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Possibly too late now but for others i recommend writing down what the BCO has approved verbally and any changes or issues raised at every visit. Before he leaves ask him when you should call him back. Then that evening send him an email or letter to confirm what was agreed. You know something like.. Thank you for the visit today which we found very helpful.. Just to confirm you were happy with abcd but require us to address efgh by doing xyz. and would like us to call you back for the next site visit when we have done pqrs but before tuvw. Keep the subject field the same (use your site address?) so its all one thread in his email system.

It's an old Donegal stone cottage, more quirky than quick fix but it was cheap enough. I'm not using block work, like for like where needed using matching stone

If its a case of what had been built does not match the submitted drawings, then it might be a matter of just providing these. Happens all the time, things change, can't put a pipe where you intended. While the work was passed as being "fine", the paper work needs to reflect what was built. That was the issue we had.

It won’t help you now But for anyone else Don’t use private companies for BC Local Authority are cheaper and will call out the same day Your best and cheapest option is to go back to your SE and ask him to verify the work that’s been carried Once your inspector has that bit of paper he can crawl back under his rock

Stratherrick, to the southeast of Loch Ness, squeezed in between all the wind farms! Can't currenlty see any turbines, but I suspect that will change as more are added.

Greetings on a miserably rainy Sunday October morning. Perfect weather for catching up on some blog writing! As the title suggests this blog will be about our external coverings of the house and, by the end of it, the outside of the building will be pretty much finished allowing us to crack on internally. We started many months ago by battening the outside of the buildings. As we are having external blinds and they have a requirement for fitting the blind cassette we needed a large gap between the house walls and the outside of the cladding. This meant 50mm x 50mm timber battens and counter battens. We did this ourselves and saved many thousands and, even though it was slow going (as, it seems, everything is when you do it yourself!), it was very satisfying with the carpenter saying that it was good work and he’d seen chippies do a lot worse jobs than we did. Nice warm fuzzy feeling ensued. We are having a mixture of burnt Siberian larch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakisugi) and, to contrast the black, standard Siberian larch on the ‘arms’ of our property and entrance porch (all will be revealed in photos below) and I ordered all the cladding to be delivered on-site prior to the carpenter starting. The carpenter started on the garage using the standard Siberian larch which we bought from Jewson at a very reasonable price, and quite a bit cheaper than we could get from the usual timber cladding suppliers and we are very happy with the quality of the wood. He then went on to the black charred larch (which gets everywhere and he and his tools looked like they’d been in a coal mine by the end of each day!). We purchased the charred larch from Permachar (https://permachar.co.uk) who gave us a brilliant price. The wood itself was burnt and delivered from Lithuania (https://degmeda.eu) but they will only sell to the UK via Permachar. It is stunning wood, but incredibly fragile and any sort of dragging or scraping will cause the black char to flake off. While he was busy doing that and while the scaffolding was up I thought it a good time to get the guttering started. Our architect specified Zinc guttering and after a lot of thought and looking at stainless steel and zinc we also decided that zinc was the choice for us. We ordered it from Rainclear (https://www.rainclear.co.uk/guttering/copper-zinc-guttering/guttering-fittings.html?color=235) who offer next day delivery if in stock and were incredibly helpful and very well priced. It’s also a clip on system which even I managed to install without any major issues! Around the same time and while the carpenter was busy putting the cladding up our external blinds got fitted. We bought those from a local company called Powell blinds (https://powellblinds.com) who stepped in brilliantly at the last minute after we were seriously let down by Cornerstar Aluminium (long story which I won’t get in to here). The blinds are fitted up behind the cladding above the windows but externally so they will be hidden from view when lifted up. We absolutely love them and during the heatwave this summer we lowered them and this drastically reduced the temperature inside the house. There was still one large south facing window that didn’t have blinds that needed shading. We wanted and the architect designed a Brise Soleil in this area but all we had to go on was a 2D drawing. I contacted a few companies about getting one made and installed and the quotes came back at between £6k - £7k! A figure we simply could not afford. So I did research and spoke to a local forge called Horsham Forge (https://www.horshamforge.co.uk) with an idea I had. He said ‘that could be done but how about this instead?’. He suggested brackets with a pole running through them and vertical timbers slid on. Genius! On to Sketchup where I draw up the brackets and gave them to the forge to be created and spoke to my timber manager at Jewson who procured me some thermowood at the size I needed and got my carpenter to fit it and it cost me £1700 in total. So we saved around £5k by doing it ourselves and we also enjoyed the journey and got a solution that we designed (with the help of the forge of course). We think it looks fab and it does a good job of shading from the sun apart from a couple of hours when the sun is directly facing that side of the house. So we will still get some solar gain but it is definitely reduced and it’s a brilliant architectural feature. 😉 Right, while all this was going on the chippie was finishing up the cladding and now that it is all finished and I have put the downpipes on we have an almost finished external facade to our dream home. We love it and think it’s stunning. So very happy with the carpenter’s work (http://www.kmlcarpentryandroofing.co.uk). Kieran’s attention to detail at the junctions between the 2 types of wood is fabulous as it is in other areas too. He would also discuss any issues and potential solutions with us to make sure we were happy with them rather than just doing something he thought was right. Hopefully the pictures below do it all justice! (Note: please ignore the 110mm brown downpipe in the below photo! It will eventually be a rain chain but this works for now. 😉 ) Thanks for reading and we hope you like what we’ve achieved so far.

You can have a stair type handrail supported from the stairs not attached to a wall. It could (cough) disappear after sign off.

If it’s timber then the backer board is the best plan

Lovely day today for the garage floor pour. Garage gets delivered next week. Brickies back tomorrow to build the retaining wall. Drainage to finish off this week. Then a general tidy up and hardcore all down around the site and machines off by the end of the week. Give the ground a chance to settle a bit before the kit arrives in three weeks.

Yes you can look it up on YouTube. Just a series of holes drilled in the frame and the plastic vents fixed over.

Welcome. Did you research the well known mica issues with some builds in Donegal??

lol - I'm used to working with diva programmers. A mate of mine, who worked for us quite a bit, charges £1,500/day. He knocks 25% off for charities and carbon-negative companies, and another 25% off if he gets to work with his favourite things. He'll reduce his rate by £100-200 a day if he doesn't have to use a Windows laptop. So basically, if you're a god-awful crusty enterprise bank, you pay full rates, and if you're a hip startup you pay less.

Yes you can skim backer board, what’s behind the board? Unless it’s a void then good old browning and then skim

Running a Viessmann 200W without weather compensation is a crime against humanity, any installer putting in one without weather comp is a cowboy. Has he set it up as a 4 pipe system with hot water priority like it's designed to be? That's the whole reason the boiler is so expensive because it comes with weather compensation out of the box, It's like buying a Lambo and limiting the engine to 150bhp. Heating systems in Germany and Holland are mandated to be used with weather compensation, we are lightyears behind here Viessmanns are best run continuously at a low flow temperature, with no room thermostats and the ufh manifolds should be low temperature ones controlled by electronic mixing valves not the crappy high temp one on the manifold I've never owned a Viessmann but my Vaillant has holiday mode I'm certain Viesmmann has the same.

Dot and dab quick and easy unless you need to cut channels in the dense blocks for cables or pipes. Then the service void with battens would be handy

Welcome Niall. Love County Donegal. Just to let you know, we love pictures.

There is a common misunderstanding. A bco is no replacement for quality control and expert management. They do spot checks and concentrate on certain issues. Saying that drains look ok does not mean they are. Signing off the job does not mean it isn't full of unseen or even concealed problems. The fabrication of steel is not something they are trained for. If one says nothing it doesn't mean it is ok. If the next one says he has concerns then so should you and get it looked at. The SE should be looking at the steel, or the Architect at a push. The best bco i engaged was private. It meant we got the same person every project, whichever council it came under. I had far more issues with LAs when we tried them again, mostly claiming there were problems when there werent; I think an arrogance from authority over little builders. Not all of course and they all recanted. Unnecessary? Looks like you have had issues! But that does remind me of a couple.

Mange your Inspector. How? Evidence. Request copies of the original Inspectors Notes (they have to keep records ) Take your own contempraneous notes: phoographs, videos, recording, written notes Send copies of those notes to the Inspector Ask the new Inspector to request and refer to the original Inspector's file notes. Long term Sickness cannot not refer to the notes that (should have?) been taken.

After each visit you should get a report that sets out the work seen and the approval to move forward - they will have photos taken at the visits at the very least so as long as you have evidence of a visit and such followup you should be OK. The verbal approval is possibly more tricky but again you presumably have evidence you sent the photos (emails etc) and they have no evidence that they disapproved it following the photos / email.

I have never run the numbers, but generally, when temperatures are high, so is the RH. Condensing water takes a lot of energy. 2256 kJ/kg. Water between 0⁰ and 100⁰C is around 4.18 kg/kg.⁰C. Quite a difference, even allowing for the relatively small mass of water present in a kg of air.

Either

Ben Adam-Smith House Planning Help

It is probably best not to get your friend to fiddle with the commissioning settings. Maybe ask the engineer when you get back or when they service the unit.

Agreed, i think these principles transfer, but not until the last knockings of negotiation, as it is a few% In business we got a lot off the little subbies to whom cash flow was critical...they were used to being treated badly and waiting a long time for payment. Payment fortnightly and within 5 days could be worth 10% on the labour. You have to be very careful not to overpay though. But on our personal Highland project it seemed almost a statement of principle that the contractors would wait for the money monthly, "like bigger businesses do". Paying for the materials transfers risk from them to you and so has a high value. Needs thinking about. But the average small contractor doesn't have much buying power and perhaps you are better at shopping around. Watch out for overordering and waste. Some clients like to play at being big players. Never worked for me. Neither do you want to seem naive. Just be yourself I say, and they will like you or not.

Well it hasn’t fallen down yet.

House Planning Help has good episodes and a large back catalogue to delve into.

Exhaust air heat pump. It is like a normal air to air heat pump, but extracts the air out of the building to heat water. The problem is, the air in the building has to be heated, so can become very expensive if the heating is electrical resistance. Some on here have used them to good effect though, especially if it is integrated with the ventilation system and DHW usage is relatively low, in proportion to the building volume. DHW usage is really a function of occupancy, more people, more hot water used.

Exhaust source heat pump for DHW. https://www.vaillant.com/home/products/arostor-hot-water-heat-pump-10752.html @Thedreamer has a Joule model.

I don't know if this translates into the building trade, but in my previous line of work I would've asked something along the lines of "is there anything else I can do to make the job more attractive?" There are other motivations than money. Are you going to be a PITA client? Is the site going to be cold, wet and miserable? Can you do other payment terms? Is time-and-materials vs fixed cost an option that's attractive to you both? On the supply side I was given sagely advice to never drop my prices unless I got something in return. We were doing IT consultancy, so if we offered a discount it was often in return for better working conditions for the staff, better payment terms, offering a testimonial, that kind of thing. If you're asking a supplier to drop their price, it might be worth thinking about what you can do in return. Beyond that, @ToughButterCup's lines all look ace!

This is usually mundane stuff like possible field margins or old footimgs. Laying over the area doesn't prevent future investigation so will be ok.

@Tennentslager Yup. Defo swap to solvent where you’re half in / out of the wall. You need some sort of rubber / flexible connection on the discharge side, immediately before it picks up the solvent weld. Don't forget to clean that pipe before you pick it back up in solvent weld, as that will be contaminated now.

The 'Road to Errogie' and beyond . I spoke to a prospective builder who regarded Aviemore sort of area as the centre of everything. He worked there, and around inverness and to Skye. Very impressed with him, but does whole packages only whereas we didn't need and couldn't afford that. Most want to be within 40 minutes of home though, and that reaches Inverness. Architect was in the family so I can't help there.

hire a 6 or 9 ton dumper for the day to move the concrete. they are peanuts a week from GAP nothing stopping you putting in a temporary track either.

my guess would be the crack is evidence of no lintel. hard to tell but looks like a solid wall from the width, the added weight on the trusses when it was converted as loaded up that wall and it wasnt designed for it. Get a RICS survey so you (mortgage company) have someone to sue if it all goes pete tong in a years time.

Do you know whether it’s a cavity property or solid wall? if it’s cavity there won’t be much load above on that outer leaf, certainly above my bungalow windows there are no lintels at the eaves on external leaf, my windows go right to the fascia though with nothing on top, I can see there is a small amount of masonry on this one, could just be render infill and maybe why it’s cracked

Electric batteries are not worth it really unless you can do some serious load shifting from night to day. I.E work daily on high load computers from home. A 300l UVC is a superb heat battery. We bank 10kWh every day from cheap overnight electricity. From my experience doing calcs the absolute cheapest way to power a house is A2A for space heating and solar PV for with divert for water heating + E7 in winter. Just bought an A2A, waiting for it to be delivered. PV will come too at some stage.

What is the motivation for switching to an ASHP? There's no benefit for cost. An air to air (A2A) may be different. A single unit will deliver heat at a COP of 5 and an installed cost of £1500. Lifespan 7 years. Say it does 5000kWh/heat/year so £1000 bought in at 30p is £300 per year. £300*7 +£1500 is £5000 for 25000 kWh of heat delivered of 5p/kWh. This compares to an ASHP in the above case of a 7 year cost of £10k plus £2550/year for 17000kwh X 5 or 32p/kWh of delivered heat. Or about 10.5p for the oil boiler. TLDR. Oil costs you 10.5p/kWh ASHP would cost 32p/kWh A2A could cost 5p/kWh to supplement the boiler.

Ok, useful info. At 60deg flow temp you're better off with the oil I think. 2000l is about 17000kWh delivered heat to your house at a boiler efficiency of 85% and about £2000. Something like a highly efficient split ASHP would only achieve a COP of about 2 at 60deg. At 17000kWh delivered heat you would need to buy in 8500kWh or electricity, at 30p/kWh you would pay £2550 per year for electricity with a heat pump that could cost £10k to install and have a lifespan of 7 years. £550 * 7 years and £10k up front you could end up at £14k out of pocket for the first 7 years and every 7 years after that.

From my post in another thread.. may be usefull "I heated my 300l DHw that was down to 22degres to 54.7deg in 90 mins , The energy delivered to the heat pump was 2.6kwh . total , with peak draw hitting 2.5kw twice during the 90min session. it was heated in about . outside temp was 11-12 degrees .. " i can heat the same volume in about 50 mins to a higher 63 degrees ,, if light my wood burner with back boiler , about 1.5-2kg of wood

Hi, I'm just up the road a bit further east by Elgin. If your going passivhaus standards, look at form factor, makes a big difference to the insulation levels you need achieve. So a bit more to read up on. I also moved from England in the 90s.

Our project is Nairnish. Invernesshire is huge, so a little more idea of location? NSEW? Mountain high or coast? Etc.

Hi and welcome. You are in good company, lots of self builders not far from you (I am 20 miles north of Inverness) We moved up here from England 20 years ago, into a static caravan to start our first self build. Then did it all again completing our second self build just over a year ago.

Hi @WindowNerd In my humble opinion I think that peoples health should be the first issue. Use a cleaning product that has a small amount of bleach in it and clean all the window frame to kill the spores. There are many types of common mould that can cause serious health issues. Laying in a room for hours breathing in the spore riddled soup can damage a person for the rest of their life. I know this doesn't solve the problem, but please just keep cleaning off any mould you find in the mean time. I'm no expert. I would guess it could be Stachybotrys or Ulocladium. This should give you an indication as to what level of mask you should be wearing: https://www.familyhandyman.com/list/common-types-of-mold-in-the-home/ Typical cleaning material: https://www.screwfix.com/p/no-nonsense-mould-mildew-cleaner-1ltr/31686?kpid=31686&ds_rl=1243318&ds_rl=1241687&ds_rl=1245250&ds_rl=1245250&gclid=Cj0KCQjwlPWgBhDHARIsAH2xdNdLOoG0lhEnvUK81YnbRoCED47isNirvpUt_ZbURA0k9KUB7RXDyDcaAp3iEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds Good luck M

Looks like a picture frame to me - and the stanchion can be placed into the cavity as long as there is a minimum 40mm gap between the outside face of the stanchion and the inside face of the external leaf. As others have said it is a potential thermal bridge and it is always better to have the stanchion within the warm space. As most others have said moving the stanchion back will affect the design of the pad foundation - not impossible to do but difficult and will cost more. Personally I don’t see the issue with the stanchion projecting into the room - but that’s just personal taste.

1. the columns are required because it looks like you're trying to remove the entire wall. while forces from above could be held by a horizontal beam, you must think about lateral forces as well. 2. the beam would ideally sit in the middle of the pad foundation. you can move it to the sides, but it would require a much larger foundation, to allow for eccentric loads. 3. not advisable to place the beam inside the cavity wall, it could lead to thermal bridging.

Thanks for this. So I get the value of heating the slab that sits inside the insulation, rather than heating the air inside the house. What i'd like to understand better is whether there is a benefit of electrically heating water and then flowing that through the pad, Vs embedding electric pads directly in the slab and heating it that way. Isn't it achieving the same result with the same energy balance but just with less kit? We have high hopes for the air tightness, insulation and thermal bridge free design aspects of the house (fingers crossed), so don't anticipate a high peak load requirement - and hence are trying to avoid over-engineering the heating system.

To balance in favour of the low tech UVC, with direct heating you can have multiple immersion heaters at different levels and heat the top part of the cylinder first then switch to the next heating element down the tank.

Duration are pretty good Canvy island

"Thanks for that price. I have three other quotations due in the next [...] . Can I ring you to discuss your price when the other quotes are in?" "Well, the main issue is that I want to be sure to compare like with like. I'm trying to be fair to each supplier, and not simply rejecting the quote on the basis of the final figure " "The other comparable quotes are substantially lower than yours. Do you have time to discuss them with me?" "Help me understand why your quote is so much higher than everyone elses" "Why is your quote so cheap?" "Your quote is so high that it makes me wonder wether you want the business". "Your quote seems to be substantially out of line with other quotes I have. The others are all about 15% cheaper. Can we explore why that might be" "Why did you waste your time sending me a quote that high?" "Self builders are not stupid" "Do you have a line manager I can talk to, just to check a few items in this quote ...." "Really? Honestly? Have the decency to wear a mask the next time you commit daylight robbery."