lizzie

Following....I have a similar situation with clay.

Yes I remember Scope under its earlier title. I used to rattle a tin for them on a Saturday morning at the shopping centre.

Love it, best laugh of the day!

yes all mine are rectified wall and floor. I don't know if they are easier or harder, might be a bit less forgiving as they are straight. I like sleek and straight and had a good tiler so very happy with mine.

@Trw144 good to hear that!

I asked about that because I could see it on my samples (cedar). They said it would die down with weathering OH wasnt convinced which is why we had it outside for so long and why I kept looking at other cladding. Russwood cladding is very good sioo maybe individual taste.Its a good low maintenance option for treating cladding if you like the colour while its weathering down.....it was not for us in the end.

My Porsche owner would love a garage like that however I have blown the budget on kitchen and bathrooms so its likely to be paint on garage the floor.......... if we can afford it............I am currently browsing some lovely doormats for the house but the prices...........LOL

Phew would you want to project manage any of us on here. What a challenge that would be! Independent minded, stubborn, cutting edge, forward thinking, pushing barriers....all tags that apply to here. Would you need some sort of PI insurance and if you don’t have any formal qualifications then that may be tricky. OP not started his build yet if I recall......what looks good on paper doesnt always translate to action on site.

Thanks Guys...its about 4.5m wide cant remember how long maybe 7m but thats a guess. Ive got a Hormann sectional door ordered for the front, opening width 4m. Self level and paint sounds a good option I will explore. Tiles wouldnt work for all sorts of reasons including cost. I was perfectly happy with my previous painted floor so if I can get the slab to a state for painting that will do me. I dont have much space to increase floor height wiith screed as it will affect levels so need somthing minimal just to smooth it over. The epoxy coating is lovely but OMG the price of it! Its just a garage floor after all! We are going to end up with Gyproc Habito boards on the walls as we had to buy in pallets and have 15 or so sheets letft over to use up. Most expensive boarded garage in the land LOL! If I hadnt had these lying around I would have just painted the blocks, I have so much shelving for the garage there will hardly be any wall visible.

I had samples of the Russwood sioo on wrc and siberian larch I had some outside ‘weathering’ for 6 months or so too. Its a good product. You can also buy the sioo treatment and use it on any cladding. In the end I did a last minute swerve away from the Russwood sioo on wrc to the Silvlbp New Age Gris on Siberian Larch becase I loved the colour and the grain. Silvlbp is factory coated (much quicker and cost effective) and comes in a range of colours and woods. Its a French product, production facility is in the Alps near Annecy. It needs no maintanence, the coating is sacrificial and I expect even weathering and not to have to maintain in any way other. than a clean down now and then as you would with any cladding including the cedral. The only distributor for Silvlbp is Vincent timber in Birmingham. www.vincenttimber.co.uk Its difficult to suggest to you without a picture of the house its going on. I think a mix of powder coated metal and real wood cladding will look stunning for a bris soliel and surrounding area. Pinterest perhaps? We all sing the praises of what we have chosen precisely because we chose it to suit our individual houses after much research. I totally love my larch and against my anthractite windows and deep fascias and soffits to me it is a thing of untold beauty, I am very happy. The way the light catches it at different times of day it goes from a soft buttery colour to quite grey as the sun moves round. I also factored in the colour of my render, outside paving and driveway so I could pull the whole external scheme together. You will know when you find a combination that works for you. Last week I skipped probably 3 dozen cladding samples and samples of the whole colour and style range of the marley cedral. Get yourself lots and lots of samples. All the suppliers will send you free ones. Mine was a random sample sent from the suppliers because he thought I might like it! He was right I loved it but didnt pick it out on the website. Good luck

Any suggestions to finish the garage floor? We have a rough slab in the garage. We can tidy up the messy lumps and loose bits. Then the question what to do with it. We just had an ordinary garage floor paint in last house but the slab was much better there no where near as rough as this one. We cant really screed as that may give us problem with levels. A cheap and cheerful method of dealing with the garage floor needed so all suggestions gratefully received. Garage is not attached to the house.

@MirandaPoth hello and welcome. We went for Internorm windows. We are quite exposed up on a ridge and wanted the most robust we could find....will be fine I'm sure once we sort out the leaks on the big sliders LOL.....not sure if its an install problem or an issue from the problems we had with our slab not being level. We await expert opinion on the cause and solution. Leaks aside they are beautiful windows. They do not usually have these issues with their windows and are now trying to help resolve it. I hope we can sort it soon as its holding up my build now and I want to get on and get moved in. I do urge you not to wear rose tinted specs, its so easy to be excited at this stage and think all are great and it will be wonderful and problem free - no-one is perfect, including the frame and slab suppliers, everyone is capable of making mistakes and you need to watch and check and check again everything with everyone at every stage not only at drawing stage but on site too, I didn't at first and was probably a bit naive about it all....Lessons learnt - I go to site pretty much every day now even if just to show my face and check around and try and field issues before they become headaches. I have/had some major problems mostly sorted but compromises have been needed to deal with some of the things and inevitably a lot of the extra cost involved has fallen on me too. What is important is that the relevant suppliers sort out their cock ups promptly when notified not try and pass the buck. Some are better than others at this as I'm sure a browse around the forum will tell you. Latest cock up example that I have to sort out as relevant contractor long gone..............found out this week our (now sacked) groundworkers did not connect the toilet in the en suite to the foul drains the pipe was just left coming out under the slab and covered in sand etc so would have just been draining (slowly) into the ground under the patio....thank goodness we have not put the concrete base down for patio yet and so when our 2nd fix plumber alerted us to the problem of toilet pan not draining properly we were able to go and dig about outside and find the unconnected pipe. Now have to dig a new trench and put another manhole in etc Could have been a nightmare. Thank goodness for a plumber who took the trouble to tell me he thought we had a problem. You need eyes in the back of your head with some of these people! Thankfully have lovely new groundworker who I have a lot of faith in. Have you got some PM help from Peter via MBC lined up like Derek? If you are a rookie like me then some prof input and the excellent help available this forum will make a huge difference to you. Finishing line looking tantalisingly close for us now......so want it to come quickly am so fed up of living in a rented house....2 years and counting! Good luck keep us in the loop with progress.

We use HB for business banking and do some personal banking with them on the back of that. I believe they dont like unrelated personal banking so if you approach for just a personal account generally they say no ditto with startups, its not their target market. They are mostly great people not like big faceless banks (also bank with Lloyds and have done for more than 40 years.....why I sometimes ask myself!) however they are growing rapidly and in the 10 years or so we have been with them the size of the UK presence must have tripled or quadroupled or even more...its their stated strategy to expand and take a bigger share of the UK business market. I hope they don’t lose the personal element that makes them so much nicer to deal with than the bigger banks........an awful lot of their staff seem to be ex Nat West and RBS in our area but different ethos at HB so they are good. They are not cheap, they ask high fees for valuations and arrangements but I think their interest rates are not so bad...libor linked perhaps.....they are more flexible than big lenders even though the set up fees may be more.

As many ducts as you think you will need plus at least 50% more! You can cap them off for later use if you dont need them all at the start. We had far too few and it has resulted in us having pipes coming out of the building instead of through the slab which is very disappointing but thankfully hidden in the alley way at the back.....not a pretty sight down that alley with all the pipes and manholes etc its like the M1 for services. We didnt allow for gas needing a duct of its own or that certain others shouldn't share etc. Would have been so simple if I had properly researched rather than just think things would share etc. I had provision for floor sockets put in too as I have a big open plan area and didnt want a cable for a lamp trailing across the room to a wall socket so ducts run under floor across to points in the floor where I wanted sockets. Used a former to keep the hole clear for the sockets to go into.

They have 2 sales a year normally. I need a few bits and bibs and my local showroom said next sale due about May. If you go in look around pick out what you like get some (free) designs done if required get your prices and then work back what it would be with the discount then you can see if it works. Display prices are full price inc vat. My showroom will hold the quote on the system and action it when you ok it when sale kicks in. Lovely place to go for ideas and a browse even if you end up not buying.

@Hecateh no very easy to keep looking pristine. Ive had it before.?

Thank you. All my bathrooms and tiles are from Porcelanosa. Not cheap its high end but buy in the 40% off sale and it makes it much more affordable. Next sale in May I think. Pay 50% on order and other 50% when they deliver. I bought all mine in January 2017 before we had the slab down. They kept them until a few weeks ago until we ready to fit. Great service and lovely products. I used them in my last house too.

All mine from Porcelanosa, not cheap but beautiful tiles and huge selections,......buy in the sale. They keep them until you need them just pay 50% deposit and balance on delivery. Next 40% off sale in May I think

@MikeR have asked the question and he suggested you try this search provider http://www.searchpoint.co.uk/ I don't know if they will deal with you as a member of the public/developer but worth a call. Looks to me that this may fit your bill http://www.searchpoint.co.uk/combined-utility-report/ More expensive than straight residential search as more info provided and aimed at developers but have a browse they offer a lot of different options These are contact details Joy Green Customer Support Web: www.searchpoint.co.uk Tel: 0845 680 5608 Email: support@searchpoint.co.uk

Any lawyer can do it - the one you are using for your plots or any local conveyancer. If they are not acting for you then they may charge a handling fee on top of the search fee - its just a case of them filling in the relevant request forms paying the fee and getting the result back. Make sure you explain the reason why you want the search so they are sure to cover exactly what you need, I'll see if I can find out if you can do it direct.

I would ask your lawyer to do the search it is far more comprehensive than trying to do a diy job in these circumstances

A search of what exists on or near your land circa £120 - thats what it would cost a solicitor for the search often done as part of your purchase, I don’t know if a member of the public could access this directly, the search results are provided to the solicitor by specialist companies. The utility companies are quite helpful if you approach direct but if its someone else pipeline they may not log it on their system so it wouldnt show. I got maps from electricty and gas showing nearby pipes (ours was a greenfield site so nothing under plot). We had a nightmare with Nat Grid on our gas and in the end used a different supplier...two different carriers with pipes in close proximity, we could have come off either. Do you just want to know what is available to you or do you want to know if there is anything below ground that you need to avoid?

Sounds just what I want, please can you post a photo? @Jude1234 this is mine I have tech spec if you want it......I had this in my last house too so I know it works for me.

@Jude1234 will get a photo tomorrow

@Russell griffiths that explains a lot. We had to raise our levels by a similar amount on last house due to flood risk (next to river flood zone 3). Cost us a fortune at the time - we had to pile - and I really resented it. Couldnt have the kitchen I wanted nor the gates on the drive as all the money was spent on that. I spent 20 odd years resenting that extra cost as we never had a hint of flooding then in 2007 when half the country was underwater we stayed dry. It lapped at our thresholds but didnt come in. I never complained about the extra cost coming out if the ground again!