Crofter

Ideally it would be arranged to be a snug fit between the washing machine and the wall, and all the plumbing would be on the front. Of course, like you, I have the luxury of building the walls around the tank. I was looking at the Telford 200l model- at 554mm diameter, it would be pretty damn tight next to a full size washing machine (cupboard is nominally only 1100mm but I can push it to 1200mm without any problems... more than that could get tricky).

Welcome to the forum. Nice to see someone else building a more 'normal' sized house- makes me feel slightly less like the poor relation with my 43m2 project! Just to add another option to the mix on your roof build, I've gone for a sort of hybrid approach with a reasonably hefty ridge beam (but nowhere near as hefty as Dave's) and then collar ties on about every fourth pair of rafters. This leaves a lot of open space but is still plenty strong enough to prevent wall spread. This is all helped by my roofing material, which is corrugated steel- I would highly recommend this if there is any chance of getting it agreed to by planning, as it is light, meaning easier roof construction, cheap, and was really quite fast to install. In fact I'm so impressed by it that I would seriously consider doing at least some of the walls in corrugated steel as well, if I build again.

I suppose it's one of those things that largely depends on your ground conditions. I had ordered hundreds of pounds worth of pea gravel to bed the septic tank in, but the groundworks guy insisted that the native material was absolutely fine- a sort of friable, crumbly rock- and got me to cancel the order. Seeing as he has installed dozens of tanks locally and has a very good reputation I decided to trust him. Where are you sourcing the stone? It's far cheaper to get it direct from a quarry than it is to buy bagged from the BM.

My house was built on a department of agriculture grant in the 70s. It isn't even taped and filled- they simply painted over the plasterboard. Some of the rooms have been papered, but you can still lie in bed and count nail heads as you drift off.

How much space do I need to leave around a UVC? I'm trying to see if I can squeeze the UVC in beside the washing machine in the same cupboard. Oh and size of UVC... a plumber I spoke to reckoned I ought to go all out and get a 200l tank... give people nice long hot showers... I thought that seemed a bit excessive for a one bedroom house! Sizing guidelines I've read online suggest that sort of size for a four bedroom house.

Erm, there's a bunch of stuff there that I don't really understand! My knowledge of door linings is that you have the liner and then you fix the stop onto it. Stop has to be movable to some degree so you can get everything lined up properly. Anything more than that is going to need further explanation, sorry...

No worries- haven't bought the tapes yet. I'll need to get hold of the guy and sort these sorts of details out methinks.

Cheers. I was assuming that the deeper fills would need done in layers and the time would start to rack up. I guess I'll leave the outside corners to do as well, with that nifty foil tape that someone on here suggested.

Thanks. Haven't chased up any prices on it yet- how might it compare to softwood (c.£30/door) and solid oak (c.£100/door). The doors will be veneered themselves so it might not be a bad match. I'm a wee bit reluctant to spend a fortune on the linings in particular when so much of them is hidden much of the time.

Yes perhaps if I go softwood it's a case of painting them white. Actually having browsed through some of the catalogs I see plenty of oak doors in white liners/arcs and it doesn't look too shabby at all. I would prefer oak throughout but simply have not budgeted enough for that. Some of the suppliers offer oak veneered MDF- any experience of this? I can't help thinking of the cheap foil veneered stuff you get in kitchens etc but if it is real wood veneer presumably it's a bit better than that.

Useful threads, thanks to everyone who has contributed. If I can just hijack it a bit- I'm starting building my partitions this week and need to consider the door linings. I'm going with oak veneer doors, probably a daft question here but I take it I should really be using oak on the door linings, stops, arcs, skirts, as well? Or, for the lining at least, can I get away with softwood suitably stained/treated?

Thanks Jamie, just spotted this. I may have a friend of a friend lined up to do the skim coat at mates rates. I'm guessing it might be a good idea for me to tape and fill first to save time though.

Welcome aboard! Don't get worried about being overwhelmed. Just break the project into manageable chunks, package off things that can be delegated, and take it one step at a time. And don't be afraid to ask questions along the way- you're unlikely to face a totally unique problem. Probably best to start a few different threads in the relevant forum sections about the concerns you've mentioned, otherwise this thread could get a bit rambling. What are your plans for accomodation between the knock down and the build?

Thanks for that link- I wonder what they will charge me for delivery though... Anybody got experience of doors from B&Q, TP, etc? If I go through to Inverness I would have a few more options. Or maybe it will just be Jeldwen everywhere. @AliG that's a good point about the size of the double doors. I might find in practise that the doors simply stay open most of the time, in which case smaller doors are better as they would intrude into the room less. The French door I fitted in my last house was only 1200 wide and we got on fine using one half of that, but then again I am pretty skinny.

I'm going to start framing my partitions this week so have to make the final decision on door sizes. Thanks to my last minute change of layout, I now only have three to worry about. First up is the door into the cupboard. I could go for a single here but would prefer double for easier access. So looking at standard sizes it appears 2x450 or 2x610 or thereabouts. Don't really want this door to work out larger than the bedroom door which is on the same wall. Secondly, the French doors into the bedroom. Width negotiable, but thinking around 1200-1300 wide, any wider loses me wall space for the bedroom furniture. These need to look the part as they will be very prominent in the house. Third, the door to the en-suite- nothing fancy about this one. Obviously I need to get a range that matches. Need a reasonably up-market finish so avoiding white or softwood finishes. I've installed a French door set from Wickes before and really wasn't that impressed by the quality- veneer delaminating and a few other issues. I guess the easy option is Jeld-Wen as that is no doubt stocked by by local BMs (Jewson, Rembrand, Howdens). I've heard less than glowing reports about their windows so wondering if I should consider anything else? I need to make the decision ASAP so I know the sizes, but I could put off the actual purchase for a while, if it's worth looking elsewhere.

Why should we expect to? We are currently devouring an unsustainable resource that has already been paid for in millions of years of growth by long dead organisms. Changing over to a renewable based system is always going to end up costing more. At the very least, with hydrogen you not just have to store and distribute the stuff, you have to actually manufacture it, putting in more energy than you get out.

The existing hydrocarbon infrastructure seems pretty efficient and competitive- if we can get a hydrogen infrastucture to operate the same way, that would be a good thing.

I do hope that the future involves distributed generation and storage, linked to the use of electric vehicles as part of that storage solution. Most private cars spend the vast majority of the time not actually going anywhere. So you just need to grid connect them whenever they are parked up. Smart appliances that can run whenever the grid has excess capacity should also be part of the solution. People can be incentivised by the correct pricing structure, but it will take a bit of a culture shift to get people to really plan ahead and do things like load their dishwasher and washing machine ahead of time. And personally I'm not a huge fan of using price incentives to achieve these sorts of aims, as people don't change their behaviour based on small costs.

Re: space-based mirrors for increasing the output of PV arrays on the ground. Never say never, but I just can't see how this stacks up. The mirror has to be considerably larger than the area of arrays on the ground, to make up for all the losses involved (albedo of the reflective material, angle of incidence, beam divergence). Keeping the beam parallel and aimed at the ground array would be a serious feat of engineering, especially considering the space element would presumably be a huge lightweight mylar sheet, perhaps spin-stabilised to maintain tension. It would have to be extremely lightweight for its size, due to launch costs (currently around £20,000 per kg, although this could fall by a factor of ten if Elon Musk's plans work out. Still pricy). From a safety point of view, a tiny degree of convergence in the beam could cause it to focus all that energy on a small area with harmful consequences- although it would probably be quite unlikely to happen by accident. However if we have the technology to keep the beam parallel, we probably can also focus it accurately. A scary thought.

Are the openings just roughed out in the frame? I would just knock up some panels from OSB and 2x4. Go for 18mm and it'll be sturdy as anything. Make seven of them lockable from inside and that leaves only one that needs a good hasp/staple on it, and a big padlock.

I found these details surprisingly hard to pin down, and the best approach was to actually phone the guys who were going to do the job(s). If you have a groundworks contractor they will probably be able to keep you right. Safest approach is to dig it deep enough for the water, that has to be deepest for frost protection (up here anyway- might be different down south)- from memory this was 700mm. Electric shouldn't need ducted unless it is going under a road or close to the surface. I had to lay a bit of ducting where it went under my driveway and initially the guys were not happy about using a duct that they hadn't themselves laid. Their fears were partly justified as we had a right job getting the cable through- I guess a stone might have partly crushed the duct at some point. I don't know how close I came to them calling it off and wanting the whole thing dug up again, which would have been pretty annoying seeing as there wasn't a machine on site at the time.

Don't forget eBay as well- I got my twin pack from a German seller on there. They offered free postage to the Highlands, unlike most sellers in England

I've got 4ah Makita batteries and see no need to go any bigger. It makes the tool heavier anyway. I go whole days without charging them, if it's just drill and driver use, although the saw and the grinder make more of a dent. I would probably have been better off with three smaller batteries instead of the two 4ah ones that I have- the other day I was doing a job that needed the saw, the drill, and the driver, and had to keep swapping a battery over

I would just use a normal circ saw set to the appropriate depth, and a multitool to finish off at the corners. Curious to see if there's a better way, though.

Nope, it's not temporary- that's quite a different adjective and presumably legal definition. It is moveable/portable that we are talking about here. By my understanding, it's simply a case that a line has to drawn somewhere between a caravan* and a house. *or mobile home, site hut, shipping container, SORNed Winebago, landlocked narrowboat, etc.