jack

Ouch!

I personally suspect that for at least some people, architect bashing falls into the general basket of undervaluing industries where the product doesn't always reflect, to the untrained eye, the amount of knowledge, experience, and indeed graft that's involved in generating it. A friend is a graphic designer and is regularly turned down for design jobs because she's "far too expensive". She's highly experienced, does brilliant work, and is flexible and easy to work with. She makes an average of maybe £20 an hour! I wonder what people think is a reasonable price to pay?

Many of us appreciate your input Ian, and most of us don't think all - or even most - architects are tossers. There are unfortunately a number of people who seem to take pleasure in denigrating architects at every opportunity. I genuinely don't know where the animosity comes from, but there seems to be some sort of pride in putting down architects or proving that there's something about building that they don't have deep expert knowledge about. Perhaps these critics are great at all aspects of designing buildings themselves, or don't care about design or function enough to care, or have had a bad experience. I don't know, but it's no excuse for rudeness. All the architects I've met have appeared to be very hard working people who almost certainly didn't get paid anything like as much as most other people who've spent a similar amount of time in education and training. Of the roughly 10 architects we met before we built our house, one was a tosser. He was actually probably pretty good at his job, but I found him arrogant and would have found it difficult to work with him. Every other person we met seemed excellent, and we were utterly torn as to which one to choose. 1 in 10 being a tosser seems to be about right for people in general. In the end, we made a mistake. We went with one architect, only to find at our next meeting that the architect we interviewed was now going to be the "second" on the project due to where he was based. We met the new person, and she seemed okay. As it turned out, she was fine to work with (ie, not a tosser), but we didn't like what she designed after several attempts and versions. In the end, we agreed to pay them for what they'd done and parted company amicably. The guy we ended up getting to do the work was great. The house isn't perfect, but I believe most of the imperfections or shortcomings relate to things that we pushed ourselves.

Doors beside the extractor?

Jesus, how many of you are using these things? During the peak of our build (max number of people onsite) in summer, the toilet was utterly dire by the end of each week. Maybe they don't use much solution in the serviced ones, so it deteriorates faster.

The "no rails" thing has happened several times on Grand Designs. I've always assumed they installed something for sign-off and then removed it. I particularly remember this one by Kathryn Tyler in Cornwall. We stole a few ideas from that house, but not the rail-less stairs!

If it's the same as the one in my pics above, the washer is tapered so that it wedges into the gap between the telescoping pipes. Tightening the screw ring pushes the wedge tighter into the gap between the telescoped parts to seal the joint. The pipes are actually a reasonable friction fit on mine - the outer pipe has a slight flair to its inner edge at its end, to make space for the seal to wedge in. I've measured, and inner diameter of the seals I have is about 39/40mm. I'm happy to send you what I've got, but it'd be good to know that there's a chance it'll actually fit before I head off to the post office. Why don't you measure it up when you get the chance and let me know.

@daiking - BUMP!

But it's just about impossible to be a builder and turn over less than the £83,000 VAT threshold. Just paying two tradespeople full time for a year will take them to that level, even without buying any materials. How much of a house will two trades build, even if the client were to buy the materials? And that's assuming no profit for the builder. Any full-time "builder" who's not VAT registered is likely to be taking liberties with the tax system. A project manager who works on your behalf and has you paying all the bills may be able to avoid the threshold, but as discussed, it does raise some liability and compliance issues.

From memory, the VAT threshold is around £80k. I'd be very worried about a main contractor who isn't managing turnover of that order. Is he actually a main contractor though, or just a project manager? What's really happening, almost certainly, is that you're paying his sub contractors cash so they and/or the main contractor can avoid tax and other charges/costs. He isn't employing them, either formally or on a contract basis. You probably aren't either, although the danger is that if something goes wrong, there'll be an argument that you have to win to avoid being responsible for all sorts of costs and penalties. I'd be concerned about engaging a main contractor who's proposed this, even if he/she agreed to change the arrangement into something more conventional.

From memory, Howdens have a sale every October and they're pushed by the people upstairs to turn stock over. Make them a silly offer.

@daiking, I've got a brand new set of grey pipework that came with our Franke sink (plumbers just left it in the bag): It appears to have black versions of those clear tapered washers. Happy to mail the washers to you if they're the right size. What's the outer diameter of the pipework?

What is "policy 22"? Unless you're in the countryside, I can't see why the difference in size is relevant. We went from an 89m2 bungalow to a 290m2 house with attached double garage. We were surrounded by large houses though, and we're on a good size block, so the new house was perfectly appropriate. What're the houses around you like, and is your block big enough to comfortably take a house of the planned size?

Welcome. Sounds like a nice project. We definitely need some pics though!

150mm seems like huge overkill. Are you allowed to bury it before they arrive? If so, just drill the ends they can see! I can't imagine the guys doing the installation will care anyway, as long as they can get the pipe through easily.

Yes, they mention the 6 amp issue somewhere on the website I think. Fair enough, but you aren't trying to run a business off the back of your unit! Also, this unit will have a government subsidy associated with it for many installations. We all know what impact that has on the price of such things.

Brought to you by the people who designed the Immersun - basically the equivalent of an Immersun for EV charging: http://myenergi.uk/product/zappi/ They also do a version of the Immersun that's called something else, which can apparently communicate with the Zappi so you can set priorities.

This assumes no return on the £100 taken as a lump sum.

Perhaps I've been unlucky (and I certainly lack detailed knowledge), but I had trouble with an unmanaged switch when I last tried to use one. Admittedly that was probably 15-20 years ago. On that basis, and for the sake of a few metres of extra cable, I'll take separate outlets on the wall in preference to yet another device to keep plugged in and to go wrong!

I'm sure his boss wants to see happy customers and his employees spending only as much time on each inspection as they need to. Sounds like this guy's fallen short on both counts.

WTAF? Was it the agent that was disinterested and/or Internorm themselves? Were locks specified on the window schedule or other docs?

Yes, the map is by ward, so even within each region there'll be variance. I think we're technically in one ward by way of historical accident. We're at the end of the last road in a suburban area. Until about 50 years ago, our end of the road wasn't made up and was considered part of the adjacent rural area. It's since been made up and adopted, and become part of the suburban area. We're still in the adjacent rural ward though, because they didn't change the boundaries

Sounds like absolute bollocks to me. Unless he's a suitably certified electrician, what qualifications does he have to be inspecting an electrical installation anyway? If it's getting out of hand, I think the only thing you can do is get your knowledge straight (eg, find some official sources of why what he's asking for is out of order), and then have an open conversation with him about it. Explain that you're not a developer, but a self-builder doing the very best job you can to make your house compliant with (and indeed beyond) the minimum required by buildings regs, and that his demands are impacting your ability to keep momentum going onsite. Maybe explore where he gets the idea that he should be inspecting electrical work, for example, or querying the use of approved building materials such as SIPs. I think the danger with piecemeal communications based on particular instances (eg, your text to him about electrical work) is that they don't go to the heart of the problem, and may be interpreted by him as something to be suspicious about. Good luck, however you choose to tackle it. Exactly what happened with us. I was stunned when our (private) inspector took a five minute poke around after first fix (actually, electrics weren't even half finished, from memory) and then said he'd be back once everything was completed.

Re: satellite cable choice, have a read here (same site mentioned above): http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/cable.htm I bought from them and all was good. For data, I'd say at least two to each TV point, and at least four to your main TV point. Every device (DVR, games console, Now TV, edited to add: Sky, etc) seems to have its own internet connection, and it's always better having these wired if possible. Longer term, you may want HDMI over ethernet, which from memory requires two cables per link. I'd also consider a duct from any central data point to your main TV point to allow for future developments. It's all overkill, I know, but it's so ridiculously cheap and easy to do now that I personally think you'd be crazy not to do it.

It's interesting how localised the numbers are. Sure, it's better in the south and east, on average, than in the north and west, but we've got everything from up by 49% to down by 12% within a few miles of us on the Hampshire/Surrey borders. At least around us, the higher rises seem to be in the "nicer" areas, which presumably have less turnover than the less nice areas. The researchers have not shown data for areas with small numbers of sales, although I don't know what's considered to be a small number of sales.