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it's been a bit quiet on our blog so I thought I should update it. While we've been waiting for the groundworks to start we've been busy getting the site ready. This has included getting the new entrance to the plot created, getting the sub-base for the driveway in place and then topping it off with a layer of 6F5 as a hardstanding for the construction vehicles (after the build I can then remove the top layer to reveal the, hopefully, still in good condition sub-base to put the final layer on top of. well that's the plan at least!) and putting up the site toilet. Obviously the last job was the most important. Our new entrance to the plot is over a culvert and as it's connecting to an adopted road it had to be done by an insured contractor and so I had to fork out the cash to get it done. but they did a very good job and we're very happy with it. the culvert in situ with enough concrete on top to take the lorries and cranes for the build a nice base layer of tarmac finished, which will see us through the build when they will come back and put a nicely finished top layer on. nice sand-bagging. ? once, they'd finished the entrance we moved on to the driveway and hardstanding but, first, an observation....it's funny how things don't look as big on paper as they do in real life. that's exactly the conclusion I came to after I looked at the plans and thought "that driveway isn't that big I'll just dig it out myself and save myself a fair chunk of cash" and then went on to dig it out. it was only after I'd finished the 120m2 area did I realise how big the driveway is going to be (I swear it doesn't look that big on paper!). oh well, it's done now, at least we'll have plenty of parking. maybe I can rent it out and do a 'Park and Ride' in to the local town to recoup some of the costs. ? a big hole dug and covered in Terram (or an equivalent to be exact) 100 tonnes of beautiful primary Type-3 granite aggregate all compacted by that beast of a roller. Don't really care what everyone else thinks but I think I did a darn good job for my first driveway sub-base. Sadly it all got covered by another layer of Terram and then a load of 6F5 got dumped on top and it now looks like a building site hardstanding area (which is what it is!). here's a photo of the lovely lady of the house helping out on the roller. it was a bit cold out that day. And finally we get to the most important job, the building of the site toilet. Friends of ours got it from a local freebie site and used it for their self-build, we then dismantled it, transported it to our site, erected it, put a new roof on it and plumbed in the toilet and sink to our existing STP. we think it's a very luxurious WC for site use. it's even got a couple of windows so you can watch the work progress while you're doing your business. and that's it for this blog post. we are extremely excited as tomorrow is the day we've been waiting for and the groundworks starts in earnest. They'll be on site to set up and start digging out the big hole for the basement as the basement contractors are due to start on the 3rd May so we should start to see some real progress now! finally!! thanks for reading. ?

2.5m from a boundary and 5m from the property. BCO can reduce these by discretion

Hi Have done the final pour today and fitted the glulam ridge beams, all went well so happy days will get the wall plates fitted tomorrow and will start the roof weekend. I PU glued the blocks for the gables so the beams could be sat in place and this worked a treat. Also managed to get the floor joist fitted this week. So good progress?

Hi Thorfun. Just a thought.. sorry if I seem to be putting a spanner in the works but the rock level has sparked interest. If you are hitting this material then you could change the game and save a pile of money. It takes a leep of faith if you are a lay person but sandstone is formed under great geological pressures. It can be a very stable platform. Why put a 250mm RC slab on top? I would start by having a look at the excavated level, see how weathered the sandstone is, try and get a handle on the bedding plane and so on. If you are hitting good rock why spend a load on money digging it out just to pour concrete back in? As I'm on a run. Roughly sandstone was formed in warm seas when the UK was south of the equator. As these plates moved north to form the UK they became tilted so the layers are not horizontal. When we deal with rock we look to see (not least) how weathered the rock is, the bedding plane and the size of the fractures between the rock. I would have a design review with your SE.. yes they may well charge you (should not just to have a 15 min chat on the phone) but the potential savings could be very significant and off the back of this you could end up with a good economic UF design. In terms of abrasion of the UF pipes. I have wrestled with this myself and concluded that as the pipes are plastic (elastic) and you pressurise then to 4 -6 -8 bar when pouring then when you run your heating at say 1.0 to 1.5 bar the pipes will not expand as much, even though they become more elastic when you run warm water ( 40 - 60 deg c) through them. Also, as the concrete cures it shrinks away from the pipes. My view is that the two will provide a few mircons clearance between the concrete / rebar, sufficient to mitigate any effects of abrasion.

I once viewed a property with a mate and they were only allowing three people into the house at the time, due to fire damage in part if the property. The other guy left us in the lounge looking at the fire damage and he went into the kitchen, as he walked across the kitchen floor it gave way and he ended up in the sub floor. All due to dry rot. I've bought wrecks in the past and done them up at a profit. The last place had a tree growing in the kitchen and I had to demolish a third of the property due to structural issues. If you can buy cheap and can work to a budget then there is money t9 be made. Un-mortgageable property isn’t for the faint hearted.

Its unlikely you have one. It's like a regular stack but shorter. Instead of going out through the roof to an open vent a stub stack is usually only a few feet high and has an Air Admittance Valve on it. If you have one its probably hidden in boxing in the corner of the down stairs WC. If you had a stub stack already its probably not a hard job to extend it upwards to the new bathroom above. They look something like this.. Its more likely you have a direct connection of some sort like this... The ease with which you can add a stack for upstairs depends on what that existing downstairs room and WC connection is like and what changes can be made in that room. In the example below the WC has been moved sideways (or rather replaced with a different one off to one side) and the pipe extended upstairs. In practice the new pipe would be hidden behind boxing or a false wall so the WC might also be slightly further forward. If that's not possible the cistern could concealed or recessed into the boxing/false wall. This is what my downstairs WC looks like. The stack is hidden on the left as you look at it... The point really is it might not be necessary to put a new hole in the floor. It depends. If you cant do something like above then an outside stack would be the next thing to look at rather than digging up concrete(?) floors. Perhaps they didn't want to have to dig up your patio?. Does the downstairs WC connect into an inspection chamber outside? Perhaps post a bunch of photos and we can suggest other ways forward. PS I'm away travelling tomorrow so may not reply for a day or two.

I was....then dinner was on the table so I had to take a break.....back on it now. ?

I would also be interested in this, I am planning a self build extension with ICF, we will use a contractor to demolish existing walls and to install steels, but we plan to do the rest ourselves. Someone also mentioned that I would possibly need pulic liability insurance, but as we are not hiring individuals to assist (we may contract some companies to do specific tasks, eg electrician), I am not sure we would need public liability insurance as any companies we contract to do work would have their own insurance? This is probably even more of a rookie question ? I was just planning to contact my existing home insurance provider and let them know I'm building an extension - is this the best option?

Thick slab equals more thermal mass, slower to warm up but more stable temperature.

You aren't normally allowed to put rainwater into the foul sewer. You would probably need to dig up the concret yard and install a proper soakaway. Soakaway must be 2.5m from boundaries and 3m (i think) from the house.

I do a lot of this as part of my business Forget the diy paint It’s rubbish As already pointed out SE won’t specify it The fire retardant paint that’s used on most commercial sites is roughly three time the cost of boarding with 15 mil fire line Yours are difficult to get at I would suggest double boarding the ceiling with two layer of fire line All integral garages are done this way

yeh i think that i would prefer FB than painting on stuff.

Intumescent paint can often be used in place of fire board, however many SE`s are wary as application greatly affects its performance. UB and UC sections require different paint to Flat sided Hollow sections and steel preparation and primer application are critical to effectiveness against fire. Paint (film) thickness requirement must be determined and the dry film thickness measured to ensure compliance. Fire board may seem fiddly but its pretty foolproof and easily seen for sign off purposes

I use cyberghost and it's never slowed any thing of mine down. Use it to stream IPTV, prime, Netflix etc and have streamed 4k quality streams with no issue. Cost £60 for 3 years and works across 10 different devices so sold a few slots and covered my outlay.

What it does, it does extremely well and overall life is much more stable using it. It has a few niggles/ missing features that even really basic routers often support now, and for some reason they are incredibly slow / unwilling to address. Example: the built in speed test monitor never seems to work Example: it uses DHCP presented names for local DNS resolution fine, but for devices that don't supply a meaningful name, the "name alias" you set in the router does NOT work as it's DNS name. So I end up with more hard coded IP addresses that I had with my own hand rolled dnsmasq setup. Example: I bought it for wan1/2 failover, but connecting a second modem to wan 2 that's in a permanently failed state (e.g. an LTE modem with expired PAYG sim card) randomly causes wan 1 to spuriously fail too.

15mm board on ceilings with 600mm centres please. If you don't, it is nog-tastic.

Unless you're talking carrier grade equipment, I think you'll find and "hardware" VPN is purely software VPN running on a dedicated box. (Intel CPUs have had some sort of cryto accelerator support for years) My unifi USG has a VPN client built in, but I'd struggle to call it a Hardware VPN with a straight face.

Along with all the other questions about off-lift service, have you specifically asked the company to quote for off-lift and alternatively have you asked if you can arrange your own transport to collect the load and drop it off at your place with off-lift? I paid about £700 for the collection and delivery of some long beams on a dedicated artic. I'm amazed at the prices mentioned so far for crane hire. Around us I couldn't get anything less than about 1k for a day's hire of a crane with sufficient reach to get over the house, which was for full contract hire. Even when I hired a crane with operator and crane only it was something like £750 + VAT. Otherwise, it's probably a forklift and then break up the packs to manually haul around the house, or use something like I've got that goes through doorways. It's been brilliant for me to get things round the tight spaces on my site (I've also taken things up stairs with it):

Hire a vibrating tile lifter from HSS etc. Does a brilliant job

Also, check out this blog -> https://tech.scargill.net/pivpn/ Simon

You TOR. It will make it hard to trace what you been looking at. You can make a TOR relay. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.instructables.com/Raspberry-Pi-Tor-relay/%3famp_page=true

800mm - Mellisa McC. wouldn't get through that with even her slimmest handbag.... What you need is a really super-fit and willing belly dancer then innit? Sounds like a crane job to me. When we investigated , we found a small local crane company that was willing to give us a day's work for £500

Yes 100 Amps per phase is about 23kVA so 3 phase will give a maximum of 69kVA What rate are you expecting to charge your car? and only one EV or more?

I would go for 21kVA and see if they flinch or try and negotiate.

If these materials are all going into the back garden and you only have 800mm then craning them over the house might be the only way. The crane will be big and need some very solid ground for the outriggers and quite a bit of space. You will need a slinger to offload and a signaller at the back garden with a radio to the crane driver. Get all your heavy materials the same day and all into the garden spread to as near to where they will be used as possible. It will cost a fair bit but then it is done.

Our maximum summer air temperatures are lower as well. This is because they are set by the sea surface temperature, which in winter are higher than ground temperatures. Why humans like to live by the coast and not up mountains.

This is sounding more and more like you need to get the stuff onto a Hiab lorry and delivered that way, even if it means transferring onto crane truck at a nearby carpark etc.

...talking of dead weights! ?

you don’t want a telehandler, it’s too big, you need a small forklift call a buggyscopic, not a lot bigger than a 3 tonne dumper, your packs of blocks are not heavy compared to a pack of concrete blocks so no problem with weight. You are still looking at a couple of hundred quid.

R10 isn't enough around a swimming pool but should be fine in a wet room unless you deliberately want very extra good slip resistenence. R9 isn't a good idea for wetroom though. Couple of things: - If slip resistence is an issue, there are various products than can be applied to tiles after the fact to improve slip resistence. - The R rating for slip resistence is determined using "cleated safety boots". There are other standards that look at bare feet, that could be worth looking at for the product you like. Such a standard is DIN 51097, where you want "B" for a wetroom. - For what it's worth e are using R10 in all wetrooms. In one we are using R9, but will likely apply a product in the shower area only. e.g. https://www.safe-grip.co.uk/

Yes, mine is a 8,5kW unit. I can get you the correct model tomorrow if you want. No, I don't have the hydraulic module. I have a 3-way valve for diverting the pump output to DHW tank/buffer tank + radiators. These are all "non Vaillant" components. The controls are all Vaillant: first is the "base" controller which receives the temperature probes, controls the circulating pump and 3-way valves, and also includes a wireless EBUS module which allows the usage of an external temperature and humidity sensor. Then the VRC700 controller which serves also as room temperature sensor.

Get another block supplier!

I have done a few calcs of my own for my plot and i think that your figures are off. My stab at it. **** back of fag packet calc starts **** Soil density is going to be about 1600 kg/m3 depending on how wet it is. So your 330m3 is going to be 528 tonnes A 6 wheel grab lorry has a capacity of about 12 tonnes So you will need about 44 grab lorries. lets say a wheel barrow can hold a 100kg load, you are going to need 5,280 wheel barrow trips. One man to load / travel / unload / travel back, say 5 minutes (bottle neck at loading) 8 hour day - 96 load per man per day Call it 85 load per man per day you will need 62 man days 6 man team 6-7 days going full tilt to shift it. **** back of fag packet calc ends ****

Telford UVC has Secondary return as standard. PV..?? No it is simpler. Returns to the top of the tank, TS with a coil cools the whole tank to keep it going. TS heat loss is higher due to higher tank temperature. £20 on your boiler service if he’s there anyway Combi won’t care either way - same with a UVC.

Why not change the timber cladding to fibre cement board? Easier to mortgage, insure and sell.

Buildstore are the biggest self build mortage brokers in Scotland so they do know their onions - there's a load of misunderstanding on cladding and the fire regulations at the moment, especially in terms of the scottish building regs, even more so in the fall out from grenfell. The issue you have is that most of the self build mortgages are provided by english companies who limit their exposure in scotland - but definitely speaking to as many brokers as you can

I have tries GIS and they made a song and dance over not having a completion certificate so i tried renewing with Orwell insurance who we got unoccupied insurance with as the we had finished the structural work and they said not having a comp cert was not a problem with them and also we are timber frame/render board with S/S roof and a flat roof and the quote was just over £500 so cannot recommend them enough

There has been much discussion on the short supply of materials etc on the forum, so I'm not repeating it here. Suffice to say, the progress on the house itself is best described as "hurry up and wait". The upstairs windows are all installed, the downstairs are due to go in when the scaffolding finally goes away (any day now?), and the cladding is completed as far as is possible while waiting for the MVHR and air conditioning equipment. The sewage treatment plant arrives very shortly (thankfully no shortage here) so we have taken the opportunity to find out what is in the garden in order to install the plant and dig an attenuation pond for drainage. We would also like to be able to get to the end of the garden to see what is there! The view from the road of the house illuminated by floodlights during a late evening of activity while working on the cladding. Our snowdrops seem to scale themselves to fit their surroundings. We get a good crop every year, possibly because we leave them alone. Maybe I should be wary of breeding Triffids? They aren't supposed to be on the Isle of Wight! Last year's clearance efforts are still more or less clear. The primroses have taken over somewhat, but that's far better than nettles and brambles. The stunted pear tree is finally coming good two seasons after removing the Eucalyptus that was overshadowing it. We'll get around to trimming the dead wood at the appropriate time since we missed the opportunity this year. We're hoping for more than two pears this year. The entrance to the wilderness. We are aiming to clear at least a path to the bottom of the garden established before the growing season fills the place with the usual collection of nettles, brambles, blackthorn and willow. Based on the current growth, we don't have that much time left! We have a pathway extending at least 50 metres into the garden. This took us three days with a chainsaw, a strimmer multi-tool and a lot of wheelbarrowing. The sheer amount of dead wood is really not helping the trees - they are spreading past each other and fighting for every scrap of light until the branches get so heavy they break. We are aiming to remove only the dead wood this year so the trees can grow more sensibly and we can see exactly what we have left to work with. There is still a long way to go! Now to find something to do with the 30 barrowloads of wood. Maybe some charcoal making? Unfortunately this didn't work as well as we would have liked when the bottom of the barrel perforated in the heat, and we made a lot of ash. Oh well... time for a new plan. Finally, we are getting near the bottom of the garden. Well, at least within 30 metres. I didn't know we had all these oak trees. They are a bit too close together unfortunately so I doubt they will all stay long term. We did however find two mature oaks that are nicely spaced in another part of the garden. We can't quite get to them yet because of a thicket of blackthorn in the way. That's next week's problem unless house parts start turning up.

My next job paving and I am seriously looking at paving pedestals for the majority of it so no laying/lifting etc

Yes. I asked and was told there is no need to seal it. Our house has wooden cladding. Before that was put on, some areas had no clearance at all between the MOT1 and the DPC. So, a bit of damp came in - and promptly left when the sun came out. When I eventually reduced the MOT1 to the correct level and put the cladding on, it's drizabone. After 4 years, I still need to sort out the back step: there's gravel to just above the DPC - a bit of damp comes in now and then when there's driving rain from the South west , nowt to worry about. Disappears straight away - sun cooks it.

I have heard that they have had a change of sales personnel at some stage and it is clear that it is now being managed with an Accountant's mentality where maximum profit is the driving force behind the project. Any Utopian vision of a community of self-builders with creative freedom appears to be losing the battle with the site looking more and more like a traditional housing development. Kevin McCloud did say that the success of the project was dependent upon continuing the spirit of The Street but that appears to have been as hastily abandoned as the £100k plot prices. The current strategy seems to be ask as much as possible whilst strictly controlling the supply and wait for that one person to bite. There are quite a few plots that are very clearly shovel ready with man holes and power outlets set up. These have not been "Sold" or "Reserved" but are also not yet showing on the site as "Coming Soon" or even "Not Yet Available". It creates the impression that Phase 1 only has three Self-Build plots left ie: Plot 376 Max GIA 151m2 3/4 bed for £215k, (I actually offered £195k for this plot) Plot 320 Max GIA 114m2 2/3 bed for £185k Plot 321 Max GIA 114m2 2/3 bed for £185k. Despite all of this I am still struggling to find any alternative locations in the South East/West of England. It seems the only place to buy affordable land is Lincolnshire but that is far too off the beaten track for my personal needs. I'll report back if I hear anything!

I have made the windows and they are sitting in the workshop ready to be fitted after I have cut the roof in. The second pour was a couple of weeks later so drekley as they say.

Ha, my complaint about all you guys is that nobody summarises the 'final conclusion'. Post 1: "I'm doing abc, xyz, solution yada yada" Post 2: "You should do thisandthat" Post 3: "And this" Post 4: "Don't forget somethingorother" Post 5: "THANKS ALL" Where me, as an absolute beginner often can't quite piece together the actual bestest roof (for one, the topic started with GRP, which I was planning to opt for, but all you guys are doing EPDM ) @Temp: do you agree that: GRP Fibreglass OSB 18mm 200mm PIR insulation A Vapor Layer OSB 18mm Joists I beam 15mm Plasterboard. Would make a pretty good roof? ?

Hi JTB. Yes I did basically glue it all together. I have little worry that the right glue will last as Steamy Tea and Joe mention. The main thing for me is that it best suited me as I was doing it single handed and DIY. I avoided these long fixings, repeating thermal bridging and so on. Also, I have at the back of my mind how the insulation may creap. Most insulation, is speced with regard to it's compression stiffness but creep is not often explained. For the creep behaviour think about a timber beam, it bends under the initial load but over time it creeps too, how much does PIR creep? If you take all the load off maybe it won't return to it's intitial shape. I wanted to avoid any issue of the insulation creeping over time. Once you get to these insulation thickness' (200mm PIR) I was keen to make sure that the insulation is not going to creep (call it shrinkage ) and pop the fixings up through my rubber roof in the long term. I have a low parapet and found this quite simple to detail and do. The membrane continues up and over the parapet. Basically my roof is like a thick pond liner with a few edges that allow the water to run off. There is no noise as there are no areas of fixing stress concentration say.. thus no creaks.. so far. The main thing for a long lasting roof is the quality of the workmanship and attention to detail.

I am finding our “garden “daunting”, just got rid of 53 tons of clay and slowly levelling the plot and trying to get topsoil roughly level with the JCB. The plot (including the meadow) is an acre. Problem with the “meadow “is stones, millions of them and the only route is to hand pick them up ?. Still it’s getting there and I am really looking forward to growing plants and veg next year, I bought loads of scaffold boards fir the build and they are earmarked fir raised beds over clay fir the veg behind the workshop

Try claiming against it.

Locating and digging up a waste pipe is definitely outside the scope of a bathroom fitter, more general builder and as its internal this will involve making access through floors etc. not an easy or low cost job

sadly I don't think you will find one. Sufficient to say that it is a kiosk made from a palette-as-a-base with flimsy OSB walls, door and roof. Despite it being plumbed in to the sewer, having a fetching window with a view (no glass), and a bucket conveniently filled with water for flushing, the consensus from certain visitors thus far has not been complimentary.

This explains why you’re such a lazy (expletive deleted) now