curlewhouse

I'll try and get a better photograph tomorrow. But, as you can see from the diagram below of the East elevation, it's actually been the SIPs designer who has added that detail as it's not on the architects plan. The original idea was to have single stone columns up the side of each window, but that look is not in the local vernacular so we want simple stone sides like the rest of the building. Wouldn't have affected this issue either way though as the columns would have had to have a substantial piece cut out to allow for this unexpected wraparound piece severely weakening them. It also robs all the stone above of support of course. 1502_108_rev B_ AL (0) proposed roof plan.pdf

Actually, the Openreach guy I spoke to today told me they do call it "self burying cable" amongst themselves. Tried to get Vodafone (who we use for mobile here, it being the best of a very poor signal from any of the others - think 2G as "best") to do our broadband and landline, but ended up in a loop where they won't give a price or let me order a connection as the house is not connected already (catch 22).... whilst Openreach provide the cable (SWA I myself am laying around our hedgeline so self burying itself in time) and are saying of course that I need a "provider" to provide the actual connection..... After half an hour on the phone with Vodafone explaining that this is a circular argument - they wont agree to supply us without testing the speed of our connection, but how can they test a connection if they won't connect, they said that anyway, as we are a "silver" address they won't supply us! Turns out a "silver address" is one which appears on the post office database, but not some other databases - and they only provide to "bronze" addresses (which they say are not on any databases), and "gold" which are on all databases . It's like a blo*dy Monty Python sketch!. ** Update** Rang PlusNet who I'm currently with on a business contract (whose "special offer" lasted one payment then rocketed!) and who I was planning to leave, and asked and they could not be more different - "not a problem, we'll get a survey done in 2 weeks when you have the cable in and go from there". No nonsense about Bronze, Silver or Gold addresses, but since he could see it on the post office database that's fine with them - how refreshingly sensible! £60 connection fee, which is fine too.

Oh absolutely. No way was I going to use Mr Whingey. If that's how they are before they've got the job, it doesn't bear thinking of what they'd be like once it was secured. I'm all for them being up front about issues or things that will likely raise costs - that's exactly what you want really. I couldn't be more happy with the builder we ended up with - bang on the quotes even when things have actually ended up more involved than he thought, and a competitive quote too. He's also a good laugh and his workers all nice guys too. So like I said, there are definitely gems out there to be found.

It's quite literally something the architect or SIPs designer designed in and we didn't pick up the practicalities of until the builder pointed it out TBH. Would be a non issue if the house was just clad or rendered of course, but with a real stone outer it's become an issue. I suspect its been a way of bolting the structural member (its a beam running up the inner edge of the dormer which carries the adjacent SIPs panel) to the adjacent SIPs panel which has a wooden block in that end.

Put this in general construction as although it's a SIPs built, it's also a traditional stone outer, and the issue is somewhere between the two. Anyway, along with the builder we've just realised an issue. The outer wall buildup is backed off stone, 55mm cavity, then SIPs. So, no problem with the stone until you reach the dormers - the roof design wraps half around the dormer edges at eaves height, which creates a problem for how the stone above on the dormer edge would be supported. I've attached an annotated picture and an unmarked one. One suggestion has been to just use wood panelling above, which would look horrible as the window edge would be half stone then panelling, so it's a non starter really. I did wonder about cutting the stone so it's basically cladding and attaching it to some sort of boarding so it would just look exactly the same, but would not be placing it's weight on the thin section the roof wraparound causes - but as the builder points out, you'd then have a 55mm cavity Plus the thickness of the cut off stone (av 170mm) as cavity on those sections. The sides of the dormers will be panelling, but it would just look wrong on the front like that. I'm still not convinced that's impossible, but can anyone see a different solution (we thought about cutting the wraparound off, but it's actually the end of a load bearing beam and concealed beneath the fabric is a whopping screw through into the wooden end of the adjacent SIPs roof panel. ) ? Any thoughts guys?

Just an update re our BC guys concern re SIPs shrinking - he contacted Kingspan at my suggestion and he's come back to me with these allowances for Eaves and GF.

The building trade in the UK really is an eye opener isn't it? We had similar "responses", super enthusiastic builders, asking for full copies of plans etc then disappearing without trace - or when chased up promising a quote "next week" . Ditto a couple of window manufacturers too. Fortunately there are some gems to be found amongst them still. The "best" was one who actually did supply a quote, but whinged the entire time of his site visit about the shape of the site, how his "masons" would not like recycled stone and his roofers hate recycled slate and its a bit far to travel etc. etc. Yet the builder we ended up with thinks the stone is great and the roofer has recycled slate of his own which is nice and cheaper!

Well, the SIPs took 2 weeks to do - weather was absolutely foul at times and the guys just kept working although even their waterproofs were utterly soaked through. Normally they'd expect to take a week, but our large dormers complicated matters and they finished around lunchtime on the second Friday. I would say one thing to bear in mind with the erection costs is that you'll get a quote, but then you have to supply a 10Kva generator and a (massive - forget using a farm one) telehandler and in our case a crane for them, so with loo facilities too etc. your easy looking at another £2k on top of that quote. Unfortunately our new BC guy is proving extremely enthusiastic and has now decided that he thinks SIPs shrink and is demanding evidence from me to the contrary (firstly he was querying whether SIPs are an "approved" building method!) - I'm not sure where he's going with this - he is picking up also the tiniest inconsequential things. (I have explained to him the physics of OSB) I have a sneaking suspicion he is new to the role. I've pointed him at Kingspans technical services suggesting he is more likely to get a detailed response than I am. I do hope things change and he gets a little more practical. The bottom photograph is how far away I had to go to get the whole crane in the photo!

Interestingly, your experience thus far mirrors our own to an amazing degree - going to the shows, seeing window companies... then getting telephone number sized quotes from them . Our non-build costs to keep the shiny trouser bottomed folks in BMWs also were circa £10k too - I think that bit gets little or no mention in the magazines and TV programmes. Then also the experience of builders saying how interested they are in the job, asking you for full sets of plans (you then paying for them all to be printed of course) then not bothering to get back to you or possibly even look at the plans, and repeated promises the quote will be with you mañana. Good that you got stone merchants to talk to you though - I made enquiries with about 3 who just never got back to us - one a quarry barely 6 miles away, and even their agents never replied. In the end we've gone with recycled stone, which actually looks much nicer as it turns out (and is half the price). Believe it or not, if our experience so far is anything to go by, the hardest part is behind you, and certainly if you've found good tradesmen. Keep us all updated.

So the house is up as far as SIPs are concerned, and very nice too! Our roofer, though extremely experienced, has not done a SIPs house before and is a little unsure if the OSB gives enough of an anchor for the battens. We've been trying to get advice on the subject (he's spoken to our supplier) but he's still a little concerned. I think they advised something like annular nails or screws. Looking online I see 2 examples where slate is concerned - in one, a whole extra set of sheathing is involved, HERE (this seems to relate to asphalt shingles however rather than slates), but in others, a much simpler (and thus cheaper) method is used, which is kind of how I envisaged it being done - HERE . His main concern is the anchorage offered by the single layer of OSB. Can anyone recall how their SIPs roof was done if using slate?

Yes, our dry stone waller is certainly skilled. The stone is from an old wall in the same position which had fallen down over the years - it shows on maps to be present at least 200 years ago. Some of the "stones" were quite literally boulders, and we've had to take the stihl saw to them to reduce them enough to even move them - makes you wonder what sort of muscles the men had who built it originally! What's nice is that although fencing is cheaper initially, it is unlikely I will have to do any maintenance to that wall in my lifetime, and it's organic to the site of course.

Well, things, as I suspected might be the case, have gone from slow, slow, slower, to a sudden rate of knots overnight. After an initial bump where we discovered that the architect had drawn the SIPs to start at the beam and block floor level, (but with 2 weeks to go the SIPs designer pointed out that the soleplate must be 150mm minimum above that), we quickly got the builder to some blocks laid to give us the 100mm insulation, 75mm screed + stone floor height needed. Building regs guy arrived and unfortunately our first one who I had found seemed very practical has left the firm and this one seems very, very keen. I was a little disconcerted to hear him asking me if Kingspan SIPs have certification - I'd really have expected him to have heard of Kingspan! He quizzed the builders doing the blocks as to their experience and queried if the pipes have gravel around them (already inspected and passed by his predecessor prior to filling in), and also wants to see the engineers reports (already submitted to his firm at the very beginning of the process). He seems a nice guy though and hopefully once he is assured everyone knows what they are doing he will be less concerned, though the firm is doing both our BR work and our building warranty, and there seems to be confusion over whether they want to do separate inspections or will let one inspector do it (which would seem logical to me, but hey ho)... On Saturday the scaffolders came, preceeded by a delivery of brand new scaffolding which must have cost a fortune, so we have a very very shiny set of scaffold. They finished off on the Sunday, and on Monday the SIPs folks arrived. 07:30 and I was on site ready before them when the telehandler (which turned out to be brand new!) I had to hire for them turned up - the driver couldn't get the wagon up our road (he'd certainly had some fun negotiating his way here and almost got jammed between 2 farm buildings, having to reverse out and try another way) so he took the machine off ...and handed me the key of this brand new 14mettre reach telehandler ..... so I tried very hard not to grin like a small boy as I fired it up and drove it up to our place . Anyone else remember Tonka toys? Next was the first of 2 artics with our house in them - fortunately the SIPs guys arrived and the one with his telehandler ticket unloaded the wagon. The three of them are camped in a (nice) caravan and the estimate is 2 weeks, which is longer than I expected, but it really doesn't matter either way. It is interesting to see the care they take in getting the panels firmly attached. Low expansion foam into the joint, then a device which pulls the two panels together very firmly indeed before about 50+ annular nails each side are fired in. These things aren't coming apart in a hurry!

Yes, me too. Northern networks wanted it top right of the plan unfortunately, so we have 2 runs, one right round the back of the house into the utility room and the other to the garage/workshop. It's all in place now (with yellow marker tape), though for the Northern networks bit to our box they insist they'll only accept rigid "tile" covering and rigid ducting - even though their national body accepts coilable ducting and you can't buy the rigid tile except in massive quantitites (I scrounged some as I only need about 2 metres).

This on Celotex web site : Update - Friday 23rd June Grenfell Tower: Celotex is to stop the supply of RS5000 for use in rainscreen cladding systems in buildings over 18m tall Celotex is shocked by the tragic events of the Grenfell Tower fire. Our thoughts are with everyone affected by this devastating human tragedy. We have been supplying building products for over forty years and as a business our focus has always been to supply safe insulation products to make better buildings. We want to do everything that we can to support the Government’s ongoing response to the tragedy. We continue to offer our full cooperation with the investigations. Celotex notes the comments made by Scotland Yard at this morning’s briefing in respect of the insulation used in Grenfell Tower. In view of the focus on rainscreen cladding systems and the insulation forming part of them, Celotex believes that the right thing to do is to stop the supply of Celotex RS5000 for rainscreen cladding systems in buildings over 18m tall with immediate effect (including in respect of ongoing projects), pending further clarity. Celotex manufactures and supplies the insulation product RS5000 for use in multicomponent rainscreen cladding systems for buildings over 18m tall. Safety testing was undertaken on RS5000 as part of a particular rainscreen cladding system and this is described in documents available on our website. As noted in those documents, any changes to components of the cladding system or construction methods used need to be considered by the relevant building designer. Given the developments of the past twenty four hours, we wish to discuss with the authorities how we can restore confidence in the products that we supply to the above 18m market. At this early stage, it would not be appropriate for Celotex to make any further comment at this time. For all media enquiries please call: 07823 328444

Dial 17070 on your phone and select option 2 for a noise test on your line.

As our ground floor is pretty much one open plan space this is a concern for us too with no longer having the option of venting outside for the very reasons JHS give re MVHR. So I'm also currently looking for the most effective recirculating hood I can find, and there are some models about which look promising. Hoods I've had in previous houses, even venting outside, often seemed quite underpowered really, and allowed a significant amount to "escape" into the room. But I also plan to put a "wall" either side of the hob itself to assist and minimise any spread of the rising steam/smoke/odour laterally. I've seen that done elsewhere and it looks OK and seems to assist. Trouble is course that we'll never know how effective it is until doing a "kipper test" one day!

This is sad to read. Several times we were torn between giving up or borrowing a friends muck spreader and going to visit the planning office ?. But support from folks on this forum and our super supportive architect got us through. The thought of little power mad office dwellers was just too much. But whatever you do, good luck.

Sounds like my experience of Jewsons where a new branch manager turned the branch from quite literally joke pricing (a bad joke) to my main supplier literally overnight.

My own understanding would be first fix would have the connections from the sewer main/soil pipe and drains in place through the floor for the loo and water in place ready for second fix guy to literally just connect to them to plumb everything in. You can roughly look at it that everything you won't see when the bathroom is finished is first fix and what you can see is second fix. Also depends on what each plumber wants to do if you are using two different ones. Personally I'd be careful using the labourer as although his/her time is cheaper, you need to be sure they do exactly what the plumber wants, so if you do, make sure they speak to each other.

So looking at the plans and I'm supposed to buy insulated catnics - but looking at them the insulation makes no sense as they are one giant cold bridge. The amount of heat transfer through the air in their cavity would be so minor compared to that whacking great bridge of metal that I'm not clear if it is simply an attempt at blagging. Am I missing something?

Excellent! AND a door on the loo? I mean what's not to like? We too plan to move in "early". A. for security when the expensive kit starts going in and B. for the rent + mortgage issue too. Really pleased for you!

While sizing the SWA (Steel Wire Armoured) cable I checked out a few forums and found when people ask for advice on the sizing it gets very complicated indeed - in fact on more than one forum you can see it starts to get a little hostile toward the questioner oddly. Also electricians seem to often be unable to agree on earthing and RCD requirements around it and so on. I asked the sizing question on one forum and got ripped to bits by a couple of guys who insist it's not possible for ordinary folks to do electrical work and have it overseen and certified by a part P registered electrician, and then just started attacking me, saying I must be lying! Very odd and such a contrast to how we all behave on this forum. At times people don't agree on an answer but its always civil as far as I can see. Anyway, by using online calculators some electrical wholesalers provide, I was able to find an answer, and when later asking my nephew (who is a professional electrician who does most if not all of the certification for then firm he works for and has now kindly offered to do ours too) got the same answer from him. Basically, for a 50 metres run with a 20KvA supply, we've gone for 25mm SWA, which . So that's ordered and comes in with carriage around the £350 mark. My father is a retired electrician and growing up I would help him out (when I was younger, on rewires I would wriggle under floorboards pulling cables from room to room - but I was always well paid.) and so naturally we'll be doing our own electrics. I've actually found in the regs that it specifically covers a person (not a certified person) carrying out the work under the supervision of a part P registered electrician who must satisfy him/her self that the work is up to code before issuing a certificate. My father as a sole trader was himself qualified but of course now he is retired is no longer certified, though keeps up to date with new regs out of interest. In fact, we actually ended up with 3 qualified sparkies willing to oversee and certify us - 2 friends and one a relative, my nephew, so I think that pretty much settles that one! The differing answer/arguments over SWA sizing are interesting though as most people answering immediately asked the questioners what current they expected to draw and so on and some quite esoteric questions at times - on one level this makes sense, yet when whole housing estates are wired up, every single new householder is not asked this of course, and naturally, subsequent owners of a house will install different appliances, or might have a welder in their garage and so on - so clearly there must be an "average" or norm that is installed without all the hoo-ha. Distance is a very relevant question of course for voltage drop, but beyond that, it seems overcomplicating - I mean which of us in moving into a new house digs the cable up to see what diameter it is? I found this site has a simple to use calculator http://www.doncastercables.com/technical-help/ Anyway, we've ended up with a reasonably large size at 25mm 3 core SWA (actually rated at 124 amp so waay above our requirement) making the voltage drop negilgible, so I'm happy with that. Not sure if I'm allowed to mention who I buy from, (if not, just delete this bit please mods or message me and I will) but I've found TLC-Direct to be excellent over the years, and I usually cannot beat their prices. But what's important is even their cheapest stuff is branded and usually British made too. I've had a lot of good cheap low voltage electronics from China over the years, but for mains voltages I prefer to know it's made to code. I've noticed you can buy UK mains fittings on eBay from China, but having seen some tear downs online of some 240v rated chi9nese goods... (Bigclivedotcom on youtube for one) er, no thank you!

We are now looking at getting the services into place before June when our SIPs should turn up. I've found both water board and electricity folks to be really helpful and approachable thus far when I've asked for advice or clarification. I also think their charges are not excessive actually, which I know is not the experience nationally. That may also be because we are very fortunate in having the water running 1 metre away along one boundary and the electricity main running underground 1 metre away under our other boundary, making things much simpler indeed. Electricity is to come into the site via a meter cabinet set into our retaining wall on the North side of the site (the board are quite happy about that as I doubled checked with them) then into "our" cabinet alongside, from which one SWA cable will go to the house and one to the garage. But during the build, this second cabinet will have the eventual garage consumer unit inside, with an RCD protected external socket on the outside, to give us an electricity supply during the work. I'm currently using a nice little 2.4KvA generator from Machine Mart to power everything like the cement mixer or saws/drills etc. https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke-fg2500-2-4kva-portable-petrol-powered-g/ . It's a useful size, and being on wheels makes it really easier for me with by bust disk in my back. So next I need some time off work and to rent a digger again for the remainder of the levelling and to dig in the electricity cable trench to our boundary. The ground is nice and dry now, in fact the subsoil heap is rock hard - my wife was trying to dig some of it for some infill the other day and said it was difficult - I swung a pick at it to loosen it and the point went in less than an inch! The good soaking it got the other week then drying out has set it like concrete. Once levelled we can also finish off the surface water drain pipe which currently terminates under the sub soil heap. I'm going to put a small brick lined settling chamber in then run it into a pond, only the overflow from the pond will go to the soakaway. BR have seen the plans for that and passed without comment. I did expect some querying with it being a little different, but they seem happy with it. You can see the idea in this plan.

Oh, I've found this calculator to be a little easier to use http://www.doncastercables.com/technical-help/

Pretty much what we are doing. My father is a retired electrician and I grew up learning from him, (in his 70s he even still keeps his copy of the part P regs updated out of pure interest) so we naturally want to do the work ourselves. I got slagged to bits on another forum and accused of all sorts for saying we are doing this (it was pretty unpleasant actually) . Told it's illegal, I must be lying, only a part P qualified electrician can do any of the work etc etc ! I suspect by guys who don't like the idea of people realising they can perfectly legally do the work themselves if overseen by a qualified person - after all, it would be mad if only part P qualified people could run cable or hammer in cable clips for example, or pull the other end of the cable from the floor above or whatever. We originally had a retired electrical lecturer who still has her tickets and membership going (has a little business doing the odd solar panel work etc) to oversee our work and certify us, but they are often away being retired, and since then my nephew who oversees and signs off all his electrical contractor firms work has offered to do it for me which is perfect.