ProDave

Mine has a "don't you even think of doing that" look.

And which one was it where they finished off a couple of internal wall by fixing random non matching bits of old wood? I said to SWMBO "That's what I could have done with all those pallets" The abbreviated version of her reply was "no"

I am also watching Grand Designs Australia. The last one, the building inspector picked up the formwork for the pool was 50mm outside the building envelope. I would be mighty pissed off if my BI was that much of a jobsworth. The pool being 50mm out of place would have made no difference at all.

But with the new regime of no FIT payments, battery storage, when it get a bit cheaper will be a way to use 100% of your PV generation. It is more about what's good for an individual, than what's good for the grid as a whole. Grid scale storage, or any form, is someone elses problem.

By the style of house. These old croft houses were very often originally built with only one door at the front.

There is the innocent "oh is that new? well it was there when I bought the house." Honest. One house I have been doing a lot of wiring alterations had had a whole raft of alterations without building control. I did tell the guy I think he is nuts and will likely have some big issues if he ever sells it but he doesn't care.

I did the @AnonymousBosch "just do it" method. I carried them up the ladder a few at a time. I think I calculated I climbed 3 Munro's up that ladder in the process. I didn't do them all in one go, that would have been too monotonous. I would carry a batch up onto the scaffold, then lay them on the roof. Then repeat a LOT of times.

But how did you get 200mm out if both you and the builder measured the ground marks? As well as marking the centres of each trench, did you not also set up profiles that mark the inner and outer edge of each wall? These are used as a sanity check for digging the trenches and for setting out when you start building the walls.

Mine are supported at 600mm centres and have not sagged. Perhaps go 400mm centres if in doubt?

Another thing if you are in Scotland, you need PP for an ASHP unless you have a very large plot. Thankfully I realised while my planning was in and amended it to include the ASHP.

I used the bitumen stuff on my and it lasting well.

Come on, be honest now, and I the only one that had to google that?

6 degrees and wintery showers forecast tomorrow. And the cold weather is heading south.

I looked into it for my build, and the cost of the slinky pipe and all the fittings, and the brine to fill it, way exceeded the cost of the actual heat pump. And that was not including the cost to install it. Then add periodic replacement of the brine and disposal of the old. An ASHP was a no brainer by comparison. The GSHP also puts the noisy bit with the compressor inside your house.

I think the crucial thing here is you did not alter the opening or change the lintels. you only knocked out below the window down to the floor. That being the case they might not want to see much of what you actually did. Did you take any photographs?

I have seen that before. Garage built on strip foundations and wall built straight up. Slab poured afterwards (usually when bricks only a few courses high so you can work around it from the outside) Often a strip of wood fibre board is inserted as both a level marker and a bit of an expansion gap. That has probably rotted away.

I will be interested to hear (no pun intended) how that works. e.g if you choose to listen to the same thing in 2 rooms (e.g an on line radio station) I will be mighty impressed if both remain in sync. If they don't it could sound horrible. My solitary Pi plays through the downstairs hifi with sound available in 3 rooms, and also via cabling and a different amp, in our bedroom. All play perfectly in sync.

What are you running on those? I have just one Pi running Pi Music box

Probably not normal, but it was an unusual situation that I did the digging and the builder did the pour, foundation build up and timber frame. They wanted to be sure the trenches were in the right place, othwerise they would not be able to build it correctly.

I dug my own foundations. I set it out by marking first with pegs and string and then with ground marker paint, the centreline of each trench. The builders doing the pour and blockwork said it would never be accurate enough and predicted they would have to do some rework. As it happened when they got the surveying equipment out there was just one trench a little off line, and that was because I could not get the digger in quite the right place. 5 minutes with a spade had the side shaved off that slightly errant trench and all was well. Slightly digressing I watched an episode of Grand Designs Australia yesterday. There the building inspector found the formwork for the pool was "50mm outside the building line" so he made them dismantle it all and re do it. I would be mighty pi$$ed off if my building inspector was such a jobsworth. It would have made no practical difference if the pool had ended up 50mm too big.

My attempts at filling something like that have always shown. Perhaps I am just not very good at it. In any event if it was the joiners mistake, I would want it so the finished painted item you could not tell it ever happened.

I have yet to find anyone that has done a trussed roof and insulated it well. You will be cutting a lot of insulation, and it is vital that at every junction of every truss you get the detail absolutely perfect. The danger, and what happens so so often, is you get gaps in the insulation, allowing cold roof air to get between the insulation and the plasterboard. Then you get the situation I encounter very often that on a windy day, you take an upstairs socket off the wall and a blast of cold air comes out of the socket box. that is letting cold air in in the winter, and warm air in the summer. I would say if you are doing it yourself and are prepared to spend the time to get the detail right then carry on. If you are employing a builder then I almost guarantee the detail will not be right.

Rope and pulley to wind the wacker up and down the slope? DON'T use round gravel. It will roll like marbles. you need crushed irregular shaped gravel that will bind together.

The No 1 thing I would suggest is ditch the plan to use attic trusses. They are a devil of a problem to insulate properly without leaks, and in any event you have cupboards going into the eaves. Instead, build the roof as a cut roof supported from a ridge beam. You have enough internal walls that with a bit of re jigging you can get intermediate support for a ridge beam end to end of the main roof. That will enable you to well insulate and seal the entire roof structure with much easier detail to get right than attic trusses, and it means your eaves storage cupboards will be part of the heated, insulated, sealed envelope of the house so much more usable. Then you want to insulate the roof well with a low decrement delay material. Since this will be a warm roof now, over board the outside of the roof structure with something like wood fibre board. and insulate between the rafters with something like Frametherm 35 or blown celulose. I have 100mm wood fibre sarking and 200mm frametherm 35 and it performs very well indeed.

I am not sure there is any option in Scotland but to use your local council for building control. But you are not talking about building control, you are talking about structural warranty. I am sure you aware that a portable building like this, may not need building control at all, if it fits within the legal dimensions of a "caravan" which it sounds like it will if it arrives on site as one unit. Building control will be needed for any drainage connection or treatment system.