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Progress has been made intemittently between the various storms. The guttering is getting a thorough testing some days. My friend Jeff has returned to site for a week so we have a chance of getting ahead in the inevitable race against the bad winter weather. Some jobs just go better with more people on site... Like moving hundreds of slates around! The 15 metre long north roof very close to completion. Just the top row left to go, and we'll do this from the other side. It's going to meet the fundimental requirements of keeping the water out and staying attached to the house in storms and I think it looks pretty good. But I would arrange a couple of things a bit differently if I had another roof this size to do. Lessons learned for the garage! When all said and done, it's natural slate so there will be imperfections and differing sizes. (I am noticing similar issues on other natural slate roofs the more I look now!) The trick would appear to be to manage them in the grading process so the right slates can get to the wielder of the hammer at the right time - I think a few trapezium shape slates slipped through and we didn't mix the crates thoroughly enough, and errors inevitably accumulate on such a large length of roof. Small sections are much easier! A lot less distance for errors to catch you out. We just need to remember to attach the top valley section properly before putting more slates on! This turned up on Friday along with another pallet of parts, a lot earlier than expected. (It's virtually unheard of to get deliveries ahead of schedule here and I'm really pleased because it gave me a weekend to deal with the contents.) I now have 6.6kW of solar panels, some GSE integration trays and several piles of electrical parts stashed in the shed. I made up a couple of gauge blocks to set up the battens for the GSC trays. This is the first test before trying to get them to the right height on the roof. It's a lot easier when the whole of the battening assembly moves as one piece. I talked the whole GSE battening thing through with my very helpful BCO and he's comfortable with me doubling up graded 50mm slate battens to suit the GSE spec. I also plan to alternate fixings into the pairs of battens so that loading is shared as evenly as possible. The tray is sitting a little low here. This is when I started to question the measurements in the GSE document - I found that GSE have updated their documentation since I downloaded the first battening plan, and the measurements are all different between the two versions because they take the reference from the other edge of what they term the "reference batten". It took me 2 hours of swearing and cursing before I noticed this. And when I used the latest document measurements, it all works out! The first three trays balanced in place with a lot of G clamps. It seemed a good idea to go down to the eaves with the panels - it creates enough room for the 5th row on the top and allows it to have a meaningful few rows of slates at the top. Otherwise I loose 1.2kW of panel or have to cut nearly every slate top and bottom. The instructions were clear that it is possible to install the trays this way, but were a bit light on exactly how the bottom flashing works on a vented roof. Got to have something to work out in the week in between puzzling through the hard maths problems at work.

After many years of refurbs I found a new build refreshing, perhaps I was lucky (had a brilliant main contractor for the heavy work) and very little went wrong but I think that was mainly down to meticulous planning on my part. I also had an attitude of “shit happens, so get over it”, which I imparted on my builder and he was grateful that I was realistic (unlike some customers). Funnily enough I have suffered ill health from stress related conditions in the past and people close to me were worried the build would make it worse, but the opposite was true, I got great satisfaction from what I achieved and to this day I am still proud of what I have done. p.S. Edit to add this forum gave me great support for the things I was not sure of, ASHP, MVHR, ETC. thanks guys ?

Are you pushing on an open door with us..... Our build is a catalogue of delays. Not to mention disasters. Big and small. Lots of success too though. Self-building is a character test. Surviving it seems to involve a hardening off process. Unless of course you are already involved in the building trade. Most self builders need to become involved in all sorts of new , sometimes local , networks. Why was it for example that your brickie was pulled off your job? I often think that the most important thing about a self-build is the human networks that you know and have access to. What you build and how you build it it is not as important as knowledge of who is going to build it for you and when : or perhaps I should say by when. Self builders already in the trade tend to know the answer to that question. During our build I have come to value the life experience I had before building our house especially in relation to persistence. That skill is hard won. As Peter above says you soon forget the difficult bits and hopefully come to look back at them with a rueful smile. Stick with it and we will help you with the technical bits of your build. Moaning on this site is very useful to all members. It helps us all realise that we are not alone in having annoying problems.

As they say time is a great healer and you do forget all the crap times during your build. Having done a complete renovation and a self build I definitely enjoyed doing the renovation a lot more than the new build. Everybody is different and you have to consider whether building a new house is really what you want to be doing for the next however long.

It is a difficult one. When i had my kitchen company. I would spend a good few days designing a kitchen that would look stunning, and perform the tasks, and needs, and wants of the client. They were high end hand built, and generally in excess of 50k. I stopped giving out my drawings when i designed a kitchen that was £127k +vat. The client loved it. I never got the job, and found out later that the celeb client did'nt think i would be able to do the kitchen for that price. They gave my design to another company, who copied it exactly, right down to the personalised engraving on some of the wood, and charged £200k. I was miffed, so i would say, go to the company who did the design. You never know, they might even have built it and have some real world ideas of how it could be even better.

Ah, acronyms! When I first joined the then eBuild forum I couldn't fathom for the life of me why people would put anything "passive infrared" under their floor slab.

It becomes more of a PITA when you set out with a plan, and some things on the plan don't go to plan (mostly relating to finance in our case) so you end up having to do it more slowly and do more yourself otherwise it simply would not get done. It can then become a real struggle keeping motivated to keep moving forwards. One day I hope I can tell the full story with an ending. Not yet though.

Its like anything in life, good and bad. Have faith that once the end is nigh all the bad will be forgotten.

I think pretty much everyone has the thoughts of ‘just buying a completed house instead’... In reality you will do that a few more times yet. But when you are in the house, you’ll forget how bad it was and be really proud of what you have created.

As some might remember we had a huge hold up last year when a mains water pipe was discovered slap bang under our proposed build. All things building stopped while we did battle with Anglian Water over their extortionate charges to move it. We cleared off to winter in Spain and left them to complete the job. Since returning, and starting the complaints procedure over their £17K charge to move it, we have hit one hold up after the other. Our groundworker returned, eventually, and completed the trenches but then de camped to get on with his other job (farmer). There is a bit of a building boom locally and finding someone competent to carry on where he left off was a nightmare. We, in the meantime, managed to get a local chap to supply the hardcore and we borrowed a whacker plate to flatten it all out. Then we laid the sand which promptly blew away in Storm What'sitsname! We did it again (we are both in our seventies) and then, having found an experienced ground worker, we got the concrete poured. Thank goodness we did because it has not stopped raining since Now the Brickie has been claimed back to a, held up, job across the road! It is particularly galling as it is just their garage/connecting corridor/flat, that is almost as big as our bungalow, to add to the delays. I am not sure whether seeing him working on it is worse than not knowing where his or what he is doing. He is one of the good guys so worth waiting for. I keep thinking about the shortening daylight hours which will get gradually worse along with the weather Keep thinking we should sell up both the plot and the house and buy ourselves a little finished place somewhere.

Here's a few UK suppliers of fan coils that I've bookmarked when I came across them - I'm still not started on my build so haven't contacted any of them yet: https://coolenergyshop.com/collections/radiators-fan-coils https://www.biddle-air.co.uk/en/products/fan-coils/deco-fan-coil-unit http://www.dunham-bush.co.uk/index.php/products/fan-coil-units/ocelot First one has prices (£195+VAT) but no data of any sort; others have data but no prices....

So... you can’t take the design as is as it will be copyright on the website, but you can take a copy of it as inspiration and say I want something like this. You will also find that there will be other designs that you will take inspiration from - don’t stop with the first idea you come up with.

We used Protek VP400, our builder chose it because he thought it would last longer without cover and it lasted through a winter okay. I have some on the vertical walls of our sun room, 5 years and lasting well.

It would perhaps need to look roughly like a reflection of whatever is nearby? In that case take the approx colour from the landscape or sky - depending what they will reflect to the viewer. Paint the board before cutting it up?

Not one of these? https://www.screwfix.com/p/fitch-fastener-polished-chrome-65-x-35mm/57592

Anhydrite has a residual laitance which needs to be removed over the entire area if bonding ANYTHING to it. Bedtime reading. Dry screed or possibly liquid concrete with small aggregate for me. Are you on gas or ASHP?

use treat Use treated timber? or how about making the timber panels to go in place but don't fix them in place, store them off the ground covered in tarp?

Yes to these. Don't let the cables get soaking wet. There is a fair amount of work getting this lot in.

I have just replaced all the Protect VP300 breather membrane after being exposed for 3 years to start cladding. It was starting to flake on the south facing side. It was still waterproof. Though If the wind gets up and starts creasing the membrane it can fail. I have some on the garage roof on top of OSB and after a year no change. If in doubt due to the relative low cost replace it but I would not expect any significant change after only a few months.

As per site request here is an introduction and a little about us. As a student with a growing family we watched prices rising, unable to buy, but finally were able to move in 2001. The property we moved to was previously a large 5 bedroom semi detached house, made into flats in 1945 and, now there were 6 of us, we converted it back to a house, knocking down a non supporting wall built on the hall floor boards and making the second door back into the window it originally was. There had been a fire escape at the back, but only the concrete plinth was left, which was a hard job to break up. There was then a wooden balcony outside the upstairs flat kitchen, but with the children being small we put the door key in a safe place and lost it. Just recently I took down the balcony, very hard job, took a week to recover, and we are getting quotes and debating whether to brick up or turn the door into a tall window. Maybe a nice feature, but if we sold, some people might not like it. Finally getting on to of the property after having little money while looking after elderly parents. Children slowly leaving so wondering how to prioritize work, balcony door, drive way, external and internal doors, etc,and whether to stay or not and how long. Thanks.

Thanks guys for all the support. Hwmbo is a heating engineer so has worked on sites all his life. Even he is frustrated though. We have renovated three houses and built daughter's large extension so should know about patience. Those renovations, though, were all done entirely by us. I am a "do it now" person and find the "hurry up in order to wait around" of the building trade very hard. We are lucky to have lived here for nearly 40 years and most of our tradesmen are either known to us already or come on good personal recommendation. The brickie is much sought after but approached us to offer his services on our bungalow as he says he is getting too old for clambering up scaffolding. We gladly agreed but the job over the road was started before ours and so he feels obliged to finish it first. It was held up (!) for a while as the architect had made errors on the roof of the garage complex. The roofer is sorting them out and the build is continuing. Just galls me a little that our neighbours didn't say to to our brickie to go and finish our bungalow before starting on their garage complex. Had the water main fiasco not happened we would have had the brickie first and have been finished and in by now. Hey ho.

Any..! Duct tape is ideal as it’s tough, just don’t make it fully airtight on both ends of the same loop.

I’ve just finished mine, I laid pipes over entire floor area, then screened whole floor incorporating expansion joints to fall in doorways and under a long run of wall. All my stud walls are up without one single screw or bolt into the screed, all glued down with HB42 adhesive

You are a true self-builder noticing all the little things that you think can be/should have been done differently. All I can say is "a blind man on a galloping horse ", when you get further on in the build this roof will be way down on the things you wish you had done differently and you will have numerous other things you wished you had done better/differently. Ask any SB on here!! The roof looks fantastic and everybody who comes to look at it will think so, crack on and try not to be so hard on yourself as that is another self building trait.

Yes Yes - get a landlords gas installation inspection No - depending on what the gas inspection says No - but it depends on the overall installation and what was included under Part L Are you concerned because you want to sell, or just that you don’t think things have been done right ..? Why not contact the local council building control office and ask for the file for your property..??

You'll struggle to find anyone who will fault find (competently) these days. Ita my experience that paying the 15-20 quid a month to BG just makes life easy...one call and ita sorted quick enough. Minimal hassle.

That image you've posted has nothing to do with a new boiler. If the installer is getting heavy, look them up in the Gas Safe Register. If they're not registered, that tells you everything; if they are, you can report his unwillingness to come up with any documentation to the Register and leave it with them.

Not many of those around. I had w/b service engineer out a while back. He just kept chucking in new parts untill he got it working.

It’s subsequently garnished with 4 ( iirc ) status led’s, so, depending on the accuracy of what they depict, one can assume it’s definitely a good thing. Better than the original offering of grey-box-sat-on-wall-fingers-crossed-it’s-doing-something......... It still cannot live up to its claimed reputation for absorbing any and all ‘potentially otherwise lost’ / excess PV input etc due to the fact that it cannot absorb ANYTHING until it’s crudely scaled controller decides that it is wiling to allow it to do so. As proven here, and seems apparent in the new installation / user literature, it will always have a potentially huge empty void which cannot be filled when there is space to do so. I can’t help thinking that there is a better way for SA to ascertain a level / state of charge, but maybe the commercial incentive isn’t there yet to provoke further investment in this pursuit. Just my opinion, and can be taken with a pinch of salty yogurt.

I recently tried to price up a double garage if it was built by a main contractor. I was getting to a number in the low 20s with a flat roof and rendered. This assumed a good quality electric double door. The big expense seemed to be the foundations/slab. I did look at single versus double skin and concluded that an extra skin adds maybe £1000 in cost compared to a single skin and was probably worth it for the lack of hassle in the long run. You lose space due to piers in a single skin anyway.

Forgot the bit about laying the dpm ourselves in temperatures of over 25C. Phew!

Also really does depend what you are used to. I have gone from working on cars outside with no garage, to having a house with a garage that I could work in, to having said garage full of stuff that prevents me working inside so have to lie down in the cold outside again - so being out of the elements with some protection and appropriate clothing does really make a difference. (Probably helps living in southern England where it doesn't get that cold.) Obviously being nicely insulated with heating would be a luxury, but I am tight so in these instances I only have to think of the alternative costs to suddenly thaw out ?

Yup - and if you are doing carpentry a great way to get rid of offcuts!

Sounds more like what I will do, rather than I have planned! I find normal clothes (always a collar and tie optional) and a Dickies Redhawk pair of overalls (always a collar and tie optional) are pretty much all I need for warmth unless I am standing at the bench doing something intricate which doesn't take much movement, and therefore heat generation.

I think you would need permission - even though it's the "side" of your house, it's clearly facing the public road, so in the eyes of planners that's the front elevation and you can't normally build in front without permission, regardless of the extent of neighbouring properties. I'd send your local planning department and email with photos and ask for their view. O did that when I wanted to build a concrete shed at the back of our property that backed on to a public alley way.

Hi all, This post provides some information for anyone who might consider building a sip house. I've quoted 6 sip suppliers, one of which turned out to be a manufacturer, who simply forwarded our design to three approved installers. For a two storey, circa 200m2 house, the quotes ranges from £49,800 to £90,000+, excluding vat, more or less on similar terms, supply and erect, except the cheapest quote was based on 142mm panels for both roof and walls. The cheapest quote for 142mm wall panels and 172mm roof panels came in at £59950, interestingly, another approved installer of the same manufacturer quoted £90,000+. The quotes mainly came from suppliers in the northwest, with two from west midlands, majority of the figures came in around £60k, but only one shared lots of recent project photos and put me in touch with past clients. Hope you find those useful, I'll of course post updates along the journey.

That made me laugh. I don't know why, be it reminded me of when i did a cinema for a client. He said to me after "You can't watch porn on it, because it gives you a huge inferiority complex" I think you can all guess why.

How about painting some seasonal murals on them. Halloween straight away and then some festive ones before some end of the world murals in the new year.

How about cutting a hole in the OSB and fitting a piece of glass? ?

Are you serious ??‍♂️

I do think Nick is the fountain of knowledge on all things water.......Very handy chap to have on here. Thanks Fella.

Welcome to the forum. Have you considered a Juliet balcony there as a middle way? With children leaving, the priority should always be reducing the bedrooms by one each time so they can't boomerang. IMVHO ?. Ferdinand