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All done now (except for skirting); thanks for your input. And here's what it looks like. In the end I started in the middle of the floor, so it was centered on the double doors and almost centered on the single door (to the right in picture); If I had centered on the door, then I would have had about 5cm cuts at the end of rows. As you can see, there is less than half a tile width by the house-wall and more than half by the outside wall so not symmetrical, but far less noticeable (and permanently annoying to my wife) than a center-line offset by about 20mm from the center of the main double-doors.

Hi, try and keep your questions short and sweet, I gave up reading it after the first paragraph. Itemise each question into an appropriate topic and you will get better response from people who have experience in what you are doing.

This is currently £135 with the SF10 voucher code. A pair of genuine 5Ah batteries is more than that ..

I changed the solenoid as I had a spare unit for parts and it fixed the issue. PeterW I could kiss you!!!!

I have to say I think that buildup is very weird as you've got layers of incompatible materials, thus you actually lose a lot of the benefit of the woodfibre board. Who designed this because it would be much better to have designed the buildup with the flexible woodfibre between rafters and then woodfibre boards on top of the rafters. This would give you the benefit of the materials, plus extra decrement delay and better hygrothermal performance of the envelope. However, if you're still looking for alternative supplier, you could try Ty Mawr who sell the Schneider Holtz woodfibre products, or as has been suggested above, Pavatex Pavaflex. You could also try Hunton - huntonfiber.co.uk - a Norwegian company. Good luck

I have an odex job coming up soon. @ £9200 for six piles, I know its definitely not the cheapest method. It is a very effective method though, and on problem ground, solves many problems. What I'd give to be able to bung in a simple strip foundation.

We've got a SWS roller door since 2019. Seems to do the job and has been trouble free. Was working in the garage last winter and was comfortable in the garage with the door down.

A classic case of A=A But air tightness is another factor....

Thanks. I find it really annoying that with a tiny bit more effort, they could have done the right thing. We are happy to pay more for the right material.

We had to accept it, as they walked off the job when we asked them about it and lots of work was not completed. They told us not to tell them how to do their job, and that we were talking nonsense. They thought we were overanxious. My concern is that MDF is not used for load bearing and does not last as long as the porcelain tiles on top.

No, the ASHP programmer is sooo complicated I gave up (even with Jeremy’s help as he had the same ASHP and controller) Ours is on 24/7 (UFH) the ASHP heats an 80litre buffer tank controlled by a stat on the tank set to 35’. Our ASHP only heats water to one temp (and we set that to 48’) for both DHW and heating. The room stat calls for heat and this switches on the pump on the manifold. The manifold temp is set to 25’. I switch the buffer tank off during the summer by a switch giving open cct on the buffer tank stat. Perhaps not a Normal set up but it’s simple and works.

A few years ago I paid £650 to have it done on a two storey terrace, £350 for scaffolding. It felt a little steep at the time, considering it took less than a day.

I have some black smooth hammerite so you can try it.

I would issue a deemed discharge notice....

Any help you can borrow it.

Try hammerite smooth black, very thick and needs no primer/undercoat.

Not a problem. they were probably damaged in handling, and the foot traffic is not the real cause. When the screed goes on top they become very much stronger as it all bonds together. For now, to redcue your concerns, if you pour over a cement slurry mix and work it into the gaps, the blocks will bind together and not joggle when walked on. Just cement and water in pourable consistency, applied with bucket and broom, or even watering can. You possibly don't even need to replace these blocks, but I would.

We are deliberately going for a smaller scale house, we don't have a lot of stuff and no kids and we don't buy crap just for the sake of filling up our cupboards, we're not quite minamilists but we are of the mindset less is more. Might seem boring to a lot of people but we have spent the last few years getting rid of all our debt, saving every penny we can and selling anything that moves so we can build a modest house hopefully with no debt on a nice plot and semi retire in our 40's with the dream of travelling but covid looks to have fxxxed that so i'll just wander round the plot instead haha Yea you are right there is and the house direction is a genuine concern but the views to the North East are really good so we want to point that way and we want to be able to see the views from the rooms so other than making a glass box (council will neverl allow) so the sun still comes in from the South i'm not sure how to overcome the house / sun issue. Thanks for the mock-up! I like the main bedroom, putting his and hers wardrobes at either side of the en-suite door. I prefer the kitchen units as well although we don't want a larder, we will have more than enough kitchen storage space for the things we have with just the kitchen units and whatever storage we can squeeze into the kitchen island. So that still leaves the HW in an akward position. The whole 5 acres is a plot available to build on so no issues with definition of the rest of the 5 acres. Yea like i said above the house orientation is a concern in regards of the sun but the views are so nice to the North East we want the house to face that way and we want views from all the rooms hence the shape. The overhang is something the Mrs wants, so when as often happens in Scotland it's warm but pishing rain at the same time we can sit outside and not get wet. When we were on holiday in Norway and Iceland this was a typical thing so you could sit out in the rain and snow and we used that a lot so Mrs wants it and I quite like the overhang but would maybe ask for glass in the roof section to allow more sun to come in as i'm concerned it will be darker than we think

I don't undertand why appliances have to "match". You want the best tool for the job each time. We've a Panasonic flatbed combi, and it's superb. Sees way more action than the oven in the cooker...

All you need

A very quick sketch.

One day I popped by my house unannounced to see how the builder was getting on. In front of my house was some bloke I’d not seen before operating a crane that was on the back of a truck which belonged to the local builder’s merchant. The crane, which was designed for unloading bags of sand and other supplies off the truck, was instead holding a 500kg 10metre RSJ some 10m directly above the bloke’s own head. He was trying to slot it into a small hole in the roof, and kept missing. The forema, his men and eventually my neighbours were staring at him as he kept trying to thread it in to this small hole. I couldn’t bare to watch so just left them to it. The following day the beam was miraculously in position with no damage to the roof or injury to life or limb (as far as I know). @pocster please get a crane and a qualified - and insured - crane operator!

Frankly what’s wrong with a hammer and nails, it’s what I did for years, I only went gas nailer when I had lots of jobs lined up. I have never used an impact driver, I always use a cordless drill!!

Thanks. I'm quite keen on considering orientation, sun, view, overlooking before thinking about "this cupboard is in the wrong place". But the advantage of BH is that you get good support on both sides (winks at @ToughButterCup), and we all have different angles. As a concept design it is important to remember that this is the architect throwing thoughts around - a sighting shot, and your role is to be an active client and give vigorous feedback - not be a doormat. I hope that is not taken the wrong way, but it is a common thing for self-builders not to be assertive enough and end up with the architect's vision, rather than their vision made workable and inspirational by the architect. Tea now with Any Questions. Brief comments later. I wonder what @the_r_sole or @AliG has to say. Both very good at this.

Very kind . You can certainly come for a visit . But crane is booked for next week

You know me too well !

Where is he? Is he dead (or just pinned under a steel).

4 way valve is stuck in defrost position. A slight tap with a hammer sometimes releases a stuck solenoid.

Copied from the other duplicate thread, perhaps the Mods could remove that. A photo would be useful. How far has the resin drive transgressed over the boundary? Can you be confident the original drainage that prevented your porch becoming damp was installed on your land? Could the neighbour claim that any prior conversation 8 years ago amounted to your permission to lay the resin over the boundary? When I got involved with a neighbour dispute the other party's solicitor alleged that something I installed should not be within the neighbour's land and hence this constituted an act of trespass. It sounds as though in addition to trespass your are also alleging consequential water damage. @jack's advice is good though I think you would need to give them longer to act. At the end of the day if you are confident of the boundary position just get a serious odd jobs tradesman in with a petrol masonry disk cutter as mentioned by @Onoffand he will slice through the drive like a butter through marzipan at better than a linear foot per minute is my guess.

You're a better man than me - I'm only about half the time in and have given up expecting anything from them - some are great, most are awful but generally it comes down to communication, if they tell you that they're struggling then I don't mind so much but just head in the sand grinds my gears!

If it were a utility company exercising statuatory rights of entry, it would be 28 days for installing new equipment, or 14days for maintenance of existing.

If it doesnt say anything in your deeds then I suspect you don't have to give any notice. I would tell them something like.. "At some point over the next 10 (?) weeks you will need to exercise your right to run services over their driveway in accordance with the terms of your deeds. You anticipate this will require trenches to be dug and may take y days to complete the work. Unfortunately you do not yet know when the work will be carried out as you are at the mercy of abc utility company. However you will endevour to keep them informed and give them as much notice as possible".

Thanks all. I should have updated you earlier. I think it’s all sorted now. Builder contacted the council after I got a little contractual with him, and he paid the fee for the licence (peanuts) plus an exorbitant deposit of £1600 in case he damages the Council’s pavement. I put my legal knowledge to use and did some research and came to the conclusion that the Council is probably exceeding their powers by demanding such a high deposit and such a high insurance cover, rendering their scheme amenable to judicial review. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time or energy to apply for judicial review, so I have just left it for the builder to resolve. To cover myself I wrote a polite, but firm letter to the Council attaching copies of the relevant clause in my contract and the emails between them and my builder confirming they had received his payment. So fingers crossed it’s all done, but I think the problem might resurface in a couple of months when the licence “expires”. This red tape is unbelievable. oh, and having the hoarding 1m in would only have been a temporary solution for us because we are digging up the driveway in a couple of months.

Remove and replace with Heras fencing tomorrow. Job done if it’s more than 1m from the highway as from memory that’s the legal distance.

Ask them to suggest who that "someone" should be. Tell them that you know nothing about it and are relying on their knowledge, help and advice.

I sympathise. Whenever I watch a gardening programmes I just see thousands of ££££ tossed around the place as though it’s nothing and then no comeback to see how things went. Oh do (expletive deleted) off with your *being sociable* to other people.

Yes site was steep, muddy and hence why it took so long. House not going anywhere though :_) oh and house is lifted of ground on steel stilts, that puts a side load on foundation pile which increased the requirement.. One side of house is 12 inches off the ground. 6m to other side of the house it is 2.5m off the ground. Thats how steep it is

Time for another blog post as we now have 50 piles completed and a nice shiny ground beam linking them all together. The pilers took 6 days to drive the 50 bottom driven steel cased piled into situ just before Christmas, this was two blokes and a fairly shiny new looking piling rig. The rig, in its simplest form, was a 500Kg weight on a string that was capable of being raised and dropped repeatedly. It had some very fancy hydraulic outriggers and a track that could vary its width, but ultimately it was a weight on a string. The pilers said our required loading on each pile (150kN) was fairly modest and explained how each pile would be driven to set. This involved piling away until either a new 2m section was needed to be welded on or the pile started to move less with each blow. When they felt it was getting there, they sprayed a vertical line on the pile and used a welding rod held at one end, to draw a series of 5 lines on the pile, one after each blow. If the spread of these lines was less than 100mm then the pile would be capable of taking the 150kN load. Interestingly I only ever saw this done when I was on site and watching, not one of the piles done when I wasn't there had the vertical white line and marks - I'm sure that's fine.... From a cost point of view, the piles were £1,200 for mobilisation then £127 per pile down to 4m, anything beyond that was £30 per meter per pile. In the end we had 27 piles at 5m, 2 piles at 5.5m and 21 at 6m, which was a total add-on cost of £2,160. So the total piling cost was £9,710. After Christmas the lads returned and were joined by another crew of 2 and the 4 of them started work on the ground beam. The original plan had been to excavate a trench for the beam and just set the steel reinforcement into the trench. When the pilers first saw the site they said this wasn't going to work due to the water and soft ground and we'd need to dig down to the bottom of the ground beams, so they could shutter the beam. After having a concrete blinding delivered and placed level around the route of the beam, they spent the next week placing and tying the rebar along with positioning the shuttering. By the Friday morning it was ready for our first building control inspection. As we are having a Protek structural warranty, the idea of combining the warranty and building control inspections appealed to me. Protek assigned a private building control firm to oversee the inspections, so our approved inspector, a diminutive Welsh lady duly arrived to look at the work the piling lads had done. Happy with everything we were good to pour the ground beam the following Monday. Monday arrived and the concrete pump and wagons arrived at 9.00am, ready to go. The pour was uneventful, but I was badly unprepared for the splatter so had to pop home and get changed into some clothes I didn't mind getting covered in concrete. In total, I think it was about 35 cube of concrete, so a fair amount went into the piles and beams. The lads returned the following day and took down the shuttering and much to my surprise took away pretty much all of their rubbish. That left us with the ground beam in all of its glory. The ground beam was the most costly aspect of the endeavour. The cost for beam itself was £100 per linear metre, of which our beam was 124LM, for a cost of £12,400. The shuttering was unexpected (well not completely, but you can hope) and an additional £4,000. So the overall cost for the ground beam was £16,400, giving a total spend with the pilers of about £26,000. I'm including the costs in the blog as they might be useful for others as comparison. I'm really pleased with the job that they did, the whole thing is obviously very solid and I know we have a decent foundation for the house. It's so substantial it feels like it should be able to be seen from space.

With concrete piles they often do pile integrity tests to make sure there are no defects along the length of the pile. I think they connect a sensor from a tablet and tap the pile with a mallet. Somehow this tells them a fair bit. They do it for every pile. You may also need concrete cube tests.

Piling is a very interesting topic. As I (imperfectly) understand it, piles of many types - are driven, screwed or compacted to whats known as a Refusal - simply a calculated back- pressure beyond which its not worth doing any more work (called the Working Load I think, maybe wrong). Refusal sometimes therefore varies by position. In our case one of the 64 piles just shot into the ground - to Refusal at about four meters. Most refused at a bit over three meters. One hit an incursion of rock. Because it was the last pile driven I could hear the difference in the cadence of compaction. And the ground really shook. The rest sort of slithered in. Just for completeness, @eandg, piling cost us £6500, Groundsure test , about £2500 ish, and one critically important letter (email) from the SE - one that together with a bit of research on my part and help from BH members saved £17000 (yes 17K) . Hillard Tanner saved his fee many times over. Top bloke - and his partner Nick Bailey. Ours were tested to 2.5 times the static load. One or two of the piles achieved 3 times the static load and one a little more.

Nope, didn’t do mine. It would depend on what type of pile, there are many types. A driven pile doesn’t get tested as it is driven until it reaches a certain standard. @AnonymousBosch used a stone column which is known as ground improvement, so it gets tested to see if it has reached its design capacity, so it’s really down to what you are getting.

+1 for an insulated reinforced concrete slab. We are on London clay in flood zone 3a. The slab option was so much less intrusive than piles. PM me and I'll let you know what we spent.

It's astounding / time is fleeting / madness takes its toll ...

Can you guess what he's saying? ?

Sorry lol ! The soffit all knackered and old . Joists seem fine . Contradicting posts not helpful from me ?

Nah, been living in shit fir years mate ?

Similar to you then.

There are crane owner's children getting private school educations because of your frivolity with money!

I was going to pay you £1500 to do the job.