mike2016

Thanks for the tip! Will get around to small snagging at some point! I'm using Fermacell so after screwing that in place you use a joint filler for screw heads and gaps (I have straight edged boards, not tapered). Then you sand. Next is fine surface finish all over the board, then you sand again. Then you prime and paint. There are definitely areas for improvement especially around the rooflights where I didn't get a perfect corner and I didn't use any profiles on the edges at all. I hope to return with joint filler and pack out these area, then sand and finish again at some point but it's "good enough" for now. Especially as the flaring and angles were challenging enough compared to walls / ceilings which had their own troubles! I'd say any plasterer would be having a good laugh at my work (you should see my outside rendering at a distance!) but it's fine for now. There was plenty of bashing in addition, I dropped a 20kg board from the top of the stairwell and it broke 3 stair threads and dented the front door sidelight before it stopped! So, my goal is to get all the big jobs finished, then start work outside and return to polish up the inside over the next year or two when I have the energy!! Hope this helps!

Decided to buy the materials I need to finish the direct surround of my house before Diesel shortages and goodness knows what else takes hold! 50+m2 of paving blocks, 3 tons of paving grit and a full load of type 2 MOT to spread around the house next month!! I plan to get bound resin for the driveway, either do it myself or pay someone (£150 per square meter though and 50 m2 so 7.5K and thats with me doing all the edging and subbase prep!!). Still there's a couple of wheelbarrows in the materials above to do in the meantime and I did the driveway in my old house next door (fully paved) and it's stood up well. Plan on having a step up to the front door but a ramp off to the right as an alternate path. Have been working upstairs getting things finished. Currently have the stairwell, landing and office room completed and kitted out. Just starting the Master bedroom this week. Then it's off to the outside! I bought a pull out sofa bed, extra computer desk and some IKEA PAX wardrobes for the office room. There wasn't space for 4 Ikea units (500m wide each) so I put in 400mm wide shelving instead - I'll paint at some point. I forgot to level the sides of the double wardrobe before tacking on the back so while the sides are parallel, it's more like a parallelogram and one door is offline. Oh well!! That'll teach me to measure twice!! I'm gluing the bamboo floor upstairs also and Iove the look of it. I can now move into it as a full time office and save the space in my bedroom for the first time ever in nearly 30 years (i.e. no computer in my bedroom anymore!). the two skylights at the top of the stairwell work well. I forgot to clean the upper window and take off the Velux protective tape before taking down the temporary platform and finish the sides. I won't tell you what I did with a ladder to fix this on all fours and ended up heading back to the Chiropractor the next day!! The Master bedroom is a bit tighter but I measured it and think I have a bit of room to play around with 2.85m x 3.5m so a double bed and 500mm lockers either side still gives me a meter on one side or the other to add a dresser or something like that, fitted wardrobes over and around the bed and another at the end of the bed. How to fit a locker into an IKEA system? You can build in space with the PLATSA - I did a free design session with an IKEA rep who showed me how. I'll have to move the plug sockets up or they'll get buried but should be ok otherwise. I plan to fit a table above where the soil pipe boxing protrudes. If you spotted a hole in the wall above the light socket, the door lining screw pierced the electrical wire at that location and all the lights upstairs went out!! Wago repair done. Electrician is out later this week so will have a word!! Energy usage (last 2 months) so far is 11pm-8am 3562 kWh, 5pm-7pm 71 kWh and daytime 316 kWh. I've been fine tuning my usage with the SigEnergy system and tried using AI for a few weeks but it kept taking from the grid during peak times which was very annoying even when being told not to so I went back to manual and fixed time schedules so that's helped a bit. I hope to get peak to 0 if possible. My overall usage is up but my bill is €60 down from the last one two months ago which is from PV Export, the one thing the AI system was good at! I'll have to have a talk with it at some point! Each export unit equates to 1/2 a peak unit that should have been avoided!! Ah, technology!! I just figured out today how to send excess PV to my car when it's plugged in. I had Givenergy in my old house which went into Administration this week, glad I'm not with them anymore! I finally got the glazing for the internal window installed. It's double glazed but with a large airgap for sound proofing. I did considered fire rating it but the price would have been crazy. It's comprised of: 6mm Toughened x 20mm black spacer x 6.4 Laminate for safety. The seat worked out well, just need a few cushions!! My Sigenergy Gateway is being upgraded to 100A from 63A this week. I have an uprated mains supply but it wasn't picked up by the Solar supplier - unlikely I'll draw that much but still nice to have the extra room in Amps if I ever needed it! Unexpected but hope all goes well! Anyway, that's it for now, lots of joint filling on the Fermacell to do this week and sanding....!

Amazing outcome and the timeframe is outstanding!! Is that a walk in shower behind the double bed partition?! Congrats!

This Winter has been a real struggle for me aswell. Moved in November and felt I've done little since. It's the little wins and even tidying up and moving stuff around, searching for that specific box of screws and keep chipping away. I've just finished the living room and will head over to my sisters to get my couch, kitchen table and chairs out of storage soon. Was hoping to put a push in this weekend but other family priorities have crept up. Vitamin D3 1000ug daily throughout the year (helps my immunity and fighting SAD), weekly Pilates and a bed to lie down on when I'm tired and watch a bit of YouTube/Netflix has helped but the hours can easily flow by and another day is over. Doing small things as others have said really helps. I've been trying to sell some tools but having mixed success but even 1 sold is money back in the pot. Also treat yourself to something you like doing not building related! I get a massage once in a while, haven't been out cycling or hiking since I started though but even a walk around the area can breath some fresh air into old heads and tired backs!! I'm lucky I usually work from home so I can sneak in some small jobs / planning during the day too when it's quiet. I've 10 years left though and the job scene is also a worry but what can you do?! I booked a holiday for two weeks in May, my first since I started building two years ago so there's a goal to aim for!

Great job! Exciting to be moving in soon! What's the plan for the hob extraction in the kitchen?

I've a split Air to Air Heat Pump system to heat my house. There's a header in each bedroom and one for the open plan living/dining area. I've had the unit on a timer for an hour in the morning for the open plan area only and I'll sometimes top up my bedroom in the morning when I'm working from home. I top up the heat for 1-2 hours in the evening manually in the open plan room. I'm not heating the upstairs currently and am still finishing the internal house so there's an open internal window to the open plan area to contend with still which loses heat to the landing/hallway and upstairs although I keep those doors closed which helps. This is the open plan area: Same Space - Longer Period: My Bedroom: Just wanted to ask should I be running the A2A more like underfloor and leave it set to 21/22 & on constantly or just on a timer? I'm treating it like a gas boiler at the moment!! I've a separate hot water heat pump cylinder I leave on all the time so it's always @ 55oC so hot water isn't a factor with the space heating. Interested in advice / ideas / experiences others have with a similar system? Thanks.

KS430 lift and slide here - the fixed section seals pictured below: My seal seems thinner to yours but is smoother. Sliding section seals are identical:

I put 47mm back boxes in everywhere also. I've Aico wired smoke / heat alarms but in the utility I had the sparks install an Aico radiolink relay with an 8 core to go to my alarm panel eventually. That's my HA point of integration. The alarms are powered with a 4 core mains cable with the 4th being the command and control circuit. I'm also replacing Hikvision NVR and cameras with unifi setup and that has a smoke alarm detection feature so I'll get a push notification if I'm not at home until I get the alarm panel wired up (Konnected Pro - HA integrated with Alarmo). For the Kitchen LEDs there are four strips - 1 on top of the upper units, two below the upper units each side of the extract and one more at the front of the island. I was able to drive all of these with just a single driver and use zigbee controllers on each. The under cabinet at just white, the others are RGBW. Really like them. I leave them switched "on" all the time at the light switch (dumb 4 gang currently) and have a remote button and a automation schedule to light them up at night. I bought profiles with the package and they just glue onto the surface. Or I add some pinkgrip as required. The LED in the stairs bannisters is in a routed channel, the company nicely took care of that after I supplied them the dimensions. It's wicked as I've glass directly below it. Have my eye on an oem tablet to put in the kitchen, poe powered and drop a kiosk Home Assistant dashboard on that. I've two buried CAT6a cables I can use for that behind the wall. Not doing any water controls but have a leak sensor in place and the water pump is now on a smart plug. I had an issue for the last month with a noise waking me up at 4-5am and it was the water pump kicking in for 5 seconds from the other side of the house. It seems my MVHR duct is going to need a silencer! Anyway, I could setup an automation to power off the pump if the leak detector trips. I've no gas and Sigenergy Gateway & Batteries for power cuts. Still a lot of integration and automations to do - but it's a work in progress and for a techie like me, great fun!

I got a few Aqara light switches to start with - they do Matter/Zigbee and take a neutral which is what I was after. The fixings/screws were tiny, the electrician dealt with them but not as robust as I'd like. I have a standard 3 gang switch in the hallway which does porch, hallway and landing, I just bought some zemismart matter wifi smart switches (3 gang) and plan to replace this with one of them so I can trigger the porch light when my doorbell sees me. The others I'll install in my bedroom / elsewhere as even though there's only 1 light I can use the other switches to trigger an automation and do something else. I had a long look around other light switches, the aqara dimmer one is really nice, the two gang above not so much, looks flimsy but is working well enough, zemismart TBC. I've a 4 gang switch in the living room, but no one seems to be making smart ones of these. Something for down the road! Getting switches to fit UK back boxes can also be tricky. I have a smart screen but it needs a EU backbox - but that doesn't fit behind plasterboard! The zemi below has perfect screwhole placement though for a single gang: I bought a zemi roller blind motor but it was 28mm and the blocout blind I got for my bedroom is 32mm. I found a 3d model on the web and printed it the local library but it didn't adapt correctly. Instead I purchased a couple of Aqara roller shade E1 drivers. I fitted this a few days ago and have the automation working fine tied to the sunup and sundown times. Must change it before the Spring!! It's a heavy blind but works well so far. I'll do the same with the other blinds as I buy them. Would have preferred the driver inside the roller itself but this is the next best thing. I have vertical blinds on a cord for the kitchen and even though there's no beads, just a string, this product can apparently handle them. I just can't find the other 4 E1's I bought, probably in a box somewhere.....!!! I've Luxor Perfect Fit honeycomb blinds for privacy and then the blackout blind for total immersion in the summer! I went with a load of Shelly Relays for the floodlights, towel rails and stairs LED but Sonoff for other things - presence detection, PIR, Door Sensor, push button remote, water sensor. It's been an interesting mix. I've two presence detectors in the bathrooms, one gets me in the shower 99% of the time behind the glass. There's no room door currently and when I exit the front door it triggers also which is weird. I don't expect it to penetrate plasterboard - I'll know more after the door goes on but it's facing into the bathroom so unlikely to pick anything beyond that I would think? Not sure of a use case for it....! I use a unifi poe to usb dingle to power it which is neat inside a double gang backbox and a blanking plate! Retrofit is a bit different to new builds so I get the need to keep things familiar. You really need smart switches to deal with legacy users. All my bulbs are non smart / traditional - they just dim etc. If you find a nice switch it's an easy win. It's the LED's around the kitchen etc that have more options / control requirements that need more than a switch can provide. I've only automated some lights to on / off via presence detection but I want to get it to dim the lights in the wee hours when they come on, that would be really nice. I was able to CAT6a around the house which worked well. I have a few smart sockets in strategic places that will come into their own in the coming months. I can move these around as I figure things out. Sometimes just a double socket with USB is fine. Just bought a raspberry pi and mounted a monitor in my room so I can put my cctv picture up there and turn it off at night but have a push button to turn it on if I get an alarm. I've hikvision cameras and NVR but looking to move to unifi as I can't get the HA integration to work so I can trigger floodlights etc on people detection / line crossing. That said I did get the tumble dryer to send me a notification last night for the first time when the load had finished! Some success, some head scratching. I also want Sonos voice alerts but haven't figured that out yet either! Really happy with the HA Dashboard though! I'll post an update in a few months here around HA stuff and any questions let me know. New to this myself too!

I probably missed the option when ordering. It was only after it arrived I went "oh"! Ah well, telescopic ladder in the shed for my Velux entry into my 80's lies ahead!!

That's actually a really smart idea!! Thanks!!

I've had two composite doors, one was slam shut and no choice in the matter (previous house). My current Internorm door has a toggle that lets you set it to either which is really nice. I deleted a door in my build phase and the lift and slide from internorm has no way to open from outside when fully closed so I've only 1 way in and out & am hesitant about getting locked out as there's no plan b except burrowing in somewhere!

So living in the house for the past month and a bit has allowed me to ease off the pressure a bit and start snagging / finishing some of the details. I have underfloor heating under the main bathroom tiles but it wasn't working well. Barely noticeable at 40oC !! Turns out the electrician wired in both temperature sensors and it was adding the values together so after Schluter tech support suggested I check - I removed one pair of wires, lo and behold I have a warm floor. Really nice experience but uses about 2.5kW for an hours worth of heat. One advantage is it warms the room and as I'm still waiting on the bathroom door this keeps it more comfortable than it had been first thing in the morning. I've set a schedule using the app and the controller connects it online via wifi. Working well now! Alongside this I've a load of sensors and smart lights, switches and sockets around the house. Now I'm in a position to setup Home Assistant for the first time and figure out what I want it to do. I setup an initial dashboard to organise the myriad of sensors and entities and allow me easier monitoring and control. Work in progress but have a look at the setup below! I've still to figure out Daikin integration (The app works fine, just nice to have more data / energy usage in one place) and get my Sonos text alerts to work but I'm making progress. I have older Hikvision cameras but the integration for that isn't working yet. I wanted to use human detection to trigger security lights front and rear but for now I'm using the smart doorbell out front and might use a contact sensor on the rear lift and slide door to rig something up - otherwise newer cameras might make things easier but I'm not giving up yet! There's a lot you can do with Home Assistant besides automating lights - one of the rewards of building your own house just as you like it!! A lot of the newer appliances come with some type of smart integration but sometimes you don't want them all spying on you so just a smart socket that tells you when power usage drops to zero for more than 5 minutes is enough to warn you that the washing / drying cycle is finished in a notification message you can choose and hear. I've a couple of sockets that can do exactly this! I've start selling off some of the left over items as I don't need them anymore and have had some success. I can see more easily what I'll need and use now than I did before. Some of my appliances survived storage some didn't but I've ended up replacing everything at this point and registered 5 year warranties where available to maximize returns. One less headache! Over Christmas the plan is to finish the living room so I can sell the scaffolding tower and move the last of my furniture in. I put the sheeting on the rear oriel window and bought some cushions / edging and a blanket so it's suitable for reading a book / relaxing in. The bottom edge is already getting frayed so I'll need to source something tougher to withstand punishment. Next project is finishing the internal window at the landing that overlooks the living room. Got a price of €900 for the glazing - I'm blocking off the right side but will have a small window on the left in addition to the big main window. Again, there's a seat up there to perch on with a book and relax in and a double socket at your feet to plug a charge / light into etc. I've only 2 areas left to plasterboard, the vaulted ceiling in the living area and the landing/stairwell. Hope to give these a good shot over Xmas and then settle on filling, sanding, priming and painting in January. That camera faces the kitchen in the picture above to let me monitor any pots from boiling over when I cook! Also if I'm away and the fire alarm goes off and I get a notification I can check the internal cameras for the likely course so see if it's just smoke or fire! The only mystery now is a noise from somewhere at 4:45am every morning that wakes me up. My EV car is parked outside my bedroom window so I suspect that's the source but it only lasts 3 seconds so I might have to set my alarm early and record it but it's just SO early when you have work the next day.....

My intake is metal but has big enough holes My supplier recommended against any insect screen to prioritize air flow. Stops the fan demanding more power and providing less air to the house due to the blockage that can build up. Will need to clean the intake duct every few years. The insect screen will not filter dust, just insects. Depends where you live I guess, risk of bee hives? Not heard of any.....

I've a single washing machine waste outlet but it's not big enough to take both the washing machine and the tumble dryer discharge pipes and a condensate drain (A2A). I bought a discharge outlet and added it into the side of the existing pipe but it leaked like crazy when the washing machine discharged. I went to a plumber merchants hoping to buy some pipe and solvent to create a branch and have two upright pipes and get rid of the side adapter I installed but the pipe is not a standard size. The 32/40mm fittings won't work. Has anyone got any good ideas to create a better branch and avoid multiple p traps etc? One other problem is the drain connects to the sink in the bathroom the other side of the wall and it gurgles when the washing discharges. Can this be fixed? Thanks all!