LA3222

To be honest bud I wouldn't recommend him, he was OK but not without issue along the way and I would describe the work as 'it will do' rather than 'good'. To be honest the only trade I have had that I would be happy to recommend is the spark whi is a really nice bloke and works hard/does a good job for the price. Plasterer wasn't too shabby, joiners nah, roofer nah. I've tended to persevere once started with a tradesmen purely to keep the build moving as there is only so much I have time to do and still be in this side of Xmas!

@ETC Not sure why there would be an issue with this detail, BC didn't seem to care?‍♂️

Brickie used a standard mortar mix, used white cement and chucked some sharp sand in - can't remember the ratio but not a lot, think he used just over a single bulk bag of sharp sand for the entire house (280m2 for scale). Then he used a hand brush to do the perps - called it 'bagged off' effect, dunno if that's a brickie thing?‍♂️

Yeah @benben5555, see my pic above.

Found a pic of mine getting done.

Cut blocks - brickie will have to break out the stihl saw and get cutting.

This is all very disconcerting, I'm gearing up to occupy the house in the near future, but no chance I will have everything done within a 3 month window. Loads in house to do, garage to build...the list goes on. I hope 'occupancy' does not become a recognised trigger.

I too am a van dweller, 32ft x 10ft, 2 berth with missus, 2 kids and 2 cats. 2.5 yrs in now, summers are far far worse than winter. It's easy to get warm in a van, nigh on impossible to cool the thing down, apart from that it's easy, just like a small flat tbh. I built a lean to next to mine, got a tall fridge freezer in, washing machine and tumble dryer as well as shelves and drawers for extra storage. I'd recommend spending a little money to do the same, it will make a massive difference to van life, cost me about £600 in materials.

Well I liked that house in a ruin. I think everyone on here is being a bit harsh, what the two of them achieved through their own hard graft and plucky determination was a massive credit to them. Self builder is a broad church. You have those who 'self build' and sub contract the entire job and at the other end of the spectrum there are those like @pocster, @epsilonGreedy (to name two I know of) and others on here who are balls deep in literally doing it themselves. I'm towards that end of the scale so to see what they achieved I for one am impressed and was happy for them. I thought the roof terrace will be great when finished. Good effort?

I think you're overthinking this. Bang some nogs in between joists perpendicular to where the top of the stud wall will be. Build the wall up to joist height and then fix into the nogs. Job done.

Bit of thread resurrection but need a sanity check before I go any further. Got a grohe shower with mixer bar to fit. At the minute I have 15mm hep in the wall. Reading this thread I believe the consensus is to bin the s union's supplied by grohe and to switch out to the fixings shown. So in the wall I will stick a 15mm hep elbow on the pipe going to 15mm copper into these bad boys. Anything fundamentally wrong/missed with this plan?

Exactly. Do not be naive and assume that because a building is nearby you will be able to tap in. I am at the bottom of a 60m lane with 3 more houses. I couldn't connect to the existing power cable, the entire run of cable had to be upgraded. I was lucky though because they chalked up as an opportunity to upgrade an old cable and only charged me 12% of the the total cost - about £7k. If they had tried charging me for the entire thing you are looking at silly money. I have seen others on here over the years being quoted 25k plus, @ProDave had a battle where they were talking transformer upgrades before he dropped his kVa requirement to a level where an upgrade wasn't required (iirc!). Service connection quotes are one thing you can do without actually owning the land so why wouldn't you? It may not be an issue but surely it is better to be in a position where you 'know' it is not an issue?‍♂️

Not sold due to broadband sounds like a red flag and Billy bullshit to me. Its rural ...have you costed services? Getting water and in particular electricity to site can sometimes be silly money I.e. 25k plus if you are in the middle of nowhere with no existing infrastructure. Get them priced before you commit to buy.

Packing out for 3mm....is it really worth the bother running up and down ypur Ceiling packing out such small amounts? I'd hazard a guess that once all skimmed and painted the mk1 eyeball ain't going to notice such small differences when sat on your arse nursing a brew?‍♂️

3mm is nothing.

Why does red black and green make it better? Give me brown blue and yellow/green. Harmonisation was a boon. Next you be calling for pounds and inches...worst units of measure going. It's like anything in life, what you grow up using is what makes sense. No one likes change, unfortunately the ship has long since sailed with those kind of changes and we shouldn't revert....the youth don't understand them, only crusty old sods!

Looks wrong to me. The battens should extend out else what are the tiles fixed to? Pretty sure they should all be clipped down too. The image shows what the roofer was doing with mine.

They ain't something you build a house of if that's your question? They're for reducing cold bridges etc. I have some under my slab between the slab itself and some padstones. Had to use them as they have a higher bearing capacity than EPS 300.

This^^^ I too fail to understand this. If you are putting UFH pipes into a massive slab the only place I would not put pipes is next to wastes or where you plan on fixing into the floor. Any parts of the slab which are unheated will just suck heat towards them so the whole slab will eventually reach an equilibrium of sorts - maybaswell put pipes in to speed this up.

Supplies are a nightmare at the min, neighbour is waiting months for tiles too. I have loads of 20/20s knocking but only in red.

What the actual.fook....if I'm reading this correctly some nob cheese builder has decided he has the right to remove your window. On what planet is that OK? Surely this is criminal damage and a matter for the police?

You'll be surprised how hard it goes. I did exactly the same mix, builders sand in a bulk bag has shit loads of moisture in it. Even at that week a mix the floor goes rock hard.

It won't make a difference. I have 22 uninsulated pipes next to each other like that, it works fine.

That's similar to what I have. My house was sat around 50% humidity iirc for a long time, went up to 60s/70s soni just ran the dehumidifiers for a couple of weeks until it dropped back down to the 50s. It looked dry after couple of days. The colour change over the course of a couple of weeks showed it wasn't truly dry. If you put a moisture resistant surface down on top the last thing you want to do is trap any residual moisture in between. I had plenty of stuff to do somleaving that for a couple of weeks didn't bother me - I felt better err on the side of caution.

I'm curious about this as I am cladding the end but of my build at some point, probably a next summer job but I had Cedral in mind for the task.