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did this at our old place, got a price for ceder and nearly fainted. bought a load of 4.8m treated 2x1 roofing batten. put it through our DeWalt portable planer and it came out lovely and smooth. stained with osmo and you cant really tell the difference. used a battery brad nailer for invisible fixings. whole lot cost less than £100, the osmo being the dearest part.

Lots of the ideas in this thread revolve around sight lines. For good reason. Lining up sight lines doesn't necessarily cost anything but can really change the feel of a place. It's one of the things that makes a bespoke design different to an off the shelf one. My own build was done to a tight budget (about £20k for 50m², plus groundworks/services). Here's some of the decisions I made to keep the budget in check whilst retaining what I think is a pretty nice finish: -My favourite tip is to avoid small windows. Consolidate all your glazing in to a few huge windows. Non opening if possible. You will get a much lower cost/m² with much better thermal properties. It's an absolute win-win. I was really surprised by how cheap a huge non opening 3G window was. -I'm also a big fan of bamboo flooring. I'm not up to date with prices but about five years ago it was half the price of decent oak, and much sturdier. -you don't need solid oak skirtings and door linings. I went with MDF which was a fraction of the cost and also much easier to fit. Need to screw the skirting to the wall, or messed up amitre? Just fill and paint afterwards. - larch and corrugated steel make very cost effective finishing materials, quick and easy to work with. - it's not necessary to spend big money on kitchens and bathrooms. I've seen people spend more on a kitchen tap than my whole bathroom cost. I went secondhand for all my kitchen appliances, but bought good brand names (Bosch and Siemens). They've outlasted the cheap brand new stuff I bought in my other house.

So after a couple of false starts the battery is being installed. Went with the Givenergy all in one, with is rated at 13.5kWh and allows a 100% at that capacity. It also gives a whole house uninterrupted power supply in the event of a power cut and allows my PV to function in a power outage. There Is a hope he will install it all today, but think he will be back tomorrow finish off, he has just been called away - typical. First difficulty was getting in the upstairs plant room (through loft hatch) luckily I had installed a winch for the DHW cylinder, so we used that. The gateway unit, controls the power flow, batteries, mains power, consumer unit, PV, vehicle charge point all connect to this. This will be located directly above the consumer unit and meter. Needed to run a new earth spike to the unit and new cable for a stand-alone generator, these are inserted through the J tube going under the house. Battery and inverter, without access, trim panels installed. Had to move MVHR pipes, as the unit is free standing.

No you haven't wasted 4 hours. If you hadn't done it wrong today you'd have done it wrong later. 1:200 is downhill and the water is pretty clean (I expect) so it would work. It might empty slowly though, depending on the length and connections. But might it sag and be flatter yet? Have another check of the levels before deciding. Sometimes spirit levels misbehave.

🤣🍷 fine = 🍷 Said so !

Doesn’t give the view justice. But when finished you’ll be able to see straight through from the hallway to the hills in the distance

ah the world of common sense and building control. Pretty sure you will have to install a completely pointless 'attenuation tank' to satisfy them. Just make a 1m3 cube out of soakaway crates with a pipe running straight through it to the ditch. less than £100 and paperwork covered.

I would go to a Structual Engineer for the drawings Architects drawings are rarely practical Where as the the SE drawings are worked from a practical point of view Which May suit you better if you have decided on the look Architects tend to do a minimum package SE will bill you for hours spent Much cheaper Most SE will do your submission also

I think what you are doing is great. I love your enthusiasm for this and in general. You are testing my knowledge which is great for me, appreciate that.. a big thanks from me. As primarily an SE it is important for me to be able to distill sometimes complex things into language that folk on BH can find usefull. Here are something other things to ponder on your drive. You might want to explore using solid timber flanges top and bottom.. basically copying an engineered joist.. but they often use laminated timber. This will simplify the design. You router out a slot in the timber and fit the web into that. I think you will get more bang for your buck this way. Next is your glue. Have a look at Cascamite glue which is a proper structural glue. Lastly for now if you can get a hold of an engineered joist off cut and split the web from the flange you'll often see that the web is slightly tapered so it jambs into the routered slot in the flanges. You may get a fright as often the web departs from the flange easier than you think! But your idea of using the timbers to connect the web to the flange also works.. but it is labour intensive and will need a a lot more thought to get something that is reliable and consistent in terms of how it is put together and has no weak spots.

"The mathematics of it are pretty simple." I have a graps of basic statistics and probablility but you have the edge on me here. That said I can follow your first paragraph and agree with the thrust of it. "It is the interpretation of the results that is important." Absolutely.. it's like using finite element analysis.. manure in manure out, and all models must be verified but manual fag packet calculation. "So I could design and build a set of identical beams, some for my shed, and some for a new roof on my house. They would both do the same job and be subjected to the same loadings. But the ones on the shed, if they did fail, would have much lower consequences that the ones in a new roof. So to be safe, SEs allow for this and do what @joe90 does, over engineer." No, SE's are not that blinkered and you mention the consequence of failure correctly. Your shed could be treated as non habitable building. If could be treated as an Agricultural type building with low occupancy and say a 20 year design life. If so then we reduce the loading (quite significantly) based on say a return period of heavy snow and a reduced roof access load for maintenance. Houses are mostly designed for predicted loading that could occur over 50 years, Agricultural buildings can be designed on a 20 year snow event for example. Also on an Agricultural building we have often slacker deflection limits as we don't have internal brittle finishes that can crack, doors jamb and so on. If you are going to be designing beams for your house then be careful.. and remember that if you sell someone may ask you to to prove all is ok! If you experiment and gather data on your beams then you could have the same size of beam you have investigated but longer spanning for your shed as the loads are reduced and the deflection limits less onerous. Keep us posted on your experiments.. it lets folk see on BH how these Engineered joists work, the plus and minus points and what you are doing kind of removes this "mystification" where folk are trying to cost up the things.

Then by intuition you should get a bit of velocity behind the flow to clear the short 600mm run. Crack open the beers and have a long lie tomorrow.

Actually I wish I had studied this stuff when I was younger (I am way to old now), I believe I have an inherent gut feeling about what will hold and what will break (and I tend to over engineer a bit). I just can’t prove with numbers what I believe. I have a fascination in all things S.E. I did actually think I could make my own I beams when I did my build but I had way too much to do besides that otherwise I would be like @Pocster and never finish 🤷‍♂️🤣

It should be fine. I thought you were taking about something 2 -4 m long. The bath should empty fine so long as there is a bit of a drop between the outlet from the bath trap and the start of the 50mm dia pipe.

You have understood most of it. "load it till it breaks or buckles" What the calculalations and figures do is translate that into how you determine a safe design stength and how much it will probably deflect by if you then made this type of beam and built it into your house. When we design and test stuff it costs money so we don't test to destruction right away. We try and gather as much info on its behavoir before we destroy something. If you look at the load span tables for engineered joists there are loads of different figures for loading and span. The manufacturers don't test every combination. The probablitlity bit is to do with how many beams you test, like say a pull out test on a resin anchor. If you only test one then it does not tell you much. Test three and you can get a better idea of the spread of results. Test five and you gain more "confidence" and that lets you then reduce the reduction factor. Just call the standard deviation. This make the design more efficient. If you think about concrete many millions of cube crushing tests have been done over many years so there is lots of confidence about the spread of results you get when using normal concrete.

Updated every 30 mins from national grid. Everything now goes through the gateway panel. Meter feeds direct to gateway and then from gateway to CU. Battery feeds in to gateway. All the PV also all goes through the gateway. Biggest job (which I unfortunately volunteered to do) was to drive in the secondary ground spike, as a secondary earth is required. Was expecting a metre or two (in sand). 9m later we got 160 Ohm (200 Ohm required max). At 7m we had 750 Ohm.

It's not really compliant in terms of the regs but if you have a means of rodding the line then if you do get a problem later you can give it a clean. To stop the sagging over time you maybe want to support it every 600mm or so.

I would have a good look around your local suppliers. The only roofing battens I was able to buy were either stained green from pressure treatment, or died blue. The latter were shocking quality, left dye running everywhere and split the moment a screw went near them. My own cladding is larch from a local sawmill. Half the price of a builders' merchant.

I agree wholeheartedly - the higher the cost estimate the higher the fee. No incentive to design something cost effective.

They were and are in breach of contract. The house as built isn’t quite what was designed. I’ve spoken with the ARB already. The slight challenge is my issue isn’t with an individual architect it’s with the practice generally as you deal with multiple people when working with them.

We’ve just appointed one for our side extension: ” Our fee to prepare suitable layout plans, elevations and sections of the above brief would be £1000+VAT. This fee includes revisions as required to amend the scheme to a design you are happy to progress to the planning stage with. This fee also allows for submitting the planning application to BANES City Council and liaising with the appointed case officer should concerns be raised. If the LA request additional information, we will update you and propose suitably qualified professionals. The planning fee paid direct to BANES is currently around £250, we would update you on this fee and give instruction on how and when to settle the fee once the application has been submitted. This fee is based on us not carrying out a measured survey and redrawing plans you already have from when the property was fully refurbished. You have confirmed you do not require building regulation compliant drawings, but should these be required let me know and I can prepare a quote.” I was perfectly happy with that figure, which seemed perfectly reasonable for the following scope of work: ” To conclude from our meeting, you are looking to carry out a two storey side extension replacing the outbuildings on a similar foot print as to not upset the neighbours and the local context. You would like to create a two storey extension that would accommodate the new stair accessing first floor from ground floor and delete the existing which would open up the current lobby area and leave room for storage of coats and shoes. The rest of the ground floor extension would facilitate a dining area connected to the kitchen and downstairs shower room for gusts, whilst allowing for all future happenings. To the first floor, you would like to create an open mezzanine/landing space which would act as a library/crafts area. Windows would be strategically positioned to make the most of the views, and possibly a corner glazed window should this be appropriate.”

When I built my first house, 20 years ago, I approached two architects. Both quoted fees based on a percentage of construction costs, and to add insult, both estimated construction cost at nearly double what it actually cost (I could not have afforded it if it really cost what they estimated) Neither would budge on those fees. Neither got my business. It had the effect of making me never ever want to try and do business with an architect ever again.

Use the old terminal junction box that was on top of the old hood to join the cables. Just leave the earth terminated going nowhere. You just have to work out how to detach the old junction box from the top of the old cooker hood, it looks like it might be riveted there?

I find the Dulux Easycare very good

Kitchen window was deliberately positioned for the view.

I’ll try them . Apart from the odd grandchild hand marks ( I find if I break their fingers each time they tend not to touch the wall ) - rest is from trades …. 🙄

Using your inherent understanding of physics and natural forces? Some wing it and fail. Others improvise and succeed. Then there are the rest of us.

Those white magic sponge works great on scuff marks on white walls as well at trainers

We used diamond white Matt dulux on my stairwell walls with 2 small children and their mates accessing the play room, highly recommend and it is matt. I ended up using elsewhere in our old house as easy to wipe clean.

You could also look at Tikkurila paints like the Optiva 3 Ceramic Extreme Protection which is even London Underground approved. With some reviews here: https://www.thedecoratorsforum.com/the-best-flat-matt-emulsion/

I got there eventually too. ......... Biscuit? Please?

My top tip for wow factor.. Think of where your Windows look out to, and what's there you can make a feature of. It's wonderful when there's a nice seating area with an arbour, roses growing over the side, but if it can only be seen by standing in the garden, it's lost. I know someone who paid 50k for a kitchen redesign, but standing at the sink you look at the back of a range rover and 3 wheel bins. Any wow factor can be lost by not taking into consideration what you see beyond the gimmick

architect is worth their money to just design the end appearance. Keep them far far away from the actual build as you can. Will save you a lot of £££ in the long run. and never pay a % fee to anyone. Worked well with the agent. Last house agreed £3k fee if sold under £xx £5k fee if its over. Gives them much more incentive than a percentage.

@IanR I appreciate what you’re saying about rainwater attenuation in rural settings but something @saveasteading said in response to a comment I made about our situation struck a chord with me. That was something like you want the rainwater impact to be much the same (or better I guess) after you’ve built as it was when it was just a field. As I mentioned, our burn, which is always flowing, discharges into the river Ericht which runs through Alyth. We’ve lived here for two years and have seen how high the water level quickly gets over the winter. It’s flooded out the market square a few times. I wouldn’t be comfortable if I thought I was contributing to that.

Thats what happened to us and this - without any discussion this is the result .... The BCO could not have cared less about the SUDS stuff. I had to - or rather I made him listen to - the way all the roof water runoff is ducted to the pond via ( the yet to be built) rainwater gardens. I also took notes about the conversation and sent him a summary of what we discussed via email. Bottom line: if what you propose is anything like in line with National guidance then you needn't worry. Fill yer boots here. Good luck Ian (PS , yes, I have fallen in.)

There have always been clever people. I once saw a fascinating OU programme about arches and buttresses, using wooden blocks, and those ancient masons probably used models too, I feel. And they had scaffolding. My amazement is not so much the structure, but the geometry, esp the roof tracery.

You are correct Jim Weve have 14 viewings All are professional Doctors and consultants One conveyancing solicitor also none have asked about levels of insulation Let alone Sap rating or air test scores Yep boiling tap and German kitchen One has been back with a builder who checked that I’d self installed the treatment plant and asked to see the foundation drawing and talked about extending the back of the house I pointed out the great lengths I’d gone to to prevent thermal bridging He replied Ooook I think he was interested but didn’t show it Not one has even asked if the boiler is A rated Being a couple of miles away from a hospital I pretty much expected meds to be our core market and while I didn’t expect to besieged by Echo warriors I am convinced that had we built to passive standard The response would have been the same

Why use a 30mm former, 22mm formers are readily available?

Polythene inslated cable with a pvc sheath to BS1557. So 3-cores, red, white & blue, no earth, Imperial 3/0.29 I think, 3 tinned strands per core equates to about 1.5mm2. It was like new. Found in a time warp, unfinished outbuilding of an elderly neighbour. BS1557 was withdrawn in 1954!

I researched this and there isn’t anything as far as I could find. The best I came up with was some low profile clamps. After our standing seam roof was fitted I decided not to fit panels on the roof for three reasons. Firstly it’s a beautiful looking thing to my eyes and PV panels would have ruined the look of it. It requires the roof being penetrated and while there are products especially for metal roofs I didn’t want the roof penetrated. I couldn’t see how they’d be fitted without the roof being scratched dinged or damaged in some way. In the end I’ve gone for ground mounted panels. There is a fourth reason and that’s fire risk. It’s a tiny risk but friends of ours lost their 6 month old self-build to a PV fire caused by faulty cabling. The panels would have covered the whole of the roof on the left.

If you look at the image you provided, the panels are not integrated, they stand on the top of the seams. You use rail less standing seam clamps.

Following last changes to the Regs many manufacturers have introduced their own psi-values that can be used in the SAP process in place of the old ACDs. Elmhurst keep a register of these companies that assessors may use. Available to Elmhurst assessors - copy attached. Remember under the new Regs photo evidence is required to show the exact detail has been followed on site Elmhurst Thermal Bridging Scheme List v3.xlsx

You're right. Buildings vary. A big block of flats of offices will likely have a service shaft for supplies in and waste out. With floors it can readily be serviced, the noise doesn't matter, and any leaks are relatively harmless. Unfortunately they create a fire risk when stops are omitted. I'm a philistine according to some architects. My design priority is to keep the weather out. Otherwise what is the building for? I don't like flat roofs or internal gutters. The liabilities if a roof leaks are potentially huge, and any professionals involved could be in trouble. The calculations for gutters and drains are not easy, then build quality needs attention. A diversion: prior to raac panels becoming a well known problem, there was strawboard. It also fails when wet, but really only when flat roofs or internal drains fail.

They are £4.75 per tile at 400x400 Dave, managed a small discount also on the final price

My main concern with these is the sharpness of the duct enclosure: the stainless steel box stuff. Some factory ends could easily slash a finger or a wrist. Then if the old one has been cut for any reason, it could also be nasty. Leather gloves recommended. Plus the old one will probably be filthy with fat, so dress and protect accordingly.

I have had no issues but it does drive me nuts. @Nickfromwales did give me some good advice which was to just leave it alone as it wasn't going to leak and messing with it might cause further issues.

Actually build it yourself - saves a fortune, only get jobs done, you can't or don't want to do yourself. Pay for labourer second pair of hands for six months, you will make good progress. Shop around for everything. Some of the features you mentioned will lead to massive overheating, so be careful for what you ask for. But good design need not cost more, it just needs to be well thought through. Research, when you think you know enough you are only half way there. Do it right do it once. Don't change stuff as you go along stick rigidly to the design. We spent a year fine tuning the design, then built the house in year, spent the last 2 years getting the heating system to perform how I want it to. Then installed a heat pump - like I should have at the start. But you learn all the time. Don't add bells and whistles because they sound good, if they don't add real value to you, they don't add value, they are not required. For us home automation fell into the category, wanted it at the start, but started seeing systems we looked at, stop being supported, thought a light switch will do just fine, if it breaks anywhere will have a replacement.

Are you employing an architect or other designer to specify the details of the building and get the building regs approval or are you doing it all yourself? By far the best approach is insulate the hell out of the building and make it air tight. If you are needing to add things like solar PV just to get a SAP pass, then the building itself is not really good enough.

I thought I would put a post together for those that are looking for windows, replacement or new build. As someone who deals with final order placing / final quote discussions. One of the things that crosses my desk on regular basis, is that the "other supplier" is more cost effective. Which leads me to ask myself "more cost effective against what" are you comparing apples for apples? When I ask people to compare, what we generally explain is to look at the following (see below) if they are not willing to supply a copy of the quote without prices. Product - is the product similar. For example are you comparing a Timber Aluminium cladded window with a Timber Aluminium cladded window? Glazing - Is the glazing on offer from both suppliers comparable? Is it double glazed v's triple glazed for example or is it float glass v's toughened or laminate? Check that doors have toughened/laminated glazing Check that windows within 300mm of a door have toughened/laminated glazing Check that windows below 800mm from the finish floor have toughened/laminated glazing Check that windows that are 1400mm in height or above for toughened/laminated glazing. Most suppliers will start to consider toughened / laminated from 1400mm onwards, some will still be float glass. Check triple glazed glass units. Some suppliers will only toughen the inner and outer panes and leave the middle pane as float glass, others will toughen all 3 panes (I recommend all 3 panes as toughened) when required. Why? quick example is from experience, a customer in the north west of Scotland had the middle pane as float glass in french doors, the doors are recessed with wall on either side. It effectively became a wind tunnel. What happened is during high winds, the door sashes had that much wind pressure constantnly, that the door sash was pushed away from the frame slightly and a rattle effect occurred (only thing I could think would cause this to happen). As a result the middle pane (float glass) shattered. This required the whole sash to be replaced, as the glass was glued into the frame on that particular product. Timber - Is the timber comparable, are both using spruce/larch/oak/pine etc.? Are any of the products finger jointed as standard (which is more cost effective versus fixed timber, but not as aesphetically pleasing). Is the timber cut from from one section of wood or is it individually glue laminated timber? Ug values - A 0.5Ug can be quoted by suppliers but the costs vary dramatically. One of the reasons for this can be the glass make up and the gas that is being used. Some quotes won't tell the gas being used but it's safe to assume that if it's 48mm glazing it is Argon. Pay attention to the spacer distance also, not for cost but if the spacer is above 18mm, convection can occur of the gas filling (gas moves around in the unit). Hinging - Are the hinges concealed or are they exposed? Door Hinging - Pay close attention as suppliers will have quoted standard framing on doors, others may have increased the widths of the jambs to increase the space available at the hinging for plastering behind. RAL Colours externally - are the quoted RAL colours the same? Internal colours - have they quoted the same? Some will offer the standard colours such as a clear lacquer, others will have them painted - does this have any impact on price comparison. Sizes - have any of the units been split, due to not being able to achieve the size required? Some suppliers will not be able to do large sizes, others will be. Look out for compromises. Don't always look at the end figure and immediately reject a quote as being to high, compared to the others. Most suppliers will have the supply price first, then additional items such as window cills, compriband, membrane, installation etc. which are optional to the quote and not necessarily required but may be included in the total cost at the end. Most self builders like to take on the mantra of doing the whole build, others would like to leave this to the supplier or builder and or source their own materials if supply only. What is being offered with the installation service, are the installation options / costs comparible to each other? Who takes responsibility for the windows upon arrival? Generally speaking most suppliers who are installing, should be taken responsibility from the moment the windows leave the factory, to the moment the windows/doors have been installed, sign off. If supply only, the responsibilitygenerally passes to the client once the offload commences. So it is important to document the windows before offload, during offload and once offloaded. The manufacturer will normally have documentation / pictures before departing the factory, it makes life easier on whether a claim with the haulage company or whether a claim with the supplier is required (both should go to the supplier who should deal with it). Warranty - how long is the warranty, what does it cover? Last but not least, is the quote comparible? Have the suppliers referenced things the same way or are have the drawings been scaled and then referenced by the supplier (this happens a lot when no window schedule exists)? A lot of architects don't create window schedules for some reason (one the major parts of a build and most costly aspects) and problems of missing windows can be encountered, due to the elevations not always showing "hidden" windows which can be seen on floor plans. Some suppliers can miss this, which then impacts that quote. Hopefully some people find this useful, of not apologies for the long read

Folks, I have very strong feelings about this forum being allowed to be used by commercial entities, and this thread exemplifies why I think that forum policy regarding commercial use needs to be tightened. It's inevitable when we get competing commercial interests, in the same sector, as in this case, that they will end up being critical of each other in order to try and gain some sort of commercial advantage. The fact that it may well tend to make many of the potential customers of this non-commercial, member owned and run, forum, think again about using any commercial entities that misuse this forum is a point that seems to be lost. As one of the founder members that invested time and money in setting up this non-commercial forum, I think it's time that we gave a reminder to all who use it that it is NOT a place for commercial entities to promote their wares or raise their own profile. This forum was founded by a group of fourteen volunteers, who invested their own money and time to set it up and who, with the generosity of other members, pay the costs of hosting it. Will our members that are in business related to self build and renovation please take note of this, and that people like me are paying to give them a vehicle to promote themselves on here, something I find abhorrent.

It’s fine 🍷