ProDave

Just found this on ebay https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/123282794794?ViewItem=&item=123282794794 I await a delivery quite from them.

Oh dear. That has highlighted something I had forgotten about. Insulation. If I went with the roller door from the local supplier that would be "insulated" now I don't expect it to be very well insulated as the ones I have seen appear to be plastic slats making up the roll, with presumably some token level of insulation between the 2 skins.

I want to get a door on our garage that has been sitting doorless for nearly 3 years now, so I can get it set up properly as a workshop. Originally we were planning an electric roller door which (I haven't actually had a quote) I understand would be in the order of £1K But as ever in a quest so save money. SWMBO points out the garage is not for a car, they will live under the car port but we will need to get cars in to get them over the pit for servicing (and my Landrover might end up living in there) So we don't need electric, manual will do. Because the plan was a roller door, we didn't make it to any particular standard size and it has ended up with an opening size of 2370mm wide and 2310mm high. Of course now I am looking for a cheaper option, I find none of the off the shelf standard doors will fit. Any ideas? A manual roller door might be the simplest, they fit behind the opening on the inside not in the opening, so the size does not have to be so precice. So anyone know a supplier of cheap manual roller doors? Another alternative might be a pair of hinged timber doors, but again not found a standard set that will fit.

What is unusual about that? My plot cost £50K, well down at the bottom end of open market plot values here, and the total cost will be about £220K

Your overhead cable worries me, and may be more of an issue than you thought. It looks like 11KV, the standard for local distribution, and your supply will come from a transformer from that quite often pole mounted. We have 11KV overhead lines just the other side of the road from us. The "issue" they cause is restrictions on how close you can build to them. I found this out when a neighbour wanted to build almost right up to the road edge, putting his building 4 metres from the OH lines. He was told NO. As it happens, there was some network alterations going on, and he was able to piggyback onto that, and get the section past his plot undergrounded for a much reduced cost as they were making alterations anyway, so he was able to build. When I looked into out own build, I was concerned it might cause us a problem. So I enquired of SSE the DNO here and was told no work within 9 metres of the OH line. Then when you drill down into the details, it is actually no building within 6 metres of the line, and any work (scaffold, cranes, diggers) between 6 and 9 metres from the line you have to be particularly careful. So we have built 6 metres from the OH line and had scaffold up 5 metres from it, and used a digger (carefully) right under it. The fact it has ended up right above your building is a concern. Has your DNO agreed to that? I would want that in writing. What is the clearance from your roof to the line at the closest point? IF it's less than about 3 metres I suspect you are going to need a line shutdown just for the roofer to work on the roof. And taking the actual build, that could be a long shutdown, and who else would be off during that shutdown. This may not be what you want to hear, but a diversion or undergrounding of a section of the line is what you really want but that is going to cost well into 4 digits. It might be cheaper to move the garage. There will be some wasted money on foundations that will have to be moved but that is likely less cost than moving the line. You might have to re submit planning but should be able to continue building the house while that goes through. Perhaps start a thread in the forum to discuss this rather then clog up your blog?

No I don't think you use that sort of flashing with a twin wall flue pipe. This is what you want https://www.flue-pipes.com/flashing-30-254.html flue-pipes.com is where I got mine from, the cheapest I could find. Depending how air tight and how well insulated you are building, you might want to look for a stove that takes it's combustion air direct from the outside via a duct rather than from the room.

The point is to avoid having to trim anything from the wall boards. The finished height is 2420 so the wall boards stop 20mm above the finished floor and the gap will be covered by the skirting. The exact measure is unimportant as long as there is a small gap that will get covered. The last thing you want is 2400 before you sheet the ceiling, then you will be trimming a slither from each board and cursing.

Yes. If I still had the prescription from the last eye test. It got "filed" which probably means I will never find it again. Perhaps after the next eye test I might look at this.

That is only a little bigger than our kitchen / living room and we have a ceiling height of 2420mm That extra 20mm means you don't have to trim any of the plasterboard when sheeting the walls. This room feels perfectly normal to us. However I don't see a 3M ceiling would be too high either. We have one bedroom with a 3M ceiling and it does not look silly.

My issue is astigmatism. Prescription glasses correct that, and my distance glasses for driving are brilliant. But self select reading glasses can correct focus issues and are adequate for reading a pc screen and general close up work, but are never perfect because the astigmatism is not corrected. My gripe is the self select glasses I am wearing right now are fine for the pc screen and fine even for looking at something the other end of the room. I could wear them around the house all the time if I wanted to. Why can't I have a pair that does that AND corrects the astigmatism without paying £170 for them?

Might try that. My reading glasses were free on the NHS as was the eye test (advantage of being in Scotland) but when I went to complain about my reading glasses not doing what I expected, I was told I needed work glasses and there was no NHS subsidy for those and prices started at £170. I walked out. Trouble is I don't even think the eye test to get a prescription for that would be free.

My reading glasses. About the most useless things I ever got from an optician, because the only focus over a ridiculously short range "reading distance" so are totally useless for the computer for instance as that is too far away (so I just use a cheap pair of self select glasses for that) If I come by something hard to read then I blow the dust off the reading glasses and use them, to try and justify their reason for being on this planet.

The price seems fair to me. Last time I tried approaching an architect I was quoted about £25K for a similar package and they would not negotiate one tiny bit, which is why you will not find me speaking highly about architects.

If it is not a wall hung pan, but a simple floor standing back to wall toilet, then you do you want or need the complication of a frame to mount the cistern in. We just used a simple dual flush concealed cistern with hydraulic flush plate. And here showing the service access

Shouldn't there be battens on which to fix the standing seam roof, and to create an air flow under the SS roof? For insulation type, I would recommend Knauf Earthwool Frametherm 35. It's less nasty to handle than most glass fibre type insulation, and stiff enough to stay put when pushed up between the rafters so it stays there while you board over the underside. I used Protect Barriair as my air tightness / vapour layer.

A lot of these "log cabins" are really little more than a garden shed. Solid timber walls not very thick and no insulation. I have wired a couple as offices or such like and they are cold uninviting places in anything other than summer heat (when they are probably too hot) I think even my humble static caravan is better insulated and would make a better office / work space (exactly what we intend to use it for now)

My plumber friend paid in the order of £10K for supply and fit of an Ecodan system, I am not sure of the size but 8KW rings a bell. I always thought it strange that a plumber should pay someone to fit one.

I can see the re plumb my house with an UVC thread starting soon.....

I read it as removing the macerator (that was presumably put there because you could bot get enough fall on an underground pipe) and replacing it with a direct soil pipe, which to get enough fall would end up above ground, but covered by the deck.

We find just sleeping in our bedroom raises the temperature 1 degree overnight. Never been in a house that does that.

Hi and welcome to the forum. I and many others would be interested to hear about your battery system. Start a new thread in the approprriate section.

Well my sub £500 ebay ASHP is (eventually) working. Can anyone with an RHI system and (inflated?) MCS installer costs really get a system for a net expenditure of £500?

This plasterboard waste thing. Perhaps it is just me, but doing my own boarding, I keep all the offcuts lined up, and when I need a small piece, I look FIRST at the stack of offcuts, and even work out if I lay it out slightly differently can I make it so I can use an offcut. Result is after boarding 3/4 of the house, the stack of offcuts ammounts to less than 2 full sheets, and what is eventually left over might just gradually make it's way into the bottom of that green thing on wheels. The other day I visited a neighbour who had just had a conservatory built. I ended up skip diving and recovering some sizeable offcuts of 50mm PIR insulation, a whole sheet of reinforcing mesh, and some useful bits of timber. Also in the skip was a bag full of left over brand new drainpipe fittings which I only left there as I don't have brown drainpipe. The sheer waste of some professionals (paid for by the customer) is astounding. Our local tip will allow you to take waste in a van or trailer IF you fill in a form to declare it is personal waste not trade waste. But of course it would be far too helpful for them to keep a supply of the forms actually at the tip.

Mind me asking how much it cost (for a comparison with say tarmac)

That is what I was told on the MSE site. I too was worried that I might accumulate a CGT liability by renting it, but it seems you would have to rent it quite a long time before that is the case if it has been your primary residence for a long time first. The exact wording of what I was told is here Perversely, it looks like if a property that has been your primary residence, is going to be left empty for more than 18 months, you can reduce or eliminate your CGT liability by letting it and claiming the letting relief (only available if it has at some time been your primary residence) In my case it looks like I will be liable only for the letting gain less the final 18 months. And when you take into account TWO CGT allowances, that would need to be in excess of £22K gain before we would have to pay anything. Which unless prices suddenly rocket before we actually sell it, would be about another 4 years of rental. If the tenant has not bought it by then he would be out and it would be back on the market anyway before that.