Roundtuit

This time last year I was working late, by crappy work lights, freezing my peripherals off, desperately trying to stay ahead of the plasterers. Now I'm sat in shorts and t-shirt watching Holly Willoughby! Stick with it; hope and plan for the best, and take what comes in your stride. This time next year the pain will already have started to fade!

If it helps, I registered for the FiT in March and don't have a BC completion certificate yet. As above, you do need the MCS certificate and enough done to get an epc, so just focus on what needs to be done to get those bits of paper. You can always get another epc done at a later date to truly reflect the finished house if necessary. My architect did the epc from details I supplied, which may or may not have been more of a 'to do' list at the time. Just sayin...?

+1 for @recoveringacademic. There's a big variation in 'red' bricks, and 'grey' windows, so look around and see what you like. Don't exclude the other elements of the build in the overall 'look' (rainwater goods, mortar colour, roofing materials). Below is Hoskins Old Farmhouse blend with Slate grey RAL 7015. It still needs the sills fitting, but you get the general idea.

Because a humidity sensor can't detect a no. 2, and I think building control requires that you can activate ventilation to dispel odours in such circumstances! We've put in manual boost switches, but they don't get used to be honest. The integral humidity sensor in the unit seems pretty good at its job and boosts when showers are on, at a rate proportional to the level of humidity. I had set a timer to boost for an hour in the mornings when showers where happening, but it really wasn't necessary so I turned it off.

I also had challenges with roofers; a professional local company, but an old-school guy they put on the job. I think BS 5534 requires every tile to have a mechanical fixing. Might be over the top, but that's what I made them do anyway...

We've got a sensiopod (in an oak island worktop, 90-92mm cut-out), and it is just like an extension lead that plugs into a socket at the back of a cupboard. The sockets are upside down so you can push it back down whilst stuff is still plugged in. I like it. It doesn't get loads of use, but it's great when you want to use a recipe on the iPad and you're down to the last 5% charge, or want to blend/whisk a pan of something. Just bear in mind that your location on the worktop will cost you some cupboard space underneath, so best put it to the back or side.

Still finishing painting mine: oak treads and risers, softwood strings and glass balustrade. This was the best compromise between style and cost I could find: It's a stairbox design, rock solid, and a third of the price of the steel/oak/glass design on my original wish list.

I had 3 (3g Alu-clad) windows to take out and re-fit (that were smaller than yours) as the frames had a slight bow in them. The manufacturer's view was that it was down to installation, and, to be fair, it was. We took them out, hammered-out the crank in the fixing brackets and re- installed and got them spot on. Probably best to bite the bullet, take them out and have another go.

...and maybe ventilation, sound proofing, and weather-proofing and insulation of the in-fill wall? Approved yes, but approved as a garage, not a habitable room. Just playing devils advocate here but, in 2018, I feel sure you'd need a BC application for converting an integral garage. Whether that was the case in 1990 is the crux of the matter. If I was your buyer I'd want a piece of paper to demonstrate compliance, but others may not worry about it...

How high's the decking? I think 600mm is the point that building regs kick in, so if it's under that then no need to worry about the 100mm rule.

I'm pretty sure it would have required a building regs application as it's a 'change of use', so in the interests of a smooth sale, a regularisation application might be a good investment ...

I very much admire the ingenuity of a pan extract, but is your ar$e really going to maintain a seal long enough to prevent odour escape into the wider room? Even if you put the seat down afterwards, I'd assume the source of the smell is flushed and gone? As regards neighbours experiencing your cooking smells (before and after!), mvhr is surely no different to any room extractor, or opening a window? Vent where suits you best; presumably you won't need to open your bedroom widow other than to perhaps purge on a warm day, or there is limited benefit to mvhr, and it looks like you have plenty of airspace around your house to allow for natural dispersal.

Perhaps it depends what you're looking for, but when I shopped for windows, there was no standard sizes- nothing was 'off the shelf', all made to order. My top tip? Keep it simple! I've got several 'nice features' that sounded great at the design stage, but added thousands to the cost. To be fair, they are nice features, but if I'd understood the full implications I may have made some different choices... The other surprise for me was the cost of labour locally. We're by no means in an affluent area, but I reckon supply and demand means that a) getting a quote for one-off job is a battle, and b) trades can add themselves a generous 'bonus' into the quote ss they don't really want or need the work. Try and get a feel for the local market and how that might impact on theoretical costs!

Ours are Rationel aliuminium-clad 3G (apart from the bifolds which are Solarlux), and we got a local guy to install. I'm pleased with them, and they were very competitively priced.

Another vote for 12.5mm for walls plus skim, 15mm plus skim for ceilings.

We've got mvhr so 10mm all round for air circulation. Downstairs is all hard flooring, upstairs has oak thresholds in the doorways to ensure the gap isn't compromised by carpet and it looks fine. When your laminate is down 20mm might look a bit gappy, but you could put a timber threshold in to split the difference.

What @Ferdinand said. I had mist coat sprayed on walls plus 2 coats on ceilings; saved me weeks of time. There was no noticeable paint on the floor other than a couple of inches at the floor/wall junction, but I still needed to sand the laitence of the screed so it wasn't a problem anyway. My painter did window reveals etc with a brush and roller, so the only masking was a strip of tape across the top of switches and sockets (unscrewed and pulled off the wall) to protect from falling spray.

In that case, it's not you, it's him. If you haven't had a price yet, he's probably just trying to manage your expectations before trying his luck with an inflated quote. I've just had a carpenters quote for £1750 for 3 days labour. Nice work if you can get it...

Could you be at cross-purposes? Maybe 8-10 weeks before he can get to you?

Primarily perhaps, but not exclusively. My understanding is, however, that domestic systems present minimal risk unless there is a storage system or dead leg that sits between 20 and 45C and allows multiplication. The HSE's website has a load of stuff on it if you fancy some bedtime reading. I suspect the threshold for control is a function of temperature & time, so you might be ok with >50C for an extended period.

I've got a block-built boundary 'outhouse' - as above, I put a couple of the plastic surface-mount meter boxes in it as it was without a roof or doors for 18 months.

The guy who is currently doing my stove install came and put the bit through the roof in place 18 months ago, so the roofers could fit a lead flashing, and that's how it stayed until this weekend. On the subject of airtightness though, I'm concerned I've made a massive oversight by installing a stove. I got a room-sealed wood burner and put in an external air supply under the floor, but the installer is telling me that the penetrations between floors need to be ventilated (ground floor to first floor, first floor to loft). This effectively gives me a ventilation shaft linking my warm, airtight ground floor to the open air.... I naively didn't expect around the flue to be the leaky bit. Surely there's a better solution than this?

Looks like a first class job! That's not OCD, it's CDO; like OCD but in alphabetical order...

I'm hoping the in-built humidity sensor will do its job ok, but I've fitted manual boost switches. Not sure what sort sensor I would have needed to clear the air the morning after curry night. Maybe something canary-based?

Grout. Or all the gaps will fill up with crap and structurally you'll never be able to do as good a job as you can now.