ToughButterCup

Have you read many posts on this forum ?

Determination, persistence. Face misogyny head on. Loads of it in this sector. Save money. Start very small, then modest, then bigger. Plan for growth. Think long term.

Lets start with the basics, and then move down the hierarchy: Naivety Optimism bias Great Crested Newts Male learned helplessness Mendacious tradespeople Criminal behaviour Exceptionally bad weather Osteoarthritis @pocster's car-crashes. If you can be bothered, detailed evidence of the above items can be found in my previous posts. Delay can , with a bit of effort, easily be turned to advantage.

Learning styles vary. So presentation should vary to take account of that: written, aural, diagram(s), visual, oral. (Kinaesthetic isn't relevant here) In terms of the document presented, make sure that the information structure is logical. But whose logic? Are you given a format to follow? Then follow it. If not how does the panel ensure uniformity of opportunity to get the message across? No format offered? Ask for one. Try to access previous presentations. And try to get clues as to what went well or not so well, and why. Any online? At all costs, keep emotion out of the presentation. Hard facts. If on site, then you have a first class opportunity to present via poster. Presenting on site needs practice. Know what barriers there are / will / might be on the day. Heavy rain? Bright sunlight? Background noise? Electricity supply for lighting? WiFi signal? Make the password easily available. Offer a QR code so people can scan it and login quickly. Also offer the password in clear text ( in the footer of any paper-based handout). Practice the presentation in front of a sympathetic audience first. Ask for feedback. Watch the time. No waffle. Research (online) poster presentations . There are some brilliant online examples of that presentation format. Big: bright: simple. Well designed Good luck. Date?

I have no idea about the DRP panel. But I do know about how to present information to the best effect. I taught people how to do that for years. First: make the presentation where you can make your case most powerfully. It may be that you need two locations to do that - the site and (say) an office. And the office could - have to be (?) - the minibus that you hire to take everyone to the site ... bit of a nightmare that. Second, present the information in several formats. You might want to make a video, or an information pack, or a poster - I'm groping here because I'm not sure what your presentation involves. Thought about putting together a website to support your application? Choose the colours of your site carefully - reflect your message . Online, use the Information Pyramid: sniff> nibble > lick > bite > chew > swallow Don't forget there are always those who '.... want it on paper ...' If you decide to make a written presentation to keep it short, focused, accurate and evidenced. If in doubt cut, cut, cut written content to make it as short as you can. One sheet of A4 - tops. Consider laminating it - presenting information on paper outside on a rainy day is ..... Bets of luck - looking forward to your next few posts. Ian

Yes. The lads that come out for one service couldn't give a stuff about any other services. Do as suggested above. It'll be reet lad , it be reet ... (as they say 'oop 'eer in't norf west)

That @Ralph is self-build porn. MODS, please delete. I'm not showing this thread to Debbie. Not ever.

I really hope you haven't paid the plumber yet..... Others will come along and give you chapter and verse, but : No, it's not good enough. Pay him something less the cost of putting it right

while blowing your smoke up the chimney ?

Hi, welcome. No. No direct experience, but I remember researching the issue when I was at your stage of a build. There is plenty of well-researched, peer reviewed stuff. There's the key issue. (from remembered reading..... subject area 'passive ventilation') Dead spots are very hard to identify without extensive modelling. Air flows are not instinctively predictable. I'll try and dig out the research papers PS Found it ..... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0360132389900024

Put the correctly specified cable in trunking.

Exactly right. And directly in line with my experience of Durisol. My inexperience caused an increased build cost. A reasonable guess at the additional cost of the blowouts (7 in all) - less than £1000 - one pour roughly (?). By the 3rd blowout, I'd put together a blowout kit, and had shallow pits ready for that pour's spillage + 3 clean wheel-barrows and half a dozen shovels, couple of concrete rakes and a smoothing-thing. Everyone was briefed on what to do when (not if) one occurred. Needed a team of 4 to manage well. 5 better still. Just doable with 2 One guy had nothing else to do but to look for leaks. (Johnners) or me. And as a result of the spillages, I now have 3 nice super- flat concrete work-surfaces around the garden - one for the pizza oven and bbq area, one for SWMBO's shed and greenhouse and one outside the front of the house: that's a mess because I got it wrong - left it too long before smoothing off. There's always a way to turn a WhatDaFukMoment into something positive. Always. You just have to get it as wrong as I have as often as I have.

Hello @Brammers. Please try not to think of us as experts: we're just hard-bitten, nosey folk with a smattering of this that and the other as far as building is concerned. (Apart from @nod) My fingertips are fizzing with caution. Please get an SE to come round and give you an opinion. Please. You might just be right in doing it your way, but ....

Give them a ring..... ?

Well @SteamyTea, I've yet to see a build where Durisol is the outer skin. In terms of what I have written about it, I think its fair to argue that my own incompetence, inexperience and openness should not be taken as a factor in the criticism of a product. I may be wrong, but I think I might be the only person to have written quite as much about Durisol on this board. One person's musing on one discussion board is hardly a good evidence base on which to make fairly large purchase decisions. I had absolutely no prior experience of building. None. I appointed a company that was over-trading to help build the house. I sacked them far too late. So I (we) just got on with it. And now I'm sitting in a warm house that I've built by my (our) selves. I would have made just as many stupid errors with any other build method. Come to think of it, had we chosen brick and block, the errors would have been worse. A combination of opportunity, Durisol, effort, commitment and guts has constructed a house worth about £500k. And nobody knows or cares what the build method was. But what I find of most value is the learning experience I've had along the way. That's priceless.

Hello @BristolBuild2020 : you might like to make sure that you order enough blocks to avoid having to re-order - because of breakage. Some users (those on site handling them, but who haven't paid for them) think of Durisol like they think of bricks: easy to discard go and get some more. And while you are closer to the factory than we are, it's still a right pain to realise that you haven't got enough because people aren't taking care of them while cutting them (for example). In the end I made a simple jig which compensated for the flexibility of the sabre saw we were using to cut blocks. Negativity? Some criticism of Durisol is justified; it's how that negativity is expressed that matters. I'd use the product again - because I know what to look for and how to deal with the product. Its a product new to many. I think the negativity has its roots in the steepness of the learning curve that exists with any new process or product. Some just don't want to make the effort. And thats fine.

The pinned post by @newhome on the VAT board is long. But comprehensive . Its well structured, well written, accurate. I found I had to make notes and summarise it for myself. That process helped my understanding a great deal. It also lead to reading judgments of VAT proceedings: while at this level precedent does not apply , I intend to submit a second application to reclaim VAT. Several people have made successful second claims. As SWMBO says, "Anything to keep you busy dear.... "

Welcome from another. Well, ex - . Osteoarthritis . 68 and still a F-wit. Yer in good company Jimmie.

Morning. There's a mass of advice here: often buried in discussion which isn't related to the question posted. So, please waste a bit of time here: try out the site search facility and you could also try using google or other search engine to search within the site. Some find it more efficient to search that way than to use the forum search tool. If you have a strong stomach, follow @pocster, if you want stories about well-illustrated , detailed fiddly stuff done to a high standard, @Onoff's yer man. @ProDave is a tame spark, there's more a than a few plumbers; and there is any number of bar-room lawyers. @nod has forgotten more about plastering, framing and allied trades than anyone else. The blogs are worth more than a passing look . Anyway, welcome. Ian

Hello. Good Morning. Welcome. The title of your post made me click on it. I wish more people had your approach. I'm eight years in to our new build. I used to teach at local universities, the OH still does. We recon that - if you're new to building - it takes about as much effort to manage and build a new house (project manage and DIY) as it does to get a doctorate. But the building process hits your bank balance much harder than mere study and research.

A similar google search this time with the word 'edging' added

Here is too much detail

Hello @DevonKim Its good to hear the fizz in your 'voice' Hold on to it, because you'll need it later. Nervous you say? Good, you're normal. And as for moral support here - here - really?

As @Thorfun, we put together a mood-board. The interesting thing was that as soon as we went through that process, we found trawling through relevant books and YT videos was so much easier. You can also find plenty of ready made mood-boards online. Grand Designs episodes help - a bit. We also assembled a 'scrap book' of the things we liked about the houses we saw: anything at all - and thats how we came to ask for a timber clad house, and why knew we wanted a large area of glass facing south. The scrap book helped us show other people what we wanted. And there's a good deal of value in that.

Ughhhhh. I hated this job so much, I came to love it. Strange, but true. Two chippies helped me on our build for a short period: one sloppy as hell, 'tother, well, finicky is an understatement. Each had a different approach to the same issue. They only worked for a day or two, the cladding took me a full month (on and off) 2mm should be achievable quite easily: and less than that with a bit of care. For me the key thing is - while working on your own - it takes time. Soooooo much longer than working with someone who can share the job. And by that I don't mean a willing but disinterested / clueless / completely unskilled / person. I'm trying not to say - partner. (She won't read this, I hope) I found that battens need to be held by the head of the screw: not the whole of the (in our case) concrete screw. So the batten needed to be pre-drilled. That means that you can vary the tension by a mil or less quite easily - and fookitrightup if you don't predrill the hole. Because when you come to fit the counter-batten, the process of backing off a screw on an under-batten which has not had a pre-drilled hole, it pulls a large section of the batten one way or the other. Cross-making. One of our walls, in profile, bears more than a passing resemblance to a propeller. Excellent training for battening. I ended up making my own shims (modelled on trouser shims) . Thats when I learned (from the fastidious chippy) you can use multiple layers of DPM to get the battens lined up to within half a mil... He was on day rate. I feel almost nostalgic about it now @Dreadnaught: if you weren't so far away, I'd come and help ya......