ProDave

Looking very good indeed. Bet you are well pleased.

Yep we did ours. Well done for getting a discharge permit from SEPA that took us a few months. What treatment plant have you chosen? This is our Conder being lowered into it's hole in the ground The pipework is simpe. We were required to provide a partial soakaway before the discharge gets to the burn which does seem to work well.

I have just uploaded a lot of pictures of "the cupboard" to my blog. You can find it here http://www.willowburn.net/ Look for the entry The "electrical" cupboard

For me, part of the reason for lots of car5 cables is for the "unknown unknowns" Let me explain that. I keep all my AV stuff in a central cupboard and run long hdmi cables to the tv's so you can have an uncluttered wall hung tv with no "boxes" they live out of sight in the cupboard. BUT how long will hdmi be the standard? and what will come next? e.g the last house was built pre hdmi so used component high definition video YPbPr instead. So a couple of spare cat 5's are there so that when the next AV standard comes along, I hope they will make the usual (whatever they call it) video to cat5 cable converters to go on both ends. I am just kitting out my AV cupboard at the moment to I will post some pictures when it's done.

Insulation level? I am guessing not good as you need a cold surface for moisture to condense and start mould. Having been in the caravan for over a year and through a cold winter, I can assure you you need a LOT of ventilation to keep condensation at bay. A blast of the dehumidifier from time to time helps dry things out.

It's saying then when it is -10 outside and you want to keep it at +20 inside, then you need a continuous 5.2Kw of heat going into the house. So if you maintain that temperature all day and night, it will use 124.8Kwh of energy per day. To put this into perspective, ny own house has a worst case of 2.2KW in the same situation, so 52.8KWh per day, but that will be provided by a heat pump with a COP of at least 3, so will use 17.6KWh of electricity

I can't put my finger on it, but I am sure there is a little something not "right" there.

I am purring cables to every room but not necessarily terminating them just now. They will get connected when a use for them arises.

Contact Open Reach. They should free issue you with the GREY duct you need for telephone. If the services pass that close to the back of the house, forget any notion of running them across your site before the foundations are in. Just get them up to your site boundary for now and put them across the back of the house once the foundations are in.

And I chose Rationel partly because of the clean uncomplicated profile compared to some other makes. Have you looked at Nordan?

And what will be the postage from Tob? Is this a private seller with just one roll left over or more than one roll? At that price, if the postage is not crippling, I would like roill.

Further down, there is a section "Heat Loss versus outside temperature" I use the worst case figure in the right hand column, when there is 30 degree between inside and out (i.e -10 outside and +20 inside)

I put two meter boxes in. "Theirs" and "mine"

Assuming you put the twin wall flue in first, then in order to connect to the stove, you have to be able to insert a short bit of single wall flue bwtween the stove and the twin wall. You need a bit of telescoping single wall flue for that.

I have been discussing this in my own thread as it appears building regs contradict with regards to a hearth (I will call BC some time to get a definitive answer) It does appear to me, that building regs are a bit lenient with respect to "distance to flamables" It also appears the stove manufacturers spec overrules the default clearances stated in bregs. So if your stove manufacturer says 250mm to flamables then you could indeed put bare plasterboard on a timber frame 250mm from the stove. But it is going to get pretty hot. So tiles would seem a very good idea. I will be taking the twin wall down as close as I can get to the stove so that section can be bare plasterboard, and I will be using a stone slab behind the stove. You can't take the twin wall all the way down to the stove, unless you build the entire stack upwards from the stove, so you will need a short extending section of single wall flue. to join the twin wall to the stove. I will be making sure my stone slab extends above that section of single wall flue.

This detail has come to be known here as a "Tony Tray" The joists are INSIDE the air tight layer of the building so moisture in the air inside the building can get to the joists including the joist ends. The devil is in the detail. What es beyond the joist ends? In my case the external wall insulation so they should not be that cold. But if it is just a "normal" timber frame with a cold vented cavity then a brick or block skin then there might be issues?

Ah yes. I am well versed with replacing failed capacitors in all sorts of electronics. That Fridgemaster unit looks very nice

I would try REALLY hard to make them enter the house at the closest point rather than go all the way round. It can be a lot simpler if you do what many of us have, and put the electricity meter box on the boundary as a permanent feature, then it is your cable from the meter box to the house. Can you do the same with gas? I have never seen anyone do that? Water just to a toby (underground stopcock) and a standpipe close to the boundary. Lay the pipe to the house later.

Okay it's fitted badly. BUT my first reaction, is "why fit a chrome kitchen tap outside". Sorry I hate the tap. I would change it for a standard brass outside tap that looks well like an outside tap. Best of luck getting it re done, but I can't think of anything that will make it look nice. Sorry.

In so many ways, it would be better to build the new house to live in (CIL exemption, VAT refund etc) and rent your current house instead. Then in 3 years flip them over. It's a question of could you stand a tenant in your present house and the damage they may do, but the savings in CIL and VAT would surely more than pay for rectifying any damage they do?

There was a thread some time back, what to do with small offcuts of PIR insulation. Answer. Post them to @Onoff

The answer is SIMPLE. You do NOT clad the area below the door with your stone, or whatever external skin. So you door theshold opens directly onto the paving slabs or whatever else makes up your entrance platt, ans that entrance platt recesses into the doorway and abuts the small door cill of the actual door frame.

MCS (FIT?) or not? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4KW-SOLAR-PANEL-PV-KIT-SYSTEM-BEST-PRICE-IN-THE-UK-AND-EBAY/162967359640?hash=item25f19c9098:g:02YAAOSwQM9UaNmN https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3KW-SOLAR-PANEL-PV-KIT-SYSTEM-CHEAPEST-IN-THE-UK-AND-ON-EBAY/152920052267?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D50546%26meid%3D80404c91984140fbb22667abc6016f2a%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D6%26rkt%3D12%26mehot%3Dpp%26sd%3D162967359640%26itm%3D152920052267&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851

Even a conventional straight from the wagon pour, you need somewhere for them to wash out. It's a messy business.

We had the plumbed in ice maker and water chiller in the last house. The mechanism for that takes up about the top third of the freezer. It was also not the most reliable thing having a tendancy to keep on making ice cubes and overflowing it's bucket. Agree that made the freezer space too small.