redtop

I like the hager sockets and switches. White, good quality and very rounded edges. I notice things like that lol.

Has it been determined this is structural and not just for hanging heavy stuff off. I wont comment on the former but for the later we have very heavy Radiators hanging of plasterboard screwed to the timber stud walls. Load spreading screws (the ones that you use a tool to spread the arms out). They can take a lot of weight and don't forget you are usually trying to stop them dropping down not tipping forward, if that makes sense. For kitchen wall hung cudboards i would just use noggins behind the plasterboard.

Never again!

Well our builder was a crook and we lost a lot of money. Happened just at first lockdown. Luckily enough that meant working from home for 18months so de camped to the site and built it myself and skived work as much as possible. Doing video calls whilst in a building with no roof in the rain.... Said wifi was too slow so did voice only lol. 2years on and next week we are getting BC in for final sign off. Looking back, I now know the original quote was miles too low, if we had paid a proper builder it would have cost a lot more than we have spent even allowing for the money we lost from the original crook. Oh and we were renting locally, they decided to sell and wanted it empty so we moved into the house in Oct 2020 with no heating, no internal walls, no plasterboard, temp stairs, temp electrics and a site toilet.... Didn't even have any cladding on the outside, so it looked like a giant purple quality street with the vapour wrap on. That was a Grim winter huddled around a couple of electric radiators. But, and for us this was critical, we never fell out of love with the site. 2 acres of woodland, our house in the middle and a 10 min walk to the centre of looe and the beach. Oh, and access is via a very narrow and steep road, I can just, and I mean just, squeeze my Toyota hilux onto site. So everything had to be brought in on that. I will never forget putting in 240 sheets of 18mm OSB on my own. And plasterboard, my god the fireproof stuff is heavy for 1 person. 140mm woodfibre external insulation, also bloody heavy. Never had any scaffolding on site, as I was on my own I worked of a decorators platform, dodgy as hell but never fell off! Never had any skips, cant get em on site lol. And as of last week told work I am taking early retirement at the end of this year. I can afford it, just. Retiring poor, but just affordable. Going to enjoy the building and location this summer for the first time, all worth it! I can certainly say, without this site I wouldnt have known half the stuff I do now and sharing pain is great ?

Now I am confused, why not do it yourself. Go in a short course, hire in some labour and save a fortune for what is stated as an easy job.

Not unless you accept the contract, actually its just speculating

Its too expensive. But they could also have a load of other work making good money, so to do your job they want that much. Might be overpriced but thieving it isn't. Profiteering yes.

Just checking this wasn't someone called Marc bear, based in cornwall?

We have 32mm over about 100m from the meter. This feeds the house and the sprinkler, it splits under the house so the sprinkler feed doesn't go through that stop cock inside house. We did have a special high flow meter installed that works for sprinkler systems with a 32mm feed into it from the main. We get 10bar at the house and it passed all the flow / pressure tests needed for the sprinkler. But they also said we were unusual as a pump and tank are usually needed.

Whats wrong with putting it under the driveway?

If you are not having gas I would def go for 3phase

Yep, but why would it do that when every light is turned off so no current is bring drawn. Odd. Perhaps it was touching the back box, but it was the usual 'looks like its in' but wasn't.

Exactly what I thought, plus driving rain causing issues. But no damp when opened up and no bulbs blown, plus it still tripped with all lights off. Only thing I found was a loose neutral on an internal switch, which I have fixed and it hasn't tripped since. Just little suprised that caused the rcbo to trip in the first place.

So last night the downstairs RCBO 6a light tripped, and tripped straight away with all light switches off this morning. I have gone round and checked every light switch, and also outside lights noting I have looped at the switch not the pendant. I found one loose neutral which was on the 4way light switch in the kitchen. Sorted that and RCBO isn't tripping, could that have been the fault or should I expect it to trip again soon....

Passed this past the wife, who knows everything, and considering other threads, is always right. She prefers the architect designed one to the photo! She likes thats its a bit 'off', makes it look interesting. Photo one looks OK but a decent bog standard build, so not really standing out as a self build / different.

Good point re the gridlines. If i understand you correctly its so you can see how the downstairs walls line up with upstairs? If so, spot on and very useful. Our architect did great drawings, unfortunately the downstairs soil didn't line up with upstairs... As i built it myself i adjusted as i went along but this sort of detail at the start makes it easier later.

We have quite a few steels and it was either paint or put behind plasterboard.

I know they are easy to fit. But how much time did you spend reading how to do it? In any event fitting a gas boiler and ASHP are both easy, I think ours was fitted and tested in half a day

Its not really chalk and cheese. In practice our waterfall shower is plenty powerful enough, I wouldnt want more water coming out of it. And yes, run multiple showers and Pressure drops but we have a high flow combi so it should cope, but tbh I wouldnt know as we have never used more than 1 shower or bath at a time. But also never ever run out of hot water. So chalk and cheese it isn't, pros and cons yes depending on what is important to you. Neither more hot water pressure or the ability to run multiple hot water outlets at same time matters to us. I would add we have used the manifold system for hot and cold, so a separate pipe for every outlet with showers prioritised, so turning on a hot tap while having a shower makes no difference. And I know ASHP are simple, but there are a lot of plumbers that have never fitted them and when its a learning curve, it costs.

Just checked, we went for a gas combi boiler. 2k fitted with filter including the 360 quid for the mains gas supply. 10 year guarantee. Now this might not be a popular choice on here. Double the level of insulation of building regs plus airtightness of 4.7. We also didn't need MVHR. 2k. All in and we don't use much gas for heating given the insulation. And we were able to have a gas hob. No space taken up by a hot water tank, no heating water when not needed and as 2 of live here no need to run 2 showers at once. Now we don't live near a main road, no outside noise, no nasty smells as we are 400m from the sea. I think everyone agrees max out on the insulation. Get the airtightness good. Once there the heating energy demand should be so low why not go for the cheapest install option available?

Nit sure thats comparing like for like. Quick Google and gas boilers from 800 quid to 1200 ish. 9kw ashp from 2300 up to 4500. And our GSR charges around 250 a day, is brilliant but would have to learn how to fit an ASHP.

I had to after we kicked Builders off site and took it on myself. I had to get tops level. Used plastic packers and nail through bottom hole to keep em in

I had to pack some and just used plastic packers. Given the amount timber expands and shrinks i cant see a problem and it passed BC checks

We did that with no issues. Only thing I found was that all connectors are not equal. I used some cheap ones and they were absolute rubbish. Cant remember the ones we ended up using, but they were at the expensive end. I got the recomended brand of this website, so a search should bring up an old thread. Don't skimp on this.

We had close to 100m and used 32m mdpe and a high flow meter. Its a beast. Passed the water pressure and flow tests for the sprinkler system without needing a pump but I understand this varies massively from region to region.