epsilonGreedy

When my local farmer "loans" something, the loan also includes the operator. I just spectate.

Well since you ask. Those long beams resting on the relatively narrow width of the forks look a bit precarious. If say the farmer came down the slope to your footings at a slight angle and then bounced a touch going over your footings it is possible one beam could pivot and rotate/slide off. Anyhow that is my perception, did that worry figure in how you approached the job?

A just reward for authoring a long running popular book. Tis all a bit silly trying to formulate an opinion about a self build book based on how it promotes Passive thinking. The incremental savings achieved as a self build is enhanced from basic thermal regs to degrees of passiv conformance are small compared to the £50k or £100k cost over runs that might be experienced when venturing into self build without the elementary knowledge provided in the SBB.

The SBB does not advocate against these objectives, instead the author knows how easy it is for self builders to go way over budget hence he feels it is important to offer an unexciting formula for creating a home on budget. The author also illustrates in the book how a home built down to minimum thermal regs of 2015 still performs far better than the vast majority of British houses, a fact that could be mentioned a bit more often on this forum.

Is there a more popular book on self building in the UK? I have seen other positive posts about the book on this forum, it is not designed to impress experts like you.

Think I am ready for Spons now but the self builder's bible targets new entrants who like me could not have listed the stages to building house beyond concrete, walls, roof and pipes.

So @nodsays the book under prices jobs and you say my early ££ relative savings are because the book over prices jobs as a main contractor would bill them. This probably explains why the book is so popular and onto its 12th edition. A point the author is happy to confirm as he tries to constrain the typical self builder's compulsion to burn money on grand design frivolities as seen on TV.

Disagree 100% This is why the book is up to the 12th edition. So far I have comfortably undershot the self builder's bible model house costings and have been surprised how cheap building is providing one connects with competent sole proprietor trades with the right equipment. Every self builder should be able to mentally run through the 20 biggest costs for their project while falling asleep each night and the SBB is the best entry point for becoming familiar with there the money goes at each stage.

A bit of further reading indicates there is an approved method for slinging beams under the forks and my initial hunch was wrong. The key is a lifting strop that "chokes" the beam and this is hung off an eye in a fork cradle. Diagram and H&S court case here... http://www.ppconstructionsafety.com/newsdesk/2015/02/03/telehandler-dangerously-used-as-crane/

Looking at the model house budget in the Self Builder's Bible, £10,600 of the budget is allocated for external finishing such as a drive, patio and landscaping. Then there is £4,700 for decorating and £17,000 for the kitchen which amounts to big savings on the total £182k budget for a decent 160m2 detached house.

I think the colour contrasts nicely against the red brick and coping stones. Warship grey would suit a corporate HQ.

I call it having my finger on the contemporary pulse of British life. Economic prospects for the under 40's have not looked so dismal for 50 years, polarization of wealth is an undeniable global economic trend and home ownership rates for the young are plummeting. A self builder needs to question every expenditure that does not materially contribute to the build and short term mortgage finance is going to be such an example once fees are taken into account.

Sell now get money in the bank = fewer middle class clipboard huggers stealing your money. Conversely consider family relation dynamics should your build take an extra year. At some point your parents will revert to treating you like a teenager again which could be as stressful as self building. My advice is build a weather tight house for less than £200k, move in then finish off incrementally without a mortgage.

I was planning to sling my beams under the forks in the belief this would be safer and also help with setting down precision. Has anyone else adopted this approach?

I think each model comes with a highly prescriptive manufacturers operating reach chart, the examples I have looked at mention +1 ton at 3 meters. So a self builder's floor beams are feathers to such a beast, however some of Russel's beams seem to be in the 5m to 6m region. For comparison a modern round hay-bale would be 300kg to 350kg and those are often moved around at height, so your typical farmers telehandler should cope with a 130kg 4m floor beam. Google for telehandler reach chart.

Could good practice for a passiv house be poor practice for a not quite passiv house?

I have been discussing the same challenge with a local farmer who can lend me a telehandler to swing my beams in place. He smiled when I expressed my concerns about weight and reach limits. My largest beams are 4.6m i.e. less than 200kg which is way below the weight reach limits of a chunky machine. My static caravan has been positioned to allow a telehandler to access the foundations from 3 sides of the house which keeps the max reach distance small hopefully under 3 meters. On my site the trenches are still open to help the brickies as the walls are built up to damp which precludes driving a machine onto the oversite.

Follow up: The job was completed last week and @PeterW gets the prize for the best estimate of £600. The original offer was a rough hardcore plot drive assumed to be 20m long x 3m wide and the plot seller offered to include this for an extra £2000 in the sale price. I was temped but declined. The job I commissioned was for 150m2 of leveled hardcore standing including a shaped curved drive to road ramp, parking area outside the garage and preparation of the future internal patio 8m x 6.5m bounded on 3 sides by the l-shaped house and garage. The average scrape back of the topsoil was 125mm and the final make up of the finished drive next year will be 250mm, there was also a 5m x 4m shallow that needed extra filling. My digger man estimated 16 tons of big lumpy 4" clean for the dip plus 40 tons of 2" clean for the whole area. He negotiated with the aggregate supplier for this to be delivered in stages during the job so it would be dropped directly into the scraped area. Final bill was £825+VAT for 3 lorry loads of hardcore plus £450 for the digger + dumper time. A generous split of 50% of the job for the original basic drive gets very close to that £600 estimate. Muck-away was free because a local farmer wanted my top quality turfy topsoil.

An electric patio heater as seen in french cafe outdoor terraces is on my list of special extras. Someone else on this forum mentioned an electric car charging point in the garage. Who knows how many amps a future battery technology will be capable of absorbing.

Case law illustrates that interfering with the DNO side of the supply with intent to steal electricity is an offense. It is debatable whether relocating a whole meter casing two meters with the internal wiring undisturbed constitutes interfering with a supply particularly when this intention has been discussed with the installation team and as multiple examples cited here illustrate it is a fairly common industry practice. I will remain unconvinced unless someone can quote a specific law on the statue book or case law. DNO's can shout about breach of contract but private organizations cannot create their own statutory laws.

On edge. The inner wall make up will be a 300mm wide trenchblock then two dense concrete blocks laid conventionally on edge. At present I do not know where the cavity fill will stop.

Are you sure about this? I can find various references to theft of electric, meter bypassing and "abduction" of power supply. My planned relocation of the meter housing into the cavity wall would not involve interfering with a cable termination or the fuse. When the time comes I would expose the buried 1.5m of DNO supply cable as carefully as would an archaeologist uncovering the bones of Queen Boudica. I feel this falls well short of criminal intent or transgression of specific power supply statute law.

I am considering pouring my ground-bearing garage floor slab before the inner block wall rises above dpc, the motivation for this build order is to create a solid standing area as winter conditions turn 50% of my site into soft mud. Is there a risk that the weight of the concrete during the pour will push up against the boundary blocks and dislodge them? I will give the blockwork mortar a week to reach maximum strength. The technical details of the floor slab are not yet determined but a little reading around the subject leads me to think 150mm thick plus some rebar is in order.

Like it, this is the type of heavy duty fabric I recall my first cub-scout tent ground sheet was made from many years ago.

Follow up: I have booked British Gas to do my meter installation. They offered an installation date just 16 days away. No charge for installation. No contract tie-in. Fixed 12 month deal at £0.26 per day plus 15.39p per kwh. I mentioned 2 people and 12 months occupation in a static caravan at which point the BG computer estimated an annual consumption of 4,395 kwh per year. Seems a bit high to me.