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I have always verified anything I have been told medically. I never take any drugs or have anything done without researching it to death and asking lots of questions. I will look at YouTube videos of any surgeries I have so that I am absolutely clear what will be done and so that I can ask lots of questions. I’m sure I’m a nightmare lol. In the UK we do have pretty amazing emergency medicine however. I ended up in ITU for 3 weeks on a ventilator in an induced coma a few years ago. There is absolutely no doubt that the treatment I received was life saving. I’d had the flu, thought that I would shake it off but didn’t, and I was probably as near death as you can be without being dead, as I’d started to go into total organ failure and my oxygen levels were so critically low they weren’t sure how I was still conscious. So whilst we criticise the health service, and there is good and bad for sure, I am thankful that they were there at that time. And you can have as many PMI policies as you like but they don’t cover emergency medicine.

I think it depends. They still use tech pumps at my GP practice mostly but when I had an op on my knee recently they used the pump bulb. I asked why and was told that patients preferred that method to a machine tightening the cuff and causing discomfort.

Lol. Presume they kicked him into touch?

Big planter with attractive plant in front of the thing in line of sight, and use a strimmer to address the difficulty mowing. Job done lol.

I would have been bankrupt

Yes that’s a good point @Ferdinand. I had nothing in the PP that related to the garden so it wasn’t something I considered. There would have been no point in me trying to tackle any of the garden before the build was complete really as there were people stomping all over the site, machines in and out, building materials dumped in it etc.

From a self build perspective the garden comes right at the end of the project at a time when most people are broke, broken, knackered and totally over building work in general. Personally I think it’s better to take a pause before tackling the garden in order to renew enthusiasm, replenish the bank account etc. Plenty of time therefore to work on a design you may want later on, but tackle it at a point where you are excited about doing it, not when it feels like a chore you still have to do to complete the build so will compromise on most things just to get it done.

I have plaster uplighters in 3 reception rooms. I don’t recall a whole lot of swearing going on when they were fitted, and there was A LOT of swearing, just not over those, so it seems they weren’t the worst thing to fit here if swearing is used as the benchmark. Hubby did manage to smash one whilst installing it mind that caused me to swear instead lol. He wanted them though so that probably improved his mood. If I had chosen them and he hadn’t been keen I imagine the swearing may have been off the scale. That was generally the case anyway, along with a running commentary on why what I had chosen was a bad idea ?

I find ketogenic and paleo diets very challenging to stick to. I have done both in the past but can’t maintain them for a long period. But that’s because I don’t have any food intolerances to my knowledge so I don’t have that extra motivation to do so. I had a BUPA health check (company policy before travelling to India for work) whilst following a ketogenic diet and was given a lecture about ensuring that my diet was balanced, ie included carbs. It showed up due to the presence of ketones plus I had been fasting pre the cholesterol test so a double whammy from the ketones perspective. Clearly the doctor thought that only diets containing carbs were a healthy way to eat. The food they provided after the health check to end the fast was all carb laden too. I also avoid antibiotics if I possibly can. I had need of them in a big way a few years ago and without doubt they saved my life so I prefer to save their use for critical events such as that, not every tiny thing that our immune systems would probably kick into touch anyway.

Agree with the sentiments but one of my team at work is just flying back to India as his 10 month old son is in ITU with an infection and is critically ill so there is certainly a balance. I always think that kids brought up with pets and who play outside in mud etc are generally healthier than kids brought up with work surfaces bleached to death.

I’m glad you got yours ok after 8 years. Mine has been 9 and I thought they might take issue with it being so long but your experience reassures me. I’ve just requested mine. I hope they don’t need to come out again. The last inspection was at the stage where the building work was was ok with the council but there was a long and protracted delay over the paper trail that was finally resolved at the end of last year. Mine was circa 2.5k on a 350 sq m house but that included a £115 inspection / survey at the start that seems to have been paid to Zurich but for what I’m not entirely sure and don’t even remember anyone coming out.

Have a look at BuildZone. They offer warranties for completed houses. https://www.build-zone.com/self-custom-build-warranty

I had lots of practice touching various different bits on my thermal store recently. I burnt my hand on the pump that was 98 deg C, anything in the high 50s to 60s was a bit hot to leave your hand on. Anything in the 30s was fine to hold onto. Can’t see how you could get burnt in the 30s tbh.

Well it sure did nothing for my husband’s health although I can’t blame that on the build. He was always convinced that breathing in general crap from sawing wood and the like kicked it all off however. So physical health yes and no, mental health yes and no. I think the stressful times outweigh the euphoric times tbh but it’s important to embrace the joy when it comes and there is joy albeit it’s sometimes difficult to retain a sense of perspective at times. This forum is good for technical advice but provides general counselling and support too . I think I would call it character building but the sense of achievement when you reach the end endures.

I thought I must be so blind that I couldn't even see the screen dump until I realised that it was in a post further up . Seems that they are all different as you say because the Westfield info you posted covers 100% optical but the claim period is over 2 years, whereas in the Sovereign link that @ragg987 posted it's 12 months but only covers 50% of the charges. Everyone needs to pick one that most closely aligns to their needs I guess. I believe that this cover is provided by my employer too as an extra that the employee has to contribute to. I've never even looked at it before TBH as I was happy knowing that I had PMI, but I might take a look and see if there is any advantage to having it. We have to opt in each year so I can always leave if there is no advantage. Dental work is always eye wateringly expensive and even the highest benefit amount wouldn't make a dent in that. We received £20 per hospital stay for my husband up to the max of 25 stays per claim year so over 2 years we got £1000 from them as he was there so much. They did email him after he died and asked why he had cancelled his membership though which was a crass thing to do! And another company wrote a letter afterwards saying that they understood his circumstances had changed. No shit huh!

My hubby had a policy like this provided by his employer via Healthshield. He didn’t claim on it at all for anything until I decided to claim for his hospital appointments when they were very frequent. I suspect that many of these policies are provided by employers and many people won’t bother with the paperwork required to claim what is in many cases a pretty small amount. So as @ragg987 says they take the money and rely on most people not bothering. Plus you would need to be claiming for multiple things to make the policy pay. My employer provides BUPA cover but many of my colleagues don’t use that either and use the NHS instead.

5 months (England?) and a year (NI) sound much better than the 3 years it took in Scotland for my plot to be registered. None are really acceptable however as not many people are going to wait for the plot to be registered to start their build surely?

This may be a clue to missing red error messages

Not quite the same scenario but I have an issue with my plot as noted in the Land Registry. It apparently takes up to 5 years for a plot to be registered up here. Existing houses are dealt with much faster I'm led to believe but have never bought a house here (Scotland). All of the paperwork I saw and agreed (from both my solicitor and the vendor's solicitor) related to the shared access to the plot (shared with next door and not in dispute) being the route over which Network Rail has a right of access. After 3 years the plot was formally entered into the Land Registry but the route over which Network Rail has right of access as recorded is very different from what was agreed. The recorded route takes in the corner of my garage as well crosses my parking area, when the gate that they want to gain access to is in a straight line from the main gate directly to their gate at the back of the plot. I have no idea how anyone can have dreamed up the convoluted route that has been recorded. So I need to engage a new solicitor at some point to see what went wrong in that process. I can't tell whether it's my solicitor who is at fault or the vendor's solicitor from any of the paperwork received but to take 3 years to register a plot is madness. The garage was built before the plot was even registered.

I think it was about 2 years after we moved in before we started being charged council tax. And that was after we invited building control round to see what else we needed to do to get the completion certificate, so a substantial amount was done by then and it was clear that we were living here. We may have got away with it for longer had we not done that.

My next door neighbours have the windows and doors of their listed cottage in that colour (or very similar) and it looks very attractive.

I used Johnstones for a colour mixed pliolite for the render and thought it was fairly reasonably priced. Until it was done and I didn’t like it so covered it all up in an off the shelf Dulux Weathershield. Oops lol.

At the time the timber frame company didn't provide installation so it wasn't an option, more's the pity because 9 years is a long time to have waited to reclaim the vat although my circumstances pushed the timeline out considerably. In fact my claim has seen 3 changes of standard vat rates from 15% to 17.5% and then 20%.

I wonder how many companies providing supply and fit services and thus zero rate the invoices fully understand all the rules? Thus is it easier to get something vat free that HMRC would otherwise reject if you get it supplied and fitted by a supplier? I would also suggest that everyone sends the full materials list for a timber frame kit with the initial claim as it appears that they ask for this anyway so don’t refund that initially. Back in 2009 when I first printed the claim instructions the materials list was one of the requirements but it wasn’t on the latest claim form so I didn’t bother. Kicking myself now as it will mean yet another 3 month wait before I see that cash and the timber frame vat is in 5 figures. So as a general rule it is probably prudent to include supporting evidence for any invoice that doesn’t have the full list of items noted on the invoice itself, so window schedules for example. You can provide it later of course but it will delay the refund.

I rang them with a query and they were worse than useless TBH. Definitely wasn’t worth the wait time. And I believe that they agreed something on the phone with @HerbJ but then refused to allow it when the claim was submitted. They really are a law unto themselves, as well as a timeline unto themselves.