ProDave

It may not be clear from the pictures but the outside of this clay pipe is a very irregular shape with a flat bottom. Presumably for laying it on, which would work fine if laying it onto the bottom of a nice flat dry trench. So I can't see any form of sleeve over the outside working. It might be worth trying 160mm drain pipe if I can find a bit, but it would have to be squashed to go in, and I can't see that happening. Anything to do with concreting, will require it to be dry, i.e. burn lower than present and nothing running out of the land drain pipe. Can you see the dilemma?

Try sealing where the cable enters the back box to stop the air flow.

the recent storm and a minor bit of garden flooding eroded part of the bank of our burn. It is easy enough to rebuild it and I am already collecting large rocks to build in as reinforcement. But my question is what to do with this old clay land drainage pipe? It has always been there, sticking out from the bank, but until the recent storm has been dry. Now it is running water, which is good, it is doing it's job. But where the bank eroded a whole section of this clay pipe has come off. It would appear the sections are short, about 18" each, and they just butt together, not even a male / female socket at the joint. I want to re fit the detached bit of pipe or otherwise extend it so I can rebuild the bank back to about where it was. So I thought I would try and see if any standard size pipe is a snug fit inside. No such luck. That is a bit of standard 110mm drain pipe. Way too small. but it also shows this clay pipe is not round, a sort of egg shape about 130mm wide and 160mm high. Any ideas how to either join some modern pipe into it, or re fit the original clay pipe. the problem I see with fitting the original flay pipe is needing it to dry out thoroughly (i.e wait until next summer) as it will need a solid base laid, probably concrete, to set the detached piece on a bed of concrete and encase at least the joint in concrete. Any ideas please?

That would only apply to anyone lucky enough to have bought say agricultural land and obtained planning permission. I suspect most self builders will have bought land with PP in place and paid building plot prices.

Is the law different? Other than I think England allow a larger "Caravan" as Scotland didn't update it's own caravan act when England did.

Yes it was our own residence from moving into the caravan to moving out of the house. It has been let since, so fair doo's CGT will be due for the period it was let, but I would not expect it to be due for the period we lived there.

I wanted a dumper but never found a cheap enough one close to home. But I did find the dozer blade on the digger did a pretty good job of pushing the muck around so I could pile it all up in one corner of the plot.

This is interesting as this is a situation we might face soon (sale of our first self build). I had assumed I would put the date we moved onto the plot into a static caravan as the start of the period of ownership. After all from that date it was out main residence even if it was only a caravan, we had nowhere else to live.

This is how the Highland Council define a "caravan" https://www.highland.gov.uk/downloads/file/1346/bst_018_caravans_and_mobile_homes It would be worth searching your own planning authority to see if they have a similar definition.

It does not have to be on wheels. The usual method is make a number of concrete pads either cast concrete or concrete blocks and build a timber frame of joists that literally just sit on your concrete pads. Then you can justifiably say the whole building can be lifted by a crane onto a low loader truck and be moved that way. Several on here have build substantial buildings like that without problem and they have been classed as a "caravan"

My take on garage doors, is there is absolutely no need to have the blockwork across the opening. I did not even dig the foundation trench across the opening and waste concrete filling it up. BC did raise an eyebrow but accepted this. Then the concrete floor of the garage extended out to level with the outer edge of the wall. I have a roller door and the rubber seal at the bottom does a good job of stopping any blown rain entering. Though a bit of foresight and that portion could have been sloped. We too have a drive that slopes down to the garage and have an aco drain across the front. That is set slightly lower than the garage slab so a small step up into the garage. All performed well in the recent storm and heavy rain, the drain coped well and no water in the garage. I am glad we had the tarmac done before this recent storm, in a previous storm when it was just the MOT1 and some gravel, a lot of that got washed away.

You are about as likely to get talked out of buying a digger here, as you are being talked out of self building a house.

Buy the very cheapest pre made off the shelf softwood staircase from someone like Howdens, and regard it as temporary. Fit proper stairs later.

The best bit of buying your own digger is it is there, all the time. I had mine about 3 years, not only did it get used for all the digging tasks, foundations, drainage, treatment plant, landscaping, it was damned handy having it there to be used any time you wanted it. Often it would just get 5 minutes work to move something, you can't hire a digger in for that.

Has nobody mentioned making a jig? You want to drill 2 holes in the shelf, and 2 holes in the wall, exactly the same distance apart and level. So take one bit of scrap wood, at least as long as the distance between the to holes plus a bit. Mark the holes on that bit of wood and drill a hole the size you want. Making sure the marking is accurate, and before starting to drill the hole make a centrepunch mark, ideally with a centrepunch failing that a nail, hold the point exactly on your pencil park then hit it gently with a hammer to make a dent to stop the drill wandering. Then use the jig to drill the holes in the shelf and the holes in the wall, getting an assistant to hold the jog dead level on the wall before drilling.

I bought a very old Kumatsu 3t 360 on steel tracks for my build. I was looking for anything that was cheap and local and bid a silly low price on this one, then went out and blow me down when i got back I found i had won it. It was old, all the joints were worn and it had a Peugeot car engine bodged in in place of the original. But it worked and did everything I asked it to, and i sold it for exactly what i paid for it.

The reason I asked, was because you mentioned dumper. I once saw a contraption that was a dumper truck with a back hoe on the back of it. Initially I thought what a great bit of lateral thinking. Until I realised there was no way the back hoe would swing round enough to self load the dumpers tub.

What do you mean by a "backhoe loader" and "Seems like best of mini digger and dumper in one?" Any pictures or examples of what you mean? Or do you mean a simple JCB C3X etc? JCB's are good, but heavy and being wheel drive rather than track will chew up a soft / wet site in no time.

No two heating systems are identical. A problem that will be even worse when we all have heat pumps.

If you have a multimeter, check that you have 240V between the red and the blue at the thermostat. If you don't then the "programmer" is off.

Typically a thermostat in a heating system will energise a motorised valve (either 2 port or 3 port) and the feedback switch in the motorised valve will call for heat from the boiler. So the boiler may not fire up for a few seconds after the thermostat closes. Are you SURE it was 100% working before you changed the thermostats? Yes normally linking the red and the yellow would be the same as turning the thermostat up.

The neutral connection to an old type mechanical thermostat is just to power a tiny "accelerator heater" to eliminate the hysteresis between turn on and turn off point. So leaving that not connected won't be why it does not work. If you are just replacing a thermostat, there is probably a programmer somewhere that needs bypassing if you want it all to be controlled by the app.

Well I just shopped around. Trying to complete a house with a non existent budget focuses the mind. I bought 2 back to wall WC's for £50 each oddly enough being sold by an on line UFH supplier. The plain ordinary close coupled WC was from Wickes, after an argument as it had two price stickers on it and I insisted I would only pay the price of the lower one. After the argument the assistant removed the "wrong" lower price sticker. Looking for an on worktop basin, and first looking at the "bathroom" shops and seeing 3 figure prices, we found one in the orange DIY shed which by the time they took off the loyalty card discount cost us £28 These are the sort of offers you stumble across and buy them when you find them, they won;t be repeated.

Do you want low price or top brand? The answer will be different.

The bit I see missing from the neighbours deeds, is the bit requiring them to pay a share of the maintenance costs for the shared septic tank. Do they play hardball and refuse to contribute each time it is desludged saying their deeds don;t say they have to pay?