ProDave

Hi and welcome. I would be interested to know which island you are on? and why can't you grid tie to the electric supply? Due to the access issues, have you considered building the timber frame on site? then it's just raw timber to get to the site. Have you got accommodation to live in during the build? I suspect a static caravan is out of the question? Presumably there is local transport available to get stuff from the ferry to your plot?

ur last inspection was when the timber frame was complete. I asked when they next want to come back and the answer was "completion"

Once they have dried out, I would treat them with some wood preservative, as it's a shed and smell may no be an issue I would use creosote or something similar that soaks in a long way.

I know somebody that put the BBQ next to the shed after use. An hour or so later his shed was on fire. Old wet scaffold boards are likely to be rotten. I lost about 20 of mine to rot because I stored them badly. Unlikely to be a long term solid base.

Yes they are disappointing so far. Not had reliability issues but the light output and colour difference from lamps claiming to be the same power and colour is disappointing. Making me think the only way to to get a roomfull to look right is buy a bulk lot from one manufacturer so you have identical spares for a very long time. In the old days any make of 60W GLS looked the same.

So reading this, you can no longer make and sell a basic storage heater with an input charge control thermostat and basic heat output control?

I doubt building control would ever notice. As long as what you fit is as good, if not better than what is on your design SAP. Different windows would not normally affect the structure. At the time of my building warrant we did not know what windows we would be using. I ended up using rationel, which were in our case the cheapest of the quality windows, and the second best. Only Internorm offered slightly better Uw values but at twice the price of Rationel.

TIP (please don't take it as a criticism) Most computer screens are lansdcape orientation, so turn the phone on it's side next time.

What span is that? Our max span is 4.8 metres and our joists look a lot bigger than that at 100mm wide.

+1 I got my Gallup360 from ebay and borrowed a backpack sprayer to spray the plot.

I sprayed our plot twice with glyphosphate to kill the multitude of weeds. You have the spray the plants, during the growing season for it to be absorbed and drawn down. The instructions explicitly said do not trim before or after. Other week killers may differ.

As I have said before, I have refused to pay the (in our case) £150 fee and just started using the name we chose. The only "issue" is it is not on the postcode database, but it is now on the councils own house name database. I thought it would become an issue when we moved into the caravan and that got added to the council tax valuation list, but it didn't.

blackmore-house.co.uk appears to be available if you want to go and register that quickly

No it won't. you should treat them as they are, do not cut them first.

A few years ago I did all the wiring n a conversion of 2 cottages into one. Initially building control were going to insist the whole lot was brought up to modern insulation standards, which in an old stone cottage would be very hard. In the end the backed down a bit an only insisted on upgraded insulation in rooms that were being altered.

If your new build is not ready by the deadline, it might still be worth selling and moving into rented just to get the sdlt refunded. As long as the sdlt refund more than covers the rental so you don't want to be doing that for long. If the previous house was your main residence, there should be no CGT to worry about.

Put a static van on the site and tell them you are living in it

EXCEPT if you did buy this as a BTL and just pay standard stamp duty, then you later buy a more expensive property to live in, you would then pay the extra stamp duty on your main residence.

So whatever house you buy now will be your FIRST house, regardless of what you use it for, so standard stamp duty applies.

So what is your first home doing at the moment then?

I think the simple answer is no. It's not a "buy to let" tax, but a "second home" tax. You would have a second home and it is irelevant what you do with it. There is a mechanism that if you sell your existing home within a certain period you can get it refunded, that is to cover the situation of buying a new main residence before you sell the old main residence. Whether that would cover your situation I am not sure.

With a timber frame, like mine, the joists sit on top of the downstairs walls. The upstairs walls then sit on the joists (with a laminated ring beam all around the outside). So the ends are well and truly fixed and are not going to flex as they might in joist hangers. At the 2 intermediate (supporting) walls the joists sit on those walls. One continuous joist nearly 12M long right from one end of the house to the other. The upstairs walls again sit on the joists directly above the downstairs walls. It was designed this way, and at the ends, and intermediate points subject to the compression load from the walls above, the joists were made with solid infill pieces between the upper and lower chords. I can't measure any static deflection. I don't know if mine were pre cambered or not.

I just fug a trench 1 bucket wide (2ft) about 300mm deeper than the pipe, filled it with stones, laid the perforated pipe, more stones around it and over it, some plastic sheeting then the soil. Npthing over complicated.

In my case I was very limited for space. We have a road at the front and a burn in the middle of the plot. It was a recent change to building regs up here that increased the minimum distance from a road to a soakaway up to 10 metres (it was already 10 metres from a watercourse) That only left me with a thin strip of land that was "available" for use as a soakaway. That's why I had such a problem finding a solution and it was only then, when I had run out of options that SEPA agreed to permit me to discharge into the burn, but with a partial soakaway. So I dd the best I can. The effluent comes out of the treatment plant (which only needs to be 5 metres away from the road) across the plot a little to the "available strip" There is then a linear section of sokaway (perforated pipe set on stones and covered with stones), adhering to the other limits of 5 metres from a building and 5 metres from a boundary. It then goes back to solid pipe and out to the burn. It always struck me as completely bonkers that the soakaway must be 10 metres from the burn, yet it is allowed to discharge into the burn. It would have made more sense to me to install a larger soakaway area going closer to the burn and that would have resulted in even less being discharged. But rules are rules.

Why do you need a coat of bonding on plasterboard? Ours is skimmed with a single coat of multi finish.