jack

[Deleted my reply, as this is just getting silly now.]

You sure?

Repeating (and adding emphasis to) the quote from my edit made before you replied: "Always start the drum rotating before loading. Do not load a concrete mix into a stationary drum. Starting the mixer with a full load would be difficult and would strain the drum shaft." So can you do it? Sure, it's your mixer, do what you like. But the manufacturer says you're not supposed to do it, there are clear risks associated with doing it, and (as explained by @Russell griffiths) you don't have to do it, so... why do it? And will you pay for the repair of another member's mixer when they follow your guidance and something breaks, bends or melts?

To you, perhaps, but this thread will be seen by others in the future who may find that and the remaining 72% of his contribution useful when read in conjunction with your own contributions. Non sequitur. His point isn't that a small generator can't drive a mixer, it's that there shouldn't ever be a need to start a full mixer. That fact has clearly eluded you, since you acknowledge that you do restart a full mixer. The instructions that came with the bell mixer I hired said that you should only ever add materials to a moving mixer, and should avoid restarting the mixer when full. [Edited to add:] Found belle mixer instructions: "Always start the drum rotating before loading. Do not load a concrete mix into a stationary drum. Starting the mixer with a full load would be difficult and would strain the drum shaft."

Yes, but I'd known him for months by that stage, and trusted him completely. We didn't bother with accounts for electrical stuff, as we did a bulk buy for most stuff up front, and it was just bits and pieces after that. It was usually just a matter of him buying an odd thing locally at the last minute.

We had this with our electrician. In the end I just used to give him my credit card to go and buy things in my name!

Welcome to Buildhub! A couple of quick points. I'm also within Waverley council. I haven't been keeping close tabs, but you may be aware that their revised neighbourhood plan was rejected by (I think) the planning inspectorate a couple of times over the last few years. As a result, there was (and may still be) a situation where only national policies applied, which apparently made it harder for Waverley to knock back planning applications. Also, there's a lot of pressure to increase the number of houses being built in Waverley. You may be aware that Dunsfold (the old airfield) was one option for building a large proportion of those houses. I don't know what impact this might have on an application for a new plot in this general area, but again, something worth chatting with a planning consultant about. Finally, I think I read recently that Waverley's planning department was coming under some pressure due to the number of appeals they were fighting and losing. Again, worth trying to find out more, because if it's true, there's likely to be some immediate pressure to be more forthcoming in granting permission. Whatever the situation, it's definitely worth a chat to a local planning consultant. There's a firm just across the road from the planning office at Godalming who a couple of people we know have used with success. You get a free up front chat, which can be very useful.

I don't think there's confusion, but I agree it helps to have the different requirements set out explicitly. In general that may be true, but I'm less convinced about relying on it in areas that are less easy to access. The two areas I've had cause to open in our house (due to the roof leaks and while installing trims for our balcony fibreglass) have both had voids in the cellulose. In one case - and admittedly it's in a really awkward bit of wall - there was a void perhaps 100mm deep, most of the width of the wall, and stretching along nearly half of the width of the window under the cavity closer. Worse, the cavity closer had to be adjusted at short notice when the windows were being installed, so only had a very thin bit of OSB that definitely didn't seal very well to the frame in the area outside the window. Overall, if this region was relying on cellulose for airtightness, it was in trouble! I stuffed the area with some leftover rockwool I had lying around and sealed it up carefully before covering it with the fibreglass trim.

Jeremy, do you have a separate internal membrane in your build-up? I could be wrong, but I thought MBC went through a period of using taped OSB (or perhaps it was VapourBlock or similar) without a membrane. Whatever it was, I believe they found that it wasn't reliably airtight enough, so went back to using a membrane not long before doing our frame. I also read a discussion in (I think) an Irish LinkedIn post about OSB around the same time, where it was concluded that it definitely could not be relied upon for airtightness by itself. I seem to recall that the conclusion was you'd probably be okay, but there were no guarantees.

Plus by the time they've done the mist coat, they'll have loads of experience, and the top coat will look great! As others have said, virtually everyone who goes through this process has at least a couple of pain points where things feel like they're out of control and the problems insurmountable. It's rarely as serious as that with the benefit of hindsight, but it doesn't make the feeling any less real right now. I'd encourage you to speak with your other half ASAP. A large part of your stress seems to be to do with what his reaction might be. Get that reaction, whatever it might be, out of the way, so you can save your energy for addressing the real issue, which is where you've gotten to with the house. If you want help with identifying specific areas where you might save some funds, do post more details. There are plenty of bargain-hunters and serial self-builders who'll be able to point to cheaper ways of doing all sorts of things.

Unless you've been identified for metering, what you were estimated should be what you get, as the MSC installer generates all the paperwork upon which the payments are generated.

We ran two big SWAs from the consumer unit into the garage and have left then coiled there ready for when we get an electric car. Makes sense to have one to a convenient outdoor point too. We really should have run one to near where we usually park our smaller runabout car (which will likely be replaced with an electric fairly soon), but we didn't actually realise when we were building the house that this is where that car would end up getting parked!

I looked into this, as well as large insulated stores within the thermal envelope. Couldn't make the numbers work.

You'd better keep my secrets or there'll be trouble!

Personally, unless you're developing at minimal cost to flog to a mainstream buyer who won't really think too hard about what they're buying, I'd avoid off-the-peg plans. At the very least, what you build needs to take into account where the sun is, and the impact of neighbours, driveway, and landscaping needs. Beyond that, you should be thinking about whether the house suits its surroundings. If you can find a plan that does all that and suits your particular requirements for living, then in theory there's nothing wrong with this approach.

I don't know either. My guess is that gluing is slower than just dropping each board in place and running the nailer along it. I'm not at all surprised that glue gives a better result.

Ah, such an exciting time. I'm pleased to hear you have a solution to the electric cable problem. Can't see his face, but is that Darren in the blue t-shirt?

Just wanted to say welcome, and damn that's a nice looking house!

Wish we'd heard about the Egger system before doing ours. Knowing how much I've hated the squeaking boards in various places we've lived (the rental place we lived while the build went on was the worst example), I did think about getting MBC to glue to boards down as well as nailing. Unfortunately, by the time I got around to thinking about asking, the flooring was already down! I think we added around 20-25 screws per board, and that took long enough.

I met Thomas on the way out of ecobuild the year before we started our build. I was tired and annoyed by how useless a lot of suppliers had been. He was literally the last person I spoke to on the way out, and he was an absolute pleasure. From memory, he was a passivhaus certification trainer and spent a good ten minutes looking at our plans and making useful suggestions to help us achieve passivhaus numbers. In the end, the only reason I didn't go with him for our windows was that he mentioned a couple of windows the architect had drawn were too big for them to produce. Much further down the line, we learned that Thomas had spotted this issue at a glance, whereas the UK sales guy for the company we went with completely missed it, and it was only flagged at the factory while working drawings were being produced. I'm so sorry to hear of his passing. From memory, he wasn't that old.

Way less, actually. We haven't done much furnishing, and even when we do I suspect it'll be a bit quieter than his place. I really, really like it though.

Just to be clear, that's Trevor Nelson's house, not mine!

We have a full width window between our bedroom and the double height space above our kitchen/diner. It was inspired by pics we saw of Trevor Nelson's house a few years back: I think the idea can be very interesting if handled well.

One of our mistakes was being talked in white Corian along one wall of our kitchen. We have marble on our island and wanted something clean and functional for around the sink, which would brighten the area (no nearby windows) and not distract from the marble. This "easy care" product takes stains like no other surface I've ever encountered! Put a cup of tea beside the sink? Stains with minutes. Until we found that baking powder sorts it out just about all stains, I was seriously thinking about tearing it out and getting laminate. I'm very pleased we went for an undermounted stainless steel sink.