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No apologies needed. As self builders sometimes the pressure of managing everything just gets too much and when things go wrong it's usually our closest that bear the brunt. I recall a renovation where we had sunk everything we had into it and needed it finished desperately in order to sell it before we ran out of money just for day to day living. Our 10 year old had got used to coming to site with us most weekends as we scrabbled to get done. I gave her the job of painting a short length of cast iron downpipe with some black gloss. She did ok with that but didn't put the lid back on the tin. I picked up the dust sheet without noticing and poured black gloss all over the indian sandstone patio that had been freshly laid only a couple of weeks before. I do admit to ranting excessively, not directly at her but just how unfair life, god, the world and everything was. It was the straw that broke the camels back so to speak. Later that day, having dropped her back home and returned to site, her elder brother rang to say he couldn't find her in the house. A frantic search all over the village ensued to no avail. As we widened the search with the help of neighbours and decided to alert the police, a call came in from a nice lady in Cambridge who had found her wandering the streets. It seems she had packed a bag (including an OS map for reference!), boarded a train (unmanned village station) and traveled a few stops into Cambridge with the intention of going to her aunt's house. She had got upset and thought all the problems were her fault. Boy did that bring home the important things in life and certainly gave me a new perspective. We never let ourselves get into that situation again and despite many a frustration over the years you just have to press on through it - worse things happen at sea!

Well, it's been nearly 9 months since we moved in, and I didn't leave a list last time, so here are the parts of the last list that still needed work. As you will see there still remains a lot of stuff to do. You'll soon learn why they're still here 😞 more stone work - still on the list but much reduced rainwater soakaways - still on the list rainwater collection system - decided after deliberating a lot to leave this out for now as it's not a condition backfilling - partly done, still on the list concrete lego brick retaining wall - delivered, to be fitted Flooring - en-suite and "attic" room left to do Wood cladding - still on the list Fit internal doors - one last door to do Fit en suite - basin and bog outstanding Build MY garage - still on the list A green roof system, because its on the planning application, and may be required for certificate of completion (unless someone can enlighten me as to how to avoid this, and be able to delay the installation) - still on the list, but good news on the completion element for this below. Back in August 2025 we moved into a building site, and worked hard to get the remaining bedrooms completed before our first Christmas for which SWMBO had invited MY family. Not sure whether to label this action as bullying, blackmail, fraud, spousal abuse or whether another specific crime was committed. But, we got there, and a fantastic Christmas was had. Also during this time, we managed to secure a buyer for our old house. We had decided to stop calling it home to start the process of removing 29 years of emotional attachment to the place in which we brought up our two children, and in December we removed pretty much all the remaining furniture in readiness for Christmas and what we thought would be a completion on the sale in January/February of 2026. You may recall me asking questions about a retaining wall which was holding up the new buyers getting a mortgage. Now, this wall was not a part of the house but on our boundary about 2 feet or so away from the side wall of the house. It has a crack in it and the lender wanted it repaired. We had requested an SE to come give us a report, hopefully to tell the lender to stop being a d1ck, and we had arranged to meet them on the 6th January. We arrived the day before to find it difficult to open the front door because there was some plasterboard behind it which had come from the landing ceiling at the top of the stairs. This had been caused by a leaking water pipe in the loft. Subsequent water bills showed that 28m3 of water had come through the ceiling - we now had a major water leak insurance claim repair to deal with. And the upshot of the SE visit the following day was they said it did need fixing. B0110cks!! So, now instead of a completion in Jan/Feb, we were looking at a completion in 3-6 months. We then found out that the retaining wall was our liability, and not the people who owned the land behind it. This put a huge dent in our plans. Everything we had planned to do in the first half of 2026 (work on the house and a ski trip) went on hold as we got someone in to repair the wall (in March, once the rain had stopped) and to deal with the insurance company who thought it was a great idea to appoint two separate companies to complete the drying out/repair work - WHAT COULD GO WRONG? We sat down, and reworked our plans for work on the house. This has been limited to work that we could carry out with little spend because either it was something outside in the "garden" (read mud bath), we already had the materials on site, or the materials required were not hugely expensive. What have we been up to in between complaining to the insurance company about the lack of co-ordination and progress (WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?) We bought parts to start finishing off the rainwater drainage pipework, which also allowed us to do our first bit of hard landscaping, some steps down to one side of the house, and starting off the path as well. We still had a lot of stone cladding to complete, so once the weather improved, I set to completing most of this. There are still a few odd bits and pieces to do once the balcony and connecting bridge have been completed (one of the large ticket items that is on hold). The other main area of work has been the en-suite bathroom, where we spent a little bit of savings and created a service wall on two sides, got it plastered and painted, and also installed the walk-in shower. After a bit of back and forth, SWMBO agreed to a wall hung toilet pan (thank you to those who responded to my cry for help). So, the en-suite requires said bog, a basin and vanity, tiling behind the basin, flooring and a door to be completed. All materials on site or on order, and the plan is to get on with that over the next few weeks. So, where does all this leave us? Well, the bits of good news we've had:- - our BCO visited just before Christmas and gave us a list of things he'd like to see before he issued a completion certificate, and on that list found that the green roof was not required to be fitted, but just some documentation about what we proposed to put up there. I know what many will think, but we will probably still install one at some point, but it does mean we can delay installing it until after completion. - I mentioned we secured a buyer for the old house. Well, they have stuck around through all our tribulations and we will be completing on June 5th. Come mid June we should have the following major items to complete, and the funds to do them: Balcony including balustrade Connecting bridge to balcony Balustrade by internal stairwell Exterior porch floor rainwater soakaways - still on the list concrete lego brick retaining wall and backfilling Flooring - "attic" room left to do Wood cladding Finish the en suite - as outlined above Build MY garage - still on the list A green roof system Once all that is done we might also be ready to clear the site of the touring caravan we used for the first four years of weekends and holiday time we spent building the house and a lot of left over building materials. I'm glad to say there is very little of that as I resisted the "order 10% more than you need" rule, and am pleased to say it only bit me twice in extra delivery charges. This has meant we have incurred zero cost for skips/clearaway etc. and, no, we have not buried it all in a very big hole in the 3 acre field we bought. There's still a lot to do, but as we approach June 5th with lightened hearts, we have a much clearer view of some form of end game, with may hours to be spent creating a new garden around our NEW HOME!!

Well, I bit the bullet : 1 tonne moved a hundred meters or so . Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Age Appropriate Wheelbarrow (Branding deliberately removed by AI )

Mainly watertight now. Almost finished the front section and one gable

Don't do as I do - do as I say, comes to mind. Not much different from a multi millionaire pop star, movie stars, telling everyone to dip their hands in the pockets to give to charity.

Yes, we moved into our new house on Monday last week, pretty much 9 months to the day since we broke ground and 15 months after we purchased the plot. We know we’ve been very lucky with our build. The weather has generally been in our favour and we had no supply issues or delays. Above all, we’ve had some excellent people working for us without whom we could not have achieved the build. There are too many stars to mention here but if you look through the blog you will see them all get a shout out for their excellent work as it happened. Ahead of the move, Mrs P. did a superhuman job getting everything packed, and the move itself went relatively smoothly, with dry weather and no mishaps. Amazingly, Mrs P. also managed to unpack most of those boxes within a few days, though we do still have some residual boxes to deal with in due course. Moving in day: As we all know, moving house is always a stressful business and moving to a new house is no different. But it is a relief to finally get in - there is always the nagging fear that some disaster will strike at the last minute while the house remains unoccupied. But of course, all was fine. Is our build complete? Not quite. We have some minor electrical and joinery items outstanding, both inside and outside; we have the garden landscaping well under way but some distance from completion as you will see from the photos below. Beyond that, there is a list of jobs of the sort you’ll have following any house move: curtains, blinds, wardrobes, shelving, etc. - but these are ‘house move’ rather than ‘house build’ tasks imo. We do still have to obtain Building Control sign-off and there’s a VAT reclaim to do. On the BC front we had our ‘As Built’ air-tightness test performed by Richard Harris of Peninsular Energy Compliance this week (highly recommended). The result is 1.16m m3/m2 at 50hPa on the envelope basis. Virtually the same figure for Air Changes per Hour , as our envelope area is 583m2 and our volume is coincidentally 580m3. We are very happy with 1.2 ACH. Air-tightness test under way: We have been in the house for a week now and we are really happy with the way it feels and works for us. It’s warm, draft-free, well-lit, quiet, and comfortable; the layout and spaces are working just as we hoped. We are both sure we are going to really love living here. The plant room is (to me) surprisingly warm, running at 25-26 deg C due presumably to the amount of heat-generating equipment in there. I raised this as a separate Build Hub topic but the consensus seems to be that it's not an issue, so I shan't worry. As a side benefit, it does make a splendid clothes airing room. https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/46744-hot-plant-room/ Energy use The combination of solar panels, batteries, ASHP and insulation levels seems to be working well - in our first week we used 0.7kWh from the grid and exported 63kWh. Not bad for February. I need to work out our best tariff option but that’s a job for the future. Enough talk, time for some more photos (some taken just before we moved in)... Kitchen/dining/lounge: Hall: Bathrooms - master ensuite: Shower room: Guest ensuite: Bedrooms Master bedroom: Guest bedroom: Bed 3 / hobby room (Ok, so we still have some unpacking to do.) Landscaping - plenty to do yet. The layout is literally as clear as mud to me... I'm sure it will all be fine in the end(!) And finally... Troy likes the new house - it still has yogurt pots that need licking out Dashboard: Contractor days on site this past two weeks: 15 Contractor days on site since build start: 587 person days That 587 days is well over the 500 days which requires HSE being notified of the build using form F10 (which we did). HSE have not spoken to us or troubled us at all and the F10 notification is simple and costs nothing, so I would recommend any self-builder do so - if you are unfortunate and have an incident it’s surely means less chance of getting into hot water if you registered properly. Budget: I confess that in the final weeks we have gone a bit beyond our self-imposed budget contingency and dipped slightly into savings, but that is really down to choices we have made about the quality of the fit, e.g joinery, kitchen, bathroom equipment etc., and also the extent of the landscaping we have chosen to do. We could probably have remained well within contingency had we needed to but luckily we had some leeway. Plan: We did it! Conclusion: Overall, we set out to use the entire proceeds of our previous house sale to buy a plot and build a better house, and we believe we have achieved that. Thanks once again to all the dedicated and skilled people who have worked on our house and made the build a success. Especial thanks to Mrs P. who indulged my yearning to do a build provided brilliant design input and kept the whole show on the road throughout - a truly wonderful person! That then dear friends is the final blog! Thank you for following us and for your kind words of encouragement and support through our project.

DON'T PAY ANY MORE! Write to them explaining that the work is not satisfactory and you will be withholding all further payments. Attach the photos. Reserve the right to claim all expense to rectify.

Well I'm chuffed to bits with the performance of our new self-build house. With another 6 weeks to go before mid-year our 2026 electric bill has balanced out. By mid-year we should be in credit by about £150, so maybe £300 for the whole year. That is for DHW, heating and domestic load. 2 people in permanent residence, with guests, 200m^2, thermostat set at 21.5c throughout. We run a sauna but not an EV. Contributing factors in approximate order of importance: High levels of insulation in floor, walls, and roof (MBC high performance timber frame) Very good air tightness (0.8) Large solar array 3kw facing SE and 6kw facing SW with no overshading from trees / chimneys etc Octopus Flux tariff Tesla Powerwall 3 battery 5kW ASHP UFH Triple glazing Each item has value in itself, but they also complement each other e.g. the UFH reduces heating temps which increases the efficiency of the ASHP which reduces demand which . . . I just need to tell Octopus that they need to set up a Direct Debit to pay me : )

Vanity was an Italian import, but imo the hung pans look very exclusive. Plenty of shapes and sizes to choose from.

I know CVC are crazy busy atm. Just swap from 92mm round to ‘oval’ (rectangular) duct to pass the steel and then covert back to round. Done it plenty of times. Some examples of my MVHR installs… Hope these examples help. 👍

Can you move another 400mm away from your neighbour?! That would simplify things greatly.

Hiya. To provide a bit of context, much of my initial SE training and Masters research was on portal frames. I know enough to make a contribution on this type of design. Here is my offer. You can call me on the phone on (mobile number removed, PM for contact details) for a 15 -30 min chat. It's free for BH folks! This forms part of my pro bono work that is good for my soul, my primary qualification is in Civil Engineering, you work for the public. Text me first so I know it's you. I'm pretty deaf so sometimes miss calls. I use my own name and can be easily found on the internet.. I get some interesting calls and offers, these range from "massages" to lots of "financial" offers and other "stuff" that actually breaks up my day, hence me filtering calls. The section sizes you quote might be dependent on your eaves height, wind loading and the types of finishes. That the best I can do for now.

Yeah, that's not great. It should be fully insulated and the insulation should go all the way through the wall. Just resting like that isn't good either. I would personally probably have 2 clips - one just after the bend as it exits the wall and the second before it enters the down pipe. Also, wtf were they thinking with the black? Just looks crap. Not very good standard at all and enough to question the rest of the installation, frankly. Get them back to sort it out as it doesn't comply with the regs or with the manufacturer's instructions on condensate drainage for a start. They should know better.

Local Authorities have no idea what things should cost, so selling them a £300 wind turbine made for a boat, a fifty quid PV panel, a small battery system for say £500 and a person to put it all together, should probably be about £1000. Councils will probably pay 5 to 6 times that amount. Then, where there is a meeting to fit renewables to council buildings, someone in accounts, will drag out the £5000/kW number and say 'it is too expensive'.

Our last house had a fully insurance approved and maintained alarm. Out of interest, at one renewal time for insurance, I asked to quote with and without alarm and got the same cost. All these things were true if I declared the alarm. Kept the alarm, didn't declare it any more.

Just download ChatGPT and take all the effort out of it.

As above. As soon as outdoor temp exceeds desired indoor temp we shut all doors/windows and turn the MVHR down to its minimum setting. When the outdoor temp drops below indoor temp of an evening, we open all doors/windows and turn the MVHR up to max. Currently 33.7 degrees outside and 22.5 degrees inside. No active cooling but we do have external blinds which are game changers I reckon.

Just to report, our underfloor cooling is working nicely: 31 deg C outside, 23 deg C in the house - even with the lift and slide doors open. Beautiful day here in Dorset!

I have followed this exact advice. Job's a good 'un.

I've refrained from posting on here for fear of asking stupid questions, but I have concluded that on this occasion, I really could do with some guidance. As you know, we let our first brickie go as his work was substandard. We waited nearly 8 weeks for the new one to start and he started Monday. He is making good progress and aside from not listening to me or reading drawings where service lintels are supposed to go, it's ok. However, when he started, I was really surprised that he did not build up the corners of the house using a laser level, to ensure that the height of the first course would be correct. Instead, he started at one end and made his way down the 24m length. He is now at dpc level on the internal leaf and he is 22mm out from one end of the house (excluding garage) 17m to the other end. Alarm bells are ringing in my head again and I don't know whether I should raise the issue. It's driving me mad that I have to deal with such incompetent individuals. I also had to explain to him that he had missed out the lintel for a back inlet gulley. His response "you don't run a soil pipe into the back of a bottle gulley. You put the sink waste through the wall and into it." Clearly, he is wrong, but I am just the dumb IT Programmer who knows feck all. Just after some help here, as I really don't want to sack another builder and start again.

Anyone thinking this will happen in a few weeks appears likely to be disappointed. The latest NICEIC trade rag just came through and had this to say. It also doesn’t mention the problem of uni or bi directional switchgear. Anyone who has had an RCBO consumer unit fitted in the last decade is very very likely to have it full of uni directional devices. These are not permitted to be used where current potentially flows in both directions. Bi directional rcbos have only been readily available for a couple of years, if that. They are still not standard fit for most people. Usually only fitted to solar pv or EV charging. Europe has very different switchgear to us.

1200mm gives me this dream scenario, much like Dave.

Diplomacy isn't working. You can't repeat the action and expect a different result, so stop him from doing any more work and ask him if he's interested in the rest of the job (or not). His response will be what decides your new direction / next decision. Tell him straight, no quivery top lip, that you have slept on it and cannot accept the discrepancy. End of feckin chat. If he shrugs his shoulders and packs up and fecks off, good riddance. If he decides to offer up a solution to rectify, then tell him it has to be removed on his time and not yours as it should have been right first time. Stop tolerating useless assholes. I wouldn't get away with this, how can he????

There was a recent article in the IStructE magazine just about this and promoting the use of C16 timber. It's pretty well available in Scotland (in EU metric sizes, CLS Canadian lumber standards are slightly diferent in dimensions for example) and for years I've used it where I can. The U value regs in Scotalnd quite often drive the timber external wall stud thickness on a basic timber frame house, call that a major developer type house. You can use C16 at a deeper depth so you can fit a decent thickness of insulation between the studs. The deeper stud in C16 still delivers the strength and deflection limits you need. The problem can be that C16 significantly reduces timber connection performance one you get into transfer beams and anything (say goal posts around openings) that needs to resist sideways wind loading. There is a practical side to this. What you don't want to happen is that the builder mixes up the timber grades on site. When I'm designing I try and make sure that the deep timbers are C24 if I have to use that grade, the shallower ones C16. You never mix grades of timber of the same size. The same applies to steel buildings in terms of bolt grades., you make sure it's not possible to fit the wrong grade of bolt into same sized holes. You can't make it totally idiot proof as a designer but you can try your best.

But it is not. It is a very big water tank, and if the ground moves a tiny bit, the slab and or walls could break and it gets very messy and expensive. And you will be indoors now, not outside., so damage and repairs are x3. There are a lot of failures of swimming pools and contractors have gone bust and Engineers had very expensive claims. And some of these are for proper designs: the ground we live on is very mobile. If the results of the boreholes are encouraging then you will save cost on the amount of concrete and of reinforcememnt. If they show poor ground then it really is essential to know that and design to suit. Is it still 27m long as previous posts? that is big and not to be dabbled with. How much do you want it?

They are, though I don't think this is really an argument that can be used against wind turbines or similar. The amount of concrete used in them (even if massively expanded) pales into insignificance compared to other big projects. Concrete + steel are pertty good in the end. Steel can be endlessly recycled pretty much. Using ground concrete as filler for other things is relatively good compared to many of the other things we do in terms of materials recycling. I believe ground concrete can be used in place of virgin sand/aggregate when making new concrete at least in a decent percentage of use cases. Concrete over its life absorbs a lot of the CO2 put out during manufacture and if we can switch from gas firing to renewable heat we lower the carbon footprint a decent chunk. A lot of more renewable building methods have overinflated/misreported environmental credentials once the full lifecycle is considered and once those things are considered concrete really doesn't seem that bad, especially given it's about the cheapest construction method. At a societal level spending more for a more environmental construction method may mean less money for more beneficial environmental spending.

Thanks for all the advice. In defiance of @dpmiller I bought the Bosch pair for £110 which I think is a pretty good price. I might get some bigger batteries but I quite like the light weight 2ah ones given that I am no spring chicken these days.

You are going to gasp in horror, but this is my absolute favourite tool storage box (now bear in mind they're being used almost on a daily basis). It's something that does just work. https://hultafors.com/en-gb/products/tool-bucket It's been so popular, they now sell a tool organiser to go in the bucket. I have 6 of these buckets 😲 I've even had customer say what a good idea as their other trades are coming in and out with loads of boxes. For example, one of mine just has the drill/driver/screwdrivers with bit sets and a drill roll, the other with have the sds & multi-tool etc. While I'm working away I'll have an empty one where I throw bits of rubbish as I go, including pipe off cuts, old screws etc. and then it's brilliant for the odd emergency when I'm removing old pipework where I can grab the bucket to collect the always expected run out of water from said pipework.

I would agree with this and the need to evolve ever more effective prompts. Naturally AI supported prompt engineering is a thing as well although, so far, the Human in the loop remains - once they start prompting themselves who knows. However, I am not sure of the exponential growth in the model's capabilities themselves. Three other things seem to be emerging in the region of AI that also merit our attention: Firstly, it seems to me that the eco system is perhaps where the real explosion is. The number of other technologies, techniques and spinout applications is growing very fast EG in the areas like increasing use and application of vector DBs and all its variants (Hybrid Indexing etc), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and all its variants (Embedding free RAG, Chain of thought RAG), agent frameworks ( Swarm etc), structured knowledge stores, synthetic data engines and model side retrieval. Of those variants today not all will survive contact with reality and many more will emerge. Interestingly some of the early front runners in this sphere are reaching the end of their useful lifer already - Langchain is, for instance, being shunned because it is seen unstable and poorly documented as developers move over the likes of PydanticAI, Pocketflow & LlamaIndex. This tells you a second order story around the rush to get eco systems tools out quickly but skipping essential QA steps which leads to a broadly experimental feel rather than a sound production basis. Some argue that this because the LLMs, in the hands of developers, can create tools at an alarming rate but few are built well enough to live long! Secondly, although we still live in a gas guzzling age where the size and power of the global scale models makes huge demands on memory & energy the size of really powerful, sometimes task specialised, models is falling fast as mathematicians and engineers work out ways of squeezing them into ever smaller memory spaces. This will, admittedly somewhat hyperbolically, eventually bring the full power of the models onto our watches. Thirdly, as the HAL - "I can't do that Dave", example above illustrates some would argue that the control of this technology is getting further and further behind the bleeding edge. Perhaps we might conclude that while there are burgeoning combinatorial opportunities in the first two, eco system and small models, the third is somewhat being neglected, pushed into the too difficult box by politicians or being briefed against by the tech companies. It always was and always will be ..... until AGI!

I just expanded for a bit of fun. The building industry is not full of nice folk. I'm representing a Building Contractor and Client in Scotland at the moment that has been pretty much been ripped off by a small bunch of very well known designers and one " SE? Engineer". This bunch have been on my radar for a while with designs that I've checked and found them wanting as they are incompetent and downright dangerous. The Engineer is puporting to run a limited consultancy company..but there is no record on companies house? The "Architect" is moonlighting it appears.. I'l find out in due course if he and any of the others involved are insured or not. So yes my suspicion is at the moment that my poor Client is a victim of a bunch of chancers puporting to be Engineers and Designers. The Engineer in question is well known in Scotland, big player..in the business papers and so on.. hiding in plain sight, seems he may be a chancer and a fraudulant actor! I'll catch the fu.ker and have his house off him if I can to get some of my young Clients money back. This could be one of your kids, excuse my lack of mercy.

Hmm, no. The logic defies me here. There is no possible means of producing a proper objective measure in comparison. Instead I'd hope that Rasmus et al would be making more sensible decisions around the necessity and means of travel and thus reducing it as far as possible, not trying to justify it on the basis of 'I do more for the environment so it's okay for me' which just gets us into more trouble and bickering. To affect change in behaviour there needs to be systemic change, because the system absolutely rewards air travel financially as a start right now - just think of the cost of a short flight from the SE to Scotland for example versus the equivalent cost of taking the train. The economics right right are shear insanity. But there are also other systemic factors that blind people to the environmental cost of activities and decision - so this becomes a societal aspect, but then there is of course the individual responsibility about taking a stand and making a statement, which in itself may affect the societal and systemic. But who is actually making this kind of stand in such a way as to shift the curve? Our politicians aren't, nor are other leaders, nor are celebrities really doing this to a great extent... but there are lots of more quiet people just getting on and doing it - maybe they're the ones that will eventually provide the gravity necessary to shift things from the bottom up? Who knows, but the winds are blowing in a direction that rather depresses me right now - it feels like taking a positive environmental stand is the higher risk path, both personally and professionally versus embracing and continuing with the status quo.

Went through the same thing with my own build and here's what I gathered after countless hours of research and AI aid as well. Ajax - is the Apple like new entrant into the market, and has the most stylish keypads, sensors etc. But they don't sell direct and are the priciest - got some quotes and it was easily 2-3x other competitors so I dropped this idea. Texecom - this is the industry standard for a graded system (I think you need Grade 2 for home security). Kit is pretty well known and standardised through the app and keypads are a little dated - works but nothing to look at is the consensus. Apparently there is no charge to use their app if you have the WiFi/Ethernet module. Orisec - relatively new entrant in the market and seems to have been setup by ex Texecom people. App is slightly newer and seems to get more updates. £45 charge to use the app on a yearly basis. Pricing is virtually the same as Texecom - based on the installer so you take your pick based on what you like. Pyronix - seems to be lowest rated of the lot (at least if you look online). This is the one we have in our current house (a wireless one). It works but the app is quite shit and frequently logs me out so I miss the notifications(!) when an alarm is triggered. Also currently £45 for annual access to the app. The other choice you have to make is a wired or wireless system. Wired does add a chunk of cost upfront (wiring and labour cost to do the wiring), but you don't have to change batteries every year which means high Capex low Opex. The advantage with most of the systems is that you can start with a baseline wired system for your key doors/windows and then expand gradually by adding wireless sensors in the future (like if you're adding front gates, rear outbuilding etc). FWIW - I've chosen to go with a wired Orisec system with option to add wireless sensors in the future. It was a toss up between the Orisec and Texecom and I'd be happy with either - went with the installer recommendation.

Just a warning - some window & door suppliers show windows on quotes & drawings as viewed from inside (e.g. 21 degrees), some from outside (e.g. Rationel). This makes a difference re handle / lock positions etc and other asymmetrical detail. Also, some UK suppliers show the handle position at the point of the triangle e.g. 21 Degrees, some e.g. Rationel show the point at the hinge side. Often this is fairly obvious, but sometimes not. Just to add a bit of spice ... if the suppliers source extra detail drawings from their European suppliers, they may well be the other way round.

You can use cavity closers there are ones keyed to accept wet plaster https://www.coversmerchants.co.uk/dacatie-tf-multicloser-cavity-closer-100-150-x-2400mm

If I'd done no research and just listened to 90% of my installers, we'd have ended up with worse outcomes in just about every area of our build. I think it makes good sense to get an understanding of anything technical before taking advice from someone whose job involves maximising profit from you.

Wash it into a very weak solution with a lot of fresh water, and then dump it onto waste area (side of footings / unfinished hard standing etc) and it'll just dry out and turn to dust.

wow, thats bad. I mean my porch/canopy was shit, but thats another level. That "flashing" is basically a scam, im not sure what advice you need but at the very least that flashing needs sorting out. My builder used offcuts of an old fence (i had stored for burning) in my porch roof and cut the canopy rafters too short so added bits on the end. As its exposed it looks crap and i'll have to box it in with soffit board or something. "Most people make a feature out of the exposed timbers" he said. At that stage i just wanted them gone so i let it go, another job i need to finish.

Use a thread sealant, I like to use Loctite 55. Some versions of that tap come with PTFE tape to seal the thread.

Great work!!

You beat me to it. I'm closer to 15W/m2 output at -9. Sounds like cosy feet and melted body to me at 40W/m2. The 75mm spacing make my 300mm strange, I still only flow 28 degs max.

We have 1200mm and would not want less. But that is because a dishwasher door opens into that gap.

Would need to be a tried and tested one.

Your actual responsibility differs depending on if you’re self managing or you have a contractor or PM. But I’ve seen enough builders missing fingers and with back and hearing problems to insist that they make the attempt. I also have an extra responsibility since I am an architect in my spare time and don’t want to get struck off, but still. So yes pretty insistent that they use the PPE when I’m around. If they don’t listen to me, which is likely as they are pretty basic lads, then the contractor boss gets a picture, an earful and I threaten him with the HSE. I’ve reported people in the past and I’ll do it again. eta, as a homeowner on your own time I’m not sure the same standards apply to you. Hard hat on a roof might be a good idea though in case you land on your bonce.

Please do not omit the fixing(s) - it's only one or 2 per board (check MIs). In a fire any plastic insulation attached to the plasterboard will melt or soften and the plasterboard may fall off the wall. This exposes more fuel to a fire (combustible insulation) and blocks possible escape routes. Additionally it could be a major hazard for fire fighters if they have to enter the building if people reported in there.

Two points: 1. The basis of this thread was that if you ignore emissions, it is still a national security priority to get off fossil fuels as we don't have enough and we can easily generate enough power using renewables if we just built them.* I tend to agree that the way that we have implemented the drive to renewables has done some damage which could have been avoided if the programs had been structured differently, but that's a different argument. 2. Emissions are cumulative, so even if our emissions are low now, we are one of the highest emissions countries in history because the industrial revolution came to us first and for a lot of that time we were responsible for a very large percent of the worlds emissions. You may say it's woke to consider history when considering energy. I think of it as taking responsibility for our actions and trying to lead by example. * The argument that China controls a lot of the supply chains for renewables has weight. But so long as we are installing solutions that work without a live connection to China then if anything happened with the supply chain the installed base keeps going for at least a decade. Compared to fossil fuels which if the imports stop of those we are utterly screwed within a matter of weeks renewables wins.

Is that leaking by any chance?

I suppose anybody who wants wind turbines to be built and for the electricity they produce to be affordable. CfDs reduce risk for the generators. Without them, generators would be asking higher prices for their electricity to reflect the risks they would be required to take on. Yes, it does stack up, hugely. The parameter you need to look at is the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions, measured in grammes of CO2e, per kWh of energy produced over the life of the asset. Results as follows (median values of the assets they studied): Coal: 1004 g Natural Gas: 458 g Solar PV: 53 g Offshore wind: 18 g Onshore wind: 12 g Nuclear: 6 g (Clearing the Air, Hannah Ritchie, data source UN Economic Commission for Europe, 2021) According to Drax Group who operate the Lanark and Galloway run-of-river hydro schemes, located in south-west Scotland, it generates 126 MW. Yes, that's nice but it's not going to get us far in the energy transition. The latest allocation round for offshore wind (AR7) procured 70 times that capacity, 8.4 GW. So what? The embedded CO2 in the blades is taken into account in the above life cycle numbers. It's just a waste disposal issue. Same or worse for end of life fossil assets, many of which contain far worse materials - asbestos, mercury and other heavy metals, spent catalysts, etc.

Have you tried BPC Ventilcation? https://bpcventilation.com/ Send them your plans, they come back with a design. For a fee I think they then provide you with flow rates etc. I used them for layout design and choice of unit. We had a few back and forth discussions about why certain elements of their layout would not work, but we did arrive at a final design. It was based on using distribution boxes and semi rigid ducting.

This can not be overstated.....we have been extremely fortunate to hit a stream of "gold" that has taken us from one trade to the next, and, keeping them "fed and watered" when on site, paying on the day the invoice is presented has perhaps helped to ensure that as well as recommending the next trade to us, they are happy to vouch for working with us, even though we can be very definite ("picky") about what we want. Sparing his blushes @Benpointer has written an excellent blog, and is a masterclass in keeping trades on track with excellent outcomes. So true, but on a Friday make it 3pm!

Congratulations. This has been a masterclass in successful self building by managing contractors! More important than that is the contractor selection, project management, etc, and I think it's you (with assist from Mrs P) that has done that so you can feel great satisfaction with how this project has gone. I'm guessing (maybe you said before) your background is in project management and if not it's an even greater achievement. When you have time and if you have the energy I and I'm sure many others on here would appreciate it if you could share as much as you can on your process for managing this project. What your average day looked like, tips and tricks, preparation, etc. I think this could be really useful for those of us with less project management experience!