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The problem with Check a Trade is it's full off cowboys, who have to pay to advertise on there and all there friends do their reviews for them. Quality time served brick layers "never" advertise, you may see them building nice curved garden walls for a local home owner, there the guy's you need a phone number from, certainly not check a trade. As for your recourse from check a trade, best of luck with that. With any build most of the work is in the ground getting it up to dpc, so why make a pigs ear out of the rest of it. A bit of forward thought and measuring walls out to get the bond so it balances is half the battle and getting special shaped bricks ordered in 6 months before the build starts. Sorry if both my posts on this topic come across as harsh or negative but it would have taken an extra day to lay out the job and a few ££ for the angled bricks for this job to be spot on. Confession Time. I built a retaining wall for a shop front in Aylesbury High Street many years ago, but I had a 2 foot gap behind the hoarding to construct this wall. When the hoarding was removed some weeks later when the shop opened. I noticed two of my bricks in the bond we're out of level ( wonky). No one else would probably notice but I used to cringe everytime I walked past.

I haven't fired it all up yet as I'm still at the insulation stage in my roof. I assume it'll be ok but it was a steep learning curve and @Nickfromwales and @JohnMo helped loads amongst other forum members, all very helpful. I didn't even know what a buffer tank was until they helped me out, now it's obvious it would have been required in the way I want to do things. I've tested the electronics and valves and its all good to go in the near future, but it was stressful and confusing at first. I'll draw it all out at some point for future reference but attached is how it's all controlled. Zone valves and buffer are at the upstairs/loft.

Youtube recommended this vid about the quality of LBC bricks..

Nice to meet you all. I built my house 7 years ago. Found a 3 acre plot with detailed planning on it and made a few internal layout changes. We then contracted the sellers, who happened to build houses, to do the build. it went fairly smoothly and have never regretted it. I have tried to encourage so many people to self build but they are just daunted. this year we have kicked it on a level. We’ve just finished finally building the garage. We made do with a shed for 7 years as we spent the money on the build, adding things like underfloor heating, wood burner, oak fittings etc. I also changed the oil boiler this year for an ASHP. Got at £9k gov grant and it’s been great. On the garage we added a 5.46kW solar array and a 10KW battery. Didn’t get much out of it this weekend but we’ve hardly spent a penny all summer. we are allowed one more building on the property for certain. A lot of people round here have those green steel barns but now I’m looking for inspiration for something that’s more multi-purpose/ convertible so will probably be checking out the garage/workshop pages quite a bit. Will also enjoy looking at other new builds as they go. we have a family plot in the highlands as well, might need to look at doing that in the next couple of years.

https://www.eskimodesign.co.uk/s/Correction-factors-based-on-Delta-T-50.xls Our heating consultant who did the thermal modelling identified 5 (plus an optional 6th) radiators across the house (assuming house at 21 degrees steady state) to provide the output Using Eskimo we can reduce the size (they will all be 1800 high) and the delta t. Hence why we are considering them from an aesthetics and HP CoP efficiency rating.

Take a thermos to work and bring home hot water..

We have an old lime torched roof, where bits of mortar have fallen away over the years and as such you can see day light, results in more slipped slates, but (that part of the roof, at least) is bone dry.

When my brother bought his house, over 25 years ago, he asked me about stripping and reverting his roof as from the loft you can see daylight spots in many places, however when it rains it never leaks 🤷‍♂️ so I said wait till it leaks and it never has 🤣

+1 to the above. My personal favourite appeal was 3 houses ago wanting to build a garage described as "concrete block and render" Refused by the council. Trying to discuss with the planning officer all I got was "even if you render it, it will still look like a prefabricated garage" and no amount of explaining would persuade them this was not a prefab garage. I won on appeal. In that case I thought that planning officer was not best suited for the job.

@Barking99, you keep saying you disagree with the planners so your only course of action, that I and others have said is to appeal, that’s why the appeal procedure exists. You can argue with the planners till the cows come home but that will do no good. Drag it out as long as possible, go to appeal and by that time the hedge will have grown. I have fought planners a few times as their rules are often grey areas open to interpretation so don’t get me wrong they can be a nightmare. If you do go to appeal and win (and I find the appeal officers are far more practical than planners) you can give them the bird 🖕

I thought that may well be the case, thanks for advice.

Do Nothing apart from feed the hedge with fertiliser/ feed.

Need a more general view of the roof zoomed out and some idea of the bowed bit you refer to and where you think it is leaking.

There are firms that will cut and bond the bricks to your spec and not a huge lead time.

thanks. I started my build so long ago that those regs don't apply! 🤣

There was a case, not that long ago, but i can't find the details. The planning inspector stood on the public highway, stretched out his arm, and could not touch the fence. He ruled that therefore the fence was not adjacent to the highway. His opinion was "what was considered adjacent" (how far back was the fence). It would be worth finding that appeal if you can.

Have you worked out which nosy neighbour reported your fence? If you loose your appeal I would go with your suggestion of a 1M fence painted in vulgar colours.

Good video @Temp It's not just LBC bricks that are the issue. I've just had 4500 machine made bricks from a local maker, luckily we're doing Old English Garden Bond so every forth course is headers. What would have been a large pile scrap bricks due to shape, size and damage normally. We we're able to cut them all so we could still use them as headers in the bond. For the cost of the things it is getting bad, plus you have to check every brick when you pick it up before laying it.

On the hollow blocks. Upright will be much better. If not too much hassle or cost, can you fill them with gravel?. I couldn't prove any improvement but it would add some stability, especially at any weak points ( which these blocks sometimes have), and would increase the bearing surface if the timber, spreading the load.

While I’m not a plumber I’ve been doing ours for the last couple of weekends The manifolds make things much easier can’t help you on the coloured pipes

from what ive read its user optional and you will be paid. so for example you work 9-5 then drive home and park up. 60% charge left. you may wish to allow 30% of your remaining charge to power your house during the peak time of 4-8 after which you get to top back up for cheap / free

they definitely do! I used a load of boxes of them on our build. but other makes are available. 😉

Actually the simple fix is to stop producing children, oh and wait.

Unless these are in direct rain etc you really don’t need to worry. Bright nails would be the worst to have used, but that’s more because they’re not ring-shank (so they don’t grip the wood very well) vs whether they would rot out. FWIW, I used regular light galv 51’s on my feather edge and no signs of trouble to date, and they’re completely exposed to all elements. Do you have a pic of the nails used?

Shocking. The bond is wrong in places, and should have been worked out at the start so it looked balanced. What's going on with the external corner bond? Should have ordered bricks for the bay window, unless you weren't prepared to pay the extra for them. The extension bond is not level with the existing bond. Does he own a spirit level.? Is this his first job out of college? Has building control seen it? Should have mixed his brick colours up a bit more as he's got a few courses of dark reds together. Was he recommended to you, or did he come from trust a trader who are worse.. Glad I don't have to look at it everytime I approach the front door.

Once rendered it'll look fine...unless he does the rendering! Seriously though, I've seen better and a lot worse. The joints appear to be filled OK, not sure on some of those weep vents... A good going over with Disclean or similar will improve the look no end and get rid of some of those snots he should have sacked off before they dried. What do I know? I'm an amateur but DIY or die so can blame nobody but myself!

Yep - That is the real scam. It should be part of the unit cost, you use more kWh you pay a bigger proportion.

Diykitchens. Good quality too

Poured it down overnight. Wardrobe area's looking bone dry this morning. Happy days. Bit of pointing left to finish today, just to tidy it up, hoping the rain holds off for a couple of hours so I can get back up there before I need to give the tele handler back this afternoon.

A bit more progress - I have (some of) a structural box beam on top of piers \o/ Still got a fair bit of levelling to do (might cheat with some packing sheets), noggins to put in over the piers, and prep for the vertical beams the doors and windows will be attached to. The positions of those are pretty much finalised now - where they were in the original plan, but minus the two additional windows on the curved section. The doors I've got lying around are half-glazed, so I reckon there'll be enough light without those - and if it's not, I could always add a rooflight. I also need to get that final, curved side in (two more holes to dig!) To do that, I'm just going to attach straight beams at a 15° angle going out to each of the middle piers, then straight over the central gap. That seems like it'll do the job with only the tiniest bit of overhang here and there, which isn't a problem - the finishes will overhang the beam too. So much easier than trying to make glulam beams out of ply 😅. i've concluded that I do need to cover at least the top of the box beam with *something*, mostly to stop critters from getting up into the straw from below. Taking another look at @Gus Potter's suggestion of bits of wood; I happen to have a lot of old decking timber and a few pallets lying around, which might do in a pinch. Wondering if covering the bottom as well would be a good idea from the point of view of resisting the timbers spreading out due to the load coming from above. Since this face won't be in contact with the straw, also wondering if I could just use mouse mesh, which is reasonably cheap and, presumably, more than strong enough to help. I might just be inventing more work for myself, though. No progress on reading up on what the wind will do to the poor thing, but I've belatedly recalled that there was a garden shed sat in a more exposed location last year, with just a timber base, and that went nowhere. It just rotted away from the bottom up. This will be a fair bit heavier than that, and I can ensure the roof stays attached by reference to my solar panel design document which calculated wind loading on the panels for this location \o/. The thing that's left to reason about is whether friction between the concrete block and the pea gravel will be sufficient to stop it from being pushed off the base, or if I'm going to need to anchor it down into the gravel somehow. It's getting dangerously close to playing-with-straw time.

I think the planners just don’t like the harsh look of the fence, yes it’s mad that a hedge just as tall does not need planning but then again a hedge is not “harsh”, i would go for appeal ( I did and won) and if nothing else it delays the outcome and more time for the hedge to grow (get a hosepipe on it 😇).

The other job I started is boarding out the garage in 12mm shuttering ply and painting it. I got the ply really cheap (£7/sheet) and 40 litres of matt emulsion for £16 from TP.

Did you apply for PP or is the result of someone noticing your fence erected without PP. If you lose, you could always reduce the fence to 1.0M (permitted development) and just let the hedge grow.

https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/VLXDQG4S.html https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/CXCAT6M.html https://www.amazon.co.uk/NETGEAR-Ethernet-Unmanaged-Internet-Splitter/dp/B07PWHGQSS/ref=mp_s_a_1_2_sspa?adgrpid=48674266290&hvadid=259224352990&hvdev=m&hvlocphy=9046861&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=3073186192901928029&hvtargid=kwd-298720216058&hydadcr=11872_1766805&keywords=netgear+switch&qid=1695474144&sr=8-2-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9zZWFyY2hfYXRm&psc=1 so your router connect to the netgear switch with a patch cable. this then allows you to patch it to your various data points.

we have a g2 listed BTL, cant even put in double glazing. whole thing is a farce.

Thanks guys, the upstairs of the garage is my man-cave/home office. Wanted to do it for a while and probably took 2 years including planning. Planning didn’t take long but finding a builder did and then we had to wait before they could start. Then the dug the hole in December and everything froze up. It was really start of Feb before we got going. Finished mid August. Could have been finished faster but we weren’t in a rush and have a good relationship with the builders.

Very nice garage, I am quite jealous. That’s on the list for when I get a plot near to me somewhere. Currently on the hunt and hoping to find something in Wales that is very good bang for the buck and to build the forever home in the background. Been busy creating homes for others for a long time, my turn soon hopefully!

If that a euphemism???? - asking for a friend .

Yeah cheers Once I’ve air tested I’ll get my wife on it 😁

when did that come in? I haven't lagged my pipe runs and our BCO didn't mention anything.

Costs more to send the letters out! 😂

It is still pretty cheap when you think about it, 3.6 MJ for 30p. A Big Mac has 2.06 MJ and it costs £4.59. Tesco Red Lentils have 0.322 MJ in 80g, that works out at 30p, for an eleventh of the energy company content, and you have to boil them up at home.