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I have just bought this 1977 Sambron am10 forklift and as I haven't seen or heard of one before I'm interested to here of anyone who has used one before. I believe it has a 8 metre lift and has a 1 tonne lifting capacity. It starts and runs ok but the output shaft bearing on the gearbox has collapsed. However I have sourced and purchased a used gearbox I will fit this week along with giving it a service and grease up etc. It sure is wierd and wacky but i'm hoping it will be a handy bit of kit during the build for very little money!

I’ve noticed a few people doing metal roofs with roof windows, and noticed all having a bit of a nightmare trimming around the windows. Over the road from me they are building loads of new houses all with metal roofs i have been keeping a keen eye on them to look at details and thought would share it in case anybody needs ideas. The photos are rubbish as I took them on my phone from 200m away what they have basically done is above the windows they have turned a sheet 90degrees and run it sideways as a big wide flashing, the sheets above the windows are trimmed down onto this horizontal sheet, probably with a fold that tucks under to prevent wind uplift. Hope that makes sense, if I haven’t explained properly and your interested I will go around with a proper camera.

I'm currently using an Android phone tethered by USB to an Asus RT-N66U router, and am getting 14Mbps download and 10.6Mbps upload (adequate download and much better upload than my previous landline), with 30ms ping & 11ms jitter. That's on an LTE connection with reasonable signal strength (-94dBm).

@ProDave its a while ago (3 years) since we did our Vat claim but we successfully claimed for work done in the 3 months after the date on our Practical Completion Certificate.

Finally! Got a second hand UPVC door and frame off eBay. £68.

I have followed this thread with interest, much of what I would have said has now been mentioned. However, I would reiterate the point that cost is not just a function of size but also complexity, for example, you may well find that by bringing that external gap between the two main bedrooms inside the fabric of the house you actually reduce cost. You have also just answered one of the main questions I had which was about how frequently you would have the visitors you mentioned as you are giving over a lot of space for them. As it sounds as though they are quite regular then that may well be the right idea. You mention that you discounted a second floor because you would not be able to help keep things clean and tidy, but what about a lift? Yes that will cost you extra money, but again you may find that the cost of building a smaller two storey house with a lift is less than a single storey house with its footprint and roof that, for the same square footage, will be twice the size. If you stick with single storey the only other thought that does occur to me is the potential for flexible space. Could you incorporate moveable partitions that can be used to enclose part of the space for a guest to sleep in, but be used as living space when there is nobody staying. Maybe something to explore. I wish you well in arriving at the best possible design for your needs.

Just remember you can't reclaim VAT on items purchased after completion. At least you can't normally but there are exceptions.

I appreciate your detailed thoughts on this Ferdinand. There are a couple of slight misunderstandings though, I don't use a wheelchair and am as physically able in short bursts as an everage person. It's just that the energy I have to spend on moving about is very limited, imagine that my body is the same as yours except it is powered by a watch battery whereas yours is powered by a car battery. It is a very confusing illness, it took me years to understand it and I've got the bloody thing. I have also given up on the idea of the empty garden space between the bedrooms. Moonshine and further research has shown up my previous understanding about soundproofing as more of a misunderstanding. Now I will be doing the next redesign using double stud walls between my room and others. Having said that you make a very good point about considering how someone can use a wheelchair in the house. Even though I don't see myself using a wheelchair, I am more vulnerable to being forced into one then a healthy person. If the building regs requires at least one bathroom that has wheelchair access it might as well be mine. Building a good document for the architect is something I am working on. Right now we are still waiting to see if the council will sell us the land, the probability is very high, but it will take some time for them to reach a decision. During that time I aim to learn as much as possible and refine/redesign the plan so that I can deliver something that either works as is, or at least explicitly shows what we want out of the building. Even if the design changes a lot from the ones I post, these threads have been a huge help as I always have valuable takaways from them. The two guest bedrooms are important as my niece and nephew are frequent visitors and will use the one with the sofa bed for a computer gaming room and one or both for staying overnight. There is also the possibility that either my niece or nephew could live with us when they reach adulthood and so having two means one could be used for that and still have one left over for other guests. The reason the bedrooms are right off the living area is simply to get the most use out of the house size as possible. We need to save as much as possible and cutting out corridors is one way to get the most bang for our buck. I am planning on the bedrooms having staggered stud walls filled with Rockwool and solid well sealed doors, so sound shouldn't be a terrible issue.

Probably not - depends on the choice of wall thickness you have. Basement walls are usually 200mm-300mm thick depending on the SE's design, what kind of structure it is, what's on top etc. I'd guess that your ICF will have enough flexability in that respect. We went for an 'open box' design so we could have flexibility of layout and a suspended timber floor to simplify the heating design. However that meant that the walls & slab needed to be thicker than usual (300mm) plus extra steel. We probably could have built a 200mm thick closed box for the same cost of concrete & steel and saved the cost of the suspended floor but the build cost would have been higher to construct the lid so it probably all netted out. GIS fundamentally tells the SE the bearing strength and composition of the ground which usually dictates the design of the slab. To preserve the passive design of the house above, we put the slab on a layer of 300mm thick EPS 200 which extended beyond the walls by about 300mm to meet the 200mm thick EPS 70 vertical insulation. GIS also tells you the ground water levels which will dictate your waterproofing strategy and the overall site conditions will influence the build strategy (i.e. are you on solid rock, clay, chalk, gravel). Site conditions (and access, party wall considerations) will also influence overall cost as when you know what material you're excavating, you know how much it bulks up and what the cart away costs will be. From memory, Chalk is 3:1. clay 2:1 and gravel and rock about 1:1. While muck away trucks are rated to 20t, they can only be filled to a certain volume so this is important as you're usually charged per M3 for excavation, cart away and backfill. The excavation design is also important - you usually can't just dig a straight sided hole as it may be unstable, so the sides are 'battered back' (dug at an angle) which generates more spoil - however this can be used to refill the battered portion if you backfill the usual 1m working gap between finished wall and ground with something free draining like clean stone. If you use site spoil to refill, it needs to be compacted every 200mm. Party wall also applies from the mouth of the excavation so if that's less than 6m from a neighbouring wall then you need to check the 45o intersection rule to see if you're clear - if not you may need to resort to sheet piling. I was away from site the final week of basement works and I suspect that the contractor skimped on stone for the rear of the house as, while it all looked great when he left, about 6 months later there was significant settlement in that area and I needed to backfill it with a lot of type one when doing the landscaping - patio has still settled a touch which caused a few issues. I had retained a few £K for residuals so rather than get them back I never paid it and they never chased for it.

I ditched my landline just over 1 year ago run 3 unlimited at £20 per month sometimes useage is near 700gb no problems and runs between 25 and 75mbps depending on time of day. Huawei B593 wihout ext aerial connected to tp link 5 port switch. Wifi over 3 floors seems very good. Try open signal app for speed test and Mast data website for which operators are nearby.

Yes from the date of the completion certificate. You have to have everything in place to meet building regs so decorative stuff can be done afterwards. The 3 month countdown for VAT reclaim kicks in then too (or even earlier in some cases if you’ve moved in).

We moved in with a Electric and gas cert No landscaping to the outside Temporary disabled ramp Local authority BC where happy to sign us off Cill Three years from that day

HI again @Falesh. I've been thinking on this, and I have the following further comments. I think the conversation perhaps needs to be a bit deeper than "finalising", though this is all your choice. Feel free to take this along as thoughts, if there is anything useful. I am assuming you have a short "Statement of Requirements" (1-2 page) that you will take along, and that you have used as the basis for your designs. If it is in your head rather than on the page, then it would be a good idea to have it written down - as that will help the architect get a grasp quickly of what you want. And save you both time, and hopefully you some money through using them efficiently. Can you find an architect who is a wheelchair user, if that would be beneficial? I think you may find that an architect asks more searching questions than finalising, but a second perspective is probably useful. Personally I would recommend going to see the architect in your wheelchair if you have the option, just to make the point as to how important that is and so you know they are aware of the size of your chair (just in case it doesn't fit well later). My mum was in a chair and it worked in our downstairs bathroom as she (4'10", 7st) and the chair (16" width) were both diminutive - but the bathroom would be too small for me in a chair. Don't let that happen. You need your design to work for a possible electric wheelchair, which are larger as we all know. Further comments: I don't think any of your bathrooms meet regs for an unencumbered wheelchair turning space (though I believe only one must), and that the doors will perhaps need to open into the corridor to create that space (and in case someone falls against the inside of the door and wedges it shut which is a Health and Safety risk). To my eye that would then need a bathroom redesign, and put a question over your door arrangement in the lobby, and may open a can of worms. I think you will get better feedback from your architect than I will give here, but let me mention a few of points: Will a huge 6m deep lounge-kitchen work there for daylight? You have one relatively small North window above the settee and a glass door at the end of a long corridor. Is that enough? (Think skylights or more windows, perhaps). Where will you eat? I wondered about a flip over snooker-dining table, but if it is your getting-elderly dad and you who can do things out of your wheelchair (but quite limited) i do not see that being practical. Is sofa and bedroom suite eating enough? I have had my frail mum living with me for the last few years and meal times have been an important time for social interaction. Is that linear kitchen well designed for someone in a wheelchair or who prefers to keep distances short? Might not an alcove or corner or peninsula plan be better, where you can reach all the key things by spinning on the spot (or having eg a perching stool), or taking a single step? Perhaps with a 720mm high breakfast bar as a separator from the room. If you plan to spend time in your bedroom-suites, then I might want them longer and narrower, to allow "zoning" - ie sleeping, sitting, studying / working. To me the square plan feels like a big bedroom, rather than a small studio suite, and has a feel of "always walking round the bed". If you have a space budget of say 19sqm, I might suggest 6m x 3.2m or 5.4m x 3.6m rather than nearly square. It would also make it more usable by others should you ever move out - 6m x 3.2m would make a double and a single, or a nice work-from-home space or second reception. Personally I am not convinced that bedrooms (or guest bedrooms) should be directly off a living area. Do you really need 2 guest bedrooms rather than one, given the beds have study / work spaces? If you want to keep the external corridor (which clearly you do), the other option to taking it away or covering it, is to make it wider and create a south facing suntrap courtyard garden. That would let your living area get sunlight, and let you have longer narrower bed-suites should you wish. It would only need to be about 3.5-4m wide so could just about squeeze into the existing footprint, thouugh an extra 1-1.5m would help.. Then you can have a separate roof on each side rather than a complex cut structure or cover for the corridor. You and your dad get your own "bedroom wing" in a classic South facing C-Plan. You also get a second socialising space in summer, and for all weathers if you add a say 2m awning / veranda / open porch. Would also keep summer sun out but allow low winter sun in. The pic below is a compact 3 bed bungalow on this plan that my dad designed way back (1970) following this approx. pattern. Here one arm of the C is bedrooms, and the other a car port and entrance, but it clearly works as a design as the business lady who commissioned in her 40s it is still there in her 90s now - and has happily lived there with 3 husbands and now as a widow. I tease her that she is one husband off being the new (*) Bess of Hardwick. It is smaller than your plan - I think each wing is about 4.5m wide, as is the patio garden, so I believe the living space is about 20% smaller than your area. (For comparison the road on the left will be 5 or 5.5m wide between kerbs.) ATB Ferdinand

A friend of mine got one of those recently, she's never had a landline to her house. I've just had it on loan down at the site to check the signal (EE is pants there) for a few days and I'm mightily impressed. Download speed isn't incredible but even without an external antenna it holds onto the signal well.

that's fine for new build Tony but I'm converting/renovating so somewhat constrained (note I've re-roofed and so I'm limited by rafter depth and what I can reasonably accomodate under rafter without compromising the room space). 0.1 isnt realistic here. the point of my question is less about the absolutes and really the relative merits of the two build ups. I've got a relatively high mass, good decrement delay vs lower mass slightly better u-value decision. If I had a magic want I'd lift the roof off and replace with with 350mm i-beams at 600cc fully filled with celllulose and enjoy the u-value and decrement delay, but sadly depite a few waves the wand isn't working ?

Good question. I believe its from first breech. So if the planning conditions says "before work starts" or "before occupation you must do xyz" then the date you start work or occupy the house would be the date of first breech.

My self build has a 6m long chunk of floor-to-ceiling south-facing glazing, and so overheating was an obvious concern, partly for building regs approval, and partly just because, well, because of course it is. My solution is certainly an awning, and I wanted one that projected up to 3m. A few firms struggle to provide a single awning to that dimension. I got one quote for what looked quite a posh one with a smooth front profile (‘..disappears completely into a wall or precisely into a recess)!. Other features listed were.. 1 No. Markilux 3300 Pur folding arm cassette awning complete with bionic tendons Size: 5800 mm wide x 3000 mm projection Electric operation complete with 1 channel remote Vibrabox wind sensor Framework – Made from durable aluminium and powder coated in a choice of 7 standard colours For this I was quoted £6,120 to supply and fit. Haus suggest I will be looking at over 8k for one of theirs, whilst a Markilux 6000 is £4385 ex VAT. At the other end of the price range (and I presume the quality range too) Primrose do one 6m long one as per the original post on this thread. I have also considered an alternative approach – to buy two 3m wide awnings and fit them side by side. This might open up the market a lot, though I am struggling a little to find off-the-shelf 3m wide awnings I can just buy in a shop and take home with me. I’d be keen to know: 1. What the drop off in quality is like from something like a Haus awning to a Primrose one, and how much it actually matters? What are the implications of buying cheap? 2. Where to find decent quality 3m wide off the shelf awnings?

We had beam and block + radon membrane. I did the beam and block first and slurry grouted. Then I built the walls (timber frame) and for this laid a strip of radon membrane + DPC under the sole plate which projected around 30cm into the house. Once the roof was on and I was ready to do the floor I laid the rest of the radon membrane and taped it to this strip - easy as I had already do the fiddly corners etc. Insulation, UFH and screed then followed quickly.

Ha my dad sent me the flier for the awnings.. just as a blast from the past (I want horizontal extending so you can walk under it..) - Max 450cm wide, should be 10cm wider than the window on each side. - Dralon anti-mould fabric. Eh. It lasted 'okay' for 60 years.. - Simple 1m rotating area.

To me this is the pose of a happy man admiringly contemplating his reward for making a good job complete, just like our famous @Onoff and @pocster with a little Teutonic swell from @retiredacademic