vivienz

I should clarify that we aren't living on site and the existing bungalow will be demolished. There's no mains drainage, either, so I think that a portaloo is the easier option for the site.

In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I'm assuming that the bat licence will come through in April and things will get going on site around that time. I will need a site office, toilet and security fencing. I've never bought or hired any of these before - does anyone have any pointers of where to start looking? Ta very much!

Aha! That's where I spotted It, thanks le-cerveau. have you found them to be effective?

I'm proposing that our downstairs loo will have a fixed window to stop people opening it and messing up the MVHR. I've been looking at the duofresh cistern from Geberit - has anyone installed/used one of these? Do they work?

What a lovely project. Have you considered sliding pocket doors between the bedrooms and bathrooms? It would give you a lot more clearance where space is tight; I'm planning to use them in a couple of places in our new build.

Fantastic news - congratulations. When do you think you will break ground?

Fantastic news.

Good luck for this afternoon.

Latest update on the glazing costs. I have my quote from Idealcombi and it's only about £200 cheaper than the quote from Norrsken, excluding installation. I've had difficulty getting all the elevation plans over to them and so I haven't got figures for the glazed gable section, so I've made an assumption on these, but I don't think I'll be too far off the mark. Some windows are more, some are less, but overall there's little difference between the total figures. For the sake of the £200, I'm going to stick with Norrsken on the strength of the supply and fit package and no VAT reclaim, plus a nicer option on the internal frame finish. Also, the tall window in the hallway that goes to the upper ceiling needs to be done in 3 pieces by Idealcombi, whereas Norrsken can do it as 2 pieces. Thanks for all the help and input, everyone. I'm sad that I couldn't get the prices down, but happy that I've done my due diligence on the glazing.

If you can call on anyone, it would also be helpful to have a third party there to act as an independent witness to the discussion.

Lovely looking windows and doors, Moira. I've requested another couple of quotes - any money saved on the windows can go towards my ever increasing kitchen budget! Thanks for the pictures and info.

Good grief, it sounds more like persecution to me. Could also be worth the threat of contacting something like the BBC You and Yours programme.

Can I ask what sort of price you paid, Moira?

I didn't approach idealcombi - I will give them a call tomorrow and see what they have to say. I'm a little reticent to get separate fitters, in truth, and one of the positives about norrsken is that they have done a few projects with MBC and are happy with the wall sizes. Still, it doesn't hurt to shop around a little more.

There is some there in concrete asbestos roofing panels and some very old floor tiles. The inspector said That, subject to lab tests for which he took samples, he didn't believe there was anything high risk there. He believed that it was all low dust and could be disposed of by the groundworkers by standard methods for this type of material.

Can you hear that? It's the sound of my fingers tapping as I find myself waiting for the wheels of bureaucracy to turn. This time, it's the turn of Natural England and their (hopeful) approval of our bat mitigation strategy and licence to remove the roof from the old bungalow. It takes around 6 weeks for them to decide on a licence application but they are behind by a week or two right now, so that means it could be anything up to 2 months. 2 months! Unbelievable! I've come to the conclusion that this part of self building is like being stuck in the mother of all traffic jams, one that lasts for months and years on end. Still, all I can do is sit and wait and hope to hell that the licence is granted before the bats decide to move back in for the summer, some time in early May, possibly. I've planned to within an inch of my life for stuff to do with the house and I don't think that there's much more I can do at this stage that will be of practical use or run into the danger of overthinking things. My boredom was slightly relieved last week by having the asbestos survey done prior to demolition - nothing nasty, all standard - and getting all the hedges in close proximity to the bungalow taken out by my trusty groundworker. Actually, I do need to have a look into site facilities for once demolition is done as I can't go for a discrete pee behind the hedges now that they are down. Things could get tricky if I start mooning the neighbours. The asbestos survey chap was a pleasant fellow. I rang around for quotes and they seem to all come in at a similar price, in the region of £350 + VAT. I used Mark Harverson of Four Paddock Ltd. He is in Lymington but is happy to travel and was nice to deal with. So, I'm waiting for the soil survey report, the asbestos report and the bat licence, for the architect and MBC to finalise drawings for the building regulations submission. If things get really desperate, I won't be able to ignore work and housework for much longer. Tap, tap, tap...... Edit: A small addition about the asbestos survey. In theory, unless the householder suspects that there is asbestos present, there is no legal obligation to have an asbestos survey carried out prior to demolition. In practice, however, no groundworker will demolish without knowing that you've had one done and what the results were, so best to get it done and out of the way in good time before knocking things down.

That's a useful gizmo - thanks, Onoff. I've been pondering the orientation of my solar PV panels recently and this has helped me decide that I'll go all south facing.

Splendid! Thanks, chaps.

An annuity hasn't been compulsory for a long time - drawdown has been available since about 1998, it's just that it was rather more expensive back in those days. You did still have to buy an annuity after age 75 up until the mid 2000s, but pensions have been more flexible than the mass providers would have you believe for some time.

As we're pretty close to the end of the tax year, have a look and see if you have much leeway left in your basic rate tax band. If you have, you could draw out enough 'income' from the drawdown to use up that tax rate. If your earnings are predictable or you're able to manage them, you could then draw out some more as soon as you get past 5th April, again at basic rate tax.

What a load of old tosh! Presumably, they're peeved because of your letter from the VO. Just because something can be made habitable, that doesn't mean it is. Ask them to put their decision in writing and with the justification for it; at the very least you can stall them whilst you get some more opinion on defending your corner. Would it be worth giving the VO a quick call to see if they can advise as to whose opinion hold the trump card? In any case, as Jack says, if it's not banded, how can they know what to charge anyway? Grrrr!

I'm getting a few quotes in on PV systems for the roof of my MBC build and I have a slightly tricky issue of how to route the DC cabling from the array, underneath the tiles on a south facing 35° inclination roof, over the ridge and down the north facing side, into the single storey flat-roof garage where the inverter will live. I'd like it all sealed and tucked away where it won't have anything nasty done to it by local rodents or birds, but it's whether there is enough clearance for the cabling and all its protection. Any suggestions, please?

Thanks all, excellent hive mind thinking as ever. We're quite taken with the idea of a powder coated aluminium brise soleil. The south face of the house where the brise soleil is doesn't have any gables and so I don't think it's so crucial that the cladding matches. I've been looking at a cladding from a firm called Dura Composites: Flush 150 cladding I'll get onto pricing up the brise soleil next.

Thanks - I didn't even think about using a material other than wood for the bride soleil. I like the cedral click but the light oak colour isn't available in the flush version, as far as I can tell.

Two roof gables project outwards from upstairs bedrooms and onto balconies, and these need to have some sort of finish on the inside verticals and underside of the roof. I thought about real timber initially, but I don't want the colour to fade unevenly or have to do any maintenance on it, so I was thinking about some sort of flush weatherboard. There are a couple that I've seen that are okay, but my real dilemma is that we're going to have a brise soleil in front of the high floor to first floor ceiling height window and I would really like them to match as closely as possible to stop the look of the house being too busy with too many textures and colours going on. I can't think of anything other than wood that the brise soleil can be practically made from, but then I know very little about these things. Does anyone have any suggestions re. materials for the brise soleil, who I would approach to have one of these made, and alternatives for the finish on the gable inner sides. Ta very much!