ProDave

Why not just get a bigger, "proper" walk in greenhouse? Yes I know, less fun.

A basement is right for some, but here, with our very high water table, the cost of adding a basement in £/square metre would be more than just building a bigger house, and we have enough land that if we had wanted a bigger house we could do so.

We have been living "in" the building site for about 4 months now, but at least it is only me making the mess, and then clearing it up.

More likely the seals have stuck. I can't see the hinge mechanism seizing to the point the window will not open.

Don't forget to put a boost button got the mvhr speed in the kitchen

The rise is easy. Take the floor to floor height and divide by the number of steps. There is enough leeway in the min and max rise that you may be able for instance to choose say typically 13 or 14 stairs in a typical house. Then look at much space you have. If you want to make the stairs easier make the going longer than the minimum. In our case we simply used all the space we had and enlarged to goinf and have stairs at about a 40 degree angle.

If you are going for the "cap it off and use a bucket" solution then find out if it is 32mm or 40mm and buy the aproporiate one of these and fit to the end of the horizontal pipe 40mm https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Waste-Pipe-Cap-40mm-42mm-43mm-Stop-End-Compression-Stop-Cap-for-Bath-Shower-Sink/281996806964?hash=item41a851cb34:g:RO0AAOSwMFFbrOr4 32mm https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Waste-Pipe-Cap-32mm-34mm-36mm-Stop-End-Compression-Stop-Cap-for-Basin-Sink-Pipe/281996848267?epid=10019666338&hash=item41a8526c8b:g:bcAAAOSwCx5brOkt With the loose fit sleeved pipe as it has been done, if there was any condensate discharge, it would just have dripped onto the floor as that pipe joint would not have sealed.

I had a Welsh friend once that kept saying "I can see the one that I want"

Tell us exactly what the writing on that horizontal bit of pipe says and we can tell you what stop end will fit.

So the sleeved pipe is not even stuck / sealed with solvent weld? As suggested, take the trap off, put a bucket under and seal the end of that horizontal pipe initially with cling film and tape but as a permanent fix with a stop end.

Is it just me or is that a well and truly bodged setup with one pipe sleeved inside another? No wonder he does not want to come back.

Perhaps leave the wet trap, and just insert the waterless trap in the pipe leading out of it? A lot less messing about, and the dried out "wet" trap will do no harm left like that.

Hi and welcome A few comments meant to be constructive. Bathroom / en-suite won't work like that with shower next to bath, or it will work with a boxed in awkward to use bath. Plant an utility FAR too small. Snug lounge far too snug. Make the kitchen end of the familly room smaller to give more room for snug utility etc. A snug is essential. Once you have tried watching tv in the "family room" of an evening, competing with the noise of the fridge and dishwasher, you will be craving a quiet haven away from that. Anyone that s happy with just a family room must be a LOT more tolerant of noise than me. If space is tight, consider downstairs WC and utility all in one room. It may seem an odd concept at first but it is what we are dong. Address the offset front door, or if not possible forget the porch over it that emphasises the fact it is offset.

A garage would not require insulation, a bedroom would. So just plastering the walls would not necessarily comply with building regulations. I am sure you should have informed building control and had the work (addition if insulation etc) verified. Can your solicitor cover this with an indemnity policy, ask that question BEFORE you speak to the council as doing so may make it invalid.

The wording in building regs here is "a 100mm diameter sphere will not pass through" But even if the wires are say 90mm apart, it does not take much force to push them apart and the sphere will go through. The case I mentioned, they wove sheets of polycarbonate between the wires to make a solid barrier and got past completion. I am sure the sheets of polycarb are no longer there. So you might be able to wing it if you are determined.

I know building control failed them in a house up here for internal use, because you could push the wires apart.

@lizzie What are those howdens wardrobe doors actually like? Reading the caralogue, says "8mm paper faced chipboard" It's the "paper faced" not even veneer bit that makes me think they might be rubbish and a poor relation to the real oak doors in the rest of the house.

That is my plan. The doors, door runners, frames, plasterboard all on the VAT claim. The internal racking / shelving is "furniture" and not on the VAT claim.

Last time I looked the VAT rules said a built in wardrobe can be frame, doors and 1 basic shelf. Anything beyond that is not VAT claimable.

I like the "out of the box" thinking there. When I have done built in wardrobes with sliding doors, I have always taken the timber door frame down the sides and finished off with architrave. I would never have thought of just having the door sliding up to the plasterboarded end of a wall, but I like the simple look now I see it. Let us know how durable it proves to be.

This weeks impossible build, the big log cabin in the "remote" Highlands, 12 miles from Inverness (did not feel very remote to me) So a big log cabin made of big logs. Probably an average of 12" diameter? That was it, that was the entire wall structure, exposed round logs on the outside and the inside. anyone care to guess what the U value of those walls would be and how it passed building regs?

Polishing a t**d springs to mind. The basic problem is no, or very little insulation. These prefabs were often on decent sized plots and sounds a perfect knock down and rebuild opportunity. If you are going to stick with it and try to improve it, them mvhr will at least recover most of the heat. Positive input, or central extraction won't. Look for a cheap unit on ebay? Beware, almost certainly contains asbestos. I declined a rewire on one of these because I was afraid of asbestos and did not want to be inadvertently drilling into it. My BIL lived in one of these for the first 10 years of his married life. It was heated only by a stove burning mostly wood. He relates how cold and miserable it was, and he spent the entire weekend in winter preparing enough wood for the coming week. His only regret was that it was rented and they could not buy the sites (the residents association tried) as he would love to have build a decent house on the plot.

Reminds me of the house at the top of our road. Previously marketed as an "Eco House" (I think because it had the cheapest available triple glazing) that had an EPC rating of D. It is always the first house in the road that the snow melts off the roof, and the people that bought it keep complaining at the high heating bills. A friend of SWMBO down south was looking for a new house. They looked at a detached house with a small paddock. It had solar PV on the original higher rate FIT. I advised them it was a good buy. But they then pulled out of the purchase because the survey raised doubts about the roof structure being able to support the extra weight of the PV panels. they also did not like the overhead power lines passing over the paddock. They ended up buying a semi detached house instead. There is no accounting for buyers behavior.

Definitely gas boiler if gas is available. UFH seems to be accepted but I would avoid new things like the Sun Amp as people don't know and understand them. UVC for hot water for me but again most buyers won't know or appreciate the much better hot water flow rates and would probably accept the cheapest smallest gas combi boiler. The more I think about it, what you want for your forever home, the best of everything, is worlds away from what you need to sell a home. I can begin to see the thinking in building new builds to the minimum they can get away with as most buyers don' know or care about the difference.

What I have found is most buyers are not interested in things that are high on my list, like location, views, orientation, quiet (away from through traffic) plenty of off road parking tor trailers etc, garage, sheds etc. So forget those if selling, they might be important if keeping. When trying to sell our old house, feedback we got from viewers suggested they did not like the "old fashioned" layout of separate kitchen, dining room and living room. These days people want a big "familly room" containing the kitchen, somewhere to sit down and eat, and a sofa and tv to lounge in. Then a separate snug living room so you can escape the noise of "kitchen stuff" Main bathroom must have a bath and a shower. A shower only is acceptable in an en-suite. Hard floor coverings are popular now, but buyers can't tell the difference between cheap laminate or solid oak, so choose the cheaper, as long as it looks good.