jack

We got ours on special from Jewsons or Travis for £130 from memory. You can get a bespoke flatpack one from stairbox for less than £200

Just buy some Ian. It isn't worth the time, hassle and risk for not much more than £100

I know this isn't baseload, but the impact of a single battery storage system on the power network that supplies over a million people is pretty impressive: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/27/south-australias-tesla-battery-on-track-to-make-back-a-third-of-cost-in-a-year

Another one here with motorised external shutters. Good for privacy and exceptional for reducing solar gain, but don't rely on them for keeping rooms dark. I still suspect you'll roast! Anything more than two people in our TV room (equivalent to a few hundred watts at most) results in uncomfortable local temperatures within half an hour. What's the room output on the burner you're looking at?

893 a record? That's a typical post for some of the more wordy posters (myself included).

The guy who installed our solar array (excellent company, based in Guildford, Surrey - let me know if anyone wants details) now also does Tesla Powerwalls. He dropped by the other day after surveying my neighbour's house for solar. After hearing about some of his clients' Powerwall systems, I pointed out that our annual electricity bill is only £900, and that's through a relatively expensive supplier (Good Energy) and without even the slightest attempt at optimising consumption. That was more or less the end of the conversation, as the payback time doesn't look so good when that's your entire energy consumption! He also said that he doesn't expect the price of the Powerwall to fall much in the near future. Since Musk was kicked out, the management has adopted a more profit-focused view, compared to Musk's focus on gaining market share at any cost. This means prices have actually gone up, and aren't likely to come down in any particular hurry.

Looking good. If I ever build again, I'll definitely be looking at this system!

Your battery guy's numbers sound optimistic to say the least. I've got 8.5kW in a mixed system (some east-west, some just west of south, all with a relatively low pitch) and the highest hourly production I've had in January is 590Wh.

You could consider a red door and garage door. Needn't be a bright red, but something with some colour will tie the two parts of the house together while livening to whole thing up imo.

Squeaky wheel = oil

I think you'll find that integration with most home automation systems is pretty dire, especially if the controller itself has any "smarts". A better way is to have your home automation system handle it, and leave everything else as "dumb". For example, we have Loxone home automation, and it can do this on a per-thermostat basis. Pretty clever, although we don't use any of this functionality due to the way the house is heated.

You can't leave us hanging like this!!!

I cut it and fit it, but then the weather changed so couldn't glass it. I've therefore taken it up again and stored it inside. Once the weather is right, I'll put it back down and glass on the same day.

No disrespect taken - while I'm alright at DIY, I tend to be extremely slow. People we've had onsite previously would have had the OSB cut and down within a couple of hours of arriving onsite.

Where did I say I was "so good at quoting"? When someone takes the piss to the extent that these guys did, you won't find me going back for a second helping. There're almost no materials in the quote - I already had all fixtures and fittings except for the fibreglass and the glass itself, and this was made clear when I asked for the quote. More expensive than what? The balconies are 10m2 in total (6x1 + 4x1), so that's a grand for your guy to do it. That leaves £9k for these other blokes to bolt (supplied) aluminium extrusions to the house using supplied fixings, then install some glass. I've done the OSB myself. It took less than a day working completely alone. I'll let you know how long the rest of it takes me once I finish, but I can tell you now I won't have spent 10 working days on it by the time I'm done.

Thankfully I don't think we had that with any of the trades we had onsite. Plenty of other issues though, don't worry!

We had a quote for £15,000 (ex VAT) to put down some OSB on two balconies (one 6m wide, one 4m wide, both less a metre deep), fibreglass it, mount channels (already onsite) to support glass, and supply and fit the glass. We'd had the glass priced up at less than £5,000 and the fibreglass materials at several hundred quid. Both of those prices were retail, so I'd expect these guys would get it for less - call it £5,000 all up for materials. As a two-man job, the OSB and fibreglass couldn't take more than three days, getting the channels mounted couldn't take more than one day (more like a half), and installing the glass couldn't take more than half a day. Be generous and call it a week's work. I make that £1000 a day each. Same with plumbing - just had a quote for nearly £1000 to move a water softener from one room to the next. I can't see how it would take an experienced plumber more than a day - call it two on the assumption that I'm overlooking some of the intricacies. £500-1000 a day effective rate. Same with ASHP: fixed price of around £1000 to do the RHI paperwork, replace a failed pump, commission the ASHP and tidy up some of the pipework. One day was spent onsite and (I imagine) half a day at most was spent on RHI paperwork. On the other side, we had two experiences where trades underpriced jobs, then did crappy rushed jobs once they realised that they were going to lose money. In both cases we offered to renegotiate the price once we realised things were going wrong, but both took some sort of bizarre pride in sticking to their original prices rather than accepting more money for doing a proper job. These are just some examples of why I hate fixed price quotes.

We have floor to ceiling windows in our kitchen diner. Wonderful for light and views. A bloody nightmare for furniture! The kitchen/diner layout, including window/door positions and sizes, is one of the things I'd most like to change about our house design

You do need skilled people to lay the slab, for sure. A couple of people on here have had bad experiences, but that's possible with screed too.

The main reason people have built the way they have in the past is responsiveness. If you don't have much insulation, you lose a lot of heat, so you can treat a thin screed almost like radiators, in that it will heat up fast, but also cool down fast. Once you have a lot of insulation, like those of us with passive slabs, the slab becomes more like a storage heater. For that reason, having it thicker works better, plus why pay to lay two loads of concrete when one will do? We did actually effectively end up with a screed on our slab, but that's because we went for polished concrete (late decision). There's no insulation between the slab and the screed though. There'd be nothing stopping you from topping a slab with a separate screed, but why would you if you plan to cover with flooring anyway? If you have any bits of concrete spills left sticking up, you can just grind them flat with a scrabbler or a floor grinder. Lot cheaper than a complete screed!

Utterly terrifying. I swore out loud when I saw that picture (having thought "bloody hell, I wouldn't want to be working in that gap" when I saw the previous pics). "The groundworkers had decided that they wouldn't get in that part of the excavation (between the concrete walls and the bank) in case of further cave-ins, so myself and a couple of mates sorted out the drainage channel." Sounds like you had sensible groundworkers. Please, for the sake of the people who love you, when a tradesperson tells you something looks dangerous, listen!

If you want to talk to an engineer who knows about raft foundations, MBC used (and may still use) Hilliard Tanner. Website is http://www.tsd.ie/ Hilliard REALLY knows this stuff inside and out, and I found him very approachable when we had a few questions during our build.

Thought it might have been!

Just for clarity, MOT type 1 includes fines, and isn't free-draining. I think the stuff specified by MBC's engineer is something like "18-35mm, no fines". We used recycled railway ballast. If you choose to do this, make sure you're getting stuff that's been steam-cleaned. Ours was filthy with god knows what, but it was delivered and laid while I was at work so there was nothing I could do about it.

I have a spare one that I didn't get around to returning in time. It swivels (a lot!) but only has a small amount of tilt (which I think is typical): You're welcome to it - PM me if of interest.