lizzie

I would go for Photinia red robin. You can buy biggish ones for not many £’s they grow quickly can be cut easily, can be trained into a shape or left to be hedge, they look nice too.

Swindon is essentially a permanent trade exhibition and the stands are unmanned. You can go to open days etc. We went and met some suppliers there on a normal day when it is just the unmanned stands. We arranged meetings with some specific people in advance. When you go in you can get a scanner as you do in supermarkets for shopping. Each stand has a bar code and if you scan that then they will send you information...I scanned masses of stuff, my postman was loaded down with brochures and samples coming for weeks. There are permanent displays of all sorts, brick walls roofing bits you name it.... Potton also have a house there to walk around too. It is the Marie Celeste if you turn up without any pre arranged contacts but even so it is a good place to look at products and collect info.....we saw our sunpipes there on an unmanned stand and ended up buying them. You can touch and feel products etc without any pressure, there is just no-one to talk at the time, you have to do that as a follow up so its different to a show. TBH I think 2 days at the NEC is a very long time. I would save your hotel bill. I live about half an hour away from NEC so go to all sorts there and most are good value if you can get cheap or free tickets. Parking is about £12 on site or you can park off site somewhere and get the bus but if you don't know the area I would pay the £12. I usually pay to park on site even though I know my way around its just quicker and easier. With most of the popular shows I think it is best to get there for opening time get in and get around early, if you can make your plan in advance of which things you want to look you will get to see more because by lunchtime the place is so packed you can hardly get near stands to talk to suppliers. Some of the the theatre talks are useful and if nothing else are a place to sit down. If you can take your own packed lunch and drinks you will save yourself a fortune on the day and ages standing in line waiting. Enjoy it.

??? best bet is evict the lot and get nice new tenants save yourself a lot of hassle

When I was looking I saw some fab welfare units for hire circa £125 a week...toilet, hand wash, drying room, seating and kitchen area with fridge microwave etc..... Lovely...... I wanted to get one installed just like playing house...... I was told no it will be there a long time and is too expensive so we have a loo at £25 a week inc servicing ( I have never dared go into it) and when the garage went up (before house) and we got power I put a cheap fridge and kettle in there and of course a big first aid kit.... I also wanted to put in garden table and chairs for rest area but was talked out of that so if they need to sit they sit in their vans or on stacks of materials. They seem happy enough. All has worked well for nigh on 2 years. One of the most important things other than the loo was the power supply for tools and for charging their mobile phones and plugging in those huge makita radios! As far as I am aware you cant claim vat back on loo hire either. Initially I hired Heras fencing supposedly cheaply from the groundworker who had acquired it somehow....but it was working out to be very expensive after a while so we bought our own. No idea if is worth anything at the end. I will need mine for circa 6 -8 weeks more and then it will be redundant if anyone is looking.

Heras fencing...H&S.....as Nick says. You cannot leave trenches open and not fenced properly aside from H&S considerations your insurance would surely require you to have the relevant safety fencing in place. No fence and someone falls in a trench..burglar or otherwise....your insurance wont pay out when they sue you. I think you not only need proper fencing but you need H&S signage...i.e. hard hat area, danger, no admittance etc. You can buy one big sign covers it all. Cheap on internet for signs.

@epsilonGreedy have you been to Swindon? That centre has a much more technical bias than any of these shows.

Ive just checked again with Buildzone. Very unhelpful man. My policy absolutely ceases on sign off no transfer possible. He says those sort of policies are rare! So my plea for help now is how does sign off work. Does Building Inspector come round and say OK (or not) and thats it at that moment or does he come round and say Ok (or not) and then I get the cert in the post a few weeks later. When am I actually signed off for insurance purposes, what is the effective date? Date of vist or date on cert when it turns up (might be a few weeks old by then) I can get quotes lined up to kick in but when to activate? I cant find anything to tell me. Any ideas?

I had timber in last house....not again, lots of maintenance!

Interesting info. I have some samples from a company called Kedel. There is a sleeper colour that looks like silver weathered wood that might look quite nice. Not had any black samples, I didnt like their brown.

@ProDave I will check my small print. I’m with Buildzone

I will have several months left of my build insurance if all goes according to plan. I thought that was dead and lost once sign off takes place but I read an article on line - one of the build magazine e-mails which I cannot now find again - which said that the construction self build policy would transfer to a temporary buildings cover for the house for the remainder of the policy. I will ring Buildzone next week and ask again (they told me it would be lost on completion) but I wondered if anyone had achieved this transfer to a regular cover.

My doors are already hung so trimming is only option now.

@JSHarris thank you that sounds a good solution and I definitely dont want whistling! @joe90 we have all tiled floors so much less forgiving than carpet.

From what I can make out Building Regs Part F is saying that with an MVHR system internal doors should have a total of 7600mm air flow gap, the example they quote is for a standard size of 760 door the gap underneath would need to be 10mm. Our doors are 838 and I have worked back that we would need 9mm gap under them if this interpretation of regs is correct. Huge gaps under doors is not an attractive prospect.. assuming it is correct do building control insist/inspect that feature and/or does it compromise the eficiency of the MVHR system if we were able to stick with our 4mm neat gaps. We never close doors anyway..... Anyone help?

@nss thank you I will look back at that

Thank you @nod thats great.

I know I will need an epc for BC sign off. Googling around tells me I will need an ‘on construction’ epc which is a desktop excercise done by a registered assessor from the SAP submitted to BC at the start, assuming it remains the same as built, which it is.......hoping Mr Google is reliable with his info! Does anyone have a recommendation for a company to use? I am in England.

@Ian great news thank you!

@RandAbuild wow thank you! Thats pretty comprehensive.

I'm trying to juggle the vat aspect with getting sign off asap. I need to get my road and things booked at zero rate even if they dont go down for a few weeks ....saying that I cant move in without a road surface down so its a never ending circle. Paying 2k a month rent for way longer than we ever anticipated has cost a lot just need to get out of this expensive rented hovel and into my own home. 2 years is way way to long to be paying rent. I don't factor that rent into the massive overspend either. It's the labour costs that have been absolutely crippling they were hugely underestimated, everything has taken very much longer than anticipated so hence higher costs. After all the stress now the sciatica has notched up to screaming pain levels so I can barely walk I probably need that wheelchair ramp myself!

Ah Ok thank you. I thought there might be a standard requirement list. Building Inspector question then. Input much appreciated.

I have had a search around the forum but cant find what I am looking for. We are now, I hope, only weeks off being complete inside...outside still a quagmire but if the weather holds we may make progress there too. I have been trying to find a list of what we need to have ready to get the house signed off to live in. I’m trying to get ahead of myself a bit and get all my papers ready. I think gas and electricity certificates and an epc but beyond that I have no idea. whatsoever. House is in England if that has any bearing. If anyone could point me at the relevant info I would be gratful.

My wetroom is at the absolutely furthest away part of the house from the tank...not measured but I would guess at min 20 metres.. Running water in the basin in there for cleaning yesterday and it took an age for hot to come, not tried the shower yet..........pressure seemed ok in the tap.

Why dont you get a firm of planning consultants do the revised application. You may not have to make so many compromises. Surprised if your architect not suggested that route. i certainly would not be asking any timber frame company to get involved before you have your planning.

I cant get at the garden pics at mo, we are planning to get topsoil down shortly but as we found unconnected drainage pipes (from the en suite!) we are digging trenches again and that is delaying garden levels. This is a pic of the access road (after many 100’s of tons of stone down) the clay in the garden is worse as it has no stone in it. The other picture is the field in front of us and you can see it is waterlogged.