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Item 1 on the latest list is complete 😁

A story with a happy ending. Vision AGI were receptive to paying for our third party costs and have paid up. Plasterer in Friday to cover the hole and then we paint. Good as new. Thanks everyone for the support and the words for the email. Phew.

Latest "from the mound" picture. (could have been taken back in August, but I forgot 🙂

I followed your @TerryE story a number of years ago and designed my system based on your posts. Thanks for all your detailed posts all those years ago. My system: Installed and running 4 years instead of 6 yours like yours Heated by the same 3kw wills heater during the night 100 sqm of polished concrete, 100mm deep and reinforced with fibres not a steel mesh. Self installed Wunda 16mm PERT-AL-PERT PIPE, manifold and pumpset - 5 heating loops with similar double back loop design. The pump is on a low nice quiet setting. I’ve no idea how to calculate how much water it pumps or the flow like you did nor do I feel I need to. It's working so I’ll leave it. I’ve a temp difference of circa 5 degrees after the system is up and running. It’s the basic temperature dials on the manifold so this isn’t digital or recorded like yours. Portable oil heater for the misses for when she thinks she’s cold. We’ve our temp between 20-21 degrees so lower than yours It was a major refurb, not a new build but we did a PHPP for the house which I can compare to. Main differences: I don’t have all the fancy temperature probes or data logging you have. We have temperature sensors but they aren’t recorded. I could fix this by purchasing a few but don’t really feel the need. I have an electrical meter on the wills so know exactly the energy going into the slab. I don’t run the pump after the wills is off to spread the heat like you nor do I do it for a few minutes on the hour. I did play around with this for a while at the start but it doesn’t make a massive difference. This slab is all one large open plan kitchen / dining / living / entrance hall area. You do notice the floor warmer in the hallway nearer the manifold but this is fine as the heat rises in this double height area to the upper unheated rooms. Things I’d change: I don’t have the fancy controls you have nor do I have the coding skills to develop it. It’s therefore a much cruder timed system. Note I’m based in Ireland, not the UK. For the first two years it was definitely cheaper to use a cheap wills than invest in an ASHP but the massive increase of the electrical unit rate has changed this. I've had the ducts fitted for years from outside to the wills heater so it’s an easy swap we’ll have to make soon. All loops are circa 90-100 meters long so I’d like to connect the ASHP directly to the slab avoiding a buffer too. Question: If I were to data log temperatures does anyone have any advice on what products to use that don’t require coding, are relatively cheap and what number would you advise getting and what to record? Do I go all out and record the flow and return temperatures for example? My biggest achievement: For the winter period 2021-2022 when everything was turned off in Spring the total units used was 3,347.1 when PHPP has a number of 3,349.0. Other years were higher or lower but that year was bang on!

Well this was a long cup of coffee... It's common to try and exclude consequential loss but my understanding is it may only be enforceable with business customers unless the contract was specifically negotiated with you rather then being standard T&Cs. I believe you, being a "consumer customer", also have statutory rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 in that excluding consequential loss probably amounts to an unfair contract. https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/somethings-gone-wrong-with-a-purchase/claim-compensation-if-an-item-or-product-causes-damage/ https://www.consumercouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/2019-09/A_Guide_To_Consumer_Law_for_Businesses.PDF https://www.squirepattonboggs.com/~/media/files/insights/publications/2015/10/the-consumer-rights-act-how-does-it-impact-on-brand-owners/cra-article-for-consumer-brands-alert.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/450440/Unfair_Terms_Main_Guidance.pdf Reading on it appears they believe the exclusions of unforeseeable consequences would be ok but the exclusion of foreseeable ones would be unfair. If that gets raised I'd argue that the consequences of a leak were reasonably foreseeable by both parties! So looks like a pretty certain that a consequential loss exclusion is unfair when the buyer is a consumer. I'd get quotes for the repairs and send them a letter asking them to pay up before you do any work. Point out that clauses in contracts with consumers which use terms like "consequential loss" are considered unfair. I believe you have to give them the opportunity to fix it before you can get it done yourself by a third party and claim compensation. Give them a two week deadline to respond? You could probably also claim for your time locating the source of the leak but I think I would just point out that that by taking action to promptly identify the source of the leak, and removing sodden insulation yourself, you have minimised the possible damage and the cost to the rooflight company. I've also been reading something about the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Directive which provides an alternative to court action. I think TrustMark is an ADR provider. Perhaps find out if the rooflight co is a member and involve them?

One of my favourite jobs when it's going well. I even used up the scraps to gain some brownie points when I was doing my step flashings.

The vision vs the reality

I paid for the application in August 2023 to allow me to get on with getting the footings in for the extension (and have them inspected). I then spent 3 months maybe, doing the plans in the evenings. I finally submitted them in October. They came back after about 6 weeks and asked for some ammendments (that are included above) and finally got approval 19th December 2023.

aaaaaand relax. I even managed to get the EPDM on today a couple of mins before the heavens opened. The engineer is scheduled to come tomorrow to set the foundations out but may cry off due to the incoming rain. If so he says he will come on Sunday. Digger Tuesday if the warranty company get their shit together. Southbank1-210748-210804.mp4

Thanks. Its funny actually out of all the plots I found, the 4 acre plot was the cheapest (less than a third of others). It was by chance a owned by a previous self builder who built a passivhaus, who sold it to me for the very reason he wanted a self builder to have it, could have went for 3 times the price. A very nice man.

Unfortunately I have come across this attitude before but quickly nipped it in the bud by talking about the build process and using words they didn’t expect a woman to know, can’t stand men like that and certainly wouldn’t give them my business. Hubby had put some of them in their place too when they tried to address him instead of me and he turned round and said there’s no good talking to me you need to talk to the boss!

I can empathise with your feelings. Part way through our build my father in law died. We were both hoping he'd live long enough to see our house finished, but it wasn't to be. I did put a small memorial to him, and my late father (who died back in 1972) right up at the very top of our house:

Plus one to that. I've used gas all my life and would never consider electric - until induction. It's quicker than gas It's more controllable than gas - I have never been able to get a proper simmer on gas without moving the pan half off It's much much much much easier to clean It looks so much neater than a gas hob It's safer - it only heats the pan so the surface only gets hot where the pan is and even then it's nowhere near hot enough to burn if just touched. You have time to remove your hand before you are burned It's safer - when you remove the pan it automatically switches off it's safer - handles don't get hot, even metal ones. When I used the same pans I am using now on my gas hob I couldn't pick the pans up with a holder, now there is no problem.

Is that all, come on I’m bored stiff sat here pictures of the big hole please picteres of progress c,mon c,mon I’m about to kill one of the in-laws if they ask me another stupid question about my polystyrene house.

Hi @ProDave This is exactly why I am doing a "blog" detailing my experiences and routes for various aspects of the self build. We will never be embarking on such a project again which is a great shame when you consider the "learning" one gains from such a venture. Yes, I can sit back and reflect on where I could have made a saving and or used a different approach but as long as we get over the finish line without breaking the bank, I shall consider it a successful mission. I just hope others reading this record will be able to consider options they may not have considered, as explained by either myself or contributors such as yourself.

Day 1 of roofing, took best part of the day to actually get the trusses on site. But at least it's a start! Roger in place as always to offer a reference of scale ???

I've had the same one for 45 years. Still think that I am a lucky chappy. 🤣

This is the Christmas present my husband lovingly made for me, as a permanent reminder of my favourite ever comedy sketch. He taught himself embroidery just so that he could make this!!

I don't like the design of that one little bit. I would have expected there to be some form of gutter around the perimeter of that, with that able to drain somewhere safe, to give a safe exit for any water that does make it past the seals. No doubt they will remove the glass, re seal everything and put it back, and then all will be well. Until next time...... When it is off, make sure every single fixing screw hole is well sealed, that will be where it is getting into the building. And since the framework does look to be larger than the upstand, I would talk to them about the idea of drilling safe weep holes to allow any seepage out onto the roof.

Things take a while when you are self building don't they? So, back to this circular rooflight internal finishes joinery. I thought you'd all like an update, particularly @Onoff who I was expecting on site back in November ? Here is what has been done. Firstly, there was a slight thermal bridging issue with the metal frame for the roof light being inside the thermal envelope. Got some drips earlier in the year when plaster was drying out and condensing up there. Not a huge amount we could do easily but I have at least stuck some aerogel (left over and lying around) on those areas. Those are the silver triangle pieces. Hopefully there will be less moisture (than plaster drying out) when we are living in it. Back in Jan the tackers said they would have no problem with that rooflight meaning that HWMBO was left with stud wall construction only. And this week was the week for them to do it. They turned up with a flexi 6mm board (that they also said was moisture resistant). They used some plasterboard to batten out slightly from the square bits of the hexagon, some 25mm battens a little bit further out and then some creative battening across the corners and then they bent the 6mm board into shape and fixed it. Today they did the top bit (no photo, too dark when I got home). But they have left the plasterboard about half an inch short of the glass and made sure that the black edge is covered (in case the finished skim isn't quite circular - otherwise the absolutely circular black edging would show it). I'll post again after the plasterer has been in on Monday - hopefully he'll have no issue with it. But so far so good. Did have to hire a huge tower scaffold though. Ours only goes up about 3m and they needed the platform for this work at over 5m. Its still pretty hairy standing on a step ladder on top of the platform but even I can reach the roof light from the top. Bodes well for painting.

@Tennentslager I thought it looked like an old carpet from 70s, hopefully it will be warm. It was very itchy and scratchy to handle. @Redoctober UFH is an option for a suspended timber floor. I think @ProDave has done this on his I believe you use a dry screed mix on top of the subfloor, don't know whether the system differs. At the moment our heating is going to be electric and our stove. I want to utilise the firewood on our croft and hopefully next year make a peat stack. The house is classed as a crofter's cottage, so looking to use the croft to heat the house where possible. I want to use the electric radiators really just as a quick boost early in the morning. Hopefully the amount of south facing will provide sufficient solar gains for most of the day. Although it can be windy here, generally the temperatures are fairly mild through the winter and the recent snow was fairly rare. The house is well sheltered from the prevailing wind coming off those mountains behind the gable end and from those cold north winds behind the house. Here is a couple more that my wife took when I was working overtime in the office ?

Be aware that UV isn't a true sterilisation method, it acts as a disinfection system but even then it only works reasonably well if the water supply to the UV unit has been filtered to < 5µ. If the supply to the UV unit isn't filtered down to this level then UV treatment won't do much, as bugs will be shielded from UV by the fine particles that haven't been filtered out. A 5µ filter will need pre-filters to take out the larger stuff, or else you'll be replacing filters every couple of weeks. UV treatment also has an annual running cost of around £80 to £100, roughly 50% of that is electricity and 50% the cost of UV tube replacement. To that you need to add the cost of the filtration system expendables, which depends a great deal on how clear the water coming in is. Might be worth considering a backwashable filter vessel 1/3rd filled with Turbidex, as that will filter down to close to 5µ on it's own, and can be backwashed to clean the media, rather than having to replace cartridge filters. Backwashing can be run automatically at night (our main filtration system does this, a backwash every 4 days, at around 02:00). I'd try and avoid over-complicating any rainwater harvesting system if you can, as even a basic system will require a bit of regular looking after and the simpler the system the better, IMHO. If you can restrict rainwater use to non-critical uses, like toilet flushing (and NOT running the washing machine, they don't normally get hot enough to kill any bugs), then you can get away without much in the way of filtering or disinfection. My experience is that any form of water treatment requires maintenance and incurs a significant running cost.

@vivienz

God how I wish my dogs could do it I’m sure they would have the same sense of urgency as we do! Yes you’re right it can be a lonely place a building site, we get very few visitors even the family don’t visit because I suspect they can’t comprehend how we can live in a caravan, my son in particular thinks we should just buy a house and settle ourselves down but for the money we had we were only going to get a small house and we’ve tried that already and it didn’t work.We too went and looked at an ex council house just after the foundation was poured and it didn’t go as planned, but we decided to continue and I’m sure in the end it will be fine but you do get these moments when it all gets too much, for me writing it down did help and all your words of encouragement are much appreciated

Yep, had my own wobble this week. I tend to have a depressive episode around this time of year (second half of August, first half of September) and sort of know to discount it a bit. Last Sunday (19th) I went up to the site to try to finish off fitting the membrane on the west gable but what with the slight depression and it being the first day I'd been able to work at height for a week I was already feeling a bit frustrated. My safety glasses (needed most of the time for the reading bit on the bottom) kept misting up under the midge net and the scaffold tower was being awkward to put together and I rather lost it - threw a few bits of tower down pretty hard breaking one platform and one top ladder section. Haven't been up to the site since except to check that no other parts of the scaffold tower are damaged and to pick up post. Through the early part of the week I was pretty seriously thinking about giving up on the whole project. On Wednesday I went and had a look at the outside of a cheap ex-council house that's up for sale and started thinking through what I'd do with it, etc. Since then I've been thinking on two separate tracks at the same time: if or if not, while trying to do useful things to get out the depression cycle, which I am but still feeling a bit fragile. E.g., today moved most of my office stuff up from the living room to the small bedroom as that'll be a lot easier to heat in the winter. So, yeah, maybe this forum needs a Mental Health section. Whatever, reading and talking on here has helped. Thanks all. More amusingly, either I'm reading this wrong or you have very well-trained and dexterous dogs…

Certainly didn’t cough up! We came to an ‘agreement ‘ where they are paying 83% of the cost, feeling pretty pleased with myself actually and glad I decided to fight it.

We have stick built primarily for cost saving, will share the actual cost later but hopefully £50K+ saving, fortunately have some time and energy though I do feel a bit bushed in a good way at 53 and the challenge and satisfaction from it all. Also having the support of my Dad, he's 74 has been invaluable and an opportunity to spend time together. Maybe that sounds a bit odd. I am still enjoying it.....

Well, after an awful night, the Building society rang me very first thing and said everything is fine and the issue was never in doubt at thier end ! Offer coming out this week. On hearing the issues he gave me his direct number and said "look, just deal direct with me from now". Not impressed with Buildloan!

Got myself a roof!

An update (after the fact) Plastering finished in the open plan area this coming week (by others) DONE (see above) Remainder of stone cladding arrives and work begins to get the most inaccessible (high) parts put up before the scaffold gets taken away - this means cladding two 7m x 2m wide walls. It arrived and I did get the stonework done on the high parts Plumbing pipework ready for ASHP installation DONE Gabion basket and pad for ASHP to be installed on DONE Mist coat and first coat on plaster (SWMBO is at the ready) DONE Begin fitting upstairs UFH (Not done) Front door being fitted (January) by others DONE Take 3-4 days off for Xmas DONE and appreciated ASHP installation (January) by others, that will allow for hot water and the downstairs UFH to be available ... DONE Fit a temporary bathroom ... DONE Fit out utility room as temp kitchen ...DONE Its been a comfortable month in the house (in fact we are staying an extra few days while it is cold overnight!). We fitted an over bath shower, and done a lot of other work since. and that'll be part of the next blog entry.

1 ready for UFH 1 to go. UFH going in on the first plot tomorrow and Sunday 🙄🙄 No church this week.

Looks like a great project - here is how we started:

I didn't want to over dramatise 😂 but yes, the first of the 4 ops she has had has been marked up by the medical staff as a life saver

Hi @Jenki No. But will do in the next few days (at least start it....) M

@Jenki IMO, implicit to all this is that I have a passive class house in terms of U-values, air tightness, MVHR, etc. In this, inter-room or inter-zone heat transfer is an order of magnitude higher that interior to exterior transfer. I have what is called a warm slab -- that is the entire reinforced floor slab is within the insulated perimeter so my total thermal mass internal to the external insulation barrier (I did the sums once and reported these on a post somewhere) IIRC is equivalent to that of ~100 tonnes of concrete. If the heating fails, then the house as a whole cools at around 1°C per day. In my previous house we heated by room, with only a few rooms kept at a comfortable temperature. In our current house every room and touchable surface is essentially at the same temperature within a degree or so; zones make no sense in this new context. Our UFH, loops were laid into the slab by being tied to the rebar before pour. The layout avoided walls etc, but MBC advised that we keep the loops all the same length (and close to the 100m roll length). We could have just about fitted in 4 × 100 loops, but this was tight. As I only needed to pump a few kW into the entire floor, we spaced the runs out a little and dropped heating the utility room, so that we could make do with 3 loops (which when laid actually varied from 93 – 100m, IIRC). I trimmed the manifold valves by setting them to max and slightly closing them as need so that the temperature drop across all three zones when heating was the same. The Willis actually draws 2.88 kW, so an entire 7 hour heating budget works out at just over 20 kWh. 2 × Willis seemed like overkill at the time, as a single unit should have been enough to keep within cheap rate for maybe 95% of the year with our planned 20°C target, given our expected other waste heat. However as I said previously, we upped the heating set point for comfort ending up with an average some 2.8°C higher. BTW, pretty much all electricity used within the house ultimately cascades down a waste heat within the environment. In practice our new lighting, computers, and our other base electric load ended up being quite a bit more energy efficient in the new house, so this waste heat element was less than anticipated from previous use. The electric rad on the landing typically adds 8 kWh over night for a full 7 hour window. We have maybe 30 days a year where we need to top up over this 28kWh threshold, and end up using peak rate electricity. So yes, using a bigger resistive heater such as a 5kW inline or just 2 × Willis (as others have done) could have kept heating in the cheap rate window, but it just wasn't worth the hassle to make this change, as our current arrangement only adds maybe £10 - 15 to our annual electricity bill.

Hello @LSB Hope this helps a bit and gives you some food for thought, even if just to help you rule things out. I have made comments / suggestions / rambling thoughts in italic in line with your text. Firstly don't depair and think the worst, hard to do when you are at the sharp end. I haven't posted to my blog for a couple of months, mainly because we haven't been able to progress until we got the Structural Engineers report. This was promised in 2 weeks and ended up taking 10. Hopefully they dropped you a note explaining why things were taking longer as a common courtesy. I now suspect that this was because they didn't want to tell us the news. Don't suspect anything at this stage keep an open mind. Our build is a barn conversion so we've had to jump through lots of hoops. ,making lots of money for other people. But you will have something a lot of folk would give their back teeth for. But, particularly for the SE, first it was the report where they said to planning that the barn was convertible. The SE may have been looking at the condition of the walls and could they be retained as planning constraint, maybe that was their brief? Cost would not have been a significant factor. Then the 1st phase ground contamination report, no issues there. Good. Planning approved with condition of phase 2 contamination report. No significant problems constraints with that? Any other conditions other than just getting the investigation done? Then we started preparing the site, documented in previous blogs, we did this thinking that it would benefit us with the SE report to get the building regulations drawn. How wrong we were. Maybe not.. just by messing about on site you can gather valuable information that can be used to solve a problem. One of the limitations of the barn conversion was that one side of the building can only be 2.2m high. We worked around this by designing rooms so it wasn't needed for walking. Yesterday, I received the report, only to be horrified to see that this low side of the building, 2.2m remember, needs underpinning foundations of 'at least' 2.4m. How can a single storey build possibly need foundations deeper that the height of the building. The opposite side is 3.15m high to the roof, here the SE say we only need 1m deep foundations, figure that out. The soil is not clay, not sand, there are a few 3" elm trees that are being knocked down so no large roots. From what you have said it seems like the soil is the crux of the matter. The roof loadings and the self weight of the wall are not onerous given the size of structure you have. I'm just speculating but are the walls close to a boundary with trees on the other side? Has the SE not realised that the Elms are young and to be removed.. then speculated that they will grow into large trees? It could be a simple lack of communication! Digging deeper if this is not a communication issue. You mention that the soil is neither clay nor sand. It may still bit bit expansive.. prone to swelling / shrinkage.. much depnds on which part of the UK you live in. Some of the Gault (fissured) clays in England are sensitive to ground and moisture changes, If for example you live in parts of Northern Ireland, Norfolk, Stirling in Scotland, the Severn type estuary regions in Wales then the ground can move about to a good depth. Another thing is that your SE may have identified a band of silt.. so not clay or sand.. and this is another type of material. Silts are tricky to build on so maybe the SE has, luckily for you picked up on this. But, it gets worse, they say that this must be done 1m at a time, doing 1st meter, then 3rd meter, then 5th meter, then 2nd meter etc.etc. This particular wall is 25m long. They have no issues with the existing internal walls. Unless you have spent say 10k plus on a pretty comprehensive ground investigation.. maybe with an interpretive report I can't see (willing to learn though) the justification for concluding that the founds can be significantly shallower for the internal wall.. which may be load bearing to some extent. This makes me lean back towards the trees rather some tricky layer of soil in the ground. I've never been so glad to be stupidly busy at work to take my mind of this fiasco. So, what do we do. Relax! Have a chat with the SE. The thoughts I have are: 1. Can we knock down the back wall leaving the rest and build only 1m deep like the wall on the opposite side, but I would still need to get planning. 2. Do we write off all the work we've done and all the money we've spent (lots) and try and get planning to start from scratch with a kit house. It would have to be self build though due to the extremely limited funds available. 3. The long wall splits into utility, 2 x bathrooms, 3 x bedrooms and a pantry. Do we knock down the wall for each room and then rebuild it bit by bit and with what foundations. 4. Do we start on the high side of the conversion and work backwards ignoring the problem for now. The sides vary from 1m front to 2m foundations at the back. The most disappointment I feel is that the SE passed the building as fit to convert, including digging holes to look at the existing foundations with no mention of anything like this. I don't know if it makes any difference, but the original SE was probably about my age, in his 50's, whereas the recent one (same firm) was barely out of nappies and didn't want to talk to us when he was here to discuss anything. What I have done is: a. Requested a meeting with the SE and his manager to ask why so deep and about a new wall. If we can knock down the wall and put in 1m foundations then that is manageable as with the digger we can knock the existing one down and dig the trenches before getting a groundworks crew to do the rest. b. Started compiling an email to send to the planners, but with the current situation I don't think I will hear anything. Also, I'm a bit wary, if we say what is required can they pull our planning and still not allow us a new build. c. Started looking at some kit companies who provide self build kits to get some ideas of costs. The one thing that we cannot do is dig down 600mm x 2.4m a meter at a time. Maybe a groundworks company could, but at what cost for what, in reality, is a tatty barn which, if we could have got planning we would gladly have knocked down and crushed. I spoke to the planners after we got planning to ask about this route and we told that we had no chance. Here's a little reminder of the layout. In summary see what the SE's have to say. If you get no joy then dive back on BH. Provide as much info on the ground as you can and some cross sections so we can see where the roof loads go, the wall thickness and so on. BH members can then have a few more bits of info to work with. Look forward to your next post/ blog once you have got over this bump in the road. All the best.

At least we all know who to call when GRP roofing needs doing in your area. Seems they did it in nice, easy to manage, sections. Idiots try to do too much, too quickly. And your main contractor will hopefully learn from this. There is nothing wrong with GRP when done properly. I should last decades.

ha ha....flying by the seat of my pants really! but I'm fortunate that I spend all day sat in front of a computer so a large portion of that is spent on this forum trying to learn from everyone. so if it seems organised then you all are teaching me well. ?

Second update: water poured all over the roof light this morning. First in the area nearest to the problem on the inside. Nothing dripping through for 5 mins. But then we moved to the higher end of the roof light (it’s on a slope to allow the water to run off). Almost immediately the drips started. And continued for a few minutes after we turned the water off. So we have found the problem. Now to contact the roof light people. we can’t see any solution other than to break the seal, crane out the glass, check the frame and (assuming we are tight) remove it and then check the upstands. Looks like the mastic may have failed at a different point but that the water might have run round within the frame to the low point where it then descended thorough into the roof void. so happy we have found the leak. Now the next bit begins.....

So the roof of the tower is nearly complete, the slates are in and all we need now is the lead man to do the hips.

You get about a 1/3 m out of the pump lines when they clean them through @Adam2, a good idea is to have someplace to put it, shutter up a box for the chicken coup to sit on or make a base for the wheelie bins, I have 3 posts that hold up our carport that sit on concrete pads, so pre dug some very rough holes ready for the overspill. You need to nominate a washdown area for the pump guy, plastic on the floor with a sheet of ply on top so it’s easy to shovel up the mess. Its all relatively straight forward with a bit of planning.

3rd Draft arrived this afternoon - I think we are there!!

I know how you are feeling @Christine Walker. I was pi55ed off to the back teeth with the build as once we physically moved in the motivation for hubby to get on and finish things seemed to wane and everything took forever. That was annoying but it would have been finished eventually, but then he got f***ing cancer that was the shittiest thing to happen ever and not only did it take his life it changed mine forever too. From the point of his diagnosis onwards it was pretty much down to me to sort everything in areas I didn't understand, with trades that let me down or ripped me off, in a self build that I had never wanted to take on in the first place. Somehow, just somehow you brush yourself off and get on with it, and as things start moving again nothing seems as bleak as it does during those low points. Resilience, strength and determination are your friends. There are people and processes, and sometimes just bad luck that will try to derail you and knock you off track but you will get through this I know because you have shown strength and resilience already to get this far. It might not seem better today or even next week but things will get better and you will put this behind you and move on (and in!).

Fingers crossed you get a bit more progress made with your new guy.

Better late than never - a final post for this blog. the house eventually sold on 1st June - two years minus two days since we bought it. the buyer is very happy and so are we. we have had some time away from renovating but new plans are taking shape - not quite what I expected but it will do for now. tell you more soon! ?

@Ferdinand A little history on how we ended up here which may explain the outcome. I’m 31, this is only the 2nd property I’ve ever owned. The first being a shared ownership flat I bought 3 weeks before the recession hit and 8 years later I sold for less than I bought it for. I had a 5 year sharesave plan with work that was due to pay out in July 2016, I had made a good profit on it and the amount was enough to allow us to leap the property ladder a bit, looking around we couldn’t find anything we wanted to purchase should the money have been in our pocket. Anything we did like was way out of our price range £300k - £350k. We saw this plot of land with planning permission for sale, liked the house and saw enough potential to change things to make it a home we could love. So the brief was always to get my wife and I a house we simply couldn’t afford, in size and spec. The planning permission was originally submitted in 2000 and was reapplied for several times, so many things were not included that may have been part of it had the design stage actually started from 2010 onwards. 1 - Passive house or any particularly environmental facets were never really considered, MVHR wasn’t part of the design and I wasn’t even that aware of what it was until I was well in to the build. I had brickies on site 3 months after completing the purchase of the land, so there was no dwell time to consider things like that. Remember the brief above, we NEEDED a house! I did quickly look at solar panels, but the capital expenditure just wasn’t an option we had. Briefly read up on 3G, again was disregarded due to cost, although I can’t remember what that was now. 2 - yes traditional block built house, trussed roof. We did consider block ground floor due to retaining wall and then timber frame on top but due to access issues and overhead HV power cables a crane was unlikely. Plus the 3 little pigs came to mind and I wanted a house made of bricks! I got 3 quotes for the watertight shell and all came in around £75k - and the end my chosen builder did say to me he believes he underquoted by approx £10-13k, so it could be argued that this cost should be factored in. 3 - as above the build is on our absolute limit of affordability of capex, however we do have a reasonable monthly income between us - may sound daft but I can afford a monthly gas bill more easily than I could £10k for a heat pump (this may be an age related perspective ?). If we added in many of the features that people here like to include the house would simply not have been an option to us. Either make it smaller or go back to the drawing board and pick up associated architect and planning fees - none of this was an option. 4 - Doors were Travis Perkins, £90 for a FD30 and £70 for a standard door, this was well under budget and proved to be a big cost saving on what I had expected. Flooring was £42/m2, so a reasonable cost, I think the wide board again makes it look like more than it is, link posted in a previous comment. The grey floor tiles in small en suites are indeed Wickes, the grey wall tiles are from TileMountain.co.uk @ 9/m2 and look much better than that price. The large format 900x450 black tiles were also from tile mountain and were only £25/m2 they don’t photograph well but look great in real life, a kind of rusted iron look to them with a slight sheen/glimmer that really shows off when wet. The tiler thought they cost me £60m2 upwards and couldn’t believe what I paid for them. 5 - Labour. Electrician was £3500 labour only, he used my site as a “hospital job” doing a couple of hours on odd afternoons when other jobs ran shortness or cancelled, or on Fridays when he wanted to finish up close to his home. I pestered him to ensure he always stayed ahead of where I was and his slower progress never ever impacted anything I needed to be doing. He was an acquaintance already and we ended up with a good working relationship. For example it took him about 4 months to complete first fix 100% but as I say this never mattered as any room I needed to board or progress onwards was always completed. - Plumber - friend did boiler room and snagging of my work for £1000 all in, this figure came about as I told him I only had £1000 for plumbing labour, so that was that. I did all first and second fix myself. - Plasterer / Renderer - £6000 labour only for external render, internal scratch coat and skim. Cousin of mine so no other quotes were obtained because I know his work his top quality (he works on a lot of the ridiculous houses being build in Rock, Cornwall - Gordon Ramsay’s place included). I probably did get some mates rates here but I don’t actually know to what extent, 4 plasterers on site at one point who I didn’t know so they all had to be paid out of the total. Tiler - £160 a day, my advice is don’t be afraid to use day rate, if you trust the tradesman you could both end up with a better arrangement. When you ask someone to quote on price you are offloading the risk and paying a premium for this, my advice here would be to de-risk the job as much as possible yourself then get some one in on day rate who will be happy to do a good days work for a days pay. Joiner - £100 a day, this was a bit of luck on my part. Skilled joiner had some health issues and couldn’t drive at the time I met him, was getting himself back in to work after an extended sick period so was willing to work quite cheap. At first I was picking him up each day but he got his licence back during the build. I’ll agree this probably saved me a fair bit, I’ve had him here working for the final 4 weeks. Ah the jack and Jill bathroom - I think my first post here which I remember your good self replying to offering advice. Well we took it and now have 2 separate bedrooms with 1.8 x 1.5 en suites, 1 with 1500 Bath 1 with 1500 shower. It’s the ones with the light grey tiles. Much better than the jack & Jill so thank you. The drive retaining wall is just standard blockwork, only completed the day of the photo so still very green. Further down it will transition to Gabions to keep costs down. We we do have space for another property, actually several more but the guy I bought it off, who is now our neighbour placed a covenant on it that a I could only build 2. Ground is slightly made up at that end of the site so I don’t think footings would be easy. As I said before I think some sort of lodge garden room structure on a slab may be what happens there, and may look at the possibility of Airbnb’ing it. However I liked this plot as it’s private and I don’t think I have any sort of knack for customer service. I may still build the lodge but use it as a Cigar and Whisky lounge!

Slow going on your own and with no scaffolding... but that the hardest side done! Just need to finish the easy side now...