LSB

where did you get yours? How old is it? Is it still reliable. I don't actually have any idea how old it is, the auction had 5 for sale, tiny, 1 ton crank start, 2 ton (ours), 3 ton, 6 ton & 9 ton, huge beast. We buy quite a lot from auction, including our house, 20 years ago. Scary, but great fun. Just watch out for the commission charges.

This week I have been going through each room of the build and looking at what it needs, not furniture, but sockets, lights, floors and painting amongst the list. I have never in the past appreciated just how much is involved in creating rooms from scratch, despite doing multiple renovations & extensions. Before I can send off for estimates I still have the family room to complete, I've been avoiding that one as with the kitchen, multiple doors and outside access it will be quite detailed to list. Then I have to decide where to get estimates from. Having realised that we will have about 5,000 blocks to put up we are having to rethink our plans. HID was going to do this part, but at 10m2 per day and only 3 days per week to do it this is just not sensible. We will be long retired before even the walls are finished. The walls are going to be clad in some areas and rendered in others so they don't have to be visitor perfect,. Today, I have sunshine and thunder storms making me wonder how much weather is also going to affect the build. Being DIY self builders is exciting and something we have wanted to do for 25+ years, largely because of budget, but also because we wanted to build our forever home brick by brick. I have spent so many hours looking at layouts, thinking about how we live and what we need. We have 4 children, and as of today, 1 grandchild, HAPPY BIRTHDAY Harith I don't even know his weight yet as my daughter is still in labour in a hospital in London, not allowed any visitors, including her husband, due to Covid. But, with a big family we want a biggish house to allow for visitors although a lot of the time many of the rooms will be unused. I need to motivate myself to kick on with the supplies, at least I am warm, dry and comfortable with a couple of the animals keeping me company. On Monday this week we bought a dumper truck from a local farm auction. The plan is to use it for all the outside stuff and then sell once the structure is done to fund other things inside. It's definitely old (very), but we tried it out and it seems to work well and with 240m2 of floor to dig out to start with and then trenches etc I think we will get very friendly. This is to be my mode of transport when HID is on the digger. The farmer next door collected it, now I just have to drive it back from there, about 1/2 mile, so I will have to choose a very quite time, mid afternoon is a good time. We also bought a new harrow for the fields and I need to take the tractor to collect that. This one has a key start, there was one with a crank handle, but we felt that we just wouldn't be able to do that when it is cold. The only trouble is that the barn we are converting is fast filling up with machinery to keep it dry. Anyway, back to the plans. Keep Building

Thanks, that sounds really sensible. Like lots we are really budget constrained. Right now I'm still at the estimation stage so until I get all the costs I won't know the real situation and how far our savings will go. We are also considering ICF as a quicker solution, but I need to understand more about it and the costs there.

I have been doing my calculations and as we are doing a 240m2 single story barn conversion where we have to build the 2nd skin for a cavity and replace some of the existing walls it turns out to be just short of 5,000 blocks. When I told hubby he said, now much will it cost. I will have to work out the m2 of the walls to try and get a price. We were planning on getting all the materials as hubby was going to do it himself, but has now realised that it will take a very long time. how many m2 tends to be done per day.

Can someone tell me what to expect to pay for block laying and how it is charged, not including materials. Is it a day rate, hourly rate, block rate etc. And what can we expect as a day rate

we have to stick with metal, hoping to get zinc, but more likely steel due to costs

are you having to replace your metal roof like for like, Originally, we were supposed to keep the existing roof, but now we have to replace due to the current condition.

I see where you are coming from. We have to dig the floor down as it is currently 3 different levels with the 2 higher ones floating on the base one. Then we will start from the base, we also have a load of internal walls to remove. We were thinking for ease of the digger of removing the roof first, but are now thinking about seeing how much we can do before we need to do that. The lowest bit at them moment is only 1.75 so not really workable. The 'L' part is a separate roof so we are planning to leave that whole part for as long as we can as a workshop, that is also where the power & water from our house goes to. That means we can delay getting a new service for a lot longer.

thanks everything is just planning at the moment, I'm really looking forward to getting going. We have to take down the existing roof first and I'm really looking forward to doing that. I expect the novelty will wear off long before we've finished though

Does anyone have any experience with the Daiken Altherma ASHP. I'm wondering if they are any good before I go any further. I work for Daiken, although not this area, but if it's any good then I might see if there is any chance of an employee discount.

Today was the penultimate of 6 gas monitoring check as part of our phase 2 contamination survey. They dug 6 bore holes of 3 m deep and then left 2 with gas monitors in situ. I noticed today though that the one on the left has some dying plants around it, which is slightly worrying as it used to look like the other one. But, at their last check they have not found any gas at all in their holes, mainly because where they are looking is subsoil where a building used to be rather than in the field 100m away where the slurry pit was. The ex slurry pit is not in the curtilage of the barn conversion so they couldn't look there, phew. They also took soil samples, which we won't get the results of until after all the monitoring has finished. I'm hoping to get the report by the end of November. Then I need to discharge the planning condition. I don't know how to do this yet, so I shall have to be investigating that. Over the last week I have been visiting plumbing / electrical / builders merchants to find out about trade accounts and discounts. They were all pretty keen to get the business, although a couple of them were rather patronising and said to get my builder to talk to them, the perils of being a female of the species. The Electric Center said that you can get grants for fitting car chargers, if you have them installed by certified madmen, sorry I think that was meant to say electricians. Has anyone elase heard about this. Do others get trade accounts to get supplies and how does this work with the VAT. Despite not being able to start we have pulled down the metal sheeting that was protecting one side of the barn, it wasn't fixed and was just held in place by lengths of wood just to keep it a bit dryer. We currently store lots of wood, big tools (tractors etc) in the barn so we decided to take the collapsed roof off of the old bike shed and put a new one on to use that. Well the roof was removed weeks ago and HID has not lost interest in putting a new one on. This is rather worrying when he is supposed to be converting the whole barn. I'm still compiling the list of requirements to send of for estimating, starting from scratch means that we can have sockets, plumbing etc where ever we want it, but when given the choice I'm finding it difficult to think now about how we will use the rooms once we move in. I've been hearing quite a few 'not so good' things about warranties and how difficult it is to claim on one, with HID supposedly doing all the work when he isn't qualified I would be very surprised if it was worth anything. The plan is for this to be our last home, famous last words, but who knows what will happen. With a tight budget I only want to buy what is essential so I have some money left for the inside, so no decision made on that yet. What I must sort out for the new year is insurance, although our barn is pretty much ignored at the moment I suspect that once we put a fence around it to say building site then there will be more interest and potentially some unwanted visitors. There is a local auction on Monday where we are considering buying a dumper and some other equipment, all depends on the price and what others will pay of course. As I think of things I've been adding them to a project plan, this is now getting huge, but it does at least mean I will remember to get things done. Before we start though I will need to get it all in a sensible order, after all installing windows really can't be done when there are no walls. Right, back to my electricity plan, how many sockets can one house need, probably never enough.

Thanks, we have the roof company coming to visit 4th November, I will find out from them what is needed membrane wise, I hadn't really thought about it yet.

How much weather can roof trusses withstand before they should be covered. As we are doing a DIY self build and we have a huge roof we are worried about how long this will take. We are having a metal roof so this can't be put on partially as it is sheets. So, how long is too long.

Thanks for this, we won't be moving in until it is finished, we are lucky that we live next door, but thanks for the heads up re BC We currently have electricity and water as a sub supply from our house so we can avoid implementing a new supply for quite a long time as the wall it enters the barn is staying. I wonder how long I could get the new residents of our house to carry on paying once we've sold it ?

thanks, I shall look into them, what is the cost of private inspection

The thing is that we are considering not getting a warranty, we are going to be converting the barn step by step ourselves over probably 3-5 years as our forever hone. So, a warranty works our very expensive and apart from the items that need legally signing off such as electricals and plumbing then we will be doing it ourselves. In that situation I'm not sure the warranty will mean much, it's going to be bad enough when we have to start paying building insurance. As the barn is in one of our fields and we are not starting until next spring I'm going to get the insurance then. We have been here 20 years and no one has ever shown any interest in it, so I don't feel that this is a huge risk until some thing starts happening.

If I use a private company do I also have to take their warranty

As part of our planning we have to keep the external walls of the barn. But, these are single skin breeze block, so we are going to build a 2nd skin with cavity for insulation. My question is, if you are building a new wall then BC look at the trench and onwards. But, as we are only building the 2nd skin do we need an inspection by BC. When I originally spoke to him he said that they only need to look at new walls, but at that time I hadn't appreciated about the 2nd skin.

Our project is converting a barn, the location is at the top of a Suffolk hill, i.e. not very high or steep. HID is wondering if, as the barn is on it's own and is higher than all the other dwellings nearby, and has a metal roof do we need a lightening conductor. The electricity wires are on poles and there is a major pole with a small distribution unit at the top, this is about 40' away from the barn and approx 20' higher, so I guess that would get it first, but as we have a big metal roof (25m x 16m) we are wondering about us. There is another house about 1/4 mile away that is higher. TIA

I can't advise as I'm just learning myself, HID says 'what another trench' through concrete, which we were initially planning to touch.

so, you are suggesting getting the horses to tow the car & trailer ??

very much so, but I would like to point out that I do less than 2k a year in it, my other car (well hubbys) is much smaller and more economical for commuting, which I only do 2 days per week as I work from home the rest of the time. Living in the back of beyond doesn't make for a lot of planet friendliness, no buses, trains, too far to cycle / walk unless just going out for fun. But, the barn conversion will be different, ASHP, PV, rainwater harvesting and maybe even a windmill, certainly in the future.

thanks for this.

and yet they don't have a price, pretty ugly in my opinion as well. but, it will do the business

I've no idea how you would do it, just thought that was what was needed, probably best to speak to an experience builder (not the local pikeys) or structural engineer. I've also no idea about building control and if they need to be involved.