Declan52

Your building control guy will come and visit and tick off what ever you have completed. So you could get them out knowing that you are only 95% finished and they will then give you a list of what still needs to be done before it's completed and can be signed off. They will check everything from safety glass on low Windows and doors to ramp access and door widths for wheelchairs. You will need to provide any cert needed for gas/electrics and have an as built sap report. An internet connection isn't needed. It's against the rules to live in a house that isn't signed off but plenty do. It's just a game of cat and mouse with how long you could get away with it before some council official knocks your door.

There you go then. When you meet tomorrow then just straight up ask what can he do for you with regards removing spoil, hardcore etc. Be honest your not interested in trying to do him over for cash and would rather come to some sort of agreement over what help he can give to you. Guarantee he will be getting hardcore much cheaper than you ever could. Plus don't forget his black book of lorry drivers, digger drivers, plasterers, sparks etc that you will need. With his build only over the road you can easily see if his work is good or not.

Instead of cash changing hands could you get something from him. Hire of a digger or scaffolding when you need it or even something like doing your driveway if you pay for materials. Won't cost him as much as a large wad of cash. Then it's only the actual position of the pipe run to sort out. A large builder with all their contacts might be very handy to have access to.

Yes.

I have carpet on a living room and two bedrooms. As above all have suitable underlay and carpet that are meant for ufh with low tog ratings. The heat still comes through but it doesn't feel the same underfoot as a solid floor would.

It can be done either before or after the frame has went up. How you do it will depend on you. Both methods are fine so it's just personal choice really. Some builders don't want to put the final screed down early due to the risk of it being damaged during the rest of the build. But others like to get the screed down without any internal walls in the way so it's much easier to level out.

I have stood on mine regularly to change bulbs etc and I'm not exactly dainty on my toes. How strong the joins are will be more effected by any movement of the cabinets below.

But your only opening a small hole so won't cause any damage to theirs.

Don't need to say to them if you don't want to. Your opening a small hole on your property. Good chance it will be stepped so might need a hole at each end and one in the middle.

Just lift some of the paving bricks and a slab and dig down. A post hole digger will get you over 1.2m deep in a hole not much wider than 600mm square. This will give you the depth of the top of the concrete. If you need to find the depth of concrete you can use a spade to scrape down the concrete and the post hole digger to remove the spoil. https://www.screwfix.com/p/roughneck-fibreglass-post-hole-digger/35835

You use bricks to get you to height if that suits better. Then a packer if needed under the hanger. Then it's built over with whatever will bring it back into coursing.

What height are the ceilings in the ground floor. Think your going to have to put a box section along the lefthand side of the kitchen. This will enable you to run the ducts along under the joists to get to where they need to be before they go into the correct joist. You can use the height of the kitchen units to help hide the box. Where it crosses the kitchen towards the Sink you will need another box from here to move to duct into the bottom rooms. The cupboard beside the sink will help hide it. The purple line will be the run and then you just turn the duct into the body and bring it to where it needs to go. If you really want to use mhrv then your just going to have to look at some kind of boxed in sections in the kitchen and bedrooms to bring the ducts down.

A floor plan would help to try and figure it out.

Have you had an actual plan from a mhrv company??? How many rooms are in your house as you don't need to extract from every single room??

Our apple tree is just about ready to be picked. It has grew like a weed this year for some strange reason so will need trimmed back in the winter.

Get whoever in the house has biggest appetite for cake to walk around while the other watches from below to see if the chip board is moving out the joist is flexing. Once this is figured out then a solution should be fairly easy.

Don't forget the company during the MCs work have had to pay to register on the scheme. This will bump their costs up by a tiny amount so will obviously pass this cost on x5 at least. The bigger the ashp you buy from them the more expensive it will be so the more money the will make on it. If you have all your drawings and intend to build to that spec then get a sap report which will tell you your heat demand. Will be a lot cheaper than over paying for a larger ashp.

Plenty of YouTube demonstration videos too show you the required technique. Once you figure that out 2 mins each chisel is all you need. Plus you can also use the same stone to put an edge on kitchen knives. For me there is nothing as relaxing as doing this. A real stress buster. Plus nothing like getting an edge so good on a knife you can shave your arm hair. Something as cheap as this will do for starters. I have a few stones with the finest 4000 grit. https://www.screwfix.com/p/magnusson-oil-sharpening-stone/4851v

Buy a whetstone and a few mins gets it back to razor sharp again.

You can get involved by doing actual building work like building blocks or bricks, first fix joinery , painting, laying flooring etc. This will obviously depend on two things mainly , time and money. If you have the money you normally get these trades in or if you have the time you slowly work your way through different jobs according to whatever skills you have. Or you be the person running the build. Organising all the different trades and making sure they have whatever materials they need at hand. You be the one chasing down prices trying to save a pound here and there and by the end of the job all these savings will add up. Some of us here do one of these, others both and some none. It will all really depend on your own particular circumstances. How much time can you devote to the build while still trying to do your normal everyday job and tasks.

Is it a single storey or two storey house?? Single storey would be very easy for 3 guys to pull up a truss at a time and lean them against a peak. Two storey a bit more difficult and you would need at least another pair of hands plus scaffold.

I deleted the other post.

What exactly did they mean by they could collect the door when passing?? As in I think we might be in your area in December, January and will lift it then type of thing or did they give you an approximate time scale to do this. I think you have been pretty fair with them throughout and have gave them enough time to come to a satisfactory conclusion which so far they haven't. So what happens now are you going to try and source bigger hinges and lock to try to hide the poor work???

You add anything to the brickwork to help the scratch coat bond better??

For sockets etc on a block wall you set the back box on a dab of bonding so it seals the back of the block. The conduit coming into the box gets sealed up as well so air can't come down from the joist space. Remember you only need to do this on external walls so with careful planning you won't need to do that many . Joists can get wrapped in membrane to form a tray and this gets sealed to the wall. You can buy special tape that is like cloth so one side sticks to the frame of a window or door and the other gets glued to the blocks to form a seal here. There are lots of methods to seal up a block house. Wet plaster is the best method.