Jeremy Harris

Should work really well. You can get a dispenser that automatically drops a pellet in every so often, which makes the system pretty fit and forget - just top the hopper up once in a blue moon.

Or buy some slow-release, high density, hypo-chlorite pellets, the large ones around 30mm in diameter and 20mm thick, and drop one in the bottom of the butt. It'll probably last the whole summer, as they dissolve extremely slowly, yet will ensure the water remains pathogen free.

I agree. I did all my own plans, planning application, building regs submission etc, never having done it before, and didn't find it that hard. If it saved me as much money as quoted above then I'm well chuffed - it might just have pushed my average hourly rate on the build closer to the national minimum wage...

There are indeed, as mortgaging our existing house is something we did for part of our financing. We had no mortgage on the old house, so taking one out on just a small part of its value was no problem. The potential problem arises when you come to move house and sell, as this needs timing carefully we've been advised. Our new build is complete, but we've delayed moving into it as we do not want it to be classified as our principal residence, as that could make our old house a CGT liability when we sell. As long as our principal residence is the old house we're OK, I believe. It all hinges on timing, and although we've been advised that we might get a short period of grace if we moved into the new house before selling the old one, this was by no means guaranteed, and we could face paying CGT on the difference between what we paid for the old house in 2000 and what it sells for. We are currently in the process of selling the old house, and once we have exchanged contracts we'll move to the new build officially, changing all the address details for banks etc over to the new address. At that point it's just like a house move, where we will be moving from one house to another, so there shouldn't be a CGT liability.

Not happened to me, either. I left one of my guns for several months with a part used can of foam on and all it needed to get it going again was the end of the nozzle cleaning. As long as the pin valve at the nozzle is working OK and not leaking, the liquid inside the gun itself should just stay liquid.

We used a relatively local firm, GP Systems who were OK, but I'm not sure what sort of area they cover. They are based in Basingstoke, so a good hour's drive away from us. This is their specific page about the 3M Prestige film: 3M Prestige

From your link they are clearly stating that the Sun-X film reflects 59% of all solar energy, yet allows through 77% of visible light. I can't see what bit of "reflects 59% of all solar energy" Internorm are reading as if the stuff absorbs solar energy. The glass absorbs practically all the incident solar energy without the film, so the film gives a very significant reduction to the temperature of the glazing.. When we were looking around I did prefer the look of the 3M Prestige range, especially the almost transparent one, Prestige 90. You can't really tell this is on the windows at all, yet if reduces the heat getting in a great deal. The main snag with the 3M Prestige film is that it's a bit expensive.

The same thing is happening around here where people are so unhappy with the quality that they've put signs up warning people, The argument about the poor build quality has been going on for a long time, but they are still selling houses like hot cakes, as for many a new build is the only way they can afford to get a house, because of the incentive from the Help to Buy scheme.

Not sure about that, as the slightly tinted film we have stays cool on the outside and is stated in the spec as reflecting 60% of the sun's heat, not absorbing it. The glass is definitely cooler on the windows to which it is fitted than it is on the windows that don't have it. It's not "light reflective", it's "heat reflective" so doesn't look at all shiny from the outside. It just decreases the emissivity of the outer pane, so allowing more long wavelength radiation to be reflected away from the glazing unit, rather than pass through it and heat it up. By way of evidence that the 3M Prestige films (the non-light reflective stuff) reflect back a significant amount of long wavelength radiation (heat), I've attached the data sheets. The clearest film is the Prestige 90, and it's worth noting that it reflects back 36% of the total solar energy (all wavelengths, so heat light and UV), and reflects back 97% of infrared (heat), yet allows through ~90% of visible light, so appears to be almost completely transparent. Prestige_Series 90 exterior.pdf Prestige_Series 70 exterior.pdf Prestige_Series 40 exterior.pdf

I can see the concern if you have laminated safety glass, rather than toughened. Ours use toughened 6mm safety glass for the outer panes of the glazing that needs it, so there isn't the concern of delamination. It's still a bit odd, though, as one effect of external heat reflective films is to make the glazing units a lot cooler in hot weather. A lot of heat is reflected before it reaches the surface of the outer pane, with the consequence that all three panes of glass in the unit run a great deal cooler. Before we fitted the external heat reflective film, the inner pane of our glazing could get quite hot, well over 30 deg C at times. Now it sits at close to room temperature, even in really bright sun. I wonder if Internorm have understood that the almost clear external films are very strongly heat reflective, or whether they believe that only the mirrored films are? We have both types, the silvered finish stuff for privacy and the faintly tinted stuff where we just need to reflect out heat. Both have near-identical performance and the glazing units for both sit at the same sort of temperature in bright sun.

Our window film supplier did the same, as our glazing is a mix of 4-20-4-20-4 and 6-16-4-16-6, all Saint-Gobain Planitherm double low e coated, argon filled glazing. There was a fair bit of confusion initially, as the glass manufacturer assumed that the film was going to be internal (which is clearly going to cause a potential problem) and said no, when challenged, and convinced that the film was external, they came back and said it was fine. The suppliers thermal analysis software had already said it was fine, it only ended up going back to Saint-Gobain because Munster wanted confirmation from them with regard to any impact on the warranty. I believe a lot of the concern stems from the clear issues that are involved if fitting a heat reflective film on the inside of a low e coated glazing unit, as that is clearly going to cause the unit to overheat, by reflecting heat back and forth in the inter-pane void. An external film removes that risk completely, and is no different to having a low e outward facing coating on the glazing itself (something that is now available, I believe).

Welcome, I don't have a checklist, as I think every build will have some unique, or site-specific, elements that would make a generic checklist hard to use. However, I was in a similar position to yourself, in that I bought a plot of land, obtained planning consent myself, and was then concerned that I wasn't comfortable with breaking ground - I just didn't know enough about the way the building industry works to take on managing the ground works. In my case I had several major aspects to the ground works, that coloured my approach. The plot was on a steep slope, so around 900 tonnes of earth needed to be removed and a large (up to 2.5m high) retaining wall had to be built. I had already shortlisted a contractor to supply and build our passive slab foundation system and house frame, and knew the specifications they needed in terms of a prepared foundation area. To de-risk this first stage I wrote a detailed tender document and sent it out to around half a dozen ground works companies for quotes. Comparing quotes was very challenging, as none of the companies priced all of the work in the specification and drawings I'd given them, but I ended up short-listing two of the better companies and then working up a firm price quote from each. The company that won the contract wasn't the cheapest, but it was the one that gave me the most professional itemised quote and included not only their quantity surveyors breakdown of cost, but also invited me to talk directly with their QS if I had any concerns. I awarded the contract to this company, on a firm price basis, with them having full responsibility for managing the site, so they controlled H&S@W, security, etc, along with compliance with some arduous planning constraints regarding possible pollution run-off on to the lane and adjacent stream. This worked exceptionally well. They managed the site well, were easy to deal with and the only thing that I think I'd have done differently if doing it again was to be on site more regularly for briefings on each stage. I assumed once or twice a week would be OK - in practice half an hour every day would have been better. They left me with a site that was ready for our foundation and frame company to move straight on to, as well one with provision for all services, ducts for pipes and cables etc, in place. Much of this is documented in our blog (linked in my signature below - look for the earliest entries) and some of the stuff there may help you work out what's needed. There will be a lot of variation depending on the foundation system you choose (there must be a couple of dozen variations at least just on that theme) as well as how your services are going to run. Might be worth posting details of your plot and locations of things like service runs etc, as there are lots of different ways to approach the early stages of the job. FWIW, "managing" the first stage of the ground works was a bit of a baptism of fire for me, but did give me a lot more confidence to manage the post frame erection work myself, both in choosing work I could do and in contracting with sub-contractors for work I didn't feel comfortable doing.

We had a similarly odd experience when getting quotes from SEs to design our retaining wall. The chap we used charged us something like £300 plus VAT, IIRC, but another local firm came back with a quote for something like £1500, plus VAT, plus £200 for any site visits required. When I turned down their quote, by writing them a polite email thanking them for the quote and telling them that we had accepted a quote from another firm, they rang me practically demanding to know how much the other firm's quote was. I told them it wouldn't be fair to tell them, and then got subjected to what can only be called a rant for having chosen to use a firm that, in their words, had to be cutting corners to beat their price. This worried me a bit, until I gave the drawings and spec from the SE to our ground works contractor. He said he knew the SE well and we'd have no problems at all with his design, as he'd worked with him on lots of jobs and if we'd asked him to include getting the SE's design in his quote he would have been the SE he'd have chosen anyway.

That's a pre-17th Ed of the regs CU that's had two RCBOs fitted for the additional circuits on the right, by the look of things. Looks like the wiring has been modified post-installation and probably post-2008, when the 17th ed of the regs was introduced, as that introduced the requirement for RCD protection. The abbreviations are: RCD Residual Current Device - a device that detects if the current flowing in the line and neutral are out of balance, indicating that a fault current may be flowing to earth, and which switches off the circuit when this happens. In practice this means that if there is a fault where part of appliance becomes accidentally live, due to a fault, then a very short time after someone gets an electric shock from it (typically 20 to 30ms, or thousandths of a second) the power will be cut so preventing electrocution. RCBO is the same thing but with the addition of a miniature circuit breaker in the same unit, so it will trip both of an earth fault current or a current overload. RCDs are also called GFIs (Ground Fault Interrupters) in some countries - same device, different name.

Should be in the CU itself, look for a double width module(s) with a button marked "push to test" or similar. When you push it the RCD should trip and turn off the power to anything fed from it. Some newer CUs will have two RCDs, one for each half of the system, so if one trips on a fault the other half of the house still has power.

I agree. I was a bit surprised at the relaxation on bonding when I read up on the 17th Ed, TBH, being an old 15th Ed person. RCDs seem to being made right down to a price and there are indications that they can fail. I've already had an RCBO that has failed, decent brand, too, and it failed so that it didn't trip when the test button was pressed. In that case the RCBO is still working OK, as when I plugged in my tester it tripped within about 20ms, so the fault seems to be with the test button circuit itself. I bet the vast majority of home owners never do the periodic tests on their RCDs, or have even bothered to read the label that says that should do these.

I can understand some of the gas fitters concerns, there are still a lot of gas explosions and fires caused by DIY work, and when it goes wrong with gas it goes wrong in a really big way. I did ask advice on one of the gas forums about changing the main board in our boiler. Legally doing this was fine, as it doesn't impact any of the gas stuff or even the safety cut out, flame detector etc, for good reasons they are all separate from the main electronics and direct acting. The board change is a ten minute job, but as the same board is used across a range of boilers you need to programme it after installation by going to the second level diagnostics (which are included in the instructions left with the owner) and selecting a number. The number for each model wasn't listed in the instructions, so I asked a simple question on a forum, explaining I was competent and knew how to do the job, but was after the number to set up a main board for an EcoTec 831. I bloody near got my throat ripped out for just asking, but one more reasonably individual sent me the full list of Vaillant codes by PM. I'd say your the exception, rather than the rule, as most people I know that have tried plastering have given up and got a plasterer in, including me. I'm dead impressed you did such a bloody good job as a first attempt, TBH, I very much doubt that there are many others that could have done that. Yes, it's probably within the regs by virtue of being protected by the double cupboard. The problem with the regs when it comes to bathrooms is that they've gradually been relaxed a fair bit over the years, and we've got rid of a lot of the things that used to apply, simplified the zones etc, almost certainly because there are now relatively few electric shock deaths in the UK, plus we've improved basic shock protection by insisting on having RCDs on the CU. A lot of older people (like me) remember when the regs for bathrooms were a heck of a lot tighter, so still have the mindset that says an outlet in a bathroom is wrong. The only flaw with the RCD argument is that not many people bother to do the mandatory periodic testing, as stipulated on the label that should be fitted to an RCD protected CU. RCDs do fail, and unless regularly tested there's no way to tell they've failed very often (although sometimes they do fail in the tripped position).

It's allowed, I'm sure. Apart from being more than 3m from Zone 1, it's also deep inside a cupboard, and I'm damned certain that the letter of the current regs says this is OK. However, the problem is that there are a lot of people around who stick fervently to the older regs, where no outlet was allowed in a bathroom at all with some exceptions, like wired-in hairdriers, bath lifts etc (last bath lift I saw had an IEC connector on a curly lead that plugged into an IEC socket on the wall - not sure about that being OK right next to Zone 1...). I've encountered some of the folks on the electricians forum - generally it seems that some don't take prisoners when it comes to competent "amateurs" doing electrical work. We had one here for a while, who won't be forgotten in a hurry...

I went through three pairs of boots during our build, all just fell apart. The only pair that stayed the distance (and are still OK) are a pair of steel toecap boots I was issued with about 20 years ago, when I had to walk through a tank repair workshop every day for a couple of months. No idea what make they are, but they are just showing a few scuffs, nothing major. The main problem I found was that either the soles just became detached from the uppers (and I couldn't find any glue that worked to hold them on - the sole material itself seems to just go crumbly) or they went like those Dewalts, with the synthetic leather stuff on the upper just cracking and splitting apart. Interestingly, the steelies I was issued with seem to have a name that looks to be Polish, as far as I can guess. Looking at them they are real leather with a stitched through leather sole, and a bonded on rubber tread below that.

Could be, but the guy didn't even bother to take any measurements himself. As a minimum he has to know the footprint of the house, the door and window areas, and the external wall area (assuming a cold loft). He had a laser measure in his hand but never once used it.

You may well be right, although we've moved house loads of times we've only twice before actually done the donkey work, as most of our house moves were part of a relocation package, where my employer's relocation company just gave us a cheque for the agreed price of our old house and all we had to do was buy another house in the new area, the snag being we only had a week to do it each time - only five days leave for buying a house was included in the package, not fun when moving from Cornwall to Scotland, or Scotland to West Sussex! The last house we sold ourselves was in Scotland, back in 1994, and that sold within a week to the first person who came to look at it, plus the Scottish system is much simpler and faster than the system here in England. This time we are relying very much on the guidance from the agent, but as they don't get paid until we sell, he does have a motive for trying to sell the house quickly, which suits us. Last time we bought a house, Rightmove etc didn't exist, so my only experience of using sites like that is from when we were plot hunting and to be honest I found the way they classified property and land a bit strange and not very user-friendly. Having said that, I've not looked at any of these sites since 2012, so hopefully they've improved. I'll have a chat with the agent later this week and see what he has to say about putting in a higher asking price.

Nice to see that level of detail; it takes time to get all the little stuff right, and nine times out of ten it's the detail that causes most of the angst in a build. I've often felt that using an Architectural Technician was a better bet for a self-build than using an Architect. My experience with a local AT was very positive indeed, and if he'd not decided to retire in the time between me first talking with him and our finalising the purchase of our plot (which took a year) I'd have used him for sure.

You may be right, but to be honest if we got £260k for it and had a quick sale then we'd be happy. That's all we need to get back to top up our savings to the position they were in before we started the build, our outgoings will decrease by over £3k per year once the old house is sold and I'm fortunate enough to be retired on a pension that is a fair bit more than we spend, plus I still do some consultancy work from time to time, and this year has been a very good year, to the point that I'm not going to do any more consultancy work for a while because I don't much like the idea of 40% of it going to the tax man. The valuation we've just had has compared our house to two roughly similar houses in the village. One was a bit larger, still 3 bedrooms, in a better location in the village, but in need of a fair bit more work than ours, and that sold for £305k earlier this year, one was bigger, 4 bedrooms on a slightly larger plot, in much better internal condition (ours needs new carpets and redecorating in most rooms) and sold for £325k. Realistically our house needs as a minimum new carpets and redecorating in all the rooms except the kitchen, bathroom, one bedroom and the downstairs WC. If someone wanted to do a better job it could do with a new kitchen, too. Adding that lot up comes to around £5k to £15k to bring the house up to the standard of the more expensive 4 bedroom bungalow that sold for £325k. Taking account of the small garden we have, that probably knocks another £5k off the price. All told I think the house could fetch as much as £280k, but to get that we would probably have to wait, and frankly we want a quick sale, as we are sick and tired of the old place. The "offers over" tactic was suggested by the agent as a way to optimise the way sites like Rightmove and Zoopla price band searches by buyers. If we put in an asking price of, say, £290k, expecting to sell for around 7% less, say £270k, then our ad would only get seen by those that had set an upper price point of £290k or above. By putting the price in as offers over £260k the ad gets seen by anyone that has set their upper price point as £260k or above, and that apparently makes a fairly big difference (the agent did a quick check and reckoned it might get around 30% more views by doing this). Interestingly, having no onward chain isn't really a significant plus point, which surprised me. Having no chain is only really a plus point for cash buyers, not sellers. There is also the problem that there are a lot of new builds in this area at around the same price point, albeit not in a village setting and packed a lot closer together. A new build does have the advantage of the "Help to Buy" scheme, so means a smaller deposit for buyers. Lender LTVs are still not back up to the high levels they were before the crash, so anyone looking to buy would need a fair bit of equity to start with. Add in the effect of stamp duty land tax (SDLT), which would be £3k for £260k, or £4k for £280k, and that's a further disincentive for too high a price. Paying an extra £1k in SDLT for an extra £20k on the house price is a pretty hefty disincentive for some. It has been suggested that the house might appeal as a buy to let, as the market for rental properties of this size and type in this area is buoyant. We were previously advised that it would make a good rental prospect, with an expected rental income of between £800 and £900 pm, some time ago, when we considered just renting it, rather than selling. Potential future CGT was the reason we chose not to go down that route, together with the hassle of being a landlord.

I don't realistically think there is a hope in hell of getting any of these cowboys to change their ways. The government have no desire to change things, in fact I've long felt that a fair bit of government legislation has been aimed primarily at creating new jobs in the construction and house sales business. RdSAP is extremely easy to use, no matter what the application used to do the calculations; so easy that at one time the Energy Saving Trust had an RdSAP calculator on their website, that home owners could use to obtain an EPC (it's been "down for maintenance" for a long time now). It literally takes no more than ten minutes to enter the data into any RdSAP calculator, and it's simplified to the point where the assessor doesn't even have to work out U values at all. Most homeowners who know a bit about their own home could fill it in without any real problem.

I can't understand how someone that's taken no measurements themselves, has been given a crib sheet with all the parameters that need to be entered into the Stroma RSAP+ app, in the right order, has also been given a floor plan, again with the floor area marked on it, along with all the room dimensions, window sizes etc can get things so badly wrong. I hate to think how bad it would have been if he'd actually measured anything.