SimonD

@Adsibob in case it's any consolation, I came from a professional background. I've worked at a senior level in one of the world's largest professional services firms. I've also been responsible for project document management at one of the world's largest engineering consulancies, building everything from airports to pharmaceutical plants, oil refineries and oil platforms. I used to think I was reasonably adept at running fairly complex programmes and projects...until I decided to self build... I found that the rules we think apply to the world of work and projects don't seem to penetrate the twilight zone of construction, an industry which is by far the most dysfunctional I've ever come across. No only this, it's plagued by some weird contradictory mix of last minute, just in time, and the never never. One of my most bemusing experiences of this was when the crew turned up to install my temporary electric supply. The van turns up on time at 8am sharp. The crew come and look at the trench I've dug. Tell me it all looks fine. Then tell me they're going to have their tea and will be at it shortly. They then sit in the van for half an hour drinking tea and reading whatever red top is their flavour. Then they get changed and about an hour later kind of get to work... I won't go into the EWI ordered over a year ago last March and which is only now getting installed! Take a deep breath.....and as both @gc100 and @ToughButterCup say, it seems to be the nature of the game. * and yes, I know there are some good ones our there.

Render Carrier Board Tray - helps to provide a nice clean finish and drip edge - try here for starters: https://ewistore.co.uk/shop/render-carrier-board-tray/ HTH

This would be fine.

One way of looking at this that nobody has mentioned is to compare current situation with buying a ready built house. Round us people are struggling to find houses to buy and prices have gone through the roof. If buying a plot right now, I'd count my blessings that I've got a plot and relax in the knowledge that unless I'm massively flush with cash to speed through the whole process, things will be clearer once I've got planning and design sorted out, let alone got all the builder quotes in. But then I've done all of it myself so it's taken a rather long time, but as @nod said, it is self-build!

No, you need minimum 50mm ventilation gap below the ply supporting a metal roof. Speak to your metal roofing contractor for their recommended detail as there isn't necessarily a need to use soffit vents as you can 'hide' the ventilation behind/below certain overlaps in the roofing/fascia/soffit buildup, or alternatively use verge ventilation instead. All depends on the whole picture.

Simplest and no upfront cost way is to open the windows for a while every day. Second is to install some basic background ventilators through the wall. For example: https://rts.vents.co.uk/blog/products/background-ventilators/ https://www.bpdstore.co.uk/fresh-wall-vents/c/49?GVWS Then if you want to spend a bit more money and you think you need additional ventilation, look at powered extract. And then, as @SteamyTea suggested, look at single room MVHR if you have a need for good energy efficiency. I wonder where his mind has wondered with thoughts of excessive moisture/smell and internet disconnect. Worth serious consideration...? Some thought is required when installing ventilators to ensure they work and don't over ventilate or cause unwanted draughts. This is often the reason why a lot of people think natural ventilation doesn't work and/or is energy wasteful.

Have you considered British western red cedar? It's more knotty and has a slightly shorter life expectancy but I'd expect it to be half the price of imported cedar under normal circumstances, might be even better value right now. Depening on your location, you could try Vastern Timber or Cedar Direct for price.

I'm sure the market will change eventually. One small change I've noticed recently is that Travis Perkins online prices are now much more reasonable then they ever where before. They now actually reflect a real world price rather than the massively inflated prices of yesterday. Even Jewson has started giving some prices on the website. I wonder whether Amazon will provide the impetus on some of this stuff. I found the Spax stainless steel screws I needed, sold and delivered by Amazon on next day through prime (Screwfix couldn't give me an availability date for their stock). I've also just ordered some Aluminium Butyl tape, again on prime. Amazingly, for one particular need, I bought bags of 5 and 10 small stainless bolts for pennies each from the marketplace. The other thing with Amazon is that I've found some small independents using the marketplace by buying items and they send a business card with the order for future supplies. I like to avoid Amazon whenever I can but when needs must and all that.. I've dealt with a few suppliers like this now, from nail gun nails to guttering to render. Works really well. If you're lucky enough to find a builder who'll tell you what discount they get. You'll probably also find that you get an add-on for materials supply by them - sometimes 10-15% rather than the discount passed on. To me that's not entirely unreasonable as one thing I've learned is just how time consuming ordering and arranging material logistics is, particularly when dealing with archaic BMs!

I've avoided my local builders merchants like the plague for my build, but might have to use them for some things soon. For me it beggars belief that I have to go in there not knowing what price I'm actually going to pay for a particular product without waiting to see if the person on the till is in a good mood or not, or having to go through the painful process of getting a quote. It's like something out of the industrial age and they haven't moved on since. I've recently found it amazing what I can get delivered on the various pallet networks, for not a lot of money. I got a quote for 19mm x 100mm interior cladding (cover of 86mm) a few weeks ago and it was £1.16/m plus the VAT at the timber merchants I use. Lucky you! I'm currently mid way and unlike @ProDave's rant, my daily tantrums can't be published. It now just takes something like nobody having some basic stainless steel screws in stock so I can finish a job to push me over the edge! I've also been sitting there looking at three different options for fitting out the first floor due to both price and availability problems - the original design looks like it's now out of the window unless I want to sit tight and wait to see if things settle down.

Personally I'd be taking a serious look at the tape. Once you've used tapes instead of foams/sealants, you'll not likely want to go back. Also, when you have very small gaps between insulation and rafters, it's very difficult to get the foam gun in there to fill and you can end up with several mm gap that only gets taped. Whether it's still the case, PIR has been known to shrink with age so any small gaps left over may expand.

I can't see a photo but as for square bays it's usual to have corner posts. With the steel posts, you'll simply fix the windows to the steels and cover the steel posts with trims and insulation to reduce cold bridging. In a way this'll save you money on having to buy corner posts from the window company. My square bays, for example, have 109mm x 109mm corner posts plus the profile of the window frame @ 36mm each side. I worried how it would look but once installed it's surprising how the posts disappear from view from the inside and just look like a natural part of the window from the outside. HTH

You could also look at Xpanda tape sold by Qualitape and Lynvale expanding foam tape. Both with BBA certificates. Neither quite the deal the ProClima tape you mention above, but when I bought from Qualitape online, they got in touch to say call them next time and they could give me discounts. They also sell all manner of other useful building tapes including Siga tapes. Perhaps worth a look. I've tried several brands of expanding tapes now and I honestly can't tell any difference between them - I'd hazard a bet they all come from the same factory somewhere...

Spot on, here's one https://www.sealantsandtoolsdirect.co.uk/wet-room-systems/aquaseal-wet-room-tanking-system-large-75-meter-kit-aqwrskit

If you take the BBA certificates seriously, both Norbord (SterlingBoard) and Kronospan say the OSB: "When used in high risk areas, such as kitchens and bathrooms, the panel must be protected from wetting, eg by providing a continuous waterproof covering, turned up and sealed at junctions with walls and where services pass through the floor." Here's a link to Sterlingboard BBA - https://www.norbord.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/bba-cert-osb3-flooring.pdf And for Kronospan - https://uk.kronospan-express.com/en/ajax/express_services/download?args[0]=express-services&args[1]=downloads&args[2]=United-Kingdom&args[3]=certificates-and-datasheets&args[4]=kronospan-osb-flooring-bba.pdf&show=1 I've tanked the osb directly in my bathrooms over the whole floor using liquid membrane over which I'll install the final floor covering as overall it's cost me about £60 thanks to a deal. For me it's worthwhile insurance. With the kitchen I'm just applying the membrane below and around the wet areas. As for longevity when not protected, I had osb subfloor where there had been a pin hole leak in the central heating system spraying water up against the osb under the suspended ground floor. It lasted 2 years like that and what alerted us to it was a large black wet area appearing in the floor. Despite this the floor area didn't lose its structural integrity - you could still walk on it an a sofa leg was resting in the middle of the patch.

It's hard to say for sure right now. Bank of England sees this as a short term blip as a result of Covid that won't cause long term price inflation but that averages inflationary pressure across the economy as a whole and as we know a lot of the economy is still holed up for the time being. I also don't think construction is fully back to normal yet either. The more worrying side to it is that with timber, for example, demand has been growing slightly faster than supply over the last decade or so, which has shown a slow uptick in timber prices year on year. Now we've got the bottle neck caused by Covid, it's going to take some time to flush it all through. There are other issues in that the US government has decided to increase duties on Canadian lumber imports, which at the moment will drive more importers to look to Europe for supply (because North American and Canadian lumber is a traded commodity with sky high values right now, up over 200% since August last year). Supplies are difficult right now which means some planning ahead, or as has been the problem I've faced throughout Covid is having to build, not according to sensible sequence, but doing a bit here and and bit there as materials, fixings and other bits come through the door (it's very frustrating and slows things down a lot). As it is, I know of smaller building firms and trades that have had to stop work because customers won't go ahead with price uncertainty and they can't get the supplies they need (there's a new house being build just down the road from me that's pretty much halted for a good month or so now with partially completed walls). People will also eventually see some sense and stop paying stupid prices for materials. This will eventually have enough of an impact on the market to ease supply problems and bring prices down (even if only marginally as they never seem to go back down to previous levels do they?). Where you are at the moment, it's probably more sensible to consider the timeline for your project and consider the risks in that light. If you're only just buying plots right now, I anticipate that by the time you've got planning and everything else lined up there may be a longer term more stable outlook. But who knows, we're in very strange times right now.

haha, I did the same the other day as the site said they had stock, tried two locations but got phone calls cancelling about 20 min after putting the click & collect orders through.

Do you need it in a complete roll? If not, I'd call a local metal stockholder and ask them to cut some sheet into strips for you. Otherwise, some roof merchants hold 0.6mm coil used for copper flashing. You might have to spend an afternoon on the phone. Both these sources will be better than craft suppliers on price.

The only place for it!

Yup, I had to drive to 3 different places last week for just 2 bags of the stuff. I think I was fairly lucky as where I got mine they only had about 12 bags left. One of the places said they're hoping for 670 to be delivered on the 29th May "so get here early"!

It's an unfortunate condition of the market right now. Given some of the timber price hikes I've recently had, less than 10% is very good going. Some timber products are up more than 100% in recent months. My timber merchant said they'd received a 44% increase in one day with one supplier. Some of the issues are simply down to supply and demand issues due to Covid, but there is also a massive increase in timber futures, along with Brexit and the fact that timber demand has been growing for the past 10 years with not a great increase in production. I know it doesn't help you directly, but may help alleviate some of the pain knowing that it isn't down to the timber frame company. Have you asked the timber frame company about how your contract stands for future payments and price increases, or does your next payment lock the price in?

Apart from that they really don't seem to know what on earth to do, I suspect a lot of this is hot air, merely using the time honoured political communication strategy of informally leaking extreme end of possibility - really bad, unpleasant and unpopular ideas - to then gauge push back and outrage, finally resulting in a policy that rows back on a lot of it, but seems to everyone much more reasonable. Unless of course the government is riding so high on its own self-belief, it thinks it can get away with what would almost amount to a new poll tax. For all the other talk of national economy and the importance of investing in infrastructure, there seems to be a glaring hole, screaming for investment into renewable energy infrastructure, development and implementation, including various storage technologies. Hopefully that is built into the new policy somewhere in a way that doesn't just rely on private companies but looks to develop a national public resource for the long-term.

It's been a good few years since I did any tiled roofing but one thing that's bugging me is I don't see any kind of soaker at the roof and wall abutment in this photo. I'm almost sure from my vague memories that you need soakers when using plain tiles and that flashing only above the tiles is unsufficient in this case. Perhaps someone with clearer, more recent memory can confirm, or maybe a google could provide the answer ..

You definitely shouldn't be experiencing water running down behind the fascia. My first thought was whether the gutter is overfilling when it rains hard. We had a similar arrangement on an old house where the down pipe went into the ground but there was no soakaway, or pipework below the ground so as it rained, the pipe filled up and eventually we got an overflowing gutter. Looking at those photos, I would look closely at the flashing as it looks pretty poor, especially on the left hand side. Has it been chased into the wall properly?

The simple difference is in condensation risk. There is greater risk with the warm roof. The difference in price is not just with materials but with labour as if you're constructing a warm roof, the metal roofing contractor should really do the roof buildup and detailing because most building contractors won't have a clue what's needed.

Well done, great progress. You can join your separate ridge beams using a scarf joint. There's a very neat video on it by Skillbuilder - Cutting a scarf joint for a carpenters roof - which is a self locking version, although you can use a simpler 'straight' cut which is bonded or mechanically fixed. You will need to some pretty hefty timbers to span your 4.6m flat. If you're looking for a vaulted ceiling, it may be worth looking at plywood gussets as ridge rafter ties, which you can make . Otherwise, if you have the head room, adding ties across the span at wall plate level is pretty straight forwards and probably a safer best. You don't need to build roof trusses so to speak. Here are a couple of links you might find useful: Article: https://www.finehomebuilding.com/project-guides/framing/how-it-works-collar-and-rafter-ties Video: Plywood Ridge Rafter Ties Verses Conventional Roof Framing For Small Sheds - Building Better Roofs HTH