Crofter

Maybe I'm being thick, but I haven't seen an option to filter out the collect only stuff. Yes you can search by distance but that generally just shows me that the nearest thing of any interest is in Glasgow. I suppose it's only about a twelve hour round trip, what am I complaining about

It just upsets me when I see things going for peanuts because they're invariably hundreds of miles away. I wish eBay allowed you to filter searches by whether the seller is collect-only or not.

My seconds stuff was mostly fine, but some had big voids under the paper, some were undulating on one side where the foam looked like it hadn't fully risen, and some was noticeably thin- 40mm rather than 50mm.

Sometimes you just have to see the building for real before you can understand how the space works. I had a major internal redesign- switched to open plan- after I'd already boarded out the perimeter walls and fixed the positions of every door, window, the flue, and the services. No regrets whatsoever. In a similar vein, I have yet to choose a worktop for the kitchen, and am going to put up the carcasses/fronts soon, so that I can have a couple of weeks to get used to the colours and make a decision. It's nice to have the luxury of time to do these things.

My plasterer was £150 a day and promised me that he would do the whole place in five days- if it took longer, no extra charge. Top bloke tbh, wish he was based up here but he was just passing through and I was really lucky to hear about him when I did. As with Dave and Jason, a skim finish is almost unheard of here. The SSE guys fitting my supply the other day said that they visit virtually every new build in the area and this was the best finish they'd seen.

Through ignorance I bashed on and got everything plastered without lining the door openings first. Can't see any problems with it, certainly the plasterer never commented on having to work to a free edge. I sized my openings 45mm larger all round to account for linings at about 33mm, which seems to be a standard size, plus some wiggle room for packers. A 76mm architrave should hide everything.

The insulation price increases are apparently due to a fire and shutdown of a factory. And of course the drop in value of Sterling has an effect too. I found Seconds and Co to be extremely competitive, although I don't know what their current prices are like. And I had to settle for paper faced boards. If I'd been able to get foil faced then I could maybe have skipped the tedious VCL stage.

Missed this post until today- this is a very good point! Yet another thing to look into. It's never ending...

One of my misgivings about PH is that it measures energy usage per m2, and doesn't value low usage in absolute terms. So you end up with the situation where it can be necessary/advantageous to include basements etc in the heated envelope, since it pushes up the measurable area. It also increases the actual total energy use, which is at odds with the whole point of the scheme. We don't judge our cars this way- we simply measure mpg, not mpg per tonne, or per seat.

Well that's a slight overstatement. They can throttle, but the lowest setting still isn't low enough to hover- the thrust to weight ratio is always more than one. So there is some margin for adjustment but, yes, the basic point remains. You've got to hit the brakes at pretty much the right time. It actually saves quite a bit of fuel compared to hovering, and makes the vehicle less susceptible to cross winds.

Doors always allow you to plane a bit off each edge, the amount varies quite a bit between manufacturers but should be easily available information.

If it's just some ridges on an otherwise level surface, they should shift pretty easily (hammer and bolster) whilst the concrete is still green. It's not ideal but maybe the guy knew that it was better to leave them than to try and do another pass. Bit like the way you shouldn't pick a fly off wet paint. If thr whole slab is uneven, that's a totally different story...

Aren't lipped doors designed to be used in pairs?

Excuse my ignorance, but how/why do you end up on HSE's radar? I'm past the dangerous stage now but I bet my singlehanded roof build using nothing but a ladder and a couple of ropes would have raised a few eyebrows. Was hard enough to keep SWMBO from shutting me down...

Is there any weight on it?

Edinbane. Thought about moving to Staffin but single track road + tourists was enough to put us off that idea! Lovely area though.

I should confess to being an absolute space geek. And I think it was dim childhood memories of the Voyager encounters at Uranus and Neptune that started it all off. These days I get excited about the dawning of reusabiity and, hopefully, the boom in space industries that will follow. And watching a rocket fly backwards through its own plume is pretty cool anyway (for those who haven't watched one yet, SpaceX are launching a DOD payload in a couple of days time, watch the webcast, the landing footage should be amazing).

Don't worry, according to the article all the houses will have "high thermal mass" so that's alright then!

Ok I'm drawing a blank here on finding a list of meter suppliers/installers. There's supposed to be a list on Ofgem's website but they've hidden it extremely well. Being the stingey git that I am, I don't like just picking up the phone to the most obvious supplier, if there's money to be saved by going elsewhere. But maybe SSE are the only game in town anyway? And does this mythical list exist, or is it a case of wasting half a day phoning individual electricity companies?

A what now?

I guess so! Hopefully I can get a shorter section than the full 2m.

:blush: well I did wait until the light was crap before taking any photos The guys from SSE were saying what a smart finish I'd got- can't take credit for the plasterer's work though. Said they see every new house on Skye and this was the best finish they'd seen. The flooring is on the dark side but I think it will look pretty classy against the white walls and ceilings.

Just a quick update seeing as I had the camera on me. As always, not as much progress as I would have liked- I was away from the build for a lot of August, but it's good to come back to it refreshed. The painting is finally finished (that seemed to take an age), the WC is temporarily installed, and the woodburner is up and running- I'll do a separate entry for that, at some point. The overhead beams are now sanded back and sealed with Osmo Polyx oil- I'll use the same stuff on the windowsills. The trickiest part of doing the beams has been installing the spotlights, with some very careful drilling to feed the wiring through from above. These beams are tied into the rafters so any mistakes would just have to be filled as best I could, and serve as a reminder forever more. Today's task was to start on the flooring, which is carbonised strand woven bamboo. I am bonding this down so, again, little room for error. I decided that rather than start at one wall, I would mark a straight line up the middle of the floor, through the big connecting door, and then screw down a batten. This becomes my starting line and ensures that the flooring will tie up as it moves from bedroom to living room. I wa worried that if I'd started at the wall, then when the two sections of floor met up at the doorway I could find myself a few mm out. I have no idea if what I'm doing is common practise but it seems to make sense to me! I didn't get as far as bonding down anything yet today, as the floor turned out to be a lot dirtier than I realised, and I've spent all day on my knees with a sander removing blobs of paint and plaster. A few quid spent on some dust sheets would have been a good investment... oh well, I'll know for next time

Just to update, SSE came round and were quite happy with what they found. They did stick their own bit of board over my double layer of OSB. Sorry for poor photo- it's on a cupboard with no lighting. They did say I ought to shield the cable with something, but it's just PB behind it so I can't just stick on any old thing. They mentioned there was some sort of self adhesive guarding available. Now I have my MPAN, so any tips on choosing a supplier? I want to have E7 if that makes any difference.

It's early days yet- lots of decisions ahead. Agree that electric could be good. It would be a fairly small setup (maybe 2 showers max) and for summer use only, so incoming temp ought to be reasonable. And any sort of shower must feel like luxury if you've just woken up in a yurt, surely?