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I decided against full RWH fir the build but plan to capture rainwater from the workshop to supplement garden watering using gravity no pumps, simples.

That requires "further investigation" I would be very surprised if it was the actual cable that was at fault. More likely is a a faulty socket or light fitting. The correct procedure is to disconnect all the accessories on each affected circuit and test each leg of the cable. If it's not a faulty accessory it could be a screw has nicked a cable, in which case that damaged cable would need replacing, but highly unlikely to be the whole lot. If this electrician is incapable of testing it like that and just wants to replace the lot, get a different electrician.

You're right. 'Twas easy. Bit of scaf pole, Workmate, counterbalance and pull. Stake in corner at half way point worked like a charm.

As @jack says, with a small bit to add. For materials only, you pay 20% VAT and can reclaim it at the end of your build. For Supply and fit, or labour only, it must be charged at the reduced rate, which is either 0% for a new build, or 5% for a Conversion or a residential refit on a property that's been empty for +10 years. The 5% paid can then be reclaimed at the end of the build. Only VAT charged at the correct rate can be reclaimed.

We've been having some fun with paint wood....wood colour. Thought this might be useful here. This is as far as we got before winter came and stopped play - no cladding to the south gable wall yet, no roof over the deck, and all of our (untreated) C16 busy going black... Step one pressure wash then bleach it all to heck then pressure wash again. https://www.stafor.lv/gb/stafor-white-wood-whitener-bleach I don't have photos of this process - too busy cursing the wind whilst trying to spray bleaching agent from a ladder - but you can see the "as dried" look here. It's...clean but scruffy and covered in a fine "fur" of all the half dead / half digested wood that got half blasted off with the pressure washer. Whilst at this: shadow gap vertical cladding is a fag to fit if you're at all OCD. Wood isn't a consistent width and you can see +/- 1 mm on a nominal 10 mm gap from a mile off. Doing full 6 metre runs is a complete pain. Moreso off a ladder solo. Doable if you'd somethign to stand the end of the board on but would not reccommend! Next step: Scrub...scrub off all the furry bits not with a sander or a wire brush but a metal pan scourer. Paint...with a sponge and cetol 771. This looks like coloured water (incredibly runny) and is supposedly a dispersion of acrylic and alkyd in water. Weird stuff to use; soaks in like a stain then "turns into paint" once it's within the wood itself. (or your clothes, gloves, etc) Ask for "ashen" shade with only 50% of the pigment if you want this "bleached beach wood" tone. Not a clear stain; but a stain that's essentially the same colour as the wood. Top half of this photo is scrubbed wood. Bottom half is the cetol 771-ed wood. This is magic - the proverbial lipstick for pig. From a distance the effect is more visible: Untreated columns and horizontal beams that we haven't got to yet look distinctly "scruffy" vs the rafters that almost look plastic yet are definitely wood as no two are the same. Weatherproof too. (water beads as if they were varnished) The underside of the roof is sarking made from the crappier bits of the cladding used on the south wall with a coat of acrylic facade paint in our standard RAL9005. They're a right mix of crappy little bits but being joined on the top of the rafters you'll never see it. Membrane / battens / membrane (it came in a 50 metre roll...don't have any other use for it) / counterbattens / roof then on the top of that. I wouldn't (offer to) do the vertical cladding again but this cetol 771 is cracking stuff. I'd never have thought to paint the wood wood colour to protect it rather than just painting it with something clear. Props to she who must be obeyed for that one!

Is it true you were apprehended in a Bristol city centre gents with a cordless drill and a set of these? Charged with "Going equipped!" wasn't it?

I have black frames internally and externally...with the exception of the skylights which are white internally...the black was ANOTHER 300 quid option per window. Most places you can't see them together there is two rooms you can though but I will paint the skylight if it bothers me. I've still do to the inside. Attached pictures of limestone white render and black frames.

Yup. If you fully fill between the rafters the membrane ends up flat. You need the counter battens to raise the tile battens off the flat membrane and allow any water to run down.

+1 to this. we used Proctor Roofshield and after consultation with our BCO she said that the air gap can be above the membrane. so we used counter battens and battens on the roof for the tiles and fully filled the rafters with mineral wool (well, almost, 197mm rafters and 190mm mineral wool). just make sure your BCO is ok with it first.

A manufacturer designed my MVHR system (after I designed it first and sent them my version). Pleased with their service. I suspect all manufacturers that sell directly to retail customers will have a design service.

It's definitely worth asking the question. For us (Hertfordshire) the mains water is pumped out of the aquifer which destroys local chalk streams. They dump filtered sewage back into those steams to make up for the abstraction, which further destroys the chalk stream ecosystem. Reducing demand on mains water by capturing rain will clearly and directly reduce the damage to those streams. Also RWH can reduce the runoff to the city drains which also reduces the load on that infrastructure. Affinity and Thames water make great noises about how much they do to save the streams, but at the same time the owners are siphoning off billions of pounds of tax payer subsidised profits via hidden companies in the Bahamas so I have no faith at all that my money handed over to privately owned public infrastructure being good for the local community The economics of RWH never stacked up, but we *very* nearly did it on principal alone. Feargal Sharkey did a talk about it in our local pub and was very persuasive. In the end aside from cost, the final straws that stopped us were realising it will be empty at the exact times our demand was highest and also when the environmental benefit of it would be highest, and admitting to ourselves we'd not keep on top of the maintenance and we'd end up with mouldy toilets. (Our plumber was very adamant about that being an inevitability) Still sad we had to cut it from the build. If a whole street or the local school installed it, maybe it could work more efficiently and effectively.

Awesome. Tips: If you can get U/FTP CAT6 it maybe worth it as the shielding between pairs _may_ help if you run multiple protocols to the switches down one cable (e.g. knx and 1-wire on different pairs) but again it's 99% overkill. Also if you use green jacket for this cable it looks like knx or Tree cable which I thought I cute wheeze, and clearly sets it apart from any other ethernet cables.

Well everyone, it's in, it's level and it's solid as a rock! Thanks to @Nickfromwales and @Temp for their advice, I couldn't be more grateful!

I wouldn’t be stressing over 3mm, 47mm is ample for an air gap.

The better method is make it a proper warm roof. Put the insulation ABOVE the rafters then the membrane counter battens, battens then tiles, and full fill insulation between rafters.

Each to their own of course, but I don't really get what the principle is? Is it a perceived environmental benefit? Don't forget that when you buy your water from your local water supplier, your money is also financing water recycling on a massively more efficient scale, investment in wildlife habitat and biodiversity enhancement, leisure facilities, investment in renewable energy, community support initiatives...

All those standards (and Loxone Tree) run fine over CAT6 so you'll be fine if you put that in to each switch. I used CAT6A purely for larger cores meaning lower voltage drop on 24V power delivery (and also it's a bit more robust for the contractors pulling it through) but I'm sure that was overkill. I was originally going to do T&E to each switch point too, but in the end dropped it as I was going all in with home automation. If anyone wanted to convert to dumb lighting in future they'd just have to rack up a couple dozen SSRs in the cabinet.

I like using counterbattens or drape the membrane so any moisture under the slates can run down the roof and escape , battens touching membrane can lead to rot/crap building up.

At a Victorian cottage I renovated back in the nineties we discovered a large underground brick and render tank that originally stored rainwater. The rainwater was filtered through a two stage sand filter bed and the water in the tank was crystal clear and had obviously sat there for decades unused. We found the original lead pipe that took the water to the old copper. I cleaned the filter bed and installed a pump and used the water for the garden for many years.

Indeed. I think this has been my main problem on my build. I’mroo much of a perfectionist and control freak for my own good, and lose sight of what’s important. I think I will just get the CAT5E cable. It will be 2m of CAT5E patched to 16m of CAT6, so can’t see it making a huge difference. And I’ve got 10 to 20 years to knit that cover for when the “future” arrives and we are all streaming 256k content

Is it going in a trench or through the building fabric. if in a trench just roll it out out along line at side of trench. If through fabric of building I would use a short scaffold pole and a couple of car axle stands, with a spare bloke stabilising it all and helping unwind it while you take the loose end on its travels.

If someone just supplies materials, you have pay the VAT and claim it back once the house is complete and signed off. Supply and fit, and most types of labour-only, must be zero rated at the time of supply. You can't claim back VAT on labour, so it's important you get it zero rated by the supplier when it's invoiced. You can reclaim delivery charges for materials when you claim for the materials at the end. You can't get VAT back on services (eg, surveys, architects) or hire (eg, scaffolding). It can get a bit complicated: hire a digger, you pay the VAT on the hire and you can't reclaim. Hire a digger with operator on the same invoice, they should zero rate both the hire and operator. Hire a digger and pay someone separate on a day rate to drive it? Zero rate the operator, pay VAT on the hire and can't reclaim. I've heard it expressed as taking the lowest VAT rate of any component on the invoice, and applying that rate to everything else on the invoice, which is why it makes a difference whether the operator and digger are invoiced together. I'm sure someone will be along to correct me!

See the weather bar on the french door cils. These doors are 6 years old.

Oak doesn’t ‘need’ finishing. It’s often an aesthetic choice. The lovely golden colour of milled oak soon goes when exposed to the elements. If you oil it, generally it stays golden for 5 or more years but you set yourself up for a life time of maintenance to try keep that golden colour. Osmo is good for this but I have found it is useless on any surface which isn’t vertical. Horizontal weather bars seem to flake, peel and start the greying process.

I must just be a dinosaur then. I put Cat 5 to every room, and so far ONE is in use. A bit like a telephone cable to every room, yes only one of those is in use as well. Everything else works on wifi.

Predrill, and use self-tapping screws (concrete or steel specific) or plugs. https://www.bgs.ac.uk/datasets/radon-data-indicative-atlas-of-radon/ is the simplest, and there is a link to buy a certificate for your postcode. £5.

Dwelling footprint is 125 m² approx. A bungalow. Prices from 2020 through to mid-2021. Foundation design: £1,762, no VAT. Screwpile design was £780 ex. VAT. 26x screw piles were £7,886 ex. VAT. inc. delivery. Screwpile installation was £3,840, no VAT. Raft installation was £‎16,240, no VAT, including the concrete & steel, etc., but excluding the insulation and heave protection panels. Insulation (PIR): £3,421 ex. VAT. Heave protection panels: £2,400 ex. VAT. Hope that helps.

Hi I have very heat sensitive feet. I have lived in numerous apartments with wet UFH system with mix of engineered wood and porcelain tiles. I hate tiles as they always feel cold unless you have the heating higher than what you actually need it. For wood I find it comfortable underfoot as long as the room is a comfortable temperature. If you live somewhere hot, you might like the cool tile in summer, which is when you tend to notice the temperature difference the most:)

Thanks Bit of a strange one with protek Its more than twice the price of one year when paying for two years

We have a lot of oak outside on our house with different finishes... Our paddock gate was untreated and took many years to go silver, along the way it went black and grew green "stuff" on the top rail. You might have to wait 6 years or more before its all silver. Our front door is treated with Sadolin. Coat of Sadolin classic light oak and several light coats of Sadolin Extra Satin Clear on top. Seems to last very well but it doesnt have any horizontal surfaces and those weather faster. We also have a lot of oak beams and posts (holding up porches and framing windows) i really want to keep these a nice honey colour. These were originally treated with Danish oil but that's a right pain. It needs recoating every year otherwise it starts going black as if untreated but slower. I ended up sanding it all off back to new wood. Gave it one coat of Dainish to colour it then three of OSMO UV Protection Oil. This is expensive but seems to last much longer than Danish oil.

If you can't have a proper garden building I would be inclined to site a tatty old static caravan there, and then apply for planning permission to replace the tatty old static caravan with a nice proper garden building of the same size.

My electrician thought I was crazy pulling cat 6a to every bathroom. All our electric toothbrushes charged from PoE. Who's laughing now!

Did they detail what the MSC is? …. Marine Stewardship Council maybe, Midlothian Stolen Cycles? I wouldn’t bank on it being worth the money it costs