Ralph

I think what we will do is put an angle iron all the way along the bottom with some sort of blockwork and slabs underneath. Concrete is an idea though.

Cheers. Just had a call from ADW with instructions so will go out and have a look this afternoon.

The agent here was ADW who were great for the Rationel windows but for getting the door from them was absolutely appalling. I was just glad it was the correct size never mind anything else. There were wires going to the frame but we were told that was just for the motorised locking system option which me did not choose and that it had a day release function. I'll have to go back to them and try and figure something out. We did not go for the LEDs

The seem to be good doors, very solid. One thing to look out for is the lock. We went for the standard lock with the internal thumbturn and I can't figure out how to put it on the latch. Because it has the long bar rather than a turn handle you can't open it from the outside without using the key.

Cheers. More substantial support is going in plus solid base up to the PIR so it should be supported. I can't face ripping it out and moving it back.

The front door is a flush fitting RK door while the others are Rationel. The RK is thinner than the Rationels. So to keep the external return from the edge of the cladding to the face of the door the same on all the doors they have moved the RK door forward. This means that it's in front of the blockwork. They are proposing putting brackets all the way along the bottom covered by a thinner external PIR than the rest of the blockwork, leaving about 35mm for the external slabs to tuck under the door frame. I'm really not sure about this.

Yeah I could not get very good pictures. Essentially, instead of sitting on blockwork / internal slab the door set is forward of the blockwork, so the threshold is not sitting on anything but the single bracket you can see in the picture. It's an RK flush door, I'm not sure if that makes any difference but I'm trying to find some detail drawings from RK to see what they think it should look like.

Last night I went to check on the house and discovered that the builder had removed a plank from the door threshold that you can see in the pic. This seems to have been hiding a bit of an issue. It looks like the RK door frame is sitting in front of the base blockwork with nothing supporting it underneath. There is just a single bracket which looks like a temporary bodge to stop the bottom of the frame flexing. It looks like the intent is for the slabs to go under there which would mean no external insulation. I'm waiting to hear from the contractor but this really looks to me like the door needs moved back. In the drawings the size from the inside face of the door frame to the plasterboard return should be 120mm it's actually 200. Any thoughts?

Thanks Nod, that puts my mind at rest. The last time I had something like this I got a lot of nonsense about needing to take plasterboard coming off etc. As @Mr Puntersaid some just want to get done, paid and go.

Yeah it was not until it was painted that a lot of these areas became apparent, to me anyway. It's the jointing that bothers me the most as that looks the most difficult to remedy.

In Scotland taping seems to be more common on new builds than plastering. I have the tapers and painters coming out this weeks as I' m not happy with some of the taping and finishing. It's particularly noticeable at night when the lights are on. I'm no sure how they are going to be able to resolve them, any thoughts?

We are just about at the end of our build so the impact has been on delays rather than costs. However, speaking to the trades and seeing some of the prices I don't think we could afford to build the house we have if we were starting now.

Did you have to get any sign off for having it that close? I think the regs here in Scotland say that it has to be 7 meters from the house. We may have similar issue.

We've not actually got to it yet. We've had a major issue with our builder that has halted work for a bit. Should be back to it in the next few weeks.

Right enough, look at India, while not brilliant there is significant levels of healthcare compared to other countries and they may have lost 4 million people to it depending on who you believe.

I'm not sure of the numbers but it can't have taken out more than 0.05% of the population. It's going to take something much more significant to have any effect. Short of a slate wiping event I can't see anything making enough of a difference to population, not in the short to medium term. However we did see the effect that changes in behavior can have. I read that there was a 7% drop in c02 emissions in 2020 because of the global lockdown. Just shows you the level of change that is going to be needed to.

Depends on what country we are talking about. Remove 1,000 people from USA and I think you're removing 18,420 T per year of C02. India would be 1,960. The UK would be 5,620. We don't fly or commute very much and have a pretty efficient house. I make a bit effort not to eat food with high air miles and most of the meat we eat is wild. Probably the biggest thing we have done is not having children and that was not for any ecological reason (just can't be arsed with kids). In fact most of our choices are for lifestyle rather than ecological but I suspect that even if everyone in the UK lived like us it would make little difference to climate change.

https://www.onthemarket.com/details/10632444/ Quite fancy this myself.

This is one of the main reasons we went for large sliders, they would be closed 99% of the time and the thick frames would annoy the crap out of us. Personal aesthetics and all that.

Keep in mind that it's more tricky than it used to be to get planning permission for rural plots that don't have existing buildings. When we bought ours in Angus you could only get permission for a plot that was less than 1 acre and had existing boundaries on all 4 sides. I would also advise approaching some of the land managers of the large estates, they often have bits of land that have just been left. I found them surprisingly amenable to approach.

I spotted one of these for about £900. I wonder what effect it would have on the sound in the house as it's open at the back? Mine has not been fully installed yet but I might consider this just because it could easily be sprayed to blend in with the cladding, never mind reducing noise.

Now that I think about it we had similar advice. We went for fiber cement weatherboard, Cedral over timber frame/SIPS on the ground floor and standing seam on the 1st floor and roof. I did not want to have to deal with the maintenance of full timber and I don't like the weathered look, although Cedral is not without it's issues.

I don't think you would have any issue with Ecology for the self build, they're very helpful. The problem may come once you want to move to a standard mortgage.

They are shiny that's for sure.

We are going through a central contractor who has been less than communicative. I've not really had anything to do with the plumber until now and don't have much detail. He has a good reputation but I'm just getting nothing from the contractor which is a larger issue. It's a new install with UFH downstairs and rads upstairs Two mixer showers no baths. Mixers in both bathroom sinks and utility room. Boiling tap going into kitchen. We're using Daikin Altherma 3 with a 230L tank, The all in one floor standing units. These are all the photos I have at the moment, but that is about everything part from the UFH manifold.