mjc55

I agree that this feels like the toughest time of the year when self-building. This time last year we had just got our PP so prior to that it was just tinkering around the site etc. This year is different as there are foundations in for the main house and the Pod we are building both to test the build process we have chosen and live in whilst we build the house is well on it's way. However the rain this year is sorely testing. We have a sloping site so we can drain from the front to the back but the Pod is at the back and although we have constructed it so its well out of the damp, at this stage it is very wet and the clay is sorely testing. The thing is though, all the downsides are outweighed by the sheer pleasure at the fact that what we are doing is something that we have planned for many,many years. Spring will be here before we know it, the evenings are getting lighter and ultimately the end goal outweighs all else. Onwards and Upwards!

We are battling the rain as much as possible, but it is difficult. We have a sloping site and dammed the foundations on the main house further up the garden so that I could build a small wall the last week or so round the Pod at the rear of the garden. That's finished now and today we will release the water from the house foundations! We are fortunate that there is a drainage ditch at the back of the garden that clears quickly. After having such a dry summer it is becoming very frustrating the amount of rain that we are having.

If you started on the BN work then why would you need to re-apply. It's only if you haven't started that it expires (AIUI)

Hmm. Further reading of that document does seem to indicate that meters are fitted on the property, sorry for the confusion.

That document states that the "The service pipe must be clearly labelled at the boundary with the correct plot number/property number"! Obviously this is for housing estate but I cant see anywhere that it states that water meter is on your property?

Presumably this is a UU thing. I thought water meters were generally fitted outside the property boundary. This was certainly the case for us with Wessex Water.

Used to be (Market Lavington) but now in South Somerset and site in North Dorset

It was always Wessex Water that was the difficulty, the SSE guy was always on board with using the same trench. When we first had the WW guy out he said that they just wont share the trench. As I said,it was only due to the fact that the SSE guy was persistent that it was put in one trench.

We had to work very hard to get the electricity and water in the same trench. At first the Water company said no way and it was only a lot of work by a Southern Electricity guy that made it happen in the end.

Be aware that if the utilty supplies (water/gas/electric/drainage) require a road closure then it is usually months (at least 3 in our case) before it can be done.

Where is that 🤯

Also gone the DeWalt route, very happy so far. Didn't buy everything with batteries,so share out the batteries of the ones supplied with batteries. That way was a bit cheaper. The only downside to that at the mo is lack of case for some of the tools.

We were advised to use crushed concrete as a temporary solution. I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole after our experience with it. Full of crap and turned very dusty.

This was said to us when we were looking at getting both water and electricity across the lane to our plot. We paid £8370 for Electricity and £6840 for water last January (SSE and Wessex Water). After much toing and froing and discussion and a very helpful SSE guy we eventually got them to utilise the same trench across the road (dug by WW). This didn't happen until July! At the same time SSE changed their charging scheme and so the £8370 reduced significantly to about £2.5k, and we are still chasing them for more money back as the many iterations of the plan to get to our temporary box were incorrect and they did not use the same length of cable as designed.

Isn't the future the ability to store in car as well as house batteries and then pull back stored power from car if necessary. Cars contain a lot of storage (40-60 kWh according to AI 😁)

I would put this in the planning forum rather than on your blog. I'm not sure how many look in here.

Why was the trim not put on top of the membrane?

Thanks for that but we have already applied the parge coat. The question is about what to paint with as a temporary - but I would expect to be in the pod at least 9 months so want something other than the grey parge coat finish.

We are building a Pod where we will live on site whilst building the house. We don’t want to finish the internal walls (plasterboard probably) of the Pod yet as this is a task for when we can move into the house and rearrange the Pod (to include a store room with external access) This is an Ecobrick build - we are mimicking the main house so that we can potentially sort out any issues before the main build, I was wondering what would be best for "painting" the parged walls to a) lighten them and b) reduce the roughness. Any suggestions welcome as what makes sense to use as a short term (no more than a year hopefully) solution.

Great to see the progress that you are making. Maybe take you up on the plasterers next year!

I know it is repeating what others have said but make sure you have been through the CIL conundrum - if it is relevant where you are building.

Oak is a softwood? Not what I thought!

Surely their wanting to bill you for water supply would come with responsibilities on their part. In effect aren’t they setting themselves up as a water supplier? That must come with responsibilities as regards quality of supply etc.

Surely that is a mistake. Name and shame I say.

20 or so years ago we bought a house to do up and spent a long time completely gutting it. Part way through I switched to vari focals and I remember one day I was digging a new drain just by the corner of the house and I spent hours thinking that I had caused the side wall to start leaning. It was only when my wife came over to the job did I realise that it was my new glasses!