ProDave

PRICE An ordinary cooker hood that is built to fix to a wall you have plenty of choice, and they are relatively cheap. They only have 3 "good sides" as they mount against a wall. An Island cooker hood is much the same internal workings, but must be supported from the top and have "4 good sides" THAT fact alone means there is very much less choice and they are much more expensive.

My immediate thought is with 1 acre, surely you could knock down and build TWO houses half an acre each is a pretty decent sized plot. Even just by selling one plot and keeping one to build yourself would help a lot with the finances. And even with half an acre, you have to consider living on site in a decent static caravan to avoid the cost of rental.

I came from the industry that built those, and it saddens me that we long since gave up the knowledge and ability to build our own. Go and look up e.g the original planning application for Dounereay. Not much more than 1 bit of paper. Now it would be a 20 year process with at least 2 public enquiries.

Up here you would have had to tie that to the table, and you would probably lose the table as well. Gusts up to 62mph this morning. My boat is okay but watched one lose it's mast this morning.

What is the water companies responsibility now with a shared pipe like this?

That looks like a steel pipe. If you are talking about burying that under your extension, forget it. It's rotten, end of life, needs replacing. You talk of getting the neighbours water back on, so is this one stopcock feeds 2 houses, yours and your neighbours? You don't want to be leaving a rotten pipe in an impossible location to dig up again for WHEN it fails. So I would say both properties need a new supply pipe. the issue becomes who is responsible for it and who will pay.

In our house, any fat gets poured into the normal wheelie bin as long as there is plenty in there to absorb it, if not into some form of container, it does NOT go down our drain. Composting is good and when we get into the house we will set up a compost system. If it can't be composted then it is solid waste for the wheelie bin as far as I am concerned, not to be mashed up and hope my treatment plant can process it. We have a problem with society in that they think anything can go down the drain and it is not their problem. Witness the big problem in some places with fat burgs.

We rinse our plastics for recycling. The amount of extra "food waste" that goes down the drain is insignificant and no concern to our treatment plant. You do empty as much as you can into the normal bin first?

It oxidises and turns a horrible dark grey.

So you don't use ANYTHING wooden or plastic in the process of cooking or preparing food? Or an aluminium coffee pot or salad serving imlements? Or a plastic lunch box or water bottle that needs cleaning? Or plastic cat bowls? And you don't want to rinse out the plastic stuff going for recycling (last items through the washing up bowl) And you don't want to wipe around the cooker and worktops with a nice hot soapy dishcloth to keep everything clean? (first use of clean hot water before starting the washing up) We are obviously a very disorganised household as even with a dishwasher, one bowl full of manual washing up is done every day.

What puzzles me is how they actually afforded it when it went £3m over budget. It must be nice having access to that much extra. The rest of us would have to say, sorry I have run out of money and you have to stop. How the other half live.

That is one challenging plot. Perhaps made easier by the fact it is on solid rock? That will surely be very expensive to build on, and even when you do, what garden are you going to have? We looked a a plot with only half that slope and walked away as it would definitely end up costing more to build than the house would be worth.

We have just spent a year living in the static caravan which has a "family room" with everything (apart from sleeping washing and s******g) all in the one space. That has been plenty to convince me when I want to watch television * or listen to music, it must be away from all the noise etc of a kitchen. * unless you are watching tv at meal times which is generally considered impolite. I suppose if the OP can't join the kitchen to the dining room, he could put a serving hatch in that wall.

Dishwashers do NOT end washing up, they just reduce it. My criticism of the big "familly room" is I don't want to spend a "quiet" evening watching telly with the fridge and the dishwasher churning away. I want somewhere quiet away from all that noise. That is why we are having both.

The first thing you need is a reference to work from that will not change throughout the build. If you have something you can reference to on Ordnance Survey level that is great. Otherwise you create a Temporary Bench Mark that remains in place and everything is referenced to that. In my case there was a substantial fence post at the highest corner of the plot so I created a permanent "mark" on that by banging in a row of horizontal large head (roofing felt) nails about 100mm above ground. That became my Temporary Bench Mark and is still there now. All my planning drawings referenced site and building levels relative to that TBM In your case depending how your ridge height limit is defined, you must "callibrate" your TBM so you know how far above it is your ridge height limit. Once you have the TBM you take all your levels from there by any means you like including the water level.

DEFINITELY No 2 The thing is, even id we move in by the end of the year, it will NOT be finished by a long way. There is the snug living room and utility room downstairs not even started. Small matter of no doors, door liners or skirting boards anywhere. And when the house is finished, still plenty to do outside. I think I still have Biscay to cross, on a stormy day.

No Wrong. Supply AND FIT should be charged to you at 0% VAT. You are not able to reclaim VAT paid on labour for a new build as all labour should be zero rated, and as the windows are being fitted they should be zero rated. Someone will post the actual wording from the VAT people which you can show to the supplier.

^^ I expected him to stagger off and fall over at the end, like on YBF.

It's all too disjointed. Make the current kitchen, dining and snug all one big "familly room" (kitchen dining and living on one) Then make the Lounge your snug to get away somewhere quiet. Laundty and boot to become the playroom, near everyone else. Playroom to become boot, laundry, planr etc out of the way. Upstairs, 2 right hand bedrooms to share jack & jill bathroom but you need a familly bathroom so make that one or both of the stores? Big gallary landing is a wow feature, but boy what a waste of space. Can't comment further until I know which way is North.

We are having engineered Oak as that's all you can have with UFH. At the last house we had solid Maple as the only solid wood anyone would guarantee for UFH and then only in 90mm wide planks. This time we wanted wider planks so engineered was the only choice. All the doors and windows are RAL7032 Pebble Grey

25mm by 50mm battens following the joists. Then engineered oak flooring, with the UFH in the gap. The OSB that has been our temporary floor for well over a year remains with the sole job of supporting the UFH pipes. That will be the next job. Kitchen choosing starts soon.

The main kitchen / living room downstairs is progressing well. Now plastered and painted. More on the blog at http://www.willowburn.net/ Look for the entry Main living room / kitchen Next step under floor heating and Oak flooring. Then a kitchen and we move in........

That is quite similar to our burn. Thoughts, in no particular order. Don't build too close. The area under the cabin will be dry and will get no sunlight = no vegatation will grow = dry bare ground that will wash away easilly in flood (assumint like outs it sometimes floods) Piles of some sort are what you want. A neigbhour here built a complete house on ground like this. They hd to dig quite deep to get to firm soil, removing a lot of soft top soil in the process. Then big square concrete pads. They built up from those concrete pillars using large plastic drainage pipe as formers.

I have just come off the phone from speaking to Trading Standards. On their advice my next move is a recorded delivery letter stating it is not of satisfactory quality (because it does not work) and I am requesting a free repair or replacement within a reasonable time. I then have to give them 14 days to respond and if no response or non favourable, continue with trading standards who now have this complaint logged.

No nothing like that. A very brief description in the listing, then a link to item details which gave the full specification including reference to the 7 years warranty. I have found several other references to the 7 year warranty on line and am storing all these away as evidence. Not that the 7 year warranty is important to this as it's all within 1 year.