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I have the makita planer /thicknesser and as shown above for quite a few years and it’s a great bit of kit, the thing I like most about it is the ability to put old rough timber through it and get lovely smooth dimensional timber out the far side….. i put old pine from scrap furniture through and it comes out priceless, whiskey barrel lids are transformed and old sarking becomes usable for many jobs… run the finished wood through the router and you can make all sorts of lovely bits. I made this picture frame from off cuts of western red cedar cladding that I got out of a skip….. the picture was a jigsaw that my 6 year old did and wanted to keep. Many of my windows are framed in dressed wood that was nothing but scrap before it went through the planer 😁

Good end to the week that. Properly fixed in the frame too.. so I can't undo it now. Thanks chaps. Zooter

Woohoo!

Well.. we're going for it. Of course still a few steps like signing contract but we've called everybody and.. it's off to the races. I'm ... debating.. if I should write a blog on this or not..

On a side note, that all looks very neat and well done. People often treat framing as rough, there is no need for it to be rough.

Its also a requirement of the Building Regs & Appr Doc L to both limit heat losses from the pipes and prevent heat gain in the dwelling

2 of these? Galvanised Concrete in"U" Shape Post Support Heavy Duty for 150mm / 6" Inch Posts https://amzn.eu/d/16tAkXe

Zoot why don’t you build two concrete pads, into the ground and 100mm above ground level with a bit of bar sticking up, drill hole in the bottom of the post and it won’t move.

Can't understand why you would build and not have a structural engineered design and then follow it. I like the Scottish rules, no structural design certificate, no warrant, no build. Keeps everybody right.

This is the thread you want. My advice is to spunk the cash make peace and get on with it. The German prices are infinitely cheaper and then you pay German vat, but they then refund it and you pay uk import duty. I can look out the invoices if required. But for talking sake it was 1500 quid vs 2400 in UK. Madness... I chose the intello rather than the plus, no need for the plus unless you are using it to hold insulation in place like blown cellulose or similar or need it to be stronger. Get the tescon vanadium tapes also.

When I booked the crane I hoped it wouldn’t be raining I’d no idea it would be so hot I got in at 6am two hours before the crane and the heat Hope it’s not as hot tomorrow

They're beats, must have been fun! Looking good

I did not put a slope on this one but have on others, you just have a piece of wood cut to the desired angle that acts as a sledge, you screw your good wood to the sledge and send it through. Obviously making sure the screws are below the planner depth…… yes routed the outside edge to fancy ut up a bit 😁

Less gin, more tonic The 2x2 is ample, relax. This is exactly how most do it. Words from the wise

This how I did mine. Nail into the side of the rafter, so the nails have to shear, rather than just fall out. The center section were skewed nails.

Looks like they had a couple of tools on the front seats of the van.

PIR certainly has its uses. It is cheaper than wood fibre, and will achieve better u values for a given budget and a given depth of build up. The only real compromise is on decrement delay, and sustainability. If I had more space available, I probably would have swapped out my thin layer of PIR backed plasterboard for more wood fibre products, and passed the U value required by our BCO with no PIR insulation at all. But alas we weren’t properly building from scratch, we were renovating an existing 1930s semi and we didn’t have an unlimited budget.

Check which version of the Regs apply. Also Wales (your location?) may be different to England

Yes i think so, this site says: "insulation materials offering a high decrement ‘factor’ include cellulose fibre (7.3 hr), wood fibre insulation board (11.3 hr); whereas materials with a low decrement factor would include low-density mineral fibre (3.7 hr) and polyurethane/polystyrene." I appreciate polyisocyanurate is not exactly the same as polyurethane/polystyrene, but they are similar enough for present purposes. This site gives technical specs of wood fibre and of PIR as follows: Wood fibre Thermal conductivity/ λ (lambda)  W / m . K = 0.038 Thermal resistance at 100mm K⋅m2/W = 2.5 Specific Heat Capacity J / (kg . K)= 2100 Density kg / m3 = 160 Thermal diffusivity m2/s = n/a Embodied energy MJ/kg = n/a PIR Thermal conductivity/ λ (lambda)  W / m . K = 0.023–0.026(18) Thermal resistance at 100mm K⋅m2/W = 4.50 Specific Heat Capacity J / (kg . K) = n/a Density kg / m3 = 30 – 40 Thermal diffusivity m2/s = n/a Embodied energy MJ/kg = 101 (17) Vapour permeable: No That site also has a page which states the following: Thermal Diffusivity Thermal Diffusivity ties the above factors together into an equation that measures the ability of a material to conduct thermal energy relative to its ability to store thermal energy. In effect it is a measure of thermal inertia or ‘buffering’. The equation is: Thermal diffusivity = thermal conductivity / specific heat capacity x density Examples: Rigid polyurethane insulation has a thermal diffusivity of approximately 4.46 x 10-7 m2/s Timber fibre insulation has a thermal diffusivity of approximately 1.07 x 10-7 m2/s Copper has a thermal diffusivity of around 1.11 × 10−4 m2/s In a material with high thermal diffusivity, heat moves rapidly through it because the substance conducts heat quickly relative to its volumetric heat capacity or 'thermal bulk'. In the above three examples we can see that heat races through copper while it moves more rapidly through rigid polyurethane than it does through timber fibre board." (my emphasis) Again, I appreciate polyisocyanurate is not exactly the same as polyurethane, but similar enough. To do the proper comparison, one would need to do the decrement delay cals. We did them and found that PIR wasn't as good as wood fibre. If you're still in doubt, see this site, which says: "For a given U value, wood fibre has almost twice the decrement layer of mineral wool and at least 65 per cent more than PIR. So essentially if you have two walls that have the same U value, it will take twice as long for the heat to get a wood fibre wall as it will through a wall using mineral wool. How that translates to a building is that during the summer you end up with a building that essentially doesn’t overheat. It maintains its internal temperature and stays very stable internally. In volume for volume, flexible wood fibre stores about 12 times more heat than fibreglass and rigid wood fibre boards store about 12 times more heat than PIR, and around 15 times more heat than EPS. So again, on every metric the wood fibre is outperforming the synthetic materials. This creates buildings that are very stable in the summer. You’re reducing your overheating risk, so you’re making the building much safer for occupants. Also that heat absorption lowers heat demand. It can absorb heat during the day and slowly release it during the evening, so again it’s keeping the internal environment much more stable. It’s ability to manage moisture also preserves timber, so wood fibre is able to buffer humidity in walls and even out humidity so that you don’t get accumulations in existing timber. It prevents mould growth and it enables safe refurbishment of building." Note that the insulation in my roof has a significant amount of wood fibre, as well as some PIR. My issues though are that I've not yet blocked out the solar gain coming in through glazing - on the to do list.

Are all the trusses on now? The span looks quite big. I think you will have to wait for Monday for it to cool down.

Under 2021 Appr Doc L there is a requirement for thermal insulation in intermediate heated floors - not onerous however. Prior to this no thermal requirement but acoustic requirement of 100mm mineral wool.

And don't forget to engage the EPC inspector BEFORE you cover up the building insulation to avoid drilling holes in walls later.....🙄

It depends on many things, like what is the construction, steel frame and concrete might have 100mm where steels run but up to 350mm between them. However, I would bet my bottom dollar on it there is not anything like 200-250mm of clear free space. I think you will need a rethink. Things are tight, developers like to minimise wasted height, also developers like to keep buildings under the magic 18m for example as then fire regs are more onerous, fire fighting lifts, maybe sprinkers... so they try and keep it lean, although your development will be well under that (I would presume) architects and developers still stick to a fairly standard building detail. Put it this way, my mechanical consultant colleagues often get called to site to discuss duct routes on flats as the voids are not big enough, even with flat duct! Dare I say it, a fold down TV sounds a bit OTT - save your money, there is a recession coming.

You may find there is only 50mm or maybe 100mm if MVHR, or deeper down lighters are fitted.

I think I know what you mean and I tried something like that and managed to cut one end at 55° but then couldn't do the other end as I'd have to cut to length and then cut the angle as the wood wouldn't feed through to the other end. the skill saw is a pain but it's working so will do for now.

@zoothorn put the three pieces together, rest ends into hangers on Ledger, get 1 or two timbers ready and a few nails. lift outer ledger up to roughly right height (preferably a bit low), temporarily nail a leg to hold it up. stick a nail in hangers near wall, pack outer up to correct position with temp legs.

Spot on. If DC connected, the inverter does the overall limiting whether its from PV, batteries or both. Technically you should tell the DNO about the change of inverter and if the new and old have the same limited output and have a manufacturers cert on the ENA database there'd be no issue

Thanks. This has pointed me in the right direction for my set up: If I am right, 6kW Hybrid Inverter (same kW as existing inverter )with DC battery connection so no need to be reassessed.

Agree on the fewer bathrooms comment. We had 5 in the previous house and plan two in this one. One upstairs in the ‘master suite’ and one shower room downstairs between the two downstairs bedrooms.

Insulate. The pipes will tarnish anyway. In fact insulate a lot. Pipe insulation of the higher quality then box around.

As you need hot water all year round but room heating is seasonal then insulate.

Insulate

+1 must be insulated, temperature of pipes will be hotter than room, so thus would lose heat.

Insulate to increase efficiency of the system,.

We have a recirculating extractor which vents down by the kick board a few feet away from the hob (after going through grease and charcoal filters) in line with an MVHR vent in the ceiling above. The extractor does its own thing regarding speeds, run on time etc. We never boost the MVHR. It all works very well.

It looks like it has been applied by a with the back of a shovel. Was the substrate reasonably flat?

Fridge at 7°C and freezer at -23°C

Its difficult to see from the photos, but you can get dry ridge kits that just have the membrane and clips, and some with support trays. These are the same product but with the addition of plastic support trays that sit under the tiles, on flat concrete tiles you can get away without the trays, but on tiles like yours it is difficult / nearly impossible to get them to line up. The photos look reasonably straight. as this is just a re-ridge / hip, as @nod says there is little you can do with the shape of the existing roof. and the ridge tiles will follow the tiles underneath. The mention of bedding up was referring to when you use sand and cement.

@Babaki think you’ve gone for the right choice. The reality is that your house is well insulated AND airtight. The airtightness will make a big difference as with no draghts, it will take much longer for the house to lose heat once it’s warm. Your avoiding short cycling, which is good. Worst case scenario it takes a bit longer to heat up, but you can compensate for that with a good timer system/smart thermostat.

Recycling: We had to demolish 1/4 of the stone building, and rebuild in stick (kit as they call it locally). The stone was crushed by the demo company, using the jaw basket on the excavator. It all went to make the very rough base of the new driveway for future parking/garage. The roof timbers were cut apart and de-nailed. 20% unusable through worm or rot. The rest was trimmed on the table saw to get rid of the surface worm-holes. Then together with galv roofing salvaged from the courtyard roof, this was the result. The cladding was bought locally at a very good price. It will house the water tank, log store and, so they tell me, sauna!

One our site managers called me 'the skip inspector'. That other MD I mentioned, also took to allowing a limited number of skips per project. He then found that site managers were hiring grab lorries instead....hardly buying into it. But he did spot this so it was stopped. One of our managers got the message, but dealt with it by squashing down the contents with a digger. Good idea but again hadn't got the fundamental principle. He was rather good at recycling copper from a demo though....none of that in the skip. Happy to pass on more tips on request....I got an award for it. Actually it was more for efficiency of design, but it is all waste whether dumped or used unnecessarily.

Yep. It’s what I meant but obviously didn’t word it well! That’s why I thought the document would do the talking for me. 😉 for me it’s perfect as I can start small as funds are rapidly running out and then if I find I need more storage or higher discharge I can add batteries and another Pod to suit. when I finally get this ******* house finished and the batteries all hooked up I’ll report back as to what it’s like and how it all performs. But that could be a while! 😂

Dig a hole to bury the clay? clever. Advice....use your prep time to talk to people. Good tradespersons will have other good contacts. Bad tradespersons will have bad contacts. Builders merchants have business cards up on their walls usually, but that doesn't mean they are good. Look at other projects. Be cheeky and speak to the workers, and the client if possible.

We are four months into our second one We have followed what we have done precisely Muck away cost us 9 k last time This time we have a two acre field and where able to bury all the clay on there If not I would have explored every alternative to paying £300 a wagon to get rid of it Farmers etc we are South facing and I bitterly regret being talked out of MNRH on the first Easy fix on the next one Both previous posters make excellent points Booking trades well in advance without overlap is great advise If you end up with three weeks or so between your electricians finishing and boarders starting Its better than them clashing and upsetting both Last but not least Don’t set unrealistic deadlines for trades and YOURSELF

If relying on the sale of a property to finance it, I would sell the bloody thing before I even started the new build.

I'd take a full year off work, and not have a new child arrive half way through. All the obvious other things apply, finalise more of the details in advance, don't change minds, do networking in advance and have good trades sussed out and booked in well in advance.

Take a daily electricity meter reading at exactly the same time every day and write it down. Then turn off the ASHP completely at it's main power switch (not just the programmer) for 1 day. That 1 day go without showers and boil the kettle if you run out of hot water. Let us know how much the daily electricity drops without the ASHP running. Only then will we know if it's "the ASHP whats taking the power"

You will understand much more when you actually do it. And there are 100's of things you don't know cos you don't know, sometimes until there's a stuff up and you think that doesn't look right... so you research and find out the 100 ways to skin the cat and then wish you'd done something different way back, but it's too late... You have to let some things go in the end, and remind yourself you only care because its your baby, a developer would hide/fudge/compromise/not have worried in the first place and carry on.

A gap that small is a *very* bad idea. It will fill up with gunge with no sensible way of getting it out. How would you deal with a wasps' nest, for example, or an ant hill? Or 2 inches may trap a small animal, such as a teensy cat that falls in. What if it slipped higher up the roof, for example. IMO what you need is to key in to their wall with an agreed roof drainage strategy. I don't envy your conversations with your neighbour. Perhaps try chatting to your local Building Control at the Council - they may talk to you about your issue and have some ideas informally if you are thinking around it. F

I reclaimed old slate from my house and other free bay offerings and then inspected, graded and recut thousands of them to re roof one of my houses ! …….. never again!