mjc55

Just camping, although we will register address.

We have nearly finished our office/store which we will live in whilst building the house. Around 24 sq. m. of space will be plenty for 12 months or so of living. Will save us 12k of rent plus other bills. we also have 2 containers on site, one for tools etc, the other will be for storage of furniture, clothing etc. It has also been a great way of checking out build process on main house as we will be using the same materials.

10 degrees is sub-optimal isn't it though? I thought 30 degrees was ideal.

Hmm, difficult that one. This as I understand it but others with more specific knowledge may be along to correct me later. The point about listing is that it should stay in the style that it was at the time it was listed. This is even if, to some, the style of any part of the building is ugly, inefficient or not up to current standards. It may be that there are more efficient windows around that match the style of your windows, I don't know. Again, others with more knowledge in this area may well be along to suggest what you might do. Conservation officers have a difficult job as many people want to upgrade to modern standards, but their job is to maintain an "historical" building in the manner to which it was listed (not built). I suspect that a conversation with your local CO would help.

IMHO it very much depends on your ground type. We managed to get our footings dug and filled last October, any later and it wouldn't have happened. The ground where we are building is clay and once wet is like porridge, it soon dries but once dry is like stone, you certainly wouldn't shift anything with a shovel. It has started to dry out now and already has formed a pretty hard crust, but, as I found out today when i walked where I shouldn't have, I got completely stuck with wellies nearly overflowing, the only way out was to release my foot from welly and with the help of my wife get out of the mire! I'm hoping that by the end of April we will be able to get on with the build but that is very much dependant on how much rain there is going forward. So, as I said, depends on your ground.

Sigenergy batteries (which we are considering) do have inbuilt fire suppression. I do not know how common this is.

Reminds of a story my late Father in Law told me. He was a builder up in Manchester for many years before he retired and ran his own, successful business. Many years ago he found an old railway line, at a tip I think, and used it as a lintel on an extension he was building. The BCO at the time was very unhappy but he got his structural engineer to prove that it was OK and (as far as I know) it is still built into the extension! Not sure you you would get away with that nowadays!

i think that you would need to ask whoever designed your foundation.

yes, I will have a similar construction and was considering Thermablock as a solution.

Wow, well done. I have to say that it has been a pleasure seeing your progress and we are so pleased everything has gone pretty much to plan. All very best wishes to you both for a long and happy life in your new home.

It could be worse! I fell off my bike about 4 years ago, broken leg and wrist! 🤕

Great progress as ever! The weather in Dorset, as you say, has been an absolute pain for some time now. It's making our progress slow to a crawl currently! As ever though - Onwards and Upwards

Great post! Sleep, as you say is such an important part of life. For my part I am pretty fortunate that I have very little trouble sleeping. That's not to say that there are nights when my head is turning over many thoughts about what happens next on the build. but in the main I do manage to get to sleep pretty quickly. One of the rules that we mostly manage to keep to is that my wife and I do not tend to talk about the job when we get in bed, again, that is not to say that we don't fail on that part but generally if we do slip into build conversation, one or other of us reminds us that it is not the best time to start build discussions. The other thing that we tend to try and do is watch some TV before bed and we try and make it something light that is watched last thing. Mostly comedies (we finished re-watching Derry Girls last night) and of late it has been This Country, The Detectorists and The Office. Obviously this may not be to everyone’s taste but it works for us. As ever, our motto is Onwards and Upwards!

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.