Crofter

Just on the off chance that you might have been offered the services of a passing plasterer, and had to skim everything before the sparky had finished, leaving some wires curled up behind the boards... would a stud detector be useful in finding them again? (asking for a friend, obviously...)

I'm presuming the right/best paint to go straight over the plaster will not be the same stuff that I want as the final surface. There's a bamboozling amount of choice out there! How do people find the coverage guides? If it says e.g. 12m2/litre, is it generally best to assume it will only actually give you, say, 10m2? Washable/scrubbable paint as a final coat is certainly the plan. We've got some 'wipeable' paint on the bathroom here and it's great- I think that one had some sort of antifungal properties too, and certainly doesn't show any signs of getting mouldy. If I stick to my favoured vendor, Toolstation ("the pound shop of the building trade") then my choices seem to be: - Leyland Trade Acrylic Eggshell ('10 times tougher than conventional matt and silk') - Leyland Trade Hardwearing Matt (washable, scrubbable, extremely durable... stain and moisture resistant) - Leyland Trade Vinyl Matt Emulsion (smooth, hard-wearing, durable... wipeable finish) The quantities I'm talking about aren't enormous, and as I'm doing the work myself I'm happy to pay a bit extra for something that's easier to apply and/or longer lasting.

Probably not worth it for a DIY job on a small house, I think? Yes I was assuming that painting fresh plaster might have certain requirements. The plasterer suggested simply a watered down base coat, but he's no decorator. I've only ever painted onto paper before. Thanks for all the suggestsions- Toolstation have some Leyland trade stuff at reasonable prices. I've also got a paint shop locally so will see what they stock.

It's almost certainly a gross oversimplification to state that the materials were illegal. What appears to have happened is that the way that these materials were combined, including the scale and height, led to a fundamental change in the building's fire risk, and that insufficient regard was paid to that. The fact that the fire advice remained 'stay in your flat' shows how poorly thought out this project was. It would have cost almost nothing to change that advice. Whilst that change alone would probably only have made a reduction in fatalities, and not been able to save everyone, it is IMHO indicative of major failings in the overall project management.

Plasterer is finishing on site tomorrow and I'm quite excited about getting the paintbrushes out! I'm going to be very boring and just go for white everywhere, at least for the first few coats. Seems to make sense to do this now, before moving on to flooring etc. I'll have to see what's available locally, but in general are there any brands or types I should be looking for, or avoiding?

I agree that £5k seems completely in the noise against a £2.9m project, and said as much in my post. Hence I mentioned that perhaps it wasn't a straight swap and that there could have be other factors at play. For source data, you'll have to ask R4, they reported it.

It was asserted by John Humphries on the Today program, this morning, that the extra cost of fire resistant cladding would have been only £5000. No source given for that and it sounds very low given the cladding was a £2.9m job. It would also be interesting to see if an alternative material would have been a straight swap, or if it would have had downsides (e.g. heavier, more difficult to fix, shorter lifespan, etc). But if true, it adds to the mounting body of evidence that this was a wholly preventable tragedy.

There was a piece about Grenfell on Inside Science yesterday.

It's well known that the Space Shuttle's solid rocket boosters were fueled by powdered aluminium bound into a resin with an oxidiser. It's extremely reactive stuff, so reactive that it forms an oxidised layer very rapidly and this leads us to consider it durable and not prone to corrosion. Fire safety is likely not a strong point of timber cladding. My build is single storey with means of escape windows in every room, but on a larger build I would think more carefully about the fire risk.

Gun every time! Best £7 I ever spent on eBay. Have no idea how long I've left it between uses, can on, and it's been fine. Did bugger up my first two guns in quick succession by cross-threading a can. Stupidly tried to use that same can on the new gun cos it looked fine, but obviously it wasn't. D'oh!

It used to be common to home-complete sailing boats. You would buy in the fibreglass hull with as little or as much of the remaining items included and/or installed- engine and rig, generally- but then fit out the rest yourself. So lots of cutting plywood to build up the cabin interior, home-made cooking and electrical systems, etc. It allowed people to spread the cost of the purchase, and enjoy sailing their boat as soon as possible. Fast forward to today, and that market has all but vanished. You can still buy kits and plans for little plywood dinghies, but the average cruising yacht is now built in a largely automated factory. Components are CNC machined, the entire cabin is built and dropped into the hull before the deck goes on. Metal plates are glassed into the mouldings and a CNC milling machine taps mounting points for hardware, all to millimetre precision, working directly off the plans. The result is lighter, cheaper, faster builds. Arguably one of the reasons that the UK boatbuilding industry went under is because they were too slow to embrace the march of technology, and the French and Germans now dominate the market. All of this being a rather diversionary way of saying- I agree with @SteamyTea that you can't just assume that self-build will automatically work out cheaper.

@MikeSharp01 some interesting points there. You mention the need for a national level of control to counter the distortion of housing and land values by overseas investors. This same effect happens at local levels too, though. In many parts of rural Scotland (and I'm sure other places as well) the housing market is distorted by money coming in from outside. In an area with low average earnings, houses and land naturally have to be cheap- but then they get snapped up as holiday or retirement homes by people coming in from stronger economic areas. So essentially it is the same problem: the cost of a house must reflect the economics of the local area. If these factors are not matched, houses end up as investments.

Added a dishwasher- although it's a Siemens, but that's not a bad thing! Well under budget for now, which leaves me able to consider a brand new hob, possibly induction if it's a cheaper brand. Hotpoint induction vs Bosch ceramic... hmmm....

You appear to have somewhat glossed over the fact that this is a letter to the paper, not a column or editorial. I agree with you that the viewpoint is almost certainly deliberately provocative. The underlying assertion that wealth is becoming too bound up in the hands of a small number of people is true. It is leading to economic stagnation. Low interest rates are leaving the capital-rich with nothing to invest in except property, and unfortunately this impacts others people's lives. I don't have an answer to it, but I would assert that speculation-driven land price inflation is a problem that has to be tackled before housing can become more affordable.

@Ian That is not shabby at all! Far better than the vast majority of houses, I would think. I wonder sometimes if we get carried away with energy use per m2 rather than actual useage per dwelling- the PassivHaus system lends itself to making bigger houses. We don't consider our cars to be more economical if they use less diesel per tonne of car, do we?

This may not work for the OP, but is it feasible to use an electric vehicle as a battery bank? Obviously you would need a small bank that stayed at the house, but in theory when the car is home, the people are home too. Lots of usage patterns that would prevent this from working (e.g. if you always get home after a long commute with a flat battery in the evening) but equally for some people it may work out. And the battery bank on wheels would be taxpayer subsidised...

I'm 43m2 single storey. Still went with MVHR primarily because the site is quite exposed and in my existing house, just over the road, I am forever opening and closing trickle vents as the wind goes from zero to howling gale. You can't just leave them closed, because the windows run with condensation and the frames grow black mould. But you can't leave them open because of the noise and the heat loss. By the way, I seriously considered using a single room unit instead- you might want to consider that as it would be a much less intrusive installation.

It's not just a theoretical or regs-meeting thing: if you don't have some sort of ventilation, you'll end up with mould and condensation at best, and increased CO/CO2 levels at worst, MVHR costs are obviously highly dependent on size of house and specification level. Just to give a data point, I spent about £750 on a fairly well equipped unit (auto bypass, control via humidity, timer, etc) albeit on a very small house. I think for average sized houses people spend in the region of £2k, so in the scheme of a large house build it needn't be an enormous cost.

Sorry to hear that. Other fish in the sea though. Was it a case of no develoment whatsoever, or more that you would have been forced to build something you didn't want/need? Best of luck with the next one!

What about straw bale? Depending on your attitude, and the proximity of other buildings, the fire risk might not be an issue for a building in which nobody is supposed to be sleeping- you just take the risk. But the loss of floor area would be a big deal, and the building would no longer be dismantlable.

I doubt that a DIY SIP panel would be cost effective. The guys who churn these out all day are set up with the right supply chains and equipment. Unless your own version was going to be in some way different, I don't see where the saving is. A bit like saying you could make your own paving slabs, or concrete blocks. I actually tried making my own I-joists, as I figured I could save some money and it might be fun. The first one was fun as a sort of curiosity, but after finishing the second one I tallied up the cost so far and projected it for the remaining joists- and gave up and bought them in. Cost of saw blades and glue were adding up rapidly, and confidence in the finished product was nowhere near what it would be if bought in ready-made. That's before factoring in my time. The cost of JJI joists was nowhere near high enough to make a DIY alternative viable.

@PeterW How would you compare VictoriaPlum and Soak? I prefer the range at Soak but can get something very similar at VP. Their delivery charge is suspiciously similar too- any chance these companies are linked in any way?

Steel cladding would always be vertical, so you would want to counter-batten. I paid £10/m2 for my roofing material- 0.7mm thick with 200 micron PVC coating, 20yr guarantee. That's what I based my BOTE prices on. You could go with 0.5mm and a simple galvanised finish and knock a fair chunk off that, if you wanted.

That's very interesting- the SIPS price of £1199 compares to £790 for my BOTE stick build when comparing the same build elements. Not that much of a markup considering the much better performance and quicker build time. A more detailed costing might drop the price slightly, I've just used gross areas and rounded up where appropriate. If you have large openings for doors/windows then that will be a significant difference to the materials needed.

Here's my take. Floor: Suspended 6x2 joists at 400ctrs (£100), filled with rockwool (£30); 9mm OSB underfloor layer (£20); chipboard on top (£50)= £200 Walls: 2x4 studs, 150m tot (£300), filled with rockwool (£65), with 9mm OSB sheathing outside (£70) and plasterboard inside (£50)= £485 Wall cladding: battens/ounterbattens (£30); corrugated steel= <£300 Ceiling/roof: 2x4 joists at 600 ctrs (£40) filled with rockwool (£20), plasterboard under (£15), 11mm OSB over (£30), then final roof covering- see below Total structure- £1120 To add to this: vapour barrier (probably <£50); windows/doors (Gumtree?); wall breather membrane (under £100); sundries like fixings, joist hangers etc; final roof covering. EPDM would be a good option, but you'd need to arrange a ventilation space. Could use more steel, at a cost of under £100, plus a bit for the battening etc, and would need to arrange sufficient slope. Insulation is obviously pretty minimal in this design- especially on the roof- this could be improved greatly by visiting secondsandco to get a load of cheap PIR to line out one side of the wall/ceiling buildup.