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Hello everyone, We've just rebuilt our 1930's semi-detached property - a two-storey wrap-around extension went a bit awry and became a complete rebuild when the walls fell down and roof caved in... ! We've got ASHP, UFH, Solar PV, Loxone and MVHR in, not quite all working yet. Cheers, James

Let me take my time thinking of a response...

In my kitchen and utility room both sinks aren't under the window. Never really understood the notion that you had to look out a window when your doing the dishes. Anyone with kids in their teens will agree that the dishwasher is the world's greatest invention. Still can't figure out how they need to use nearly every piece of cutlery we own when they make tea and toast.

The main kitchen / living room downstairs is progressing well. Now plastered and painted. More on the blog at http://www.willowburn.net/ Look for the entry Main living room / kitchen Next step under floor heating and Oak flooring. Then a kitchen and we move in........

Nope! Still a novelty! And now I don’t need the heating on as it’s warmer I am thankful that the kitchen isn’t roasting because I needed the heating on to take a shower! It’s the little things ?

Then go for the two dishwasher solution mentioned elsewhere here. That way you get the pans out of the way, if you have MVHR you won't get any smells and anyway it is probably just you. Just provide a door into the dining room from the kitchen. You can still gather your dinner party guests in the drawing room, it has beem so long since one has had a drawing room, for the canepes and aperatifes and then frog March them through the cavernous hall to the dinning room and food etc can be brought in, as and when, via the servants route from the kitchen. How cool is that.

Dishwashers do NOT end washing up, they just reduce it. My criticism of the big "familly room" is I don't want to spend a "quiet" evening watching telly with the fridge and the dishwasher churning away. I want somewhere quiet away from all that noise. That is why we are having both.

For supply only, you pay the VAT and reclaim it. If the invoice details supply AND fit, the whole thing must be zero rated at source and the supplier sorts it as part of their VAT return. If you pay the VAT at this point, you will not be able to reclaim it and arguing with HMRC is a pointless exercise. Convincing your supplier of this may not be an easy task - I found the best approach was to direct them to the relevant VAT notice and just flat out refuse to pay until the VAT was removed. Proved effective!

You'll fit in well here then! : )

Ivor Biggun:

On your approved plan does it show the heights as a height above Ordnance Datum? E.g. 77.6 AOD. If so,this would suggest a nearby datum exists. Regarding your trenchfill,the groundworkers I know use a laser level with the beeping audio on the receiver & an ‘elephants foot.’ This is basically just an upside down ‘T’ shape in 4x2 timber,around 1.8m in height. The receivers are designed to be fixed to surveyors staffs so can easily be fixed to the 50mm side of a 4x2. They set the level & receiver so the underside of the elephants foot is at the desired height for the concrete & check it as it’s poured. It’s not 100% accurate as the timber can sit down a bit in wet concrete but is near enough for footing concrete.

It oxidises and turns a horrible dark grey.

Has the novelty of not having to turn the heating on to get hot water worn off yet ..??

+1 to the above. VAT 708 can be very confusing in places. If necessary refer them to... The table in Section 2.1 which says that work on a new qualifying dwelling (eg fitting the windows to a new dwelling) should be zero rated. and Section 2.2 on building materials. In particular the bit that says... So BOTH their work in fitting the windows and the supply of the windows MUST be zero rated. Note: It would be different if they were just supplying the windows and not fitting them. In that case they should charge you VAT and you can reclaim it. It's the fact that they are doing both that means it is zero rated to you.

Two thinks I noticed.. £3m is a lot of "door handles, toilet roll-holders and ironmongery" !! They say it was a £5m disaster but that's it's currently worth £8m. I wouldn't mind having that sort of disaster.

I'd have done it for £1M and in half the time...

What puzzles me is how they actually afforded it when it went £3m over budget. It must be nice having access to that much extra. The rest of us would have to say, sorry I have run out of money and you have to stop. How the other half live.

We have just spent a year living in the static caravan which has a "family room" with everything (apart from sleeping washing and s******g) all in the one space. That has been plenty to convince me when I want to watch television * or listen to music, it must be away from all the noise etc of a kitchen. * unless you are watching tv at meal times which is generally considered impolite. I suppose if the OP can't join the kitchen to the dining room, he could put a serving hatch in that wall.

No and you don't want it to as with a cement based adhesive, the creaminess is from water, cement and air mixing. Trapping air in any cement based product that you want to be strong is not a good idea. As @Nickfromwales said - wet the concrete with a sponge and then slap the adhesive on....

I agree partially and we are juggling with the same square footage. After some long debates Swmbo and I decided that a modest open plan kitchen/dining + snug area would suit us most of the day and the other half of the downstairs area would be assigned to a proper sitting room. Cooking smells need to be confined.

The same is true for many ailments, but very few large scale studies are done outwith the pharmaceutical industry and for obvious reasons they don't usually do any studies on anything that they can't profit from.

When we were looking at using them I went to a demo of them being used as foundations for overhead sign gantries on major roads. Very impressive, especially as they could drive the screw piles in, then fit the new gantry, all in the space of about an hour. We were told that they have extension tubes, if needed, for greater depth. For putting in larger ones they use a torque head on a small digger and drive the pile until a set torque is reached, as the driving torque is a good indicator for bearing capacity.

I am a one-man walking laboratory and science experiment to the efficacy of glucosamine. Over 15 years I have experienced episodes of minor joint niggles and on every occasion taking the potion for a month or two resolves the pain. Then typically I get out of the habit of taking the stuff and a joint pain returns within 6 to 24 months, I must be on my 10th cycle pain/glucosamine/fix by now. A few years ago I followed up one formal science report that was critical of glucosamine and found the original NHS experiment was faulty. An NHS consultant in rheumatoid arthritis tried a controlled experiment on patients who were under his care and no benefit was observed. This was an unsuitable patient group given they would be experiencing advanced joint disease by the time an NHS consultant intervenes in their care. glucosamine and chondroitin is for people of normal weight who have sensitive joints for example in the morning before the body warms up. p.s. for some reason the syrup version delivers a fix more quickly.

Probably not except distraction therapies. As an ex climber, you know that our joints don't ache, even when your muscles are screaming. The fear of failure, and the potential consequences, are a much greater distraction. Now I am off to the woods for a coffee.

A kitchen sink facing a long wall = no. Sometimes a necessity with an existing house or small kitchen but should be designed out given a cleansheet.

I guess one of the issues may be that the guarantee may be invalidated if you use any flooring with UFH if the manufacturer’s advice is not to do this.

As said don't pay this, you won't be able to claim it back. I had to have quite robust discussions with some suppliers to get them to zero rate things when it was supply and fit. They all did in the end. I had to sometimes send them the VAT notice. The rules are mostly in Section 3 of this. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-notice-708-buildings-and-construction/vat-notice-708-buildings-and-construction

Don't pay the VAT you won't be able to reclaim it. Give them the self certificate if they stick, its pretty worthless but in my experience does the trick as it gives them a comfort.

Fit them yourselves and save a fortune!

Was referring to the LEDs - I thought those brackets were for screws. But now I get it: So perfectly easy to fit if they come with clips. I was thinking it would be a right PIA to fit the buggers. @PeterW Did you get these from fleabay/online? If they are WA* on your side then I will be halfway correct already. *Wife Approved✔️

Definitely zero rated for supply and fit. I'm having my glazing supplied and fitted by the same supplier. I gave them a copy of my PP to confirm that it was a new build and that was it. It's a big old chunk of cash on the glazing - I wouldn't want to have to argue over it at the end.

DEFINITELY No 2 The thing is, even id we move in by the end of the year, it will NOT be finished by a long way. There is the snug living room and utility room downstairs not even started. Small matter of no doors, door liners or skirting boards anywhere. And when the house is finished, still plenty to do outside. I think I still have Biscay to cross, on a stormy day.

No Wrong. Supply AND FIT should be charged to you at 0% VAT. You are not able to reclaim VAT paid on labour for a new build as all labour should be zero rated, and as the windows are being fitted they should be zero rated. Someone will post the actual wording from the VAT people which you can show to the supplier.

I too like the colour, we wanted “National trust olive green” for ours but made the mistake of choosing the ral number from an iPad, settled on ral 1000 and told the window company who were spraying our windows , when they arrived we were shocked, not what we chose ( we said) oh yes you did ( they said) we have grown to like ral 1000 but beware people, don’t chose colours from a screen ? Well done dave, we too have just chosen our kitchen, it’s a race to the finish.

Just the powdered tile adhesive straight on

Don't tempt me Hot tubs are favorite subject of mine with leisure parks on changeover days; HSE - tubs must be drained cleaned and sanitised on changeover days.

I'm using Hep2O manifolds in my plant room as done by other here. I put in three manifolds, cold water, hot water and rain water. The rain water manifold is fed by a small gravity header tank in the attic and the manifold feeds the WC's and outside taps. Now the header tank has two ball cocks. One for a rainwater tank in the garden and the other, a mains for when the outside rain tank is empty. The tank you put in the garden as you said is about 1,5000 to purchase. A big expense. I don't have the money currently for this so my rainwater header tank is currently fed from mains water as if the outside rainwater tank (which I don't have) is empty. The whole thing is working great and all I spent was €60 on a small header tank and two additional runs of Hep2O from the manifolds in the utility to the attic. If I ever decide to put the big expensive tank in the garden I can and the whole house is currently plumbed for it.

First photo is just the trees cleared back along slab edge, the second shows the progress by about lunchtime on the Sunday. We are sitting at 7 blocks high with front butts and corners higher - we had a bit of a setback on the Saturday night in the form of a 1 in 30 year rain occurrence, the brickie had all the corners up ready to fill the sides in on the Sunday, I got out with tarps as soon as I could but the walls were bleeding mortar and one totally collapsed. We have not had rain for over 4 weeks and it had to rain that night! Anyway, I cleaned all the blocks up and this was all rebuild on the Sunday morning and then progress continued. It is to be finished on the 30th which suits me as then I don't need to think about the roof design till the block is up!

Tape - scrim tape (item 1...) as the other stuff is packinrg tape as @Nickfromwales said. This is what you need. Scrim tape

It's easier for the plasterer to skim a full flat celing than around holes etc. You can easily cut the hole out afterwards.

I misjudged this. I've put in a traditional number of switches to cover multi-way switching of lights and a touch screen panel thinking I'd regularly need access to the app. Could have got away with half the switches and the touchscreen is now used to stream the output from the camera at our entrance Loxone has been able to control all my heating and cooling hardware. Modbus to the Nibe heat pump controller, IP directly to the Airflow MVHR and relays to vents and blinds. Not fully configured yet, that's a work in progress, but the basics are working.

I did at the time. From memory, Z-wave is cheaper , but there's a much more limited selection of components, and I seem to recall there being issues with range and reliability of the protocol as a whole. That might have been FUD from Loxone though. The programming environment for Loxone is extremely powerful and easy to use, which was really what swung it for me. Loxone does occasional open evenings at a pub near where they're based in Reading. Worth getting along to if you can. Failing that, they have a few videos on Youtube showing how it all works. I will caution that since I bought it a couple of years ago, Loxone does seem to be moving more and more towards closed systems, and are increasingly reticent to support self-installers. There are active forums with very helpful people that can get you around this though. You can also mix and match Loxone with other stuff. They have DMX and modbus interfaces, for example, plus their outputs are relays and so can be used to control just about anything that uses switched contacts (eg, many MVHR and ASHP units). The one thing that I didn't realise at the time was just how rarely I'd open the interface. Mine isn't connected to the outside world, so I can't control anything remotely. Just about everything else is controlled automatically or by hard switches, so I typically wouldn't open the mobile interface more than a couple of times a month!

Shouldn’t the speakers be on hydraulic arms also ? . So they can be lowered and cleaned like the shower head ...