lizzie

Our quote via architect before work started was £1900 + vat by the time we had excavated an enormous hole to a depth of a couple of metres we didnt need all that testing as it was gone! Our soil sample from the same people who quoted the £1900 came to £300 + vat. Timing can save you money. If you have to dig down any depth wait to get your sample and foundation calcs done until you are down to the depth you need to be. We used MBC and it was fine for our foundation calcs.

Thanks thats great.

Get one now while you are building its much easier. We dont have a mortage either but we took a Premier Guarantee as you never know and if you want to sell its much easier. I think you might struggle to find a lender after the build without one and undoubtedly it will cost you more.

Great thanks much appreciated

A bit of a crossover topic as I am thinking of using Everedge on driveway and garden paving/lawn areas. I thought I had seen mention of someone using but can’t locate the thread. Anyone got any views or experience of it?

Not replacing its just they have not sealed them properly so they are leaking at the thresholds.

That looks lovely. Well done.

Following this topic........air pollution is of huge importance to me. I have recorded the BBC programme but not had chance to watch yet. I have a Dyson air purifier in my sitting room. The room is carpeted and has an open fireplace (we have sealed with tape and plastic as best we can). It affects me badly I cannot spend time in the room without the air purifier running. I have the air purifier set to automatic and high air quality so it runs 24/7 according to the air quality it detects. Amazing machine, not cheap but made this rented house bearable for the duration. It has particulate monitors built in and I can see via an app on my phone what the air quality is/was at any given period in the last 7 days. Will watch with interest any more affordable options on monitoring as hopefully at new house MVHR will do the air cleaning side of it.

Ha ha Cpd and thank you for your nice comments. I can assure you that the blue downpipe will shortly be transformed into a perfect rectangular RAL 7016matt powder coated work of art to match our windows and flashings LOL Only have two downpipes on the whole house one at either end of the hidden gutter, I was talked out of having hidden downpipes so have splashed out on lovely ones that will be fit to view.

Hi and welcome. I am doing vertical ‘hit and miss’ fencing to cater for privacy and letting wind through. I am setting this into dwarf brick walls with slim pilliars (or piers never sure which is right) at 4m intervals. This will match our larch cladding which of course will eventually be the horrible grey colour aka silver LOL I had the hit and miss at my last house and we had it stained black. Very effective with planting in front, makes a great foil for the green. Think aluminium might have all sorts of other issues, noise, dents, scratches etc.

Cladding is going very well I am pleased I did a last minutes swerve from cedar to larch. Although you cant see it in this photo with the sun on it we do have a sacrficial coating of new age gris by Silva (we bought pre finished). It looks more grey without the sun directly on it. Still got to sort the leaking Internorm sliders!

@AliG look forward to seeing the optimist in situ! I saw it first in our local Porcelanosa showroom as part of a room set and I was amazed it ran on water, it looked really good set into a ‘bite out’ wall. The safety angle was very persuasive too open flames in a timber framed house LOL Ref the smells from the bio ethanol, I bought from reputable place was assured no odour as that was a concern to me but there was a smell however slight. I must tell you I have a nose like a bloodhound and smell things others wouldnt however OH thought he could detect very slight whiff after burning for an hour or so. He may have been humouring me. They have one in local tearoom and I smell that too no-one else does. Whatever anyone says I could smell it but more importantly my lungs reacted to it and I could not tolerate it. That goes along with the lung condition I have so it wouldnt matter to someone with a healthy respiratory system I’m sure. Looking forward to the optimist no smells whatsoever :-)

Hi and welcome. Love this forum the guys on here are so knowlegeable and so good at sharing all that knowledge. You wont find a better place!

I put one of the bio fuel burners inside the log burner in last house (it was new and unused for burning logs) my breathing cant tolerate smoke or burning of any sort. It was OK, looked good and the bottles of fuel lasted well enough but I gave up on it in the end because of the faint chemical smell from the fuel when burning. I moved it to outside and used as a garden feature where smells didnt bother me as much. In new house I am going for an optimist runs on water great flame effect, no smell and no fire risk, not cheap to buy though but there are no ongoing fuel costs bar a small amount of electricity.

Hi Moira we had our MVHR from Robbens. Its a German system and we chose that after getting quotes from all the usuals (including CVC who were v exo3naive). We really liked their product with the anti bacterial pipes and radial system it was exactly what I wanted plus they offer an upgrade on the vent covers I have gone for some swanky glass ones instead of usual white plastic/metal type. But vents aside their system is top notch and their design service was excellent. We used a recomended installer and also had him do the UFH manifolds (also from Robbens) as well as all our DHW and boiler design and install. He is brilliant. Is based in Shropshire and covers your area. It you want any details on the contacts let me know.

We paid a few hundred for our SE calcs, certainly wouldn't have done it without SE input, far too important in our situation, if it failed it would come down on the house. We had to build a huge retainer right around 2 sides of our plot as house is sunk down and double expense as we wanted a separation between retaining wall and house (we have only 1m at closest point of house to wall) I didnt want house into bank but the retaining wall does form two sides of the garage, We used blocks and concrete and steels and drainage in the bottom. We are retaining about 3m of earth and the wall rises about 3m high beyond that. We did the side that is facing our neighbours garden in brick but our side is block and we will render that. We are on horrible clay. I have pics I can post if any use. I know the whole thing cost about 25k and we have not rendered our side yet. SE was the cheapest part of the operation!

includes the ali boxed edge strip all around we have very deep fascias that sit under that strip its the design of our roof.

Yes supply and fit.

Absolutely no noise it's brilliant and we have certainly had some weather to test it!

Hi Albert We had a complicated 3 part roof with a flattened out upward curve at each end with a flat area between the two curving up bits and this flat area houses the hidden gutter as water runs down the slope from either side into it. For about 280sqm laid with standing seam profiles it was circa 20k and that is laid onto a boarded deck, that price excludes the boarding. We used Fatra in RAL 7012 Lead Grey. Comes with an insurance backed guarantee is BBA certified and I am told it is pretty bomb proof. We have a powder coated aluminium border round the edge of ours as we are not a conventional pitched roof. I saw examples of some done nigh on 20 years ago (the pic of the pointy roofs) that as good today as the day they were done. Cant find a birds eye pic of the finished roof but here are some of construction of roof hidden gutter and one of garage when they were putting putting the profiles on. Having had several metal roofs before I am very happy with this system as an alternative to the metal roof finish. Its a warm roof on an MBC house and we have passive standard sun pipes going through as well (all approved by mbc at design stage). From customer point of view it worked like a dream.

Ha ha I think Peter will be alive to possibilities, he is no slouch! There was much debate before finally settling on this as a solution and it works well enough. We did get ours done in a matt finish I was very clear no gloss on anything, think you are right about gloss being default, we are very modern style and gloss would have been wrong for us. Ours looks to be deeper over the EPS than yours it goes down quite a way and yours perhaps higher up the wall. We are part render (alumasc) and part larch clad with internorm 3g aliclad windows and doors. Did you only have Peter helping you for MBC for that part of your build, are you going it alone for the rest? We have been at it nigh on 2 years now and you look more finished than we do LOL We had a lot of issues to get past. Still getting there on some things but light beginning to appear at the end of the very long tunnel. We are on the Warwks/Worcs border near Stratford upon Avon. On the top of the Ridgeway with clear views across nearly 40 miles to the Malvern Hills and home beyond - I am Welsh but South, don’t know your part of the world at all Derek. Kitchen fitting going on at the mo but outside is a nightmare of mud, groundworks not finished yet.

Derek, Peter Gray is my project manager and the powder coated trim you referto was on my build. Where is your house?

We looked at Tata but decided on smp in the end. We are very exposed and we could bond the rubber down, Ive had metal in the past and with our howling winds thought it to risky. It looks very nice you must be really pleased with it.

Is that a metal roof? It looks very nice. We have the same standing seam finish look on ours but it is single ply membrane not metal looks just the same and less chance of coming home from holiday to find the roof stripped LOL

Perfect thank you