ProDave

Electric or pneumatic actuator?

I would never ever ever use "roofing felt" for a shed roof again. Miserable product with a very short life before it starts leaking. Corrugated bitumen impregnated solid panels is my choice of shed roof now.

As I suspected, it was built to the portable building / caravan spec so would have been exempt from building regs. In that case it should be possible to separate the 2 halves and move it again. You might even be able to sell it, so I am sure you could give it away. Take lots of photo's and put it here in the market place and on somewhere like Gumtree It is in effect a "twin unit" mobile home, but quite possibly built better than most static caravans. It would make someone a good temporary home while building if nothing else. How far are you from @Nickfromwales ? Crane hire and 2 low loaders. Worth getting a quote? Would a large hiab lift each half? have you looked underneath? are you sure it's not on 2 mobile home chassis with wheels?

Does it HAVE to go? It looks too good. I would be trying to retain that and build on a different part. It would make a smashing workshop / shed / man cave, plus temporary accommodation while you build. I had the offer of something similar, but I had nowhere to put it and the condition for having it free was I would have had to remove it. How was it built? is there a chance it was a sectional prefab? in which case it might be possible to remove in sections with a crane and low loader.

The usual sequence is: You peg out the house footprint on the ground "That looks tiny, make it bigger" You dig the foundations and lay the dwarf walls "That looks tiny, make it bigger" The timber frame goes up "Oooh it is quite big isn't it.

Reasonable yes for 10 man days, but avoidable for a DIY install, so still a premium you have to pay to get the FIT

Have a look at compriband expanding tape. Now is the perfect time to install it, while it is cold (keep the roll somewhere cold until you need to use it) In this cold weather it takes a long time to expand, so plenty of time to unroll it and slide it into the gap then it will gradually expand to fill the gap.

My 2 pence worth. This thread highlights, if you want it done properly, do it yourself. At least you would have got the gap you wanted. Having said that, the unit is fixed to the wall with 2 (or more) brackets, so I very much doubt it's doing much more than touching those pipes, and not putting the full weight of the unit on the pipes.

I'm off to start the CPL (Caravan Protection League)

The big issue with dot and dab is the risk of creating a "plasterboard tent" with the top of the gap open to the cold roof space. There have been plenty of thermal image pictures posted before about this. If you are going to dot and dab, then parge coat the walls first to seal any air leaks and then pay attention to seal any gaps along the to edge to the roof space. You could consider the modern method of making a service void. Screw 50mm by 25mm battens vertically to the wall and fix the plasterboard to those. It really makes running services easier. Use 50mm deep battens where pipework will run. Again seal the top to the loft space. A service void avoids the need to chase the walls for cabling and socket boxes and makes future alterations a lot easier. Whatever you do, get the plasterboard skimmed for a better finish rather than just tape and fill the joints.

I presume you bought it with the intention of extending it so agreed to the uplift clause and expected to pay the uplift? What matters is the wording of what you actually signed nor some previous draft copy.

Hi and welcome to the forum. That looks fantastic and all self done, even better. Get those questions rolling.....

But my point is why do they need proof of ownership for a transfer? That was already proved at the setup of the FIT account. The long running saga I was reading about, the new owner was arguing ownership transfered to him as "fixtures and fittings" when he bought the house, but the FIT did not accept that.

Speaking as a fellow caravan dweller in this cold winter, I would say the best thing we did was fit a wood burning stove in it. It has been running continuously all November and January so far. Having enough free firewood obviously helps that situation and we put coal on it overnight so it stays in for the night (usually) That on it's own mostly keeps the caravan warm enough and we use electric convector heaters in the bedrooms overnight. Electricity bill running at about £80 per month. LPG should not freeze. You are using Propane aren't you, not Butane (which will not off gas much below 0) Upon installing the 'van I added more insulation to the pipes, insulated under the floor and panelled in the gap between the 'van and the ground. Nothing has frozen in this cold Highland winter, not even when we went away over the Xmas / new year break and left it to it's own. Re Windows, have you tried Rationell? For me they were the cheapest of the quality window suppliers and I am very happy with them.

Well done I can never understand why this should have been so difficult. You wanted a replacement dwelling so that should be straightforward, not as though you are trying to get permission for green belt land in a national park......

I would not rate scaffold boards as being durable enough for outside decking without decent timber treatment, having suffered several rotten boards with my Kwikstage. The best I could find was 50 boards for £350 so £7 per board for sound but used boards.

One thing I have observed. A "normal" build where the frame goes up, the services go in and the plasterboard goes on, as quick as possible, seems much more prone to issues like this as the frame settles. Our frame has been standing for 2 years now The first plasterboard went on last year and then a while later the plaster. It is my perception that the frame has done most of the settling it is likely to do now, so cracks are less likely. There are advantages to being slow.

I was reading on another forum of someone trying very hard to transfer a FIT contract to the new owner of the house, and it had stalled because the FIT provider was not satisfied about "proof of ownership" of the panels. That is one thing on the original application, but you would have thought there would have been a simpler transfer process? Do you think he has given up trying? or just ignorant if the FIT and not ever bothered?

No, a self builder selling a few left over rolls on ebay and nobody else bid for them.

It is a lot less nice to use that the Tescon, in particular the backing is fiddly to peel off. It is not as "nice" in that the adhesive tends to ooze out a bit. But at £9 per roll for the few I bought I am not complaining. Also to add to the above. The Barriair membrane is not reinforced with a woven web but it is very tough and won't tear easilly. If you want cheap, a recent grand designs appeared to be using ordinary damp proof membrane as an air tight layer.

It does seem to be a lottery. In my case Rationel were the cheapest (ali clad 3G) and second best. Internorm had slightly better Uw values but at twice the price. Yet others have reportd Internorm being cheaper than Rationel. I have not had any problems with the Rationel doors or windows.

Just as I said in June. The Protect Barriair membrane was the cheapest I could find, I got it to order from Jewson and the Tescon Vana tape from a German ebay seller way cheaper than any of the UK sellers. One thing I would caution. The Barriiar membrane has in built tape down both edges so that is supposed to be the air tightness tape to join adjacent strips. BUT I found in places where the taped joint did not line up with a stud (and hence service void batten) it had a tendancy in places to come unstuck. So, what I did was everywhere there was a joint not ending up underneath a batten, I screwed an offcut strip of OSB over the joint to hold it together, just in case. It might be better to tape the joints in the Barriair with Tescon Vanna rather than rely on the inbuilt adhesive strips.

I can think of Beattie Passive and Touchwood for a start, we had discussions with both, and I am sure at least one person on her has used Touchwood.

In our last build, we were paying band A CT for a static 'van on site. We moved in when we got the temporary habitation. It was then several months before we were anywhere near actually finished and the CT valuer did not deem it "finished" until some time late in the process. So no, they are separate departments and a temporary habitation should not on it's own trigger a council tax bill. For us, the temporary habitation enabled us to do the VAT claim before it was 100% complete, and the VAT refund paid for most of the garage build. Yes we lost out on the VAT for the materials for the garage but it helped our cash flow.

You will have to use an air tight membrane inside to get decent air tightness, I can't see your wall panels fitted into an oak frame being very intrinsically air tight as it is. That will be several £00 for the membrane and a not inconsiderable amount of tape. Air tightness would come included with an MBC frame.