divorcingjack

Stronger, as in the weight of tiles that it will take? Of course, it needs special screws! Nothing would ever be less expensive than I was expecting.... *sob*

looks like MR plasterboard coming out much cheaper than aquapanel though - if they both have to be tanked, what is the difference?

Not a problem (as far as I understand) if it's fully tanked - people were using it untanked, thinking that it was waterproof - not an unreasonable assumption, given the name...

So, I would prob need to tank the fermacell as well then. Probably MR (moisture resistant?) PB would be cheaper, regular fermacell is not that easy to source, I can;t imagine the H20 version is easy to come by. I take it the weight is potentially a problem with the MR plasterboard? Does it still need tanking?

We're at boarding out stage for the bathrooms, tiles not yet chosen, so not sure of weight. Bathrooms will not be full wetroooms, but a fall laid in the shower area in the concrete floor - no former. I've been reading that Aquapanel is not the thing to use, unless fully tanked. I've heard tell of Wedi board and Fermacell was also mentioned as moisture resistant. We are planning on fermacell in the rest of the house, so anyone got any thoughts about using it as a backer board? Tiles will be full height. What is best practice here? I know, not PB sealed with PVA! I have learned that much .... Cheers, dj

I'm half welsh, and I can vouch for this statement.

To be fair @Nickfromwales, a lot of the weather in NI is predominantly water based.

I'm well aware how lucky we are to have the chance, but you're right - it doesn't release the stress and worry. I do actually think that the responsibility of it being your own place, for your family increases the pressure immeasurably.

Ha, I was born and brought up in Bangor, school in Holywood Small world. You get accustomed to not knowing - it's inevitable. The only thing you can control is when you come to that realisation .... Yes, we're building across in Scotland - I've settled here in my university town. We're just on to first fixing, but it's slow going ..

@ProDave, we do have one other large cupboard which will have an additional UFH manifold and a plumbing manifold for the bathrooms, but there's just no-where else to put the rest of the stuff. It's a flat roof, so no loft space or eaves to tidy ugly stuff away into. The utility is fairly central in the house - next to the kitchen and not too far from the bathrooms.

Sounds a great idea, but we've got 7000 to lay. Reckon we'd go through a few mixers by the end of that! The reclaims I've found are coming out cheaper than new anyway, hopefully the brickie will agree to lay them.

Just an update on this post for all those sourcing bricks at the minute (although it may apply only to Scotland). I spoke to a few reps and the "reclaimed style" of new bricks are horrifically expensive (approaching £1/brick or more), have to be specially ordered from outside the country and because we're not taking a full load - none of the merchants will order them for us anyway! I was also warned that because so many social housing projects are ordering millions of bricks at a time, lead times at the moment are STARTING at 26 weeks. So, I drove 10 minutes up the road to a demolition guy and picked up some sample reclaims. They weigh a ton, but the contractor says they're solid and shouldn't give us any problems. We'll see what the guy who has to lay them has to say ...

At the very start of this process, the sage advice from our architect was to spend our money on fabric first. So, windows, outside cladding, frame and foundations. We've done this, and although we're having to scrimp on finishes, I feel much more secure knowing that the "bones" of the building are solid and the best quality we could afford. It's straightforward (although time consuming) to save money on fixtures and things - we've sourced a huge amount from gumtree and ebay, probably running into thousands saved so far.

Looks like good progress! Whereabouts are you? I'm originally from NI , and so is our MVHR supplier ... It is slow, frustrating, stressful and costly, but as everyone keeps telling me, it'll be worth it in the end! dj

@PeterW, I'd be interested in your feedback, for sure It's too far for us to visit in person, so I'm relying on internet feedback. We've had ikea kitchens before, but I'm just not overly keen on the wobbly backs - the makeup of the DIY kitchens units just seems much more solid. Amazing how quickly you can justify spending more because it's a self build, the prospect of living with it for the foreseeable id remarkably effective at opening the wallet ...

As far as I'm aware, they get pretty good reviews all round, and I like the custom colour option on the fronts. Annoyingly though, they won't supply the units without doors - I wanted to buy a couple of units to see the quality and fit out a storage cupboard, but they wouldn't do it. Sorry to take the thread off track - does anyone have recommendations for where I can buy unit carcasses without doors?

So, we are mid-planning for the first fix plumbing and specifying boiler, UVC, buffer tank, manifolds etc. It has come to my attention that there is rather a lot of "stuff" to fit in to our utility room, plus electrical gubbins, UFH manifold, MVHR unit and general utility things. I am well aware that if we leave it to the contractors, they will generally do the easiest thing for them, and we'll end up with a right mess. As we don't have a dedicated "plant room", all this stuff has to look vaguely presentable - either in a cupboard or at least behind a door. Would anyone care to share pics of their meticulously planned plant/utility rooms? I don't want to have to buy a load of cupboards and then mutilate them to cut chunks out of the sides or backs to be able to make connections. Cheers for any ideas! dj

ftw - for the win! not building related, for once

£100 minimum. I always pay £101 just to be sure Also make sure you keep the receipt with a piece of paper noting the transaction date and full card details that you used for it. Speaking from experience - by the time I needed to make a claim, my cards had been replaced, and I had a devil of a time trying to track down the original details.

My sympathies - we are having a drainage nightmare, waiting for the hideous quotes to come in to dig up 15m of Caithness stone slabs, cobbles and tarmac in the main road through the town We had a hideous quote from our electricity supplier (north of 11K) as I recall. However, we just kept arranging "pre-start" meetings until we got a sensible engineer who would listen to our arguments. Eventually (after some arguing and cake based bribery) came down to £350 ish. But there 'aint no arguing with Scottish Water. Buggers.

not now! MBC were too quick and openings are formed and have EPDM roofing on the outside of them. The potential problems just didn't pop up onto our radar till now.

So, just to update - we have asked Internorm directly for a quote. They are supplying some other replacement glass for a door panel, so thought I might as well ask. They are on a long lead as well, unfortunately. I'll update when I have numbers (and probably after a cuppa to recover). I have another question though - forming the upstand for the skylight has meant a lot of solid timber and it looks like a pretty bad thermal bridge through to the house to me. Is there any way to mitigate this? Should we be thinking about some PIR on the inside, underneath the plasterboard? The rest of the house will be pumped with cellulose, but there's no cavity around the skylights for this and we would lose a lot of depth, trying to get a decent U-value. Seems a shame to have this weak point, when the rest of the house is pretty good thermally, and MBC have put a lot of thought into the details to avoid cold bridging. I've uploaded the detail we are using. Rooflight details.pdf

Morning all, Finally, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel with the zinc portion of our cladding nearly complete, so we can now think seriously about the brick portion. Our architect has specified a painted, bag rubbed finish, using reclaimed bricks - so it doesn't look "too perfect". The approx 120 sqm cladding is going on the outside of an MBC frame, just single skin, nothing too complicated. Zinc infill panels above windows. So, two questions: - What should I expect to be paying (scotland) either for the whole job or on an daily rate? We are supplying the bricks - probably reclaimed Victorian - Do I need to think about thermally efficient wall ties/fixings? If so, what should I be looking at? Cheers for any help, dj

Thanks for replies everyone, I have tried the two companies mentioned above, but unfortunately duplus don't do rooflights without frames and toughenedglasssystems don't deliver to Scotland. @PeterW could you share your suppliers or drop me a message? Thanks

Leyland trade have the F&B colour codes and will match EXACTLY. The whole of our last house was in knock-off F&B and looked great. They do an ultra-matt finish as well, which although not quite as chalky as true F&B, has no shine to it whatsoever.