Leaderboard

@AnonymousBoschHere's how I'd do it. Single socket 45's straight into chamber on exit and toilet make it rod-able. Swept bend or several 30's make shower rod-able too. Toilet has main run so solids won't get stuck.

A quality cordless impact driver and drill.

Once we'd exchanged on the bungalow we knew that completion would happen and so we didn't waste any time in interviewing and hiring an architect. We got 3 different architects to come round to see us (it was supposed to be 4 but the 4th didn't seem to be interested as after I phoned and left a message with details as to what we wanted I got a voicemail back saying he'd received a message about an extension or something rather than the complete demolition and self-build we're doing! it goes without saying that I didn't call him back). All 3 came to site to have a look around and for us to get a feeling if we'd be able to work with them. we then got quotes and all were pretty similar but we chose the chap we thought we'd most like to work with. After an initial consultation he came up with a few sketches which we were completely not what we wanted and we also questioned as to whether he even listened to us at the initial meeting. We were thinking of phoning around and trying other architects but we went for a meeting and explained how we felt and he said, no worries I'm never going to get it right first time and we took aspects from each of the sketches and discussed it all and now we have final plans that we absolutely love! My mum is getting on in years and she lives alone about a 50 minute drive from us and so I broached the subject of her coming to live with us which she loved the idea of. I thought it'd be great for her to be able to see her Grandchildren every day and also meant I could be near if/when she needed help with something as otherwise it would be about 3hrs out of my already busy life to pop and see her to fix her computer or put up a shelf or do whatever! so this would be a win-win for both of us. So the architect has designed in an annexe to the main house for my mum to live in which keeps her separate so she has a semblance of independent living but as her health declines I am nearby if required. Anyway, on to the plans...here is the site plan and the elevations we love what the architect has come up with. loads of glass and a fabulous entrance and full height hallway and windows that go from the floor (although the quotes from the window companies are pretty high and, in some cases, are about the same as the timber frame!). We also decided to go with Shou Sugi Ban larch cladding (https://shousugiban.co.uk/range/charred-larch-cladding/ - the Takage style of charring) for the main building with standard larch on the single story parts and entrance to contrast the black. it would seem that we have expensive tastes, but as this is the forever home we're willing to spend more to make it right so we don't have to do this all over again. All we can do now is hope that the planning officer loves it and signs off on it! Forgot to mention that we built a scale model of the house (not including the basement), plot and surrounding trees and hedges. it was fun to do!

I love those chairs, 35 years sterling service they have given me. Does amaze me that just a bit of bent tube, placed on a wall can block a radio signal. I wonder if I place them there at 1 AM, the radio signal to my E7 meter will get blocked and I get cheap power from then on.

A long time ago (about 15 years) in a county not so far away I met and married my wife. Soon after we had a couple of kids and started thinking about our future. When I was a teenager my parents moved us abroad and built their own house and I think that sowed the seed for me as it seems that I've always wanted to build my own house and would sit down and watch Grand Designs back in the day and be drawn to the idea of it all. So about 10 years ago we decided that we wanted to build our own house but weren't in a position financially to do so but I was always keeping my eye out for something with potential and signed up to self-build websites and plot searches just in case something popped up. As life went on we sadly lost my Grandmother to the sands of time. The upshot of that was my inheritance (every cloud does have a silver lining I guess) that gave us a bit more capital to allow us to widen our search a little. Then about 4 years ago we found a house within 1.5 acres that was ripe for knocking down and starting again. it would've stretched our finances but we could've lived in it for a bit to get those sorted out while we planned for the build. We put an offer in and it was accepted. We were so excited about it all that we got an architect involved and paid for surveys to be done and drawings to be made only for the sellers to let us know while we were out of the country on a family holiday that they'd decided to accept another offer on the house and would no longer be selling to us. talk about a kick in teeth! we were shellshocked. But, life goes on I guess and a year later we found a steel framed agricultural barn with 4 acres of land/woodland that had planning permission to convert to a residential property. offer made and accepted although with the old adage of once bitten twice shy we decided not to get ahead of ourselves and didn't shell out for architects etc at this point, although we did spend a lot on solicitors fees and also a contamination survey so it was not cheap as we moved towards an exchange of contracts. The barn had agricultural access over a 3rd parties land but no residential access and as the seller's solicitor tried to get that access it seemed to be apparent that the owners of the land (the Catholic Church) were against the development as they slapped a £200,000 price tag on the access (about 1/4 mile of farm track/bridle path). as we weren't paying that we thought the negotiations were ongoing with the sellers and the Church until one day out of the blue I got an email from my solicitor saying that he'd heard from the seller's solicitor and that they were no longer proceeding with the sale. this was 2 YEARS after the offer was made. it seemed that we were destined to never find somewhere to build.... ...but never say never as about 2 weeks later we found an old 70's built bungalow that had outline planning permission and full planning permission for a replacement dwelling in 0.8 acres of land surrounded by woodland. it was perfect and we had our offer accepted and started the purchase process. little did we know that we couldn't get finance on the property even though it was a habitable property no one would offer a residential mortgage as the construction of the house was 70's prefab and the banks wouldn't lend on it. I even had a bridging loan company refuse to lend on it despite the inherent value in the residential plot and land. it was crazy and the house was put back on the market while we tried to sort something out. fortunately, our family were able to sell an overseas property to allow us to get the funds to not need a mortgage and we exchanged and completed in October 2019. We're now living in the bungalow as we await planning approval for the new designs our architect has drawn up, but that will be the subject of another post. thanks for reading and I hope you find our journey interesting. I'm sure it'll have many more ups and downs as we progress but we're hopeful that at the end of it we'll have a house that we can live in for the rest of our lives.

@Nick1c yep, it's a new build. MBC timber frame. The studs are theoretically 600 centres but we haven't found many that are and as the batts are 600mm wide they've pretty much all needed cutting. Apart from the time element it's been no big deal cutting them. I've been surrounding the MVHR ducts with the Rockwool. There have been lots of little bits left over, perfect for stuffing in to all the little nooks and crannies.

I used the exact same screwfix p tester Though I’m guessing if they have nailed any a wet patch will soon for Its really poor firing nails in They should know better

I know a plumber in the south earning 6 figures a year on new build work. That's roughly 400 a day. Then again guys up here earning less than 200. @Nickfromwales might know the rates better is he still about?

As above, ideally the pipes should be full and pressurised when the slab is poured, but we didn't bother with this and everything was OK. You can dry pressure test easily enough, Screwfix do a pretty cheap kit: https://www.screwfix.com/p/monument-dry-pressure-test-kit/72940 but you'll also need a 15mm to 16mm adapter.

After 4 weeks of inactivity while waiting for floor joist manufacturing to resume I was looking at the approaching end date of my scaffolding free hire period. I had negotiated the scaffolder down to a 2.5% per week overrun rate but even so that was going to be annoying money down the drain with a likely 2 month overrun. Yesterday the scaffolder phoned and I assumed it would be for an interim payment due to my delayed instruction for the second lift. But no he had phoned to say to help everyone out my hire costs were going to be suspended from the day the Prime Minister closed the economy down and the hire clock would start ticking again once I requested the second lift. How unusual is that?

I would say £300 per day would be plenty. But this is "the south"

Perhaps £300, for your area? Unlikely to be more than that, I'd have thought. Plumbers around here charge less than that, usually around £250/day, less for larger jobs, perhaps.

It's roughly a day's work, unlikely to be any more if everything is there. The gotcha might be running the drain pipe, as that may be a bit of work to run in accordance with the regs.

I bought my first one only a few years ago and I wished I'd had earlier for some jobs. I bought an Erbauer because I wasn't sure how much use it would get but it's very good for the money.

I am in the process of sorting this out on my site and received confirmation from the EA that you don’t need have to have a permit to discharge from them if you can meet the general binding rules and get building regulations approval. If you believe you can’t meet the rules, then yes you will need a permit.

said the man..... well I wasn't to know that grey stuff wasn't certified was I? So I grabbed some 11s and 22s ( BM open FGS!!!!!) and My god, spraying silicone (sorry, KY) on three piping corners and then trying to twist them to the right shape is like Turkish oil wrestling. Ya cant get yer hand to grip anywhere. Those pipe straps worked a treat. Now, how do I test this little branch of my system? I can't block the inside of the I/C can I? (Normal stoppers are too big)

Paslode im350 nail gun, stapler.

You can DIY the insulated raft fairly easily. I did most of the raft myself, the only outside help I had was: 1. Operator for the excavator 2. Groundworkers to do the concrete pour and powerfloat. Everything else was me with a little help from the missus and father in law. Altogether it took me about 6 weeks, the main reason being the excavation/stone subbase took 2 weeks and it was peak storm season which was a nightmare to work in and I made a couple of mistakes which cost me time. My slab is 180m2, if it had been good weather and I'd planned the lorries how I thought rather than what the plant operator said then it could probably have been done in half that. I made mistakes aswell which cost me time, think I covered them in the thread previously referred to.

Probably worth talking to the EA before going too far. They will have to issue a licence to discharge, and will need some basic information to do that, like assurance that the watercourse used flows all year around (they won't allow discharge to a dry ditch now) and a few other fairly simple requirements. I found the EA easy to deal with, they issued us with a licence to discharge the same day that I applied, after I'd just emailed them answers to all their questions. Building control will have to approve the position of the treatment plant, too, but my experience was that building control here were happy to be subservient to the EA requirements when it came to the proximity to the watercourse aspect in Part H.

If I see some thus summer I shall buy them. Should last till i am 100. They are, without doubt, the most comfortable chair.

I love a back story! Looking forward to the next chapter...

That's some journey. I wish you speedier travels on the remainder of your build ?

I do. Erm ... have to. The plan is to sell off at least some, but keep the Festool stuff that I slid in under the radar. Hope SWMBO doesn't read this

Whatever you buy, photograph each item, keep the invoice, photograph each invoice. Security mark each one Consider a tool safe Make sure your insurance cover for the total value of hand tools is adequate. I got to £5000 worth astonishingly quickly

I did pretty much this, I added a layer of foamed on 50mm PIR insulation around our old thermal store. Reduced the heat loss by about 30% or so:

I did wonder the same, with all the insulation off cuts I have left, why could you not build a cupboard within a cupboard, so box the cylinder into the corner of the plant room.

Rather than fret over the actual insulation on the cylinder, can you make the cupboard it is in insulated? I could only put a standard replacement in my cupboard, but then filled the gaps with a combination of mineral wool and sheet insulation. Over halved the thermal losses.

?I'll drain it off and get some biodegradable stuff. Have to be mail order I assume at the moment unless either of the garden machinery places is open. Hardly essential tbh, it's enough knowing it all works! As for PPE what's the requirements? It's really quiet compared to a petrol job so are ear defenders required? Saying that I imagine they could protect your ears against a chain breaking and whipping up! I'd never even considered that!

Following on from the plastering work we did a quick stock take. Our plan was to be back on our narrow boat for the summer but with the current problems that was out of the question. We didn’t have materials to start flooring or fit bathrooms or kitchen and there was little hope of getting them. After a bit of head scratching and phoning around we found we could get fencing material and paint. We also had a few other jobs on the list that we could tackle, commissioning the water harvesting system, second fix electrics. We decided that the fence should be at the top of the list. Our plot has been behind Heras site fencing for a year now and although we’ve kept the site tidy it still was not that pleasant an outlook for the neighbours. We’re not far from the coast and strong winds are the norm so over engineering the fence makes sense so we don’t get a long term maintenance problem. Some while back we erected a green oak fence with the expectation that it would last a good thirty years. That proved a false expectation with the post rotting out after 15 years. We replaced the post with galvanized steel, but it was a lesson hard learnt and a problem we would avoid this time round. Initial thoughts were to use galvanized post and larch stringers, my Larch is expensive! After a bit of searching around Pat found a fencing product by an English company Marano who make aluminium fencing and had a nice contemporary product called Breeze. It’s an aluminium product and didn’t cost a fortune, and as it’s name suggest is designed for windy locations. The only down side was that it is not the best from a privacy point of view. On the subject of wind we also had a pane of glass broken. It happened overnight and we think it must have been broken by flying debris as it’s on the first floor with no access. Annoying but no big deal we thought. The glass that got broken is in a door supplied by Velfac. Contacted Velfac to ask about re-glazing only to be told it was not an option and the door would need to be replaced. Unlikely we thought and contacted the Velfac specialist fitting company who has fitted our windows, they agreed and said they would come back with an estimate for re-glazing the door. After a week they got back to me and rather apologetically confirmed re-glazing was not an option...so repair was an eye watering £1200. I’ll add a thread in the glazing section of the forum with more information so at least others will be forewarned. Back to fencing, at the front of the property we needed something cheap and cheerful to smarten the site up pending some art work fencing courtesy of one of our daughters who is an artist blacksmith. We decided to go with park fencing really low cost but looks surprisingly contemporary. I guess it’s cheap because it normally gets put in by the mile. Fencing complete, attention was turned to commissioning the Kinspan water harvesting system. Pretty strait forward, wire in sensors, pump, and connect water pipes. Half a days work, year right! All went really well, followed the initialisation instructions, tank set up OK, gauge reading set, pump pressure test...RCD trips. Meter across pump, sure enough earth and live not separate. The tank is just over a year old and the pump is a Grundfos SB3, quick look on their site confirmed a two year warranty. Contacted Kingspan to ask for new pump only to be told their warranty is one year from delivery, never mind installation. We’ll send out and engineer to look at the problem, OK how much is that £350 and how much is a pump £350...OK I’ll take care of it myself. The pump it turns out is not the simplest thing to dismantle, the parts PDF line drawing is not the best so It’s been put on the back burner. After a bit of searching and some good technical assistance from Anglian pumps, a new Divertron 1200x pump ordered £235. Still painful as it was not on the budget and had not done a single days work. With the plastering done we also wanted to get a mist coat applied and now we had more time get a finish coat as well. With a lot of area to cover, spraying looked a good option as I already had a HVLP setup. It turned out not to develop enough pressure for the emulsion, time to get an airless sprayer. Being a single use project I decided to see what was on Ebay and found a Wagner 418 sprayer being sold after use on another single project, looked clean and genuine, result I thought. Sprayer arrived and setup with paint to experiment and get to know how to use it. Not easily as it turned out, the spray was tailing badly, this is a solid central strip with a gap either side then a thin line, not what you need. Read the manual, googled it and it looked like it was down to low pressure. The 418 has no pressure adjustment, and the manual said it was down to cleaning out the inlet valve and paint filter. Lots of cleaning, no result, more research, cleaned outlet valve. Tried new nozzle, tried another gun and so on. Several frustrating days later opted to return it and buy a new one. Thank goodness this worked brilliantly and we were soon painting. Allowing for a 50/50 mist coat mixture we should have had plenty of paint. Half a day later, half the rooms done and all the paint gone. Fortunately the local Toolstation had stock. Another half day and it was done. All I can say is airless sprayers are brilliant, but boy do they have a drink problem. For the top coat we are using a really tough mat latex paint that you can scrub. This of course was special order and ordered before we knew about the sprayers drink problem. Needless to say the 45lt disappeared in half a day. It did cover the majority of the house, and we just have two bedrooms left to finish. The finish is very pleasing.

You sure thats not illegal ?

Looking forward to following your progress. I've taken the long road. Started in 2009 when I was youthful 22, now 33 and have some grey hair!

I see you cleaning lady is self-isolating .....? Either that or get a cheaper camera.