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Spent the weekend setting out our house. Hired a theodolite. Turns out theodolites have gone digital in the 23 years since we last used one ? but a You Tube video helped and we spent a joyous 3 hours setting out all the corners of the house. Amazingly, we have dug pretty much in the right place. And we feel more comfortable setting out accurately rather than measuring from a vague boundary hedge. MBC on site Wed / Thursday (in theory). Our sub-base is going in now (MBC doing the top 150mm MOT type 1). Just wondering about ducts. for water and BT. We also need to run the electric armoured cable in. We know we should have posted this question earlier. It has been bothering us for weeks. Site plan looks roughly like this. Its a weird shape (cut off a larger house behind). Plant room is shaded in yellow. Intended route of water (blue) and electricity (black, from kiosk) shown. Both go under the garage slab so we are ducting that tomorrow. Do we run these ducts at 700mm deep to the plant room and then up into the plant room? i.e. is the bit I am filling with around 300mm subbase as I type going to have to be dug out to put these ducts in? Or do they rise slowly and then go in the final layer (which MBC are laying)? BT duct is another question but please help us sort out water and elec first. Thanks.

Thanks. Been drinking from that lead pipe for the last 3 years (it supplied the house we just knocked down). And its lead to our boundary too (between our meter across the road and under the road to our boundary). Might see if Thames Water will test it - they have a lead replacement program...

It would be a temporary connection so we can move in, move the caravan and then finish off the new connection by removing that bit of lead pipe? The water company don't need to reconnect as we aren't disconnected, merely diverted to caravan. We can't duct to the boundary until the caravan is out. Can't move the caravan out til we have built the house and moved in. Wish we'd thought of this earlier but we are where we are now..... If we don't do this, can we run an overground temporary supply to the new build, then move the caravan and finish off the ducting?

Mulling over water ducting issue. Can't duct to the boundary because our caravan is in the way, so can only duct up to the caravan (which will mean running the duct under our garage - slab to be poured shortly). To cut a long story short, at 8pm tonight we decided to test a theory - join some MDPE pipe onto our existing (not being used anymore, but only shut off at the boundary so could be opened again) lead pipe which runs from the boundary under the caravan. So we exposed the lead pipe and cut it in half to measure it. This lead to MDPE joint will hopefully do as the water supply for the new house, at least until we move the caravan (after we have moved in) and dig a pit to replace the lead bit back to the boundary boxes. Our question is how to connect MDPE (assume 32mm) to the lead pipe (internal diameter measured at 3/4'', outside diameter measured at 26.5mm which we think might be 6lb pipe (1 3/64'' outside diameter)? What sort of coupling could we use? Can't find anything "standard" in the usual builders merchants (online, tonight). I wish I could post a photo but its too damn dark outside now.

Well done - you must have been flat out over the last 2 weeks. Enjoy a day off now!

We are looking for some help from anyone with experience of MBC slabs. Its the order of doing things that is confusing us. We believe we need a land drain. We will also have surface water drainage. We have been advised by a drainage contractor to do the drainage (foul and surface inc soakaways) after MBC put the frame up, so probably after the roof is on and the rainwater pipes in place? Maybe before the render because of dirt? So is the best order broadly as follows? Dig foundations, compact hardcore MBC slab MBC frame Roof / windows Drainage (foul, surface, soakaways) plus other service trenches Render / cladding Where does the land drain fit into all this? It seemingly is supposed to go where the hardcore is around the slab. So do we dig that out again (when we do the other drainage) or do we put it in at the same time as compacting the hardcore. Opinions please. And thank you.

We have had long discussions with MBC about cold vs warm roofs. We also have a parapet on a flat roof and the ventilation solution is not through the cladding but the design flows air over the parapet. The solution seems reasonable but we are definitely going to end up with a "cold" roof though not in the traditional sense. Nothing built yet but in theory the solution should work well. Not got building regs sign off though yet as haven't got final drawings from MBC to submit yet.

Although it has cost alot of our contingency fund we are pleased we paid the specialists to do the job. Not something worth mucking round with. The fire option mentioned by @Nickfromwales was tempting but my Dad had told me about the explosion risk (he'd seen a house go up in flames and chuck asbestos bits out everywhere) and we have already upset our neighbour enough by just living here ?. The asbestos filled sealed skip should be on its way to Swindon this week. We do occasionally find bits of chrysotile buried in the garden so goodness knows whats going to be under this house...... Thanks everyone for the supportive posts. Our project is finally getting underway.

I am posting this in case it is helpful to anyone on this site now or in the future. We have just had the last bit of asbestos removed from our 1960s bungalow and demolition is now able to commence. If you have asbestos it needs to be removed and disposed of appropriately. Some asbestos is not as bad (chrysotile for example) and can be dampened, double bagged in heavy duty polythene and taken to a tip that accepts asbestos (many don't). But if you have the bad stuff (we had amosite) it has to be put in sealed containers and shipped out properly and the work has to be done by licenced contractors. The Health & Safety Executive needs to be informed 14 days prior to work commencing. Our contractors did that for us. We suspected asbestos so got a couple of samples tested a year ago. One was chrysotile, the other was amosite (asbestos insulating board used on our soffits). At that point our demolition costs went up by a factor of 6 ? You need an asbestos survey before demolition. These are invasive and leave your house with holes everywhere (ceilings / walls). They can repair the damage and allow you back in once it is done but most surveyors we spoke to didn't recommend it. We moved out permanently before getting our survey. Sadly our survey showed up even more asbestos than we knew about. We knew about the soffit boards and the roof edging strips and the artex ceilings. We didn't know that every vertical wall strut in the outer walls of our timber frame 1960s "flat pack from the NEC" would be lined with a strip of asbestos. Our asbestos contractors have been in for a week in April and then again for most of May (had to give an additional 14 days notice to HSE for the newly found asbestos). First a protective plastic "bubble" was fitted around the house, encasing the soffits. Extract fans were placed to filter the air before extracting it to the outside world. An airlock of plastic encased boxes was built to the front of the house. A shower unit was permanently on site for the guys when they de-suited each day. The soffits were removed, then the house was sealed from the inside so the internal asbestos could be removed. At all times, all the guys working wore masks and full protective suits. After all was removed, an asbestos analyst attended to ensure that the air was clean and the asbestos was removed and all areas appropriately cleaned. A certificate of reoccupation was then issued to officially allow people to go back into the house without all the suits and masks. A contractor has done all this for us and we are glad that we haven't attempted any of this ourselves. They finished yesterday (though the chrysotile roof edging is still in place and will be taken off with the tiles). Some photos attached. Hope this is helpful to someone else.

Just had the first quote from a company offering to render (with SAS Prowall) and clad (Cedral Click weatherboard) our timber frame build. Nearly had a heart attack. What should we expect as a rough price for render and renderboard (per square m)? Fitted. Has anyone had anyone fit Cedral Click weatherboard. I have seen some images of @NSS doing a lovely job this time last year. Insight into materials costs vs labour quotes would be much appreciated. Might have a go at this ourselves if it is do-able by an amateur. But the render, no way. Will be looking for other quotes now! Any suggestions for people (render and Cedral fitters) near the South Oxfordshire part of the UK?

No you aren't obliged to disconnect the services if they are unaffected. The standard demolition notice mentions services but just say that they are already re-located to the garage which is not being demolished. We had to apply for two demolition notices. The first was to demolish our garage (no services at all, and we said that on the form and we retained services to the house for a further 5 months) and the second to demolish the house. Each time we quoted the planning permission reference which seemed to speed along their responses (which came back well within the 6 week waiting period). We haven't yet demolished. Asbestos is causing a few delays. But we moved the electricity to a permanent kiosk, stopped the water at the boundary (2 boundary boxes now providing site water) and got the gas stopped at the boundary (that was pricey, as @PeterW says - £1,093 for them to come out and stop it at the boundary - took them 1 hour (2 man hours total). We moved the BT to our caravan and that was pretty straightforward in the end.

@lizzieLow threshold ones - I think they will be level by the time we sort out the floor and outside finishes. That's what we are aiming for. Will double check again with the window guys. @jackThanks for the tips on the ply. Not sure what we will need to put in the void but it seems essential to make it level so that is useful to know. @Pete Did you just put the window straight onto the concrete (i.e. not use ply / EDPM like Jack did?). We are looking at a 22mm (ish) finish for the wood flooring so it looks like we need to sink the door frame about 15mm into the slab. Maybe a deeper slot to ensure it is smooth. Thanks - gives us more to think about to try to get this right before we start. I'm sure there will be plenty of other things we miss but this might be something that works well.....

Hi, hoping for some thoughts from those that have been there and done that..... We have 2 sliding doors on our ground floor. MBC timber frame with insulated slab foundation. Nothing built yet. We either need to channel into the slab so the sliding doors sit a bit lower, or we need to have a 40mm floor make up (bit much for grout and tiles?).. Has anyone any experience of channelling in the slab to sit the sliding door frames down a bit? How does the channelling work in practice? (bit of a daft question but when the concrete is poured what keeps it out of that bit?) Any tips / things to look out for? Thanks

Thanks @Nickfromwales - we'll be getting the bottles and the man to check it all out and connect it properly. Wise words indeed and your guidance is much appreciated. Going to need a twister to move that playhouse - it's now on mains drainage and doubles up as site toilet and teenage boy toilet ? as well as a laundrette / first aid station and general site storage. Figured it saved us the site toilet rental though it has taken a lot of time to sort out.

Who are you using for these SAP assessments? A local real person or an online tool? I managed to fudge something to get a mortgage sorted but don't think it will cut it for Building Regs so need to get some help, particular if BC insist on it being done by someone certified. £200 would be money well spent so I can spend time on other things.

Adopted southerner but soft nonetheless ? Fortunately the balmy southern summer nights will be here by moving in day (14 April). Will hopefully have a mild winter next year! Def won't be using that gas fire if it eats gas and causes condensation problems. Reckon the piano can go in front of it instead!

We have a gas safety certificate for the caravan boiler (dated Nov 2017, so it's a while ago). @Nickfromwales just to be clear, are you saying to get a gas safe plumber in to double check it all (post transportation) before connecting to the cylinders? Don't want any explosions. Thanks for advice re securing cylinders. Will get onto that straight away. We can chain them to the playhouse but some fence posts sunk in either side will make sure of it. Will post some pics..... @Luckylad we are going to be in this beauty for about 18 months we reckon. Glad we are not in it tonight though (-3). Good tip @Bitpipere the gas fire. We've got a dehumidifier in there already - cleaned the floor today and it was never going to dry in these temperatures....... the marriage just survived someone letting all the oil out of the hydraulic bottle jack (whilst trying to release the air) in the middle of levelling the caravan in the rain this week ?

We sent out samples off to Bradley Environmental Consultants. Cost about £55 to have 2 samples tested. Turns out we have chrysotile roof edging and chrysotile / amosite soffit boards to our bungalow. https://www.bradley-enviro.co.uk/ I'll post separately about the demolition as we are getting the full asbestos survey next month (once we have moved out) to be followed shortly afterwards by the most expensive demolition known to man.

The caravan is here! My question is do we need an LPG registered gas engineer to connect up to the two 47kg LPG units? And what about when we need to change them? Or can we do this ourselves (the pigtails are already on the end of the caravan and the boiler has been serviced before we got it). For interest, the shed (ex-playhouse) to the right hand side is the outside toilet cum laundry. Fitting it out has kept him indoors happily occupied for a good couple of weekends.....

We have just remortgaged with Ecology Building Society. We went directly to them. We have remortgaged the outstanding mortgage on our house / land. Next we will demolish the house and start building. We can easily draw down extra up to the value of the plot (minus a retention amount they have stated). We hopefully won't need more than the plot has been valued at. If we had, there would be an inspection of progress at each stage. We did go quite a long way down the road with BuildStore. 90 minutes phone call plus formal letter from them. Their recommended mortgage was actually cheaper than the Ecology for the headline rate. But the up front charges were high, including the BuildStore fees and the set up required jumping through hoops to get money drawn down. We elected to pay lower fees up front, suffer a marginally higher interest rate (still horribly high) and hopefully have easier admin. It has been a smooth process (though did involve paying an estimating company to formally estimate build costs). i agree with the advice to wait on the land valuation. Every lender wants their own survey and you'll be paying for it so no point in paying twice. Some lenders will only work with introducers, like Buildstore. Others happy for direct customers. We felt happier cutting out the middleman on this one. Good luck ?

Glad it was helpful. An update, if this might be helpful to anyone for site insurance / self build mortgages: We guessed the contract works cover, based on our estimated build costs. We fixed site insurance in place to cover that. We proceeded with refinancing onto a self build mortgage (Ecology Building Society) and their valuer has put a much higher estimate on the build costs (seems he doesn't believe our estimates). The building society is insisting on site insurance at the higher value. Self Build Insurance (Zurich) has been very reasonable in increasing the amount of contract works cover (policy only in force so far for 3 months out of 24) and at a not unreasonable additional premium. Quickly sorted and almost painless.

Thanks A_L. I did see this (in fact this is what got us worried that we didn't have anything in the design, sorry I should probably have carried on that thread). I wondered if anyone would do it differently if they were planning for it before starting on site? Someone has mentioned pumping foam (or something else) into the SHS - has anyone done anything like this and how is it working? Otherwise it looks like the consensus is a vapour control layer plus something like aerogel and then timber round the outside. Need to advise structural openings so got to decide on how much thickness to allocate to this insulation. I am probably sweating the small stuff a bit too much here (you can tell me!)

Any help out there please? We have 2 corners with glazing meeting at the corner vertical SHS. We have an MBC timber frame but there is no timber frame at these junctions, just the glazing units and the steel corner post. We are worried about thermal bridging. Still at the design stage so could design in some insulation. What would you do?

Looking to cast a slab this weekend for a permanent electric kiosk to sit on. How does the hockey stick work if the kiosk is surface mounted? What size kiosk do you reckon? Does this look reasonable? https://www.meterboxesdirect.co.uk/electric-ip-43-rated-kiosk-750-500-300-mm.html Completely new to this sort of thing - anything else we need to think of when doing this? Thanks

We have gone for a 2 year policy and started it already (we demolished a garage and dug through a BT cable ) though we are so far away from starting anything else I am wondering whether 2 years will be enough. We will see.....