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Usual form is to make sure they split out contestable work i.e. things you can sub out vs them doing it such as trenching, road crossings etc. When I had a similar OR survey, the local guy encouraged me to get my own people to do it as their sub contactors were over generous in their billing.

As usual @Russell griffiths beats me to it. I'll need to get up earlier to put one over on him. Just waiting for the right ? moment....... And as usual, he's right. Let me explain. You know how if you ask a random historian to explain (say) why Brissol is so linked to the slave trade, you might well get the response ' Not my specialism' or 'Not my period'. Same with SEs. They need the work, they've got expensive professional insurance, they have some experience - go for it sunshine!. Need to pay the mortgage. Your SE might well have some cursory experience with piles - just enough to do some sensible - over cautious / slightly well-informed / it'll do / work to pay for her partner's new toutou / brogues. In brief, get (a)nother opinion(s). Here's why. Just like you, we had the ground profile done. Just like you dismayed. Just like you inexperienced. Just like you worridtohellabouththecost. Standing on our newly cleared, levelled off site stands a man who's just stepped out of a spanker of a Merc. Trophy Dolly Bird in the passenger seat. Lipstick applicator out, mirror adjusted to suit. Blousy smile. (But nice blouse - suitably immodest and straining at the seams) "Yer maaaate, that'll be £22 grand fer piles: ye'll not get away wi' less " Really? Have you seen our soil profile? "Wa? Ya paid fer a soil profile. 'Ow mooch?" About 2 and a half.... "Mert, ah wood a dun it fer tewundred" Thats interesting. Thank you so much for your time and interest. I really appreciate the way you get straight to the point. Rictus smile. 'Nother glance at trophy bird. Tea and medals. Cue posts to BH. And a slow realisation that with effort and careful research, we can get a sensible, well thought through idea about how to do the job both well and at a reasonable price. A raft can be built in a very wide range of situations. Do the background reading. Hillard has written a paper about it somewhere. I'll try and dig it out. In brief: lots of reading, lots of help on BH lead to Hillard Tanner, and Town and Country Vibro. Have a look at my (now mostly disused blog on BH) And a piling cost of £6500ish. Hillard Tanner's enagement with our problem and his depth knowledge saved more than double his fee. (£2 grandish) Nobody can tell when Refusal (the depth at which there is sufficient resistance in the pile to take the point load plus a safety factor added to the dead load - in our 2.5 times the dead load) will occur. Thats why I was very impressed with TC Vibro. In addition to the soil profile, we (together) dug a deep pit to feel (grab some soil and mash it into lumps) the quality of the soil at a series of depths. (I had a digger in those days ... sob.... ) Refusal occured almost exactly where TC Vibro said it would. Between 3 and 4 meters. Ultimately it's all about risk reduction: reducing the risk to your bank balance. All of the above -loads of hard preparation work- saved roughly £17k. Do the legwork, network, accept no experts answer as definitive - yes even Hillard's. And do come back and test your ideas on BH.

Chinese are cheap rubbish Italian Spanish Portuguese -Some Turkish China India Malaysia In that order I buy 1000s of m2 per year I can tell an Italian tile without looking at the back

Drama broke out earlier today with the discovery of our water pipe. Discovered by the digger going though it.... A few months ago in the absence of locating our internal stop tap (likely because it's somewhere behind the fitted kitchen units) the water company came out to try and locate the external one. Three house after they arrived.... No.such.luck They did say it's somewhere between the houses the other side of the bridge and us - but there is a canal and bridge in between us and them and they couldn't locate it. Strange but true. They did say if the builders found it they could then come out and try and track it from the pipe so Severn Trent are back again Friday. So just over a week in and we have partly dug out footings for the kitchen extension, office and Airbnb bedroom/ensuite. After 2 years of seeing everything on plans it's all very exciting actually seeing the space.

I wish that’s all I had to worry about. Nope you’ve got to much time on your hands, go and cut the grass or something.

'what I got' maybe more common?

Interesting (from a geological point of view) - roughly whereabouts are you in the Borders? If in doubt I would whack some mortar in there to prevent any frost damage...... but I can't imagine surface damage on one stone is going to cause any problems for the house.

I'd leave the will - it will be more fun for you to look down / up at all the fighting going on.

What I would do ... Put a piece of timber along the top / bottom of the existing joists to hold them temporarily while you cut the pieces out, cut and then add bracing. If you are really worried you could form the 'box' 1st and then cut to fit this - pop this in place and fix. If it all goes wrong no liability here + anything there of interest to the rest of us self builders?

Are you sure? I used 2 layers of the pink fireline plasterboard with staggered joints.

Its actually a reference to Acid House music, the TB-303 is famous for the Acid sound

Yes to building on brownfield sites and yes to rebuilding derelict, that Croft is not a good use of land being left like that so why not allow it to be rebuilt. I say again, why planners are so against building when there is a housing shortage beggars belief (IMO).

I understand that only too well which is why we have planning telling you what you can and cannnot build . @RichC was wanting no planning control -so anyone can build anything anywhere --which is where the tinker comparsion came from ,cos thats what you would get if you did away with planning and building control

Afternoon all Wanted to jump on and say thanks for the approval and say hello Just a bit about me and why I’ve joined. My name is Olly, I’m 37 a Father to two beautiful girlies and depending on how much work i take on during a potential self build project we’re happily married. My background is working within domestic and commercial gas but i left the tools side of things many years ago. We’re currently about to finish modernising our second home and an opportunity has come up with some land that will allow us to self build a home so we’re right at the start of a crazy journey. Really don’t want to get carried away with the fantasy of what could be yet and I love to learn and research so hopefully there’s some great info and experiences on here. At the same time I’m hoping with some of my background i might be able to help with some technical guidance within the forum sections in regards to some trades. Thanks for reading, Olly

As far as I remember @Jeremy Harris established there is no “qualification” to make anyone a specialist contractor, you could ask the BC what qualification they require, my BC didn’t even ask (as I still have not balanced it yet ?)

There's probably a truism here: the biggest discounts will be offered by the places with the biggest markups to start with :-)

Cut one of the joists and frame round it to fit a ladder the correct way.

They came through, of my other enquiries only they did.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/roughneck-plasterboard-carrier/51509?_requestid=163584 carrying sheets of plasterboard is not a “Trade “, I am sure social media will find you someone looking fir a bit of cash (especially during lockdown) just give them a face mask and hand sanitizer.

pay someone else... seriously tho, do you mean lifter for ceilings or carrier to move sheets around?

Have a look at a system called ground improvement piles. @AnonymousBosch has these beneath a raft, it’s basically stuffing a big metal probe in the ground then as it’s withdrawn slowly tipping in a stone and vibrating it, you basically end up with dozens of stone columns under your raft to improve the ground bearing capacity. Many on here have piled foundation and its not a deal breaker IF YOU do the research, if you let your SE loose with your cheque book it can get expensive. I was quoted £5000 by my se just to design the slab. He soon disappeared and I replaced him with a piling co that had an in house SE that priced all the design in with the job. I took a drive around locally and found a good few houses being built and talked about piling with them, from that I had a good idea what would be needed, so I was pre armed with information.

Old clay pipe. I'd guess a soil pipe of some sort. Does it point towards any drains or manhole externally? Can't see it being live to a sewer etc or you'd be getting smells back up. Probably capped off in some way. Is there maybe an extension the other side of that wall? A drain camera would be useful to have a look round that bend. What's the pink square down the bottom? Might be a half brick cemented in. Might mean that it does go to a live run but how to get that brick out without damaging the clay pipe in the process! Careful, not hammer drilling maybe? Tipping a small bucket of water down and seeing if it comes out in a suspected drain is always an option.

£25-35 45 m any more than that and I won’t be buying it i think your being bent over. What you think @nod can you go to smaller sizes 600 x600 used to be large, I’m not sure where all these huge outrageous sizes have come from. Is it a particularly fancy pad.

Might want to check out what the ceiling is made of. I'm sure there must be a 30min fire barrier between a garage and habitable room (like a master bedroom). Usually that's achieved with plasterboard ceiling in the garage but you mentioned it's uPVC. Perhaps there is plasterboard or some alternative above the uPVC?

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A stove under I think 4kW does not NEED an air intake according to building regs. I would however recommend buying a stove that has a ducted air intake. Our stove at 4.5kW has both it's primary and secondary air intake via a duct. In my case that duct draws the air from the ventilated space under the suspended floor. When the stove is not in use it does not create a draught and makes little change to the air tightness.

@pocster from your second “CAD” drawing how many joists do you need to cut?, also are the joists resting on the walls either side?

Probably the latter Sorry ?

especially where that is not as though barratt homes isvgoing to want to build an estate

Couldn't you bling it up with some walk on glazing...???

Euphemism?

When I'm asked this question (which is fairly often) Debbie says I should make a snap decision: lie or tell the truth. When I was serving in the Heavy Underwater Artillery in Afghanistan, while milking a goat without permission, I got caught by a Talib. He apprehended me, and called a Shura to decide what should be done in the matter. It was determined that the sin - although small - should not go unremarked. The executioner was new to the role and since it was his first execution, he botched the job. As well as chopping off my little fingers, he was so nervous that his aim was poor: he ruined the two fingers next to my little fingers. Now only two fingers work properly and currently, this is all I can do..... Or... Dupuytren's Contracture. Cant remember which explanation is correct any more.

"Super comment" from my husband who is laughing in the other room haha