jack

Don't do it - that way lies madness!

"Finished" is a fascinating word, don't you think? We moved in just before Christmas. Our "let's take a few weeks off to refresh" turned into several months with very little getting done. We've recently turned up the wick again and have started working through our to do list.

Yep!

I remember this bit. Everyone wanted around £1000 every time we needed anything doing (and sometimes several rounds of £1000). Wait until the next bit when everyone starts wanting £5k every time you need something doing - and then the £20k round that follows!

Welcome to the swear-filter-less future! Glad you found us.

The Brink 400+ seems like overkill for a 96m2 house. We have that model for a 289m2 house! You could go for the 300 or even the 180 model: http://cvcdirect.co.uk/Whole House Ventilation/renoventexcellen.html One good thing about the Brink units is that the filters can be vacuumed and reused. When that's no longer effective, you can just replace the filter medium yourself, as it's simply installed onto a rectangular wire frame that can presumably be reused.

I think I did about every 300-400mm on ours. Seems fine. Hmm, they didn't glue ours. Wish I'd asked them to now! It's possible that the couple of squeaks I've detected aren't actually floorboards. I've assumed so just because of how localised they are.

We screwed most, but not all, of our power-nailed 22mm OSB upstairs floors. The areas where we didn't add screws have already developed a couple of minor squeaks after a year. Thankfully it's mainly the guest bedroom, which I'll only rarely have to go into again once we move back into our bedroom when the ceiling's been replaced. We used these: http://www.screwfix.com/p/spax-flooring-screws-4-5-x-60mm-300-pack/88716 They use a special bit (supplied) that doesn't slip. They drive in very nicely with an impact driver.

Nick's sense of humour?

We have a few 50mm flex conduits running between places that might want more wiring in the future, they're just not where I need/want them (or course)!

+1 to more cables. I tried to do this and yet there are already a couple of runs I wish we'd made that we didn't. There's virtually no point trying to do this now, as the missing runs are long and would require too much disruption. Someone (Prodave perhaps?) suggested putting a "liftable" section of flooring along the edges of halls and any part of a room to where you might want to run things. It's much easier to lift that and run things through the floor, than trying to get into the walls or ceiling (especially if, like us, you don't have a loft above the insulation).

We used that stuff too - amazing it can stick to plastic like that. Tiler would have been happy with PVA P.S. - What is it with the building trade and putting bloody PVA in/on everything? Concrete, paint, plaster, as a base coat for every single thing in the build? It's like they all get given shares in a PVA factory when they join the trade!

You're probably better filling it to the brim and covering the cap with a wet towel. More fuel = less temperature rise for a given amount of heat, plus no oxygen in the tank to allow combustion. I'd do this in conjunction with the screen ideas above.

Welcome back!

Agree completely with Terry. I'm someone who tends to get extremely annoyed by unfairness or injustice. I once took a day and half off work to attend a hearing regarding the return of £30 of my rental deposit because the estate agent involved was wrong and was being a dick (the actual hearing was 1 minute, because the other side didn't actually bother attending on the second day when they actually got around to hearing my case!) However, at the time, I wasn't trying to build a house. There are so many more constructive things you could do with your time and energy that won't make you even angrier or risk relationships with neighbours and the council going forwards. What happens when you inevitably need to do something slightly against the rules during the build? For example, we had to have a couple of hiabs unload through the lower branches of a tree with a TPO. And we took down a section of tree protection fencing early. If you've annoyed your neighbours and the council, you've potentially generated a set of spies with a grudge, and an enforcer with a grudge. What happens if after all the pain and energy you lose? What if you think it's unfair that you've lost? I think there are battles to have and those to avoid. You'll have plenty of battles during the build, many of which you can't avoid. Consider saving your energy for those. That said, if you do decide to go for it, I wish you all the very best.

Same here. We have a Panasonic monobloc. The unit itself is very high performance and good value. But as soon as you get into accessories it gets eye-watering! Pre-plumbed cylinders were more than twice the cost of a much better insulated equivalent from a third party (and there was no way of getting better insulation on the Panasonic one).

We'll be extra careful about boundaries and will certainly keep a close eye on the solicitors, but in this case the new boundary should be very easily defined. Also, both us and our inlaws have gone through searches etc for both properties as part of their respective purchases over the last few years, so I'm hopeful there shouldn't be much to go wrong.

That's all hugely helpful Terry, thanks. We want the split formalised before it goes on the market, so no probs with any potential purchaser asking to buy. Our own redevelopment is finished (we moved in before Christmas) and there's nothing else we might consider in the foreseeable future that would require planning permission. I was hoping to avoid using a solicitor, but given that there's a mortgage on the house we're grabbing the land from, it seems we may be required to have a solicitor handle things if we want them to go smoothly anyway. We've just remembered that the husband of a good friend's wife is a chartered surveyor, so we're going to ask him for some input too. Thanks again for all the help.

Very interesting. It's pleasing to perhaps have identified another potential contributor (on top of your local microclimate) for the apparently very different performances of our houses in warmer weather, given the similarity in construction type and window performance. As you know, overheating isn't something we've yet experienced to any great degree. I was showing a friend of mine around yesterday and we noted how the overhangs to the south on many of the windows completely shade them through the middle of the day. We then have external blinds that come down in the afternoon to the west, and then trees to the northwest shade us for the rest of the evening. As a comparison, when I got back from a walk this morning at about 9, the house was a little warmer than I like, especially upstairs. Since it was still cool despite the sun, I cracked some windows upstairs. The house cooled down fairly quickly and has remained cool all day. On the flipside, I believe we need quite a bit more heating in the winter than you, so it's swings and roundabouts. It'll be interesting to see whether this film changes the balance for you (ie, less cooling required in summer, but more heating required in winter).

Thanks Ferdinand. It looks like we need a combination of that and conveyancing.

I get the "general" nature of land registry documents. I guess that's why I'm asking about how best to ensure that we get what we're after! Having done a bit of reading, it appears that measurements are made from structures that won't decay and are likely to still be there in at least 10 years. A house is a good example. Re: covenants, my inlaws have already been hugely helpful and generous in relation to both next door and our own build, so I don't think it would be about compensation. Their main concern would be whether a particular covenant would be likely to affect the ease with which the house can be sold. To be honest, my opinion - rightly - isn't going to factor too much in this question, as it's their house and they have every right to do what they can to get the best price and quickest sale. Can't hurt to ask though!

Ah, interesting. My wife just finished telling me that you "can't speak to the land registry by phone"! Definitely no building plot potential. This is solely about increasing the size and usability of our own plot. Our original plot had a steep 2.5m step up just behind our house. Although there's a reasonable garden at the top of that, you can hardly see any of it from downstairs, so you did feel a little like you were at the bottom of a ditch. The bit we've acquired extends directly out to the side of the rear half of our house, in line with our kitchen and large sliding door. So instead of a 4m wide flat area looking onto a hedge, we now have a 15m flat area with an additional raised section of garden added to what already had. I'd love to have built a wall, but given the height we wanted and the length we needed the cost would have been prohibitive! Thanks again.

Very much so, thanks!

Yay, first topic in this subforum! We had an amazing stroke of luck a while ago. Our neighbour's house came on the market at the perfect time during our build. My wife's family bought it as a family project, largely to allow us to buy the rear part of the garden that's adjacent our house (which is set back from the road relative to next door). While they were extending and tarting up next door, we fenced off the relevant part of the garden. They've nearly finished and the renovated house will be put on the market in a few weeks. We now need to update the land registry for both properties. We've downloaded the relevant forms and they seem simple enough. Still, I have a few questions: 1. Is there anything in particular I need to consider when defining the boundaries? For example, if we wanted to own the fences, I assume we just show them as being clearly and wholly on our property. Is that just a matter of making sure the line on the plan is clearly in that position? Should we mention distances (eg, "50 mm from the face of the fence")? 2. When doing the drawings, I know that there isn't a great need for perfect accuracy as long as the boundaries are clear when read in the context of what's on the ground. I assume that means we can do the drawings ourselves. Should we show measurements on the plan (eg, showing boundary and cornerdistances from permanent structures such as houses and hard landscaping features)? 3. I'm not sure how enthusiastic my inlaws will be about the idea, but we're considering whether to ask them to include some covenants. The main one would be no biomass burners. Others might be things like not building structures within a certain distance of their rear boundary (would overshadow us), not attaching things to "our" fence without permission, that sort of thing. First, do you think covenants like that are likely to have much of an impact on people's decision to buy a property? Second, if not, what other covenants do you think might be useful to consider? In case it matters, this is South East England, and it's almost guaranteed that the house will be bought by a DFL (down from Londoner) moving here with young kids for the schools and their first back garden. The house has been renovated to a fairly high standard and the garden is still pretty big despite us snipping off its bottom. Many thanks in advance for any thoughts, advice or info.

Welcome. Sounds like an interesting project. I have a friend who's a O&G project manager who's just taken six months off work to project manage a significant extension to his house.