ProDave

I would be interested to know if anyone enquires.

For a start, is that the inside or the outside of the window opening we are looking at? If outside? what will be the wall finish? i.e what are you hoping to achieve with the repair? Are you wanting to put it back "pre sawing" or are you still needing to actually move the window opening over?

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That is less likely to happen in Scotland. Presumably as it is now for sale, the vendor has got at least outline PP to revuild.

It used to be common (you see it all over the islands for instance) to leave a derelict house and just build a new one alongside it. If you have the space that will get you a better house and I would still re roof the ruin as a work space. Talk to the planners and see if they would be happy with that.

What are you doing for air tightness? One layer of Protect Bariair or similar over the frame (and insulation) will do both.

Yes I leave the metalwork for lower levels in place (unless I am running really short) 4 pegs is as high as I can lift the planks up to the next layer without standing on anything, that is the only reason I say that. If you are really tall you might just make 5.

You have to build it up somehow. So you put a layer of planks on, then working from that put the next layer on 4 pegs up. Even if the lower ones don't end up as working platforms you still need them temporarily to work from even if those planks then get moved up to the next level as you go.

How much space on the plot? My inclination would be a basic re roof of the original building as a workspace / store, and the new dwelling as a separate building. Perhaps join the new to the old if space is tight? Someone here started a steading conversion, until they found the original "foundations" were about 6" deep, then it turned into a rebuild, just using some of the stone to re face it around a timber frame.

I use 1 transom per lift, i.e every 4 pegs up the standard. More if you want proper handrails at every lift so one transom every 2 pegs all the way up. Arguable even more if you have dual handrails.

We put a 4KW WBS in out static and that was okay over winter but you do need to keep it going. Keeping up the wood supply was a bit of a challenge and we burned coal overnight as that would just about stay in over night.

The mains water here is lovely, comes from Loch Glass about 6 miles away and does not need a great deal of treatment. What comes out of the tap has no taste of any of the treatment, unlike down south where you sometimes thought you were drinking water from the local swimming baths. But houses up here with private supplies are not so good. Any borehole here is going to be very hard as there is a seam of limestone under this part of the Highlands, and many houses have stream water that comes out of the tap brown (peat) and all sanitary ware in the house is permanently brown.

The big failure we had in the first winter was along the bottom of the garage wall. It happened when we were away for 2 weeks over Christmas so we did not see the weather conditions that caused it.. But when we got home there was thick ice all over the parking area. My speculation was we had deep snow that had piled up against the bottom of that wall (and that is the point the render is closest to the ground) and as that thawed and re froze, moisture got in at the bottom and then blew. The thick ice we came home to was the last of the thawing and re freezing snow. At that time there was no garage door on, so the inside of the garage will have been just as cold as the outside, so unlike the rest of the house, that garage wall will have been a lot colder. Since being repaired that has not re occurred, but the single blister (not yet dealt with) on the west wall of the house is a worry.

I was attracted to the direct render on wood fibre system because it means the entire wall make up is insulation of some form. I wanted to avoid pointless cavities that have to be ventilated so anything outside the cavity contributes almost nothing to overall insulation. I wasn't expecting "issues" and the problem now is who to "blame" and how to fix it to be sure it won't happen again. At the moment SWMBO thinks the whole lot is going to fall off within a few yeas.

So who is going to do the FOI request to see exactly where £20K per house has actually been spend?

In Scotland yes. You have to provide a "Circulation space" of at least 1.4 by 1.8 metres elipse (or 1.5 metre diameter circle) So this effectively means facing units must be 1.4M apart. I think this is too much and I think our island may go for a walk after completion to reduce that to 1.2 metres.

One of the more unusual jobs that I have done is the wiring for a remote public toilet. All I did was connect a small solar panel, a small wind turbine, and a 12V battery to power a small (pc) fan to ventilate the composting toilet, and a small 12V light. Building control still insisted on an Electrical Installation Certificate for sign off, so I gues the answer is yes building control should have been notified and inspected it.

How about ALL the panels on both sides of the garage roof as an E / W split. A LOT easier to get to should you have to do any maintenance,

Only because presumably you don't have mvhr?

Yes having had plenty of new regularised construction timber turn to a banana, I would happily use old dry straight seasoned timber, providing it IS straight and dry, and you have enough of it to do the job you want.

If I dug a 5 by 5 by 3M hole and put a plank over it, I would very soon have a cold, muddy water swimming pool. There is a bit more to it that that. Then add the complication if you want to do that very close to your boundary and ensure that while you do so the ground does not collapse and next doors house does not end up falling into your hole.

My stove is one that is rated to stand on just a 12mm "hearth" and the floor underneath the stove really does remain cold. Although I would not recommend plastic, I am sure a plastic duct for e.g the air intake would have been fine (I actually used aluminium)

My heat pump is not under sized (5KW HP and max demand a little over 2Kw) and it copes well with being directly linked to the UFH without a buffer. It just moduates down and runs at a very low power. The only time it ever seems to defrost is when working harder to heat the DHW, and then not very often. It is around or just above 0 on a damp day that it is most likely to need to defrost.

I wondered that. 13 landing stages around the lake each on a plot under different ownership. And spend Christmas day at anchor in the middle of the lake.

I did wonder if that was an MBC frame, but slotted into a steel building frame, slightly different way of doing it. Self build relationships never cease to amaze me. Let's build a house together. Oh I will bugger off to Moscow for 3 years and leave you to build the house without me. The other thing that strikes me, is time and time again the people building these first 10 houses say what a lovely peaceful location with fantastic views. but hold on what will it be like when all 2000 houses are built there and you no longer look at empty fields but other houses.