recoveringbuilder

Yes we had a leaflet through the door a few days ago regarding this, smoke alarms, heat and co2 alarms, luckily we have them all but I did wonder if the local authorities would be able to spend all that cash doing all their rental properties.

Good luck with that! We got ours just before lockdown and were told then that we wouldn’t get a completion certificate while covid was on the go , apparently they will not come out which seems odd since you can have a workman in your house doing work! AND I’ve just discovered it has run out last month so will need to get on to them and see if they’ll extend it ?

Typical planning department, didn’t allow the brickwork or windows because they didn’t like them!

I quite believe they will all be busy, I can’t believe the way property is selling just now around here, I watch rightmove on a daily basis and the properties are no sooner on than they’re under offer, will be interesting to see once the sold house prices update what they are achieving over their asking price.

+1 nobody looks after your money the way you would yourself!

Here’s a rookie question, been reading through this thread and it has made me wonder why you all seem to be stuck on these foreign made windows, what do they have or offer that you cannot get from a British manufacturer? Our windows came as part of our kit (VEKA) and they are doing the job just fine so if I was to build again what would I be looking for that I dont have with my current windows? This is a genuine question by the way as I definitely want to get everything well researched before I attempt another!

Ended up going to an independent bm , £30 a ton for the sand £4 a bag of cement and blocks were 85p each. Went to Jewson yesterday for enewall fine scratch render £9.50 a bag. Unfortunately the blocks etc are still lying waiting for the brickie who seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth! Just another diy job to add to the list ?

We are finishing off a 6m x 6m garage at the moment, did the slab ourselves, brickie did the block work, hubby put up the roof trusses with help from a couple of friends, sheeted it’s ourselves and he and a friend have done the roof tiles and installed garage door, it has a window and a single entry door to one side.rendering will be done end of this week and gutters, all in has cost us around £7k , decided to diy when the builders quoted us £25k!

I have used engineered wood in our last three houses, originally wanted solid American black walnut but the company I was dealing with said no good with the ufh. One company I have dealt with online was ukflooringdirect, we had all our engineered stuff from them and they are great at sending out samples, we’ve had engineered oak in different widths and all good quality, we have only used laminate this time but bought it all from them too.

Town near us , an old hotel that’s been granted permission for flats is to have no car parking! This is a town where there’s not ample parking for the shoppers so there will be even less once the occupants of the flats have to use what spaces there are.

We had a howdens laminate in the dining room of our last house (built2008)it was 50m2 and we never had any trouble with it at all , sold the house in 2016 and it was still as good as the day it went down, ufh and no expansion joint. I imagine their laminate will only have gotten better since then.

Not all self builds will be worth more than they have cost you to build, depends how carried away you get with the finishings and how long you stay there, we stayed in our first one for 14years and ended up selling for 6 times what it had cost but 14 years was a long time. Having said all that there are some very cheap plots near us that you just wouldn’t entertain because they are in deprived areas where it would be hard to resell and at the end of the day it would cost you the same to build x house in a good area or a bad so always have one eye on the resell value.

You’re very lucky that they are supplying a generator, we have had a few days that they needed to turn off power and other than a letter informing us of the planned disruption that’s your lot, have to fill flasks and do without everything else!

We put the thermostat in the lounge up to 20 degrees yesterday and it seems to have done a lot of good as the place is a lot warmer today, I can’t stand being cold!

Hope that’s not you stockpiling toilet rolls ?

I think not having a stove or some other form of quick heat has been a mistake, in our last house we had a wall hung gas fire in the kitchen/ sunroom 54m2 and that wee fire could raise the temperature a good 2 degrees and because we more or less lived in that space we didn’t put the ufh on until usually end of October beginning of November.

Yes, where we are there are plenty of plots under 100k

Wow! Our heating has been on for 3 weeks although not upstairs, weather must be better in the borders!

Sitting around doing nothing all day, horrible wet misty day and as the day has progressed I’m feeling a bit cold, quite often think that as it gets later the cold seems to come down into the lounge from the mezzanine which is above and has the cathedral ceiling, we do have the radiators up there on later in the evening which appears to solve the problem but we’re wondering if we ran the ufh downstairs and particularly in this room at a higher temperature if we would benefit from that, currently it’s set at 19 degrees as is the kitchen and small sitting room which are always warm but they have proper ceilings, what would you all have yours set at?

The vat is very simple to work out once you get your head round it. Everything you buy make sure you have a vat receipt for (this is a receipt with the suppliers vat registration number on it).Things which are classed as services (architect etc) you will pay vat on but cannot reclaim. Don’t know if the collective have come to any conclusion about how much you will have to pay in terms of vat to tradesmen but in new build anything that is supply and fit(windows, kitchen etc) should be zero rated.

You can’t claim for the percolation test, you get one claim at the end of the build so have to keep all the vat receipts, the end is when building control are satisfied that all the work has been completed to their satisfaction however I think the rules are different for a restoration than a complete new build. If you look on their website you will get all the information there.

Ours was all done before the frame came however that was in the summer don’t know if that would make any difference?

That would be a caravan I suspect as I’ve just looked at the price of property down there ?

Could it be that it’s been a layer of self levelling that’s been put on top of the screed to level it out and it’s actually it that’s breaking up?

Had to give my friend a stern talking to today. She bought a little house a year ago but couldn’t get her flat sold so to save on paying two lots of council tax she rented out the house through an agent. Her flats sold now so the tenant was given his notice and moved out middle of last week. Place has been left dirty , garden overgrown, radiator off the wall etc and a garden shed which he was to have no access to has had its padlock drilled out and door left wide open.. Agent has been in and listed everything and intends to keep back some of the deposit to put things in order but when I heard from her this morning she wasn’t wanting them to do this as she was afraid he would come calling when she is on her own. I’ve managed to talk some sense into her and explained that the agent won’t have given him any details about her living arrangements and whether or not she lives alone and I’m sure he’ll know he won’t be getting all his deposit back but it amazes me how some people live.