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Make sure at least £100 is paid by credit card.

You’d definitely get a performance increase from what you have now (likely air filled DG with aluminium spacer) to (argon filled DG with plastic spacer), but glass prices are high at the moment. Definitely replace the gaskets, adjust the locking mechanisms and take out any beading which has air leakage, it may have just been installed incorrectly (I found this on one of mine, a bit of packer was in the way preventing it from driving home), if the beading is damaged a local window firm should be able to get some, it looks like standard stuff to me, and after all that there’s window film which can achieve some of the low emissivity benefits, and that little lot shouldn’t cost too much. also removing the trims and quadrants can uncover bad jobs which can easily be improved with a bit of time and effort. a few of us on here have used this company, including me, their prices seem fair and you can play about on their website to get quotes without having to go all in…https://www.modernupvcwindows.co.uk

Are they actually registered for VAT though. If they are, they wont even need to pay VAT themselves at point of entry as it always used to be. You just add it to your VAT return at the end of the quarter. To me, this sounds like they are NOT VAT registered. Or they are clueless. Or on the make. As above, is the UK vat, or Polish VAT they want you to pay?

This is all quite concerning, although there is always still a chance there is some honest misunderstanding going on. Brexit has opened up many cans of worms for small companies trading cross-border. That said, none of it is particularly new now and most firms have figured the basics out. Is this your fitter's first time working with the Polish supplier? In my experience tho, sudden requests for extra funds / bringing forward expected payments are more usually to do with cashflow issues than any external pressure... As @Temp said, if you haven't paid any of the bill by credit card then I would start thinking about how to protect your position just in case, and insist on paying some by card if you do agree to pay anything further. It's actually more surprising for this to arise for an import because as above, so long as they do the paperwork right, they do not have to ever actually pay any VAT on the supply. They just put the number in one box of the VAT return, and the same amount in another box, and it ends up at zero. So the cashflow challenge that would normally arise on a self-build (pay supplier 20%, bill customer 0%, be out of pocket until the next VAT return) does not exist. Unless I suppose something has gone wrong with your supplier's VAT registration and HMRC have refused to allow them to use the postponed accounting method, but I'm not sure they have the power to do that. I just double checked the guidance again at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/check-when-you-can-account-for-import-vat-on-your-vat-return and it would seem literally all you have to do is be a VAT registered business importing for business purposes, and then on the import declaration tick a box to say so and provide your VAT registration number.

Feel sorry for you @KTB. But you are getting 100% confirmation from lots of us that your knowledge is accurate re VAT rules. Sounds like your installer might have a cash flow issue. I’m sure we’ve all encountered contractors who are unfamiliar with self build VAT rules but surprised at a window fitter , unless he’s a small business r never installed in self builds.

Tip for others If you are ever given a quote "Inc Vat" or "plus VAT" always request a new quote that reflects the zero rated status before accepting it. It's always easier to get this done before you've accepted it.

You might consider offering the UK company a "certificate". Theses are essentially a letter from you to the company certifying that their supply and fit is for a new dwelling that qualifies for zero rating. It should state that and give all your contact details, the site address and the planning reference number. Officially HMRC doesn't need a certificate (unless it's a charity building ?) but they can sometimes smooth problems like this. These certificates are mentioned in VAT708 and there is/was a template certificate as well but it needs a lot of editing. Several people on here have produced one.

The contract is with the UK registered company only. We are digging our heels in and refusing to pay the UK VAT.

https://community.hmrc.gov.uk/customerforums/vat

The answer he got from hmrc depends on what information he gave them. If he missed some detail then he will get the wrong answer. I suggest you ask in writing on the HMRC VAT help forum. Make sure you tell them you are a self builder employing someone on a supply and fit basis and that the supplier is doing the importing. I agree with others. He should pay the VAT and reclaim it by deducting it when he makes his VAT return. He must zero rate the windows and installation to you because you cannot reclaim VAT paid in error. The only exception would be if you ordered the windows yourself from Poland with the "help" of the installer. Perhaps not consciously - check the small print in the contract. Is it all with supplier/installer or do you have a contract with the Polish manufacturer?

means it’s not fitted properly and not had clips or tape applied..

Our architect asked if we would talk to a journalist in the local paper for a bit of publicity. I said yes as they have been very good and I was happy to do them a favour. It turned into a full feature with photos and much more quotes from me than I anticipated. I cringe a bit reading it but if you are interested it's here https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/lifestyle/property/3974146/inside-black-fox-barn-a-stunning-new-build-woodland-home-in-angus/ There is a paywall wall but just hit the blue x on the bottom banner and you can access it.

A few questions: * I assume your supply/fit company is registered for UK VAT? * Who actually has the contract with & is paying the Polish company? * Are you being asked to pay Polish VAT or UK VAT? I'm not fully up to speed on post-Brexit import VAT for goods but my understanding is: * The Polish company should not be charging any Polish VAT as there is no VAT due on goods for export from the EU. * There will be UK VAT to pay when the goods arrive in the UK. Freight agents commonly charge this upfront. Assuming your supplier is the importer and is VAT registered then they can opt to use postponed VAT accounting for the import VAT. With this: * They provide evidence of their VAT registration to allow the goods to come in without paying any import VAT at that point. * On their next VAT return they declare the import VAT and simultaneously reclaim it as input tax. So they never actually pay anything out. * They would normally then charge you VAT when they sell you the windows, but in this case as a new build supply and fit they can zero-rate that. So in theory assuming your fitter is technically speaking buying the windows and reselling them to you and is VAT registered then no VAT should need to change hands from anyone although I think there may well still be import duty. However if your fitter is not VAT registered or is acting as your agent (and you are paying the window supplier direct) then there will be UK VAT to pay before the goods can clear customs. Which presumably you would eventually be able to reclaim from the self-build scheme like any other goods-only purchase.

He pays the VAT and "claims it back" through his normal procedures. He charges you the contract value. Which if he is VAT registered will include VAT, which in this case should be 0%.

Correct, if he is importing them, and you are paying him a price to install and fit the windows, if you pay the VAT to him you have ZERO chance of claiming it back from HMRC. it’s down to him to sort it out, namely for him to pay the VAT and claim it back or whatever businesses do. My windows were imported from Denmark. I chose what I wanted and got a quote which was passed to my builder who ordered the windows. No VAT was ever paid by me. I assume that’s a similar arrangement and you haven’t paid any deposit to the supplier or ordered the windows yourself. Assuming you haven’t paid any money up front you are in a strong position.

Do you have a contract with your supplier for the windows at an agreed price?

Outdated pile of bullshit. Are these guys in their 90’s or something ? You can discharge D2 internally into a waterless trap, providing the pipe into which that discharges is a modern product that can receive high temp water for ‘short’ periods. You need to challenge these muppets. Prob find their forwarding address is Stonehenge. Ffs.

Running extension cables across the ground or even in a trench on a building site isn’t a great idea. What a lot of us have done is rather than creating a temporary electricity supply on the plot then moving it to the house (so increasing the cost) we just build a permanent kiosk/meter box on the perimeter out of the way and leave the meter and fuse there then run SWA to the house. It’s what I’ve done and it’s worked out a very cost effective solution for us. My kiosk has the meter, fuse, a small CU, and four 3 pin plug sockets.

Not really. Radiation happens at all frequencies, or wavelengths, if you prefer. Some frequencies are absorbed better by some elements (bond strength, orbital paths/angles/distances). Marketing loves it when people do not understand physics and think that a seemingly simple, and rational explanation, explains it all. The biggest problem with Infrared heating is it cannot run at a high temperature, so needs a lot of area. This causes the ratio between the emitter to the receiver to be large. It makes no difference to the amount of energy needed to heat an object, but the power delivery, the W/m² is low. Just heating the air in the building is probably best. That way, we breath in warm air.

Sounds like prime https://www.reddit.com/r/TVTooHigh/ territory.

Supply and Fit - on a newbuild - is Zero rated. If you are a Domestic Client and you get charged VAT, and you pay it for a supply and fit contract, then you will have to claim that VAT back from the supplier. Read this (full post here) Read the Guidance Notes on the VAT reclaim form

Just pick a cylinder say 300l and get the docs and send them in. Makes no difference whether you actually use that cylinder later. All the real info goes into the EPC. It will be when you look at the drawings for your house, it will just show a cylinder with no details.

What's the timescale of fitting the AAV relative to the date you took your photos of the condensation? With so much water vapour entering the loft from emptying baths etc. I would expect it to take days or weeks to get humidity levels back to normal.

From what i've read previously, you'll definitely need to pay the VAT, which you'll reclaim at the end of the project. Not totally sure about Duty. Have a read of this: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/jan/21/eu-website-purchases-the-import-charges-uk-customers-have-to-pay And a calculator https://customsinsights.co.uk/duty-vat-costs/

If you tried that with me at the moment while I was at home you would get the same. SMS messages don't seem to queue up like say emails, so if I drive into town and get a phone signal, only recent messages are there, older ones are lost. He may have lost or broken his phone. So try landline or physically knock on his door. Try phoning his mobile from a number he does not know to test your "blocked" number theory.

I've driven past this a few times now - I thought it was a new public building of some sort! Somehow it's more hideous and out of place in-person. Having dealt with Midlothian's planning & building control department for the past year or so I'm completely unsurprised that they wouldn't have picked up on this. They are seriously understaffed - haven't had a BCO out even once since we broke ground. Genuinely curious if they'll actually be forced to tear this thing down or if they'll manage to solve it with a few banknotes in the pocket of the right person.

Pay £8k more than you need too to save £5k through the BUS? Not the way I’d go but each to their own. Have you got a heat load for the property yet? That’s the first port of call.

I went with the Hauper that @Chanmenie linked above. So far so good and came with a fully charged battery which was a nice touch. It has lots of features I haven't learnt to use yet.

Normally 200 I wouldn’t worry about 10 mil either way

If it was last used to store domestic stuff, then it's last use was not agricultural - so would not qualify. If you took all the stuff out now, would anyone know?

At last, a good application for E-paper

"Home is rated A, with running annual costs reduced to £11 thanks to the solar panels." Er, that's got to be BS surely? Annual means getting through winter with weeks where there may be no solar. £11 of gas is 100kWh which won't meet the hot water demand alone.

It's fine that they're including IR panels in their experiments, but this stuck out: Two competing heating systems are being tested inside: an electric-based system utilising infrared panels, some of which are disguised as ceiling coving, as well as a water-based system that uses heated skirting boards combined with an air source heat pump. “As we put these really warm coats on to our homes, we don’t need as much energy to heat them,” says Novakovic. “So the big question we’re asking is, do we do it with heat pumps and hot water or with electricity?” Aside from the fact that both ASHP and IR panels are "doing it with electricity", it seems ridiculous to bill this as the big question that justifies the £16M project... Once again the main story about fabric first build quality has been lost in the debate around which bit of fancy tech we can add on top to heat an already low enery demand building.

Thanks! What I don't show is the inside of the garage. It's a different story!

Hi everyone I'm new to the forum I have been looking for a plot of land for a self build for the past 3 years in Lancashire but haven't had any luck. I have a young family and both myself and my husband are project managers. We have dreamed about a self build for years and have recently completed renovating our current home to give us more equity for a self build. Our current issue is finding a plot of land that is affordable. Do they actually exist? We can buy an average sized 4 bedroom newbuild home for around £300k but every piece of land we come across is £150-200k or more so we couldn't afford to actually build a home. Our total budget is £300k. Has anyone ever found a piece of land under £100k and have any advice? Or do I need to realise it's just not an affordable option for us. We're on the self build register will our local councils and look in usual places plot browser/ Rightmove etc. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks

You have to be careful with this construction as any joist/roof truss ends may be susceptible to condensation, especially if any extra internal insulation moves the dewpoint.

That brickwork hasn't been touched since construction so I doubt there's a lintel there. It'll be arching over and the upvc carrying some load - does the door stick at all? Now is the time to do it. Would take a builder half a day to sort out.

Thats not the main question - very far from it. The problem is much deeper than that. The key issues here are attitudes to problem solving, and having sufficient humility and emotional intelligence to work with other people: difficult people by your own description. Lets see if I've got this right. Two groups of people, who don't get on with one another, are in dispute about a wall. If nobody does anything at all, over time, the wall will collapse. If nothing is done about that, you will lose some benefit from the land. Now, there is a choice between; Do nothing Argue the matter in the courts Rebuild the wall yourself Rebuild the wall with your neighbour The first choice means everyone loses The second choice means everyone loses and everyone pays a lawyer's mortgage for a month or two. Third: you spend some money and time, probably less than a lawyer's fees. In the third choice, you get a grip of your own emotions, and start to build a relationship with your neighbour. Little steps. Over time. And in maybe a year or two, you might just be able to agree to work on the project together. Maybe even share the cost. Who knows, you might even make another friend. It'll be hard. But you'll be proud of yourself. You'll have achieved something rare. A victory in the fight you have with yourself. For all of us, that fight is the only fight worth having.

Hi, welcome to the forum. I doubt you could build a 4 bed house for £200k these days. Would have to be a compact developer style box. Remember stamp duty, bank fees, soliticitor, architect, utilities etc. It's at least 10-15% of your construction cost. Where will you live during the build? There's £30k gone before you start digging. If you could get a plot for £80k, avoid stamp duty, have utilities very close by, live on site in a caravan, and be happy with a 150m² box that you mostly build yourself, then it's possible. A wild shot is to take a punt on some agricultural land, and play long game at getting planning permission. Wish you all the best in your plot hunting.

You would ideally prop/jack up the joist and plywood combination until the glue and fixings are in place. Else you're adding dead weight without getting the section strengthened.

On the positive side. Problem seen and sorted rather than built in. A good day.

Apart from the heat problem I always thought that we should not look at screens above our normal field of vision. Indeed they are supposed to be slightly below it. That is why tv units are so low. Surely above the mantlepiece is too high for comfortable viewing?

https://www.theheatpumpwarehouse.co.uk/shop/heat-pumps/air-source-heat-pumps/5-kw-panasonic-aquarea-high-performance-mono‑bloc-j-generation-1-phase-r32-wh-mdc05j3e5/ Change of £2500 with a controller, weather-comp built in etc. Super quiet, and an all inclusive mono block. Cracking bit of kit for the money, I’m very impressed with the ones I’ve installed to date. I’d install this plus a HP UVC now, as you’ll defo regret it in 5-10 years eg after it’s too late to recover the spent ( ever rising in price ) electricity. I used to be a fan of an all electric ( non-HP ) PH, but after seeing how ( exceptionally ) well these units perform and the unarguable CoP values…..not any more. No ma’am. Add slab cooling as a residual ( free ) bonus, and it’s a zero brainer. Introduce an EV and attempt to charge that during daytime pockets of ‘excess’, and then you’ll be saying a very long “goodbye” to every ounce of excess previously earmarked for “other diversion”. That means either the majority of your DHW comes from the grid, or, you opt to charge the EV to near full overnight, and only use it to capture any excess during the day by tethering routinely and filling the remaining ‘gap’ you’ve purposefully left. Unless retired that’s a little impractical in honesty. PV into a HP as a multiplier is the logical path, giving up to 3x the revenue per kWp of roof space. Turns a 4kWp array into a 12kWp equivalent. Couple this with; both heating an oversized UVC and charging the slab from cheap rate EV tariff, and you’ll be sub 5p/kW for a huge chuck of the winter heating and DHW, where PV output will diminish to less than 25% of the net micro-generation. Measure twice, cut once 😉

I wasn’t going to guess a figure But my friend has paid about that as he simply couldn’t sell his plot We had delivery yesterday of a hundred ridge tiles and the driver was refusing to take them round the back of the house Even though we have footage of a crane going round there Any excuse Your right to try to deal with it now Many people just put it off

The Bristolian school of Pocsterism dictates one's computer monitor should not be visible to anyone entering the room.

Likely tidier than the inside of my house. There's a couple on here who could attest to that

Agreed. I've met people who made it. No further comment.

Good morning and welcome, I tried answering earlier but couldn’t find the end of the post

Good morning. Congratulations on the longest (almost empty) message ever posted on this board. I suspect your cat stood on the <Return key> before you posted your message.