Thorfun

damn! I only wish for such low SE fees. the quotes we've had range from £3.5k - £6k!

it is an interesting idea. I might have to speak to the accountants but I'm not holding out much hope.

ok. thanks. I understand it now. my business is VAT registered but I'm not sure an excavator can be considered a business purchase for an IT company! unless I were building my own datacenter of course. hmmm......I wonder......

Please can someone explain to me why second hand excavators/diggers/dumpers etc all attract VAT? I thought second hand goods didn't have VAT added as the VAT was paid when bought new?

yeah, it's the first quote I've had back so there's plenty of shopping around to do. also I reckon we can store most of the spoil on our site and then when the existing building is demolished us it to fill and landscape so I can definitely get the costs down. thanks for the costing of the tanking. if this guy hasn't added tanking and that's going to add a further £15k then it's getting to a level where we might have to ditch it. but I'd rather do a lot of the work myself and it just take longer than ditch the basement as it's not really something I can do later!

my quote for our foundations for the basement came in at £105k without a lid! £30k of that was just dealing with the digging of the hole, £30k for dealing with the muck away and the rest for an insulated slab. 3.1m deep, 130m2, clay on top of sandstone. seems expensive to me. the actual basement walls were reasonable though at about £30k, although no mention of waterproofing was made in the quote so I assume I'll be adding extra on for that. will continue to shop around.

welcome. good luck with the planning. this place is a great source of information and I have learnt loads! still have loads to learn though....

yeah, I had that too! the website is Roma.de just in case you want/need it. I found it a better search to specify a type of blind. e.g. Roma Venetian blinds.

I did, of course. I'm not a complete monster and will always admit when I'm wrong. except to the wife as in that respect I'm always right.

I got this reply from Lisa this morning: Dear Mr. B, we distribute our products only in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and Holland. We do not have a ROMA contract partner in any other countries. So this decision has nothing to do with the UK. With best regards Lisa Breier ROMA KG Ostpreußenstraße 9 89331 Burgau Telefon: +49 8222 / 4000 - 0 Telefax: +49 8222 / 4000 - 50 E-Mail: info@roma.de www.roma.de I assume @Dan F that Ecowin get the blinds direct from Gaulhoffer in Austria then.

thanks @Dan F. I'm just looking for blinds at the moment and I have sent a few emails to Warema suppliers as well as Tidmarsh who offer Somfy and Lutron blinds. I'm sure one of those will get us what we need without having to deal with Lisa @ Roma! if they don't want my business then it's no skin off my nose and it's their loss. ?‍♂️

oh! That’s me told then. ?‍♂️

a friend is having a timber frame and their ground-workers doing the insulated slab brought their own microwave.

I also wonder if it's a language thing and she didn't mean exactly what was written. not until the end of the year. that would've been a lot more useful. but there are many other external blind manufacturers and so I'll just move on.

indeed. I wanted to oust their response on social media but as I don't have much a social media following I thought this awesome forum would be a good place for it.

no indeed, but if I can kill 2 birds with 1 stone I might as well make use of it!

if I get them fitted in the right place I could charge my car off them! will be a lot quicker than the 3-pin plug I currently use. ?

so, I'm looking at external Venetian blinds and looked at the Roma website as others on here have had them with their Gualhoffer windows. I couldn't find a UK distributor as their search came up with an error, so I sent them an email. I was shocked by the response: " Dear Mr. B, Thank you for your interest in our products. But we sell our products to our exclusively partners. We do not have a roma partner in the UK and for the moment we don´t want to do business in your country. Thank you for your understanding. With best regards Lisa Breier ROMA KG Ostpreußenstraße 9 89331 Burgau Telefon: +49 8222 / 4000 - 0 Telefax: +49 8222 / 4000 - 50 E-Mail: info@roma.de www.roma.de " my response was that in that case I didn't want to deal with a racist, elitist company and also questioned the legality of refusing to sell to another EU country. anyway, on to the next manufacturer....

ok, cool. so when the electrician moves the RCD I could ask him to put a couple of commando sockets in at the same time. what distance from the 'build area' should those waterproof sockets be? are we talking 5m, 10m, 15m? or will the builders just have extension leads to the distance is not an issue?

Hi all, we are planning for the electrics for performing the build will be run from our existing house. we have a 'pool house' which is shown in the photo below which has an RCD in it with a connection from the main RCD in the house. This powers the heat pump, water pump and lights for the pool. as well as having a couple of household sockets in the pool house for plugging stuff in to. the pool house is being demolished as that's pretty much where the house is going so I was going to get an electrician to move the RCD unit that's in the pool house to somewhere else on site and let the builders take their electricity feed from there. the cable running to the pool house from the house goes from the right side of the pool house to the house you can see to the right of the picture so I would assume it would be easiest to dig up that cable and move it and the RCD to somewhere within the length of that existing cable. so my question is, what sort of electricity will the timber frame company need? is a 110V supply required or can I just get the electrician to give a line of household sockets for them to plug in to? also, is there a required distance from the electricity supply to the new house so the use of long extension cables is reduced? and finally, what would be the best to house the RCD in? I'm planning to repurpose the pool house to be the site toilet near the house wall (by the bright blue water butt you can see). so could I attach a box to that structure and put it in there? I hope that all makes sense. I haven't yet asked the Timber frame company what their requirements are (I probably should do that!) nor have I spoken to an electrician yet as I wanted to get an idea of what I need doing before getting quotes in for the work. oh, almost forgot, we're getting a new supply run to site in another location (near the new entrance that will be built) so eventually the existing supply to the current house and pool house will be decommissioned once the new house is built and we demolish the bungalow.

Hi @Red Kite. I see from your blog you went for in-situ RC concrete over ICF. can I ask what swayed you to this route rather than ICF? was it financial or some other reason? I'm going through a similar decision at the moment.

Yeah, agreed! It’s the avenue we’re now heading down. cheers.

yeah. it's the Futura+I that we've been quoted for. seeing as the alu-clad timber windows normally have a better U-value due to the timber I think the Futura+ and Futura+I windows have really good U-values, are very good value for money and look good too! it's just the darn lack of big corner opening sliders that are an issue. but as we're now looking at Solarlux/Reynaers/Schueco all aluminium corner opening sliders (as a I've heard from a few different sources that timber corner opening sliders are hard to make air/water tight) IC might be back on the cards.

that's interesting. doesn't look like you can get them anymore. it's the Futura+ now which are fully aluminium with the PUR (idealcore) insulation. their alu-clad windows are now called Nation IC and Frame IC.

our planning consultant got the job done but would I recommend him? probably not as his communication skills were lacking and updates were few and far between with me having to chase him often. for that reason I couldn't recommend him, but to give him his dues, he got us our planning permission!