Tony L

Here's one that fits this description. There are probably others. When I have time, I'll investigate further. I think the same company sells the matching edge panels too, & gutters, fascias, soffits, ridge pieces, flashings for roof lights & dormers. So you can get your whole roof done, with integrated PV, by one installer.

That's given me something to consider. I was thinking, if I have the budget to add 3G, but not everywhere, I'd start with the south facing bathroom window - to limit solar gain, then two Velux in south facing sloping roof (or perhaps external blinds would be a better choice to limit solar gain, although they provide no heating insulation) then the big fixed window in the north facing sloping roof (no external blinds here, & the sun will come in during the height of summer), then perhaps the rest of the first floor (in the hope that I won't need any first floor heating in winter, or at least Autumn/Spring). Is this not a sound strategy? I was left with the idea from another BH thread that for heat insulation, depending on the window size & shape, I may see the same benefit for less outlay, if I upgrade to thermally broken lintels instead of upgrading from 2G to 3G. Sorry, @Makeitstop. I have no experience to draw on & tell you about. I'm only just out of the ground with my build.

Don't go with British Gas, whatever you do. They're a dreadful organisation, full of nasty people.

Just to give an update on this, for anyone who’s interested: I got my estimate wrong in my first post & the builder, & his irate wife, have chased for payment several times on three outstanding invoices which total about £10,800. I haven’t paid any of this £10,800. I arranged for another builder to spend a couple of hours with me on site, looking at all the problems. He provided a report/quote detailing remedial works, etc. I paid this builder for his time, so I’m not going to feel bad if I decide to use another builder when we get going on site again. I’ve deducted his bill, the cost of the remedial works & around £2,500 for consequential loss (my time away from my business spent dealing with these problems) from the £10,800. I have yet to get a cost to get the drains sorted out; once I have this, I’ll end up with a figure I’m prepared to pay the cowboy builder if he sends me a credit note (probably around £9,000 – that’s the credit note – not the amount I’ll be paying). The mortar was assessed as being good & strong, so we’ll be OK to fix up then build off the wonky walls. Thanks @Roger440 for prompting me to get this assessed. I wrote the builder a very long email with pictures attached, explaining each of the main defects in detail, a breakdown of costs for remedial works & my intention to pay him once I’m in receipt of a satisfactory credit note + information he was supposed to give me which I have not yet received. Also, I included a detailed explanation of the saga of the c £7,000 he overcharged me earlier in the build, before reluctantly issuing a credit note, so in the unlikely event he makes a court claim, I have everything I need, all in one email. I sent the email just before Christmas & I haven’t received any more demands for payment, nor any other communication since.

Thanks for the advice, but I strongly disagree with this. I run my own small business, so I am constantly defending myself against people in other businesses, small & large, who are intent on ripping me off. I have the upper hand here.

I’m not sure whether this question was for me, but I’m answering anyway. I see my partner & myself (mostly her) spending a lot of time cooking & doing other kitchen-based activities, especially once we’re retired (date TBC, dep on house overspend). The kitchen was not my top priority when I designed the house; if it had been, I’d have designed the perfect kitchen, & the rest of the house would have then been designed as add-ons to the kitchen. As things are, I’ve made a couple of compromises with the kitchen, but I’m happy with it. Perhaps I’ll post some drawings in future when I have time to deal with any comments I might receive (like, “4.2m from fridge to hob/oven is too far.”), but for now I should aim to spend less time on Build Hub over the next few weeks so I can get on top of my work & then work on next stage of my house build. Re the benches & all the negative comments on these, from people who think they are a bad idea, but don’t mention any actual experience of being seated on one: I have spent a lot of time in Austria where this “bench going around one corner of the dining room table arrangement” is very common. It works well. It’s a good space saver. You just need to incorporate some thin cushioning with the right amount of give, on both the base & the back, & get the angle of the back rest just right. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed very many multi-course meals whilst sat on this type of bench seat, & I highly recommend this excellent Austrian dining innovation.

It’s been good for me to read through this & think about it over the past few days. It got me thinking about a walk in pantry/larder again. Having given up on the idea a while back, because I didn’t want to cut a big chunk out of my kitchen, I’ve now found a way to include a larder by using space that had been designed for a large kitchen cupboard + I’ll take some space from the room that the cupboard backed onto. Ideally, my larder would benefit from some mechanical cooling, perhaps just in the summer months, to keep my wine safe, but let’s not get into that now – I don’t want to derail @Great_scot_selfbuild’s thread. When the time comes, I think I’ll make a rough & ready island to live with for a few weeks before deciding on a permanent island/no island. I’ll likely try a couple of different sizes. Thanks, @TerryE for your thoughts on this.

Ah right. Thanks for answering the question I had in my mind since reading the first post, above. That's given me something to think about. I was planning for my inlet to come through my west facing wall, which will always be in the shade & will be close to the main MVHR unit, & I was going to route my outlet through 5-6 metres of ceiling then down the south facing wall & out, level with the back of the ASHP. Now I'm wondering how much sub-optimal performance I might notice. Both south & west walls are well sheltered by trees and a tall boundary fence, so unless somebody manages to persuade me I've got this badly wrong, I think I'm going to stick with this plan & I'll monitor the system on windy days.

Just my opinion, & if you've seen some of the questions I ask, you'll know I'm no expert: I'd say min 3, ideally min 4, courses of blue or black bricks between GL & the start of your render. So if you're on a bit of a slope that means you may have 3 courses in some places & perhaps twice as many elsewhere, unless you're going to have a step somewhere. I've seen plenty of instances of white render down to the ground, or starting only one or two courses off GL, & it looks rubbish as it inevitably gets dirty when rain splashes up. I suppose the render can be cleaned, if it's not going all the way down to the ground, but I know that's not a job I'd find time to keep on top of. Also, I very much like the look of a white house set up on a substantial black band, rather than a thin band. On a related subject, I'm intending to forgo a bell cast drip detail at the bottom the render, because dirt settles on these, & I don't think that looks good either. I'll just have the render proud of the black bricks & I'll see if I can find a render support/bead/whatever they're called with a drip channel or protrusion. Cue dirty bell end joke from a certain prominent member.

If you can get what you want from PD, I'd say that's a better route than PP. The council can refuse PP just because they don't like your design, or because they want you to continue living in a small house. They might refuse PP, even if they would have had to grant a cert of lawful development, had you used the same drawings to apply for a PD cert. I got an agreement on a grotesque PD design before eventually compromising with the council on a design that was accepted under PP. There was a lot of back & forth. It took a long time. I let my architect go after attending a pre-application meeting with him & two people from the planning dept. I could see I was in for a long argument with the council & I couldn't afford to keep him on. I did the rest of the drawings myself. My first completely new design was rejected. I ended up with a heavily modified version of my second design. I can't remember exactly how much I ended up paying the LA: it was definitely £500 for the meeting with the architect & LA, about £400 for the PP application (possibly two of these), perhaps £100 for the PD cert. The planning case officer wasn't charging me for his advice, each time I presented new drawings & said, "Well how about if I submit this?". The LA are happy with a quite low standard of drawing for PP. You don't need good drawings until you get to the building reg.s stage. If I'd been using an architect to draw up every new idea I submitted in my battle to achieve PP, the process would have been prohibitively expensive. The developers on the plot right next door to me were using an architect & they had to settle for building a much smaller house than they'd expected to build because they didn't want to keep paying their architect to deal with the planners. I think the council could see that I wasn't going to give up & it wasn't costing me anything other than my time to continue the argument, & this counted in my favour. I used the attached document to help learn about PD rules. This was a good few years ago & I don't think the PD rules have changed since the document was published, but you should check. Part-1-of-the-GPDO-The-10-Worst-Permitted-Development-Loopholes.pdf

@Great_scot_selfbuild The problem was only resolved in the sense that we have decided to work around these defects, rather than pull the B&B floor up & get it put down properly. The builder who created this mess is no longer working for me. I've had his work inspected by a better builder. We can take out the uneven edge, pictured above, in the mortar bed. Some of the other work he did is going to be taken apart & re-done. I'm very unhappy that he's put the beams onto 350mm trench blocks, rather than onto 100mm wide concrete blocks, forming the inner leaf of a cavity, which is what he was supposed to be doing. The beams are going to be far more damp prone than they would have been if he'd built according to the drawings. I thought I could trust this builder, as there is a connection to my family. That was my mistake, & it was a huge one. There will be a pause in works on site for at least three months now. When we re-start, with new builders, I'll try to visit the site every day.

He was engaged to get us out of the ground & up to DPC on the outer leaf only, so we're there now. I won't be giving him the opportunity to quote on the next phase of the work, which I'm sure is absolutely fine by him, as he'd rather be working for someone that might be OK with his poor QC. Thanks you everyone for the other comments. I'll not respond to these individually, right now, as I need to do some work ahead of a very early meeting tomorrow, but I will just quickly thank @Russell griffiths for suggesting a laser level survey - I wouldn't have thought of this & I agree, I need to do this before I settle the bill with the builder.

I don't know. Yes, he's probably upset, because I caught him out on overcharging me £7,000. It took me a while to realise, then he denied this at first (going on for over a week), but issued a credit note after I spent hours & hours doing a load of QS maths & setting it out in an email to him. Perhaps he & the wife had booked the Maldives for the new year, with my £7k & now the trip's had to be cancelled. Thanks, @nod & @crooksey for your input on this too.

Thanks, @Mr Punter. Sorry, I wasn't clear: I'm not too bothered about the top of the big IC being too high. I'm concerned the channel at the bottom may be too high - ie not enough fall on the run from IC4. I'm thinking, if the bottom of this big IC (IC5) was at the right height, almost all the water would drain out of it, but there's a lot in there. When I said, , "This is poo...", that was supposed to say, "This is poor...".

IC5 Picture 7 This shows the top cover of IC5. I've drawn the red lines on to show where I'm imagining ground level will be once everything's tidied up. It may lower. I'm thinking the mortar should be a lot tidier than this. I've never seen a IC cover poking out of the ground with anything but neat smooth mortar around the sides. This is poo, isn't it?