Jeremy Harris

That gap, between when I retired and when I started receiving the state pension, really exacerbated our cost over run problems. If we'd had the extra £500 a month from the state pension we could have moved in a year earlier, I'm sure. The daft thing is that, having got used to living on less during the build, and paying to run two houses (one of which cost more than twice as much to run, even though it was a lot smaller), we've now found ourselves with money to spare. This is causing as much tension as not having much spare cash, as my view is that we should just spend what we have whilst we can enjoy it (we both have a fair bit of savings from the sale of the old house) but SWMBO seems intent on just saving regularly (seems a bit pointless given the rubbish interest rate).

His description seemed to suggest it was just a standard triple filter. Expensive to run, as the cartridges need changing every 3 to 6 months. If you just want to take chlorine out, then a carbon filter will do the job, but it really needs a 5 micron filter in front of it to make sure it doesn't get prematurely clogged. If looking to fit one, then I suggest ignoring the standard 10" or 20" filter housings, and going fora 10" jumbo housing, as it will have a much better flow rate. Block carbon filters are more user-friendly than granulated carbon, as they need far less flushing after replacement. TBH, I'd only bother if you live in an area where the water is heavily chlorinated, where a carbon filter will make a very noticeable improvement.

The battens under the polycarb looks nice now, but it will look hideous in a couple of years, when it all goes green, and they discover that it's near-impossible to clean... (I speak from experience, having built a boat shed at the last house with a thick polycarb roof).

Price was mentioned for the scissor truss build. It's smaller than the house that's the subject of this episode, and cost double, so that's well over £1M...

This sounds like a really neat solution, that wouldn't look like a bodge, and would give plenty of space to level the cladding. The other big advantage would be that increasing the roof overhang would make any remaining small discrepancies far less noticeable. When things are close together any minor misalignment seems far more prominent than when they are further apart. I'm really glad I opted for big overhangs with our roof, as they hide the natural waviness of the wide board waney edge larch cladding very well.

My wife had something similar, but a bit more notice. She retired last Friday, and is now worrying about the six year gap before she gets her state pension at 66. She'd planned on her state pension age and civil service pension age remaining the same, but her civil service retirement age stayed at 60 and her state pension age has shifted away to 66. I'm fortunate, in that my state pension age stayed at 65, so my plans of retiring early (I retired when I was 57) and being able to manage until I started getting the state pension a couple of years ago pretty much worked out OK (or would have done, had the build not gone over budget). I suppose we should be thankful that, in the main, our plans have worked out reasonably well. I've ended up with a bigger overall pension than I'd estimated, and that pretty much compensates for my wife ending up with a pension gap for 6 years. The snag is that she doesn't much like having to rely on my pension...

That's what's on there at the moment. After a couple of years it's looking pretty stained and worn through in places where I've wiped it down. My hope is that gloss will be tougher and easier to clean.

For a new build (in Part P land) the EIC needs to be lodged on the database by someone who is a member of one of the Part P cartels. An EICR can be undertaken by anyone that is qualified and competent, as it doesn't need to be lodged on any database. I can do an EICR for anyone, and it's fine (accepting that there may be a liability issue if I've screwed up), but as I cannot be a member of one of the Part P cartels, because I'm retired, I cannot submit a Part P EIC for a new installation.

First question I had from building control after submitting our full plans application was who was going to do the electrical installation. I rang them and said that I was, that I was suitably qualified, but wasn't a member of one of the Part P cartels as I was retired (you cannot be a member if you're not earning a living as an electrician, apparently). Building control were apologetic, but explained that they had no one qualified to inspect and test an installation, and they knew of no electricians in the area that would inspect and test a third party installation, so could I please use a Part P accredited electrician. Pissed me off more than a little, as it cost us money that I hadn't budgeted for, but on the positive side it gave a local lad who was just starting his own business some work. Daft thing is that I can do any non-Part P work, or undertake an EICR, without any issues at all.

Be very interested to hear how you get on with this, as I want to paint the wall behind the machine tool bench in my workshop with white gloss, so it's easier to wipe down and keep reasonably clean. Last time I tried water-based gloss was about 5 or 6 years ago, and it wasn't that good. Covering power wasn't great, plus the finish wasn't a true gloss, more a sort of satin finish. I believe that it's improved a lot in recent years though.

Watching that episode of GD did remind me of the plans I dreamt up of doing something similar. I think the way I might have tackled that water tank conversion would have been to not remove the whole roof, just a central section as a light well, dig away the earth bunds surrounding the walls, chuck in around 300mm of EPS hard against the concrete of the walls and roof, then re-instate the earth both around the closed sides and on the roof. A fair bit of earth shifting, but probably not massive in the overall scheme of things, given that there would have been no foundation work, or main structure work, probably just some steels to support the cut edge of the roof in the middle.

When I looked into earth sheltered houses, most seem to use basement construction techniques, with waterproof concrete floor, walls and roof. I always liked the idea of an atrium style design, with either an open courtyard in the centre, or a glazed dome, like Mole Manor, to let lots of light down into the middle of the house.

I've not forgotten registering with a GP shortly after we moved to SW Scotland, and immediately being booked in for a series of health checks and tests, as I was (just) over 40 at the time. When I asked why all these tests were needed, I was told that Stranraer (which is where the surgery was) had the highest incidence of heart disease and strokes in the UK. When I looked into the data for the area it made for grim reading. At that time, male life expectancy in the area around Stranraer was around 5 years lower than for most of the UK. Alcohol-related illness was a major cause of mortality. One advantage of living there was that the amount of effort put in to primary health care was markedly greater than the area we'd just moved from, Cornwall. The disadvantage was that Stranraer was like a war zone at night, with lots of alcohol-fuelled violence.

I'd guess so, as the only structural elements in it are the timber bits.

Pity we don't seem to have anyone building an earth sheltered house. I've always been fascinated by the idea of building one.

You can pretty much build a house that looks any way you wish using any build method, as final appearance is pretty much construction method agnostic. If you want a specific brick finish on an ICF house built in a conservation area, then it's easy enough to achieve, just as easy as having the same brick finish on a timber frame, or on an externally insulated single skin block wall build. Same goes for a rendered finish, timber cladding or whatever, doesn't matter what the walls are built from, really. The most critical factors, aside from personal preference, will probably be the nature of the site and the budget, with perhaps ease of construction by someone with little or no experience being another factor for some. Some build methods require a higher skill level than others, so cost can be impacted by how much time a self-builder has to learn new skills, perhaps. The amount of available internal space for a given footprint may well be a factor on a tight site, where minimising wall thickness, yet still meeting the required thermal performance, might make all the difference to the way the house feels when finished. There's no doubt that overall wall thickness can be reduced with MMC, or possibly EWI over single skin block construction, given that the cavity width needed to comply with BRs for a conventional cavity wall build up makes for a wall around 350mm thick (it's pretty hard to meet Part L with less than about a 150mm cavity, I believe). Something like a 140mm SIPS panel wall, with a brick outer skin, may well be around 75mm or so thinner than block and brick, for example.

Definitely put the film on the OUTSIDE, not the inside. If it's put on the inside then it will risk overheating the glazing unit, as the chances are that there are inward-facing heat reflective coatings already inside that. What the sun-x person has said is spot on. We have a mix of films on the outside of our glazing. Been on for a couple of years now and they still look and work OK.

How representative is any self-build magazine, though? Back around 2008, when we first started thinking about self-build, I subscribed to (I think) three of the self-build magazines. Over the course of the first year or so researching building in general (not specifically self-build, more the different options and technologies available) I came to realise that much of the content of the self-build magazines was promotional, and sponsored, directly or indirectly, by some of the major players in the building industry. It was also clear that much of the content was aimed at those who aspired to a fairly high-end home, yet the prices in the guides seemed extraordinarily low for such a home. I've come to the view that many of the self-build magazines, at least those that were around ten years ago when I last looked at one, were a bit like Grand Designs, or the other TV house building shows. They didn't really represent the broad cross section of self-build, just an attractive-looking subset that looked good in a glossy magazine. A bit like GD, many of the nice photo's showed features that would never have been passed by building control, too (stairs seem to be a favourite). There's nothing wrong with this, after all, those magazines, just like the TV shows, are designed to sell and make a profit for their publishers, first and foremost, and I suspect that most people who buy them don't ever undertake a self build themselves. Might be an idea to see how many here are avid readers of self-build magazines, or how many are like us, and felt a bit disillusioned by them after a short time.

No sure I understand the rationale behind this observation. This forum is open to all, and is managed by a group of volunteers that try their best to make it as open and unbiased as possible. Looking at the original foundation group that put this place together, there seems to be a fair mix of build methods, a fair few have used ICF, a fair few have used timber frame, some have used block and brick and some aren't self-builders. The current forum management group has a few more block and brick and ICF members than the original group, I think. I'd be interested to understand more about your impression that there is "forum culture", as I'm at a bit of a loss to understand what that is. Looking back at popular threads over the past few weeks, we seem to have a pretty broad range of topics being discussed, with the most popular relating to renovation or extension work to existing homes, using various different construction methods, rather than new builds.

FWIW, I didn't risk having the manifold splattered with concrete (and didn't want it sat outside anyway), so we just left the pipes too long, capped them, and tied them to a timber frame poking up out of the slab.

You could put a couple of Sheela na gig's on the posts. Be a talking point, if nothing else. Might cause a few awkward questions from the kids, though...

They might well be able to do it. The testing is pretty standard stuff that any lab should be able to do. There's no requirement for it to be UKAS accredited or whatever for just doing an initial determination, as all you need to know is whether the water is going to be relatively easy to treat and bring within the required drinking water standards. The data from our borehole includes my initial lab analysis (before treatment), plus the official one done later by environmental health. The borehole reference number is SU02NW24 and I think the analysis is on the last page.

Sorry, @Onoff, missed this bit earlier. There are two ways to get an analysis done. Your local authority environmental health people have a legal obligation to provide a fixed price analysis service for domestic water supplies. The price is set by central government, and currently the charge here is set at £17.05 for a standard water analysis, which is far less than any lab will charge. In our case, because the local authority would lose money on every analysis they are asked to do, they refuse to accept samples provided by anyone other than their own staff, so they can then charge a hefty "sampling fee" of £105 on top, to push the price up to enough to cover their costs (I'm pretty sure that the people who wrote the legislation didn't intend them to do this...). Often it's cheaper to just find a local lab that will undertake water analysis and take your own samples to them. We have a lab a few miles away that accepts private samples, or there are other labs, like the one that the hydrogeologist we used has, that will either send out sample bottles to be filled and returned, or will specify the size and type of sample bottles needed. The bottle used for collecting the bacterial analysis sample has to be sterile, and there's a procedure for cleaning and disinfecting the tap that the sample is taken from as well. The really cheap option is to buy a test kit from one of the many online suppliers and do your own analysis. Not hard to do, and there are test papers available for many common water contaminants. These won't test the total hardness, though, although you can buy electronic meters for doing this (I have a collection of them, happy to lend them out if you need them). You can also buy a bacterial analysis kit online, but it's so challenging to make sure that everything is sterile when using it that I'm not convinced it's much use. A lab test is best, as this will identify specific bugs, if there are any, whereas the kits you buy online will give a positive indication for a wide range of stuff, much of which is harmless. Best of all is if you happen to know someone that can do you a favour at a very well known lab that has comprehensive analysis facilities...

Yes, they look to be the right ones, although I suspect that most domestic drawings don't usually go into as much detail as this. I produced some laminated A3 drawings showing where our electrical stuff went, one for each floor, but just scribbling on walls or sticking reminder notes where things needed to be was more useful, especially when it comes to vertical placement, things like outlets for washing machines and dishwashers being under the height of work surfaces and being accessible with the cabinets in place, or built in cooker/hob connection points, and the positioning of cooker/hob switches. I listed the number and types of outlets, switches, fittings etc for each room, too, really just as an aid when ordering stuff.

I'm not convinced that this is a practical proposition, either. At the moment even Tesla's are a fair way away from a full autonomous driving capability, and realistically I doubt that this will be implemented anytime soon, as it seems that the challenges are still pretty substantial. Whether full autonomous mode could even be rolled out to the existing Tesla fleet is debatable. It might be that newer cars might have the capability within their autopilot hardware to implement this, but it seems pretty certain that earlier cars won't be capable of this.