Ralph

We were going to go with Buildstore and Furness. We eventually went with Ecology because they were a wee bit cheaper and everyone seemed to rave about them here. We probably still have one more drawdown to go but over the last year Ecology have been excellent, really can't fault them. Very helpful and flexible.

That's very true but the difference is you can't hear them calling you an arsehole through your living room wall. As PJ O'Rourke wrote about the advantages of crashing a really big car: "it happens very far away – way out at the end of your fenders. It’s like a civil war in Africa; you know, it doesn’t really concern you too much. On the other hand, when something happens in a little bitty car it happens right in your face. You get all involved in it and have to give everything a lot of thought."

And they never offer to share. Interactions with neighbors were generally about some issue, fences, kids, dogs barking etc. Now it's someone dropping of surplus veg or occasionally a bottle of home made booze.

When I see that kind of crammed modern estates I genuinely get a touch of anxiety at the thought of having to go back to that again and count myself lucky. The really densely packed inner city sink estates look like hell.

We had an enormous amount of back an forth on this. 16kv pole transformer served 2 existing houses. Ours was going to put it over the recommended limit but in the end they went for it, no new transformer. One neighbour now wants to install an EV supercharger and is apparently going ahead without consulting SSE. ?

It was SSE and it took months. Recovering builder has pretty much summed it up. You have to keep battering away.

Argue with them, "outrageous costs" threaten to go to ombudsma, question every cost etc.etc. from memory we got ours down from something like £16k to about £4k although it was a nightmare. Deserved or not electricity companies have a reputation for getting new builds to pay for upgrades to infrastructure.

On our first design the person who chairs planning matters on the community council was really not happy with the "modern" look and feel. We were expecting objections from him but none came in. What seems to have happened is that he knew there is no point because they were not based on any planning policy, just that he did not like it.

Just a word of warning. If you are thinking of getting a new meter fitted steer the hell away from OVO. They are still branded as SSE despite buying the retail arm of SSE last year. We went with what we thought were SSE (actually OVO) to get our new meter fitted after having the supply cable done by SSE. It has been an absolute nightmare They signed us up with the assurance the we would have the meter installed within a week they just could not confirm the date. Turns out they have furloughed a lot of their engineers as well as getting rid of a lot of the support staff. I'm hearing of some people being told it will be months for a new build meter. Not helped by having to deal with a call center in the Philippines who really so not seem to give a monkey's. Also once they have you signed up and registered it seems like it will take weeks to get you switched over to another supplier. In the end we had help from someone in SSE Connections who still had contacts in what is now OVO. It's an absolute sh*t show and I would advise you to go elsewhere.

I asked Cedral if they had any tips and they came back with the following. "When perforating Cedral with a flue/extractor fan we recommend clean air can sit flush with the panels and contaminated air protrudes / extends 50mm away from the front face of the Cedral. The perforation needs to be oversized and we recommend a clear 5mm gap is left around the perimeter. This will allow for movement and again prevent damage to the face of the Cedral and any discoloration or staining of the panels." I'm probably being a bit thick but is this not going to look even worse?

That's what I'm thinking for the isolation switch. I don't know why they thought it was good idea to put it eye level as well.

Discovered today that the sparkies have fitted some crap looking extractor vents on the Cedral lap. I'm not particularly thrilled with the vent itself and the way it's sitting. Anyone got any thoughts on getting a nicer finish when fitting this type of thing on lapped planks? The ASHP isolation switch is also another carbuncle but I'm assuming we can get some sort of cover for that.

Maybe the climate there is a bit more forgiving but having lived on the coast in NE Scotland in an old house with little insulation and lime mortar I'll take warm and dry over picturesque any day of the week. I admire the level of graft and It looked lovely but that's a lot of money to spend without sorting out the insulation. I also liked the pointed "I don't give a shit what they think" aimed on KM from the woman.

It looks like you may be correct. After being told, politely, that they were talking sh*te and could pay the penalty fees for late completion they magically booked it in for next week.

Our electric cable went in under the road today, SSE are coming out to do the actual splice tomorrow. However the other part of SSE that actually fit the new meters and supply the electricity will not even give us a date because the say "the government is not letting us due to covid" Tried EON but they are saying that because we are registered with SSE we will have to de-register and re-register which will take weeks. Anyone else having issues?

It's amazing what you do see washed up. The younger people were gobsmacked at Tenants lager cans from the 70s with scantily clad women on them.

Take part in a beach clean, once you've picked up your 100th cotton bud you'll be come quite militant about what goes down the toilet, I know I did.

According to Kevin McCloud £310k is social housing level of spend. Arse!

Thanks I'll give him a go.

I was thinking about his but with time constraints and lockdown it may a problem, worth a try though.

I'm looking for a couple of external extractor fan vent covers or cowls for our bathrooms that would not look horrible on our dark grey vertical standing seam metal cladding. All the ones I can find online are pretty cheap looking plastic or when made of metal are stainless steel. Any thoughts? Thanks.

Looks good. I had thought the airflow came in through the front and was expelled out the sides and back which might cause an issue with cold air being deflected from the side of the building round to the front. I now realise it's the opposite so that should not be a problem

A lot of this depends on where you are as rates vary so much. Up here in Scotland £2k per m2 would be a decent enough budget. We've done very little work ourselves and I think we should come in at about that including utilities connection and fees. Our spec is decent, triple glazing, steel cladding and roof and includes a 38 m2 garage with the same. We've also used a central contractor rather than subbies. 300m2 to my mind is massive even for a 4 bedroom. I think 200m2 would still be considered pretty big. For us the groundworks took a bit more than we anticipated, but we had 100m driveway to put in and a high water table.

I'll have a look at painting although even painted I think it's going to look a bit obvious. First world problems and and all that.

Bloody hell the large version of that is £772! I think as @joe90 says large enough louvres along with being open at the back should be ok. Weather protection is a good point. None of the manufacturers seem to offer them and I would imagine they would be super expensive if they did.