Big Jimbo

That is very resin rich. Good job Conor. Plenty of sweat drips mixed in with that resin i bet.

Does building control cover Solweld pipework ? Asking for a friend.

I would like to see one up close and personal. They do look like more plastic rubbish to me. I wonder how well they work, and how long they will last.

I was wondering why you needed so many screws. It looks like you are planning on using the one's that actually look like a big screw. In my post above, i was refering to the helictical one's that look a lot more like a boat propeller. I would like to wish you the very best of luck with your project, which i will be following on here.

It's been a few years since i was down at BRE in Watford. From memory, they have several houses that are built on screw piles. I think they have screw piles that are all linked together with a metal grid frame. I believe that on top of that they have some sort of Lewis deck. From there it is a straightforward timber framed building. I never got the calculations, but did go as far as talking to a screw pile company, and having a design and calculations for a 13 x 11m house. At the time my thoughts were to build with timber I-beams. The cost was very reasonable. The reason i was looking into the system, was because my ground was medium shrinkability, but i had large trees. Poplars, and Oaks. I would have taken it further except that i had the concern of perhaps in the future having to sell, a bit of an out there, non standard construction house. The cost was slightly over a third of the cost of piling, and a ringbeam. The other thing that i liked, was the idea, of no digging, no muck away, and no concrete. It has to be a better way, just not something that is standard, and therefore the lenders all crap themselves, or load repayments accordingly. If i ever get the chance to build a smaller house to see out my days. I would try to do it that way. My own opinion is that we should only be building houses with a designed lifespan of 60 to 80 years. By that time, any house is about at the end of it's useful life. If you think about most of our current housing stock, to bring them up to modern standards would require most of them to be ripped apart to the point where there is not much left of them.

Look around for your nearest stone worktop supplier. They are usually more than happy to get rid of the stacks of small bits of stone they have cluttering the yard. I'm sure they would put a polished front edge on it for you for a few quid. The other point is that you can if you want have behind the loo fully tiled, and a small duel push button off to the side. I hate those bloody huge push plates, that are right behind the up toilet seat.

Would you be allowed to inspect it with a cheap drone ?

You could always do a layer of underfelt, and then felt roof shingles as the top layer. I did it on my last big man shed. The cost was ok, and it did look nice. Might be worth costing.

In england, if your old windows didn't have trickle vents, then your replacement windows didn't have to have them either. This was classed as making the ventilation, no worse than before. That was about 3 years ago, so worth checking if still the case. On my daughters house i got on quite well with the building inspector. I told him that i refused to fit trickle vents due to the thermal bi-pass, and that they were leaky pieces of crap. I had already fitted extractors to all of the wet areas, and the house was leaky as you like. I wasn't paying for tripple glazing and then putting ruddy great holes in them. He called me a grumpy old git, and sent my BR cert in the post.

Both of the above are very much how banking in the 80's worked. We all know where that ended up.

@SteamyTea I think part O should hav ebeen filed in PartB, ie; in the bin.

Another thing. Windows that are upstairs according to part O have to be 1100mm from the floor. If they are below that they have to have guarding. To comply with the escape portion of Part B, you can't have the opening section above 1100mm. Good luck to us all getting them at exactly 1100mm to comply with both part. Who the fudge allowed the bods writing part O to have anything to do with stating how high from the floor your windows are allowed to be. Bloody Madness, and stupid. I have decided that i shall put my windows in at normal level, because i would like my grandchildren to be able to make use of an escape route incase of a fire. If and when Building control tell me that my windows are to low, i will have several pieces of mdf ready to nail across the reveal to satisfy the stupid part O regulation that my opening must not be lower that 1100mm. We paid for this utter shite to be written with our taxes, and you can bet the twats that wrote it were on consultancy fees of a couple of grand minimum each per day. Tossers.

I might have ago at doing my own Heat calcs next.......Lots of fags but need to stock up on choc.

So basically another grand then. However, you will get a load of bits of computer printed paper, with loads of stuff that you don't understand. You will pass it on to building control, who won't understand it either, and prob are not paid enough to spend the time looking at it anyway. So, seriously, i spent the whole bloody day making sure i was calculating all the right things, with some complicated maths (for me) I plan on fitting HVMR, so i will ban the opening of windows ever. As Dizzie would say "Bonkers"

Fab @johnhenstock83. @Nickfromwales i will make a note of that.

As i am waiting for the structural engineer to do some calculations for my new house, i thought i would have a read of the new building regs part O. Blinking heck. Has anybody else had a look ? You have to do a hell of a lot of work. I spent the whole of yesterday (from 8am till 9pm) having a go at doing all the various calculation required. Basically part O is about limiting solar gain. You can do your part O calculations by either a "Simplifed Method" of "Dynamic modelling". Now me being a bit simple (dont all shout at once) thought i would have a go at the simplified method. At this point i should point out that it aint simple so dont be fooled. The first thing you have to do is work out which room has the most glazing, and what direction it faces. This will give your your values that you have to meet based on the direction that this most glazed area faces. You then have to work out your total glazed area in relation to your total floor area. When you do this you should take away the frame for each window, so you cant just use your brickwork opening sizes. So you need to decide who you are going to buy your windows from and stick with them ? Even though they double the price by the time you actually look to purchase. Then you have to work out your free area, so you need to know the angle that your window will open to, and the unrestricted size of your opening. Once you have done all that, or at the same time you had better make sure that you have all the relevant windows for escape etc. When you have done all that, and added in extra opening windows for ventilation you might just about be ready to tick that part o box, and crack a beer. At that point you will find out that there are several other bits to the building regs, and that you have fallen foul to most of them. Your upstairs windows are to low, and people might fall out. The handles to your windows are to high, so don't comply to disabled bits of the building regs. You have worked out the opening angle of your windows to ensure that you can get enough free ventilation, but they open to far and people might fall out. You have worked out that opening your windows at night for ventilation does not meet the security aspect of your property, but if you only open them on vent you are not getting enough ventilation. Then your head starts to spin. Window. Top hung. no danger, people might fall out, but atleast short people will be able to reach the handles. Child restrictors. No the fire bit does not like them, because people struggle to open them to escape. No windows. Live like @pocster in an underground cave. No. natural light requirement not met. No escape. No ventilation. Then, at that point you realise that you have gone mad, and eaten far to many choc bars to keep you going. Then you start to think, who wrote all these building reg things. Then you drink more, eat more choc, forget that you need the toilet. smoke more, and more. You start to think that you have failed. Not only at part O, but in life ! This isn't Yaz. In fact the only way is down. You start to sink further into your own twisted mind. You decide it's time for bed......... In the morning (now) you realise that all the different parts of the building regulations have been put together by different bodies. Various experts in there field no doubt. You also realise that most bits conflict with other bits. and that everytime a new bit is introduced it makes it even harder to comply, and that more experts will be required in order to get you over the line. You decide that if you ever get voted in as PM you are going to make all the people concerned, get together, and write One set of rules for building, that have no conflict with any of the other parts. We are getting to the point where it will be impossible to comply with building regs without loads of expensive experts. Within 20 years the portion of your budget to build that is required for your building regs will make all buildings even more expensive and out of reach. You again start to think about how simple you are, and wonder if there is anything good on the telly to watch this morning. That and worry that you have smoked all the fags, and eaten all the choc.

@Temp It happens.

@SteamyTea what do you call Gerrards Cross ?

I do love the Wera stuff, however, i do have some stuff that is Wiha. I want a lottery win now that i have been looking at the Wera site.

I done know @Dave Jones First, i dont have to have that bloody huge push plate right behind the lift up toilet seat. I tend to have a small button off to the side. I usually do the shelf in either Marble, Granite, or a manufactured stone. This provides a useful space for my expensive (Hugo Boss, etc) reed diffuser.

Can One of the Chickens be called big J please.

I have always done the lift off shelf above. I have never fancied trying to get my big hands in through the hole in the front panel

One thing i just thought about is the flow from a shower head. The crappy bungalow that i currently live in has a 10kw electric shower. It was fitted with the shower head that came with the unit. The Mrs always complained that there was not enough power to wash conditioner out of her hair. The head eventually scaled up and i replaced it with a cheap one from one of the sheds. No more complaints.... I expect that the new shower head has a lower flow rate, and this leads to the perception that it is more powerful. So i could look at having a nice big flow in the master, and less flow in the other bathrooms ?

Thanks Dan. yes i get the dedicated supply to each shower, rather than legs off. I would say i would like each shower to be say 10mins.

I don't see any reason why you should not. Perhaps a word with the manufacturer. I am only thinking of things like, the glue used in manufacturing is UV stable.