ProDave

Aico are the best, few would doubt that, and not the cheapest. But if the wiring is in place you should be able to swap all 4 in 2 hours and that is being really generous. I bet I could do it in an hour as long as the ceilings were good and no trouble getting a fixing. List prices two CO a heat and a smoke is probably in the region of £200 but can usually be had for a lot less. But why is the cost your concern? It is the landlords responsibility to provide working alarms, and if they are not working it is the landlord that must pay and it is then up to him whether he pays an over charging electrician or finds someone charging a better price.

How can you NOT be aware of a CCJ against you. Were you not notified by post of the proceedings so you could attend? and then notified of the outcome?

I would be looking to branch that pipe the other side of the wall, so 2 pipes come through the wall. Then you can have your proper rest bend on the bottom of the stack, and have the run off to the right.

For me the self build has been largely a good experience. This is our second and i would not rule out a third but no plans at the moment. Self build is not however just a process on it's own. Most will have something to sell to make the self build possible. And of course you have to find and buy a plot. What this experience has confirmed though is my total and utter hatred for the property buying and in particular selling process. We have probably been unlucky but the property market is a miserable thing with far too much positive feedback which makes it flip from a slump where nothing sells to a boom where everything sells quickly. When we tried to sell we hit a slump, this is the FOURTH time in my life I have tried to sell a property in a slump. It is a thoroughly demoralising experience and it is THIS bit of the process that I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to ever repeat again. TIP: If my house is on the market, you can probably take that as a sign that the housing market is in a slump and don't bother trying to sell yours. The irony of course is if we did not have a tenant in the place just now, our old house would probably sell in a flash. Why could some of the people that would queue to buy it now not have wanted it 4 years ago? They could probably have bought it cheaper than now and without the hassle of having to bid against others to do so.

Sadly it sounds more like an insurance company trying to find a thin reason to wriggle out of a claim. How can an undeclared CCJ for a parking ticket be relevant to a building claim? I am surprised the guys own house insurance did not pay to take the builder to court, even if it bankrupted the builder and he had nothing left to pay anything there would be some sort of satisfaction in that. It makes me glad my PL insurance is no longer with Direct Line. (though they did pay out for one very small claim many years ago)

Yes your gas safe engineer should issue a certificate. They will want a stair handrail, the property has to be basically safe.

For us the decision was made that we WILL self build before looking for the plot. MOST of the potential issues you list can be largely solved by you being actively involved at least as project manager if not actually doing much of the work, and making sure the detail is done right with no corners being cut. The thing that went "wrong" for us was assuming we could just sell our old house (we needed some of the money from it to build the new one) Never under estimate the fickle housing market not long after a "bust" where the market was stagnant and very little was selling. We gave up after 3 years on the market and agreed to let it instead. That left a £70K hole in the budget to build. From that we became masters of building as cheap as possible (cheap price not quality) mostly by doing so much of the work ourselves, and we have ran for 5 years as a "build as you earn" funded largely by the rental income from the old house. On the plus side, although it has taken longer than we ever imagined, we have built the new house now without touching the capital from the old one, so when we do eventually sell it, that's more in the retirement pot for us.

You will need an EIC from the Electrician (Electrical Instalation Certificate) He can issue that even if it is not all complete, he can issue it on the basis of all the circuits that are completed and tested so far, and then issue another one when the house is finally finished. Gas safe certificate if there is any gas, we had that just for the LPG hob fed from a pair of bottles. G3 unvented cylinder sign off The rest is down to the BC inspector. They will expect the building to be safe, stairs and handrails etc, Some will ask to witness a drain pressure test.

I am not suggesting changing the pitch. Lower BOTH ends of the rafters 100mm so the pitch is the same, then you can put 100mm insulation above the rafters and full fill the gap between them, finished tile level exactly the same. and inside plasterboard straight onto rafters, no insulation under them. This gets you more insulation into the same space, easier to detail and harder to get wrong, and no need for ventilating anything but the space between the external insulation and the tiles.

11mm OSB to support the UFH, 25mm battens following the joist lines (to allow you to notch the battens for the UFH pipes to pass) , 22mm chipboard floor = only 36mm higher finished floor than just the flooring straight onto the joists. The critical area will be internal door openings, frame those a bit higher. You only need to raise the whole 1st floor frame if you think losing 36mm headroom is going to make the ceilings too low. With a bit more work you could set the OSB as strips between the joists with their top level with the top of the joists so your floor is only then raised by 25mm.

I always set a cooker hood as high as possible so I can lean over a pan on the hob without banging my head (and it is not as though I am tall, far from it). The recommended height of some is ridiculously low. I had to modify ours to make it go higher that it's limited adjustment would allow as when initially set to it's highest setting I hit my head. So quite why you would want low cupboards above it beats me? Are you planning an extractor built into a cupboard?

Yes also in Scotland. We purchased our plot via an offer to buy subject to planning. Planning is granted and both parties are committed to the agreed offer price. Planning refused the deal is off. So I would start by agreeing the price with the land owner, get that offer in progress and conditionally accepted then bang in the planning application. I would still be looking to only put the buildings within the original house boundary but include the extra bits of field in the planning application as part of the garden.

If you are certain the land owner will sell, then I would include that (presently agricultural) land in the planning application (you don't need to own the land to do that) If the planning is granted to the plans you submit showing that land included then you have your change of use.

You just set the rafters 100mm lower at both ends so they are position for insulation above them rather than below them. The net effect is the same with finished roof surface in the same place. Assuming it has not been built yet.......

Alternatively make it a warm roof. Put insulation above the rafters rather than under them, then you can full fill the gap between rafters without needing a ventilation space.

I did similar in our bathroom and en-suite. I threaded the pipe through the web of the joists where they had to cross over. Even a very short loop in a small bathroom was a real mare of a job threading and re threading a long length of pipe through the joists. But it is doable, just, if you are patient. As noted do NOT even think about notching the top of posi joists. I would not even consider trying on a larger room e.g. a bedroom.

If you are trying to attach OSB to a metric frame on 400 or 600mm centres getting the imperial ones by mistake is VERY annoying. @epsilonGreedy is your frame built to imperial measurements?

BOTH sizes are available. But the ones I have been buying have been the metric 1200 by 2400 for some time, in fact when I mistakenly got an imperial sized one from a different merchant, it annoyed me I had to trim it down to size to match the others. just check the sizes before you buy.

I wired a house a while back where the ground workers had assumed a 100mm frame and built with 100mm block, but the frame arrived as 140mm. 15 years later the house has not fallen down yet.

Use 300mm EPS instead of the PIR (or have you bought that already?)

Can you post a link to the ones that do cost a fortune so we have a better idea what you are looking for. P.S don't copy that picture too literally, you can't have your sockets that low on a new build.

No problem if you use Appleby. Agreed some other makes are utter rubbish and not fit for purpose. A 35mm back box is perfect for a 25mm service void and 12.5mm plasterboard.

And how do they check you actually have an "electric car"? Will a Hybrid count?

Tempting. they are offering me 12.9p per kWh and 19p standing charge. But how long will they last before they go bust at that price and I am lumped on some random substitute supplier. And why does nothing like this ever come up on the price comparison sites? last time I looked there I was offered nothing under 16p

So yours combines the function of an MVHR as well passing the incoming air through a heat exchanger first? That makes a lot more sense and I can well imagine the exhaust air after the heat pump is indeed very cold indeed. the system described by the OP did not include an MVHR element and the incoming air to the rooms appears to be raw outside cold air.