epsilonGreedy

I feel the need for another rookie question. Does spray painting of a new build mandate the same colour for both the ceiling and walls?

I might be ascribing too much power to the local demi god conservation officer who according to local lore dispenses more tyranny than a marcher baron with a hangover.

Can I volunteer as your assistant tiler for a few days if you proceed with nulok? I assume the slate cost saving is greater than the headline 30 percent because smaller tiles can be used.

Ooo this is timely. As someone cursed by a conservation condition previously satisfied with an example of best Welsh slate this would save me mega bucks. Would an eagle eyed conservation officer spot the different lay pattern of this slate efficient system?

I hesitate to post this because there have been some howls of anguish posted recently about extortionate mains electric hook up costs. In the interests of balance self building is not always like a crazy golf course littered with £10k hidden costs. I took a call from my regional supplier, the surveyor assigned to my case announced there would be no need for an onsite meeting because he had visited the neighbouring plot already and furthermore he took it upon himself to contact the plot's owner to ask if my mains cable could be ducted up the side of his plot for a joint dig through the road. No probs was the response and so today the quote arrived, £1,200. In other news our workhorse car failed its MOT this week by a £700 margin.

There are days when I think an old fashioned external soil pipe up to the first floor would be the most simple and serviceable. The conservation officer wants my house to look 200 years old.

I went through all this two years ago. AO took my first budget american FF back after I became difficult about the unacceptable noise levels even though it lived in a utility room, now very happy with a whisper quiet classic width Samsung FF. Since moving into a rental house we acquired use of an extra ancient American FF. Points to consider are: Food wastage is directly proportional to total fridge shelf space as swmbo shops to the capacity of the fridge duo. LED lights can be a curse, the budget manufacturer aimed their burning high wattage LEDs directly at my eyeballs presumable to promote fridge related macular degeneration when I opened the door, Samsung in contrast angled much softer lights at the fridge contents. Drink dispensers deprive a fridge of a couple the most useful door shelves in a fridge. The deep cave freezer storage shelves of an American FF seem to encourage swmbo to adopt a LIFO food storage system (last in first out) thus causing more food wastage.

I asked a related question the other month about a foul drain from my main bathroom taking a short cut through the foundation plan of the house v. round the outside wall. This translated into one 9m drain through the foundations v. 10m + 45 degree turn + 5m + 90 degree turn + 9m around the house. At the time I received a clear vote in favour of straight through the house foundation plan.

I need to describe the sash window frame in more detail. The objective is to hide half of the vertical weight boxes behind the facing brick skin hence the whole of the outer face of the window frame will be set back the full width of a facing brick. To achieve this the art stone sill will need to be wide enough so that 50mm will overhang backwards over the cavity, the wooden sill of the sash will sit on a raised ledge moulded into the art stone sill and the drip gully of the wooden cill will project forward of the raised ledge. About 70mm of the rear of the wooden from will rest on the inner blockwork. The current architect window fitting diagram shows the sash window frame within the facing brick aperture and set back only 25mm from the front face of the facing bricks. The window specialist claims this is not historically accurate for a wannabe mock 200 year old newbuild. He also added that a full brick width reveal provides a lot more weather protection for a wood sash window. Tucking a good part of the weigh boxes behind the facing brick reveal means that more of the brick aperture can be filled with glass.

Ok so quite a different finish to the alternative of brushing on a runny mortar or my original idea of spraying an internal garage wall paint just to fill most of the surface voids. When you say helps with sound, is this sound attenuation from outside the house or inter room sound bleed? With my plot the only external sound problem is noisy wood pigeons.

Interesting... for this seal-only task does a "parge coat" mean the same thing to a plasterer e.g. slap/brush on a runny mortar mix as suggested earlier in this thread? I don't want to pay for an over specified plastering job which is 6mm thick when a diy grunt work non cosmetic finish will do.

I should have anticipated the over heating issue. Reading further on this topic since your post I understand lighting circuits are not much of an issue particularly given the short buried cable run. Kitchen cooker circuits = potential ouch. Which leaves the normal socket rings, will have to do some careful calcs... possibly run these cables up against the wall in lightly chased ducts with metal protection conduit facing over. Got 6 months to research this now that the other thread on parge coat block sealing options has scoped sealing the inner block wall down to a <4 day task.

This indeed popped onto my radar of possibilities but then dropped off when I imagined my diy attempts of fixing using low expansion foam. If this stuff is time sensitive I fear adjacent plasterboard panels will be recessed or proud by a few mm as the stuff cures during my pounderous diy fixing. The YouTube videos are convincing. Another diy attraction of the extra 25mm insulation layer is that it will be more accommodating of my first & second fix pipe & cable routing, I assume?

I am currently juggling options for creating a relatively air tight brick and block 2 story house. The simplest option would be facing brick 100mm + woven insulation batts 100mm + medium density block 100mm + wet plaster. Not sure this delivers a decent enough U value. Increasing the cavity to 150mm will create problems if I opt to mount my wooden sash windows deep with a full 100mm facing brick reveal, i.e. most of the 175mm thick window frame would be sitting over cavity insulation. Another option would be to seal the inner face of the block wall and then add wood battens with 25mm of insulation finished off with screw fixed dry lining. Right now I favour the last option but a 6mm parge coat of the entire inner face of the internal blockwork sounds like a monmouth job. Would the spray application of a gooey thick internal garage wall paint seal the blocks prior to my final layer of battens and insulation?

I am beginning to see the wisdom of this, no point chasing u values in the loft with an extra 100mm of loft insulation roll without addressing air exchange. As @ProDavesays, expecting dot and dab dry lined plaster board to provide a sealed inner tent does not work due to all the cut outs. And as @JSHarrisobserved, dot and dab dry lined plaster board creates a nice vertical air convection void against the inner block wall.

Ok I am convinced, only slightly better than building a wall out of structural milk bottle crates. I can feel another question brewing about sealing an inner block wall.

That throws out my attempt to compare your costs with the HBB's model house. He quotes £4,800 per bathroom comprised of £1,700 labour and £3,100 materials. The HBB also provides a fine grained breakdown of contributory costs which you could use to produce a ground up budget though no doubt @recoveringacademicwill be along in a moment to talk about the wonders of SPONS.

According to the latest issue of the house builders bible the reference model house of 160 m2 has about £12k of costs covering heting, plumbing and bathroom aspects of the build. Those model house costs do not include guttering, underfloor heating or warranty. Also some plumbing costs are attributed to named rooms so my £12k approximation could be out by +10%. The author of the book takes a no nonsense nothing fancy approach in his model house. Given additional bathrooms and your larger property I reckon your quotes are reasonable. His labour costs are about 35% which could indicate you are being quoted for bargain basement fittings particularly in the bathrooms.

The prevailing view in this forum is that air leakage is a larger problem with brick & block construction and that a wet plaster lining is a good solution for reducing air leaks. I am not clear where exactly air leakage occurs with brick & block construction. Is a single block air permeable right through the core of the block or does warm air wriggle out of a house structure at the periphery of window and door apertures through the course granular concrete casting of the outer 1cm of a block's surface?

Given such extortion has the OP considered living off grid? With 4 to 6 kw of solar, some lithium iron storage, dc lighting and a large invertor, life might be tenable for two people. I guess a small generator will be needed for top up over the winter, are these available in an lpg powered config?

Do you have planning approval yet or are you currently showing us an architects proposal?

You need to spend a bit more time getting familiar with current political terminology, millennials are those who came of age this century i.e. anyone born between 1981 and 1996. That is more than enough to mount a long overdue revolution in the UK and re balance wealth distribution. There are profound changes happening in society, in both the UK and the USA home ownership among the under 40's is at historic 30/40? year lows. Most student debt will not be repaid and has instead become a new life-long 9% marginal rate of income tax. It will end in tears. No point, the power of the grey voting block has turn democracy into a failing system.

Something called the "grey vote". Our aging population does not want change they expect their privileges to be maintained and so vote as a single issue block. Enough to mount a revolution. The Young Persons Revolutionary Party is planning another form of collectivism, enjoy your self build while it is still yours.

This sounds like an experience I should understand in more detail. How large is your home in sq meters? Did you dig the foundations by hand? Were you building concurrent with your regular full time employment?

The Alt political thinker in me wants to challenge the conceit of the architect/author, yet another example of the boomer generation wanting to insulate themselves from the social damage they created. However the sailor in me knows that a 1 million euro sailing yacht has less usable accommodation than 380 sq ft and yet sailing around the world in such a vessel would elevate the owner into yachting aristocracy. Production yachts are an excellent example of desirable compact living.