ToughButterCup

When in Rome, do as the Romans. Ditto Australia.

Think of your customer. All Matters Reserved gives the most flexibility. And your workload: quicker, cheaper.

This site is very helpful. It summarises the issue accurately and links to further resources. A goldmine for you .....

Tomato, tomaydo, potahto potayto, Bosch, DeWalt, Durisol, Izodom. Customers are responsible for their own purchase decisions. And everyone needs to do their Due Diligence. Thoroughly.

Here's a start. Network: with the emphasis on work. Look at the South Lakes (SLDC) planning site and review the applications which broadly match the size of plot that you have to offer. Look at the reasons for refusal and acceptance. That will give you a good steer as to what's acceptable and what isn't - but most importantly - in each case - why. Back a few estate agents into a corner. Listen. Ditto local Councillors who have responsibility for Planning or who have been on the planning subcommittee. If they're anything like ours, look at their own record of building locally. Include Permitted development in that search too. Garages can easily be re-jigged as houses. Go and listen in on Council Planning Committee meetings. Look at who says what and research those people thoroughly. What's the politics of it all? What's the micropolitics of it if you can wheedle that out somehow. Know who is selling what land locally and where it is. Talk to local builders. From memory, there are a couple of key builders up here aren't there? Look at houses with scaffolding outside them. Who is the contractor? Look at the Local Plan. SLDC have a very informative mapping tool. Yes, it's a lot of work. But it will lead to informed, evidence-based conversations. You are much harder top fob off if you can say why you want what you want for reasons you can evidence. Nobutt a steep larnin' curve is 'iss bildin lark, lad. Or alternatively, take up golf. Good luck. Ian

Festool 18V cordless : couple of Bosches - now much abused (one 18, one 12 V) T Bar: NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT . Thanks Screw extractor? Yes, but its been nicked Link to a decent T Bar manual driver please ! Is this what you mean?

Thats easy. Anywhere in the whole build cycle is the answer. Every bit of that cycle has a precedent. How about a review of the sale prices of plots of land in an area that you favour? Lets say that you can't afford most of them, but there are one or two that with a bit of determination you might be able to buy. (BTW, that's a common experience here on BH - we waited for a generation before we could build) Then, imagine a design that you like. Look for planning applications for that type of house in your chosen area. Look at why those applications were accepted, or refused. Look at those that were accepted. Cost them. Now you have a savings target and a much better guess at how much it's going to cost overall. Waste time reading BuildHub.

Yes. Could I suggest you have a lot of reading to do, please. You might usefully start here.

You wouldn't normally know that - as a matter of course - would you ....

Look at the different designations: Freehold Land, Vacant freehold land, Investment Freehold site .... and then look the location up on Google Maps (or other mapping tool), you'll soon see the differences. ...

A few years ago @VIPMan renovated his beautiful Victorian terrace house in Lancaster. Have a look at his content. (click on his logo)

.... the plot ....

Hello, welcome. The first thing to advise is to spend a week or two reading BuildHub from top to bottom. There isn't one area referred to in your post that hasn't been covered in this discussion board many times over. Really - just put time aside for it and read. Start with the Planning Section, and the blogs. They are a gold-mine of information. Next. Persistence. I have a strong feeling reading your post that you are in a hurry - relatively speaking. You may just be lucky: but prepare for a long haul. Next Read Local Authority Planning websites. Look at planning applications, and pay especial attention to reasons for planning application acceptance and refusal. That should be about a month's work for you. Good luck. Ian

Don't tell me Gary, you've got to plaster that - or better still, tile it .....😂

You, my son, have a long history of telling me stuff about a few years too late. In fairness, the pipe has been there for a minimum of 35, maybe 40 years. '... should be sleeved... ' indeed. The pipe goes (for no good reason) up, across and through the wall for about 6, maybe 700 mm ... Interesting this building lark innit? Ya larn sum stoof on Buildhub duntcha... Thanks Dave.

Other opinions are available. Full disclosure, I have one: they aren't for everyone. Properly installed, they work as well as anything else. One person's expensive is another's cheap. Price isn't the only determinant of customer choice.

I've got a few like that. Put them in myself. I told her it was meant to be artistic. Didn't go down too well.

Our old house. Wall gets wet. No good apparent reason. Wall a few feet thick. Hmmm. Call a plummer. Very nice man. Very nice man indeed. Wasssis then? I ask Hmmm, he sez. Wall's wet he sez. 🙄 An hour later he saunters up and says: Seen a piece of copper pipe this thick before ? Naaah And this is where it was leaking No. I can't see the hole either. Buried a foot inside the (3 foot thick) wall. Why? Buildhub - why?

Add the word -yet- and I agree with you What a really interesting response. Made me think. I've only ever considered EI in the context of nurturing positive relationships between people especially when the contexts are or have become difficult. Do you have any references for me to read about the relation between EI and economic performance please?

Emotional Intelligence is taught in an age-appropriate way @SimonD : it's a required part of the curriculum. It just doesn't go by the same name. I used to train teaching students to plan , prepare and evaluate their own practice before qualification. Infants sitting on the floor, listening, turn taking, working in a small group : year 6 children taking responsibility for one or two children in a lower year group. How to act as someone's buddy; how to mentor and the difference between mentoring and supporting colleagues - all (still) part of the primary curriculum. The lone-tradesperson is a challenging role to take on. Because its so hard to get appropriate feedback: structured , accurate, informed , carefully delivered. And customers can and often behave completely unreasonably. But for some reason customers are always right. Thats nonsense. Well qualified, competent tradespeople need appropriate support. In a one man business, working on your own for long periods (as was the case here) is not a good environment in which to work. Not to miss out on the simple obvious answer in this case: he'd have been tired, piddled off and wanted to go home - found me as a customer a complete PITA, and thought: sod it here's some screws, he won't notice until I'm well gone. Correct. Repeat business - gone.

Some do know better and have good communication skills. In this case, had the tradesman told me he was short of screws, I'd have given him more. Any job depends at some level on the ability to communicate, especially when things go wrong. And stuff goes wrong all the time. It's normal for stuff to go breasts high. The measure of a good trades person depends on technical skills as well as the emotional intelligence required to communicate effectively under pressure. And which trades course teaches the latter skill? Correct. It starts (if a little late by then) in the Reception class at school.

I'm very aware that being allowed to build is a privilege: as is a forum on which I can vent the most minor of irritations.

Vee Tschermans are not allowed to yoouze zees stooppid screwz. My hands have been weakened by 10+ operations on my hands, 8 fingers left of which 6 are in working order. I can't feel anything much in two of them. Makes punching someone a breeze. Can't feel a thing. Gaulhofer delivered our windows in wooden crates. I couldn't see any heads of the screws they had used for packing: they were that deeply buried in the whitewood packaging . Once I had found the correct size of Torx head, I found that if just shoved the extended bit into the screw holes blind, the bit would engage with the Torx screw and out it would come. No caming out at all . Couldn't have done that with POSIs. Just not enough control over the grip needed to steady my hand. Those Torx are the ones for me, I thought. Bought £500 worth of various sizes from Germany (when that was possible), and never gave the issue another thought. 50mm stainless screws for the cladding - about 30% of Screwfixes price. Couldn't believe the price difference. All the others noticeably cheaper even with the shipping. It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good innit?

Yes. But time presses this morning. Like you say - 'm always cross about summat. Need a holiday. I'm more cross about having paid someone to do something - with a clear rationale for asking him to do it, and then find that he did the opposite. I have to see him every morning that I take the grandbabies to skoool. Moving swiftly on.......

It's soooooo simple and so stupid. The stairs handrail was put in - temporarily - using 5 by 100mm POSI screws sunk inside a deep hole (30 mm) in the rail itself . I told the guy helping me that because of my stupid hands, POSIs are a No - No anywhere on site. Torx heads were to be used everywhere and Spax ones at that. I even gave him (to keep) his own case of Torx screws of the right size held in one of those plastic boxes - the boxes with a clear lid so you can see what the stock level is . You know what happens next. I needed to take the stair rail out this morning. It was fastened with six screws. To 'undo' the last screw (of six of the same type - fekkin' POSIs) , I've had to cut it: and to do that I could not avoid damaging the newel post. I'll just have to hide the damage with a mixture of sanding and a fancy bit of quadrant. In the scheme of things it's nowt. Lots of careful work had to be done to get to this stage. Needlessly worsened by mindlessness. I'm a bit over-touchy about how much weaker my hands are now I've had the odd amputation or two (more on the way ?) FFS Get a problem Ian .... Or read your own signature line perhaps?