jamiehamy

I'll open a thread tonight when I get home :-)

I rarely go above my 3gb limit, however I rarely stream anything. EE do show you online what you used each month. I moved the site plan onto another data tariff last week as the new pan and tilt camera uses more data - 32GB for £29.99 per month.

That's good to know. We may be going with Wren on their 'by now, pay next year' but I don't want the finance to start until the kitchen arrives at the earliest - otherwise Wren have their money and I have less recourse with issues.

I've never had one in 10years I've been here. 3G and now 4G mobile broadband has been fine - and I can take it anywhere. For the new house, we have rigged up a receiver and get full 3G, so have WiFi in the house itself but no signal. Like you, a 4G mast is being planned up the Glen - hopefully before we move in!

Total cost of our drainage and treatment plant, with filter trenches, 600mm inspection chambers and a whole load the contractor said isn't needed but BC expect was £13k if that makes you feel any better. We could have shaved a thousand off in hindsight but not much more - a heck if a lot of money for dealing with a pile if crap! Totally over engineered but hey ho what can you do?

The pump company I used up here were happy either way - I could get the concrete or they would sort it. With the latter, they liaise with the concrete company saving some effort. When we did the floor pour, I barely slept the night before but it all went fine. These guys do it every day.

I would second getting a pump in for that volume. Will make the job infinitely easier letting you focus on the levels and the crew worrying about the concrete. Tipping from a dumper is going to be incredibly messy. If you can get the pump company to supply the concrete, they will zero rate it for VAT which will more than offset the pump cost in the short term. You'll enjoy the job with a pump, and regret going for the dumper option - but in this case you can't stop and start again. Another advantage of getting a pump crew in is to evaluate them for the wall pour.

I used one to drill into our steels - lovely piece of kit, however ours was a bit older and the user interface was poor - too easy to de-icer the magnetic by accident. I always put a bungee cord round it in case. It was used once - when someone unplugged the power and once when I did indeed press the wrong button. Newer models are better.

That's fairly coming on. Is the bracing in case of an errant beam coming at 90degrees and taking a section if wall out? I can't see it doing much else than a safeguard?

As far as I'm led to believe (from two plumbers I know), the actually connection and certification of the UVC requires a qualified/certified plumber, however in terms of the 'rest' of the piping, there is no requirement for them to install or inspect. I know two people who are plumbers but can't do the whole job - but have said they have no issue with connecting up the UVC and making sure the install is correct. As I'm going down the manifold route, I don't see a dependancy on installing one before the other - either way I'll leave the actual connection until towards the end - I think. Or get the manifolds in place and the UVC connected and then work round each connection at the end at leisure since they can all be isolated at the manifold.

There are quite a lot of sites with good info on concrete. This one is good as is has BS extracts. http://www.hillhousegroup.co.uk/index.php/ready-mix-concrete/technical/

I would contact the concrete company and speak to one of their technical people. Before we ordered our concrete for the ICF I had quite a few conversations with the concrete company who referred to their labs a couple of times to get the best mix for the pour. I never realised just what a black art concrete was until our pour - but the guys we used at Breedon took into account how we were pouring, what we were pouring into, how we needed it to pour, go off etc and came up with a bespoke mix. I've just looked at the spec for our garage with RC foundations and there is no specific concrete mix. The remember engineer referred us to the ICF company for their spec for the house walls.

I already do that. I leave it open all the time by accident and it has never been touched in 9 years. But once house is built I want a newer car...

I'll leave the driveway but for the garage, the deterrent is that even if they get car keys, they need to get the car out the garage. Although the garage has no windows which should help deter in the first place. The question is - bollard inside door or out? If out, it is an immediate deterrent, if inside, they might get the keys and have to abandon when they realise they can't get it out or to do so involves a lot of effort and time. I would say however this is for when house is unattended. A friend woke to the sound of people trying to get in her house in middle of the night. Even when they called the police and shouted at them, they didn't give up. In the end, they couldn't get in the house and gave up. They were after their Golf R, same car I had at the time. In that case I'd have flung the keys down the stairs and let them get in with it. She had her husband and baby in the house.

My parents go away a lot. Whenever I needed to use the garage or borrow a car it was easy to find the keys 'hidden' in the top drawers of places. Anyway I told them about breaking for keys and now they hide properly. So well I can't even ever find them. I'll be making sure my garage (car house) will be extra secure - not only against break in but getting a car out. I've not done any detail but I'll be making sure I've got proper removable bollards inside the garage door that are set right into the founds.

I made sure everything came on either a HIAB(windows, timber, blocks, beans) , or had a tail lift(rubber, heat recovery equipment etc), or was able to be hand balled(icf, insulation cladding etc). Actually the hiab was a deal breaker for Windows - our site would have meant a forklift wouldn't have been suitable. In hindsight, glad I stuck to my guns. We got roof beams off loaded with a tractor with forks but never again - would just hand ball them - 27kgs each. Concrete all went in with a pump. One reason I gave Jewsons so much business was that delivery is always free and always with HIAB.

This may be of interest to some on here . I know I'll be commenting on fees although overall I've found the experience positive thus far. http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/CurrentCommittees/103440.aspx https://mobile.twitter.com/SP_LocalGovt/status/829008204063502337

We're going for this. Either that or bio-eth as suggested above. http://www.firesonline.co.uk/acatalog/Esse_525_Flueless_Gas_Stove.html?gclid=CPzs9anPgNICFe-d7QodN2oMeA

As we say up here "that disnae look right"

Thanks folks - that's good enough for me! :-)

Defo Ali - we should have done it ages ago. We did a last minute visit to Wren tonight to completely redrew the kitchen (in fact, we'd never done a design with them so started from scratch - great service and good price compared to Ikea, Jewson and B&Q. It changes the house entirely and just makes it so much better and, dare I say - grand. We're lucky it's us doing the work - we will take down the studwalls and rebuild this weekend - two days delay for us The original front door is outward opening as well, which does catch people out but we preferred it that way, not least because it gives you more space inside and you don't get drips from the door onto the floor. The FD is better in one respect that it has a brake - unlike the front door. I'm quite happy using the FD as I say - but just pondering if I'm missing something obvious. Hopefully not

Okay -so that sounds a bit odd, so let me explain! There has always been a flaw in our ground floor layout and although we have considered changing quite a few times, we never did - mainly because it would mean losing a toilet amongst other things. However, with Spark onsite, and a visit from someone who entered through the front door and then said 'SO where is the front door going to be?', I knew we had to change the layout. In short, the front door was in the corner and you entered into a lobby then into the kitchen. No sense of occasion and not very practical. So, we are moving the front door to the middle where the dining room was - and where there are a pair of French outward opening triple glazed doors. Building control are fine with this as is the planning officer (spoke to them both this morning - how great is that?!) I had anticipated scrapping the French doors (the brand new, shiny, still not delivered replacement!) and buying a new doorset when the other half asked why we couldn't just have the french doors as the front door? The entry will be into a lobby which will have doors before you then enter the body of the house. It would give us more light than doors, look better than a door and mean not chucking £1400 into a skip. Is there any real reason for not using them other than it not being convention? Thanks, Jamie

Congratulations!

I was going to post earlier asking why more who want good insulation but also high airtightness don't go down the Icf route? I know you did consider it at one point - is it the cost factor? Aside it being very easy to build with airtightness is far easier to achieve, you can almost completely eliminate cold bridging. It still seems to be very much a speciality from my perspective(having built with it). When we do another build it will be Icf, no question.

This my friend is going to be a recurring theme I'm afraid! Wait until you're making up H-rails! Remember you would prepare ALL the battons/timber before you even put rebar out - get them all done at the spacing and then fit in one operation. 437 sounds a lot but it's not going to be onerous and once you get into the swing, you'll fly through. You'll get the battons done in a morning and the rebar laid out then the timber fitted in a day. I wouldn't be putting anything in after the pour - you've got enough to be worrying about without that pressure.