ProDave

Some of you will remember roughly 2 years ago my "and then there was one" post. That was the point we realised our old house was not going to sell any time soon leaving us short of funds. At that point we laid off the builder (amicably) and since then it has been me and SWMBO working on the house so there are no (or minimal) labour costs. Well now, we have reached the inevitable conclusion to that. The pot is empty. Seriously empty. It could not be more empty. The sad reality is now we cannot afford even to buy materials to continue the build. So how far did we get? Probably a lot further than I honestly thought we would, but that does not ease the pain. We have a house largely finished externally. Fully insulated and air tight. Upstairs has been plasterboarded and plastered and we have a staircase. Upstairs is also mostly wired. There is no plumbing, apart from a toilet downstairs and temporary plumbing for a washing machine. No hot water system and no heating installed. Downstairs remains a bare shell with just the air tight membrane on the walls and the sub floor OSB flooring. All I can do now is work, for others, and earn money. We need that to pay the bills. We are resigned to a cold winter in the caravan, with no prospect of even partially moving onto the house for the foreseeable. I won't post too many personal details. We had expected hoped for a little windfall that we thought was coming our way. We now don't know when, or indeed if that will actually happen. If not, the only source of funds is to cash in a small pension I have from a previous employment, but I have another 4 months to wait before I attain the age that allows me to do that. Unless the windfall does happen, it is going to be a very long, cold and frustrating winter.

Are you sure that U value is correct? I though 300mm of Warmcell would be nearer to 0.1? I see no problem with filling the service voids with 50mm rockwool batts, but leave a gap where cables run so the cables are not embedded in insulation. That would be my choice rather than solid insulation.

As above, just my Kwikstage scaffold. When I am done, I will be keeping some of it. I will probably wire brush and paint one set and keep them stored dry for "inside use" and keep some offcuts of carpet to stand the feet on.

A forum bulk buy of "good value" solar panels. Count me in for 6KW or so.

What I think is how will it be profitable? With the FIT now so low, it is doubtful that it is even viable for a small scale domestic install.

For the bit where the kitchen cabinets are going, fit 50mm battens instead right down to the floor, glued and screwed to the OSB of the SIP panel and insulation in between. Then continuous insulation and thin battens everywhere else. The slight reduction in insulation will be small and I would (cough) not mention this to your BC inspector.

That's the highest bit in the plant room. I only set the mvhr unit that high off the floor so it matched the inlet and outlet vent levels, and that was an arbitrary decision when cladding and rendering the house. It sits on a stack of offcuts of wood fibre board thinking that would make a good anti vibration mount. The two distribution plenums are on the floor. From there the pipes run up or down in a service riser, some to the loft for the upstairs rooms and some in the first floor void for the downstairs rooms. The plant room will eventually double as a workshop, and I will floor over above the mvhr unit to make a storage platform.

I am confused. Is this additional insulation in the existing part of the house? If the sips panels themselves need additional insulation, I would instead be looking for thicker sips panels?

Mine wasn't done when this thread was new, but it is now.

We started with 2 years. Have renewed for a third and will probably renew for a 4th.

Prime candidate for a corner branch like I used. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4-110-mm-Double-Corner-Branch-Soil-Pipe-110-110-110-90-87-Sewer-Waste-Wate/263345533647?hash=item3d509df2cf:g:77YAAOSw65FXtg4k

Aluminium, or aluminium clad timber? I got quotes from about half a dozen, and Rationel were the cheapest (and almost the best for me) Others I tried were Internorm, Nordan, Katzbeck, Russel Timbertech and a couple of others I forget. Oh and welcome to the forum.

No "off the peg" solutions as yet. But I think a bit more searching as found what I want. http://www.unishower.co.uk/uniclosure-900-hinged-wet-room-shower-screen.html It mentions magnetic strips as though it's intended to be a door closing into a door frame, but the picture shows it exactly as I want it as a hinged screen next so a shower not attached to anything other than the wall. Oh and they won't deliver to the Highlands. So that shows what I want, but they nay not be able to supply me. So keep looking folks.

Our main bathroom will be a wet room. The ladies have just decided the layout needs to change which has presented me with a challenge. The new layout will put the bath and shower next to each other. A fixed glass screen alongside the shower area will create 2 issues, poor access to one end of the bath at floor level for cleaning, and insufficient "activity space" alongside the bath (Scottish building regs for accessible bathrooms) A solution would be a hinged shower screen. But I can't find one. It needs to be full height (no more than 2 metres) and about 900mm wide. It needs to be entirely supported on hinges that fix to the wall. The bottom should not touch the floor though I would accept a rubber strip or similar. It will be completely free at the other end, i.e. it will not close onto a frame. So friction hinges so it stays where you put it? The problem is I can't find one that does not expect to close into a frame. This just literally needs to be a piece of plain toughened class mounted on 2 hinges.

I would never pay the full price for poor work. I would give them the chance to come back and do it properly, and I would be there to watch them. If they refuse I would be telling them I will get the council to inspect their work and see what they think of it and see if they still think them fit to have a street works permit.

My BIL in Queensland is called Bruce. The first time we went, he met us as the airport. I had never met him before. My nightmare was going up to the person I thought was him and asking "are you Bruce?" in my English accent.

I think creosote does soak into hardwood. I have been chopping up some old "rotten" oak fence posts for fierwood. It is only the outer half inch that is rotten and in the middle they are solid. I suspect they were soaked in a vat of creosote as it seems to have penetrated a long way in. As an aside, I had to drill some floor joists in an old cottage, and by the smell as you drilled them, they were soaked in creosote. First time I have seen it used indoors.

I have passed a sales yard on the Bruce Highway several times that has a field full of second hand houses for sale ready to be moved to a new plot.

The fact it comes in 2 pieces that bolt together, and each fits on a flat bed lorry sounds like it has been built to fit the legal description (in planning law) of a "caravan". The fact it does not have wheels is irelevant. I would offer it for sale. It would make a great temporary home for a self builder who has a plot big enough to fit a "twin unit" mobile home during the build. To move it, you crane the 2 sections onto 2 flat bed trucks. It might just be possible with a flat bed with a decent hiab to self load. It would be a job for a haulage company. Forget the caravan movers, they are only set up to deal with things on wheels and don't have the lifting kit. Off topic, but the fact this building is there, then at the very least you could replace it with a modern portable building built to be withing the legal "caravan" dimension without planning permission (though I would seek a certificate of lawful development if choosing that route) That could be a handy fall back position if you can't get planning for a proper house.

Have you paid them yet? You need to get them back to do it properly.

I have often thought that "turn it off and wait" would be a much better defrost method, providing the air temperature is above 0, and you are not in a hurry to got your HW tank up to temperature. Something to experiment with when it's all built and I suddenly have "spare time", something I don't recall having for a while.

Depends what controls are there? and what the boiler has connections for. There must be some sort of programmer already or at least a manual switch to turn the heating on?

Has it EVER worked? You don't want to keep the fill loop valves open. Where is the circulating pump? is it running? The Right angles valve coming out of the bottom of that black thing (someone will tell me what that is in due course) looks to me to be turned off (it's not in line with the black thing)

They don't like making a connection if there is nothing to connect to. Even more so the meter monkeys Up here SSE accept a mini CU with just one circuit feeding a site socket as a valid "installation" to make a connection, and an EIC for that with dead test results is all you need.

To me the saving sounds too small for the capital outlay. Might a new more eficcient condensing boiler make more sense?