Crofter

PV is the easy bit. Storage is where it gets expensive. You can run a backup generator and live with the fuel costs of course. £13k split between two houses isn't a show stopper- my connection was £2k for a single house and represents about 5% of my total budget.

Measure that 12v out, both under load and without any load, and maybe see how it behaves when the system is charging as well. But I would expect it to be much more stable than trying to get 12v direct from the battery.

Similarly, it's frustrating for me as a relative young 'un that I have to ask a 'grown up' to tow anything over 750kg for me- even though I have a fair bit of towing experience and get asked by friends to launch boats for them etc.

It might be worth using one of those adapters designed for running laptops etc from a car- DC-DC should be more efficient. Generally designed to output 19v but multi-voltage ones are available. Having said that, on the boat I use an inverter all the time since my 50w solar panel produces far more power than I need so 'waste' isn't an issue, whereas destroying something by trying to run it straight from the battery certainly would be!

A good trailer will hold its value well. You're looking for Ifor Williams or similar. 8x4 is a pretty standard size. Tipping can add significantly to the cost, and will be a bit harder to find. Your tow vehicle is spot on, by the way! If you passed your test after 1997 you'll be restricted to 750kg laden trailer weight, to go above that you'd need to do a test. Driving with a trailer is easy enough with a bit of practise. Ideally, find a big empty space with nobody watching and drive round and round in reverse until you feel you're getting the hang of it.

The 3.5t limit is for the laden trailer, not the train weight. Shortlist of vehicles rated to tow this: - Defender, Range Rover, Disco - LWB Shogun - Nissan Patrol - Grand Cherokee - Fourtrak I happen to remember this because I used to own a 27ft yacht plus trailer, and it was right on the 3.5t limit. So every Discovery owner I ever met became a potential new best friend when I needed to tow it somewhere

Great wee project. Have you had much use out of the hut yet?

Did you mean "<100g" to get zero road tax? FiL's X3 is a pretty decent vehicle, not cheap but tows over two tonnes and surprisingly economical on both fuel and tax. Has the stop-start system which helps in that respect. He won't lend it to me to tow stuff with though, it's far too nice

Get a carvel hull and all will be good, or even better grp! Boats are plummeting in value as more appear on the market- fibreglass doesn't die. The saying goes that a hull is worth nothing, to get the value of the boat you add up the cost of the bits bolted on to it. Bit depressing when you come to sell, mind.

Thanks Dave, I'll look it up.

Wondering if anybody had any preferences or advice on choosing breathable roofing membrane? To be laid directly atop OSB sarking boards, followed by battens, counterbattens, and box profile steel. I plan to lay it vertically so that every joint is battened- this will also be much easier for me as I am likely to be working on my own. Anyway, there seems to be a fair bit of choice available, and the stuff is variously referred to as breather, felt, membrane, etc, which complicates the search somewhat. Finally, is there any advantage to the shiny 'thermo' versions? How would this affect U-values? I presume they don't have any actual insulating properties but is the emissivity different?

It really is a small world

You got me

Thanks, it's been a lot of hard work but this stage is very satisfying. I have decided to put the breather on the front and back walls first (tricky job by yourself in a 30mph wind!), then I will board the roof, then breather on the gables, then finally membrane on the roof. This sequence will work best in terms of working space and how the membranes overlap, I think. I've been loaned a fairly basic scaffold tower (visible in picture above, inside the house) and am hoping that this plus the ladders will be sufficient. But if I find myself in a fankle I might well be looking for more/better scaffolding...

A mate of mine lives in a rented house and runs it as a B&B- pretty lucrative here on Skye. He does this for a living, so must be pocketing most of the B&B income. Don't know how it works out for the landlord. One bonus would be that a prospective B&B operator would have an incentive to keep the place in good fettle, or so you would hope.

We can't leave the back door open because the chickens like to come into the kitchen! Despite me building them a lovely larch clad house to live in. Ideas above their station, I feel.

Try here: https://issuu.com/solotimberframe/docs/self_build_design_advice

I want to tie my rafters down onto the frame using twist straps (already purchased). There are three places that I can put them: - on the inside of the frame, running down the studs. They would then have a sheet of 50mm PIR placed over them, followed by the VCL and then battens which create the service void. So the batten fixings would hit the metal straps and prevent them from being adequately fixed through to the studs. - on the outside of the frame, fixed through the sheathing and onto the studs, either above or below the breather membrane. The first layer of battens then need to be fixed over the top, so again I have the issue of fixings clashing with the metal strap- although at least this time I'm not also working blind through 50mm of PIR. - on the outside of the frame, but on top of the battens. This minimises the clashing of fixings and metalwork (although the counterbattens will need to be able to run over the top)- but is presumably the least strong out of all the options, and would need longer fixings to reach through te batten, sheathing, and into the stud. Any thoughts would be much appreciated!

Thanks for reviving this thread. Just for the record, my eventual design was 42m2 net internal floor space, on a footprint of about 52 m2. I think for a one bedroom dwelling it will feel spacious enough. I won't be cramming it full of bulky furniture. For an object lesson in living in small spaces, it is remarkable how comfortable you can be aboard a boat. I had a mate who lived on a pretty small wooden yacht for a couple of years. The total floor area where he could stand up was probably less than one square metre. Everything has to serve two purposes, and it does force you to be ruthless with what you regard as 'essential'.

96 from me too. It's not as hard as you think, Dave!

SWMBO hates it when I do a dump run, because I usually come back with more than I had!

I'm going to jump right to the current status on site and at some point will go back and fill in the gaps. A summary of major jobs completed to date: - access created - water and electricity on site - septic tank and 'Puraflo' secondary treatment/filtration system installed and signed off by BCO - footprint of house laid with membrane and chips - concrete footings and piers poured - Douglas Fir ring beam installed - JJI joists installed on hangers - All four walls of the frame built and sheathed lying flat, and now lifted and fixed into place - Ridge beam built and installed - Windows delivered and now stored inside building - Rafters cut and installed When you list it like that, it's no wonder I feel like I deserve a cuppa now! So what's left to do? The pressing thing is to get wind and watertight whilst we continue to have good weather. This means installing the sarking, and breather membranes on wall and roof, and the first layer of battens to hold it in place. I will probably then board over the window openings temporarily and crack on with installing the floor. It's a bit lethal working stood on various temporary boards on top of the joists. Once we are wind and watertight, I can start working on the interior, and get on with the cladding on the good weather days. This is the site ready for installation of the ring beam. Ring beam and most of the joists installed Frame starts going up Ridge beam and rafters on- this is as far as I have got so far. It's been fun!

Still trying to work out the best way of doing this. I can think of three options: 1- A ceiling joist at each rafter pair, spanning the building. Nice and easy, simple, and supported by a partition wall part way. But lots of penetrations (16). 2- Run two joists as above, and then run the remaining ceiling joists at 90 degrees to these, i.e. lengthways along the building. Cuts number of penetrations to four. Loses benefit of support from the partition wall so probably need heftier timbers. 3- Fix a high level batten and put the ceiling joists on hangers fixed to that. No penetrations other than the screws, but now the joists are adding little or no strength to the building.

I'm about to start installing the breather membrane onto my timber frame. This will be hung vertically and then fixed via battens every 600. Question- do I fix a horizontal batten at the top and bottom of each window opening?

The ring beam was fun- manually moving and assembling over half a tonne of Douglas fir. Car jacks and ratchet straps were the answer. About 150 coach bolts holding it all together, my 12mm drill bit doesn't know what hit it. I'll do a blog entry showing current status, maybe tomorrow.