MikeSharp01

Welcome to THE forum - but I guess you knew that otherwise why pop up. Good luck with the project, sounds interesting.

This should be good?

Not sure if there is a standard detail for this but if there is it will require you to block the end of the joist and take the main load underneath the bottom flange.

Yet another monopoly - dont get me started. How about getting a company to do both and just throw your 'as designed' away or perhaps theirs if you can see the traceability back to your original. It won't be that different I suspect. Our predesign SAP was done by email passing of documents so could have been done anywhere in the UK.

Welcome to THE forum for self builders? Sounds like a fun project looking forward to hearing more and pitching in where I can.

Sadly Dave it already is a computer although I agree the form factor makes using them pretty miserable for this sort of thing. Can I ask where you sourced the panels?

Electrical: Existing is overhead to the plot boandry. Who do we contact? (Local Power network company they will sort the connection to a fuse on your site, then you need an energy company to install the meter, just ask for an account, our new connection from a pole on our land was £800 and the meter was free from our electricity supplier,} Water: I believe it goes under what will be the front of the bungalow: who to contact?{The local water company but if you are building over such a pipe you will need some expensive design work, cheaper to move the house back!, they will give you a price to install a connection to a water meter.} Sewer: I believe the mains is out in the middle of the road: who to contact. {Local Water company again - same issue if building over a pipe.} Telephone/broadband: no idea where this is placed: who to contact? {Just find a provider - Virgin, BT, Sky and they will sort it with Openreach - might not be cheap though depends as there is standard charge but it depend son how far.}

Hi - and welcome to THE forum for self builders. We are building a passive standard house in East Kent and I suspect we now lean rather more with @TerryE than we did when we set out in terms of certification. Our architects are not PH certified bit I decided we could deal with that as we wanted quite an avant guard design from their stable and the PHPP software is not complex to drive after a 1 day course I felt I could probably tackle the main work, avoid the key pitfalls and get it verified by a PH designer.

One wonders, knowing the answer in the back of ones mind, if CGT is reversible, in the sense that recent falls in house values allow you to claim -ve CGT. I doubt they would go for it.

Yes I had not considered that you are now officially in an earthquake zone, so you need to check that your SE has; the relevant experience, has designed with the 1 in 100 year event (or whatever) in mind and PI insurance.

Again not quite true. Screws are not nails they are usually of different materials, have a smaller cross section at the root of the thread, and behave differently to nails in this instance and twist nails are not crude screws.

Not quite true as some holes are for manufacturing purposes so don't need nails and some are for temporary fixing although these are usually left filled anyway, look at the manufacturers data sheet. For Simpson stuff they point out the what the different holes mean (round, diamond, oval, Triangle) and whether they need to be filled or not and under what circumstances.

The manufacturer will give you a nail (so the twisty nails are a must) pattern depending on the load / situation. Think this might point at it albeit from perhaps another manufacturer: https://www.strongtie.com/products/connectors/wood-construction-connectors/technical-notes/face-mount-hanger-loads

That is spanking small crushing Peter.

Watch out for the tax person (used to be a man, now more appropriately gender neutral but still as difficult!) as you will create a second home for yourself and may need to sort that out and there will perhaps be a capital gain crystallising if you are not careful. in your shoes I would be talking to a professional, in my shoes I should be talking to a cobbler.

Welcome to THE forum for self builders and their other halves. Not sure how we can help with your wife. You do need to tell her that this will be a big challenge and perhaps won't go smoothly - you can read any amount of tough news here and you need to be clear with her as there is no point in wrecking your relationship if it all becomes too much.

Yes just get a demolition order and do a bit. That should trigger 'start' back at the council.

+1 dont use kiln dried but there are loads of examples of oak external stairs - they do move and split but provided you get the grain going in the right direction they won't warp too much. It might also depend on the external environment a bit. If it's wet / wooded / north facing then it will very soon grow algi and get slimy which can be a problem. If open / south facing it should be fine. So if using steel with treads you need to watch out for this or buy a jet washer.

There may also be structural issues with plastic which over time might 'flow' if under high and continuous load.

Tidy work, I wondered what the roof work was in one of your posts over the weekend ranting about the weather forecasts!

That is interesting, I just took the house next door as an example of required drainage arrangements and used the part H rules for the BC stuff, seems I could have been much more refined.

How do you work out how many down pipes I wonder.

Impressive - house of the year next year.

Maybe this will become the defacto standard for short range comms and larger meshe's in the consumer space but has its limitations. I am still wondering which will win bluetooth or wifi not sure who is attacking or defending given the space is relatively undeveloped. The bluetooth security in v5 might help but the extended range of v5 makes the security weakness of bluetooth even more of a problem. Lower power demand of bluetooth is always a plus but even v5 limits the data rate to 2mbps IIRC.

You need to be clear on the professional indemnity insurance position here as, if it all falls down, you need someone to pick up the tab.