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Well our builder was a crook and we lost a lot of money. Happened just at first lockdown. Luckily enough that meant working from home for 18months so de camped to the site and built it myself and skived work as much as possible. Doing video calls whilst in a building with no roof in the rain.... Said wifi was too slow so did voice only lol. 2years on and next week we are getting BC in for final sign off. Looking back, I now know the original quote was miles too low, if we had paid a proper builder it would have cost a lot more than we have spent even allowing for the money we lost from the original crook. Oh and we were renting locally, they decided to sell and wanted it empty so we moved into the house in Oct 2020 with no heating, no internal walls, no plasterboard, temp stairs, temp electrics and a site toilet.... Didn't even have any cladding on the outside, so it looked like a giant purple quality street with the vapour wrap on. That was a Grim winter huddled around a couple of electric radiators. But, and for us this was critical, we never fell out of love with the site. 2 acres of woodland, our house in the middle and a 10 min walk to the centre of looe and the beach. Oh, and access is via a very narrow and steep road, I can just, and I mean just, squeeze my Toyota hilux onto site. So everything had to be brought in on that. I will never forget putting in 240 sheets of 18mm OSB on my own. And plasterboard, my god the fireproof stuff is heavy for 1 person. 140mm woodfibre external insulation, also bloody heavy. Never had any scaffolding on site, as I was on my own I worked of a decorators platform, dodgy as hell but never fell off! Never had any skips, cant get em on site lol. And as of last week told work I am taking early retirement at the end of this year. I can afford it, just. Retiring poor, but just affordable. Going to enjoy the building and location this summer for the first time, all worth it! I can certainly say, without this site I wouldnt have known half the stuff I do now and sharing pain is great ?

Please read the post below carefully, and consider how you are posting and responding here. This is not an extension of political discussion from elsewhere.

I see dark days ahead. Double digit inflation, but without the double digit interest rates we need so your savings stand a little bit of a chance keeping up. Energy crisis (as if we don't have one already) FOOD shortage. Yes seriously. Ukraine is a major food exporter. Nobody likes uncertainty, it would not surprise me if the housing market in the UK tanked now. (and we still haven't sold our old house yet) The move to green energy and CO2 reduction will take a back seat. ANY energy will do even if it is not green. From a personal point of view my main worries now are I don't think i am yet above the age for conscription if it all really goes bad, and my comfortable planned retirement soon is looking less comfortable and less certain. I am more worried now than at any point in the cold war. Sorry to sound a sombre tone, I don't see much to give me optimism.

So many of us on here go through this, it seems to be a right of passage for a proper self-builder. In case it's any consolation at all, I'm also probably a year behind, I gave up one of my businesses to do the build myself and last week after paying my latest credit card bill realised we have about £300 left of our total budget (and yes, that's the correct number of zeros). Knew it was tight when we started and I'd hoped to at least get the heating system and temporary electrics moved to permanent and sorted before running out of money, but will now have to save for those. I can't start up the business again as it would take at least 18 months to see any real income. My builder is rubbish too as he's sat drinking tea, writing rubbish on here right now when he should be doing something useful in solitude on the site - yes, everything moves slowly here ? Sanity and health must prevail, so really do try to relax into the process, have a drink and know it'll all seem worth it when it's done! ?

Just heard that Italy have surrendered I ??

AND to start drilling CAMBO. Yes we need to move away from fossil fuel, but to not drill our own and instead buy from "abroad" is not proving to be such a good idea is it? I note many of the mothballed drilling rigs that have been in storage in the Cromarty Firth for years have departed. Have they actually gone out to do some drilling? Nothing would give me more pleasure right now than if we (the whole of Europe) were able to say no we don't need Russian oil or gas any more.

this war is surely the sign to unblock planning applications for wind farms and tidal dams like the swansea bay project ,so we will not as reliant on gas sooner and accelerate towards a zero emissions we have to go there anyway - and yes prices will go up -- making me even more worried about my project costs and If will be able to afford to do it. anybody know an oligark who wants to fund my hpuse and can have it when I die .LOL I don,t see housing prices going up at all for a long time , maybe could make plots cheaper ?

I rarely use a wholesaler. I dislike the non transparent pricing, variable discounts, and even having to haggle over each purchase like you are trying to buy a kitchen. What did it for me was one job I was trying to buy some downlights, they only had half what I needed and their best price seemed high. In disgust I went next door to toolstation and got the lot for half what the wholesaler wanted. I have hardly been back since. So 90% of my stuff comes from Screweys, toolstation, CPC and TLC. SWA I have got some good deals sometimes from random sellers on ebay.

We’ve been using it multi finish for over 30 years

Less is always more, especially where colour and finishes are involved. Muted tones with a single accent colour used throughout etc. Take a look at an Apple Store - plain white and wood - always looks high end provided the detail is spot on. However, it's your pad so do what you like and what makes you happy, but if you want to appeal to the masses at sale time then neutral is always best. Our most commented two finishes are 1) the resin floor which feels great underfoot and is a monolithic surface, no joints etc and 2) the stringless stairs which look just as good from underneath as they do from above. Rest of finish is pretty bog standard but we also used MK white sockets & switches everywhere (aside from brushed satin in kitchen on the glass splash back) as they are very well built but also are not that noticeable.

The manufacturer quoted u values assume that the installation is perfect, a continuous layer with no imperfections, no gaps, and no air movement. in reality you’ll knock it and damage bits when you put it in damaging the structure, you can of course make it airtight and gap free, which you need to do, and you’ll have have a psi value to consider, in that there will be thermal bridging in some areas, which can be mitigated by installing more insulation where this occurs. Also remember that any foil side must be followed by a 25mm airtight gap to make use of the foil for low emissivity, otherwise I’m pretty sure it just becomes a conductor being metal, read this a while ago somewhere, makes sense really

Real problem for me Ian Ive two Ukrainian brothers that do my taping Both are going back to fight Fiercely patriotic and get really upset when people refer to them as Russians Its a very bad situation Boris and Joe at the helm doesn’t inspire confidence Where is Donald

To me it's all detail that makes a house good or bad. I like to see good quality finishings, nice flat walls, nice crisp corners, good well finished joinery, everything fits just right ANY kitchen worktop apart from cheap laminate with those horrible corner joining strips etc. Good doors and door furniture. Nice stairs and balustrades. Switches and sockets, anything can look good if well fitted, what always stands out to me as "tacky" is expensive flat plate ultra thin sockets fitted to a tatty old wall that is anything but flat, and with gaps in the plaster around the socket. I guess most think of lots of glass, big sliding doors or bi folds, glass balustrades and "pointy gable end windows" as things that make it a "grand design"

But it does illuminate the crumbs on the floor rather artistically.

Heard that a few times - down here there are a Toolstation, Screwfix and CEF within 500 yards of each other and you see a lot of the smaller contractors not using CEF any more as prices are better in the chains

This was the main reason I went with cast in situ concrete (i.e. shuttering) for my basement vs ICF. Due to a low water table, SE signed off on a single waterproofing barrier, the concrete, so it needed to be executed perfectly. We have a warranty from Sika as the contractor used their system (admix, jointing strip & hole plugs) but the work needed regular inspection & sign off by the Sika rep. It does add significant labour cost and is not a DIY option but we were very happy with the result - the crew were rigorous with the pour and powering and we could see the quality when each panel was struck, no voids and no 'marshmallow' finish. I applied 200mm EPS 70 to the front face of the concrete using LE foam before backfill, the slab was cast on 300mm of EPS 200 so we had a contiguous insulation layer that the passive frame above could tie into. GRP light wells from MEA came with their own 200mm XPS insulation collar & adhesive and were quite easy to fit - just needed to cast a suitable aperture in the wall and pop a window in afterwards.

Triple aim for 0.8 on an opening window, for the whole window not the glazing. Double 1.2, but they are difficult to find. Ask for full u value calcs before you agree to buy, as many salesmen try to talk glazing u value, not whole window.

And the reading was?

Indeed, see my graph posted above, that is the fusing curve of a BS88 (what they fit in the fuse carrier of just about every fused supply in the land) 80A and 100A. To get a 100A BS88 to fuse within 1 second (which is slow) you would need nearly 800A. They will of course fuse within 0.1s at about 1000A which is basically instantaneous short circuit protection.

I think lighting along kitchen kick plate looks daft certainly not fancy.

Seems well covered but I've done a few recently. 15mm tee. Short length of copper pipe and one of these valves.

Not everyone agrees but compression fittings on plastic are used by some (me) make sure you use an insert. https://www.screwfix.com/p/compression-washing-machine-valve-tee-15mm-x-15mm-x/60723

Sounds interesting on a number of fronts. 1. Controlling a 13Amp socket from a light switch feels like (is) the wrong thing to do - the power handling requirements don't match. 2. Who, in the middle of the night, wants to wake up, fumble for their glasses, find their phone, load the app, locate the lamp (from the 54 others in the house) and turn on the wifi lamp, only to discover that the cloud server running the WiFi lamp from lord knows where is off line for maintenance, OR alternatively, shout 'Alexa turn my bedside lamp on please' thus waking the partner / kids / dog and it won't work anyway because Alexa cannot distinguish your voice from anybody else's without a lot of work and then you have to remember to always sleep on the same side of the bed! 3. There was a third but I lost my thread sorting the second. A simple switch, or double - one by the bed and the other at the door, feeding the 5A socket sounds so much simpler. Naturally you can, alternatively, feed each switch back to your homes CNS (Central Nervous System) and let the Rasberry Pi / Loxone / ???? send the signal to the SSR (Solid State Relay) then wire it back to the socket - many options then become available, none of which you will ever use although maybe, in the future, when you have moved out a Gentleman or Lady of the night might find the whole control possibilities thing amusing either for them or their client(s). Anyway - keep it stupidly simple (KISS - remember. AND yes I know that is not the right way to define KISS but implied insults, on a day like today, seem so unnecessary.)

Did you have an AT test? Parge needs to be done before joists / wall plates go in / on, and before floor ( deck ) boards go down, to get to all the areas that are often overlooked. This kind of detailing is why one project just got 3.02 ach and another 0.88. If going for wet coats vs dot n dab then the parge can just be done to get the interior to a point where the plasterer is laying onto just a ribbon of parge and that will be a top job. To achieve air tightness you need to understand all the places which get overlooked and know where to focus your attention. Very easy to get “almost right”, which is basically pointless starting at all.

Parge coat. 25kg cement, 75kg builders sand, 3 shovels hydrated lime. Enough water to give double cream consistency.

If you carry on, I'll buy another £5 worth of capital letters to tell you to fcuk off We're making progress, stop with the negative waves, baby.

Here you go mate. As you can see from the box they came from Manthorpe - the merch will be able to source them for you. The sudden summer makes life hard on site when it comes out of nowhere btw!

Drink more you big tart!

I think "kerb" appeal is the first thing. White upvc windows always look 'cheap' - or a budget front door. I also find walk on glazing makes a house look expensive ( especially if you have to purchase it effectively twice )

Of course taste is hard to debate. A person from a worker family who came into money would probably "bling it up", Trump comes to mind - "A poor man's idea of what a rich man looks like" - gold and purple accent lighting and tvs up the wazoo - https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/gallery/donald-trump-gold-apartment - where a person from a landowner royalty would just staple a deer against every wall and call it a day. "who do you want to impress" As for @markc's point - big difference between the white tiles you'd find in a government building toilet and e.g. this modern thing: And of course as @Mr Punter says - "It tends to be that these first get fitted in expensive houses, then they become ubiquitous, then they fall out of favour." but I would add that is probably more true for "ultra fashionable" like the bathroom above. I think that one will fall out of style fairly quickly, so you'll have to commit to refreshing your entire house every 10 years.. or just be old and stuck.. I go for classics