BotusBuild

Ours is inside the plant room because that is where I put the duct as Nick said above

Pass on the delivery details provided to the delivery driver. If I give you a What3Words address there is a damn good reason - postcode will put you in a 2.5 mile radius of the actual location

I feel your pain My local timber merchant allowed me to sort through the pile to select - in fact he helped and rejected pieces I was OK with 😁 Bolt them together as soon as you get them onsite, as they warp as they dry out. I would start with the two larger overlaps first and then do the middle overlap last. With the larger overlaps do the two pairs of bolts at each end of the overlap and work inwards (I presume you are putting in more than just two pairs of bolts on each overlap).

The £130/MWh is the thing that makes Hinkley a white elephant IMHO

My standard answer for nearly 5 years to the question "When will you be finished?" was "2 years". It was my signature on here for about 3 years also. You will see I recently changed my signature and also my answer to the above question. Still no commitment, but a tiny bit more positive perhaps 🙂. Anyone interested in have some T-shirts made up with the question and first answer?

My earlier point about electricity-gas price link should perhaps have been clarified to state that the UK would then not be hit so hard by changes in the gas wholesale price. My argument is all academic because it would take this country too long to actually get a decent nuclear base load in place. Hinckley C was initially proposed in 1981, announced in 2010 with nuclear licence granted in 2012 - current project completion 2031. So 50 (expletive) years. Madness.

We should have more nuclear and less gas as the base load in our grid. This will lessen the burden on bills of the electrcity-gas price link (which is a pants situation anyway). Investment in nuclear as well as solar and wind is what is required

Saw this on FaceAche. Interesting explanation. https://www.facebook.com/share/16bjH3NyKQ/

That happens when travelling at 90 at meeting tractor 🤣 Othe things happen to the driver as well 😂

And difficult to stop. There is a version the Kia Niro like this and they didn't update the brakes (enough). The Howdens rep says he has to be very careful driving in the country lanes

Add 2x4 to the side of the top and bottom chord of the posi joists from underneath. These are the parts that do the work, generally the top one in compression, bottom one in tension. Some have used a metal strip on the bottom chord instead of extra wood

We'll make the effort Susie. SWMBO currently on bed rest for 2 weeks until mid May so after that is good for us. 1st week of June is kitchen fitting week. Any other time is currently good for us, probably weekend works best

Our local distributor came out on day 1 and helped get first couple of rows in place. That's when we learnt and the remainder of the first week we cracked on with the rest. Off the top of my head so these are rough numbers, we spent about £10-11k on concrete and pumps, about £3k (?) on rebar (retaining wall so more than normal required) and the Nudura was about £18k. We hired the props to support the walls for about £1200. All in, about £34k for insulated, air tight, and essentially waterproof walls ready to be rendered or clad outside and plasterboarded inside.

JoH, What you have does not have an A/C function. Summer bypass will continue to do the air exchanges, so drawing air from outside to in, and vice versa, so as it cools down in the evenings it'll remove the heat build up from the day. You're better off turning it off completely in heat we have at present and drawing curtains and blinds to keep the sunshine out. There may be a way of introducing a cooling coil into the ducting, but that is major retrofit and may not be that effective anyway. We are all having to adapt to the conditions being caused the changes to or climate. If you want air conditioning in the flat for the handful of days each year when it currently required you'll need to install a specific unit. OR, hang a bag of ice in front of a standard fan

Looks like the water meter bills will be lower as well after they impose hosepipe bans 🙂

Here is a blog entry about the ICF install

Stone, but it's the same basis as the brick slips. You can tile, so you can do this. Saved me over £8k doing it myself (not just what you see here)

Nope 🙂 After I wrote the above, I remembered your comments about internal stuff, and thought "he'll do a grand job". I think you'll be surprised about how much you can do depending on what build method you use. We did ICF so only needed someone to pour a lot of concrete 🙂 In addition we had a steelworker, window fitters, plasterers and ASHP installers. You'll be fine

To back up what Mike said above, we are 270m2, and doing as much of the build ourselves as possible (so far subbed out about £20K in labour costs, excluding professional fees). We are currently projected to build at a cost of £1300-£1400 per sq m. We are not using costly internal fittings, although once we have sold our current house, we may replace a few things later on. The more you sub out, the higher that figure goes, and the more high-end (Costly) materials you use, the same - we could easily have been above £2,000 per sq m. Don't be put off by this, just make sure you cut your cloth according to what you can afford.

The end of our last blog entry ended thus: Dare I add a what's next list 🙂 ? Well, here goes .... Plastering finished in the open plan area this coming week (by others) Remainder of stone cladding arrives and work begins to get the most inaccessible (high) parts put up before the scaffold gets taken away - this means cladding two 7m x 2m wide walls Plumbing pipework ready for ASHP installation Gabion basket and pad for ASHP to be installed on Mist coat and first coat on plaster (SWMBO is at the ready) Begin fitting upstairs UFH Front door being fitted (January) by others Take 3-4 days off for Xmas ASHP installation (January) by others, that will allow for hot water and the downstairs UFH to be available ... Fit a temporary bathroom ... Fit out utility room as temp kitchen ... ... and this is why - Move out of static van for the month of February (rules is rules!) and decamp to the house The title of the blog may be a little misleading - let me assure you that living in the house for a short while was great. We liked it so much we stayed for 5 weeks instead of the 4 that we had to, as it was warmer than the static van we would be going back to. If you recall the beginning of March was a little frigid, even down here in the South West (the van sits in a valley that collects the cool air very well and so is often 3 to 4 degrees (K and C) cooler than the surrounding area. We can recommend such a short stay in the house before getting stuck into the final push on the interior. It has definitely helped in providing an order of works for us in the coming months before we finally move in properly by highlighting things that may have been overlooked or forgotten in the general melee of all the other things that have been taking place over the previous 6 months. So, back to that list: I've commented on this in a post somewhere else, but in coloured text this is what happened Plastering finished in the open plan area this coming week (by others) This did happen in October Remainder of stone cladding arrives and work begins to get the most inaccessible (high) parts put up before the scaffold gets taken away - this means cladding two 7m x 2m wide walls This also got done before the scaffold was removed in early January - thankfully the temperatures and the rain played ball Plumbing pipework ready for ASHP installation Sorted Gabion basket and pad for ASHP to be installed on Filled and Pad poured Mist coat and first coat on plaster (SWMBO is at the ready) What a job - so much brighter Begin fitting upstairs UFH No, no, no, what were you thinking (but more to come on this below) Front door being fitted (January) by others All done and glad I did not have to lift it up the stairs Take 3-4 days off for Xmas OH, YES and very much enjoyed ASHP installation (January) by others, that will allow for hot water and the downstairs UFH to be available ... All done and worked very well, hence the extra weeks stay Fit a temporary bathroom ... The temporary shower was so good we were going to keep it but then changed design of the bathroom - one of the things from living in the house Fit out utility room as temp kitchen ... This is still in place and being used as part of our welfare unit on site Here are some pictures of the above work And so, we moved in just at the end of January and lived in the house for 5 weeks. During this time we experienced what the house was going to offer us, and, apart from the dust, we were only too happy to be able to stay an extra week when the cold snap came along at the beginning of March and we could delay our return to the static van (AKA tin box). This in spite of a temporary bathroom, kitchen and bedroom facilities. The cat, however, thought differently about the dust, but seemed generally happy with the quality of work While we were in the house during March work carried on with fitting the remaining plasterboard ready for the plasterers to come along in March. This was pretty much all we did - and we're very glad to only have a few more sheets plus some waterproof backerboard to fit. No pictures of this as it is really not that inspiring 🙂 Going into March we created YAL (Yet Another List) 🙂 We've all been there - the ever changing & expanding, rarely static or reducing list. Anyone got onto the LOL yet (the List Of Lists)? This included, in no particular order (that came later), Hassle the SH1T out of the window installation company to investigate and fix the leaks (three fixed windows and a sliding door) that came to light after we did the first lot of plastering the rest of the plastering, the rest of the mist coating and painting, more stone work, moving as much stuff into what we now call the attic (a very large room downstairs as we don't have a real attic) in order to clear all the other rooms, Install the UFH upstairs with plywood cover fit the bathroom, fit the kitchen, fit the utility and cloakroom, electric 2nd fix rainwater soakaways rainwater collection system backfilling concrete lego brick retaining wall Flooring Wood cladding Air tightness test (as I write this, I think "oh, sh1t, I must get that booked in") Fit internal doors Fit en suite Build MY garage A green roof system, because its on the planning application, and may be required for certificate of completion (unless someone can enlighten me as to how to avoid this, and be able to delay the installation) We are focusing on the internal works in order that we can move in, although not necessarily completed on the outside, sometime in the summer months. The first 3 or 4 items have progressed well: <----- This is the "attic" with a garage floor paint that remains a little tacky even 3 weeks later, but it'll eventually get covered with a "proper" floor at some point in the future Despite the window leaks not being fixed yet, we have ploughed on and had all the other plastering done. The window installation company knows the situation and is fully aware that we expect them to repair any further damage caused by the water ingress. (I'll not respond to any comments on this point for my own sanity 🙂 ) Flooring has been ordered, and 2nd fix electrics loosely scheduled in, as well as some of the backfilling, and prepping for the garage foundation. The UFH has started where the floor is available, and in order to be able to install the kitchen (the picture below is not where the kitchen will be - I don't appear to have photoed that - strange. Those who have been reading my blogs will recall from an earlier entry the terrible story of SWMBO's foot. Well today (Apr29) as I write this on a hotel terrace in Oxford she is recovering from her sixth operation, this time a toe fusion, that will take her out of the game for at least 6 weeks, 2 of which she has to spend with the offending appendage raised above her heart for 23 out of 24 hours every day. She won't even be able to climb the walls with frustration. So yours truly will likely be happy to be dispatched to the house each day to GO AND DO SOME WORK!! 🤣 Until next time, which I hope will be the "We've moved in" entry.

I see them all sat in front of pianos now

The one bit of wall we had built "by others" was inspected afterwards for cleanliness of the cavity and I spied a saw lying at the bottom. It's still there as I couldn't be arsed to retrieve someone else's tool (oo err missus).

That looks very interesting option. I will have to show the boss 🙂 I met a couple of other hubbers at my place in Cornwall on Saturday and afterwards thought about a local meet up like the Suffolk one as well so would be interested in your offer, I'll DM you

Probably something like Terram. Used to separate soil from stone surrounding the pipe

We have just ordered 6mm thick click fit LVT with integrated underlay. We are going to put this directly on a Cemfloor screed on one floor and on top of 6mm plywood on the other floor. Comes from a company called Invictus. This is one of the chosen "patterns" - https://invictus.co.uk/lvt-maximusclick-newenglandoak-sand?sc_trk={254AF85D-8A2B-4925-8DD4-DCC0EB1A71FC}