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So I'm still here, plugging away. Apparently I have a roof that is constantly underestimated in terms of the amount of work required. Both chippies and roofers took weeks longer than expected. Still, all part of the fun! Since my last update the cut roof elements were completed, dormers etc. Tiling was completed this Monday. I've insulated the loft. Marley Cedral cladding has begun in the past couple days. Next steps are for fibreglass flat roof to hopefully be completed on the balcony on Monday, then rear bifold doors and front balcony Velfac sliding doors to be installed. I will then FINALLY be 100% watertight and ready to attack the inside in anger. Few photos of various bits and bobs below.

I have one of those, unfortunately it's at the 4 inches from the end of my bed in my teenage bedroom that I now share with my wife and dog! It makes BBC breakfast seem like virtual reality as its curved and about 3ft from my face, shame susanna Reid isnt on it any more ?

Here's my entry to the Buildhub shed of the year, I'll be living in it for a couple of years if I don't finish the bathroom :

Here's my entry to the Buildhub shed of the year, we'll be living in the shed for a couple of years during our main build.

85% finished...50% to go?? I'll be entering the buildhub shed competition once this is complete. Suspect we will need at least three categories, under £1,000, best aesthetic design and best re-use of materials. Winners receive 10 extra free *likes* and a screwfix voucher for a tenner. Patent pending on the competition format design...TL??

I was going to nominate my pallet shed for the "reuse" category but I think OnOff has just won that one. Triassic definitely wins the best aesthetic design category.

Looking at that pressure loss curve I don't think I'm going to fret over it, TBH. With our shower running the pressure drop through the softener is only around 0.2 bar, and I can say from experience that we can't notice a 1 bar difference at any of the outlets, as that's the normal variation we get between the borehole pump turning on and off (it turns off at 3.5 bar and on at 2.5 bar). Given that a 1 bar variation seems to have no noticeable impact, and as we'd need to draw off at three times the shower flow rate to get a 1 bar drop, I'm not sure that it's something really worth worrying about, unless you have a low mains supply pressure. Our accumulators are on the hard water side, too, as they have to be in order to not put a reverse flow through the softener if one of the garden taps was used. As I mentioned elsewhere, if the pressure at the softener outlet is slightly higher than that at the inlet then it can overflow the brine chamber. Even with an NRV in line I think I'd be wary about fitting an accumulator on the outlet side, as NRVs aren't perfect one-way valves, they will momentarily allow a small reverse flow as they shut. I found this out with the ones I fitted to the water treatment system, at the ozone injection point, and having discovered this the regs that say you must have a double NRV on the incoming supply makes perfect sense; it's to prevent that tiny, momentary, bit of reverse flow, I think. If you have a high enough incoming mains pressure then the option of fitting a PRedV after the softener, to regulate the pressure to a usable figure, say 2.5 to 3 bar, might be an option. That way the pressure drop through the softener might well have no effect at all.

Well the walls done

Hi all Looking forward to spending some time round the place. I am starting a renovation project involving new gable to the front & back of the house, new floor to ceiling windows, reroofing and then rendering. I have a great team of separate tradesmen except fell at the first hurdle with an error on the now passed groundworks! I will post the question in the planning permission and building regs as I think that’s where is should go. Tim

The blocks where built when they where wet and you get the salts that are in the concrete and the mortar seep out. The tech term for it is effloressence . let it dry out and most of it will brush of. The best cure is just time so let it sit for as long as possible and just keep brushing it of as it drys out. An old wives tale to treat it is white vinegar and water.

They have some large poly tunnels just outside St Awful. I was more interested in how they made them than what was inside first time I went in.

The major problem with an outside extractor in a house with MVHR is that when it's on you will get cold air draughts coming in through every fresh air feed. What happens is that you're sucking air out of the kitchen and fresh air has to come in somewhere, and the easy route in is via the MVHR fresh air inlets. The MVHR will go massively out of balance and so the heat exchanger performance will degrade a great deal. The result is that the incoming fresh air won't be heated to any significant degree and the incoming fresh air flow rate will increase to match the extractor flow rate. The result, in cold weather, will be cool air coming out of the fresh air inlet terminals at a higher flow rate, just to compensate for the kitchen extract rate. I posted somewhere else about how easy it can be to clean and refurbish the grease and activated carbon filters in a recirculating hood. I do ours about every six months or so, depending on whether or not it looks like it needs a clean. It's just a matter of sticking the stainless grease filter mesh in the dishwasher and refilling the carbon filter unit with fresh carbon granules (which can be bought in bulk pretty cheaply from fish pond equipment suppliers). This works well, and keeps the everything clean around the hob in our current house.

A fair few of our "receipts" weren't marked as receipts, but did have confirmation of payment info and the VAT number. One or two didn't have the VAT number and I went to the company website and printed off their terms and conditions which always had it on, and just stapled the Ts & Cs to the receipt. When I did this I pencilled a note on the receipt giving the VAT number and highlighting that it was on the Ts & Cs attached, rather than on the receipt itself. This didn't seem to cause a problem with HMRC. I even had to provide a Danish to English translation sheet with one receipt, as you couldn't make out what was the VAT on it. I had the same problem with a fair few companies not sending proper VAT receipts, almost all were online suppliers. I gave up asking after a while, as I got the same response as you've had, and HMRC seemed to accept it OK.

I clean our extractor regularly in the current house and I have to say it really picks up a lot of grease. I think you need one to do just this as otherwise the fat in the air will settle on near surfaces and I suspect your MVHR extractor will also pick up a lot and be pretty difficult to clean.

I thought so too @JSHarris eventually I found that the MVHR standards are in a different section in Scotland and weren't coming up when I was searching the standards. The normal standards are in 3.14.3 of the Scottish Regs, the MVHR standards are in 3.14.11, I had to download the entire building stands handbook to find 3.14.11. If you search for sottish building standards ventilation that clause is not included Kitchen 6 litres/sec with 13 litres/sec boost Utility room 4 litres/sec with 8 litres/sec boost Bathroom 4 litres/sec with 8 litres/sec boost Toilet 3 litres/sec with 6 litres/sec boost Just to be odd the Scottish government also produce a guidance paper that says this - http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0040/00409104.pdf NFILTRATION RATE: 5 — 10m3/h/m2 Example Ventilation Solution 4: Continuously Operating Balanced Supply and Extract (with or without Heat Recovery) Apartment Kitchen Bathroom / Shower Toilet Utility Room 1/30th floor [1] area 1/30th floor [1] area 12000 mm2 10000 mm2 10000 mm2 10000 mm2 10000 mm2 0.5 ACPH minimum 0.5 ACPH minimum and 25 -50% boost 0.5 ACPH minimum and 25 -50% boost 0.5 ACPH minimum 0.5 ACPH minimum

60 l/s is an massive flow rate for an MVHR terminal, and it would probably mean over-sizing the MVHR just to achieve that rate in the kitchen on boost. I'm not familiar with the Scottish Building Regs, but if that's what they say then they are a bit odd, as it means that the MVHR total efficiency will be poor 99% of the time, because the thing will have to be sized to meet a kitchen extract rate that's more 4 times that needed for full boost under the UK regs.

Here he is assisting with the wiring planning one evening. And then he is more than willing to assist with my Pasty in the site caravan. Hes also developed a fear of being in the back of the car with anything since a load of boxes toppled over as I went around a corner. Hence the expression when I put him in next to a ladder ??? Hes actually nearly 3! Golden retriever cross Springer Spaniel, which results in him just looking like a small retriever so everyone assumes he's a puppy.

Eurocell from a local supplier, Dales collection - The Wirksworth http://www.eurocell.co.uk/homeowners/upvc-doors/the-dales-collection-composite-doors Only cost £600 which I was happy with!

We had lots of till receipts that didn't have any name on, one or two that had both our names on and the rest all had my name on. None of them were rejected, and I am pretty sure they went through them thoroughly, as they came back with detailed queries, withheld a big chunk over an error on a single receipt and all told it was over three months between submitting the claim and getting all the VAT back. I suggest you try and put the claim in both names, that way if a receipt has either name on then you should be OK.

Looking good! Not enough shots of your lovely puppy though

This thread is "what it's all about" as far as I'm concerned. Ed doesn't "have to", could indeed take an easier route but wants to see "if he can". Rediscovering a lost art and some of his local history at the same time. Great stuff!

This is ours here. The tread is solid oak right through. Let me know if you want details.

I tend to put the seat level at 425mm. When I demonstrate the slightly higher ( referred to as 'comfort' ) height most older customers say it's much more forgiving. I would choose the 420mm option every day, regardless, and don't like a low toilet. Kids can use the chuck-away 'pee step' when their little legs don't reach, but...... "a loo is for life, not just for Xmas"

The spreadsheet I knocked up to emulate the parts of the claim form where you have to fill in every receipt, add up the VAT etc, is here, if you want to copy it: http://www.mayfly.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/VAT Claim Form 431 - Blank.xls It comes without any warranty, etc, but I used it and HMRC accepted it. There's an extra column added at the left to use a serial number - I found it easier to find receipts in the stack and organise them if I pencilled a number at the top right of each one. HMRC don't mind this at all.

@JanetE, I have a file of notes taken from EB and BH, so I copy the relevant stuff here (from @JSHarris I think...) First the basics. There are separate HMRC forms for receipts where the VAT is broken out as a separate figure and where VAT is just included in the total price. HMRC will accept spreadsheets that look like these forms, and have told me that they are happy if there is an extra serial number column at the left. I'll post copies of the blank spreadsheet versions we used later, once I've cleared all the data out. HMRC need the receipts to be ordered in the same sequence as they are entered on the form, which is where the additional column is useful, as you can pencil a serial number on the top right of each receipt to more easily keep them in sequence. I found that we had loads of till receipts, rather than A4 printed receipts, and there are two main issues with these. The first is that they are heat and light sensitive, so keep them somewhere cool and dark or else they will fade. The second is that they are a pain to try and keep in order, so staple each one to the centre of a sheet of blank A4 paper. This then allows the serial number to be pencilled in the top right corner, makes them a LOT easier to handle and allows you somewhere to write notes regarding ineligible items and then write the calculated VAT or total price figure down. The latter is important. You need to go through every single receipt and check that there are no tools or other ineligible reclaim items on it, and if there are you need to mark them, recalculate either the VAT (for a receipt where VAT is given separately, or recalculate the total price (for a receipt where VAT is only included in the total price). The receipts need to be in date order and must contain evidence that you are the purchaser (so your name has to be on it, and for a till receipt this may well just be the name on the card used - so take care to use a card with your name on it). The receipts also have to have the sellers name and their VAT number. You cannot reclaim VAT from a non-VAT registered seller, or if the receipt doesn't have the VAT number on it. This latter point is a pain, as I've found several online sellers who fail to put their VAT number on the emailed receipt. In each case I've had to contact them for evidence of their VAT number, but things would have been a lot simpler had every original emailed receipt had the VAT number on it to start with. If I were doing this again, then I'd start by keeping better control of the receipts from the moment I received them. In the case of emailed or web page receipts, printed off, then I'd have checked straight away if they had all the correct information on (my name, suppliers name, VAT number, date, etc) and asked the suppliers to correct any that weren't in order. I'd also have started stapling till receipts to sheets of paper to better be able to file them and keep them from getting faded, torn etc. On some of these I'd have made pencilled notes on the attached paper that better described the items. B&Q, in particular, use a very abbreviated description on their receipts which makes it challenging to work out what the items are. Finally, I bought a lot of stuff via Ebay, at a good price, but virtually none of it has an eligible receipt. Many of the sellers are probably not VAT registered, but even those that are very rarely give a receipt with their proper company name and VAT number on, so unless you are saving more than 20% by buying on Ebay items may well not be the bargain they seem.

Here goes - I have had to publish them separately as opposed to an entire work book - Hope people find them useful. I no longer have the source document and please remember, these lists have been "tuned" to our particular build so some things may not apply universally and or are missing. PW. Brick layers.pdf Carpentry.pdf Electrican.pdf Groundworks.pdf Landscaper.pdf Misc.pdf Plasterer.pdf Plumber.pdf Prelims.pdf Roofer.pdf

This is the sort of thing that bothers me a bit about fitting a lightning protection scheme that can't cope with the very high peak discharge current - would it actually increase the risk when compared to having no big conductors up in the air?

I'd butter it up with silkabond both sides and bingo it'll be bombproof. ?✌️️

I used 12mm Hardiebacker board but it's tough stuff and I got through a few holecutters!

Erm yes sarking...that's larch isn't it. Hey it was Saturday night, just me and the boy sharing an M&S meal deal, he doesn't drink so I had the wine all to myself. Today, ran out of roof felt due to my last minute notion to increase the roof overhang. Topping out ceremony will have to wait another day? And a nice view of the Hut from the shed roof...