jack

My missus was all over the digger and dumper we had onsite for a while. She loves that kind of thing.

My wife wants one of these. I looked into it and have put my foot down. They just scream "here's where the key is". The right kind of pry bar will have many of these off in seconds, ready for the scrote to take home and open at will.

My best guess is that they're just trying to get people to be aware of the problem so they can reduce the number of payouts. I've never heard of anyone not being covered by insurance in this situation (a mate of mine had his new Porsche nicked by someone fishing for his keys through the letterbox), but it'd be interesting to know if that's the way things are headed.

When we were burgled (scrotes kicked the door off the bungalow we've since demolished to build the new house), it turned out we didn't have a BS approved lock that the terms of our insurance required. Surprisingly, Tesco insurance paid out without a whimper. That included over £400 in cash (PTA money from a school fare we'd had the day before) and new-for-old on a beaten up old Macbook that I'd bought second hand several years before (they paid out well over twice what I'd paid for it!) And it wasn't even an oversight. They pointed out that the lock wasn't up to snuff and that they wouldn't pay out again in the future if the door or window through which access was gained wasn't locked to the required standard. So yes, insurers can be bastards (the ones we're dealing with the roof leak are a good example!) but they aren't always. Oh, and I certainly wouldn't recommend relying on an insurer's goodwill. Check the terms of your insurance for lock types. Usually you'll beed a BS3621 5 lever deadlock, but some insurers will accept other good quality locks. Ours was happy with the high-spec (anti-bump/snap) euro-lock on our multi-point locking front door.

There's an interesting Grand Designs using CLT (which I'm sure @D_T has seen): I seem to recall a bit where he decides to go it alone on the panel erection after splitting with his project manager. There's a really hairy bit where he and a mate are trying to put up a roof panel on a rainy dark night - terrifying stuff!

Welcome! Interesting build method. I looked into CLT as a construction method when we were planning our build a couple of years ago, but the lack of local knowledge and difficulties with estimating costs made me a bit nervous. I'm assuming a CLT core with Larsen trusses outside? It'd be really interesting to get some details of what you're doing and what you learn as you go along. We may need to put in a CLT subforum!

But who else would have applied the sticker? It's clearly the seller's own sticker, and hasn't been removed (no wrinkling etc) from another sample. I think it's pretty easy to show that there's been a mistake - either the seller put the wrong sticker on the sample, or the sample is right but they've supplied the wrong product. It sounds like the seller is admitting on the phone that the former is the case, but legally I don't believe you need to prove which of these situations applies. You just need to show that the seller gave you a sample and what was supplied didn't match it. In the absence of a plausible alternative to the two set out above, that's legally the end of it. Whether the seller wants to take the hard road on this is another issue, but from what I can see the buyer's legal position is pretty strong. As said above, it's critical that the sample be retained, and that photos are taken showing the difference between the sample and order.

Exactly my experience. Private building control typically couldn't care less about this type of thing I suspect.

Welcome Julie. Sounds like an exciting project! If you have any specific questions, head for the relevant sub-forum and hopefully we'll be able to help.

I actually had MBC drop the floors in our bathrooms by 50mm to give us room for UFH. In the end we heard so many stories about heating not being required that we didn't bother! I just checked: upstairs is 20 deg C and downstairs is 21. Works well having the bedrooms a bit cooler, it's just the bathroom tiles being a bit chilly when you have a shower that isn't ideal.

With U-values of 0.10 downstairs floor, 0.11 roof, and 0.12 walls, and lots of double height spaces, I've been surprised at the way heat doesn't actually seem to move upstairs in our house. Downstairs is always slightly warmer than upstairs (and especially the bedrooms) in the colder months. I assume this is to do with the slight heat loss through the MVHR, which is made up for downstairs by the UFH, but isn't upstairs. If I were doing this all again, I'd definitely include UFH in the bathrooms, just to take the chill off the tiles. I'm currently contemplating retrofitting an IR panel to each bathroom ceiling. Programming a quick burst of that before our usual shower time in the morning should be enough to take off the chill without chewing through too much energy.

The colour on the sample is completely different to the colour that was supplied. If the sample was mislabeled, why is that the buyer's fault? What other code would they use to order other than what the company gave them on the sample? I also don't think those disclaimers are necessarily as effective as others seem to think. I don't know whether the law's changed, but it used to be that "sale by sample" (which this at least arguably seems to be) bought you some very significant rights in terms of the supplier adhering to the sample's characteristics. Do you know how they got the sample? Was it from a showroom or did they order it online?

That's ridiculous. They're clearly not even close to the same colour. Was it paid for by credit card? Might be a useful alternative threat/approach.

Oh yes, no argument about that. My main car is worth well under one percent of the value of my house. I knew I was a tightwad but this is ridiculous! The interesting thing is that I'm a real car guy. I just don't see the value in spending a lot of money on them!

Exactly. I should say that we've had this car for over 4 years and expect to have it for another few. I don't see the point in upgrading only to kick off the worst of the depreciation again. Japanese cars are great in this regard, as in my experience they go forever and don't seem to suffer the string of niggly little failures that seem to need attention on European cars. I had a Peugeot once, and it had three separate trips to the garage under warranty. In each case, the thing that set off the engine light was a sensor failure, and a different sensor each time - insane! The only thing that might tempt me to get rid of our second car (a small, beaten up old Toyota) would be a good deal on a plug-in or plug-in hybrid, given the amount of PV we have on the roof.

Despite the fact that he's semi-retired, I suspect he's in no way handy enough to do skilled work, nor is he fit enough (or interested enough) to even be a labourer on the job. I'll be surprised if they're willing to compromise much on size or finish enough to make it fit their budget. It's definitely all about "the dream" for them. Ah, but I didn't say a 3 series, I said 3 years. Someone else told me about the beemer but didn't mention the model. I very much doubt he's the type of guy that would drive a base model 3 series - more likely something quite a bit larger and/or sportier. Depending on where you buy, £50k isn't that expensive. We went to Roundhouse kitchens, for example, and the absolutely cheapest deal they could do for us was over £35k for our kitchen. That was an all-painted finish - no wood veneer anywhere. I don't doubt that the design and fitting would have been top notch, but it was a lot more than we ended up paying for a decent quality kitchen with lots of wood veneer and a huge stone island. The big issue, I think, is that the amount and position of the glass required a lot of complicated steel work. Most firms they approached wouldn't even quote. Our kitchen cost well over twice what we paid for our car, although from memory it was nearly two years old when we bought it and is an estate so had experienced huge depreciation. Looking around at our friends in the same town, on average our car is worth a lot less than theirs and our house is worth a moderate amount more. Despite being a car lover, I've never been able to justify the high cost (depreciation, in particular) of buying expensive new cars. I tend to buy 1.5-3 year old Japanese cars, which are boring to drive but decent value and ultra reliable.

A guy I know in West Sussex has planning approved for a huge (~400m2) modern house in the country. It seems to be mostly glass. A friend put him in contact with my wife and I because we were just finishing our build. They plan to use a main contractor for everything - they literally won't hammer a single nail in themselves - and everything is pretty high spec (eg, £50k kitchen). Their initial budget was something like £1200/m2. We told them it was "perhaps optimistic" but they thought that with some careful trimming and good negotiating they'd get there. They then went out to get quotes, and, quelle surprise, the quotes are all way north of £2000/m2. They now don't know what to do, as their initial budget was pretty well all they could afford. Worse, they're blaming the people doing the quotes - "They think that just because it's a big house we must be rich and they can lump on a ridiculous premium". Oh, and they can't afford to build this house, but he's just bought himself another new BMW only 3 years after the last one. I think that's the thinking that leads to the silly overruns on TV shows. I don't think the producers are putting them up to it to make better TV, I just think that most people have never done this before and don't believe the guideline per sqm costs that you get in, eg, self-build magazines.

Judging by the state of our portaloo during weeks when there were a few people on site (never more than about 4 or 5), I don't think that would have been sufficient for us!

Have a look at this stuff as well as acid: Might be a bit less harsh. Perhaps test both options in an inconspicuous area?

Oh I got what the hoops etc were for. My question was whether it was really a friend who owned it...

A "friend's"?

Mercedes, for example, has long had pretty poor satisfaction and quality ratings among owners. I don't know whether that's because they're actually poor, or owners expect more because it's Mercedes (or perhaps they expect more because they're "Mercedes drivers" )

Exactly why my dream car(s) continue to be theoretical. I've wanted an Alfa Romeo GTV 1750 since I was in my 20s: I've watched them double in price in the last 10 years. Maybe 5 or 6 years ago, I realised you could get a Ferrari (/Dino) 308 GT4 for £20k: I absolutely love that car (I know they rub some people up the wrong way), and decided maybe it was worth splurging and getting that instead of the Alfa. But the Ferrari has doubled in price in even less time than the Alfa! Sorry for the derail Joe. I seem to recall that this happens whenever anyone mentions cars in a thread!

Wow, what a wonderful view! Nice proportions on the house, too.

Thanks Jeremy, the polythene sheet was already in the plans. Thankfully we still have a gap between bottom of the wall and the concrete floor, so I should be able to work it so that any wayward drips get directed away from the junction onto the sheet. And yes, based on what we saw outside the colouring comes straight off (glad we paid extra for coloured mortar!) I actually prefer the raw mortar - looks more natural - so am going to experiment somewhere out of the way to see what it looks like if I clean the mortar as well. I do plan to do this in sections so I can chip away at it a bit every day rather than tackling the whole job at once.