Leaderboard

In my last blog entry we had done the majority of first fix and were about to tackle the lighting circuits. We had intended to do this in the conventional ring and switch runs. Reading up on our options it soon became obvious this was not the best option and that running radial circuits made much more sense. A radial approach will let us install led drivers and any automation in a central area for ease of maintenance and to allow us too upgrade with wi-fi switches at some point in the future. Initially we are installing RF controlled relays with switches that look like fairly conventional switches stuck on the walls at appropriate places. There are a couple of of lighting circuits where having Shelly controlled switches will be beneficial as we can programme them to come on at sunset for a couple of hours. All has gone reasonably well, our council building controls visited and gave us a clean bill of health and said they didn’t need to come back before completion. They’ve been really good to us drawing our attention to possible problems, so getting the news was a nice vote of confidence. It’s been hard work and we’ve been on site most days, so when it came to the 14th I did little to help my cause by buying Pat a new set of overalls ? … we both had a laugh about it. Our plans were to get the plaster-boarding done by mid March, which is when the plasterer was scheduled to finish a large job. This schedule gave us plenty of time to fit service battens on the vaulted ceiling and get everything as true as we can to give us a nice flat ceiling. Not having plaster-boarded before we decided it was prudent to call in the plasterer to take a look at what we had done and point out anything we needed to do differently. So when Shaun our plasterer came on Tuesday last week and told us it all looked good and the big job he had been due to start had been delayed as the electricians had failed to come on site. Quick discussion and we decided to break our plastering into two pieces of work and start on the 25th a full three weeks before we had planned. It was an all hands to the pumps week to meet the schedule. Our house has a two story stair case in a 1.8M by 2.4M void so when working on the ceiling over the void it looks like a very long drop...a good 8 meters. The boarding above the void is in full view, so we wanted to get a nice straight line on the intersection on the apex. We set up staging in the void on the second floor. Well supported but still knee quaking. Getting the board lifter into the work area was also a problem. Just to help the wall on one side of the area was not true so getting a 2.4M board lined up and fixed true proved a bit of a mission. In the end it took four attempts and some use of packing shims to get it right. Not a good start as it had taken the best part of a day to do a comparatively small area. Our kitchen ceiling is vaulted and we had bought a board lifter and an extension arm to allow us to do it. This extension arm allows the boards to be raised to 4.6M plenty we thought. It turned out to be just 800mm less than we needed so we ended up putting the lifter on blocks to get the additional height. In the end it worked out fairly well with minimal trauma. Can’t imagine how people do it without a lifter. Progress picked up well from this point and we put up the last few sheets with a little time to spare. Plasterer arrived on schedule and got to work fast. Such a transformation.

Greetings fellow builder bods, Having solved the problem of how to secure footer plates to a friable lime slab floor (with the marvellous help of you brilliant people) we have rocked on with putting the start of the stud walls up and dry lining the barn. Sheeps wool insulation (from Cosywool) will go between the uprights. We will also be studding out the roof rafters in order to give us the depth for the insulation we need to achieve building regs U-values and for our own warm home wishes, so we are holding off the internal partitions until we have done the first part of that so we don't have unnecessary scaffold faff. We have framed up all but one of the 9 windows, but still got 3 of the 4 doors to do. But not bad progress in one week especially when one of us was poorly and should have been in bed really. Self-build fun and games! Handling wood is SO much warmer than handling stone which is a welcome change in this weather! It sort of seems a shame to cover up the stone walls which represent a good few months work for me. But they aren't the prettiest of their type given that we have kept the old lime wash on in places where it was sound and didn't need attention, and we do want the house to be warm when all is said and done. If I want to see stones I'll have to go outside. ? We had to choose between setting the footer plate further out from the stone wall and losing more floor space but not needing to trim anything... or tailoring the uprights around the irregular lumps and bumps if they protruded too far. We picked the latter, of course, so the uprights are truly bespoke fitted in places! We did have one run of a few meters where we didn't have to use the jigsaw at all - we liked that bit. We are currently 2 years into this build and it is nice to be doing something so immediately visually obvious. Up until now we have mostly been altering/making good existing structures / features which isn't the same. I spent a fair chunk of a year repairing the stone walls (while the kids were at school mostly, so not the same work rate as a full time labourer would be able to do) and when I was done it didn't look a whole lot different (though structurally certainly was)! But now everything we are doing from this point is adding fresh new stuff and as such feels like more progress. If anyone is curious or thinks a question about any of this would be useful please feel free to ask. ?

I’m a computer programmer so like a bit of tech. However I don’t think I’ll be fitting anything digital to my house whether it’s shower , front door, etc. It just dates so quickly. I want my shower taps to last 15-25 years. Each to their own etc They are tempting but just think how things changes so quickly. It’s ok I suppose if one plans to change every 5 years

Since the last entry we have completed the upstairs. This area consists of two bedrooms and an open plan play area landing. Carpets were fitted after the Christmas break. Lights, switches, sockets and fire alarms have now been installed. My wife is working her way through the rooms downstairs. Painting, caulking and tidy up plastering work. We are really happy with how this is coming together. The temporary supply electrics have now been taken away and we are now wired up to our consumer unit. It’s great to be able to use lighting and sockets throughout the house. The bathroom, en-suite and utility have been ordered today so hopefully I will have some progress here in a month or so. Feels very close to being finished or being able to move in!

I don’t have a landline. Everything is via 500gb EE sim. About 70MB up and down. Latency is super low. Not planning to get a land line in the new build either as it would cost a lot due to remote location. I can only see mobile getting better and cheaper personally. I’m currently living in an old very thick walled cottage and have no issues. However if the signal is not great there are some good aerials out there. I think directional is what you want though (think satellite dish).

Making it look easy mate. ✅

One for our @Ed Davies

I've never had a roof replaced but if they are taking off tiles and membrane I'd be concerned about the weather. Would you normally have a scaffolding tent/canopy over the house to keep rain out or just a few tarps thrown over the top? I'd certainly want to see their insurance (and notify mine). Bit of googling found quite a range .. https://www.mybuilder.com/pricing-guides/roof-cost https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/property/1679757-Is-it-normal-for-roofing-companies-to-quote-without-scaffolding-costs https://www.homeadviceguide.com/guide-to-re-roofing-costs-how-much-does-it-cost-to-re-roof-a-house/ Somewhere I've also seen an estimate of £10K to replace all the roof tiles on a typical house. Was made up of £8000 materials and £2000 Labour and taking two weeks. No idea how accurate these are. They will break quite a lot of tiles so I'd check that you can actually buy the type you have (or get them to provide a sample of a near equivalent). I'd also ask that all the replacements are used on the back of the house (so the front looks all original).

On an UVC always, but, you can get away without one on primary circuits as it’s just the volume of expansion to get rid of. BCO’s never chase on that but are all over D1 & D2 on potable as it’s drinking quality water being ‘lost’. There are several waterless traps ( sealed ) which are transparent, so you can use one of those if a visible discharge is required internally. Where it runs to an outside wall you can rely on that as means of visible discharge.

There will be convection but some of the rising heat should be lost through the trickle vents in the windows upstairs so hopefully it won't be too hot. The problem is that trickle vents can be affected by the wind and it's difficult to know how effective they will be at any particular time. I wouldn't have thought that the ground floor will end up being cold though. It will probably mean tweaking the number of trickle vents that are open on both floors to obtain the best balance.

PS: If you wish you had mains gas for cooking consider a dual fuel stove with an LPG hob running on cylinders. Cylinder gas is too expensive for heating but fine for a hob.

We went with a thermal store which stores energy for both the DHW and UFH. That's because I was concerned our oil boiler would short cycle on and off too much without one. The burner in an oil boiler always runs flat out when lit. It doesn't modulate up and down like a gas boiler. So if you have a powerful burner to provide loads of DHW in a combi it might cycle on and off too much if/when the heating load is very small. Short cycling is s bit like stop start driving in a car, it's less efficient than doing fewer longer burns. That said you can lose a lot of heat from a thermal store and it's associated pipes and pumps. Who knows what the right approach is. We're happy as our TS gives loads of mains pressure DHW and the boiler doesn't cycle when just one loop is calling for heat. However our bills are still higher than I expected.

One thing I've noticed living in our well insulated airtight house for over 3 years now is you don't need an obvious 'source of warmth' to feel warm. The house is at a comfortable 22o year round and there are never any draughts (even when a single door or window is open) so you never feel cold. I do love an open fire and used and abused the one that was in the cold, draughty old house that we demolished to make way for this one but really don't miss it.

Erm... that black elbow isn't glueable type pvc (I don't think). It's HDPE. The elbow goes into an adapter that comes with the Geberit then that push fits into a 110mm female. The 3 black fittings are all Geberit:

Seriously distracted with the shed! ??? The walls don't get any wet coming in! there are no doors on currently so we do get a lot of condensation on them at this time of year with the temperatures meaning we have 99% relative humidity. The pointing on the outside is a bit dodgy in places and yet the walls are dry on the inside. They are two leaves of stone with loose stone infill so I think there are enough capillary breaks and that is even on the side of the prevailing weather! Prior to us working on it the walls were wringing wet through, but that was because the land drainage was terrible and gutters in a state so the building was sat in a puddle most of the time. Then the concrete slab floor and wall render just forced all the wet up the walls and into the stone with no escape. as soon as the drainage, gutters were sorted and the concrete gone it dried up a treat - was lovely to see it come back to life like that. ? Walls will be boarded over with wood wool board (breathable equivalent to gypsum plasterboard). Then lime plastered. Floor layout is open-plan lounge kitchen diner at one end and three bedrooms and a bathroom down the other end

It seems that's what G100 is all about. I beleive that this is now allowed as long as your inverter supports G100 compliant ELS (export limiting scheme). https://www.energynetworks.org/electricity/engineering/distributed-generation/engineering-recommendation-g100.html

I liberally smear compression fittings with Jet Blue Plus. They do up better, smoother and with none of that nasty brass on brass squeak. I don't use PTFE anymore. No weeping and going green and crusty after a few years either. Just my humble opinion.

interesting, so if i did go back in to planning (there are some tweaks that may need doing) and state that it was going to be a phased development then i could get out of paying CIL on the house i wasn't building yet, but the planning for all houses is enacted. Edit: i have just spoken to and e-mailed the council if i can split the CIL liabilities as per the existing planning permission, lets see what happens, not hopeful but best to try.

You can choose cable 'wrap format' then enter the cable diameter and print, this works well for round cables. Or you can choose 'flag' format an it will print a long strip which wraps around the cable but leaves a long bit with the printing on. You can buy heat shrink tube print medium but it's very expensive for what it is. Just a note on cartridges, as with all printers the cost is in the ink. Cheap clone cartidges work well but the glue is not so good I've found, especially if doing cable wrap, but it's a third the price. I use clone eBay cartridges myself as I can't stomach the brother prices.

Other benefit is you can lay out your internal wall sole plates and see how big the rooms are and change the plans if needed on the fly within reason.

@Miek , Relative to 70°C outputs at 30°C/13.5%, 40°C/32.1%, 50°C/53.0%, 60°C/75.8% for rooms at 20°C and 'ordinary' radiators

Got two from Screwfix. One posh Rothenberger and the other their own brand. One's red, one's blue, look identical to me and do the same job.

I've had a cheaper Brother label printer for a while and it's invaluable. I label pretty much everything with it, cables, pipes, switches, you name it, it has a label on it. I've lost count of the number of times all these labels have saved me hours of head scratching later, trying to remember what does what. It's very easy to just get on and do stuff, thinking that you'll remember why you did it and what it does, only to find that you come back to it a year or two later and can't remember what goes where.

It's been a while since I last updated this, but we're slowly making progress. Since the completion of the roofing in November, we've mostly been cladding, the joiners fitted the doors and windows, we boarded the inside and last week the cellulose got blown in. It's reassuring how well the house retains the heat from a small portable heater, unlike anywhere else I've ever lived! Bit of a delay in the cladding due to me underestimating both how much we needed and also how much we discarded (too much sap). Weather's made things a bit slower at times as well. Photos below. Cladding in progress (don't look too closely). The ends have all been trimmed and bevelled now but this is the only photo I have. The snow arrives, makes for cold hands when they're above your head hammering all the time. Boarding the first floor with OSB The insulation arrives. And disappears into the walls within a day.. Next up, try and sort the foul drainage as it's been a bit neglected, MVHR first fix and then ready for electrical and plumbing first fix.

You know, this is an utter joke. Your lender would probably give someone a mortgage for a major house builder home no questions asked, which as we know have often been found to have major structural issues and mortar with little cement in it and bits that are just down right shocking, yet because it is a self build immediately it is deemed as being risky. Our extension is a quality build, a solid, well engineered thing, yet I could see me in some years potentially having to do battle with a potential buyers solicitor over warranties and what not when actually they should be more concerned about the non-BC signed off, self-certified mass produced houses built with little care or quality.

Well I ended up with wood! If I thought that this would be my forever home I would have gone all out for the composite but I can’t say it will be so for a fifth of the price wood it was and it’s pretty smart looking

WAIT! Before you consider sealing the lime floor, you have to consider why lime has been used. If the floor is insulated from moisture, and the lime was used simply because it was what was to hand, then sealing it may be OK. But if lime is used in a new build, there is usually a reason - normally lime is used because it's vapour permeable, and for it to function correctly, you have to maintain this property. No end of problems have been caused by sealing lime masonry as if it were OPC based, which means that it can no longer behave as it should. If somebody else installed the floor, then I'd suggest the OP takes advice before using any sort of sealant on lime.

It was sadly such an incident that resulted in a child in bed, getting drenched with scalding water when the tank did burst, that led to the introduction of the safety cut outs.

Looking great ! Are your walls waterproof or do they get damp ? Apart from the wool between the studs what is going over them ? Great space, what’s the floor plan ? 2 years in..... I am hoping to kick start my project again this year but have got seriously distracted rebuilding my shed.......

Must get one of those. Lighting a proper fire used to play havoc in the old car.

Rocut shears are great but watch your skin as they can pinch the pad of your hand and give you a nice blood blister ... ask me how I know ...!!