Crofter

Presumably far more expensive too!

If it's already on, don't paint it. As the wood expands and contracts you'll end up with little lines at the joins.

Yup I'd expect the colour to be a planning condition. Otherwise you could paint it bright pink. Or add a flag of your choice. Etc.

Does that mean stainless? That's the advice I followed on my larch and it still looks good nearly ten years on.

Having seen the view including the gable, definitely go for the natural wood colour. I'm surprised this isn't a planning condition though?

I would use blocks of PIR offcuts to get that 50mm standoff, and cut your slabs approx 5-10mm undersize, then use low expansion foam applied with a proper gun, to fill the gaps and hold in place. I don't see how you could guarantee the 50mm gap if you were filing with any sort of wool. And the u value would be a lot worse.

Welcome aboard!

Interesting. Did the trusses at either end of the ridge beam need to be doubled up?

Good progress. How is your roof constructed? It looks like it's neither trusses nor a cut roof with ridge and rafters.

You've gone up in the world! I'm in the States at the moment where the choice is either watery insipid light lagers, or ridiculously over-hopped hipster IPA.

Nice to see you back on here. I always just use a trowel to mix small batches, or a shovel in a barrow for bigger ones. I don't think the mixing is as critical with mortar as it is with plaster, just give it a good shoogle round until it's homogenous and you can't see any cement or sand on its own . I don't see any reason why a paddle wouldn't work though.

Interesting, thanks. So it looks like I don't have to reinvent the wheel here. Quite a lot to get my head round. That's tonight's bedtime reading sorted...

We've got a couple of properties, one used solely for holiday lets, the other is our primary residence but used for holiday lets when we're not in it ourselves. I'd like to fit both properties with EV chargers. We expect our next vehicle to be electric, and obviously over the coming years it will be advantageous to our bookings to be able to offer charging. Question is- how should I go about this? I don't really want to just fork out for two chargers and then watch my bills go up as people use them for free. There's no great incentive for me to do that. So the two questions are: 1- can I install a charger and be able to bill the user for the electricity they use? 2- is there any sort of funding available to make this whole project more attractive?

I was 37 and working as a fish farmer during our previous build. Doing the house felt like a holiday compared to my job 😂 I'll be ten years older and a coming from a more sedentary lifestyle during the next one. I expect it's going to feel a lot harder!

Yes, that was one of his election pledges wasn't it? I'm amazed that he has any politically credibility whatsoever after reneging on that. The Tories actually proposed this many years ago, and it struck me as a very sensible and progressive thing to do. I suppose I'm politically a bit of a utilitarian- the greatest happiness for the greatest number. A family's annual holiday in the sun means a lot more to them than some rich person's fifth such trip that year. Obviously the idea never made it anywhere near being a manifesto pledge, let alone a law. France have the right idea with their switch to trains for all travel under two hours. But then again they have a functioning rail system, not a privatised mess like us.