.. no sparks or flames but the radiant heat will set light to say the TF. The same principle applies to the whole wall.. you can't just stop flames and sparks going over the boundary you also need to stop radiant heat. Now to get the fire "resistance" of materials (which is what you often see mentioned) used on a fire boundary wall we look at both the intergrity and resistance to get a value of performance. The Eurocodes present slightly differantly but I hope you have got the jist of it. The idea with TF is to make sure the frame stays intact, up right (with some deflection) and does not fall on the Fire Brigade or others. Lastly we look at the outside surface on your neighbours side. We recognise that you should not put a flammable material on the outside face of a boundary wall next to your neighbours. We know that sparks do fly about so that is partly where the surface spread of flame requirements come from. For example.. a pine timber untreated on a boundary has a high risk of propagating surface spread of flames from a spark. If you can get your head yound the principles then it makes it easier to select your cladding. Lastly when you compare some of the regs in Scotland cf England you could conclude (apparently) that Scottish fires are hotter than English fires!

Move the wall to comply or build the wall in masonry.

Hi Saveasteading. I understand your frustration. As a bit of background. Glasgow City Council for example are clamping down on folk who are putting a different interpretation on the word "minor". Folk are submitting warrant applications and trying to pass it off as minor works so as to avoid having to engage an Engineer and to try an speed up the application process. The way BC is set up nowadays is that if there is any doubt on their part they are entitled to ask you to submit supporting calculations or go the SER route. Their first duty is to public safety and they are heavily overloaded at the moment. I just had a letter today from the planners saying they have experienced a 25% increase in applications since COVID kicked off. There are a lot of folk extending and so on and the planning / warrant system is starting to fail. I think it's your replacement timber structure that is the main issue. I can appreciate that you probably have got the main structure sized right, particularly with your experience. But.. if you are interfacing with old stone, have the odd funny shape then things like your standard connections to the walls, the bracing system and small redistribution of loading can take you beyond the spirit / intention of the minor works guidance. This information you have been given is wrong, they are making incorrect / false statements. In Scotland to get a building warrant you can: 1/ Submit drawings and specification showing how you are going to comply with all the parts of the building standards. This includes part 1 of the Standards "Structure". Rather than submitting calculations you get an SER engineer to give you a certificate that effectively says they have done the calcs in the office and rather than printing them off here is a certificate instead with drawing information. The SER registered Enginner still has to do the work in house as the SER ltd auditors should be making sure they do! 2/ You can produce the same drawing / specification information as above but provide the calculations instead. If you lay your design calculations out in the same format as the guidance the SER ltd give to their members then the council have no where to go in terms of questioning your presentation. Provided you get your calculations correct and know what you are doing then a checking Engineer should have no presentation issues and your calcs get approved. In some way this is good for public safety as you have an independant Engineer paid by the council checking your (commercial) work. Now here in Scotland some councils will do their best to delay and try and put you off submitting your own calcs. Quite a few made the mistake of laying off their in house Engineers and now have to funnily.. tender it out to SER Engineers.. ! You do not need to be a registered Engineer, so long as you are competant with sufficient knowledge and experience you can submit calculations. The test is are your drawings conveying all the required information to show how you are going to meet the building standards and are your calculations correct, professionally prepared in an acceptable format. In terms of your calculations a key part of this is the description of the design philosophy and an explanation of where all the load paths are and how the structure "works". If you can't describe this philosophy and defend you design against professional scrutiny then you have failed the competancy test in my view. Some councils in the central belt still have in house checking Engineers, some don't. The ones that don't generally have a standing arrangement where they get an SER Engineer to check the calcs. North Lanarkshire Council have such an arrangement. Roughly the submission is sent to the councils approved list of SER Engineers. They have 3 weeks to respond and a further 3 weeks to do the job. Thus on the whole getting a warrant takes about 6 -8 weeks longer than the SER route. Sometimes when you look at it in the round the calc route is faster as if often as the end of a job you need the SER Engineer to sign the form Q..to get the completion certificate.. and they don't do this if the builder has not kept all the info on say roof trusses / specialist design packages and so on. Go the calc route and it is designed at the front end. Many folk are happy with this old school calculation route provided they know up front. Often in the time the warrant application is progressing you are tendering, a good builder often can't start anyway for a few months so the apparent delay becomes a mute point.

Ugh - link may be useful. Let us know if this works....

Look at this video. If I remember correctly, the presenter covers this exact point and shows how to ensure that your issue doesn't happen. I haven't done this but have been researching video door bells and remembered this issue.

No, I'm learning that acquiring a new Porsche is not always as transparent a transaction as with most other commodities. I look forward to seeing pics, hopefully of both.

Hi @Dan1983 have a look at the attached photo. Picked out from our build archive - shows what is being said above. I too thought it strange at the time but had noticed other windows sitting on stone sills to have have had similar "gaps" which gave me confidence to accept them so to speak.

I would definitely say fit MVHR. Apart from the energy saving aspect by ventiliating your house with little heat loss, it's other big advantage is the air is always fresh and stale smelly air constantly removed from kitchens and bathrooms. the house never smells or feels stuffy and never has problems with condensation. I would say in your case it is a must have.

Meant to add before posting previous reply, I have to admit I know very little about Ferraris as they've never been on my radar (not sure why other than that I have an aversion to red cars), but the Testarossa is definitely an iconic design.

Funnily enough, having sold my Aston a month or so ago (someone made me an offer I couldn't refuse), i have a much more modest Porsche on order, and am keeping my eye out for an RS4 Avant.

I have been looking for a two post car lift but at my age I won’t be doing anything serious, also mine was built under permitted development (whilst fighting successfully for planning) so I am limited with height. ?‍♂️, just need to build a shed fir my tractor and implements to free up space.

Thanks for the link, will have a read tonight. I sold my cars and bikes when I left the UK a few years ago as they weren't really special enough to justify holding onto. That said, I'm trying to close a deal on a Testarossa as we speak (been my dream car for years), and I'm also waiting/hoping for a build slot for the 992 3RS whenever its announced. That'll be it for the foreseeable, although I will buy a daily whenever I move back permanently.

Time for 4 post car lifts? I'm aiming to clear 3m in internal height (hopefully 3.2 like the rest of the house) to enable stacking in the future if I run out of space.

Yes, but which cars? We're on the south coast so a long way from your location, but we have relatively little glass compared to your design. Probably easiest if you spend a few minutes reading the following thread (or searching the forum for SageGlass) and then let me know if you have any questions, or I can put you in touch with their UK sales guy.

Short answer is theatre. There wont be much house visible from the approach, and there will be even less visible when you park and start walking towards the main entrance which is via the existing ruined Doocot to the north. I also didn't want the driveway to kill the impact the view out to the front of the house so wrapping around the back made best sense. I also have another entrance to the plot 250m to the east of the house which I may join to the road shown in the plan at a later date which would provide direct access to the garage by skirting around the outside of the plot. That way there would be an entrance for me (to the garage), and another for visitors (to the Doocot).

My garage is about 6m x 12m and is too small ?‍♂️, it’s full already and my day to day car is not In it. NOTE, do not call it a workshop on your plans as VAT is not reclaimable on a workshop but can be on a garage.

What's the reason for the driveway going up a hill, round the top and back down again? It would be a lot easier to turn right and straight round the bottom where it is nearly all level to the garage before excavations?

I have just sent an enquiry to BBA

I just had an amazing idea (as I said previously it's easy to spend other people's money!). could you have a 'secret' garage built in to the hillside with a hidden door (think Batman and his Batcave!). you could still have the normal garage for the 'normal' cars and have the secret agent/Iron Man/Batman type garage for the 'special' cars.

Looks awesome. How you configure it, I always think, down to personal preference so I won't offer any advice - unless you want to hear of our experience with SageGlass. A 4-car garage does however demand the question from a petrol-head as to what will you be keeping in it?

Got it!!! Thanks so much joe90 and pro Dave. One very relieved 84 year old in the house. Just going to get trap back in and gently put pedestal back.

If I knew what would stick, and not look silly (clear coating perhaps?) then I might be willing to give this a try. But I would rather hear that from the manufacturer, or someone that has solved a similar problem by painting it with some form of sealant.

Careful. The pedestall might well be taking some of the weight of the basin. Of you had an assistant who could take the weight while you pull the pedestall out and undo the trap that would be the easiest way.

Often brick slips have been intended below the bead But there isn’t always room I normally use a base coat 7 mil and sponge it to a smooth finish That gives a very hard durable finish Your dilemma is more common than you think

I can wriggle it , it doesnt took screwed down, if I got it out of the way I could get at the trap

Depends how slim your fingers are, can be difficult to get in there, sometimes you can spin the pedestal out/around a bit but not completely to give the basin some support.

It should be in the trap, not sure what type you have, it’s behind the pillar holding up the basin.

On the subject of doors, I trimmed one of mine into the particle board and just sealed it with coats of varnish, you never see it. If you plant on the bottom it will look different to the other edges so why bother?

Yes a stub sill is better than sitting the frame directly on the stone sill. It may be counter intuitive, but it is better

I've Just had this issue with my build. Turns out the weight of the screed was enough to push the boards down and now feel pretty solid. But......My builders decided that when taping up the seals on the DPC (laid over the insulation to protect the foil) they would also stick said dpc to the wall. That combined with the expansion strip, (also stuck to the wall) around the perimeter meant that everything was pretty dam secure. The problem is that the weight of the screed has pushed down the boards down and left the screed around the edges in an unsupported hammock made of dpc. Moral of the story....use 25mm free moving perimeter insulation, rather than just a expansion strip.

One trick is to lower the ceilings in an ancillary space (e.g. the Hall if it had standard height ceiling) and then put the FCU in the doorways into the important rooms, so it spits into the room through a wall, often via a vent above the doorway. In practice I think this means placing the lintel high (if it's a supporting wall) so the door is full height of the room, then framing it out below the FCU to build out the door frame. This has the added benefit of making the living areas feel bigger as you enter them as you're coming in from the lower ceiling corridor into the taller room. Obviously need to take care about sound leakage through the big hole poked in the wall. Hotel rooms are often built this way too (lowered ceiling in the "lobby area, example) around the door, bathroom, minibar before entering the room itself, and continental apartments often are too. Or using a dropped pelmet around a room. I think in your plans, you could consider lower ceiling in the office (or an area of it) and have the FCU blow into the living room from there. (Need to check the return airflow path is sufficient for that / might have to duct both the intake and supply paths) FCUs work in recirculating mode. In general, if putting the FCU "in" the room it serves, it draws intake air directly from that same room and vents back out into it, generally one or other would be ducted to try and get the in and out vents far enough apart to perturb enough air that the whole room cools down. Putting the MVHR outlet / fresh air supply close to the FCU intake means the FCU has added benefit of moving the fresh air around the room too. (I can show you all of this on a super scale model in an office near Kings X, if we're ever in that area around the same time ?) Take a look at "linear slot diffusers", these can make for a stylish feature. If they continue unbroken along and edge of a room, it doesn't even stand out as M&E services at all. https://www.pinterest.com/rmurphy1981/linear-slot-diffusers/

+1, I had to change my design because of that: Catnic lintels strength comes largely from the masonry within and on top of it. I ended up with masonry hangers, that allowed for the same height but extra row of blocks as required

I had a similar issue recently, found that the lintels should have one course of blocks before wall plate. These lintels are not designed to carry the wall plate directly (or take any fixings).

I've used Formula B in the past, and it did the trick. Make sure bait is protected from non target species and is placed in known rat runs. Also keep bait topped up until it is no longer being taken for a week or so. If using live traps, consider trapped rats can be fairly feisty, and have a plan for how you are going to dispose of them humanely or how you will transport them and where you will release them - needs to be quite some distance away and certain species should not be released. Depending on your location you my find someone who has a good ratter dog or wants some shooting practice

What do the boiler manufacturer's installation instructions say about what you can do with the PRV pipe? Sometimes the MI's have some useful tips.

I have had this cheapo one for sometime https://uk.apemans.com/collections/trail-camera/products/apeman-trail-camera-h60 It's been out in all year round on our site and we've never had an issue. Picture and video quality is decent enough for the money. Poison is a bit cruel for me, we are currently using live traps for mice and letting them go in some woods about a mile away.

Not really, sorry! I'd always try trapping in the first instance; cheap, quick and with visible results (or not), and no risk of secondary poisoning non-target wildlife. Each to their own of course, but why do you want a video of a rat?

Bonjour. Ask as many questions as you need to, it stops us getting bored ?. Better the builder let you down early on, vs half way through when it’s much messier to try and transition away from them. Welcome aboard.

The house needs to submit to the Doocot as the prominent feature of the site, which in itself explains some of your points. What would you do differently to make the most of the underground/retaining wall type move? Funny you mentioned the shower room at the entrance as that's exactly what the latest iteration includes. Added for ref. This one also has dimensions. Oh and the Mormans won't get within 100ft of the house. The moat filled with alligators will take care of them.

Does it have a view from the plot? It's a huge house but I'm not really getting any feeling of personality or big idea behind it, it's dug into the landscape but it doesn't really seem to make the most of that incredibly expensive move, then the ends which are most "exposed" are areas you don't really want in the most prominent bits of the site - I'm sure there's plenty of thought behind all these moves, it's just hard to figure out! Like you've got the strange shaped roofs and then flat ceilings inside, if it's all getting dug out you can look at the volume of the spaces rather than just the plan. I'd also look at having a shower/ mud room at the entrance on the garage. The other (guest) entrance is a bit funny too as your just plonked at the end of the table, you want to be able to control how far into the house some one gets, if the mormans ever come you're in real trouble ??

Well done. Advise the owner to give them a good scrub before use.